I was brought up in an English education system and Hitler's forename was spelt Adolf, as it has been spelt by the man himself and as is seen on Nazi documentation, but for some reason I see that the name Adolph is often used by American educated peoples, why this difference in the spelling of the mans name?

I understand your question and am sure I've also seen those different spellings used at various times.

As to why Americans seem to spell it differently occasionaly, I have no good answer. Possibly for the same reason that they removed the "u" from numerous words such as "neighbo(u)r", "colo(u)r", "tumo(u)r", etc ... changed the calendar dating format from day/month/year to month/day/year ... and changed the pronunciation of many words e.g tumour that was pronounced tyoomor into toomor.

More like Ad'oh Hitler amirite guyz?

Sorry, last name was really Schicklgruber.
The spelling of his first name is almost irrelevant after that.

He probably changed the last name to Hitler so he could "fulfill" prophecys of Nostradamus. He was heavily into that.

[edit on 28-6-2009 by Cyberbian]