15 AUGUST 1941, Page 4

Mr. Quentin Reynolds' broadcast on Sunday night was more illustration

of the difficulties confronting a man who scored a brilliant initial success and is expected to live up to The technique of direct address is a great deal less effec the second time than the first, and the device of referring Hitler as Mr. Schicklgruber, and thereafter repeatedly Mr. S. (one confused listener thought he was talking about I 'Ess), has obviously little force—indeed less than no force unless Hitler was in fact once called Schicklgruber. And fact he never was. His heredity, so far as I know, is not dispute. He was the son of Alois Hitler, who was the illegi mate son of one Martha Schicklgruber. Alois bore his moth name till 1876, when he changed it, by a regular and for" process (as many respected British citizens have for differ• reasons changed theirs), to Hitler, which was a variant of reputed father's surname. Thirteen years later, in 1889, Al Hitler had a son called Adolf—whose surname was naturally necessarily Hitler. It is not the case, therefore, that Schi gruber was ever Hitler's name, much as broadcasters and oth might wish it had been.

* * * *