Angela Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria-Hungary, the second child of Alois Hitler Sr. and his second wife, Franziska Matzelsberge
She moved to Vienna after World War I. Walter Langer's wartime report The Mind of Adolf Hitler, an OSS profile of the Hitler family, paints a positive picture of Angela at this period, describing her as "rather a decent and industrious person". It says she became manager of Mensa Academia Judaica, a boarding house for Jewish students, where she once defended those in her care against anti-Semitic rioters.