ADOLF HITLER
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By
Wikipedia
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“Hitler”
redirects here. For other uses, see Hitler (disambiguation).
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Adolf Hitler
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Date of birth
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April 20, 1889
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Date of death
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April 30, 1945
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Political Party
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National
Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP)
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Political
positions
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Führer
(Leader) of the NSDAP (1921-1945)
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Reichskanzler
of Germany (1933-1945)
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Führer and
Reichskanzler (head of state) of Germany (1934-1945)
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Adolf
Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) was
Chancellor of Germany from 1933 and Führer (Leader) of
Germany from 1934 until his death. He was leader of the National
Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche
Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), better known as the Nazi Party.
In the final days
of the war, Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker in
Berlin, together with his newly wed wife, Eva Braun. The Third Reich
which he proclaimed would last a thousand years collapsed in only
twelve.
Hitler gained power
in a Germany facing crisis after World War I. He used charismatic
oratory and propaganda, appealing to economic need, nationalism and
anti-Semitism to establish an authoritarian regime. With a
restructured economy and rearmed military, Hitler pursued an
aggressive foreign policy with the intention of expanding German
Lebensraum and triggered the European theater of World War II by
invading Poland. At the height of their power, Germany and the Axis
Powers occupied much of Europe, but they eventually were defeated by
the Allies. By then, Hitler's racial policies had culminated, with
Hitler's knowledge, in the genocide of 11 million people, including
about 6 million Jews, in what is now known as the Holocaust.
Early years
Childhood and heritage
Adolf Hitler was born on
April 20, 1889, at Braunau
am Inn, Austria,
a small town in Upper
Austria, on the border with Germany.
He was the fourth of six children of Alois
Hitler (1837–1903), a customs
official, and Klara
Pölzl, Alois's niece and third wife. Of these six children, only Adolf
and his younger sister Paula
reached adulthood. Alois Hitler also had a son (Alois
Junior) and a daughter (Angela)
by his second wife. In Mein
Kampf Hitler describes his father as an "irascible tyrant,"
although there is little indication that Alois Hitler treated his son more
strictly than was usual for that time and place. Adolf's strict Catholic
upbringing was typical for the region. He served as an altar boy and sang in
the choir but was not a practicing Catholic as an adult, though in public
discourses he continued to frequently claim he was a Christian.[1]
His father Alois was born out
of wedlock and used his mother's surname, Schicklgruber, until he
was 40. In 1896, he began using the name of his stepfather, Johann
Georg Hiedler, after visiting a priest responsible for birth
registries and declaring that Georg was his father (Alois gave the
impression that Georg was still alive but he was long dead). The spelling
was probably changed to "Hitler" by a clerk. Later, Adolf Hitler
was accused by his political enemies of not rightfully being a Hitler, but a
Schicklgruber. This was also exploited in Allied propaganda
during the Second World War when pamphlets
bearing the phrase "Heil Schicklgruber" were airdropped
over German cities. Adolf was legally born a Hitler, however, and was also
closely related to Hiedler through his mother's family.
Hitler was not sure who his
paternal grandfather was, but it was probably either Johann Georg Hiedler or
his brother Johann
von Nepomuk Hiedler. There have been rumours that Hitler was one-quarter Jewish and that
his paternal grandmother, Maria
Schicklgruber, had become pregnant after working as a servant in a
Jewish household in Graz.
During the 1920s, the implications of these rumours along with his known
family history were politically explosive, especially for the proponent of a
racist ideology.
Opponents tried to prove that Hitler, the leader of the anti-Semitic Nazi
Party, had Jewish or Czech
ancestors. Although these rumours were never confirmed, for Hitler they were
reason enough to conceal his origins. Soviet
propaganda insisted Hitler was a Jew, though more modern research tends to
diminish the probability that he had Jewish ancestors. Historians such as
Werner Maser and Ian
Kershaw argue this was impossible, since the Jews had been expelled from
Graz in the 15th century and were not allowed to return until well after
Maria Schicklgruber's alleged employment.
Because of Alois Hitler's
profession, his family moved frequently, from Braunau
to Passau, Lambach, Leonding,
and Linz. As a
young child, Hitler was reportedly a good student at the various elementary
schools he attended; however, in sixth
grade (1900-1), his first year of high
school (Realschule) in Linz, he failed completely and had to
repeat the grade. His teachers reported that he had "no desire to
work."
Hitler later explained this
educational slump as a kind of rebellion
against his father Alois, who wanted the boy to follow him in a career as a
customs official, although Adolf wanted to become a painter.
This explanation is further supported by Hitler's later description of
himself as a misunderstood artist. However, after Hitler's father died on January
3, 1903, at
the age of 13, Hitler's schoolwork did not improve. At the age of 16, Hitler
left school with no qualifications.
Early adulthood in Vienna
and Munich
From 1905 onward, Hitler
was able to live the life of a Bohemian
on a fatherless child's pension
and support from his mother. After he was rejected twice by the Academy
of Fine Arts Vienna (1907 – 1908) for "lack of talent"
— which he resented deeply — he did not try to find another job
or learn a profession. He was told he should become an architect,
since he had some flair for making architectural sketches
and drawings.
On December
21, 1907,
his mother Klara died a painful death from breast
cancer at the age of 47. Hitler gave his share of the orphans'
benefits to his younger sister Paula, but when he was 21 he inherited some
money from an aunt.
He worked as a struggling painter in Vienna, copying scenes from postcards
and selling his paintings to merchants
and tourists (there is evidence he produced over 2000 paintings and drawings
before World
War I). During this period, he became close friends with the musician August
Kubizek.
After the second refusal
from the Academy of Arts, Hitler gradually ran out of money. By 1909, he
sought refuge in a homeless
shelter, and by the beginning of 1910 had settled permanently into a
house for poor working men. He made spending money by painting tourist
postcards of Vienna scenery. Several biographers have noted that a Jewish
resident of the house named Hanisch helped him sell his postcards.
It was in Vienna that
Hitler first became an active anti-Semite. This was a common stance among
Austrians at the time, mixing traditional religious prejudice with recent
racist theories. Vienna had a large Jewish community, including many Orthodox
Jews from Eastern
Europe. (See History
of Vienna.) Hitler was slowly influenced over time by the writings
of the race ideologist and anti-Semite Lanz
von Liebenfels and polemics
from politicians
such as Karl
Lueger, founder of the Christian
Social Party and mayor
of Vienna, and Georg
Ritter von Schönerer, leader of the pan-Germanic Away from Rome!
movement. He later wrote in his book Mein
Kampf that his transition from opposing anti-Semitism on religious
grounds to supporting it on racial grounds came from having seen an Orthodox
Jew:
"There were very few
Jews in Linz. In the course of centuries the Jews who lived there had
become Europeanized
in external appearance and were so much like other human beings that I
even looked upon them as Germans. The reason why I did not then perceive
the absurdity of such an illusion was that the only external mark which I
recognized as distinguishing them from us was the practice of their
strange religion. As I thought that they were persecuted on account of
their faith my aversion to hearing remarks against them grew almost into a
feeling of abhorrence. I did not in the least suspect that there could be
such a thing as a systematic anti-Semitism.
Once, when passing
through the inner City, I suddenly encountered a phenomenon in a long
caftan and wearing black side-locks. My first thought was: Is this a Jew?
They certainly did not have this appearance in Linz. I watched the man
stealthily and cautiously but the longer I gazed at the strange
countenance and examined it feature by feature, the more the question
shaped itself in my brain: Is this a German?"
(Mein Kampf, vol. 1, chap. 2: "Years of study and suffering in
Vienna")
Hitler began to claim the
Jews were natural enemies of what he called the Aryan
race. He held them responsible for Austria's crisis. He also identified Socialism
and especially Bolshevism,
which had some Jews among its leaders, as Jewish movements, merging his
anti-Semitism with anti-Marxism. Blaming Germany's military defeat on the
revolution, he considered Jews the culprit of Germany's military defeat and
subsequent economic problems as well.
Generalising from
tumultuous scenes in the parliament of multi-national Austria, he developed
a firm belief in the inferiority of the parliamentary
system, and especially social
democracy, which formed the basis of his political views. However,
according to August
Kubizek, his close friend and roommate
at the time, he was more interested in the operas
of Richard
Wagner than in politics.
Hitler received a small
inheritance from his father in May 1913 and moved to Munich.
He later wrote in Mein
Kampf that he had always longed to live in a German city. In Munich,
he became more interested in architecture and the writings of Houston
Stewart Chamberlain. Moving to Munich also helped him escape military
service in Austria for a time, but the Austrian army later arrested him.
After a physical exam (during which his height was measured at 1.73 m, or 5
ft 8 in) and a contrite plea, he was deemed unfit for service and allowed to
return to Munich. However, when Germany entered World
War I in August 1914, he immediately enlisted in the Bavarian
army.
World War I
Hitler saw active service
in France
and Belgium
as a messenger for the 16th Bavarian reserve infantry regiment,
which exposed him to enemy fire. He also drew some cartoons
and instructional
drawings for the army newspaper. His behaviour as a soldier was considered
somewhat sloppy, but he readily volunteered for dangerous missions such as
taking dispatches to and from fighting areas. Unlike his fellow soldiers,
Hitler reportedly never complained about the food or hard conditions,
preferring to talk about art
or history.
He was twice cited for bravery
in action, receiving the Iron
Cross, Second Class in December 1914 and the Iron Cross, First Class in
August 1918, an honour rarely given to a Gefreiter. However, because of "a lack of leadership skills", he was never
promoted to Unteroffizier.
During October 1916 in northern France, Hitler was wounded
in the leg, but returned to the front in March 1917. He received the Wound
Badge later that year, as his injury was the direct result of hostile
fire.
Hitler was considered a
"correct" soldier but was reportedly unpopular with his comrades
because of an uncritical
attitude toward officers. "Respect the superior, don't contradict
anybody, obey blindly," he said, describing his attitude while on trial
in 1924. One fellow soldier later remarked, "we all grumbled on him and
found it intolerable that we had a white raven among us." (Haiden,
1936)
On October
15, 1918,
shortly before the end of the war, Hitler was admitted to a field
hospital, temporarily blinded
by a poison
gas attack. Research by Bernhard Horstmann indicates the blindness may
have been the result of a hysterical
reaction to Germany's defeat. Hitler later said it was during this
experience that he became convinced the purpose of his life was to save
Germany. Meanwhile he was treated by a military physician
and specialist in psychiatry
who reportedly diagnosed the corporal as "incompetent to command
people" and "dangerously psychotic."
His commander at the time said, "I will never promote this hysteric!"
(cited from Haiden, 1937) However, historian Sebastian
Haffner, referring to Hitler's experience at the front, suggests he did
have at least some understanding of the military.
Two passages in Mein
Kampf mention the use of poison
gas:
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At the beginning of
the Great War, or even during the War, if twelve or fifteen thousand of
these Jews who were corrupting the nation had been forced to submit to
poison-gas . . . then the millions of sacrifices made at the front would
not have been in vain. (Volume 2, Chapter 15 "The Right to
Self-Defence)
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These tactics are
based on an accurate estimation of human weakness and must lead to
success, with almost mathematical certainty, unless the other side also
learns how to fight poison gas with poison gas. The weaker natures must
be told that here it is a case of to be or not to be. (Volume 1,
Chapter 2 "Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna")
Hitler had long admired
Germany and during the war he had become a passionate German patriot,
although he did not become a German citizen until 1932. He was shocked by
Germany's capitulation
in November 1918 even while the German army still held enemy territory. Like
many other German nationalists,
Hitler believed in the Dolchstoßlegende
("dagger-stab legend") which claimed that the army, "undefeated
in the field," had been "stabbed in the back" by civilian
leaders and Marxists back on the home
front. These politicians were later dubbed the November
criminals.
The Treaty
of Versailles imposed crippling reparations and other economically
damaging sanctions, declaring Germany guilty for the horrors of the Great
War. The treaty was perceived by most Germans as a humiliation
and was an important factor in both the social and political conditions
encountered by Hitler and his National Socialist Party as they sought power.
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