Döllersheim was, since the mid 19th century, an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n municipality in the Waldviertel

Waldviertel

The Waldviertel is the northwestern region of the Austrian state Lower Austria. It is bounded to the south by the Danube, to the southwest by Upper Austria, to the northwest and the north by the Czech Republic and to the east by the Manhartsberg , which is the survey point dividing Waldviertel...

, the northwestern part of Lower Austria

Lower Austria

Lower Austria is the northeasternmost state of the nine states in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria since 1986 is Sankt Pölten, the most recently designated capital town in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria had formerly been Vienna, even though Vienna is not officially part of Lower Austria...

 near the border with Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

. It included the hamlet of Strones, where Alois Hitler

Alois Hitler

Alois Hitler was an Austrian civil servant who was the father of Adolf Hitler.-Early life:...

, the father of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

, was born to Maria Schicklgruber

Maria Schicklgruber

Maria Anna Schicklgruber was Adolf Hitler's paternal grandmother.- Family :Maria was born in the village of Strones in the Waldviertel area. She was the daughter of Theresia Pfeisinger , and farmer Johannes Schicklgruber...

 in 1837. Strones was very small at the time of Alois' birth and did not even have church with a baptismal registry. Accordingly, Maria went to the Döllersheim parish to record the birth with the local priest, who duly entered the information on the baptism registry. The same registry was updated some 39 years later when, in 1876, Alois was legitimated and his surname was duly changed to Hitler.

After the 1938 Anschluss

Anschluss

The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....

 which incorporated Austria into Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 ("Großdeutsches Reich"), Hitler ordered Döllersheim and several neighbouring villages to be evacuated in favour of a large proving ground

Proving ground

A proving ground is the US name for a military installation or reservation where weapons or other military technology are experimented or tested, or where military tactics are tested...

 operated by the Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

, even though (or perhaps because) it contained the grave of his paternal grandmother Maria. German troops forcibly resettled the villagers before bombing their houses as part of training exercises. In World War II the facility was the site of several prisoner-of-war camp

Prisoner-of-war camp

A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of combatants captured by their enemy in time of war, and is similar to an internment camp which is used for civilian populations. A prisoner of war is generally a soldier, sailor, or airman who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or...

s including the Oflag XVII-A

Oflag XVII-A

Oflag XVII-A, was a German Army prisoner-of-war camp in World War II for officers. It was located between Edelsbach and Döllersheim in north-eastern Austria. Döllersheim village had been taken over by the German army and an artillery training area established in 1939...

 near the former village of Edelbach. During the military occupation of Austria it was seized by the Soviet Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

.

Today the area of Döllersheim is a Katastralgemeinde

Katastralgemeinde

A Katastralgemeinde , a German word , is a cadastral subdivision of municipalities in the nations of Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Italian provinces of South Tyrol, Trentino, Gorizia, Trieste, and in Slovenia.A cadastral community records property ownership in a cadastre,...

 of the Pölla

Pölla

Pölla is a municipality in the district of Zwettl, in Lower Austria, Austria.It is situated roughly in the center of the northwestern region of the Austrian state called Waldviertel...

 municipality. It is still an active training area operated by the Austrian Armed Forces, while the ruins of the former parish church and graveyard can be visited.