Hiitler's closest surviving relative is a farmer

London, Mar 30 (ANI): Gerhard Koppensteiner, who looks remarkably like German dictator Adolf Hitler, is one his closest surviving relatives, and lives on a cattle farm.

Gerhard's family is among the F|hrer's nearest relatives because he had no children.

Interest in Hitler's family grew after a Belgian investigator used DNA to trace one relative.

Gerhard (45) is desperate to play down the connection with the F|hrer as he quietly rears his cows in a remote village in northern Austria.

Gerhard whose gran was the dictator's first cousin, said: "This has haunted my family all our lives. It is a terrible burden. I grew up knowing I was related to him. How do you learn to live with that?"

The farmer, who has a son and daughter, said: "I don't want them to live in the shadow of this man. We don't talk about him at home."

Gerhard's father called Adolf was six when Hitler died in his Berlin bunker in 1945, The Sun reports.

Gerhard said: "This curse has followed him his whole life."

Neighbours in the mountain village near the Czech border know of the link. But one said: "You can't hold Hitler's crimes against them." (ANI)