Churchill was famously neglected by his family and had a pretty depressing childhood. Hitler actually did love bossing the local kids around and until he was a preteen was pretty happy
His dad (who may not have been his biological father) definitely beat him, but likely no more than the average kid in that time and place and he actually largely didn’t care about and avoided his kids. Hitler adored his mother, and did exceedingly well at school early on and read a bunch of westerns. He was the leader of a gang of kids and before he transferred schools to a new location he was pretty dang happy. I’m reading a biography on him by Volker Ullrich and it even talks about this photo: “Adolf Hitler was a lively pupil who easily mastered the challenges of the village school and got excellent marks. ‘The laughably easy task of learning at school left me so much free time that I saw more of the sun than of my room,’ Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf. He played soldiers with the other village youngsters and enjoyed taking command. ‘The Boer War was going on,’ recalled one of Hitler’s classmates. ‘The kids from Leonding under Hitler’s leadership were the Boers while the kids from [nearby] Untergamberg were the English. Things often got pretty heated afterwards at the Hitler’s house as well, because our commander Adolf left his father waiting for so long for the tobacco he was supposed to buy.’ … Hitler saw himself as ‘the leader of a little gang’ of his Leonding schoolmates and a class photo supports that idea. The 10-year-old occupies the middle of the top row with his arms crossed and his face slightly overexposed ‘in a pose of demonstrative superiority.’ The young boy was obviously not plagued by self doubt.” When he turned 11 he started doing terribly in school and up until he gets into politics his life kind of sucked
No worries! I wish I had remembered more about Churchill — I went to the Churchill War Rooms a few years ago and there was a whole section about how he felt neglected by his parents. There’s probably a lot of information out there, but from what I remember he was basically raised by his nurse and usually alone
He was the only son of a Lord. That means that once his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, finally died from syphilis, he became Lord Winston Churchill at Blenheim.
My recollection was incorrect, please see below correction.
Lord Randolph's title was a courtesy title. Courtesy titles do not descend to children.
Dukes and Marquess hold senior ranks to Earls.
There is no such title as Earl of Blenheim. The earldom the Dukes of Marlborough hold is the Earl of Sunderland. It is only used as a courtesy title for the eldest son of the eldest son of the current Duke, which Winston never was.
Worth pointing out, in addition, that Lord Randolph and Winston only received relatively small portions of the family's wealth. One of the essential canons of the British system is that the eldest son takes almost all, and younger children receive a relative pittance.
43
u/Bleyo 7d ago
I don't know... Churchill looks like he enjoyed bossing the help around.