It may be the most devastating act of mercy in history.
A newspaper report chronicling how a boy of four was saved from drowning has surfaced in a German archive.
The child – who historians believe could have been Adolf Hitler – was plucked from the icy waters of the River Inn in Passau, Germany, in January 1894.
According to Max Tremmel, a priest who went on to become one of Europe's most famous organists, his predecessor Johann Kuehberger had rescued the terrified Hitler.
Father Tremmel told before his death in 1980 how Father Kuehberger, around the same age as Hitler, had seen the other boy struggling in the waters of the River Inn and dived in to rescue him.
The story was never verified by Hitler during his lifetime. But now a small cutting from the Donauzeitung - Danube newspaper - of 1894 has been found in Passau.
It describes how a 'young fellow' fell through the thin ice of the river in January of that year.
The report described how a 'determined comrade' - the paper at the time was left-wing - went into the freezing water to save the child who would grow into mankind's biggest monster.
The near-drowning episode also featured in a German book called 'Out of Passau- Leaving a City Hitler Called Home,' by Anna Elisabeth Rosmus, a personal history of her family's connections with it.
She wrote; 'The banks of the River Inn provided an idyllic setting for the children to play.
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