“Secrets of the Fuhrer’s Family: What Hitler’s Relatives Were Really Doing During WWII”
After graduating from university, Leo Jr made a living teaching chemistry in Salzburg, Austria. During this period, he made sporadic visits to his mum Angela, who was running uncle Adolf’s household in the Berchtesgaden residence. Again, it appears that Adolf quite liked this half-nephew, but did not seek to favour him in any way.
Shortly before the war, Leo had become a manager at the steelworks in Linz, also in Austria. But in October 1939, he was drafted into the Luftwaffe, as a Lieutenant in the engineering corps.
In 1941, he too joined Barbarossa, and was detailed to Friedrich Paulus’ doomed 6th Army. This was the force that fruitlessly tried to capture Stalingrad, suffering enormous losses. Leo was not immune to the carnage, and suffered an injury in January of 1943. Paulus suggested that Lieutenant Raubal be airlifted back home to safety, but Hitler refused, stating that an officer should stay with his men until the end.
That end came on January 23, 1943, when the Red Army captured Raubal and took him to Moscow for interrogation. The relation with the Fuehrer was not evident at first, and it was Leo who actually revealed it to his captors, proceeding to disclose useful intelligence about Hitler’s relatives and especially about his inner circle – information which would prove very valuable after the war, when the Soviets seized some of the top Nazi leaders.
For the time being, Raubal had a glimmer of hope to return home, when uncle Adolf proposed a prisoner exchange. If the Red Army released Leo, the Nazis would release Yakov Dzhugasvili, Stalin’s own son, taken as a POW back in July 1941.
