Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
 
Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau-am-Inn, Austria.  His father, Alois Hitler, was of German descent, and was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber.  Adolf's mother, Klara Poelzl, of Bavarian descent was at one point the foster child of Alois.  After two of his wives had died, he decided to wed her.  Adolf Hitler was their only child.  As a young boy, Adolf's father dreamed of his son holding an government position.  However, in Adolf's biography "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle), he wrote that "the thought of slaving in an office made me ill".  The young Hitler openly defied his father by spending his time dreaming of being a painter.  In school, however, he became an active history student, especially that of Germany's history.  When a teacher would talk of the greatness of the Germans, Hitler would be listening on the edge of his seat to every word.  However, his ambition to be an artist was still great.  After his father died when Hitler was only 13, he began to study the art of watercolour.  When his mother died, six years later, he went to Vienna to study art at the Academy of Arts, but was rejected for a lack of talent.  With no formal business training, Hitler became a labourer, working in the building trade, and painting postcards.  This part of his life and these experiences made him very discontent.  To Hitler, Austria was simply a "patchwork nation", and began to set his sights across the border to the larger, more powerful Germany.  He was convinced that Austria stood in the way of Germany, and wrote later that he hated the motley collection [in Austria] of Czechs, Ruthenians, Poles, Hungarians, Serbs, Croats, and above all that ever-present fungoid growth Jews...I became a fanatical Anti-Semite." In 1912, he left Vienna and moved to Munich.  There he drifted from job to jobs as a carpenter,  an architect's draftsman, and even pursued briefly the career he so longed as a child, an artist.  Two years later, in 1914, the First World War broke out.  Hitler gave up his Austrian citizenship to enlist in the 16th Bavarian infantry regiment.  He would not fight for Austria, but was ready to fight and die at any time for the Germans, which he believed were his true people. On the Somme in 1916 he was on the front lines against British tanks, and was promoted to Lance Corporal.  Later he was given the Iron Cross for being a dispatch runner.  In 1917 he fought in the third battle of Ypres.  When Germany signed the armistice to the Triple Entente in 1918, Hitler was placed in a hospital, suffering from shock and the temporary effects of Mustard Gas exposure.  When he was informed of Germany's loss, he became furious, and blamed the defeat on Communists and Jews, the "enemies within".  Hitler remained in the German army, stationed at Munich, chiefly because he had nowhere else to go.  He had given up his Austrian citizenship, and was unable to obtain German citizenship.  At this time in Munich, Officers of the German army, or Reichswehr, began to conspire to bring down the government and gain control of the battered Germany.  They maintained informers in the army, one of whom was Adolf Hitler.  He was assigned to report on "subversive activities" in the political parties of Munich.  This political spying was the turning point of Hitler's life. One night in 1919 he found his way into a bleak little restaurant where a handful of young people sat around a half-broken gas lamp. This was a meeting of the German Workers' party. Intrigued by the party's ideas, Hitler joined as its seventh member.  He quickly took over as the leader. Then a Reichswehr officer, Captain Ernest Roehm, saw the party as a means of overthrowing the Bavarian Republic.  Roehm assigned his volunteer army, the iron-hard Brown Shirts to aid Hitler's Workers' party.  In 1920 he changed its name to Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' party), Nazi for short.  He cried out to the Germans to form an all-powerful national state, much like the one before the Treaty of Versialles was signed in 1919.  His voice was a hypnotic one to whoever would open up their ears to listen.  His speeches kindled the anger of rivals, especially the Communists, and they tried to break them up along with his meetings. They were prevented from doing so by the armed Nazis.  Hitler, along with his party helped to persuade Communist-fearing German industrialists to give money to the party.  An established journal in Munich, the Volkischer Beobachter (National Observer) was bought by the Nazis to spread party influence.  Hitler adopted the Swastika as the party emblem and designed the Nazi red banner with the black swastika.  He saluted his comrades with raised stiff arm and was greeted by the word "Heil!" By 1923 the Nazis had grown strong enough in Munich to try to seize the government.  They started the "Beer Hall Putsch", so-called because Hitler tried to take over the reins of government at a meeting that was held in a beer hall. The attempt failed and Hitler, convicted of treason, was sentenced to five years in prison.  However, the Bavarian government intervened and commuted the term to only eight months. During his time in prison, a distraught Hitler, along with his loyal friend, Rudolf Hess, began his autobiography called "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle).  The book described Hitler's early life in Austria, but more importantly went into detail about Hitler's anti-semitimistic views about the Jewish people.  Released from prison in 1924, Hitler once again seemed destined to failure. The Nazi party had been banned by the government, and only a handful of the members remained.  For months Hitler nearly gave up on the party, but his comrades Roehm, Hess, and an enthusiast named Joseph Paul Goebbels convinced him not to give up on his own party, and persuaded him to rebuild.  Accepting, Hitler said, "I shall need seven years before the movement is on top again." From1924 to 1928, Germany prospered, and Hitler knew that revolutions do not flourish on prosperity.  But then the Great Depression hit the world and Germany plummetted back into poverty and unemployment, and the Nazis began to gain votes again.  By 1930 Hitler had the support of many industrialists and the most of the military.  More importantly, he had obtained German citizenship, even if only by the means of scheming by his fellow Nazis.  However, he decided that if he was to take office, it would have to be obtained in a democratic and constitutional fashion.  He attained his goal in 1933 when German President Paul von Hindenburg asked him to be chancellor, and as part of his office form a new government to help stabilize the economic and political situation in Germany.  It was the idea of Hindenburg that Hitler would be his tool to stabilize Germany and then be shoved aside. He could not anticipate that he would soon be shoved aside himself, or that Hitler's rise to power would lead to another World War in which Germany would be defeated again.  Utilizing his office and power, he forced through the Enabling Act, which provided a constitutional basis for his dictatorship.  All German states lost their powers, and the Nazi party became the only political party allowed.  In 1934 many party leaders were executed for an alleged plot against Hitler.  Also in 1934, President Hindenburg died, which gave Hitler the opportunity to abolish the office of the President and take on the title Fuhrer, or leader of Germany.  The Nazis persecuted both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, and the infamous Nuremberg Laws of 1935 deprived Jews of citizenship.  Hitler was always prepared to talk peace if necessary, but at the same time prepared for war.  He openly defied the Treaty of Versailles and began rearming. Universal military training was restored.  Another famous defiance was in 1936, when Hitler denounced the Locarno Pact in 1936 and marched into the Rhineland, the de-milatarized area between France and Germany.  Great Britain and France followed a policy of appeasement. They offered no opposition when Hitler captured the Rhineland, nor in 1938 when he annexed Austria.  They signed the Munich Pact to bring back a feeling of peace.  The treaty gave the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany.  In 1936, Hitler and Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini formed an alliance called the Rome-Berlin Axis, which stated that Europe was divided into spheres of influence between the two dictators.  By 1938, Hitler had the largest air force and largest mechanized army in the world.  In 1939 Hitler took Memel from Lithuania and all of Czechoslovakia. Hitler next demanded the return of Danzig, but Poland refused.  Great Britain and France pledged aid to Poland.  On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland.  Two days later, on September 3, Great Britain discontinued their appeasement policies, and declared war on Germany.
World War II was underway.  Believing himself on the road to world conquest, Hitler made himself Personal Commander of the Army in 1941.  In 1942, he changed the title to Supreme War Lord. However, on July 20, 1944, a group of Hitler's own officers, displeased by his military failures which seemed to be increasing more and more, set off a bomb in his office. He escaped with only a nervous shock.  After this time, it was quite hard for Hitler to trust any of his own men.  It was propaganda that made a legend of his ascetic habits and selfless devotion to Germany.  Some of this legend vanished when his long, secret association with Eva Braun was revealed. He married her in April 1945, just before he committed suicide in the underground bunker built for the two of them, the Reichschancellery.  After Hitler's death, the Nazi party lost it's leader and sense of pride.  The Germans had lost a leader who had lead them from a weak country deeply in debt and to one of the most powerful countries in the world.  Adolf Hitler was declared dead officially Oct. 25, 1956, after his remains had been definitely identified.

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Adam Richards - [email protected]