A distinguished former regional editor has penned a new book about Adolf Hitler’s family links with the city of Liverpool.

Mike Unger, who later edited both the Liverpool Echo and Manchester Evening News, first came across the story while working for the Echo in 1973.

A local historian told him the Nazi dictator had once enjoyed a lengthy stay in the city with his half brother Alois, who lived in Toxteth with his wife Bridget and son William Patrick.

Mike first published a book about the story in 1979, but he has now written a longer version which is set to be serialised in his old paper in the near future.

The story of Hitler’s Liverpool visit, which took place in 1912, was first told by Mike in a book entitled The Memoirs of Bridget Hitler.

His new version, entitled The Hitlers of Liverpool, contains new information about the family’s emigration to America after the war and subsequent life there.

Mike told North-West media website HowDo that he felt the original version was “incomplete.”

“I was in the middle of a journalists’ strike when it went to the printers and couldn’t afford the time to do it properly,” he said.

“The significant difference is that I have named the living Hitler family for the first time in a book; I don’t think that they have been named in a British paper.

“There are three living grand-nephews of Adolf Hitler in Long Island (another one died in a road accident.) They have taken a vow never to have children so that the Hitler line dies out with them.”

Mike also takes the opportunity in the new version to nail a few urban myths about Hitler’s stay in the city.

These include claims that he worked as a waiter at the Adelphi Hotel, and the belief that he supported Everton.