Angela Hitler

Adolf Hitler with his halfsister Angela

Angela Raubal Hamitsch, born Angela Hitler (July 28, 1883 - October 30, 1949), was the elder half-sister of Adolf Hitler.

She was born in Braunau, Austria, the second child of Alois Hitler and his second wife, Franziska Matzelberger. Her mother died the next year. She and her brother Alois Hitler, Jr. were raised by their father and his third wife Klara Hitler. Her half-brother Adolf Hitler was born six years after her and they grew very close. She is the only one of his siblings mentioned in Mein Kampf.

Her father died in 1903 and her stepmother died in 1907 leaving a small inheritance. By this time she had married Leo Raubal, a junior tax inspector, and in 1906 had given birth to a son (also named Leo). In 1908 she gave birth to Geli and in 1910 to a second daughter, Elfriede.

Her husband Leo Raubal died on August 10 1910. According to an OSS profile of the Hitler family, Angela moved to Vienna and after World War I became manager of Mensa Academia Judaica, a boarding house for Jewish students where she once defended her charges against anti-Semitic rioters.

Angela had heard nothing from Adolf for a decade when he re-established contact with her in 1919. In 1928 she and Geli moved to Obersalzberg where she became his housekeeper and was later put in charge of the household at Hitler's expanded retreat in Berchtesgaden.

Adolf Hitler began a relationship with her daughter Geli who committed suicide in 1931. Meanwhile Angela strongly disapproved of Hitler's relationship with Eva Braun (while some report she tried to warn Eva Braun of the dangers of getting involved with Hitler; her motives for this are not clear). She eventually left Berchtesgaden as a result and moved to Dresden. Adolf Hitler broke off relations with her and did not attend her wedding to Professor Hamitsch.