Johanna Hiedler

Who was Johanna Hiedler?

Johanna Pölzl née Hiedler, was the maternal grandmother of Adolf Hitler.

Johanna was born and lived her entire life in the village of Spital, in the Waldviertel of Lower Austria. On 5 September 1848, Johanna married Johann Baptist Pölzl, a farmer and the son of Johann Pölzl and Juliana Pölzl. The couple would eventually have five sons and six daughters. Of their eleven children, only two sons and three daughters survived into adulthood. Their seventh child, and third daughter, Klara, was born on their farm in Spital on 12 August 1860.

On 17 September 1888, Johanna's elderly parents, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler and Eva Maria, died. Her daughter Klara would eventually become the third wife of Alois Hiedler. Alois was the illegitimate son of Maria Schicklgruber, who had married Johanna's paternal uncle, Johann Georg Hiedler on 10 May 1842. Alois would claim in later life that Johann Georg Hiedler was not his stepfather, but in fact his biological father, and he was officially declared Johann's legitimate son in 1876, although this claim as to Alois's real paternity has remained the subject of much debate among historians.