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ADOLF HITLER HIS Table of contents: Page 3- Introduction Page 4- Background and family life Page 5- Hitler during WWI and the beginning of politics Pages 6-7 ??? The Rise of Hitler Page 9-12 World War II Page 13- The Death of Hitler Page 14- Conclusion Page 15- Bibliography Introduction Adolf Hitler was leader of Germany during 1933-1945 and the primary mastermind of both World War II and the mass destruction of millions of people whom he deemed inferior to the Aryan ideal. Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau on the Inn, April 20, 1889 to Alois and Klara Poelzl.
A short-tempered child, he grew hostile towards his father, especially once he had retired and the family had moved to Linz. Alois died in 1903 but left money to take care of the family. Hitler was close to his mother, who was highly indulgent of Hitler, and he was deeply affected when she died in 1908. He left school at 16 in 1905, intending to become a painter. Hitler went to Vienna, where he remained until 1913. He tells of “five years of misery and desolation during which I had to earn my bread first as a workman on odd jobs and later as a decorator’s man.
And scanty bread it was, never enough to satisfy even an ordinary appetite. ” It seems that Hitler was most afraid of becoming declassed. His father, although a minor official, had considered himself a gentleman, “Herr Vater” to his son. It is known that he did sell some water colors to frame dealers who disliked exhibiting empty frames and that he also sold painted cards which were all bought up after he became Chancellor. Hitler’s tastes in art have since been described as “petty bourgeois. ” The things he commends are those generally considered mediocre. He dislikes the modern schools, especially the primitive.
Hitler moved to Munich in 1913 and avoided Austrian military service in early 1914 by virtue of being unfit. However, when the First World War broke out in 1914 he joined the 16th Bavarian Infantry Regiment, serving throughout the war. He proved to be an able and brave soldier as a dispatch runner, winning the Iron Cross (First Class) on two occasions. He was also wounded twice, and four weeks before the war ended suffered a gas attack which temporarily blinded and hospitalized him. It was here he learnt of Germany’s surrender, which he took as a betrayal. He especially hated the Treaty of Versailles.
After WW1 Hitler became convinced he was destined to save Germany. In 1919, working for an army unit, he was assigned to spy on a political party of roughly 40 idealists called the German Workers Party. Instead he joined it, swiftly rose to a position of dominance (he was chairman by 1921) and renamed it the Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). He gave the party the Swastika as a symbol and organised a personal army of ‘storm troopers’ (the SA or Brownshirts) and a bodyguard of black shirted men, the SS, to attack opponents. He also discovered, and used, his powerful ability for public speaking.
In November 1923 Hitler organised Bavarian nationalists under a figurehead of General Ludendorff into a coup (or ‘putsch’). They declared their new government in a beer hall in Munich and then 3000 marched through the streets, but they were met by police, who opened fire, killing 16. Hitler was arrested and tried in 1924, but was sentenced to only five years in prison, a sentence often taken as a sign of tacit agreement with his views. Hitler served only nine months in prison, during which he wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), a book outlining his theories on race, Germany and Jews.
It sold five million copies by 1939. After the Beer-Hall Putsch Hitler resolved to seek power through subverting the Weimar government system, and he carefully rebuilt the NSDAP, or Nazi, party, allying with future key figures like Goering and propaganda mastermind Goebbels. Over time he expanded the party’s support, partly by exploiting fears of socialists and partly by appealing to everyone who felt their economic livelihood threatened by the depression of the 1930s, until he had the ears of big business, the press and the middle classes.
Nazi votes jumped to 107 seats in the Reichstag in 1930. In 1932 Hitler acquired German citizenship and ran for president, coming second to von Hindenburg. Later that year the Nazi party acquired 230 seats in the Reichstag, making them the largest party in Germany. Helped by support from conservative politicians believing they could control Hitler, he was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30th 1933. Hitler moved with great speed to isolate and expel opponents from power, shutting trade unions, removing communists, conservatives and Jews.
Later that year Hitler perfectly exploited an act of arson on the Reichstag (which some believe the Nazis helped cause) to begin the creation of a totalitarian state, dominating the March 5th elections thanks to support from nationalist groups. Hitler soon took over the role of president when Hindenburg died and merged the role with that of Chancellor to become the leader of Germany. Since the world was extremely sensitive about the possibility of starting another world war, Hitler was able to annex Austria in 1938 without a single battle.
But when he had his forces enter Poland in August 1939, the world could no longer stand aside and just watch — World War II began. From the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 to Kristallnacht in 1938, Hitler slowly removed Jews from German society. However, with the cover of World War II, the Nazis created an elaborate and intensive system to work Jews as slaves and kill them. Hitler is considered one of the most evil people in history because of the Holocaust. During the beginning of World War II, the German war machine seemed unstoppable.
However, the tide turned at the Battle of Stalingrad in the beginning of 1943. As the Allied Army got closer to Berlin, Hitler continued to control his regime from the safety of an underground bunker. Soon, even that was no longer safe. After writing his last will and political testament on April 29, 1945, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide on April 30, 1945. Hitler continued to move with speed in radically changing Germany, consolidating power, locking up enemies in camps, bending culture to his will, rebuilding the army and breaking the constraints of the Treaty of Versailles.
He tried to change the social fabric of Germany by encouraging women to breed more and bringing in laws to secure racial purity; Jews were particularly targeted. Employment, high elsewhere in a time of depression, fell to zero in Germany. Hitler also made himself head of the army. Conclusion In Conclusion you can now understand that the rise of Adolf Hitler marks a violent chapter in German history. I personally feel that Hitler has had such an impact in modern history in such a short time that it is impossible to exclude the Nazi dictator from any list.
What is extraordinary is that Hitler’s war not only affected Europe (directly) but shaped the modern trend and foriegn policy of the United States dramatically and that has impacted us to this day. Bibliography 1. Thehistoryplace. com (website) 2. Wistrich, Robert S. Who’s Who in Nazi Germany, Routledge, 1997. (book) 3. Adolfhitler. dk (website) 4. Encyclopedia Britannica (encyclopedia) 5. The H. W. Wilson Company – Wilson Biographies Plus Illustrated (Mercy College Online Database)