Adolf Hitler Essay, Research Paper
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Founder and leader of Nazi Party, Head of State and Commander of the Armed Forces, Adolf Hitler was born in Austria on April 20, 1889. Hitler was born to Austrian customs officials, Alois Schickelgruber Hitler, and his third wife, Klara Poelzl, both from Austria. Hitler was a resentful and discontent child who was moody, lazy, and having a short temper. As a young man Hitler was very hostile towards his father and strongly attached to his mother, whose death from cancer in December of 1908 really had a big impact on his life.
After spending about four years in the Realschule in Linz, he dropped out at sixteen years of age with intentions on becoming a painter. In October of 1907 Hitler left home and headed to Vienna, where he was to lead the bohemian, vagabond existence until 1913. The Viennese Academy of Fine Arts rejected him and he spent five years of misery in Vienna as he later recalled. Hitler’s views didn’t change much within the years he still had a very strong hatred towards Jews and Marxists.
In Vienna he received his first education in politics by studying the techniques of the popular Christian Mayor, and Karl Lueger, where he picked up stereotyped, obsessive anti-Semitism with it’s brutal, violent sexual connotations and concern with the purity of blood. From Georg von Schoenerer, Lanz von Liebenfels, and the Austrian Pan German leader, Hitler learned to discern in the Eternal Jew, the symbol and cause of all chaos and corruption in politics, and the economy.
In May 1913 Hitler left Vienna for Munich. When war broke out in August 1914, Hitler joined the Sixteenth Bavarian Infantry Regiment, serving as a dispatch runner. Hitler proved to be a courageous soldier, and received an Iron Cross for bravery, however he never got past Lance Corporal in ranking. He was injured a couple times, and then badly gassed four weeks before the end of the war. He spent three months recuperating in the hospital, temporarily blind.
In July of 1921 Hitler then discovered a powerful talent and developed a party, which he gave the swastika as a symbol. His hoarse, awful voice, for all his humorless speeches dominated audiences. By November 1921 Hitler had to hire armed squads to keep his meeting organized. Out of these squads grew the storm troopers run by Captain Ernst Rohm and Hitler’s bodyguard, the Schutzstaffel.
By February 24, 1920 Hitler announced the exclusion of the Jews from the folk community, saying that the Aryan race was the supreme race. Hitler’s first written words on political questions emphasized that what he called the anti-Semitism of reason leads to eliminating Jews privileges. It’s ultimate goal to totally remove Jews.
By November 1923 Hitler was convinced that Weimar Republic was almost ready to collapse and, himself along with General Ludendorff and other groups, try to overthrow the Bavarian government in Munich. He ran into a bar, shot his gun, and yelled to everyone that he was leading a new government. Hitler and Lundendorff then marched through Munich ahead of 3,000 men; police stopped them after leaving sixteen dead. Hitler was arrested and tried on February 26, 1924. He tried to turn the tables of coarse and was only sentenced to five years imprisonment in Landsberg fortress. Hitler was released after only nine months, in that time he wrote Mein Kampf. Known as the ‘bible’ of the Nazi Party, this terrible, crude book has sold over five million copies by 1939 and was put into eleven languages.
In January 1925 the ban on the Nazi Party was removed and Hitler regained permission to speak in front of the public. Hitler reestablished himself in 1926 as the ultimate arbiter. The Nazi Party won only twelve seats in the 1928 elections, the onset of the great depression with devastating effects on the middle classes helped Hitler to win over the German society. In the 1930 elections the Nazi vote jumped dramatically from 810,000 to 6,409,000. (18.3% of total voters)
In February of 1932 Hitler officially acquired German citizenship and decided to run for president. He lost by almost six million votes. Then on January 30, of 1933 he ran and was nominated as Reich Chancellor. Once he started he abolished free trade unions, and eliminated social democrats, communists and Jews from any role in political life,
When Ernst Rohm dies in June of 1934, Hitler became dictator of the third Reich. Then when Hidenburg was killed, Hitler had all the power of state in his hands. Avoiding any authority, which could challenge his own undisputed positions supreme arbiter.
During the next four years Hitler had many successes. In 1935 he abandoned the Versailles Treaty and began to build his own army having five times as many people as he was supposed to. He had persuaded Great Britain to give an increase in the naval building program and in March of 1936 used land not issued to him. He started building up supplies to help forces in Spain, which lead to the Spanish fascist victory in 1939.
Hitler got the British and French tricked into the Munich agreement in 1938 and the dismantling of state in March 1939. The concentration camps, the laws against Jews, and the persecution of those who attended church cause many blood victories. Hitler’s next target was Poland, so to avoid a war he made a pact with Soviet Russia. On September 1, 1939 German armies invaded Poland his many enemies to secure Germany’s living space.
The first part of World War 2 was won by Germans: using sudden attacks and good armor Poland was overrun in nineteen days, Denmark and Norway in two months, Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg and France in six weeks. And after France fell in June 1940 only Great Britain stood firm. The battle of Britain was Hitler’s first set back, causing the attack on the British to be postponed. Hitler then turned to the Balkans and North Africa where his Italia allies had suffered defeats. Hitler then went on to overrun Greece, Yugoslavia, the island of Crete and drove the British away.
An important decision in Hitler’s career was the invasion of Soviet Russia in June of 1941. He rationalized this seeing that it would end the war. The war was to be an anti Jew crusade, and a war of annihilation. By January of 1939 Hitler declared that if the financial Jewry outside Europe grew once more he would wipe the Jews out of Europe. By 1941 he had failed to do so and the numbers began to rise.
At first German armies carried all before them, they had overrun so much territory they were in striking distance of Moscow. Within a few months of the invasion armies had reached from the Atlantic to the Caucasus, and from the Baltic to the Black sea. However the Soviet Union did not collapse. In October of 1941 when Hitler said the Soviet Union would never rise back up. In reality Hitler soon found out he had over looked a few things.
In December of 1941 Hitler dismissed six important members of his army. Then giving him all the military power. As Hitler then being his stubborn self failed to comply with the Middle East, the Italians, and the Russians, so they pushed him to his defense. By the winter of 1941 it was clear Hitler had no chance, however he kept on hoping he could make up for the resources and make a better strategy.
Hitler Knowing his staff was weak, if not disastrous. Hitler became more prone to out bursts, and his health began to deteriorate because of the drugs his doctor had prescribed him. By Hitler’s isolation, and rare public appearance, the German defeat became clear in 1942.
Allies began bombing Germany, starting to greatly effect Germany. By July of 1944 the Generals all frustrated with Hitler planned there own anti nazi army, hoping to pave a negotiation with the allies. The plot failed and Hitler order all of them to death, they were all executed and Hitler made a film of it.
Disaster get creeping closer, Hitler hoped his secret weapons would not be found. He had a V-1 and a V-2 rocket, which he had planned to use for an attack. By 1945 Hitler ordered the destruction of the rest of Germany. He had decided if he didn’t get to survive no one could. He left over six million Jews in concentration camps, then turned on his own people as well.
On April 29,of 1945 Hitler married his wife Eva Braun. The following day Hitler committed suicide, shooting himself through his mouth with a pistol. His body was carried to a the garden of Reich Chancellery, covered with petrol and burned along with his wife. This last act of destruction symbolized the career of this awful man whose main goal was to ruin civilization, with human sacrifices for the sake of power.