abcNEWS.com 17. Dezember 2000

Adolfs Anonymous

Adolf Hittler is alive and well. But probably not the guy you're thinking about. Unlike the Nazi leader, this gentleman spells his last name with two Ts, disdains fascism, and never aspired to take over the world. He's a 61-year-old retired school bus driver from Landeck, Austria, and he doesn't like to be teased. "My whole life this has been a problem," he says. "Just try checking into a hotel with my name." After refusing interviews for years, he decided to speak out at a conference for folks with problematic names Sept. 28 in Braunau, Austria-infamous birthplace of the real Hitler. "I'd get calls in the middle of the night from jokers who wanted to say, 'Heil Hitler' and other stupid jokes about gas chambers," Hittler says. "But it is in part my choice. I decided not to change my name. I thought it would be an insult to my parents." Hittler was a young boy when the notorious fascist came to power. He says his name caused tensions in his marriage, which ended in divorce, and that his only son uses his ex-wife's maiden name. Also in attendance at the Braunau conference was a bricklayer named Heinrich Himmler-just like the Nazi S.S. chief. He claims he once lost his job because of his name. Hittler's problem is rare. Only about 2 percent of German men before World War II were named Adolf, according to German historian Tomas Breckenmacher. And during his reign, Hitler forbade Germans to name children after him. Since the war, the surname 'Hitler' virtually disappeared, and Adolf is primarily used as a namesake for a father or grandfather, Breckenmacher says. "But it's uncommon" "All the better," Hittler says.
P.S. In the United States, an "Adolf Hitler" was listed last year in the telephone directory of Bossier City, La. But that number is now unlisted.

Where's Jumbo?

It's hard to hide when you weigh 891 pounds. But until Tuesday, the heaviest man in the world had been missing. The Guinness Book of Records lost touch with T.J. "Fat Albert" Jackson, who reportedly had a 116-inch waist, 70-inch thighs, and a 120-inch chest. He was supposedly seen two years ago in Canton, Miss. But a Wolf Files investigation reveals that Jackson died in 1988 in Baton Rouge, La., and that the 1996 sighting-along with several others-was bogus. Guinness this week verified the information, knocking Jackson's spot out of the record book. "Mr. Jackson was once a high-profile carnival entertainer. But in recent years he had grown remote," says Mark Young of Guinness America. "Usually, when someone of that size dies, there is mention of it in the newspapers. But we heard nothing." Through Jackson's former promoter, Four-C Productions of Gibsonton, Fla., the Wolf Files traced Jackson's path from the East Coast carnival and sideshow circuit to Baton Rouge. "He was a great guy. Loved kids. Friendly," says Four-C President Jack Constantine, who fondly remembers hiring a forklift to get Jackson into an airline for a Caribbean booking. "He wanted to lay low for a while when I last saw him," Constantine says. "He was a little tired of life on the road." Apparently, Jackson was trying to leave his carnival sideshow life behind, though family members declined to elaborate. He reverted to his birth name, Kent Nicholson, shortly before he succumbed to heart failure at 47 on Dec. 18, 1988. The search for Jackson heated up two months ago when Florida-based weight-loss guru Victoria Morton offered a $1,000 reward to anyone who could find him alive. "We want to set a world's record for waistline reduction," says Morton's spokesman Steve Town. "We think we could have taken 28 inches off him and given him a new spot in the record books that he could really be proud of." Guinness says it might take several months to establish a new record holder. "Surprisingly, there are a lot of guys claiming to have the world's longest fingernails," Young says. "Not as many claim they're the heaviest."
P.S. How's this for overcoming differences: The heaviest man ever, Jon Brower Minnoch of Bainbridge Island, Wash., was once estimated to weigh 1,400 pounds. His wife Jeanette weighed 110 pounds in 1978 when they married.

Buck Wolf is a producer at ABCNEWS.com. The Wolf Files is a weekly feature.