Adolf Hitler 2 Essay, Research Paper
Adolf Hitler was a German political and government leader.
And he is one of the 20th century s most powerful dictators, when
he ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945.He turned Germany into a
powerful war machine and provoked World War II in 1939,when
he invaded Poland. He built the Nazi party into a mass movement.
For sometime he dominated most of Europe and North Africa. He
caused the slaughter of millions of Jews and others whom he
considered inferior. Adolf Hitler was born on April 20,1889 in
Branau am Inn, Austria. Adolf s father, Alois Hitler was a minor
customs official. He died in 1903.Adolf s mother, Klara Hitler was
a peasant girl. She died in 1907.Hitler did not do well in school
and he dropped out of high school. He was eager to become an
artist, so he applied to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1907
and 1908 but he was rejected both times. During his spare time he
read alot, developing anti-Jewish and antidemocratic views. When
World War I started Hitler was rejected by the Austrian Army, but
accepted by the German Army. He served as a messenger on the
Western Front for most of the war, taking part in some of the
bloodiest battles. He was wounded and received the Iron Cross for
bravery. But he was never promoted higher than lance corporal.
But after the war he found himself unable to find a job. After
Germany s defeat in 1918 he returned to Munich, remaining in the
army until 1920.In September 1919 he joined the nationalist
German Workers Party. In April 1920 he went to work full time
for the party, now renamed the National Socialist German
Workers Party or the Nazi party. In 1921 he was elected party
chairman with dictatorial powers. He now became known as Der
Fuhrer. The Nazis aim was to organize all Germans into one
nation. And to rid the Jews of German citizenship and eliminate
them completely. He organized meetings with his personal
bodyguard force, the Storm Troopers. In November 1923,at a time
of political and economic chaos, he led an uprising or Putsch in
Munich against the postwar Weimar Republic, the German
government. This was known as the Beer Hall Putsch. However the
Putsch collapsed. Hitler was arrested and sentenced to five years in
prison. He only spent nine months in prison. During this time he
spent writing his autobiography, Mein Kampf which means My
Struggle. In it was a plan to conquer Europe and much of the
world. The failure of the Beer Hall Putsch taught Hitler that the
Nazi Party must use legal means to assume power. Hitler was
released as a result of general amnesty in December 1924.He then
rebuilt his party without interference from those whose government
he tried to overthrow. When the Great Depression struck in
1929,Hitler explained it as a Jewish-Communist plot. This was
accepted by many Germans. Hitler promised a strong Germany,
jobs, and national glory. He attracted millions of voters. Nazi
representation in the Reichstag, the German parliament, rose from
12 seats in 1928 to 107 seats in 1930.The Nazi Party was becoming
widespread and popular and was recognized as a legitimate party.
On January 30,1933,the president of Germany, Paul von
Hindenburg named Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany. Once in
power, Hitler quickly established himself as a dictator. Hitler
called his government the Third Reich. In 1933,Hitler s
government passed the Enabling Act which permitted Hitler s
government to make laws without the legislation. This act made the
legislation powerless. This act Nazified the country and banned all
political parties except his own. All the anti-Nazis were round up
and taken to concentration camps. To intimidate his opponents,
Hitler relied on jails, concentration camps, and his secret police,
the Gestapo. His armament drive wiped out unemployment. Hitler
grouped all the workers and employers into what was called the
German Labor Front. Hitler told the Germans that they were a
Master Race and they had the right to dominate all nations. He
also said the persecution of Jews was to insure this. Because of all
this Hitler successfully appealed to a Germany that was humiliated
by defeat in World War I and the Treaty of Versailles. After he
rearmed Germany, Hitler sent troops into the demilitarized
Rhineland in 1936.When the Spanish Civil War begun in July
1936,Hitler supported the Nationalist leader by supplying airplanes
and weapons. By doing this Hitler got to test his strategies
weapons. In October 1936, Hitler signed a pact with Italy s Fascist
leader Benito Mussolini. In November 1936, he signed a pact with
Japan. In 1940 Germany signed an alliance with Italy and Japan.
They would become known as the Axis Powers. In March 1938
Hitler s troops invaded Austria. It was then annexed and became
part of Germany. In September 1938, France, Great Britain, and
Germany met over the German occupation of the Sudentenland in
Czechoslovakia. Out of this came the Munich Pact which gave
Germany the Sudentenland in exchange for Germany s promise not
to take any additional Czech. terriotory. By March 1939, Hitler
brought the rest of Czechoslovakia under German control. In
August 1939, Germany signed a nonagression pact with the Soviet
Union. In this the two countries secretly divided up Poland. On
September 1,1939,Germany invaded Poland and overpowered it
quickly. This was known as a blitzkrieg. On September 3,1939,
France and Great Britain declared war on Germany. World War II
had begun. In the spring of 1940,Germany conquered Denmark,
Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Benito
Mussolini, Italy s dictator, declared war on France and Britain on
June 10,1940.When the defeat of France seemed certain. On June
22,1940,France signed an armistice with Germany. The defeat of
Britain was avoided by the British Royal Air Force which
defended the Luftwaffe, the German air force. In June 1941,
Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Hitler believed that the war
would be brief and so he did not allow his troops to take provisions
for the winter. The German troops were successful at first and they
almost reached Moscow and St. Petersburg. But in December 1941
the Soviet armies counterattacked. Hitler severely underestimated
the size and strength of the Soviet Army. He also underestimated
the significance of the United States in the war, who had been
supplying the Soviet Union with supplies and reinforcements. The
Soviets wiped out the whole German army of 300,000 men. This
German defeat was a major turning point in the war. While his
empire lasted, Hitler directed the storm troopers, Nazi officials, and
members of the army and civil service in a campaign of mass
slaughter. In 1942,Hitler met with high Reich officials to create the
final solution to world Jewry. The Germans began building large
extermination camps to accompany the concentration camps.
Endless trains took millions of Jews, to these camps, seriously
interfering with the war effort. Six million Jews, over two-thirds of
the Jews of Europe, were murdered in these camps. This became
known as the Holocaust. More than 3 million Soviet prisoners of
war were starved and worked to death. Hitler s victims also
included large numbers of Gypsies, Poles, Slavs, Jehovah s
Witnesses, priests and ministers, mental patients, and Communists
and other political opponents. As passed and defeat became more
likely, Hitler refused to surrender. Anti-Germans and anti-Nazis
had tried since 1938 to kill Hitler and overthrow the Nazis. But
repeated plots failed. On July 20,1944,Hitler narrowly escaped
death when a German Army officer placed a bomb in Hitler s
briefing room. Early in 1945 the Allies marched into the heart of
Germany against dwindling opposition. By April 1945, Hitler had
become a broken man. His head, hands, and feet trembled and he
was tortured by stomach cramps. On April 29,1945, Hitler married
Eva Braun, his mistress since the 1930 s.On April 30,1945, Adolf
Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in his underground bunker
under the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Aides burned there bodies.
On May 8,1945, Germany surrendered. Adolf Hitler was
successful only because many Germans were willing to be led. His
impact was destructive and nothing of what he instituted and built
survived.