The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich Essay, Research Paper

The Nazi party affected many people around the world through both the Holocaust and World War II. Hitler had a plan to exterminate all the Jews, and propelled this idea through the Holocaust putting Jews in concentration camps and killing them. Hitler’s evil plan caused one of the world’s biggest tragedies, World War II.

Adolf Hitler, who was the leader of the Nazis, was born in Austria just across the border from German Bavaria. Hitler would begin to read his fathers history books about Native Americans and how they were slaughtered along with reading about battles between the Germans and Russians. This would make him familiar to racism at an early age. Hitler did not get along with his father when he was young because his father wanted him to get into politics and he like drawing instead, but he still got into art and the reason he started to hate Jews is because he could not sell his artwork but the Jews did (Shirer 3-14).

Hitler still did business with Jewish shop owners in selling his paintings, however, the seeds of hate were planted and would be nurtured by events soon to come, laying the foundation for one of the greatest tragedies in all of human history. Adolf became a drifter for several years after both his parents passed away. Hitler volunteered for the German Army and in his first engagement against the British and Belgians near Pyres, 2,500of the 3,000 men in Hitler’s regiment were killed, wounded or missing. This war experience gave Hitler what he needed to one day be a successful military leader. Adolf Hitler joined the committee of the German Workers’ Party and entered politics. In the summer of 1920 Hitler chose the swastika for the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, for short Nazi.

At what is known as The Beer Hall Putsch a man by the name Kahr was giving a speech in front of some 3,000 supporters of the Bavarian government. Hitler shot his pistol in the middle of Kahr’s speech and shouted, “The national revolution has begun.” The “revolution” began when Hitler lied to the people saying the Bavarian Trumimvirate (Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser) had joined forces with him. When the people applauded the Bavarian Truimvirate joined him (Shirer 35).

By the summer of 1923, the Nazi party had grown to 150,000 members. Hitler knew this was the right time to take over the government. On November 11,1923, Hitler and his 3,000 men marched to Berlin in an attempt to take it over. The German police were waiting. This was also part of the Beer hall Putsch. Shooting broke out between the two parties. Sixteen Nazis and three policemen laid dead from this massacre. Hitler was sentenced for high treason for 5 years. While he was in prison he wrote Mein Kamp a book that stated his beliefs, and his plan for Germany in the future. He also talked about the superiority of Germans, the concept of the pure-Aryan. He blamed the Jews for the evils of the world and accused them of corrupting everything of ethical and national value.

Hitler was freed about nine months after his trial. He left prison to find out that the Nazi party had been outlawed. Unemployment was widespread, food was scarce and inflation was bad.

Hitler, however, found a way to please the people of Germany, and after the rebuilding of his Nazi dynasty he was back in the race for the dictatorship of Germany. Hitler despised and overthrew all the other political parties, and the Nazis became the strongest political party. “At midday on January 30, 1933, Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor. By nightfall the streets were filled with processions of torch-bearing cheering Nazis” (Procktor 55).

In 1938 Germany invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia to free German minority and really begin Hitler’s plan of world domination. Also in 1938 the Holocaust had begun when the Jews were being attacked and arrested. Hitler’s plan of the master race begins, and the foundation for war has been built (Denny). In 1939 the Nazis proceeded toward the plan to exterminate all Jews. Italy and Japan joined the Axis and Germany then went and defeated Poland and five days later planned an attack on France.

In 1941 Japan bombed Pearl Harbor bringing the United States into the war. The allies were slowly defeating Hitler by stopping him with his pursuit in the Soviet Union, and defeating him at the big Battle of Bulge. The Allies then began to invade Europe through Italy. They conquered Sicily and Italy changed alliances, switching from axis support to ally support. The turning point in the war came on June 6, 1944 when the Allies launched an invasion code-named D-Day on Normandy, France. The Allied forces pushed the Germans east as the Soviet Union pushed German troops west. The two sides met at Berlin where Germany was forced to surrender (Denny). The Japanese were able to continue to hold off allied forces. Truman decided to end the war against Japan quickly and decisively with the use of the United State’s secret weapon, the atomic bomb. Bombs were dropped on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing 120,000 nearly instantly. Surprised at these horrors, Emperor Hirohito surrendered on September 2, 1945.

Overall, over 40 million people were killed in the war (Denny).

The allies made a half dozen attempts to kill Hitler. After several attempts Hitler ended his own life when the allies were invading (Shirer 1015). On April 30, 1945, Hitler shot himself in the mouth and was found dead along with Eva Braun, his wife. His remains were placed in a shell hole with gasoline and burned. “The army of the Third Reich was a failure. Certainly it won many victories: it conquered Poland in 27 days, Denmark in one, Norway in twenty-three, Holland in five, Belgium in eighteen, France in thirty-nine, Yugoslavia in twelve and Greece in twenty-one” (Cooper VII). From both the Holocaust and the war, the world has never been the same since World War II. Hitler’s Reich was over and millions of Jews were dead from this attempt to have a superior race. Hopefully the world and everyone in it has learned a very valuable lesson from this terrible thing that was done to all mankind.