In By His Bootstraps (Heinlein) why is Hitler's name Schickelgruber?

Question

In By His Bootstraps, the author of Mein Kampf is identified as Adolf Schickelgruber, rather than Hitler. Why does Heinlein use that name?

I Googled a bit and it appears that this was a name of his father (early), but never a name of Hitler. Just wondering if this is some sort of censorship evasion, or RAH having a go at Hitler (was this common, like calling younger Bush "shrub) or some sort of little allusion to a different universe (like in TNOTB where we have Kennedy not dying, just as an aside).

Note that the story was written before WW2, but after Hitler was well known, in the news, and his book well known (the protagonist uses it along with other books like The Prince by Machievelli to take over a world).

Answer 1

Mocking Hitler with the name Schickelgruber was a very common thing prior to and during the war as for example in this short British film

It's not surprising at all for Heinlein to use this name - especially since he'd want to be sure that his character using that book as a reference was not interpreted as an endorsement of Hitler.

In H. Beam Piper's 1962 Space Viking there's this quote:

Trask went to the index of the ship's library and punched for History, Old Terran. There was plenty of that, thanks to Otto Harkaman. Then he punched for Hitler, Adolf. Harkaman was right; anything that could happen in a human society had already happened, in one form or another, somewhere and at some time. Hitler could help him understand Zaspar Makann.

By the time the ship came out, with the yellow sun of Tanith in the middle of the screen, he knew a great deal about Hitler, occasionally referred to as Schicklgruber, and he understood, with sorrow, how the lights of civilization on Marduk were going out.

For similar reasons (mockery and disdain) you'll see references to an "Austrian paperhanger" (i.e. a man who puts up wallpaper) in fiction and non-fiction of that era.

Answer 2

This was a fairly common way to insult and belittle Hitler. Google "Schickelgruber" and you'll see some examples. There were at least two reasons:

First, to Americans, "Schickelgruber" as a name sounds a bit funny and makes Hitler somewhat ridiculous.

Second, Hitler's father, Alois Schickelgruber was born out of wedlock to a Maria Schickelgruber and his father -- Adolph's paternal grandfather -- is unknown. It was rumored that he had Jewish ancestry in that line, which made Hitler uncomfortable, and in any event the gap in his ancestry hurt Hitler's status in the world a century ago, again, making him a bit ridiculous.

Answer 3

My mother, who was in her twenties during the Second World War, sometimes referred to Hitler as Schicklgruber, so I assume that this was a meme while we were at war with Hitler.

Here is some information on Hitler's granny, Maria Schicklgruber

Hitler's ancestry was questioned when his opponents began spreading rumours that his paternal grandfather was Jewish, since one of Nazism's major principles was that to be considered a pure "Aryan" one had to have a documented ancestry certificate (Ahnenpass).

In 1931, Hitler ordered the Schutzstaffel (SS) to investigate the alleged rumours regarding his ancestry; they found no evidence of any Jewish ancestors. He then ordered a genealogist by the name of Rudolf Koppensteiner to publish a large illustrated genealogical tree showing his ancestry. This was published in the book Die Ahnentafel des Führers ("The pedigree of the Leader") in 1937, which concluded that Hitler's family were all Austrian Germans with no Jewish ancestry and that Hitler had an unblemished "Aryan" pedigree. As Alois himself legitimized Johann Georg Hiedler as his biological father (with three witnesses affirming and watching this) and the priest changed the father's blank space on the birth certificate in 1876, this was considered certified proof for Hitler's ancestry, and thus Hitler was considered an "Aryan".

Some people disliked Hitler because he was a genocidal dictator. Others disliked him because they thought that they could run the Nazi party better, e.g. Otto Strasser, or they belonged to the Prussian military aristocracy and despised Hitler's class origins. The illegitimacy story, or the evidence-free claims that Hitler was Jewish, homosexual, or both, originated with Hitler's German opponents, even if the British and Americans disseminated them gleefully.