History of Sorts

A member of Adolf Hitler’s extended family was among the victims of the Nazi regime’s campaign to exterminate the mentally ill, according to two historians. The woman, identified as “Aloisia V.”, was a great-grandchild of Hitler’s great-aunt, making her his second cousin once removed. She was related to him through the Schicklgruber side of his father’s family.

Aloisia Veit was gassed to death on December 6, 1940, at a psychiatric institution in Austria, according to historian Timothy Ryback. Her medical records reveal that she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, depression, delusions, and other severe mental health conditions.

Documents uncovered at the Vienna institution where she was treated describe her as suffering from “schizophrenic mental instability, helplessness, depression, distraction, hallucinations, and delusions.” She reportedly told doctors she was haunted by ghosts and tormented by the vision of a skull. Most of her time was spent chained to an iron bed.

In one desperate plea, she wrote a letter asking to be given poison so she could end her life: “I’m sure it would only require a small amount to free me from my appalling torture.”

Aloisia was 49 when she died. She was one of thousands of individuals with mental illnesses whom the Nazis deemed “unfit” and targeted for execution or forced sterilization as part of their so-called euthanasia program.

Mr. Ryback, who leads the Obersalzberg Institute in Germany, and his colleague Florian Beierl, discovered multiple instances of physical or mental disabilities within Hitler’s family.

It remains unclear whether Hitler was aware of Aloisia’s condition or her death. However, a secret Gestapo report from 1944 labeled her branch of the family as “idiotic progeny.”

Beierl explained that Aloisia was descended from the sister of Hitler’s paternal grandmother, solidifying her connection to the Schicklgruber lineage. He noted that this side of the family had close ties to Hitler’s immediate relatives — in fact, Hitler’s father once helped Aloisia’s father secure a job as a civil servant in Vienna.

Beierl added that many members of the Schicklgruber family struggled with mental illness or died by suicide, stating, “Eventually, the entire line died out.”

The historians did not speculate on whether mental illness affected Hitler himself but said their findings would be submitted to an expert in hereditary diseases for further analysis.

sources

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Veit-204

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloisia_Veit

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/229057336/aloisia-veit

1098) Aloisia Veit

Please support us so we can continue our important work.