Quick Facts
Biography
Leo Rudolf Raubal (1 October 1906 – 18 August 1977) was a teacher, soldier and manager. He was a son of Leo Raubal (Sr.) and his wife Angela (Adolf Hitler's half-sister).
Life
Leo Raubal Jr. worked in Salzburg as a teacher of chemistry. He visited his mother sporadically while she was living in Berchtesgaden.
Like his younger cousin Heinz Hitler but unlike cousin William Patrick Hitler, Leo Raubal was a "favorite nephew of the leader", and Hitler liked to spend his time with him. However, according to William Patrick Hitler, Leo did not like his uncle Adolf and blamed the latter for the death of his sister Geli. This, however, cannot be confirmed, with Leo saying in 1967 that Hitler was "absolutely innocent", according to historian Werner Maser.
Wartime career
Before the war, he became a manager of the Linz Steelworks. In October 1939, he was drafted into the Luftwaffe and was a lieutenant in the engineering corps. He looked similar to Adolf Hitler and sometimes served as Hitler's double during the war.
He was injured in January 1943 during the Battle of Stalingrad, and Friedrich Paulus asked Hitler for a plane to evacuate Raubal to Germany. Hitler refused and Raubal was captured by the Soviets on 31 January 1943.
Hitler gave orders to examine the possibility of a prisoner exchange with the Soviets for Stalin's son Yakov Dzhugashvili, who had been captured by the Germans on 16 July 1941. Stalin, who was not very fond of Yakov, refused to exchange him either for Raubal or for Friedrich Paulus, and said "war is war."
Detention in the Soviet Union
Raubal was detained in Moscow's jails and was released by the Soviets on 28 September 1955, and returned to Austria.
Post-detention career
He lived and worked in Linz as a teacher. He died during a vacation in Spain. He was buried on 7 September 1977 in Linz. Leo Raubal Jr. had a son Peter (born in 1931) who is along with Elfriede's (Leo Jr.'s sister) son, Heiner Hochegger, and William Patrick Hitler's three sons the closest living relative to Adolf Hitler. Peter Raubal is a retired engineer who lives in Linz, Austria.