The Brothers Hitler

Adolf Hitler went to Berlin and in 1933 made good as Chancellor, Realmleader and Dictator. Another Hitler had come to Berlin a year before and likewise made good in his own way. but the Führer never publicly notices him. Alois, half brother of Adolf, also sprouts an oblong, dark mustache, but, unlike his abstinent vegetarian, nonsmoking, bachelor kinsman, Alois, a restaurant owner, goes for good solid food eased down with steins of German beer, puffs on cigars, has a 17-year-old son. Unlike the camera-famous Führer, Alois shies from newshounds, picture-takers.

Five years ago Alois set up an unpretentious little café near Berlin's Charlottenburg station. The place took on the air of an officers' club in the early days of the Hitler regime. There burly Schutzstaffel would show off their blonde, elegant ladies. Alois' little café prospered to such an extent that last week he opened a showy modern restaurant, the Alois Tearoom, at No. 3 Wittenberg-Platz, near Berlin's fashionable west end. "I call my place the Alois because I do not want to advertise with the name," Alois admitted, but three large profiles of the Führer hang on the walls inside.

For the Alois Tearoom's formal opening, every table was reserved in advance. Crowds pressed against the windows, gaped in as waiters moved among the customers, arms bobbing, chorusing "Heil Hitler." Peeved with the good German burghers who pestered him with questions about Brother Adolf, Alois next day called in a sign painter, had him plaster in German script across one wall; "Sup di duhn und fret didick und holl din mul von politik." ("Drink a lot and eat a lot but don't talk politics.")