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Hitler was a master maker of myths, and one of his most lasting legacies is the legend of a “Führer without a family “. It is a myth that persists to this day.

The documentary “The Hitler Family – In the Shadow of the Dictator“ will provide the first comprehensive portrait of Hitler and his family, making use of an incredible range of newly-discovered and previously unpublished material. For the first time on film, some of Hitler’s closest living relatives recall family memories of the Nazi leader, and their own abiding fears of revenge as blood kin. “The Hitler Family” also features authentic film footage of interviews with Hitler’s sister Paula and his nephew Willy, as well as exclusive glimpses into the Hitler family memoirs and personal photo albums. Among other, the manuscripts of the Führer‘s brother and sister, Alois and Paula Hitler, will be evaluated for the first time.

Hard as he tries, Hitler is never able to outrun his family legacy of incest, illegitimacy and shame. His father is born out of wedlock. His mother is a first cousin to his father, possibly a half-sister. As early as 1930 the virulent anti-Semite is dealing with sensational reports claiming that he was of Jewish ancestry. He is also plagued by his own siblings. His brother Alois is a petty criminal who runs a bar in Berlin. His younger sister, Paula, is believed to be an imbecile, and lives incognito. The other Hitler sister, Angela, runs her brother’s household and as well as his personal life. The Führer‘s beloved niece Geli calls Adolf her ‘jailer‘ and later commits suicide after an affair. Hitler‘s favourite nephew, Heinz, goes to fight his Uncle Adolf’s war, and dies in a Russian prison cell, while Hitler‘s English nephew William Patrick Hitler blackmails the Nazi leader with “embarrassing facts” from the family history.

By working together with American historian Dr. Timothy W. Ryback and Florian Beierl, a researcher into contemporary history, it has been possible to reveal one of the darkest chapters in the Hitler‘s family story. A recently discovered Gestapo file reveals cases of insanity and idiocy in the Hitler family lineage, and provides leads to an even more startling revelation - Hitler cousin, Aloisia V., suffered from schizophrenia and was murdered in a gas chamber at Hartheim Castle, a Nazi death centre for the physically and mentally disabled.

Today, 60 years after the demise of Hitler and Nazi Germany, descendants of the Hitler clan live in Germany, Austria and the USA. Like their infamous relative, they too work to conceal, falsify or deny their family origins, helping keep the private life of the Hitler’s from the public. For the first time, they have come forward to speak openly about their lives as Hitler’s kin, and to reveal the last of the Hitler family secrets.

The documentary production firm Loopfilm GmbH, Munich, has filmed The Hitler Family on HDTV, directed by Oliver Halmburger, on location throughout Europe and the USA, from the “Führer‘s ancestral site“ in a wooded suburb to the home of the latest Hitler’s on Long Island. The film, backed up by painstaking research, contains startling insights into the private world of Adolf Hitler. Contemporary witnesses from his family speak on