Hitler's nephew asked to enlist in US army to fight uncle, letter shows
From online dispatches
Adolf Hitler (L) stands next to Hermann Goering during a military parade in this undated photo.
Adolf Hitler's nephew Patrick Hitler penned a letter in the early 1940s to then-U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, asking him to let him enlist in the military to fight his uncle.The letter, dated March 3, 1942, said Patrick Hitler was willing to fight his uncle's "devilish and pagan regime," Dylan Stableford of Yahoo! News reported.
It was the second instance in which the younger Hitler asked to be accepted for service by the U.S. military. He had first sought to enlist in 1940, one year after he fled from Nazi Germany to New York, but was rejected.
"I am the nephew and only descendant of the ill-famed Chancellor and Leader of Germany who today so despotically seeks to enslave the free and Christian peoples of the globe," wrote Patrick Hitler in his letter, saying all his relatives and friends would soon be "marching for freedom and decency under the Stars and Stripes."
The letter was published earlier this year in the book "War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars," and was posted online on Aug. 1 on the website LettersofNote.com, according to Yahoo! News.
Patrick Hitler joined the Navy in 1944 and was discharged three years later after an injury.
He later changed his last name to Stuart-Houston. He died in Patchogue, New York, in 1987.
