After 1945, did all the people who shared a surname with the Nazi regime leaders change their name to something else? Did anyone NOT do that, were there (or are there?) any other Mr/Mrs Hitlers in Germany/Austria after the war? What about the name Adolf? Did it stop being used completely after 45? Did anyone called Adolf change their names?
Heinrich is still a used name in Germany so I think the first name carried less stigma?
Who was the most prominent 3rd Reich name to not get their names expunged? Are there any Goebbels around? Maybe a Peter Guderian in a 3rd Bundesliga team? Or a Sophie Rommel practicing law in Erfurt?
If the names of the 3rd reich leaders were expunged, is there any other parallel in history to this? I know that there still are Mussolinis in Italy (I believe il Duce's granddaighter is in politics with his name?). Any other people who's actions were so heinous to society that society expunged their names, either legally or organically?
Thank you all in advance!
Oof, there are a lot of questions here but let's start with the big one. Mr. H himself. As /u/commiespaceinvader has already pointed out it was already an assumed name and not one really used by anyone else so in that case it pretty much died with Hitler and his next of kin. As for the other major ones,
Himmler is uncommon but not super rare, there are 347 people in Germany with the surname Himmler today (as per the phone book), 297 Göbbels (almost exclusively in Nordrhein-Westfalen around Mönchengladbach which is also where Göbbels was from), 197 Guderians, 1455 Rommels (most of them in Baden-Württemberg which was also Erwin's place of birth) and so on. So no, the names did not stop being used after WW2 although some people undoubtedly changed their names to escape the asociation.
This leads us to the next part. Not only are there public people with the same name as their WW2 namesakes, they're occasionally related.
Manfred Rommel was mayor of Stuttgart for well over 20 years and was indeed the son of Erwin Rommel. He was a CDU politician and very popular in general. He was also famously friends with Patton's son as well and Montgomery's son and Montgomery himself. In many ways he was a symbol of post-war European reconciliation.
We also have a Heinz Guderian who was Inspector of the Panzer Troops. No, not the Heinz Guderian you're thinking about but his son, also called Heinz Guderian. He fought in WW2 and eventually joined the Bundeswehr after the war where he rose to the same rank his father and namesake had held before him.
Charting every public figure in Germany with a Nazi namesake seems very difficult but I think we can safely assume that if a Heinz Guderian can rise to the rank of Inspector of the Panzer Troops as the son of the somewhat more infamous Heinz Guderian then a person who just happens to share a surname with a prominent nazi wouldn't have to change their name to assume public office in post-war Germany.
There have been several studies made on BRD Ministeries which show that members of the NSDAP were absolutely not uncommon in West German government. In the Ministry of Justice, out of 170 senior lawyers and judges, 90 had been NSDAP members and 34 of those 90 had be SA members. In 1957 almost 80% of the Ministry of Justice senior staff were former NSDAP members. This is pretty astounding because it might actually be a higher figure than during Nazi rule. The story was much the same in the Ministry of the Interior where some 54% of senior staff had been NSDAP members.
Now, keep in mind that membership of the NSDAP was never mandatory like for example the HJ was. If memory serves NSDAP membership never exceeded about 10% of the German population. It was however very beneficial if you wanted to be a civil servant during the Nazi rule. The explanation is probably fairly simple, Germany needed civil servants in the post-war era and a significant portion of the potential candidates were former NSDAP members so they made do with what they had. But at the same time it is also quite possible, maybe even probable, that such a high degree of former party members in senior goverment positions may well have led to them protecting each other from criminal prosecution in the post-war years.
Die Akte Rosenburg: Das
Bundesministerium der Justiz und die NS-Zeit - Is a study conducted by the Ministry of Justice itself to disclose the past links to the Nazi rule. I liked the english version here but it's also available in German.
From Normandy to the Ruhr: With the 116th Panzer Division in WWII - Heinz G. Guderian's autobiographical book
Manfred Rommel: Der Oberbürgermeister - Paul Widmar
Sidenote: A lovely little anecdote about Manfred Rommel is his wry sense of humour. Over the course of his life he received a great many honors and titles. The French Legion of Honor, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the Grand Cross of Merit of the Italian Republic, Guardian of Jerusalem among many others. He took this all in stride, once composing the little rhyme (in german) "Die Zahl der Titel will nicht enden. Am Grabstein stehet: bitte wenden!" which translates roughly to "The number of titles is neverending, my gravestone will read: Please turn over!"
Here's an answer by /u/commiespaceinvader from a few years back about the rarity of the surname Hitler.