Rudolf Heitler

Rudolf Heitler was born in Wagram ob der Traisen as the legitimate son of the Jewish couple, master butcher Israel Heitler and his wife Julia, née Friedmann. After primary and secondary school, he trained as a master butcher and smoker. In 1911, he married the Catholic cook Anna Haiderer, but the marriage remained childless.

Rudolf Heitler was drafted into the First World War. World War I and returns home as a war invalid with a nervous condition. In 1920, he and his wife moved to Wels in Upper Austria, where he obtained a business license to trade in hides, skins, scrap iron, scrap metal, feathers, carts, etc., and opened a store at Kaiser Josef Platz 53 in Wels. He also lives in the same house. Neither Rudolf Heitler nor his wife were politically active.

On March 12, 1938, Rudolf Heitler witnessed the end of a free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. With the occupation of Austria, German legislation was adopted and with it the 'Nuremberg Race Laws', according to which he was considered a 'full Jew' who was married to an 'Aryan woman'.

With the occupation of Austria, the hostility against him increased. He was regularly harassed by fellow citizens and SA men. On May 18, 1938, a policeman appears in his store, accuses him of fraudulent behavior, summonses him for the next day and tells him that he will lose everything.

Anna Heitler moves to Vienna and lives there as a housewife. In April and May 1945, she witnesses the liberation of Austria and the re-establishment of the Republic. She later joins the newly founded Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich.