Adolf Hitler(1889-1945)
- Self
Born the fourth of six children to Austrian customs officer Alois
Hitler--who had been married twice before--and the former Klara Polzl,
Adolf Hitler grew up in a small Austrian town in the late 19th century.
He was a slow learner and did poorly in school. He was frequently
beaten by his authoritarian father. Things got worse when Adolf's older
brother, Alois Jr., ran away from home. His mild-mannered mother
occasionally tried to shield him, but was ineffectual. Adolf's attempt
to run away at 11 was unsuccessful. At the age of 14 he was freed when
his hated father died - an event that he did not mourn.
Hitler dropped out of high school at age 16 and went to Vienna, where
he strove to become an artist, but was refused twice by the Vienna Art
Academy. By this time Hitler had become an ardent German
nationalist--although he was not German but Austrian--and when World War
I broke out, he crossed into Germany and joined a Bavarian regiment
in the German army. He was assigned as a message runner but also saw
combat. Temporarily blinded after a gas attack in Flanders in 1918, he
received the Iron Cross 2nd Class and was promoted from private to
corporal. In 1918, when the war ended, Hitler stayed in the army and
was posted to the Intelligence division. He was assigned to spy on
several radical political parties that were considered a threat to the
German government. One such organization was the German Workers' Party.
Hitler was drawn by party founder Dietrich Eckart, a morphine addict
who propagated doctrines of mysticism and anti-Semitism. Hitler soon
joined the party with the help of his military intelligence ties. He
became party spokesman in 1919, renamed it the National Socalist German
Workers Party (NSDAP/NAZI) and declared himself its Führer (leader) one
year later. In 1920 Hitler's intelligence handler, Munich-based colonel
named Karl Haushofer, introduced the swastika insignia. In 1921
Haushofer founded the paramilitary Storm Troopers ("Sturmabteilung", or
SA), composed of German veterans of WWI and undercover military
intelligence officers. They helped Hitler to organize a coup
attempt--the infamous "beer hall putsch"--against the Bavarian
government in Munich in 1923, but it failed. The "rebels" marched on
Munich's city hall, which was cordoned off by police. Hitler's men
fired at the police and missed; the police fired back and didn't,
resulting in several of Hitler's fellow Nazis being shot dead. Hitler
himself was arrested, convicted of treason and sent to prison. During
his prison time he was coached by his advisers and dictated his book
"Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle") to his deputy
Rudolf Hess. He only served several months
in prison before being released. By 1925 the Nazi party was in much
better straits both organizationally and financially, as it had secured
the backing of a large group of wealthy conservative German
industrialists, who funneled huge amounts of money into the
organization. Hitler was provided with a personal bodyguard unit named
the "Schutzstaffel", better known as the SS. The Nazis began to gain
considerable support in Germany through their network of army and WWI
veterans, and Hitler ran for President in 1931. Defeated by the
incumbent Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler next attempted to become Chancellor of Germany. Through under-the-table deals with powerful conservative businessmen and right-wing politicians, Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January 1933. One month later, a mysterious fire--which the Nazis claimed had been started by "terrorists" but was later discovered to have been set by the Nazis themselves--destroyed the Reichstag (the building housing the German parliament). Then Hitler's machine began to issue a series of emergency decrees that gave the office of Chancellor more and more power.
In March of 1933 Hitler persuaded the German parliament to pass the
Enabling Act, which made the Chancellor dictator of Germany and gave
him more power than the President. Two months later Hitler began
"cleaning house"; he abolished trade unions and ordered mass arrests of
members of rival political groups. By the end of 1933 the Nazi Party
was the only one allowed in Germany. In June of 1934 Hitler turned on
his own and ordered the purge of the now radical SA--that he now saw as
a potential threat to his power--which was led by one of his oldest
friends, a thug and street brawler named
Ernst Röhm. Röhm's ties to Hitler counted for
nothing, as Hitler ordered him assassinated. Soon President Hindenburg
died, and Hitler merged the office of President with the office of
Chancellor. In 1935 the anti-Jewish Nuremburg laws were passed on
Hitler's authorization. A year later, with Germany now under his total
control, he sent troops into the Rhineland, which was a violation of
the World War I Treaty of Versailles. In 1938 he forced the union of
Austria with Germany and also took the Sudetenland, a region of
Czechoslovakia near the German border with a large ethnic German
population, on the pretext of "protecting" the German population from
the Czechs. In March 1939 Hitler overran the rest of Czechoslovakia. On 23 August 1939 Hitler and Joseph Stalin made a non-aggression treaty. In September of 1939 Hitler and Stalin invaded Poland. France and the British Commonwealth and Empire declared war on Germany. In 1940 Germany occupied Denmark, Norway and the Low Countries, and launched a major offensive against France. Paris fell and France surrendered, after which Hitler considered invading the UK. However, after the German Air Force was defeated in the Battle of Britain, the invasion was canceled. The British had begun bombing German cities in May 1940, and four months later Hitler retaliated by ordering the Blitz. In 1941 German troops assisted Italy, which under dictator Benito Mussolini was a German ally, in its takeover of Yugoslavia and Greece. Meanwhile, in Germany and the occupied countries, a program of mass extermination
of Jews had begun.
On June 22, 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union. In addition
to more than 4,000,000 German troops, there were additional forces from
German allies Romania, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Spain
and Finland, among others. Hitler used multinational forces in order to
save Germans for the future colonization of the Russian lands.
Following the detailed Nazi plan, code-named "Barbarossa," Hitler was
utilizing resources of entire Europe under Nazi control to feed the
invasion of Russia. Three groups of Nazi armies invaded Russia: Army
Group North besieged Leningrad for 900 days, Army Group Center reached
Moscow and Army Group South occupied Ukraine, reached Caucasus and
Stalingrad. After a series of initial successes, however, the German
Armies were stopped at Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad. Leningrad was
besieged by the Nazis for 900 days until the city of 4,000,000
virtually starved itself to death. Only in January of 1944 was Marshal
Georgi Zhukov able to finally defeat the
German forces and liberate the city, finally lifting the siege after a
cost of some 2,000,000 lives. In 1943 several major battles occurred at
Kursk (which became the largest tank battle in history), Kharkov and
Stalingrad, all of which the Germans lost. The battle for Stalingrad
was one of the largest in the history of mankind. At Stalingrad alone
the Germans lost 360,000 troops, in addition to the losses suffered by
Italian, Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, Croatian and other forces, but the
Russians lost over one million men. By 1944--the same year the Western
allies invaded occupied Europe--Germany was retreating on both fronts
and its forces in Africa had been completely defeated, resulting in the
deaths and/or surrender of several hundred thousand troops. Total human
losses during the six years of war were estimated at 60,000,000, of
which 27,000,000 were Russians, Ukrainians, Jews and other people in
Soviet territory. Germany lost over 11,000,000 soldiers and civilians.
Poland and Yugoslavia lost over 3,000,000 people each. Italy and France
lost over 1,000,000 each. Most nations of Central and Eastern Europe
suffered severe--and in some cases total--economic destruction.
Hitler's ability to act as a figurehead of the Nazi machine was long
gone by late 1944. Many of his closest advisers and handlers
had already fled to other countries, been imprisoned and/or executed by
the SS for offenses both real--several assassination attempts on
Hitler--and imagined, or had otherwise absented themselves from
Hitler's inner circle. For many years Hitler was kept on drugs by his
medical personnel. In 1944 a group of German army officers and
civilians pulled off an almost successful assassination attempt on
Hitler, but he survived. Hitler, by the beginning of 1945, was a frail,
shaken man who had almost totally lost touch with reality. The Russians
reached Berlin in April of that year and began a punishing assault on
the city. As their forces approached the bunker where Hitler and the
last vestiges of his government were holed up, Hitler killed himself.
Just a day earlier he had married his longtime mistress
Eva Braun. Hitler's corpse was taken
to Moscow and later shown to Allied Army Commanders and diplomats.
Joseph Stalin showed Hitler's personal
items to Winston Churchill and
Harry S. Truman at the Potsdam
Conference after the victory. Hitler's personal gun was donated to the
museum of the West Point Military Academy in New York. Some of his
personal items are now part of the permanent collection at the National
History Museum in Moscow, Russia.
Hitler--who had been married twice before--and the former Klara Polzl,
Adolf Hitler grew up in a small Austrian town in the late 19th century.
He was a slow learner and did poorly in school. He was frequently
beaten by his authoritarian father. Things got worse when Adolf's older
brother, Alois Jr., ran away from home. His mild-mannered mother
occasionally tried to shield him, but was ineffectual. Adolf's attempt
to run away at 11 was unsuccessful. At the age of 14 he was freed when
his hated father died - an event that he did not mourn.
Hitler dropped out of high school at age 16 and went to Vienna, where
he strove to become an artist, but was refused twice by the Vienna Art
Academy. By this time Hitler had become an ardent German
nationalist--although he was not German but Austrian--and when World War
I broke out, he crossed into Germany and joined a Bavarian regiment
in the German army. He was assigned as a message runner but also saw
combat. Temporarily blinded after a gas attack in Flanders in 1918, he
received the Iron Cross 2nd Class and was promoted from private to
corporal. In 1918, when the war ended, Hitler stayed in the army and
was posted to the Intelligence division. He was assigned to spy on
several radical political parties that were considered a threat to the
German government. One such organization was the German Workers' Party.
Hitler was drawn by party founder Dietrich Eckart, a morphine addict
who propagated doctrines of mysticism and anti-Semitism. Hitler soon
joined the party with the help of his military intelligence ties. He
became party spokesman in 1919, renamed it the National Socalist German
Workers Party (NSDAP/NAZI) and declared himself its Führer (leader) one
year later. In 1920 Hitler's intelligence handler, Munich-based colonel
named Karl Haushofer, introduced the swastika insignia. In 1921
Haushofer founded the paramilitary Storm Troopers ("Sturmabteilung", or
SA), composed of German veterans of WWI and undercover military
intelligence officers. They helped Hitler to organize a coup
attempt--the infamous "beer hall putsch"--against the Bavarian
government in Munich in 1923, but it failed. The "rebels" marched on
Munich's city hall, which was cordoned off by police. Hitler's men
fired at the police and missed; the police fired back and didn't,
resulting in several of Hitler's fellow Nazis being shot dead. Hitler
himself was arrested, convicted of treason and sent to prison. During
his prison time he was coached by his advisers and dictated his book
"Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle") to his deputy
Rudolf Hess. He only served several months
in prison before being released. By 1925 the Nazi party was in much
better straits both organizationally and financially, as it had secured
the backing of a large group of wealthy conservative German
industrialists, who funneled huge amounts of money into the
organization. Hitler was provided with a personal bodyguard unit named
the "Schutzstaffel", better known as the SS. The Nazis began to gain
considerable support in Germany through their network of army and WWI
veterans, and Hitler ran for President in 1931. Defeated by the
incumbent Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler next attempted to become Chancellor of Germany. Through under-the-table deals with powerful conservative businessmen and right-wing politicians, Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January 1933. One month later, a mysterious fire--which the Nazis claimed had been started by "terrorists" but was later discovered to have been set by the Nazis themselves--destroyed the Reichstag (the building housing the German parliament). Then Hitler's machine began to issue a series of emergency decrees that gave the office of Chancellor more and more power.
In March of 1933 Hitler persuaded the German parliament to pass the
Enabling Act, which made the Chancellor dictator of Germany and gave
him more power than the President. Two months later Hitler began
"cleaning house"; he abolished trade unions and ordered mass arrests of
members of rival political groups. By the end of 1933 the Nazi Party
was the only one allowed in Germany. In June of 1934 Hitler turned on
his own and ordered the purge of the now radical SA--that he now saw as
a potential threat to his power--which was led by one of his oldest
friends, a thug and street brawler named
Ernst Röhm. Röhm's ties to Hitler counted for
nothing, as Hitler ordered him assassinated. Soon President Hindenburg
died, and Hitler merged the office of President with the office of
Chancellor. In 1935 the anti-Jewish Nuremburg laws were passed on
Hitler's authorization. A year later, with Germany now under his total
control, he sent troops into the Rhineland, which was a violation of
the World War I Treaty of Versailles. In 1938 he forced the union of
Austria with Germany and also took the Sudetenland, a region of
Czechoslovakia near the German border with a large ethnic German
population, on the pretext of "protecting" the German population from
the Czechs. In March 1939 Hitler overran the rest of Czechoslovakia. On 23 August 1939 Hitler and Joseph Stalin made a non-aggression treaty. In September of 1939 Hitler and Stalin invaded Poland. France and the British Commonwealth and Empire declared war on Germany. In 1940 Germany occupied Denmark, Norway and the Low Countries, and launched a major offensive against France. Paris fell and France surrendered, after which Hitler considered invading the UK. However, after the German Air Force was defeated in the Battle of Britain, the invasion was canceled. The British had begun bombing German cities in May 1940, and four months later Hitler retaliated by ordering the Blitz. In 1941 German troops assisted Italy, which under dictator Benito Mussolini was a German ally, in its takeover of Yugoslavia and Greece. Meanwhile, in Germany and the occupied countries, a program of mass extermination
of Jews had begun.
On June 22, 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union. In addition
to more than 4,000,000 German troops, there were additional forces from
German allies Romania, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Spain
and Finland, among others. Hitler used multinational forces in order to
save Germans for the future colonization of the Russian lands.
Following the detailed Nazi plan, code-named "Barbarossa," Hitler was
utilizing resources of entire Europe under Nazi control to feed the
invasion of Russia. Three groups of Nazi armies invaded Russia: Army
Group North besieged Leningrad for 900 days, Army Group Center reached
Moscow and Army Group South occupied Ukraine, reached Caucasus and
Stalingrad. After a series of initial successes, however, the German
Armies were stopped at Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad. Leningrad was
besieged by the Nazis for 900 days until the city of 4,000,000
virtually starved itself to death. Only in January of 1944 was Marshal
Georgi Zhukov able to finally defeat the
German forces and liberate the city, finally lifting the siege after a
cost of some 2,000,000 lives. In 1943 several major battles occurred at
Kursk (which became the largest tank battle in history), Kharkov and
Stalingrad, all of which the Germans lost. The battle for Stalingrad
was one of the largest in the history of mankind. At Stalingrad alone
the Germans lost 360,000 troops, in addition to the losses suffered by
Italian, Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, Croatian and other forces, but the
Russians lost over one million men. By 1944--the same year the Western
allies invaded occupied Europe--Germany was retreating on both fronts
and its forces in Africa had been completely defeated, resulting in the
deaths and/or surrender of several hundred thousand troops. Total human
losses during the six years of war were estimated at 60,000,000, of
which 27,000,000 were Russians, Ukrainians, Jews and other people in
Soviet territory. Germany lost over 11,000,000 soldiers and civilians.
Poland and Yugoslavia lost over 3,000,000 people each. Italy and France
lost over 1,000,000 each. Most nations of Central and Eastern Europe
suffered severe--and in some cases total--economic destruction.
Hitler's ability to act as a figurehead of the Nazi machine was long
gone by late 1944. Many of his closest advisers and handlers
had already fled to other countries, been imprisoned and/or executed by
the SS for offenses both real--several assassination attempts on
Hitler--and imagined, or had otherwise absented themselves from
Hitler's inner circle. For many years Hitler was kept on drugs by his
medical personnel. In 1944 a group of German army officers and
civilians pulled off an almost successful assassination attempt on
Hitler, but he survived. Hitler, by the beginning of 1945, was a frail,
shaken man who had almost totally lost touch with reality. The Russians
reached Berlin in April of that year and began a punishing assault on
the city. As their forces approached the bunker where Hitler and the
last vestiges of his government were holed up, Hitler killed himself.
Just a day earlier he had married his longtime mistress
Eva Braun. Hitler's corpse was taken
to Moscow and later shown to Allied Army Commanders and diplomats.
Joseph Stalin showed Hitler's personal
items to Winston Churchill and
Harry S. Truman at the Potsdam
Conference after the victory. Hitler's personal gun was donated to the
museum of the West Point Military Academy in New York. Some of his
personal items are now part of the permanent collection at the National
History Museum in Moscow, Russia.