Grave of Hitler’s Parents in Austria Removed Over Neo-Nazi Threat
The grave of Adolf Hitler’s parents has been dismantled because it had become a memorial site for neo-Nazis, a parish priest in the Austrian town of Leonding said on Thursday, citing a statement by a relative of the dictator.
“I am concerned that the grave of my forebears has repeatedly been abused for expressions of sympathy,” read the statement by an elderly woman distantly related to Hitler who had tended to the grave - a task that had become harder with age.
“Considering all this, I have decided to give up the usage rights,” she had written in the statement quoted by Leonding’s Catholic priest Kurt Pittertschatscher.
In November, someone had placed a vase with the symbol for the Third Reich’s paramilitary SS unit on the resting site of Alois and Klara Hitler, while a plaque commemorating their son’s 120th birthday was found there in 2009.