Hitler Essays - Adolf Hitler, Chancellors Of Germany, Hitler Family

Hitler Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945) Early Years Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, the son of a minor customs official and a peasant girl. A poor student, he never completed high school. He applied for admission to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna twice but was rejected for lack of talent. Staying in Vienna until 1913, he lived first on an orphan's pension, later on small earnings from pictures he drew. He read voraciously, developing anti-Jewish and antidemocratic convictions, an admiration for the outstanding individual, and a contempt for the masses. In World War I (1914-1918), Hitler, by then in Munich, volunteered for service in the Bavarian army. He proved a dedicated, courageous soldier, but was never promoted beyond private first class because his superiors thought him lacking in leadership qualities. After Germany's defeat in 1918 he returned to Munich, remaining in the army until 1920. His commander made him an education officer, with the mandate to immunize his charges against pacifist and democratic ideas. In September 1919 he joined the nationalist German Workers' Party, and in April 1920 he went to work full time for the party, now renamed the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party. In 1921 he was elected party chairman (F?hrer) with dictatorial powers. Rise to Power Hitler spread his gospel of racial hatred and contempt for democracy. He organized meetings, and terrorized political foes with his personal bodyguard force, the Sturmabteilung (SA, or Storm Troopers). He soon became a key figure in Bavarian politics, aided by high officials and businessmen. In November 1923, a time of political and economic chaos, he led an uprising (Putsch) in Munich against the postwar Weimar Republic, proclaiming himself chancellor of a new authoritarian regime. Without military support, however, the Putsch collapsed. As leader of the plot, Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment and served nine months, which he spent dictating his autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle). The failure of the uprising taught Hitler that the Nazi Party must use legal means to assume power. Released as a result of a general amnesty in December 1924, he rebuilt his party without interference from those whose government he had tried to overthrow. When the Great Depression struck in 1929, he explained it as a Jewish-Communist plot, an explanation accepted by many Germans. Promising a strong Germany, jobs, and national glory, he attracted millions of voters. Nazi representation in the Reichstag (parliament) rose from 12 seats in 1928 to 107 in 1930. During the following two years the party kept expanding, benefiting from growing unemployment, fear of Communism, Hitler's self-certainty, and the diffidence of his political rivals. Nevertheless, when Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933, he was expected to be an easily controlled tool of big business. Germany's Dictator Once in power, however, Hitler quickly established himself as a dictator. A subservient legislature passed the Enabling Act that permitted Hitler's government to make laws without the legislature. The act effectively made the legislature powerless. Hitler used the act to Nazify the bureaucracy and the judiciary, replace all labor unions with one Nazi-controlled German Labor Front, and ban all political parties except his own. The economy, the media, and all cultural activities were brought under Nazi authority by making an individual's livelihood dependent on his or her political loyalty. Thousands of anti-Nazis were taken to concentration camps and all signs of dissent suppressed. Hitler relied on his secret police, the Gestapo, and on jails and camps to intimidate his opponents, but many Germans supported him enthusiastically. His armament drive wiped out unemployment, an ambitious recreational program attracted workers and employees, and his foreign policy successes impressed the nation. He thus managed to build support among the German people; he needed their support to establish German rule over Europe and other parts of the world. Discrediting the churches with charges of corruption and immorality, he imposed his own brutal moral code. He derided the concept of human equality and claimed racial superiority for the Aryans, of which he said the Germans were the highest form. As the master race, they were told, they had the right to dominate all nations they subjected. The increasingly ruthless persecution of the Jews was to inure the Germans to this task. Hitler successfully appealed to a Germany that was humiliated by defeat in World War I and the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. Many Germans, and even other Europeans, believed that the terms of the treaty were too harsh, and Hitler was successful in defying some of them. His efforts to rearm Germany in 1935 met with little protest from other European