Tombstones of Hitler's parents removed from Austrian cemetery

Vienna - The graves of Alois and Klara Hitler, parents of the notorious Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, have been taken down at the request of an unknown descendant of Alois' first wife. The monument was attracting neo-Nazis who congregated there.

The grave markers of Alois and Klara Hitler, parents of the infamous Fuehrer, have been removed from the Austrian cemetery in the village the dictator lived as a child. The reasoning behind this action was the fact that the monuments had become "a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis," says AFP. They were taken down after a descendant of Alois' first wife requested it to be done. The "unidentified elderly woman living in Lower Austria 'has relinquished her rights and has had it removed,'" said pastor Kurt Pittertschatscher of Leonding near the city of Linz. "The upkeep of the grave was becoming increasingly difficult as the years went by, and the grave ... kept being misused for gatherings of sympathizers." While the site of the tombstones were an active gathering spot for "far-right extremists," neither the remains of Alois, a customs official who died in 1903, nor those of his wife Klara, who followed four years after, had been subject to an attempted exhumation. The home where they resided also remains standing to this day. According to MSNBC World News, upon being asked if there would be any difficulty convincing people to bury their loved ones in the same graveyard as Adolf Hitler's parents, Pitterschatscher merely responded: "I really haven't thought about it." The black marble tombstone bearing fading black and white images of Alois and Klara was "removed without ceremony by a stonemason" who was hired by the unknown descendant. All that is left where the marker once stood are a "white gravel square and a tree," MSNBC describes. The mason did not know the descendant of Anna Glasl-Hörer personally, nor did he give any hints to her identity. He merely quoted her request to have her grave lease adjourned, as she claimed she was growing "too old to care for it and tired of it 'being used for manifestations of sympathy' for Hitler," in a statement. The last known incident involving neo-Nazi activity at the gravesite occurred on November 1, when the saying "UnvergeSSlich" - German for "unforgettable" - was etched onto an urn. The two capital S's were emphasized in to make an ode to Hitler's SS shock troops. Just last year the monument of Rudolph Hess, Hitler's deputy, "was liquidated and his remains scattered at sea," reports the Telegraph. This was done as an effort to keep the grave from turning into a sort of neo-Nazi mecca.