father (recorded as "Georg Hitler"). Alois then assumed the surname "Hitler", also spelled "Hiedler", "Hüttler", or "Huettler". The name is probably based on the German word Hütte , and has the meaning "one who lives in a hut".

The Nazi official Hans Frank suggested that Alois's mother had been employed as a housekeeper by a Jewish family in Graz, and that the family's 19-year-old son Leopold Frankenberger had fathered Alois, a claim that came to