BERLIN, Nov 11 : Meet Romano Lukas Hitler - the only man alive bearing the name of mankind's greatest butcher who he claims he is related to.
Romano, 65, has his name on his passport, his German ID card, his bank account and his rental contract for his home in the eastern town of G?rlitz.
'Adolf Hitler's father Alois had a younger brother. His grandson was my father,' he told the MOPO24 website.
He claims his parents fled communist East Germany and died in the Slovakian capital Bratislava.  He says he was handed over to a monastery and was then adopted by a Polish family before he came back to Germany as an adult to train as a ship's helmsman.  'But my name has caused me lots of grief down the years,' he admits. Despite his complaints over his links to Hitler, the pensioner has a strange taste of art on the walls of his room - a picture of the dictator cousin on one side of the German flag next to a picture of present-day German leader Angela Merkel on the other. He went on: 'People are shocked or laugh at me when they hear my name. It was also often the reason why I found no work. 'After me there will be no more Hitlers. That's it, shame must have an end. The name is like a cross to bear and I wish that on nobody. 'The Germans always think Hitler was a bad man. But I'm a very simple person.' His claim about Hitler's father Alois having a brother doesn't fit the accepted version of history.
In 1837, when she was 42 years old, and still single, Alois's mother Maria Schicklgruber gave birth to him - her first and only child.  Maria refused to reveal who the child's father was, so the priest baptized him Alois Schicklgruber and entered 'illegitimate' in place of the father's name on the baptismal register.
Historians have discussed two candidates for the father of Alois.     ?THE MAIL