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.