Just your ordinary, normal family life

Nazi propaganda portrayed Adolf Hitler as a man minus family or private life. As a matter of fact, he kept in touch with his family--mainly to control them. There was shady half-brother Alois, a Berlin innkeeper who tried to profit from his name, and half-sister Angela, in charge of housekeeping at the Berghof retreat, who had neighbors chased away. His niece Geli, who called her uncle a "jailer", committed suicide. His "favorite nephew" was educated at an elite Nazi school. His sister Paula wanted to marry a surgeon and mass murderer. And his English-born nephew William Patrick, a playboy in Berlin, extorted money by threatening to expose family secrets.