Dr Gay Hitler: The Unlikely Story of a Dentist and His Father, George Washington Hitler
- Sep 5, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 29
Few names in American history stop you quite like Dr Gay Hitler. A dentist who practised in Circleville, Ohio through the first half of the 20th century, his name was an innocent product of its time -- a cheerful first name, a common German surname, and a family legacy stretching back to the earliest days of Ohio settlement. Then history happened, and Gay Hitler became the most improbably named man in America. This is his story, and the story of the Ohio family whose name the world would come to fear.
The Family Behind the Name
To understand Dr Gay Hitler, you have to go back further than most people realise. The Hitler name in Ohio didn't arrive with his parents or grandparents. It goes back to the 1700s. The first Ohio Hitler was a man named George Hitler, born in 1763, who settled in Pennsylvania after emigrating from Germany and eventually made his way to southern Ohio. George married a woman named Susannah Gay, and here's where the story takes its first twist: the name Gay in Gay Hitler's first name wasn't a random choice. It was a family name, inherited from that same Susannah Gay who had married into the Hitler line generations earlier.
George and Susannah had four children, one of whom was George Washington Hitler. That name somehow manages to be even more remarkable than his son's. George Washington Hitler was Gay Hitler's father, and the family had been established in Pickaway County, Ohio, for decades by the time Gay was born. They were German-American pioneers, landowners, and community members. Roads in the Circleville area still bear the Hitler name today, a quiet testament to how deeply embedded this family was in southern Ohio long before the name carried any darker associations.
There's one more historical footnote worth noting. Adolf Hitler's family name wasn't originally Hitler at all -- it derived from the German name Hiedler, and was misspelled somewhere along the line in bureaucratic records. That means the Ohio Hitlers, descendants of genuine German immigrants who carried the name correctly, are arguably the only true Hitlers. The most famous Hitler in history was, in a technical sense, not one.
Early Life and Origins
Gay Ludwig Hitler was born on 13 January 1882 in Pickaway County, Ohio, to George Washington Hitler and his wife Ida May Lutz. He grew up in a rural environment, part of a long-established German-American family that had farmed and settled the area for generations. At the time of his birth, the surname Hitler held no malevolent connotations. It was simply a common German surname, one of many brought over to America by 19th century immigrants who had no way of knowing what that name would one day mean to the world.
The name Gay was equally innocent. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Gay was a respectable given name meaning cheerful or carefree, used for both men and women across America and Britain. Gay Hitler was named for his family's heritage, nothing more. By the sheer accident of timing, both his first name and his last name would be transformed by forces entirely outside his control.
The Rise of Adolf Hitler
In the 1930s, the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany changed everything. As the Nazi regime swept across Europe, culminating in the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust, the name Hitler became universally reviled. For millions it came to symbolise hatred, genocide and tyranny on a scale the world had never seen. Families across America and Europe with German surnames rushed to change their names.
For Gay Hitler, this was a bitter irony of history. There was no connection whatsoever between the Ohio Hitlers and the German dictator. His family had been American for generations before Adolf Hitler was born. But none of that mattered to the outside world. The name was the name.
Paula Hitler faced the same problem from a different angle -- she never left Europe, never changed her name permanently, and spent her last years being quietly looked after by former SS members who revered the brother she'd mostly kept at arm's length.
A Quiet Life Under the Shadow of Infamy
Despite the unavoidable connotations his name now carried, Dr Gay Hitler continued his dental practice throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In Circleville, people knew him as they always had. The community separated the man from the Nazi dictator, at least locally. But one can only imagine the discomfort every time he introduced himself to a stranger, answered the telephone, or appeared in any official capacity.
His name became a subject of curiosity and gossip, with some questioning whether it could possibly be real. It was. Dr Gay Hitler retained his professionalism, continued his work, and most notably never changed his name. Whether out of stubbornness, family pride, or the simple principle that he had done nothing wrong, Gay Hitler remained Gay Hitler until his death.
He died on 27 October 1948 in Worthington, Ohio, following a long illness, aged 66. His obituary described him as a widely-known dentist who had practised in Circleville for 40 years. He was not the only person to find himself burdened by a famous name he hadn't chosen. Adolf Hitler's own nephew, William Hitler, spent decades in America trying to distance himself from the same surname. Gay's gravestone reads simply HITLER. His wife May Belle, who outlived him, is buried beside him, her dates 1883 to 1954.
The Hitler Roads of Ohio
The family name didn't end with Gay. It's literally written into the landscape of Pickaway County. Roads in the Circleville area still carry the word Hitler, named after the family who owned land along them in the 19th century, long before the name meant anything sinister. Local residents have largely chosen to keep them, seeing them as historical markers of the families who built the area.
One World War II veteran from the area, when asked about the possibility of renaming Hitler Road, reportedly said it was one of a kind and he hoped it would stay. That attitude captures something important about how deeply the Ohio Hitlers were woven into their community. They were the Hitlers of Circleville long before anyone else claimed the name.
Legacy and Cultural Curiosity
In the internet age, Dr Gay Hitler has become something of a viral curiosity. A post about him on Reddit's r/todayilearned forum gathered thousands of upvotes and hundreds of comments, most of which simply marvelled at the existence of a man with that name. 'Can we just take a moment to appreciate that there once lived a man called Dr Gay Hitler,' one commenter wrote.
Behind the name was an ordinary man who dedicated his working life to looking after people's teeth in a small Ohio town, raised four children, served his church and his professional associations, and refused to let history's worst coincidence define who he was. Gay Hitler was born with a perfectly respectable name in 1882. By the time he died in 1948, that same name had become one of the most loaded combinations of words in the English language. He hadn't changed. The world had.
Sources
EverybodyWiki: Gay Hitler biographical entry
EDGE Media Network: 'Reddit is Obsessed with Dr Gay Hitler' (March 2024)
PinkNews: 'Ohio dentist Dr Gay Hitler causes a stir on social media' (March 2024)
All That's Interesting: 'Ohio Has A Hitler Road, Hitler Cemetery, and Hitler Park' (April 2018)
FactRepublic: Dr Gay Hitler entry
INTO More: 'Just who was Dr Gay Hitler and why are the gays obsessed?' (March 2024)
Newspaper archives: Dr G.L. Hitler obituary, Circleville Ohio
