The rise of Adolf Hitler to the position of dictator of Germany is the story of a ambition that plunged the world into the worst war in history. Only an army corporal in World War I, Hitler became Germany's chancellor 15 years later.
He was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau-am-Inn, Austria, of German descent. His father Alois was the illegitimate son of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. In middle age Alois took the name Hitler from his paternal grandfather. After two wives had died Alois married his foster daughter, Klara Poelzl, a Bavarian, 23 years younger than he. She became Adolf's mother.
While serving time in prison he wrote an autobiography 'Mein Kampf' (My Struggle) reveals his unstable early life. His father, a petty customs official, wanted the boy to study for a government position. But as young Hitler wrote later, "the thought of slaving in an office made me ill . . . not to be master of my own time." Passively defying his father, the self-willed boy filled most of his school hours with daydreams of becoming a painter. His one school interest was history, especially that of the Germans. When his teacher glorified Germany's role, "we would sit there enraptured and often on the verge of tears." From boyhood he was devoted to Wagner's operas that glorified the Teutons' dark and furious mythology. Failure dogged him. After his father's death, when Adolf was 13, he studied watercolor painting, but accomplished little. After his mother's death, when he was 19, he went to Vienna. There the Academy of Arts rejected him as untalented. Lacking business training, Hitler made a living as a laborer in the building trades and by painting cheap postcards. He often slept in parks and ate in free soup kitchens.
Hitler's hatred of poverty, his devotion to his German heritage, and his hatred of Jews combined to form the his political doctrine. In 1912, Hitler moved to Munich, a "true German town." There he drifted from job to job as carpenter, architect's draftsman, and watercolorist. Always talking about his political ideas. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he gave up his Austrian citizenship to enlist in the 16th Bavarian infantry regiment. He would not fight for Austria, "but I was ready to die at any time for my people the Germans." His first battle was the Ypres offensive of 1914 and in 1916 he was a "front fighter" against British tanks, rose to lance corporal, won the Iron Cross as dispatch runner, and was wounded. In 1917 he fought in the third battle of Ypres. The armistice found him in a hospital, temporarily blinded by mustard gas and suffering from shock. The news of Germany's defeat agonized him. He believed defeat had been caused by "enemies within," chiefly Jews and Communists.
Now no longer an Austrian citizen and not yet a German citizen, Hitler was now a man without a country. Bewildered, he remained in the army, stationed in Munich. Officers of the beaten German army, conspired to win back control. They maintained "informers," one of whom was Adolf Hitler. He was assigned to report on "subversive activities" in Munich's political parties.
In 1920 he became leader of the extreme right wing National Socialist German Workers' party, abbreviated to Nazi. Sneering at the liberal generalities of the various bourgeois parties and hating the Communists, Hitler shouted accusations against the Jews and cried out to the Germans to form an all-powerful national state. The flamboyant spirit of the growing Nazi party now began to attract the varied restless men who were to become its core. They all helped to persuade Communist-fearing German industrialists to give money to the party, for Hitler assured them that "we combat only Jewish international capital."
An established Munich journal, Volkischer Beobachter (National Observer) was bought to spread Nazi influence. For his followers Hitler adopted the ancient swastika (hooked cross) 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 overthrow the Bavarian Government. The attempt failed. Hitler was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years in prison. The Bavarian government commuted the term to eight months. While in prison, Hitler wrote his political testament 'Mein Kampf'. Emerging from prison in 1924, Hitler once again seemed destined to failure. The government had banned the Nazi party, and only a handful of the members clung together.
The years 1924-28 were prosperous for Germany, and revolutions do not flourish on prosperity. From 1925 to 1927 Hitler was even forbidden to speak publicly in either Bavaria or Saxony. Then a world-wide depression plunged Germany again into poverty and unemployment, and the Nazis began to gain votes. By 1930 Hitler had the support of many industrialists and the military caste. In 1933 President Paul von Hindenburg appointed him chancellor. Hitler became dictator and instigator of World War II. In 1939, he sent troops into Poland, part of the allied alliance led by Britain and France. Hilter’s partners in the axis alliance were Italy and Japan, both committing aggressive acts. Believing they were on the road to world conquest, in 1941 Hitler made himself Personal Commander of the Army and, in 1942, Supreme War Lord.
Hitler instituted a crackdown on the Jewish population. He and the Nazi’s made it impossible for the Jews to remain in the professions, businesses or universities in Germany. In 1942, the Nazi elite gathered in Potsdam to put the finishing touched on the plan called the “final solution”. This plan foresaw the killing of all Jews in the land controlled by Germany as well as handicapped and retarded people and all Gypies. In the death camps victims were led off to gas chambers or killed and then thrown into common ditches for graves. Six million Jew and about two million others died in this manner.
Nazi propaganda had made of Hitler a symbol of strength and national virtue. He had won German citizenship in 1930 only by the scheming of Nazi henchmen, yet he was hailed as the ideal German leader. Covering his cruel character, followers built a legend of his 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 ruined Reichschancellery. Hitler was declared dead officially Oct. 25, 1956, after his remains had been definitely identified.
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