Relative tries to erase Hitler grave shame

The tombstone marking the grave of Adolf Hitler’s parents, a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis, has been removed from an upper Austrian village cemetery at the request of a descendant.
By The Newsroom
Published 31st Mar 2012, 07:00 BST

Walter Brunner, mayor of Leonding village, said the stone with the faded black and white portrait photos of Alois and Klara Hitler was taken down on Wednesday.

Village priest Kurt Pitterschatscher said the rented grave was ready for a new lease.

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Asked whether he would have trouble persuading people to let their loved ones share a grave with the parents of a man whose name is a universal epitome of evil, Pitterschatscher said: “I really haven’t thought about it.”

Pitterschatscher said the black marble marker was removed without ceremony by a stonemason hired by the relative, described as an elderly female descendant of Alois Hitler’s first wife, Anna.

What is left at the site is a white gravel square and a tree.

He said she requested termination of the grave lease because she was too old to care for it and tired of it “being used for manifestations of sympathy” for Hitler.

Hitler’s roots are in Braunau, near Leonding, But he and his family moved to Leonding in 1898 when he was nine and lived there until he was aged 15.