Adolf Hitler is a name that just about every person is familiar with. He committed a fair amount of heinous war crimes and perpetuated the oppression of millions of people throughout his tenure as leader of Germany during World War II.
This heinous behavior that he participated in and carried out throughout the world during this time has earned him the much-deserved place as one of the most reviled public figures in the history of the world.
It should come as no surprise then that it appears as a town in Austria,Döllersheim, which is allegedly where Adolf Hitler’s father was born, has been abandoned since World War II.
Döllersheim, which is within the March of Austria was first brought to attention in a deed in 1143 issued by Duke Henry XI of Bavaria.
The village does have a good location as it is close to the Austrian border and is also close to Bohemia, which a is a market town that was really ruined by wars and strife.
This area also included the hamlet of Strones, which is actually where Adolf Hitler’s father, Alois Hitler, was born. He was a child of a local peasant woman whose name was Maria Schicklgruber. When Adolf Hitler’s father was born in this village it was extremely small; there was not even a local church where baptisms could be performed, and newly born babies could be registered.
Alois, Hitler’s mother, did go to a parish to register her newly born son, and then about thirty-nine years later, he went back and changed his name, making it the infamous last name Hitler that so many people are well aware of today. He also added his father’s name to his birth certificate.
After Germany maintained a hold of Austria during World War II, Adolf Hitler demanded that this small town among many other small villages be evacuated so that the areas could be used for large military training areas.
There are some people that say that maybe he wanted to evacuate the town of his father so that it could be used as a memorial to his father’s side of the family. There are also some that say that Adolf Hitler was terrified that people would find out that some of his own family was in fact of Jewish descent. There is a rumor that his father was a Jewish man, but there has been no evidence to date to support this claim.
Other people maintain that this area was chosen to be evacuated for a very practical purpose – the area had a relatively small population. In addition, there was not a lot of industry in the area.
Arguably one of the most important aspects of the area was its weather, which could be very severe in the winter, creating good conditions for military training so that soldiers may be prepared for all conditions of the international war that they were expected to fight.
The citizens of the village tried to appeal to Hitler’s human side and even went as far as to bestow honorary citizenship to him. They created a grave to honor his grandmother. This was not enough to stave Hitler off and allow the people to stay in their homes. He and his troops forcibly resettled all of the two thousand inhabitants of the village. The troops also bombed all of the houses so that the area could be more adequately used as a training place for the army.
When Germany surrendered, and the Allied forces went on to occupy Austria in 1945, the training ground was taken by the Society Army. Ever since then it has been a military exclusion zone, despite people making pleas for there to be restitution.
Luckily for some, there has been some movement to allow more access beyond just the military, as there have been visitors who are allowed to visit since about 1981. People are allowed to view the main square as well as the ruins of some of the churches and surrounding graveyards.
While people cannot be sure the exact reason that Adolf Hitler did choose this area to evacuate and retain an active military training area, imagining the reasons can surely create some great historical conspiracy theories.
Maybe it was just a good place to have military training? Or maybe, as many people tend to believe, it was chosen by Adolf Hitler because he did not want people to know that he had Jewish ancestors, as pretty much his entire rise to power was based on his hatred of the Jewish people and his systematic oppression of them.
It is an odd notion to imagine that Hitler came from the very same people who he loathed so much that he tried to eliminate all traces of them from his so-called perfect society. It is sad to imagine that such a man came to amass such power for so long, and so many lives were lost as a result.
Döllersheim-Hitler’s father birthplace has been abandoned since WWII