Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Hitler in 1937

Fhrer of Germany

In office
2 August 1934 30 April 1945

Preceded by

Paul von Hindenburg

(as President)

Succeeded by

Karl Dnitz
(as President)

Chancellor of Germany

In office
30 January 1933 30 April 1945

Paul von Hindenburg

President

Deputy

Franz von Papen

Position vacant

Preceded by

Kurt von Schleicher

Succeeded by

Joseph Goebbels
Reichsstatthalter of Prussia
In office
30 January 1933 30 January 1935

Prime Minister

Franz von Papen

Hermann Gring

Preceded by

Office created

Succeeded by

Office abolished
Personal details
20 April 1889

Born

Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary

30 April 1945 (aged 56)

Died

Berlin, Germany
Nationality

Austrian citizen until 7 April 1925[1]

German citizen after 25 February 1932

Political party

National Socialist German Workers' Party (19211945)

Other political

German Workers' Party (19201921)

affiliations
Spouse(s)

Eva Braun
(2930 April 1945)

Occupation

Politician, soldier, artist, writer

Religion

See: Religious views of Adolf Hitler

Signature

Military service
Allegiance

German Empire

Service/branch

Reichsheer

Years of service 19141918

Rank

Gefreiter

Unit

16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment

Battles/wars

World War I

Awards

Iron Cross First Class

Iron Cross Second Class

Wound Badge

Adolf Hitler (German: [adlf htl] (

listen);

20 April 1889 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-

born German politician and the leader of the Nazi Party(German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche
Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP); National Socialist German Workers Party). He was chancellor of Germany from
1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Fhrer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler was
at the centre of Nazi Germany, World War II in Europe, and the Holocaust.
Hitler was a decorated veteran of World War I. He joined the German Workers' Party (precursor of the
NSDAP) in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'tat in
Munich, known as the Beer Hall Putsch. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which
time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular
support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933,
he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on
the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism.
Hitler's aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe. To
this end, his foreign and domestic policies had the aim of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for
the Germanic people. He directed the rearmament of Germany and the invasion of Poland by
the Wehrmacht in September 1939, resulting in the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Under Hitler's
rule, in 1941 German forces and their European allies occupied most of Europe and North Africa. In
1943, Germany had been forced onto the defensive and suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the

final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time partner, Eva Braun.
On 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two committed suicide to avoid capture by the Red Army,
and their corpses were burned.
Hitler's aggressive foreign policy is considered the main cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe.
His antisemitic policies and racially motivated ideology resulted in the deaths of at least 5.5 million Jews,
and millions of other people deemed racially inferior.
Contents
[hide]

1 Early years

1.1 Ancestry

1.2 Childhood and education

1.3 Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich

1.4 World War I

2 Entry into politics

2.1 Beer Hall Putsch

2.2 Rebuilding the NSDAP

3 Rise to power

3.1 Brning administration

3.2 Appointment as chancellor

3.3 Reichstag fire and March elections

3.4 Day of Potsdam and the Enabling Act

3.5 Removal of remaining limits

4 Third Reich

4.1 Economy and culture

4.2 Rearmament and new alliances

5 World War II

5.1 Early diplomatic successes

5.1.1 Alliance with Japan

5.1.2 Austria and Czechoslovakia

5.2 Start of World War II

5.3 Path to defeat

5.4 Defeat and death

5.5 The Holocaust

6 Leadership style

7 Legacy

8 Religious views

9 Health

10 Family

11 Hitler in media

12 See also

13 Footnotes

14 References

14.1 Sources

15 External links

Early years
Ancestry
Hitler's father, Alois Hitler (18371903), was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. Because
the baptismal register did not show the name of Alois's father, Alois initially bore his mother's
surname, Schicklgruber. In 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Alois's mother, Maria Anna. After she
died in 1847 and Johann Georg Hiedler in 1856, Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedler's
brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler.[2] In 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed
by a priest before three witnesses to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Alois's father (recorded asGeorg
Hitler).[3][4] Upon being legitimised as the son of Georg Hitler at age 39, Alois assumed the
surname Hitler,[4] also spelled as Hiedler, Httler, or Huettler. Thus, the origin of the Hitler surname is
probably based on "one who lives in a hut" (Standard German Htte for hut) or on "shepherd" (Standard
German hten for to guard); alternatively, it may be derived from the Slavic words Hidlar or Hidlarcek.[5]
An alternative theory of Alois's paternity was advanced by Nazi official Hans Frank: it suggested that
Alois's mother had been employed as a housekeeper for a Jewish family in Graz and that the family's 19year-old son, Leopold Frankenberger, had fathered Alois.[6] However, no Frankenberger was registered
in Graz during that period, and no record of Leopold Frankenberger's existence has been
produced.[7] Historians therefore dismiss the claim that Alois's father was Jewish.[8][9]

Childhood and education

Adolf Hitler as an infant (c. 18891890)

Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 at the Gasthof zum Pommer, an inn located at Salzburger
Vorstadt 15, Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary, a town on the border with Bavaria, Germany.[10] He was
the fourth of six children to Alois Hitler and Klara Plzl (18601907). Hitler's older siblingsGustav, Ida,
and Ottodied in infancy.[11] When Hitler was three, the family moved to Passau, Germany.[12] There he
acquired the distinctive lower Bavarian dialect, rather than Austrian German, which marked his speech
all of his life.[13][14][15] In 1894 the family relocated to Leonding (near Linz), and in June 1895, Alois retired
to a small landholding at Hafeld, near Lambach, where he farmed and kept bees. Hitler attended
school in nearby Fischlham. Hitler became fixated on warfare after finding a picture book about
the Franco-Prussian War among his father's belongings.[16][17]
The move to Hafeld coincided with the onset of intense father-son conflicts caused by Hitler's refusal to
conform to the strict discipline of his school.[18] Alois Hitler's farming efforts at Hafeld ended in failure, and
in 1897 the family moved to Lambach. The eight-year-old Hitler took singing lessons, sang in the church
choir, and even considered becoming a priest.[19] In 1898 the family returned permanently to Leonding.
The death of his younger brother, Edmund, from measles on 2 February 1900 deeply affected Hitler. He
changed from being confident and outgoing and an excellent student, to a morose, detached, and sullen
boy who constantly fought with his father and teachers.[20]

Hitler's mother, Klara

Alois had made a successful career in the customs bureau and wanted his son to follow in his
footsteps.[21] Hitler later dramatised an episode from this period when his father took him to visit a
customs office, depicting it as an event that gave rise to an unforgiving antagonism between father and
son, who were both strong-willed.[22][23][24] Ignoring his son's desire to attend a classical high school and
become an artist, in September 1900 Alois sent Hitler to the Realschule in Linz.[25] (This was the same
high school that Adolf Eichmann would attend some 17 years later.)[26] Hitler rebelled against this
decision, and in Mein Kampf revealed that he did poorly in school, hoping that once his father saw "what
little progress I was making at the technical school he would let me devote myself to my dream". [27]
Like many Austrian Germans, Hitler began to develop German nationalist ideas from a young age.[28] He
expressed loyalty only to Germany, despising the declining Habsburg Monarchy and its rule over an
ethnically variegated empire.[29][30] Hitler and his friends used the German greeting "Heil", and sang the
German anthem "Deutschland ber Alles" instead of the Austrian Imperial anthem.[31]
After Alois' sudden death on 3 January 1903, Hitler's performance at school deteriorated. His mother
allowed him to quit in autumn 1905.[32] He enrolled at theRealschule in Steyr in September 1904; his
behaviour and performance showed some improvement.[33] In the autumn of 1905, after passing a repeat
and the final exam, Hitler left the school without any ambitions for further schooling or clear plans for a
career.[34]

Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich

The house in Leonding where Hitler spent his early adolescence (c. 1984)

From 1905, Hitler lived a bohemian life in Vienna, financed by orphan's benefits and support from his
mother. He worked as a casual labourer and eventually as a painter, selling watercolours. The Academy
of Fine Arts Vienna rejected him twice, in 1907 and 1908, because of his "unfitness for painting". The
director recommended that Hitler study architecture,[35] but he lacked the academic credentials.[36] On 21
December 1907, his mother died aged 47. After the Academy's second rejection, Hitler ran out of money.
In 1909 he lived in a homeless shelter, and by 1910, he had settled into a house for poor working men on
Meldemannstrae.[37] At the time Hitler lived there, Vienna was a hotbed of religious prejudice and
racism.[38] Fears of being overrun by immigrants from the East were widespread, and the populist
mayor, Karl Lueger, exploited the rhetoric of virulent antisemitism for political effect. Georg
Schnerer's pan-Germanic antisemitism had a strong following in the Mariahilf district, where Hitler
lived.[39] Hitler read local newspapers, such as the Deutsches Volksblatt, that fanned prejudice and
played on Christian fears of being swamped by an influx of eastern Jews.[40]Hostile to what he saw as
Catholic "Germanophobia", he developed an admiration for Martin Luther.[41]

The Alter Hof in Munich. Watercolour by Adolf Hitler, 1914

The origin and first expression of Hitler's antisemitism have been difficult to locate.[42] Hitler states in Mein
Kampf that he first became an antisemite in Vienna.[43] His close friend, August Kubizek, claimed that
Hitler was a "confirmed antisemite" before he left Linz.[44] Kubizek's account has been challenged by
historian Brigitte Hamann, who writes that Kubizek is the only person to have said that the young Hitler
was an antisemite.[45] Hamann also notes that no antisemitic remark has been documented from Hitler

during this period.[46] Historian Ian Kershaw suggests that if Hitler had made such remarks, they may
have gone unnoticed because of the prevailing antisemitism in Vienna at that time.[47] Several sources
provide strong evidence that Hitler had Jewish friends in his hostel and in other places in
Vienna.[48][49] Historian Richard J. Evans states that "historians now generally agree that his notorious,
murderous anti-Semitism emerged well after Germany's defeat [in World War I], as a product of the
paranoid 'stab-in-the-back' explanation for the catastrophe".[50]
Hitler received the final part of his father's estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich.[51] Historians believe
he left Vienna to evade conscription into the Austrian army.[52] Hitler later claimed that he did not wish to
serve the Habsburg Empire because of the mixture of "races" in its army.[51] After he was deemed unfit
for servicehe failed his physical exam in Salzburg on 5 February 1914he returned to Munich.[53]

World War I
Main article: Military career of Adolf Hitler
At the outbreak of World War I, Hitler was a resident of Munich and volunteered to serve in the Bavarian
Army as an Austrian citizen.[54] Posted to the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (1st Company of
the List Regiment),[55][54] he served as a dispatch runner on the Western Front in France and
Belgium,[56] spending nearly half his time well behind the front lines.[57][58] He was present at the First
Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, and the Battle of Passchendaele, and was
wounded at the Somme.[59]

Hitler (far right, seated) with his army comrades of the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (c. 19141918)

He was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in 1914.[59] Recommended
by Hugo Gutmann, he received the Iron Cross, First Class, on 4 August 1918,[60] a decoration rarely
awarded to one of Hitler's rank (Gefreiter). Hitler's post at regimental headquarters, providing frequent
interactions with senior officers, may have helped him receive this decoration.[61] Though his rewarded
actions may have been courageous, they were probably not highly exceptional.[62] He also received
the Black Wound Badge on 18 May 1918.[63]

During his service at the headquarters, Hitler pursued his artwork, drawing cartoons and instructions for
an army newspaper. During the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, he was wounded either in the
groin area[64] or the left thigh by a shell that had exploded in the dispatch runners' dugout.[65]Hitler spent
almost two months in the Red Cross hospital at Beelitz, returning to his regiment on 5 March 1917.[66] On
15 October 1918, he was temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack and was hospitalised
in Pasewalk.[67] While there, Hitler learnt of Germany's defeat,[68] andby his own accounton receiving
this news, he suffered a second bout of blindness.[69]

Adolf Hitler as a soldier during the First World War (19141918)

Hitler became embittered over the collapse of the war effort, and his ideological development began to
firmly take shape.[70] He described the war as "the greatest of all experiences", and was praised by his
commanding officers for his bravery.[71] The experience reinforced his passionate German patriotism and
he was shocked by Germany's capitulation in November 1918.[72] Like other German nationalists, he
believed in the Stab-in-the-back myth (Dolchstolegende), which claimed that the German army,
"undefeated in the field", had been "stabbed in the back" on the home front by civilian leaders and
Marxists, later dubbed the "November criminals".[73]
The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany must relinquish several of its territories
and demilitarise the Rhineland. The treaty imposed economic sanctions and levied heavy reparations on
the country. Many Germans perceived the treatyespecially Article 231, which declared Germany
responsible for the waras a humiliation.[74] The Versailles Treaty and the economic, social, and political
conditions in Germany after the war were later exploited by Hitler for political gains.[75]

Entry into politics

Main article: Adolf Hitler's political views

After World War I, Hitler returned to Munich.[76] Having no formal education and career prospects, he
tried to remain in the army for as long as possible.[77] In July 1919 he was
appointed Verbindungsmann (intelligence agent) of an Aufklrungskommando (reconnaissance
commando) of the Reichswehr, to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers'
Party (DAP). While monitoring the activities of the DAP, Hitler became attracted to the founder Anton
Drexler's antisemitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist, and anti-Marxist ideas.[78] Drexler favoured a strong active
government, a non-Jewish version of socialism, and solidarity among all members of society. Impressed
with Hitler's oratory skills, Drexler invited him to join the DAP. Hitler accepted on 12 September
1919,[79] becoming the party's 55th member.[80]

A copy of Adolf Hitler's German Workers' Party (DAP) membership card

At the DAP, Hitler met Dietrich Eckart, one of the party's founders and a member of the occult Thule
Society.[81] Eckart became Hitler's mentor, exchanging ideas with him and introducing him to a wide
range of people in Munich society.[82] To increase its appeal, the DAP changed its name to
the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party
NSDAP).[83] Hitler designed the party's banner of aswastika in a white circle on a red background.[84]
Hitler was discharged from the army in March 1920 and began working full-time for the NSDAP. In
February 1921already highly effective at speaking to large audienceshe spoke to a crowd of over
6,000 in Munich.[85] To publicise the meeting, two truckloads of party supporters drove around town
waving swastika flags and throwing leaflets. Hitler soon gained notoriety for his rowdy polemic speeches
against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians, and especially against Marxists and Jews.[86] At the time,
the NSDAP was centred in Munich, a major hotbed of anti-government German nationalists determined
to crush Marxism and undermine the Weimar Republic.[87]
In June 1921, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin, a mutiny broke out within the
NSDAP in Munich. Members of the its executive committee, some of whom considered Hitler to be too
overbearing, wanted to merge with the rival German Socialist Party (DSP).[88] Hitler returned to Munich
on 11 July and angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised his resignation would
mean the end of the party.[89] Hitler announced he would rejoin on the condition that he would replace

Drexler as party chairman, and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich.[90] The committee
agreed; he rejoined the party on 26 July as member 3,680. He still faced some opposition within the
NSDAP: Opponents of Hitler had Hermann Esser expelled from the party and they printed 3,000 copies
of a pamphlet attacking Hitler as a traitor to the party.[90][a] In the following days, Hitler spoke to several
packed houses and defended himself and Esser, to thunderous applause. His strategy proved
successful: at a general membership meeting, he was granted absolute powers as party chairman, with
only one nay vote cast.[91]
Hitler's vitriolic beer hall speeches began attracting regular audiences. He became adept at
using populist themes targeted at his audience, including the use of scapegoats who could be blamed for
the economic hardships of his listeners.[92][93][94] Historians have noted the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric
on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups. Kessel writes, "Overwhelmingly ... Germans speak
with mystification of Hitler's 'hypnotic' appeal. The word shows up again and again; Hitler is said to have
mesmerized the nation, captured them in a trance from which they could not break
loose".[95] Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper described "the fascination of those eyes, which had bewitched so
many seemingly sober men".[96] He used his personal magnetism and an understanding of crowd
psychology to his advantage while engaged in public speaking.[97][98] Alfons Heck, a former member of
the Hitler Youth, describes the reaction to a speech by Hitler: "We erupted into a frenzy of nationalistic
pride that bordered on hysteria. For minutes on end, we shouted at the top of our lungs, with tears
streaming down our faces: Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil! From that moment on, I belonged to Adolf
Hitler body and soul".[99] Although his oratory skills and personal traits were generally received well by
large crowds and at official events, some who had met Hitler privately noted that his appearance and
demeanour failed to make a lasting impression.[100][101]
Early followers included Rudolf Hess, former air force pilot Hermann Gring, and army captain Ernst
Rhm. Rhm became head of the Nazis' paramilitary organisation, the Sturmabteilung (SA,
"Stormtroopers"), which protected meetings and frequently attacked political opponents. A critical
influence on his thinking during this period was the Aufbau Vereinigung,[102] a conspiratorial group
of White Russian exiles and early National Socialists. The group, financed with funds channelled from
wealthy industrialists like Henry Ford, introduced Hitler to the idea of a Jewish conspiracy, linking
international finance with Bolshevism.[103]

Beer Hall Putsch

Main article: Beer Hall Putsch
Hitler enlisted the help of World War I General Erich Ludendorff for an attempted coup known as the
"Beer Hall Putsch". The Nazi Party used Italian Fascism as a model for their appearance and policies.
Hitler wanted to emulate Benito Mussolini's "March on Rome" (1922) by staging his own coup in Bavaria,

to be followed by challenging the government in Berlin. Hitler and Ludendorff sought the support
of Staatskommissar (state commissioner) Gustav von Kahr, Bavaria's de facto ruler. However, Kahr,
along with Police Chief Hans Ritter von Seisser (Seier) and Reichswehr General Otto von Lossow,
wanted to install a nationalist dictatorship without Hitler.[104]
Hitler wanted to seize a critical moment for successful popular agitation and support.[105] On 8 November
1923 he and the SA stormed a public meeting of 3,000 people that had been organised by Kahr in
the Brgerbrukeller, a large beer hall in Munich. Hitler interrupted Kahr's speech and announced that
the national revolution had begun, declaring the formation of a new government with
Ludendorff.[106] Retiring to a backroom, Hitler, with handgun drawn, demanded and got the support of
Kahr, Seisser, and Lossow.[106] Hitler's forces initially succeeded in occupying the local Reichswehr and
police headquarters; however, Kahr and his consorts quickly withdrew their support and neither the army
nor the state police joined forces with him.[107] The next day, Hitler and his followers marched from the
beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry to overthrow the Bavarian government, but police dispersed
them.[108] Sixteen NSDAP members and four police officers were killed in the failed coup.[109]

Dust jacket of Mein Kampf (19261927)

Hitler fled to the home of Ernst Hanfstaengl, and by some accounts contemplated suicide.[110] He was
depressed but calm when arrested on 11 November 1923 for high treason.[111] His trial began in February
1924 before the special People's Court in Munich,[112] and Alfred Rosenberg became temporary leader of
the NSDAP. On 1 April Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison.[113] He
received friendly treatment from the guards; he was allowed mail from supporters and regular visits by
party comrades. The Bavarian Supreme Court issued a pardon and he was released from jail on 20
December 1924, against the state prosecutor's objections.[114] Including time on remand, Hitler had
served just over one year in prison.[115]
While at Landsberg, Hitler dictated most of the first volume of Mein Kampf (My Struggle; originally
entitled Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice) to his deputy, Rudolf

Hess.[115] The book, dedicated to Thule Society member Dietrich Eckart, was an autobiography and an
exposition of his ideology. Mein Kampf was influenced by The Passing of the Great Race by Madison
Grant, which Hitler called "my Bible".[116]The book laid out Hitler's plans for transforming German society
into one based on race. Some passages implied genocide.[117] Published in two volumes in 1925 and
1926, it sold 228,000 copies between 1925 and 1932. One million copies were sold in 1933, Hitler's first
year in office.[118]

Rebuilding the NSDAP

At the time of Hitler's release from prison, politics in Germany had become less combative and the
economy had improved, limiting Hitler's opportunities for political agitation. As a result of the failed Beer
Hall Putsch, the NSDAP and its affiliated organisations were banned in Bavaria. In a meeting with Prime
Minister of Bavaria Heinrich Held on 4 January 1925, Hitler agreed to respect the authority of the state:
he would only seek political power through the democratic process. The meeting paved the way for the
ban on the NSDAP to be lifted.[119] However, Hitler was barred from public speaking,[120] a ban that
remained in place until 1927.[121] To advance his political ambitions in spite of the ban, Hitler
appointed Gregor Strasser,Otto Strasser, and Joseph Goebbels to organise and grow the NSDAP in
northern Germany. A superb organiser, Gregor Strasser steered a more independent political course,
emphasising the socialist element of the party's programme.[122]
The stock market in the United States crashed on 24 October 1929. The impact in Germany was dire:
millions were thrown out of work and several major banks collapsed. Hitler and the NSDAP prepared to
take advantage of the emergency to gain support for their party. They promised to repudiate the
Versailles Treaty, strengthen the economy, and provide jobs.[123]

Rise to power
Main article: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

Nazi Party election results[124]

Election

Total
votes

%
votes

Reichstag
seats

Notes

May 1924

1,918,300

6.5

32

Hitler in prison

December
1924

907,300

3.0

14

Hitler released from prison

Nazi Party election results[124]

Election

Total
votes

%
votes

Reichstag
seats

Notes

1928

810,100

2.6

12

1930

6,409,600

18.3

107

After the financial crisis

1932

13,745,000

37.3

230

After Hitler was candidate for presidency

1932

11,737,000

33.1

196

1933

17,277,180

43.9

288

Only partially free; During Hitler's term as

chancellor of Germany

Brning administration
The Great Depression in Germany provided a political opportunity for Hitler. Germans were ambivalent to
the parliamentary republic, which faced strong challenges from right- and left-wing extremists. The
moderate political parties were increasingly unable to stem the tide of extremism, and the German
referendum of 1929 had helped to elevate Nazi ideology.[125] The elections of September 1930 resulted in
the break-up of a grand coalition and its replacement with a minority cabinet. Its leader,
chancellor Heinrich Brning of the Centre Party, governed through emergency decrees from the
president, Paul von Hindenburg. Governance by decree would become the new norm and paved the way
for authoritarian forms of government.[126] The NSDAP rose from obscurity to win 18.3% of the vote and
107 parliamentary seats in the 1930 election, becoming the second-largest party in parliament.[127]

Hitler and NSDAP treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz at the dedication of the renovation of the Palais Barlow
on Brienner Strae in Munich into the Brown House headquarters, December 1930

Hitler made a prominent appearance at the trial of two Reichswehr officers, Lieutenants Richard
Scheringer and Hans Ludin, in the autumn of 1930. Both were charged with membership in the NSDAP,
at that time illegal for Reichswehr personnel.[128] The prosecution argued that the NSDAP was an
extremist party, prompting defence lawyer Hans Frank to call on Hitler to testify in court.[129] On 25
September 1930, Hitler testified that his party would pursue political power solely through democratic
elections,[130] a testimony that won him many supporters in the officer corps.[131]
Brning's austerity measures brought little economic improvement and were extremely
unpopular.[132] Hitler exploited this by targeting his political messages specifically at people who had been
affected by the inflation of the 1920s and the Depression, such as farmers, war veterans, and the middle
class.[133]
Hitler had formally renounced his Austrian citizenship on 7 April 1925, but at the time did not acquire
German citizenship. For almost seven years he was stateless, unable to run for public office, and faced
the risk of deportation.[134] On 25 February 1932, the interior minister of Brunswick, who was a member of
the NSDAP, appointed Hitler as administrator for the state's delegation to the Reichsrat in Berlin, making
Hitler a citizen of Brunswick,[135]and thus of Germany.[136]
In 1932, Hitler ran against von Hindenburg in the presidential elections. The viability of his candidacy was
underscored by a 27 January 1932 speech to the Industry Club in Dsseldorf, which won him support
from many of Germany's most powerful industrialists.[137] However, Hindenburg had support from various
nationalist, monarchist, Catholic, and republican parties, and some Social Democrats. Hitler used the
campaign slogan "Hitler ber Deutschland" ("Hitler over Germany"), a reference to both his political
ambitions and to his campaigning by aircraft.[138] Hitler came in second in both rounds of the election,
garnering more than 35% of the vote in the final election. Although he lost to Hindenburg, this election
established Hitler as a strong force in German politics.[139]

Appointment as chancellor
The absence of an effective government prompted two influential politicians, Franz von Papen and Alfred
Hugenberg, along with several other industrialists and businessmen, to write a letter to von Hindenburg.
The signers urged Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as leader of a government "independent from
parliamentary parties", which could turn into a movement that would "enrapture millions of people".[140][141]

Hitler, at the window of the Reich Chancellery, receives an ovation on the evening of his inauguration as chancellor,
30 January 1933

Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor after two further parliamentary electionsin
July and November 1932had not resulted in the formation of a majority government. Hitler was to head
a short-lived coalition government formed by the NSDAP and Hugenberg's party, the German National
People's Party (DNVP). On 30 January 1933, the new cabinet was sworn in during a brief ceremony in
Hindenburg's office. The NSDAP gained three important posts: Hitler was named chancellor, Wilhelm
Frick Minister of the Interior, and Hermann Gring Minister of the Interior for Prussia.[142]Hitler had
insisted on the ministerial positions as a way to gain control over the police in much of Germany. [143]

Reichstag fire and March elections

As chancellor, Hitler worked against attempts by the NSDAP's opponents to build a majority government.
Because of the political stalemate, he asked President Hindenburg to again dissolve the Reichstag, and
elections were scheduled for early March. On 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire.
Gring blamed a communist plot, because Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe was found in
incriminating circumstances inside the burning building.[144] At Hitler's urging, Hindenburg responded with
the Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February, which suspended basic rights and allowed detention without
trial. Activities of the German Communist Party were suppressed, and some 4,000 communist party
members were arrested.[145]Researchers, including William L. Shirer and Alan Bullock, are of the opinion
that the NSDAP itself was responsible for starting the fire.[146][147]
In addition to political campaigning, the NSDAP engaged in paramilitary violence and the spread of anticommunist propaganda in the days preceding the election. On election day, 6 March 1933, the NSDAP's
share of the vote increased to 43.9%, and the party acquired the largest number of seats in parliament.
However, Hitler's party failed to secure an absolute majority, necessitating another coalition with the
DNVP.[148]

Day of Potsdam and the Enabling Act

On 21 March 1933 the new Reichstag was constituted with an opening ceremony at the Garrison
Church in Potsdam. This "Day of Potsdam" was held to demonstrate unity between the Nazi movement
and the old Prussian elite and military. Hitler appeared in a morning coat and humbly greeted President
von Hindenburg.[149][150]

Paul von Hindenburg and Adolf Hitler on the Day of Potsdam, 21 March 1933

To achieve full political control despite not having an absolute majority in parliament, Hitler's government
brought the Ermchtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act) to a vote in the newly elected Reichstag. The act gave
Hitler's cabinet full legislative powers for a period of four years and (with certain exceptions) allowed
deviations from the constitution.[151] The bill required a two-thirds majority to pass. Leaving nothing to
chance, the Nazis used the provisions of the Reichstag Fire Decree to keep several Social Democratic
deputies from attending; the Communists had already been banned.[152]
On 23 March, the Reichstag assembled at the Kroll Opera House under turbulent circumstances. Ranks
of SA men served as guards inside the building, while large groups outside opposing the proposed
legislation shouted slogans and threats toward the arriving members of parliament.[153] The position of
the Centre Party, the third largest party in the Reichstag, turned out to be decisive. After Hitler verbally
promised party leader Ludwig Kaasthat President von Hindenburg would retain his power of veto, Kaas
announced the Centre Party would support the Enabling Act. Ultimately, the Enabling Act passed by a
vote of 44184, with all parties except the Social Democrats voting in favour. The Enabling Act, along
with the Reichstag Fire Decree, transformed Hitler's government into a de facto legal dictatorship. [154]

Removal of remaining limits

At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense I tell you that the National Socialist movement will go on for 1,000
years! ... Don't forget how people laughed at me 15 years ago when I declared that one day I would govern
Germany. They laugh now, just as foolishly, when I declare that I shall remain in power!
Adolf Hitler to a British correspondent in Berlin, June 1934

[155]

Having achieved full control over the legislative and executive branches of government, Hitler and his
political allies began to systematically suppress the remaining political opposition. The Social Democratic

Party was banned and all its assets seized.[156] While many trade union delegates were in Berlin for May
Day activities, SA stormtroopers demolished union offices around the country. On 2 May 1933 all trade
unions were forced to dissolve and their leaders were arrested; some were sent to concentration
camps.[157] The German Labour Front was formed as an umbrella organisation to represent all workers,
administrators, and company owners, thus reflecting the concept of national socialism in the spirit of
Hitler's Volksgemeinschaft (German racial community; literally, "people's community").[158]

In 1934, Hitler became Germany's head of state with the title of Fhrer und Reichskanzler(leader and chancellor of
the Reich).

By the end of June, the other parties had been intimidated into disbanding. With the help of the SA, Hitler
pressured his nominal coalition partner, Hugenberg, into resigning. On 14 July 1933, the NSDAP was
declared the only legal political party in Germany, though the country had effectively been a one-party
state since the passage of the Enabling Act four months earlier.[158][156] The demands of the SA for more
political and military power caused much anxiety among military, industrial, and political leaders. Hitler
responded by purging the entire SA leadership in the Night of the Long Knives, which took place from 30
June to 2 July 1934.[159] Hitler targeted Ernst Rhm and other SA leaders who, along with a number of
Hitler's political adversaries (such as Gregor Strasser and former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher), were
rounded up, arrested, and shot.[160] While the international community and some Germans were shocked
by the murders, many in Germany saw Hitler as restoring order.[161]
On 2 August 1934, President von Hindenburg died. The previous day, the cabinet had enacted the "Law
Concerning the Highest State Office of the Reich".[162]This law stated that upon Hindenburg's death, the
office of president would be abolished and its powers merged with those of the chancellor. Hitler thus
became head of state as well as head of government, and was formally named as Fhrer und
Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor).[163] This law violated the Enabling Actwhile it allowed Hitler to

deviate from the constitution, the Act explicitly barred him from passing any law tampering with the
presidency. In 1932, the constitution had been amended to make the president of the High Court of
Justice, not the chancellor, acting president pending new elections. Nonetheless, no one
objected.[164] With this law, Hitler removed the last legal remedy by which he could be removed from
office.
As head of state, Hitler became Supreme Commander of the armed forces. The traditional loyalty oath of
servicemen was altered to affirm loyalty to Hitler personally, rather than to the office of supreme
commander or the state.[165] On 19 August, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was
approved by 90% of the electorate voting in a plebiscite.[166]

Hitler's personal standard

In early 1938, Hitler used blackmail tactics to consolidate his hold over the military by instigating
the BlombergFritsch Affair. Hitler forced his War Minister, Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg into
resignation by using a police dossier that showed that Blomberg's new wife had a record for
prostitution.[167][168] Army commander Colonel-General Werner von Fritsch was removed in a similar way
after theSchutzstaffel (SS) produced allegations that he had engaged in a homosexual
relationship.[169] Both men had fallen into disfavour because they had objected to Hitler's demand to
make the Wehrmacht ready for war as early as 1938.[170] Hitler assumed Blomberg's title of Commanderin-Chief, thus taking personal command of the armed forces. He replaced the Ministry of War with
the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces, or OKW), headed by
General Wilhelm Keitel. On the same day, sixteen generals were stripped of their commands and 44
more were transferred; all were suspected of not having been sufficiently pro-Nazi.[171] By early February
1938, twelve more generals had been removed.[172]
Having consolidated his political powers, Hitler suppressed or eliminated his opposition by a process
termed Gleichschaltung ("bringing into line"). He attempted to gain additional public support by vowing to
reverse the effects of the Depression and the Versailles Treaty.

In order to give his dictatorship the appearance of legality, Hitler based many of his decrees on the
Reichstag Fire Decree. That decree was in turn based onArticle 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which
gave the president the power to take emergency measures to protect public safety and order. Thus,
Hitler could now rule under a form of legal martial law. The Reichstag renewed the Enabling Act twice, a
mere formality since all other parties had been banned.[173]

Third Reich
Main article: Nazi Germany

Economy and culture

Ceremony honouring the dead (Totenehrung) on the terrace in front of the Hall of Honour (Ehrenhalle) at the Nazi
party rally grounds, Nuremberg, September 1934

In August 1934, Hitler appointed Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht as Minister of Economics, and in
the following year, as Plenipotentiary for War Economy in charge of preparing the economy for
war.[174] Reconstruction and rearmament were financed through Mefo bills, printing money, and seizing
the assets of people arrested as enemies of the State, including Jews.[175] Unemployment fell from six
million in 1932 to one million in 1936.[176] Hitler oversaw one of the largest infrastructure improvement
campaigns in German history, leading to the construction of dams, autobahns, railroads, and other civil
works. Wages were slightly lower in the mid to late 1930s compared with wages during the Weimar
Republic, while the cost of living increased by 25%.[177] The average working week increased during the
shift to a war economy; by 1939, the average German was working between 47 to 50 hours per week. [178]
Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale. Albert Speer, instrumental in
implementing Hitler's classicist reinterpretation of German culture, was placed in charge of the proposed
architectural renovations of Berlin.[179] In 1936, Hitler opened the summer Olympic games in Berlin.

Rearmament and new alliances

Main articles: Axis powers, Tripartite Pact, and German re-armament
In a meeting with German military leaders on 3 February 1933, Hitler spoke of "conquest
for Lebensraum in the East and its ruthless Germanisation" as his ultimate foreign policy objectives.[180] In
March, Prince Bernhard Wilhelm von Blow, secretary at the Auswrtiges Amt (Foreign Office), issued a
statement of major foreign policy aims: Anschluss with Austria, the restoration of Germany's national
borders of 1914, rejection of military restrictions under the Treaty of Versailles, the return of the former
German colonies in Africa, and a German zone of influence in Eastern Europe. Hitler found Blow's
goals to be too modest.[181] In speeches during this period, he stressed the peaceful goals of his policies
and a willingness to work within international agreements.[182] At the first meeting of his Cabinet in 1933,
Hitler prioritised military spending over unemployment relief.[183]

On 25 October 1936, an Axis was declared between Italy and Germany.

Germany withdrew from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference in October
1933.[184] In March 1935, Hitler announced an expansion of the Wehrmacht to 600,000 memberssix
times the number permitted by the Versailles Treatyincluding development of an air force (Luftwaffe)
and an increase in the size of the navy (Kriegsmarine). Britain, France, Italy, and the League of Nations
condemned these violations of the Treaty.[185] The Anglo-German Naval Agreement (AGNA) of 18 June
1935 allowed German tonnage to increase to 35% of that of the British navy. Hitler called the signing of
the AGNA "the happiest day of his life", believing that the agreement marked the beginning of the AngloGerman alliance he had predicted in Mein Kampf.[186] France and Italy were not consulted before the
signing, directly undermining the League of Nations and setting the Treaty of Versailles on the path
towards irrelevance.[187]

Germany reoccupied the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland in March 1936, in violation of the Versailles
Treaty. Hitler also sent troops to Spain to supportGeneral Franco after receiving an appeal for help in
July 1936. At the same time, Hitler continued his efforts to create an Anglo-German alliance.[188] In
August 1936, in response to a growing economic crisis caused by his rearmament efforts, Hitler ordered
Gring to implement a Four Year Plan to prepare Germany for war within the next four years.[189] The
plan envisaged an all-out struggle between "Judeo-Bolshevism" and German national socialism, which in
Hitler's view required a committed effort of rearmament regardless of the economic costs.[190]
Count Galeazzo Ciano, foreign minister of Benito Mussolini's government, declared an axis between
Germany and Italy, and on 25 November, Germany signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan. Britain,
China, Italy, and Poland were also invited to join the Anti-Comintern Pact, but only Italy signed in 1937.
Hitler abandoned his plan of an Anglo-German alliance, blaming "inadequate" British leadership.[191] At a
meeting in the Reich Chancellery with his foreign ministers and military chiefs that November, Hitler
restated his intention of acquiring Lebensraum for the German people. He ordered preparations for war
in the east, to begin as early as 1938 and no later than 1943. In the event of his death, the conference
minutes, recorded as the Hossbach Memorandum, were to be regarded as his "political
testament".[192] He felt that a severe decline in living standards in Germany as a result of the economic
crisis could only be stopped by military aggression aimed at seizing Austria
and Czechoslovakia.[193][194] Hitler urged quick action before Britain and France gained a permanent lead
in the arms race.[193] In early 1938, in the wake of the BlombergFritsch Affair, Hitler asserted control of
the military-foreign policy apparatus, dismissing Neurath as Foreign Minister and appointing
himself Oberster Befehlshaber der Wehrmacht(supreme commander of the armed forces).[189] From early
1938 onwards, Hitler was carrying out a foreign policy ultimately aimed at war.[195]

World War II
Early diplomatic successes
Alliance with Japan
Main article: GermanyJapan relations

Hitler and the Japanese Foreign Minister,Ysuke Matsuoka, at a meeting in Berlin in March 1941. In the background
is Joachim von Ribbentrop.

In February 1938, on the advice of his newly appointed Foreign Minister, the strongly proJapanese Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler ended the Sino-German alliance with the Republic of China to
instead enter into an alliance with the more modern and powerful Japan. Hitler announced German
recognition of Manchukuo, the Japanese-occupied state in Manchuria, and renounced German claims to
their former colonies in the Pacific held by Japan.[196] Hitler ordered an end to arms shipments to China
and recalled all German officers working with the Chinese Army.[196] In retaliation, Chinese
General Chiang Kai-shek cancelled all Sino-German economic agreements, depriving the Germans of
many Chinese raw materials.[197]

Austria and Czechoslovakia

On 12 March 1938 Hitler declared unification of Austria with Nazi Germany in the Anschluss.[198][199] Hitler
then turned his attention to the ethnic German population of the Sudetenland district of
Czechoslovakia.[200]
On 2829 March 1938 Hitler held a series of secret meetings in Berlin with Konrad Henlein of the
Sudeten Heimfront (Home Front), the largest of the ethnic German parties of the Sudetenland. The men
agreed that Henlein would demand increased autonomy for Sudeten Germans from the Czechoslovakian
government, thus providing a pretext for German military action against Czechoslovakia. In April 1938
Henlein told the foreign ministerof Hungary that "whatever the Czech government might offer, he would
always raise still higher demands ... he wanted to sabotage an understanding by any means because
this was the only method to blow up Czechoslovakia quickly".[201] In private, Hitler considered the
Sudeten issue unimportant; his real intention was a war of conquest against Czechoslovakia. [202]

October 1938: Hitler (standing in the Mercedes) drives through the crowd in Cheb (German:Eger), part of the
German-populated Sudetenland region ofCzechoslovakia, which was annexed to Nazi Germany due to the Munich
Agreement

In April Hitler ordered the OKW to prepare for Fall Grn ("Case Green"), the code name for an invasion
of Czechoslovakia.[203] As a result of intense French and British diplomatic pressure, on 5 September
Czechoslovakian President Edvard Bene unveiled the "Fourth Plan" for constitutional reorganisation of
his country, which agreed to most of Henlein's demands for Sudeten
autonomy.[204] Henlein's Heimfront responded to Bene' offer by instigating a series of violent clashes
with the Czechoslovakian police that led to the declaration of martial law in certain Sudeten
districts.[205][206]
Germany was dependent on imported oil; a confrontation with Britain over the Czechoslovakian dispute
could curtail Germany's oil supplies. Hitler called off Fall Grn, originally planned for 1 October
1938.[207] On 29 September Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, douard Daladier, and Benito Mussolini attended
a one-day conference in Munich that led to the Munich Agreement, which handed over the Sudetenland
districts to Germany.[208][209]
Chamberlain was satisfied with the Munich conference, calling the outcome "peace for our time", while
Hitler was angered about the missed opportunity for war in 1938;[210][211] he expressed his disappointment
in a speech on 9 October in Saarbrcken.[212] In Hitler's view, the British-brokered peace, although
favourable to the ostensible German demands, was a diplomatic defeat which spurred his intent of
limiting British power to pave the way for the eastern expansion of Germany.[213][214] As a result of the
summit, Hitler was selected Time magazine's Man of the Year for 1938.[215]
In late 1938 and early 1939, the continuing economic crisis caused by rearmament forced Hitler to make
major defence cuts.[216] In his "Export or die" speech of 30 January 1939, he called for an economic

offensive to increase German foreign exchange holdings to pay for raw materials such as high-grade iron
needed for military weapons.[216]
On 15 March 1939, in violation of the Munich accord and possibly as a result of the deepening economic
crisis requiring additional assets,[217] Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to invade Prague, and from Prague
Castle he proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.[218]

Start of World War II

In private discussions in 1939, Hitler declared Britain the main enemy to be defeated and that Poland's
obliteration was a necessary prelude to that goal. The eastern flank would be secured and land would be
added to Germany's Lebensraum.[219] Offended by the British "guarantee" on 31 March 1939 of Polish
independence, he said, "I shall brew them a devil's drink".[220] In a speech in Wilhelmshaven for the
launch of the battleship Tirpitz on 1 April, he threatened to denounce the Anglo-German Naval
Agreement if the British continued to guarantee Polish independence, which he perceived as an
"encirclement" policy.[220] Poland was to either become a German satellite state or be neutralised to
secure the Reich's eastern flank and to prevent a possible British blockade.[221] Hitler initially favoured the
idea of a satellite state, but upon its rejection by the Polish government, he decided to invade and made
this the main foreign policy goal of 1939.[222] On 3 April, Hitler ordered the military to prepare for Fall
Weiss ("Case White"), the plan for invading Poland on 25 August.[222] In a Reichstag speech on 28 April,
he renounced both the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the GermanPolish Non-Aggression Pact.
In August, Hitler told his generals that his original plan for 1939 was to "... establish an acceptable
relationship with Poland in order to fight against the West".[223] Historians such as William Carr, Gerhard
Weinberg, and Ian Kershaw have argued that one reason for Hitler's rush to war was his fear of an early
death.[224][225][226]

Hitler portrayed on a 42 pfennig stamp from 1944. The term Grossdeutsches Reich(Greater German Reich) was first
used in 1943 for the expanded Germany under his rule.

Hitler was concerned that a military attack against Poland could result in a premature war with
Britain.[221][227] However, Hitler's foreign ministerand former Ambassador to LondonJoachim von
Ribbentrop assured him that neither Britain nor France would honour their commitments to
Poland.[228][229] Accordingly, on 22 August 1939 Hitler ordered a military mobilisation against Poland. [230]
This plan required tacit Soviet support,[231] and the non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact)
between Germany and the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin, included a secret agreement to partition
Poland between the two countries.[232] In response to the newly formed pactand contrary to the
prediction of Ribbentrop that it would sever Anglo-Polish tiesBritain and Poland signed the AngloPolish alliance on 25 August 1939. This, along with news from Italy that Mussolini would not honour
the Pact of Steel, prompted Hitler to postpone the attack on Poland from 25 August to 1
September.[233] Hitler unsuccessfully tried to manoeuvre the British into neutrality by offering a nonaggression guarantee to the British Empire on 25 August; he then instructed Ribbentrop to present a
last-minute peace plan with an impossibly short time limit in an effort to blame the imminent war on
British and Polish inaction.[234][235]
Despite his concerns over a British intervention, Hitler continued to pursue the planned invasion of
Poland.[236] On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded western Poland under the pretext of having been
denied claims to the Free City of Danzig and the right to extraterritorial roads across the Polish Corridor,
which Germany had ceded under the Versailles Treaty.[237] In response, Britain and France declared war
on Germany on 3 September, surprising Hitler and prompting him to angrily ask Ribbentrop, "Now
what?"[238] France and Britain did not act on their declarations immediately, and on 17 September, Soviet
forces invaded eastern Poland.[239]
Poland never will rise again in the form of the Versailles treaty. That is guaranteed not only by Germany, but
also ... Russia.

[240]

Adolf Hitler, public speech in Danzig at the end of September 1939

Hitler reviews troops on the march during the campaign against Poland. September 1939

The fall of Poland was followed by what contemporary journalists dubbed the "Phoney War"
or Sitzkrieg ("sitting war"). Hitler instructed the two newly appointed Gauleiters of north-western
Poland, Albert Forster of Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia and Arthur Greiser of Reichsgau Wartheland,
to "Germanise" their areas, with "no questions asked" about how this was accomplished. [241] Whereas
Polish citizens in Forster's area merely had to sign forms stating that they had German blood, [242] Greiser
carried out a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign on the Polish population in his purview.[241]Greiser
complained that Forster was allowing thousands of Poles to be accepted as "racial" Germans and thus
endangered German "racial purity". Hitler refrained from getting involved, however,[241] which has been
advanced as an example of the theory of "working towards the Fhrer": Hitler issued vague instructions
and expected his subordinates to work out policies on their own.
Another dispute pitched one side represented by Himmler and Greiser, who championed ethnic
cleansing in Poland, against another represented by Gring and Hans Frank, Governor-General of
the General Government territory of occupied Poland, who called for turning Poland into the "granary" of
the Reich.[243] On 12 February 1940, the dispute was initially settled in favour of the GringFrank view,
which ended the economically disruptive mass expulsions.[243] On 15 May 1940, however, Himmler
issued a memo entitled "Some Thoughts on the Treatment of Alien Population in the East", calling for the
expulsion of the entire Jewish population of Europe into Africa and reducing the Polish population to a
"leaderless class of labourers".[243] Hitler called Himmler's memo "good and correct",[243] and, ignoring
Gring and Frank, implemented the HimmlerGreiser policy in Poland.

Hitler visits Paris with architectAlbert Speer (left) and sculptorArno Breker (right), 23 June 1940

Hitler began a military build-up on Germany's western border, and in April 1940, German forces
invaded Denmark and Norway. On 9 April, Hitler proclaimed the birth of the "Greater Germanic Reich",
his vision of a united empire of the Germanic nations of Europe, where the Dutch, Flemish, and
Scandinavians were joined into a "racially pure" polity under German leadership.[244] In May 1940,

Germany attacked France, and conquered Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium. These victories
prompted Mussolini to have Italy join forces with Hitler on 10 June. France surrendered on 22 June. [245]
Britain, whose troops were forced to evacuate France by sea from Dunkirk,[246] continued to fight
alongside other British dominions in the Battle of the Atlantic. Hitler made peace overtures to the new
British leader, Winston Churchill, and upon their rejection he ordered a series of aerial attacks on Royal
Air Forceairbases and radar stations in South-East England. However, the German Luftwaffe failed to
defeat the Royal Air Force in what became known as the Battle of Britain.[247] By the end of October,
Hitler realised that air superiority for the invasion of Britainin Operation Sea Lioncould not be
achieved, and he orderednightly air raids on British cities, including London, Plymouth, and Coventry.[248]
On 27 September 1940, the Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin by Sabur Kurusu of Imperial Japan,
Hitler, and Italian foreign minister Ciano,[249] and later expanded to include Hungary, Romania,
and Bulgaria, thus yielding the Axis powers. Hitler's attempt to integrate the Soviet Union into the antiBritish bloc failed after inconclusive talks between Hitler and Molotov in Berlin in November, and he
ordered preparations for a full-scale invasion of the Soviet Union.[250]
In the Spring of 1941, German forces were deployed to North Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In
February, German forces arrived in Libya to bolster the Italian presence. In April, Hitler launched
the invasion of Yugoslavia, quickly followed by the invasion of Greece.[251] In May, German forces were
sent to supportIraqi rebel forces fighting against the British and to invade Crete.[252]

Path to defeat
On 22 June 1941, contravening the HitlerStalin non-aggression pact of 1939, 5.5 million Axis troops
attacked the Soviet Union. This large-scale offensive (codenamed Operation Barbarossa) was intended
to destroy the Soviet Union and seize its natural resources for subsequent aggression against the
Western powers.[253][254] The invasion conquered a huge area, including the Balticrepublics, Belarus, and
West Ukraine. After the successful Battle of Smolensk, Hitler ordered Army Group Centre to halt its
advance to Moscow and temporarily diverted its Panzer groups north and south to aid in the
encirclement of Leningrad and Kiev.[255] His generals disagreed with this change of targets, and his
decision caused a major crisis among the military leadership.[256][257]The pause provided the Red Army
with an opportunity to mobilize fresh reserves; historian Russel Stolfi considers it to be one of the major
factors that caused the failure of the Moscow offensive, which was resumed only in October 1941
and ended disastrously in December.[255]

Hitler during his speech to the Reichstag attacking American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 11 December 1941

On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Four days later, Hitler formally declared war
against the United States.[258]
On 18 December 1941, Himmler asked Hitler, "What to do with the Jews of Russia?", to which Hitler
replied, "als Partisanen auszurotten" ("exterminate them as partisans").[259] Israeli historian Yehuda
Bauer has commented that the remark is probably as close as historians will ever get to a definitive order
from Hitler for the genocide carried out during the Holocaust.[259]
In late 1942, German forces were defeated in the second battle of El Alamein,[260] thwarting Hitler's plans
to seize the Suez Canal and the Middle East. Overconfident in his own military expertise following the
earlier victories in 1940, Hitler became distrustful of his Army High Command and began to interfere in
military and tactical planning with damaging consequences.[261] In February 1943, Hitler's repeated
refusal to allow their withdrawal at theBattle of Stalingrad led to the total destruction of the 6th Army.
Over 200,000 Axis soldiers were killed and 235,000 were taken prisoner, only 6,000 of whom returned to
Germany after the war.[262] Thereafter came a decisive defeat at the Battle of Kursk.[263] Hitler's military
judgment became increasingly erratic, and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated along
with Hitler's health. Kershaw and others believe that Hitler may have suffered from Parkinson's
disease.[264]

The destroyed map room at the 'Wolf's Lair' after the 20 July plot

Following the allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, Mussolini was deposed by Pietro Badoglio,[265] who
surrendered to the Allies. Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies
into retreat along the Eastern Front. On 6 June 1944 the Western Allied armies landed in northern
France in what was one of the largest amphibious operations in history, Operation Overlord.[266] As a
result of these significant setbacks for the German army, many of its officers concluded that defeat was
inevitable and that Hitler's misjudgement or denial would drag out the war and result in the complete
destruction of the country.[267]
Between 1939 and 1945, there were many plans to assassinate Hitler, some of which proceeded to
significant degrees.[268] The most well known came from within Germany and was at least partly driven by
the increasing prospect of a German defeat in the war.[269] In July 1944, in the 20 July plot, part
of Operation Valkyrie, Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in one of Hitler's headquarters, the Wolf's
Lair at Rastenburg. Hitler narrowly survived because someone had unknowingly pushed the briefcase
that contained the bomb behind a leg of the heavy conference table. When the bomb exploded, the table
deflected much of the blast away from Hitler. Later, Hitler ordered savage reprisals, resulting in the
execution of more than 4,900 people.[270]

Defeat and death

Main article: Death of Adolf Hitler
By late 1944, both the Red Army and the Western Allies were advancing into Germany. Recognising the
strength and determination of the Red Army, Hitler decided to use his remaining mobile reserves against
the American and British troops, which he perceived as far weaker.[271] On 16 December, he launched an
offensive in the Ardennes to incite disunity among the Western Allies and perhaps convince them to join
his fight against the Soviets.[272] When the offensive failed, Hitler realised that Germany was going to lose
the war. His last hope to negotiate peace with the United States and Britain was buoyed by the death
of Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April 1945; however, contrary to his expectations, this caused no
immediate rift among the Allies.[273][272]Acting on his view that Germany's military failures had forfeited its
right to survive as a nation, Hitler ordered the destruction of all German industrial infrastructure before it
could fall into Allied hands.[274] Arms minister Albert Speer was entrusted with executing this scorched
earth plan, but he quietly disobeyed the order.[274]

Front page of the U.S. Armed Forces newspaper, Stars and Stripes, 2 May 1945

On 20 April, his 56th birthday, Hitler made his last trip from the Fhrerbunker ("Fhrer's shelter") to the
surface. In the ruined garden of the Reich Chancellery, he awarded Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of
the Hitler Youth.[275] By 21 April, Georgy Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front had broken through the defences
of German General Gotthard Heinrici's Army Group Vistula during the Battle of the Seelow Heights and
advanced into the outskirts of Berlin.[276] In denial about the dire situation, Hitler placed his hopes on the
units commanded by Waffen SS General Felix Steiner, the Armeeabteilung Steiner ("Army Detachment
Steiner"). Hitler ordered Steiner to attack the northern flank of the salient and the German Ninth
Army was ordered to attack northward in a pincer attack.[277]
During a military conference on 22 April, Hitler asked about Steiner's offensive. He was told that the
attack had never been launched and that the Russians had broken through into Berlin. This prompted
Hitler to ask everyone except Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, Hans Krebs, and Wilhelm Burgdorf to leave the
room.[278]Hitler then launched a tirade against the treachery and incompetence of his commanders,
culminating in his declarationfor the first timethat the war was lost. Hitler announced that he would
stay in Berlin until the end and then shoot himself.[279]
By 23 April the Red Army had completely surrounded Berlin,[280] and Goebbels made a proclamation
urging its citizens to defend the city.[278] That same day, Gring sent a telegram from Berchtesgaden,
arguing that since Hitler was isolated in Berlin, he, Gring, should assume leadership of Germany.
Gring set a deadline after which he would consider Hitler incapacitated.[281] Hitler responded by having
Gring arrested, and in his will, written on 29 April, he removed Gring from all government
positions.[282][283] On 28 April Hitler discovered that Himmler, who had left Berlin on 20 April,[284] was trying
to discuss surrender terms with the Western Allies.[285] He ordered Himmler's arrest and had Hermann
Fegelein (Himmler's SS representative at Hitler's HQ in Berlin) shot.[286]

After midnight on 29 April, Hitler married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony in a map room within the
Fhrerbunker. After a modest wedding breakfast with his new wife, he then took secretary Traudl
Junge to another room and dictated his last will and testament.[287][b] The event was witnessed and
documents signed by Hans Krebs, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann. [288] Later
that afternoon, Hitler was informed of the assassination of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, which
presumably increased his determination to avoid capture.[289]
On 30 April 1945, after intense street-to-street combat, when Soviet troops were within a block or two of
the Reich Chancellery, Hitler and Braun committed suicide; Braun bit into a cyanidecapsule[290] and Hitler
shot himself.[291] Both their bodies were carried up the stairs and through the bunker's emergency exit to
the bombed-out garden behind the Reich Chancellery, where they were placed in a bomb crater[292] and
doused with petrol. The corpses were set on fire[293] as the Red Army shelling continued.[294]
Berlin surrendered on 2 May. Records in the Soviet archivesobtained after the fall of the Soviet
Unionshowed that the remains of Hitler, Braun, Joseph and Magda Goebbels, the six Goebbels
children, General Hans Krebs, and Hitler's dogs, were repeatedly buried and exhumed.[295] On 4 April
1970, a Soviet KGB team used detailed burial charts to exhume five wooden boxes at
theSMERSH facility in Magdeburg. The remains from the boxes were burned, crushed, and scattered
into the Biederitz river, a tributary of the nearby Elbe.[296]

The Holocaust
Main article: The Holocaust
If the international Jewish financiers outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a
world war, then the result will not be the bolshevisation of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the
annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!

[297]

Adolf Hitler addressing the German Reichstag, 30 January 1939

The Holocaust and Germany's war in the East was based on Hitler's long-standing view that the Jews
were the great enemy of the German people and that Lebensraum was needed for the expansion of
Germany. He focused on Eastern Europe for this expansion, aiming to defeat Poland and the Soviet
Union and on removing or killing the Jews and Slavs.[298] The Generalplan Ost("General Plan for the
East") called for deporting the population of occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to West
Siberia, for use as slave labour or to be murdered;[299] the conquered territories were to be colonised by
German or "Germanised" settlers.[300] The goal was to implement this plan after the conquest of the
Soviet Union, but when this failed, Hitler moved the plans forward.[299][301] By January 1942, it had been
decided to kill the Jews, Slavs, and other deportees considered undesirable.[302][c]

A wagon piled high with corpses outside the crematorium in the liberated Buchenwald concentration camp (April
1945)

The Holocaust (the "Endlsung der Judenfrage" or "Final Solution of the Jewish Question") was ordered
by Hitler and organised and executed byHeinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. The records of
the Wannsee Conferenceheld on 20 January 1942 and led by Heydrich, with fifteen senior Nazi
officials participatingprovide the clearest evidence of systematic planning for the Holocaust. On 22
February, Hitler was recorded saying, "we shall regain our health only by eliminating the
Jews".[303] Although no direct order from Hitler authorising the mass killings has surfaced, [304] his public
speeches, orders to his generals, and the diaries of Nazi officials demonstrate that he conceived and
authorised the extermination of European Jewry.[305][306] He approved the Einsatzgruppenkilling squads
that followed the German army through Poland, the Baltic, and the Soviet Union[307]and he was well
informed about their activities.[305][308] By summer 1942, Auschwitz concentration camp was rapidly
expanded to accommodate large numbers of deportees for killing or enslavement.[309] Scores of other
concentration camps and satellite camps were set up throughout Europe, with several camps devoted
exclusively to extermination.[310]
Between 1939 and 1945, the Schutzstaffel (SS), assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits
from occupied countries, was responsible for the deaths of at least eleven million people,[311][299] including
5.5 to six million Jews (representing two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe),[312][313]and between
200,000 and 1,500,000 Romani people.[314][313] Deaths took place in concentration and extermination
camps, ghettos, and through mass executions. Many victims of the Holocaust were gassed to death,
whereas others died of starvation or disease while working as slave labourers.[315]
Hitler's policies also resulted in the killing of two million Poles,[316] over 3 million Soviet prisoners of
war,[317] communists and other political opponents, homosexuals, the physically and mentally
disabled,[318][319] Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists, and trade unionists. Hitler never appeared to have
visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the killings.[320]
Another Nazi concept was the notion of racial hygiene. On 15 September 1935, Hitler presented two
lawsknown as the Nuremberg Lawsto the Reichstag. The laws banned marriage between non-

Jewish and Jewish Germans, and forbade the employment of non-Jewish women under the age of 45 in
Jewish households. The laws deprived so-called "non-Aryans" of the benefits of German
citizenship.[321] Hitler's early eugenic policies targeted children with physical and developmental
disabilities in a programme dubbed Action Brandt, and later authorized a euthanasia programme for
adults with serious mental and physical disabilities, now referred to as Action T4.[322]

Leadership style
Hitler ruled the NSDAP autocratically by asserting the Fhrerprinzip ("Leader principle"). The principle
relied on absolute obedience of all subordinates to their superiors; thus he viewed the government
structure as a pyramid, with himselfthe infallible leaderat the apex. Rank in the party was not
determined by electionspositions were filled through appointment by those of higher rank, who
demanded unquestioning obedience to the will of the leader.[323] Hitler's leadership style was to give
contradictory orders to his subordinates and to place them into positions where their duties and
responsibilities overlapped with those of others, in order to have "the stronger one [do] the job". [324] In this
way, Hitler fostered distrust, competition, and infighting among his subordinates in order to consolidate
and maximise his own power. His cabinet never met after 1938, and he discouraged his ministers from
meeting independently.[325][326] Hitler typically did not give written orders; instead he communicated them
verbally, or had them conveyed through his close associate, Martin Bormann.[327] He entrusted Bormann
with his paperwork, appointments, and personal finances; Bormann used his position to control the flow
of information and access to Hitler.[328]
Hitler personally made all major military decisions. Historians who have assessed his performance agree
that after a strong start, he became so inflexible after 1941 that he squandered the military strengths
Germany possessed. Historian Antony Beevor argues that at the start of the war, "Hitler was a fairly
inspired leader, because his genius lay in assessing the weaknesses of others and exploiting those
weaknesses". However, from 1941 onward, "he became completely sclerotic. He would not allow any
form of retreat or flexibility among his field commanders, and that of course was catastrophic".[329]

Legacy
Further information: Consequences of Nazism and Neo-Nazism

Outside the building in Braunau am Inn, Austria, where Hitler was born, is amemorial stone placed as a reminder of
the horrors of World War II. The inscription translates as:
For peace, freedom
and democracy
never again fascism
millions of dead remind [us]

Hitler's suicide was likened by contemporaries to a "spell" being broken. [330][331] However, public support
for Hitler had collapsed by the time of his death and few Germans mourned his passing; Ian Kershaw
argues that most civilians and military personnel were too busy adjusting to the collapse of the country or
fleeing from the fighting to take any interest.[332] According to historian John Toland National Socialism
"burst like a bubble" without its leader.[333]
Hitler's actions and Nazi ideology are almost universally regarded as gravely immoral;[334] according to
historian Ian Kershaw, "Never in history has such ruinationphysical and moralbeen associated with
the name of one man".[335] Hitler's political programme had brought about a world war, leaving behind a
devastated and impoverished Eastern and Central Europe. Germany itself suffered wholesale
destruction, characterised as "Zero Hour".[336] Hitler's policies inflicted human suffering on an
unprecedented scale;[337] according to R.J. Rummel, the Nazi regime was responsible for
thedemocidal killing of an estimated 21 million civilians and prisoners of war.[311] In addition, 29 million
soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European theater of World War II,[311] and
Hitler's role has been described as "... the main author of a war leaving over 50 million dead and millions
more grieving their lost ones ...".[335] Historians, philosophers, and politicians often use the word "evil" to
describe the Nazi regime.[338] Many European countries have criminalised both the promotion of Nazism
and Holocaust denial.[339]
Historian Friedrich Meinecke described Hitler as "one of the great examples of the singular and
incalculable power of personality in historical life".[340]English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper saw him as
"among the 'terrible simplifiers' of history, the most systematic, the most historical, the most

philosophical, and yet the coarsest, cruellest, least magnanimous conqueror the world has ever
known".[341] For the historian John M. Roberts, Hitler's defeat marked the end of a phase of European
history dominated by Germany.[342] In its place emerged the Cold War, a global confrontation between
the Soviet Union and the United States.[343]

Religious views
Main article: Religious views of Adolf Hitler
After leaving home, Hitler never again attended Mass or received the sacraments.[344] Speer states that
Hitler never left the Catholic Church but had no attachment to it.[345] He adds that Hitler felt that in the
absence of the church the faithful would turn to mysticism, which he considered a step
backwards.[345] Historian John S. Conway states that Hitler was fundamentally opposed to the Christian
churches.[346] According to Bullock, Hitler did not believe in God, was anti-clerical, and held Christian
ethics in contempt because they contravened his preferred view of "survival of the fittest." [347]
Hitler viewed Protestant clergy as insignificant and submissive.[348] While hostile to its teachings, he had
admiration for the power of the Roman Church.[349] He favoured aspects of Protestantismthat suited his
own views, and adopted some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organisation, liturgy, and
phraseology in his politics.[350]
Hitler viewed the church as an important politically conservative influence on society,[351] and he adopted
a strategic relationship with it "that suited his immediate political purposes."[346] In public, Hitler often
praised Christian heritage and German Christian culture, and professed a belief in an "Aryan" Jesus
one who fought against the Jews.[352] However, any pro-Christian public rhetoric was at variance with his
personal beliefs, which described Christianity as "absurdity"[353] and humbug founded on lies[354] with
which he could "never come personally to terms."[355] He considered Christianity a religion fit only for
slaves.[349]
According to a US Office of Strategic Services report, "The Nazi Master Plan," Hitler planned to destroy
the influence of Christian churches within the Reich.[356][357] This goal informed Hitler's movement very
early on, but he saw it as inexpedient to express this extreme position publicly. [358] According to Bullock,
Hitler wanted to wait until after the war before executing this plan.[349]
In contrast to Himmler, who was interested in the occult, the interpretation of runes, and tracing the
prehistoric roots of the Germanic people, Hitler was more pragmatic, and his ambitions centred on more
practical concerns.[359][360]

Health

Researchers have variously suggested that Hitler suffered from irritable bowel syndrome, skin
lesions, irregular heartbeat, coronary sclerosis,[361] Parkinson's
disease,[264][362] syphilis,[362] andtinnitus.[363] In a report prepared for the Office of Strategic Services in
1943, Walter C. Langer of Harvard University described Hitler as a "neurotic psychopath".[364] Theories
about Hitler's medical condition are difficult to prove, and according them too much weight may have the
effect of attributing many of the events and consequences of the Third Reich to the possibly impaired
physical health of one individual.[365] Kershaw feels that it is better to take a broader view of German
history by examining what social forces led to the Third Reich and its policies rather than to pursue
narrow explanations for the Holocaust and World War II based on only one person.[366]
Hitler followed a vegetarian diet.[367] At social events he sometimes gave graphic accounts of the
slaughter of animals in an effort to make his dinner guests shun meat.[368] An antivivisectionist, Hitler may
have followed his selective diet out of a profound concern for animals.[369] Bormann had a greenhouse
constructed near the Berghof (near Berchtesgaden) to ensure a steady supply of fresh fruit and
vegetables for Hitler throughout the war. Hitler despised alcohol[370] and was a non-smoker. He promoted
aggressive anti-smoking campaigns throughout Germany.[371] Hitler began
using amphetamine occasionally after 1937 and became addicted to the drug in the fall of
1942.[372] Albert Speer linked this use of amphetamines to Hitler's increasingly inflexible decision making
(for example, never to allow military retreats).[373]
Prescribed ninety different medications during the war years, Hitler took many pills each day for chronic
stomach problems and other ailments.[374] He suffered ruptured eardrums as a result of the 20 July
plot bomb blast in 1944, and two hundred wood splinters had to be removed from his legs.[375] Newsreel
footage of Hitler shows tremors of his hand and a shuffling walk, which began before the war and
worsened towards the end of his life. Hitler's personal physician, Theodor Morell, treated Hitler with a
drug that was commonly prescribed in 1945 for Parkinson's disease.Ernst-Gnther Schenck and several
other doctors who met Hitler in the last weeks of his life also formed a diagnosis of Parkinson's
disease.[374][376]

Family
Main articles: Hitler family and Sexuality of Adolf Hitler

Hitler with his long-time mistress, Eva Braun, whom he married 29 April 1945

Hitler created a public image as a celibate man without a domestic life, dedicated entirely to his political
mission and the nation.[134][377] He met his mistress, Eva Braun, in 1929,[378] and married her in April
1945.[379] In September 1931, his half-niece, Geli Raubal, committed suicide with Hitler's gun in his
Munich apartment. It was rumoured among contemporaries that Geli was in a romantic relationship with
him, and her death was a source of deep, lasting pain.[380] Paula Hitler, the last living member of the
immediate family, died in 1960.[381]

Hitler in media
See also: Adolf Hitler in popular culture and List of speeches given by Adolf Hitler

Film of Hitler at Berchtesgaden (c. 1941)

Hitler used documentary films as a propaganda tool. He was involved and appeared in a series of films
by the pioneering filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl viaUniversum Film AG (UFA):[382]

Der Sieg des Glaubens (Victory of Faith, 1933)

Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1934), co-produced by Hitler

Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht (Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces, 1935)

Olympia (1938)

See also

Nazi Germany portal

World War II portal
Fascism portal

Fhrermuseum

Hitler: A Film from Germany

Julius Schaub chief aide

Karl Mayr Hitler's superior in army Intelligence 19191920

Karl Wilhelm Krause personal valet

List of books by or about Adolf Hitler

Mein Kampf (online versions)

Poison Kitchen

Streets named after Adolf Hitler

Vorbunker

Footnotes
1.

^ Hitler also won settlement from a libel suit against the socialist paper the Mnchener Post, which
had questioned his lifestyle and income. Kershaw 2008, p. 99.

2.

^ MI5, Hitler's Last Days: "Hitler's will and marriage" on the website of MI5, using the sources
available to Trevor Roper (a World War II MI5 agent and historian/author of The Last Days of Hitler),
records the marriage as taking place after Hitler had dictated his last will and testament.

3.

^ For a summary of recent scholarship on Hitler's central role in the Holocaust, see McMillan 2012.

External links
Wikimedia Commons has
media related to:
Adolf Hitler (category)

Wikisource has original

works written by or about:
Adolf Hitler

Wikiquote has a
collection of quotations
related to: Adolf Hitler

Works by or about Adolf Hitler in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Adolf Hitler at the Internet Movie Database real life footage in documentaries

Adolf Hitler (Character) at the Internet Movie Database as portrayed in film and TV

"Adolf Hitler". The Vault. FBI Records.

"Hitler and his officers". World War II Movies in Color. WW2inColor.

Political offices

Preceded by

Reichsstatthalter of Prussia

Succeeded by

Office created

19331935

Office abolished

Preceded by
Kurt von Schleicher

Preceded by
Paul von Hindenburg

(1)

Chancellor of Germany

Succeeded by
Joseph Goebbels

19331945

(1)

Fhrer of Germany
19341945

As President

Succeeded by
Karl Dnitz
As President

Party political offices

Preceded by

Leader of the NSDAP

Succeeded by

Anton Drexler

19211945

Martin Bormann

Military offices

Preceded by

Leader of the SA

Succeeded by

Franz Pfeffer von Salomon

19301945

Disbanded

Preceded by
Walther von Brauchitsch

Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres (Army

Commander)
19411945

Succeeded by
Ferdinand Schrner

Honorary titles

Preceded by
Chiang Kai-shek and Soong
May-ling

Notes and references

Time Person of the Year

Succeeded by

1938

Joseph Stalin

1. The positions of Head of State and Government were combined 19341945 in the office of Fhrer and Chancellor of Germany

Alois Hitler
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about Adolf Hitler's father. For Adolf's half-brother, see Alois Hitler, Jr.

Alois Hitler

Alois Hitler in 1901

Alois Schicklgruber

Born

7 June 1837
Strones, Waldviertel, Lower Austria

3 January 1903 (aged 65)

Died

Gasthaus Wiesinger, Linz, Upper Austria

Occupation

Customs officer

Religion

Roman Catholicism

Spouse(s)

Anna Glasl-Hrer: (18731883; her death)

(separated 1880)

Franziska Matzelsberger: (18831884; her death)

Klara Plzl: (18851903)

with Franziska Matzelsberger:

Children

Alois Hitler, Jr.

Angela Hitler
with Klara Plzl:

Parents

Gustav Hitler

Ida Hitler

Otto Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Edmund Hitler

Paula Hitler
see Biological father
Maria Anna Schicklgruber

Alois Hitler (born Alois Schicklgruber; 7 June 1837 3 January 1903) was an Austrian civil
servant and the father of Adolf Hitler.[1]
Contents
[hide]

1 Early life

2 Early career

3 Change of surname

4 Biological father

5 DNA

6 Marriages and children

6.1 Early married life

6.2 Marriage to Klara Plzl and family life

7 Retirement

8 Death

9 Removal of tombstone

10 See also

11 References

12 Additional sources

13 External links

[edit]Early

life

Alois Schicklgruber was born in the village of Strones in the Waldviertel, a hilly forested area in
northwest Lower Austria just north of Vienna, to a 42-year-old unmarried peasant, Maria Anna
Schicklgruber,[2] whose family had lived in the area for generations. At his baptism at the nearby village
ofDllersheim, the space for his father's name on the baptismal certificate was left blank and the priest
wrote "illegitimate".[3] His mother cared for Alois in a house she shared at Strones with her elderly father,
Johannes Schicklgruber.
Sometime later, Johann Georg Hiedler moved in with the Schicklgrubers; he married Maria when Alois
was five. By the age of 10, Alois had been sent to live with Hiedler's brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler,
who owned a farm in the nearby village of Spital. Alois attended elementary school and took lessons in
shoe-making from a local cobbler. At the age of 13 he left the farm in Spital and went to Vienna as an
apprentice cobbler, working there for about five years. In response to a recruitment drive by the Austrian
government offering employment in the civil service to people from rural areas, Alois joined the frontier
guards (customs service) of the Austrian Finance Ministry in 1855 at the age of 18.

[edit]Early

career

Alois Schicklgruber made steady progress in the semi-military profession of customs official. The work
involved frequent re-assignments and he served in a variety of places across Austria. By 1860, after five
years of service, he reached the rank of Finanzwach-Oberaufseher (Revenue guard superintendent). By
1864, after special training and examinations, he had advanced further and was serving in Linz, Austria.
He later became an inspector of customs posted at Braunau am Inn in 1875. He eventually rose to full
inspector of customs and could go no higher because he lacked the necessary school degrees.

[edit]Change

of surname

As a rising young junior customs official, he used his birth name of Schicklgruber, but in mid-1876, 39
years old and well established in his career, he asked permission to use his stepfather's family name. He
appeared before the parish priest in Dllersheim and asserted that his father was Johann Georg Hiedler,
who had married his mother and now wished to legitimize him. Three relatives appeared with him as
witnesses, one of whom was Johann Nepomuk, Hiedler's son-in-law. The priest agreed to amend the
birth certificate, the civil authorities automatically processed the church's decision, and Alois
Schicklgruber had a new name. The official change, registered at the government office in Mistelbach in
1877 transformed him into "Alois Hitler". It is not known who decided on the spelling of Hitler instead
of Hiedler. Johann Georg's brother was sometimes known by the surname Httler.

Smith states that Alois Schicklgruber openly admitted having been born out of wedlock before and after
the name change.[4] Alois may have been influenced to change his name for the sake of legal
expediency. Historian Werner Maser claims that in 1876, Franz Schicklgruber, the administrator of Alois'
mother's estate, transferred a large sum of money (230 gulden) to him.[5]
Supposedly, Johann Georg Hiedler, who died in 1857, relented on his deathbed and left an inheritance to
his illegitimate son (Alois) together with his name.[6]
Some Schicklgrubers remain in Waldviertel. One of this extended clan, Aloisia Veit, who was mentally ill,
died in 1940 at the age of 49, in an Austrian Nazi gas chamber.[7]

[edit]Biological

father

Historians have discussed three candidates as Alois' biological father: Johann Georg Hiedler, his
brother Johann Nepomuk Hiedler (or Httler), and Leopold Frankenberger (whose existence has never
been documented).[8]
Most historians are satisfied that Alois' father was Johann Georg Hiedler, who during his own lifetime
was the stepfather and posthumously legally declared the birth father of Alois. According to
historian Frank McDonough, the most plausible theory is that Johann Georg Hiedler was the real father
of Alois. An explanation for Alois being sent to live on his uncle's farm as a child is that Hiedler and Maria
were simply too poor to raise him, or could not raise him as well as his uncle, or perhaps Maria's health
was in decline (she died when he was 10).
Werner Maser suggests that Alois' father was Johann Nepomuk, Georg's brother and Hitler's step-uncle,
who raised Alois through adolescence and later willed him a considerable portion of his life savings, but
never admitted publicly to be his real father. According to Maser, Nepomuk was a married farmer who
had an affair and then arranged to have his single brother Hiedler marry Alois' mother Maria to provide a
cover for Nepomuk's desire to assist and care for Alois without upsetting his wife. [5] This assumes Hiedler
was willing to marry Maria in this situation, and Adolf Hitler biographer Joachim Fest thinks this is too
contrived and unlikely to be true.
Hitler, following the rumours that his paternal grandfather was a Jew, in 1931 ordered the
SS (Schutzstaffel) to investigate the alleged rumours regarding his ancestry; they found no evidence of
any Jewish ancestors.[9] After the Nuremberg Laws came intact within the Third Reich, Hitler then
ordered a genealogist by the name of Rudolf Koppensteiner to publish a large illustrated genealogical
tree showing his ancestry, this was published in the book "Die Ahnentafel des Fuehrers" (The pedigree of
the leader) in 1937, which concluded that Hitler's family were all AustrianGermans with no Jewish
ancestry and that Hitler had an unblemished "Aryan" pedigree.[10][11] As Alois himself legitimized Johann

Georg Hielder as his father and the priest changed this on his birth certificate in 1876 this was
considered certified proof for Hitler's ancestry, thus Hitler was considered an Aryan. [10]
After the war Hitler's former lawyer, Hans Frank, claimed that Hitler told him in 1930 that one of his
relatives was trying to blackmail him by threatening to reveal his alleged Jewish ancestry.[12]Hitler asked
Frank to find out the facts. Frank says he determined that at the time Maria Schicklgruber gave birth to
Alois she was working as a household cook in the town of Graz, her employers were a Jewish family
named Frankenberger, and that her child might have been conceived out of wedlock with the family's 19year-old son, Leopold Frankenberger.[13]
Given that all Jews had been expelled from the province of Styria (which includes Graz) in the 15th
century and were not allowed to return until the 1860s, there is no evidence of a Frankenberger family
living in Graz at that time. Scholars such as Ian Kershaw and Brigitte Hamann dismiss the
Frankenberger hypothesis (which had only Frank's speculation to support it) as
baseless.[14][15][16][17] (Kershaw cites several stories circulating in the 1920s about Hitler's Jewish ancestry
including one about a "Baron Rothschild" in Vienna whose household Maria Schicklgruber had worked
for some time as a servant).[18] Frank's story contains several inaccuracies and contradictions, such as
he said "The fact that Adolf Hitler had no Jewish blood in his veins, had, from what has been his whole
manner so blatant that it needs no further word",[19] also the statement Frank had said that Maria
Schicklgruber came from "Leonding near Linz", when in fact she came from the hamlet of Strones, near
the village of Dllersheim.[20] Rosenbaum suggests that Frank, who though he had turned
against Nazism after 1945 remained an anti-Semiticfanatic, made the claim that Hitler had Jewish
ancestry as a way of proving that Hitler was a Jew and not an Aryan.[21]

[edit]DNA
In 2010 Jean-Paul Mulders's and historian Marc Vermeeren used samples from Adolf Hitler's distant
relatives to try and trace the Hitler family's haplogroup. Their conclusion was that it belongs to
the Haplogroup E1b1b (Y-DNA). This haplogroup originated in East Africa about 22,400 years ago.[22]
The largest Y-chromosome testing organization for genealogy and ancestry purposes (Family Tree
DNA) later announced that the interpretation of the Hitler family ancestry given by certain media outlets
based on the information released by Jean-Paul Mulders and historian Marc Vermeeren was "highly
questionable". Family Tree DNAs Chief Y-DNA Scientist, Professor Michael Hammer said that scientific
studies as well as records from our own database make it clear that one cannot reach the kind of
conclusion featured in the published articles.
Based on Family Tree DNA records, some 9% of the populations of Germany and Austria belong to the
haplogroup E1b1b, and among those, about 80% are not associated with Jewish ancestry.

"This data clearly show that just because one person belongs to the branch of the Y-chromosome
referred to as haplogroup E1b1b, that does not mean the person is likely to be of Jewish ancestry," said
Professor Hammer.
Therefore contrary to newspaper headlines regarding the Hitler family DNA, it is not correct to say that
they had any Jewish or recent African ancestry as the DNA found is relatively common in Austria and
Germany (9% in Austria and 8% in Germany)[23] and the tests remain inconclusive until they have been
scientifically verified.[24]
Mulders confirmed the misinterpretation of his research with the following statement to Family Tree DNA:
"I never wrote that Hitler was a Jew, or that he had a Jewish grandfather. I only wrote that Hitler's
haplogroup is E1b1b, being more common among Berbers, Somalian people and Jews than among
overall Germans. This, in order to convey that he was not exactly what during the Third Reich would
have been called 'Aryan.' All the rest are speculations of journalists who didn't even take the trouble to
read my article, although I had it translated into English especially for this purpose."[25]
The conclusion that Jean-Paul Mulders comes to in these results contradicts what his DNA research
showed when he tried to determine whether or not it was Hitler who was allegedly the German soldier
who had a son to a French woman and the conclusion from the results was that "Adolf Hitler had no
Jewish blood nor a French son."[26]

[edit]Marriages
[edit]Early

and children

married life

Alois was 36 when he married for the first time. Anna Glasl-Hrer was a wealthy, 50-year-old daughter of
a customs official. She was sick when Alois married her and was either an invalid or became one shortly
afterwards.
Not long after marrying his first wife, Anna, Alois Hitler began an affair with Franziska "Fanni"
Matzelsberger, one of the young female servants employed at the Pommer Inn, house #219, in the city
of Braunau am Inn, where he was renting the top floor as a lodging. Smith states that Alois had
numerous affairs in the 1870s, resulting in his wife initiating legal action; on 7 November 1880 Alois and
Anna separated by mutual agreement. The 19-year-old Matzelsberger became the 43-year-old Hitler's
girlfriend, but the two could not marry since under Roman Catholic canon law, divorce is not permitted.
In 1876, three years after Hitler married Anna, he had hired Klara Plzl as a household servant. She was
the 16-year-old granddaughter of Hitler's step-uncle (and possible father or biological uncle) Nepomuk. If
Nepomuk was Hitler's father, Klara was Hitler's half-niece. If his father was Johann Georg, she was his
first cousin once removed. Matzelsberger demanded that the "servant girl" Klara find another job, and
Hitler sent Plzl away.

On 13 January 1882, Matzelsberger gave birth to Hitler's illegitimate son, also named Alois, but since
they were not married, the child's last name was Matzelsberger, making him "Alois Matzelsberger". Hitler
kept Matzelsberger as his wife while his lawful wife (Anna) grew sicker and died on 6 April 1883. The
next month, on 22 May at a ceremony in Braunau with fellow custom officials as witnesses, Hitler, 45,
married Matzelsberger, 21. He then legitimized his son as Alois Hitler, Jr.[27]

A photo of Alois in uniform. He always wore his uniform and insisted on being addressed as Herr Oberoffizial
Hitler.[28]

Hitler was secure in his profession and no longer an ambitious climber. Alan [need quotation to verify] described
Alois as a "hard, unsympathetic, and short-tempered" man. Matzelsberger went to Vienna to give birth
to Angela Hitler. Matzelsberger, still only 23, acquired a lung disorder and became too ill to function. She
was moved to Ranshofen, a small village near Braunau. During the last months of Matzelsberger's life,
Klara Plzl returned to Alois' home to look after the invalid and the two children (Alois Jr and
Angela).[29] Matzelsberger died in Ranshofen on August 10, 1884 at the age of 23. After the death of his
second wife, Plzl remained in his home as housekeeper.[29]

[edit]Marriage

to Klara Plzl and family life

Plzl was soon to be pregnant by Hitler. Smith writes that if Hitler had been free to do as he wished, he
would have married Plzl immediately but because of the affidavit concerning his paternity, Hitler was
now legally Plzl's first cousin once removed, too close to marry. He submitted an appeal to the church
for a humanitarian waiver.[30] Permission came, and on 7 January 1885 a wedding was held at Hitler's
rented rooms on the top floor of the Pommer Inn. A meal was served for the few guests and witnesses.
Hitler then went to work for the rest of the day. Even Klara found the wedding to be a short ceremony.
Throughout the marriage, she continued to call him uncle.
On 17 May 1885, five months after the wedding, the new Frau Klara Hitler gave birth to her first child,
Gustav. A year later, on 25 September 1886, she gave birth to a daughter, Ida. Her son Otto followed Ida
in 1887, but he died shortly after birth. Later that year, diphtheria struck the Hitler household, resulting in
the deaths of both Gustav and Ida. Klara had been Hitler's wife for three years, and all her children were
dead, but Hitler still had the children from his relationship with Matzelsberger, Alois Jr., and Angela.
On April 20, 1889, she gave birth to another son, future Nazi dictator Adolf. He was a sickly child, and his
mother fretted over him. Alois was 51 when he was born. Hitler had little interest in child rearing and left it
all to his wife. When not at work he was either in a tavern or busy with his hobby, keeping bees. In 1892,
Hitler was transferred from Braunau to Passau. He was 55, Klara 32, Alois Jr. 10, Angela 9 and Adolf
was three years old. In 1894, Hitler was re-assigned to Linz. Klara had just given birth to Edmund, so it
was decided she and the children would stay in Passau for the time being. On 21 January 1896, Paula,
Adolf's younger sister, was born. She was the last child of Alois Hitler and Klara Plzl. Hitler was often
home with his family. He had five children ranging in age from infancy to 14; Smith suggests he yelled at
the children almost continually and made long visits to the local tavern.
Edmund (the youngest of the boys) died of measles on 2 February 1900. Alois wanted his son Adolf to
seek a career in the civil service. However, Adolf had become so alienated from his father that he was
repulsed by whatever Alois wanted. Adolf sneered at the thought of a lifetime spent enforcing petty rules.
Alois tried to browbeat his son into obedience while Adolf did his best to be the opposite of whatever his
father wanted.
Robert G. L. Waite noted, "Even one of his closest friends admitted that Alois was 'awfully rough' with his
wife [Klara] and 'hardly ever spoke a word to her at home'." If Hitler was in a bad mood, he picked on the
older children or Klara herself, in front of them. William Patrick Hitler says that he had heard from his
father, Alois Jr, that Alois Hitler, Sr. used to beat his children.[28] After Hitler and his oldest son Alois Jr.
had a climactic and violent argument, Alois Jr. left home, and the elder Alois swore he would never give
the boy a penny of inheritance beyond what the law required. According to reports, Alois Hitler liked to
lord it over his neighbors.[28]

[edit]Retirement

Gasthaus Wiesinger in February 2009

The couch on which Alois Hitler died

In February 1895 Hitler purchased a house on a nine acre (36,000 m) plot in Hafeld near Lambach,
approximately 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Linz. The farm was called the Rauscher Gut. He moved his
family to the farm and retired on 25 June 1895 at the age of 58 after 40 years in the customs service. He
found farming difficult; he lost money, and the value of the property declined.

[edit]Death
On the morning of January 3, 1903, Hitler went to the Gasthaus Wiesinger (No.1 Michaelsbergstrasse,
Leonding) as usual to drink his morning glass of wine.
He was offered the newspaper and promptly collapsed. He was taken to an adjoining room and a doctor
was summoned, but Alois Hitler died at the inn, probably from a pleural hemorrhage. The large leather
couch on which he died can still be seen today in the inn.
Adolf Hitler says in Mein Kampf that he died of a "stroke of apoplexy".[31] He was 13 when his father died.

[edit]Removal

of tombstone

The Hitlers' tombstone photographed c.1984

On 28 March 2012 the tombstone marking Alois Hitler's grave (and that of his wife, Klara)
in Leonding was removed, without ceremony, by a descendant according to Kurt Pittertschatscher, the
pastor of the parish. The descendant is said to be an elderly female relative of Alois Hitler's first wife,
Anna, who has also given up any rights to the rented burial plot. The plot was covered in white gravel
and left with a distinguishing single tree which has since been removed, but the grave is very easy to
locate. The remains of Adolf Hitler's parents are still interred there.[32]

[edit]See

also

Hitler family

[edit]References

1.

^ "Alois Hitler". Find A Grave.

2.

^ Sometimes spelled "Schickelgruber"

3.

^ Toland, John. Adolf Hitler, Doubleday & Company, 1976, pp. 35 ("Toland"); Shirer, William L. The
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Simon & Schuster, 1960, p. 7 ("Shirer"); Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1889
1936: Hubris, W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, pp. 39 ("Kershaw").

4.

^ Smith, Bradley F. Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth.Hoover Institute, 1967 ISBN 08179-1622-9

5.

a b

Werner Maser Hitler: Legend, Myth and Reality (in German, 1971; Penguin Books Ltd

1973 ISBN 0-06-012831-3)

6.

^ "The Mind of Adolf Hitler",Walter C. Langer, New York 1972 p.111

7.

^ Kate Connolly, "Hitler's Mentally Ill Cousin Killed In Nazi Gas Chamber", HNN copy of 19 Jan 2005
Daily Telegraph article.

8.

^ Frank McDonough, Hitler and the rise of the Nazi Party, Pearson Education, 2003, p.20

9.

^ Jack Fischel (1998). The Holocaust. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 137. ISBN 978-0-31329879-0.

10. ^

a b

"Ancestry of Adolf Hitler". Wargs.com. Retrieved 2013-01-25.

11. ^ Die Ahnentafel des Fhrers - Rudolf Koppensteiner - Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved
2013-01-25.
12. ^ Rosenbaum, Ron Explaining Hitler, New York: Random House 1998 pages 2022.
13. ^ Rosenbaum, Ron Explaining Hitler, New York: Random House 1998 pages 2021.
14. ^ Brigitte Hamann; Hans Mommsen (3 August 2010). Hitler's Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant as a
Young Man. Tauris Parke Paperbacks. pp. 50. ISBN 978-1-84885-277-8.
15. ^ "Hatte Hitler jdische Vorfahren?". Holocaust-Referenz.
16. ^ "Was Hitler part Jewish?". The Straight Dope. April 9, 1993.
17. ^ "Was Hitler Jewish?". Jewish Virtual Library.
18. ^ "Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris". New York Times.
19. ^ "Holocaust-Referenz : Hatte Hitler jdische Vorfahren?". H-ref.de. Retrieved 2012-07-24.
20. ^ Rosenbaum, Ron Explaining Hitler, New York: Random House 1998 page 21.
21. ^ Rosenbaum, Ron Explaining Hitler, New York: Random House 1998 pages 21 & 3031.
22. ^ Cruciani; La Fratta; Santolamazza; Sellitto (May 2004), "Phylogeographic Analysis of Haplogroup
E3b (E-M215) Y Chromosomes Reveals Multiple Migratory Events Within and Out Of Africa" (PDF),
American Journal of Human Genetics 74 (5): 10141022, DOI:10.1086/386294, PMC
1181964, PMID 15042509
23. ^ "European Y-DNA haplogroups frequencies by country". Eupedia. 2003-04-14. Retrieved 2013-0125.
24. ^ "'DNA shows Hitler of mixed race' - JPost - International". JPost. 2010-08-24. Retrieved 2012-0724.
25. ^ http://www.familytreedna.com/PDF/FTDNA_Mulders.pdf
26. ^ Door: redactie 24/04/08 - 20u21 (2009-02-15). "Hitler had geen joods bloed en geen Franse
zoon" (in (Dutch)). HLN.be. Retrieved 2012-07-24.
27. ^ "Hitler As He Knows Himself", report by Walter Langer for the OSS
28. ^

a b c

29. ^

a b

"The Mind of Adolf Hitler",Walter C. Langer, New York 1972 p.115

"The Mind of Adolf Hitler",Walter C. Langer, New York 1972 p.114

30. ^ Alois petitioned the church for an episcopal dispensation citing "bilateral affinity in the third degree
touching the second" to describe his rather complicated family relationship to Klara. The local bishop
apparently believed this relationship was too close to approve on his own authority, so he forwarded
the petition to Rome on behalf of Alois, seeing instead a papal dispensation, which was approved
before the birth of the couple's first child. See Rosenblum article.
31. ^ Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler, 4%
32. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17562615 Adolf Hitler parents' tombstone in Austria
removed BBC

[edit]Additional

sources

Marc Vermeeren, De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 18891907 en zijn familie en voorouders. Soesterberg,
2007, 420 blz. Uitgeverij Aspekt. ISBN 978-90-5911-606-1

Bullock, Alan Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. 1953 ISBN 0-06-092020-3

Fest, Joachim C. Hitler. Verlag Ullstein, 1973 ISBN 0-15-141650-8

Kershaw, Ian Hitler 18891936: Hubris. W W Norton, 1999 ISBN 0-393-04671-0

Waite, Robert G. L. The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler. Basic Books 1977 ISBN 0-465-06743-3

Payne, Robert The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler. Praeger Publishers 1973 LCCN 72-92891

Langer, Walter C. The Mind of Adolf Hitler. Basic Books Inc., New York, 1972 ISBN 0-465-046207 ASIN: B000CRPF1K

Rosenbaum, Ron Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil, New York: Random
House 1998 ISBN 0-670-82158-6

[edit]External

links

Ancestry of Adolf Hitler Who was Adolf's grandfather?

The Straight Dope: Was Hitler part Jewish?

Maria Schicklgruber
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maria Anna Schicklgruber (15 April 1795 7 January 1847) was Adolf Hitler's paternal grandmother.
Contents
[hide]

1 Family

2 The Birth of Alois

3 See also

4 References

5 Other reading

[edit]Family
Maria was born in the village of Strones in the Waldviertel region of Archduchy of Austria. She was the
daughter of Theresia Pfeisinger (7 September 1769 11 November 1821), and farmer Johannes
Schicklgruber (29 May 1764 12 November 1847). Maria was a Catholic; what is known about her is
based on church and other public records.
Maria was one of 11 children, only six of whom survived infancy. Her early life was that of a poor peasant
child in a rural forested area, in the northwest part of Lower Austria, northwest of Vienna.
Maria's mother died in 1821 when Maria was 26. She received an inheritance of 74.25 gulden, which she
left invested in the Orphans' Fund until 1838. By that time it had more than doubled to 165 gulden. At that
time, a breeding pig cost 4 gulden, a cow 10-12 gulden and an entire inn 500 gulden. Werner
Maser [1] wrote she was a "thrifty, reserved, and exceptionally shrewd peasant woman."
Other than saving her inheritance, which indicates she was not destitute during that period of her life,
little is known about Maria's life until she was over 40.

[edit]The

Birth of Alois

In 1837 she was 42 years old, and still single, when her first and only child was born. She named the
boy Alois. Maser notes that she refused to reveal who the child's father was, so the priest baptized him
Alois Schicklgruber and entered "illegitimate" in place of the father's name on the baptismal register.
Historians have discussed three candidates for the father of Alois:
1. Johann Georg Hiedler, he was put on Alois's birth certificate later in his life and who was
officially accepted as the father of Alois (paternal grandfather of Adolf Hitler) by the Third Reich.

2. Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, Georg's brother and Alois's step-uncle, who raised Alois through
adolescence and later willed him a considerable portion of his life savings but who, if he was the
real father of Alois he never found it expedient to admit it publicly.
3. And a Jew named Leopold Frankenberger, rumored by ex-Nazi Hans Frank during
the Nuremberg Trials. Historians dismiss the Frankenberger hypothesis (which had only Frank's
speculation to support it) as baseless.
At the time of his birth, she was living with a Strones village family by the name of Trummelschlager. Herr
and Frau Trummelschlager were listed as godparents to Alois.
Maria soon took up residence with her father at house #22 in Strones. After an unknown period, the three
Schicklgrubers were joined by Johann Georg Hiedler, an itinerant journeyman miller. On 10 May 1842,
five years after Alois was born, Maria Anna Schicklgruber married Johann Georg Hiedler in the nearby
village of Dllersheim. Maria was 47, her new husband was 50.
Whether or not Johann Georg Hiedler was actually the biological paternal grandfather of Hitler will
remain unknown as he was not put as the father on Alois's birth certificate. Illegitimacy was common in
lower Austria, in some areas it reached up to forty percent and as late as 1903 the figure was twenty-four
percent,[2] the children were normally legitimized at a later date.[3] Hitler's ancestry came into question
when his opponents began spreading rumors that his paternal grandfather was Jewish since one
of Nazism's major principles was that to be considered a pure "Aryan" one had to have a documented
ancestry certificate (Ahnenpass).
In 1931 Hitler ordered the Schutzstaffel (SS) to investigate the alleged rumors regarding his ancestry;
they found no evidence of any Jewish ancestors.[4] Hitler then ordered a genealogist by the name of
Rudolf Koppensteiner to publish a large illustrated genealogical tree showing his ancestry. This was
published in the book "Die Ahnentafel des Fuehrers" (The pedigree of the leader) in 1937, which
concluded that Hitler's family were all Austrian Germans with no Jewish ancestry and that Hitler had an
unblemished "Aryan" pedigree.[5][6] As Alois himself legitimized Johann Georg Hiedler as his biological
father (with three witnesses supporting and watching this), and the priest changing the father's blank
space on the birth certificate in 1876 this was considered certified proof for Hitler's ancestry, thus
Hitler was considered an Aryan.
Maria died during the sixth year of her marriage, at the age of 52 in Klein-Motten where she was living
with her husband in the home of kin, the Sillip family. She died of "consumption resulting from pectoral
(thoracic) dropsy" in 1847.[7] She was buried at the parish church in Dllersheim.
After the Anschluss of Austria in 1938, a search failed to find her grave so she was given an "Honor
Grave" next to the church wall. This grave was tended by local Hitler Youth groups whilst Dllersheim
and the surrounding areas were made proving ground areas. In 1942, this area became part of an

artillery training area and the local inhabitants were moved out. Military training continued under the
Soviets after 1945, and also under the Austrian Army until about 1985, by which time most of the towns
and villages were in ruins. The church at Dllersheim is now preserved and undergoing reconstruction.
The cemetery is being tended, but there is no grave marker there now for Maria Schicklgruber.
Some Schicklgrubers remain in Waldviertel. One of this extended clan, "Aloisia V" aged 49, died in 1940,
in a Nazi gas chamber in Austria.[8]

[edit]See

also

Hitler family

[edit]References

1.

^ Werner Maser, Hitler: Legend, Myth and Reality, Penguin Books Ltd, 1973, ISBN 0-06-012831-3

2.

^ Sherree Owens Zalampas (1990). Adolf Hitler: A Psychological Interpretation of His Views on
Architecture, Art, and Music. Popular Press. pp. 5. ISBN 978-0-87972-488-7.

3.

^ Eugene Davidson (1997). The Making of Adolf Hitler: The Birth and Rise of Nazism. University of
Missouri Press. pp. 4. ISBN 978-0-8262-1117-0.

4.

^ Jack Fischel (1998). The Holocaust. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 137. ISBN 978-0-31329879-0.

5.

^ Rudolf Koppensteiner (1937). Die Ahnentafel des Fhrers. Zentralstelle fr Deutsche Personenund Familiengeschichte. pp. 4.

6.

^ http://www.wargs.com/other/hitler.html

7.

^ Dllersheim parish records

8.

^ Kate Connolly, "Hitler's Mentally Ill Cousin Killed In Nazi Gas Chamber", HNN copy of 19 Jan 2005
Daily Telegraph article.

[edit]Other

reading

Marc Vermeeren, "De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 1889-1907 en zijn familie en voorouders". Soesterberg,
2007, 420 blz. Uitgeverij Aspekt. ISBN = 978-90-5911-606-1

Bullock, Alan Hitler: A Study in Tyranny 1953 ISBN 0-06-092020-3

Fest, Joachim C. Hitler Verlag Ullstein, 1973 ISBN 0-15-141650-8

Kershaw, Ian Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris W W Norton, 1999 ISBN 0-393-04671-0

Maser, Werner Hitler: Legend, Myth and Reality Penguin Books Ltd 1973 ISBN 0-06-012831-3

Smith, Bradley F. Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth Hoover Institution, 1967 ISBN 9780-8179-1622-0

Johann Georg Hiedler

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johann Georg Hiedler (baptised 28 February 1792 9 February 1857) was born to Martin Hiedler (17
November 1762 10 January 1829) and Anna Maria Gschl (August 23, 1760 7 December
1854).[1] He was considered the officially accepted paternal grandfather of Adolf Hitler by the Third Reich.
Whether Johann Georg was in fact Hitler's biological paternal grandfather is considered unknown by
modern historians, but his case is the most plausible and widely accepted. [2]
He was from Spital, Austria, and made his living as a wandering journeyman miller.[3] He married his first
wife in 1824 but she died in childbirth five months later. In 1842, he married Maria Anna
Schicklgruber and became the legal stepfather to her illegitimate five-year-old son, Alois. It was later
claimed Johann Georg had fathered Alois prior to his marriage to Maria, although Alois had been
declared illegitimate on his birth certificate and baptism papers; the claim that Johann Georg was the true
father of Alois was not made after the marriage of Maria and Johann Georg, or, indeed, even during the
lifetime of either of them. In 1877, twenty years after the death of Johann Georg and almost thirty years
after the death of Maria, Alois was legally declared to have been Johann Georg's son.[4]
Accordingly, Johann Georg Hiedler is one of three people most cited by modern historians as having
possibly been the actual paternal grandfather of Adolf Hitler. The other two are Johann Nepomuk
Hiedler, the younger brother of Johann Georg, and a Graz Jew by the name of Leopold Frankenberger.
In the 1950s, this third possibility was popular among historians, but modern historians now have
debunked the third possibility as the Jews were expelled from Graz in the fifteenth century and were not
permitted to return until the 1860s, several decades after Alois was born.[5]
Contents
[hide]

1 See also

2 Notes

3 References

4 External links

[edit]See

also

Hitler family

[edit]Notes

1.

^ See, e.g., Adolf Hitler's online family tree at about.com, Online Family Tree. Family trees can also
be found in various Hitler biographies; see, e.g., Toland, John (1976). Adolf Hitler. Garden City, New
York: Doubleday & Company. pp. 10-11. ISBN 0-385-03724 ("Toland"); Kershaw, p. 5.

2.

^ See, e.g., Kershaw, p. 4.

3.

^ Toland, p. 4.

4.

^ Toland, pp. 4-5. Johann Georg's younger brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, engineered the plan
to change Alois' surname to "Hitler" and to have Johann Georg declared the biological father of Alois
in 1876. Johann Nepomuk collected three "witnesses" (his son-in-law and two others), who testified
before a notary in Weitra that Johann Georg had several times stated in their presence that he was
the actual father of Alois and wanted to make Alois his legitimate son and heir. The parish priest in
Doellersheim, where the original birth certificate of Alois resided, altered the birth register. Alois was
thirty-nine years old at the time and was well-known in the community as "Alois Shicklgruber."

5.

^ See Toland, pp. 246-7; Kershaw, pp. 8-9. Toland's conclusion is based on the research of Nikolaus
Preradovic, University of Graz, who examined the books of the Jewish congregation at Graz and who
concluded that, prior to 1856, there had not been "one single Jew" in Graz since the fifteenth century.
Kershaw concludes that, whoever Alois' father may have been, he was not a Jew from Graz.

[edit]References

(Dutch) Vermeeren, Marc (2007). De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 1889-1907 en zijn familie en voorouders.

Soesterberg: Uitgeverij Aspekt. pp. 420 blz. ISBN 90-5911-606-2.

Bullock, Alan (1953). Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. ISBN 0-06-092020-3.

Fest, Joachim C. (1973). Hitler. Verlag Ullstein. ISBN 0-15-141650-8.

Kershaw, Ian (1999). Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris. W W Norton. ISBN 0-393-04671-0.

Maser, Werner (1973). Hitler: Legend, Myth and Reality. Penguin Books Ltd. ISBN 0-06-012831-3.

Smith, Bradley F. (1967). Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth. Hoover Instituted. ISBN 08179-1622-9.

[edit]External

links

Pedigree - from familysearch.org

Johann Nepomuk Hiedler

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, also known as Johann Nepomuk Httler (19 March 1807 17 September
1888), was a maternal great-grandfather[1] and possibly also the paternal grandfather ofAdolf Hitler.[2]
Johann Nepomuk was named after a Bohemian Saint Johann von Nepomuk. Some view this name as
evidence that Johann Nepomuk and subsequently his great-grandson Adolf Hitler had some Czech
blood. However, Johann von Pomuk/Johann Nepomuk, was an important saint for Bohemians of both
German and Czech ethnicity. Using Nepomuk just indicates ties to Bohemia, without indication of
ethnicity.
Johann Nepomuk became a relatively prosperous farmer and was married to Eva Maria Decker (1792
1888) who was fifteen years his senior. On 19 January 1830, Hiedler gave birth to Johanna. Legally, he
was the step-uncle of Alois Schicklgruber (later Alois Hitler), the stepson of his brother Johann Georg
Hiedler, a wandering miller.
For reasons unknown, Johann Nepomuk took in Alois when he was a boy and raised him. It is possible
that he was, in fact, Alois' natural father but could not acknowledge this publicly due to his marriage.
Another, and perhaps simpler, explanation for this kindness is that Johann Nepomuk took pity on the ten
year old Alois and took him in. Alois was, after all, the stepson of his brother Johann Georg, and Johann
Nepomuk may have known that in fact Alois was Johann Georg's natural child. After the death of Alois'
mother Maria, it could hardly have been a suitable life for a ten-year old child to be raised by an itinerant
miller.
In any case, Johann Nepomuk left Alois a considerable portion of his life savings. Johann Nepomuk's
granddaughter, Klara had a longstanding affair with Alois before marrying him in 1885 after the death of
his second wife. In 1889 she gave birth to Adolf Hitler.

[edit]See

also

Hitler family

[edit]Literature

(Dutch) Marc Vermeeren. De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 1889-1907 en zijn familie en voorouders.

Soesterberg, 2007, 420 blz. Uitgeverij Aspekt. ISBN 90-5911-606-2.

[edit]Notes

1. ^ Adolf Hitler's mother was Klara, and Klara's mother was Johanna. Johanna and her sister Walburga
were the children of Johann Nepomuk and his wife, Eva Maria Decker Hiedler.
2. ^ See the Hitler family trees (online and others) shown and cited in article on Johann Georg Hiedler.

Klara Hitler
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Klara Plzl)

Klara Plzl

Born

12 August 1860
Spital, Weitra, Austria

Died

21 December 1907 (aged 47)

Linz, Austria

Cause of death

Breast Cancer

Religion

Roman Catholicism

Spouse(s)

Alois Hitler (18851903; his death)

Children

Gustav Hitler (10 May 1885 - 8 December 1887)

Ida Hitler (23 September 1886 - 2 January 1888)
Otto Hitler (1887 - 1887)

Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 - 30 April 1945)

Edmund Hitler (24 March 1894 - 28 February 1900)
Paula Hitler (21 January 1896 - 1 June 1960)
Stepchildren:[1]
Alois Hitler, Jr. (13 January 1882 - 20 May 1956)
Angela Hitler (28 July 1883 - 30 October 1949)

Johann Baptist Plzl

Parents

Johanna Hiedler

Johann Nepomuk Hiedler(grandfather)

Relatives

Klara Hitler ne Plzl (12 August 1860 21 December 1907) was an Austrian woman, and the mother
of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.[2]
Contents
[hide]

1 Family background and marriage

2 Later life and death

3 Removal of tombstone

4 References

5 Sources

6 See also

[edit]Family

background and marriage

Born in the Austrian village of Spital, Weitra, her father was Johann Baptist Plzl and her mother
was Johanna Hiedler. Either Hiedler's father Johann Nepomuk Hiedler or his brother Johann Georg
Hiedler (who is presumed and accepted as the father) was the biological father of her later husband
Alois. Moreover, Klara and Alois were first cousins once removed.
Klara came from old peasant stock, was hard-working, energetic, pious, and conscientious. According
to Dr. Bloch, who treated her, she was a very quiet, sweet, and affectionate woman.[1]
In 1876, three years after Alois Hitler's first marriage to Anna Glasl-Hrer, Alois hired 16-year-old Klara
as a household servant. After the death of his second wife, Franziska Matzelsberger, in 1884, Alois and
Klara were married on 7 January 1885 in a brief wedding held early that morning at Hitler's rented rooms

on the top floor of the Pommer Inn in Braunau. Alois then went to work for the day at his job as a
customs official. Klara carried on calling Alois "uncle" following the marriage. Their first son Gustav was
born four months later, on 15 May 1885. Ida followed on 23 September 1886. Both infants died
of diphtheria during the winter of 1886-1887. A third child, Otto, was born and died in 1887.
Adolf was born 20 April 1889, followed by Edmund on 24 March 1894 and Paula on 21 January 1896.
Edmund died of measles on 28 February 1900, at the age of five.[3] Klara's adult life was spent keeping
house and raising children, for which, according to Smith, Alois had little understanding or interest.
Klara was very devoted to her children and, according to William Patrick Hitler, was a typical stepmother
to her stepchildren, Alois Jr. and Angela.[1]
Klara was a devout Roman Catholic and attended church regularly with her children.[4] Of her six children
with Alois, only Adolf and Paula survived childhood.
Alois and Klara's children were:

Gustav Hitler (born 10 May 1885, died of diphtheria on 8 December 1887 in Braunau am Inn)

Ida Hitler (born 23 September 1886, died of diphtheria 2 January 1888 in Braunau am Inn)

Otto Hitler (born and died 1887 in Vienna, lived three days)[5]

Adolf Hitler (born 20 April 1889, committed suicide 30 April 1945), German dictator

Edmund Hitler (born 24 March 1894, Passau, died of measles, 28 February 1900, Leonding)

Paula Hitler (born 21 January 1896, died 1 June 1960), the last surviving member of Hitler's
immediate family.

[edit]Later

life and death

Klara Hitler, most likely in the 1890s

When Alois died in 1903 he left her a government pension. She sold the house in Leonding and moved
with young Adolf and Paula to an apartment inLinz, where they lived frugally. Three or four years later a
tumor was diagnosed in her breast. Following a long series of painful iodoform treatments given by her
doctor Eduard Bloch, Klara died at home in Linz from the toxic medical side-effects on 21 December
1907.[6] Adolf and Paula were at her side.[7] Owing to their mother's pension and money from her modest
estate, the two siblings were left with some financial support. Klara was buried inLeonding near Linz.
Adolf Hitler had a close relationship with his mother, was crushed by her death and carried the grief for
the rest of his life. Speaking of Hitler, Bloch later recalled that after Klara's death he had seen in "one
young man never so much pain and suffering broken fulfilled". Decades later in 1940 Hitler showed
gratitude to Bloch (who was Jewish) by allowing him to emigrate with his wife from Austria to the United
States.[8]

[edit]Removal

of tombstone

On 28 March 2012 the tombstone marking Alois Hitler's grave (and that of his wife, Klara)
in Leonding was removed, without ceremony, by a descendant, according to Kurt Pittertschatscher, the
pastor of the parish. The descendant is said to be an elderly female relative of Alois Hitler's first wife,
Anna, who has also given up any rights to the rented burial plot. The plot was covered in white gravel
and left with its distinguishing single tree which has since been removed, but the grave is very easy to
locate. The remains of Hitler's parents are still interred in the grave.[9]

[edit]References

1. ^

a b c

"The Mind of Adolf Hitler",Walter C. Langer, New York 1972 p.116

2. ^ "A Biography of Adolf Hitler - Early Days - 1889-1908". Secondworldwar.co.uk. 2012-08-12.

Retrieved 2012-08-23.
3. ^ Vermeeren, Mar, De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 1889-1907 en zijn familie en voorouders, Soesterberg,
2007, Uitgeverij Aspekt, ISBN 978-90-5911-606-1 (Note: Source carried forward and only presumed
reliable)
4. ^ "[She] was completely devoted to the faith and teachings of Catholicism..." Smith, p. 42
5. ^ Binion, Rudolph (1976). Hitler among the Germans. New York: Elsevier. p. 144. ISBN 0-444-99033X.
6. ^ "Rise of Hitler: Hitler's Mother Dies". The History Place. 1907-01-14. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
7. ^ Biography of Klara Hitler Spartacus Educational. Retrieved on 17 August 2007.
8. ^ "Adolf Hitler: Biography". Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
9. ^ Adolf Hitler parents' tombstone in Austria removed, BBC

[edit]Sources

Bullock, Alan. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (1953) ISBN 0-06-092020-3

Fest, Joachim C. Hitler Verlag Ullstein (1973) ISBN 0-15-141650-8

Kershaw, Ian. Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris, W W Norton (1999) ISBN 0-393-04671-0

Langer, Walter C. The Mind of Adolf Hitler. Basic Books Inc., New York, (1972) ISBN 0-465-046207 ASIN: B000CRPF1K

Marc Vermeeren, "De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 1889-1907 en zijn familie en voorouders"; Soesterberg
(2007), 420 blz. Uitgeverij Aspekt. ISBN 978-90-5911-606-1

Maser, Weiner. Hitler: Legend, Myth and Reality, Penguin Books Ltd. (1973) ISBN 0-06-012831-3

Smith, Bradley F. Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth, Hoover Institute (1967; reprinted in
1979), ISBN 0-8179-1622-9

[edit]See

also

Alois Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Paula Hitler

Angela Hitler

Alois Hitler, Jr.

William Patrick Hitler

Leopold Frankenberger, Jr.

Hitler family

Angela Hitler
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues
on the talk page.
This article needs additional citations for verification. (July 2010)
This article may contain inappropriate or misinterpreted citations that do
not verify the text. (July 2010)
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sources. (July 2010)

Angela Hitler

Born

Angela Franziska Johanna Hitler

28 July 1883
Braunau, Austria-Hungary

Died

30 October 1949 (aged 66)

Hanover, West Germany

Nationality

Austro-Hungarian, Austrian

Other names

Angela Raubal
Angela Hammitzsch

Spouse(s)

Leo Raubal (1903-1910; his death)

Martin Hammitzsch (1936-1945; his death)

Children

Leo Rudolf Raubal

Geli Raubal
Elfriede (Friedl) Raubal

Parents

Alois Hitler
Franziska Matzelsberger
Stepmother: Klara Hitler[1]

Relatives

Adolf Hitler (half-brother)

Alois Hitler, Jr. (brother)

Gustav Hitler (half-brother)

Ida Hitler (half-sister)
Otto Hitler(half-brother)
Edmund Hitler (half-brother)
Paula Hitler (half-sister)

Angela Franziska Johanna Hammitzsch (ne Hitler; 28 July 1883 30 October 1949), first married
to Leo Raubal, Sr., was the elder half-sister of Adolf Hitler.
Contents
[hide]

1 Life

2 Film portrayals

3 Fictionalized portrayals

4 Literature

5 See also

6 References

[edit]Life
Angela Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria-Hungary, the second child of Alois Hitler and his second wife,
Franziska Matzelsberger. Her mother died the following year. She and her brother Alois Hitler, Jr. were
raised by their father and his third wife Klara Plzl. Her half-brother Adolf Hitler was born six years after
her, and they grew very close. She is the only one of his siblings mentioned in Mein Kampf.
Angela's father died in 1903 and her stepmother died in 1907, leaving a small inheritance. On 14
September 1903[2][3] she married Leo Raubal (11 June 1879 - 10 August 1910), a junior tax inspector,
and gave birth to a son, Leo on 12 October 1906. On 4 June 1908 Angela gave birth to Geli and in 1910
to a second daughter, Elfriede (Elfriede Maria Hochegger, 10 January 1910 - 24 September 1993).
According to an OSS profile of the Hitler family, Angela moved to Vienna and after World War I became
manager of Mensa Academia Judaica, a boarding house for Jewish students, where she once defended
her charges against anti-Semitic rioters.
Angela had heard nothing from Adolf for a decade when he re-established contact with her in 1919. In
1924 Adolf was confined in Landsberg, Angela made the trip from Vienna to visit him. In 1928 she and
Geli moved to the Berghof at Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden where she became his housekeeper
and was later put in charge of the household at Hitler's expanded retreat.

Some historians believe that Hitler had a sexual relationship with Geli, who committed suicide in 1931.
Meanwhile, Angela strongly disapproved of Hitler's relationship with Eva Braun; she eventually left
Berchtesgaden as a result and moved to Dresden. Hitler broke off relations with Angela and did not
attend her second wedding. On 20 January 1936 she married German architect Professor Martin
Hammitzsch (22 May 1878- 12 May 1945), the Director of the State School of Building Construction in
Dresden. It seems, however, that Hitler re-established contact with her during World War II, because
Angela remained his intermediary to the rest of the family with whom he did not want contact. In 1941,
she sold her memoirs of her years with Hitler to the Eher Verlag, which brought her 20,000 Reichsmark.
In spring 1945 after the destruction of Dresden in the massive bomb attack of February 13/14 Adolf
Hitler moved Angela to Berchtesgaden to avoid her being captured by the Soviets. Also he lent her and
her younger sister Paula over 100,000 Reichsmark.[clarification needed] In Hitler's Last Will and Testament, he
guaranteed Angela a pension of 1,000 Reichsmark monthly. It is uncertain if she ever received a penny
of this amount. Nevertheless, she spoke very highly of him even after the war, and claimed that neither
her brother nor she herself had known anything about the Holocaust. She declared that if Adolf had
known what was going on in the concentration camps, he would have stopped them.[citation needed]
Her son Leo had a son - Peter (b. 1931), a retired engineer who lives in Linz, Austria. Angela's daughter
Elfriede married German lawyer Dr. Ernst Hochegger on 27 June 1937 in Dsseldorf;[4][5][6]they had a
son, Heiner Hochegger (born in January 1945).[7] Angela died of a stroke.

[edit]Film

portrayals

In the 2003 miniseries Hitler: The Rise of Evil, she is portrayed by Julie-Ann Hassett.

[edit]Fictionalized

portrayals

In the French 1982 comedy L'as des as, Angela Hitler is portrayed as the caretaker of
Hitler's Obersalzberg residence. She is (indirectly) featured as his actual sister (both are played by the
same actor, Gnter Meisner).

[edit]Literature

"De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 1889-1907 en zijn familie en voorouders" by Marc Vermeeren.
Soesterberg, 2007, 420 blz. Uitgeverij Aspekt, ISBN 90-5911-606-2

[edit]See

also

Hitler family

[edit]References

1. ^ "The Mind of Adolf Hitler",Walter C. Langer, New York 1972 p.116

2. ^ Hauner, Milan (1983). Hitler: a chronology of his life and time. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-33330983-9.
3. ^ Zdral, Wolfgang. Die Hitlers. Campus Verlag GmbH. p. 104. ISBN 3-593-37457-9.
4. ^ Schaub, Julius; Olaf Rose (2005). Julius Schaub, in Hitlers Schatten: Erinnerungen und
Aufzeichnungen des Chefadjutanten 1925-1945. Druffel & Vowinckel-Verlag. p. 421. ISBN 3-80611164-2.
5. ^ Zdral, Wolfgang (2005). Die Hitlers. Campus Verlag GmbH. p. 237. ISBN 3-593-37457-9.
6. ^ Lpple, Alfred (2003). Paula Hitler: die unbekannte Schwester Zeitgeschichte (Druffel Verlag).
Druffel. p. 174.
7. ^ Joachimsthaler, Anton. Hitlers Liste: Ein Dokument Personlicher Beziehungen. Herbig.
p. 271. ISBN 3-7766-2328-4.

Hitler family
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hitler

Ethnicity

Austrian Germans[1]

Information

Earlier

Hiedler

spellings

Place of

Austria

origin

Notable

Adolf Hitler, Alois Hitler, Paula Hitler,Alois Hitler,

members

Jr., Angela Hitler,William Patrick Hitler, Heinz Hitler

The Hitler family comprises the relatives and ancestors of Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 30 April 1945)
who was an Austrian-born German[1] politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers'
Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP), commonly known
as the Nazi Party. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and served as head of
state as Fhrer und Reichskanzlerfrom 1934 to 1945. Hitler is most remembered for his central
leadership role in the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II and the Holocaust.
Before the birth of Adolf Hitler, the family surname had many variations that were often used almost
interchangeably. Some of the common variances were Hitler, Hiedler, Httler, Hytler, and Hittler. Alois
Schicklgruber (Adolf's father) changed his name on 7 January 1877 to "Hitler", which was the only form
of the last name that Adolf used.[2]
The family has long been of interest to historians and genealogists because of the sometimes-disputed
paternity of Adolf Hitler's father as well as the family's inter-relationships and their psychological effect on
Adolf during his childhood.
Contents
[hide]

1 Family history

1.1 Earliest family members

1.2 Johann Georg and Johann Nepomuk

1.3 Father of Alois Hitler

1.4 Plzl family

1.5 1870s

1.6 1880s

1.7 1890s

1.8 1900s

1.9 1910s

1.9.1 World War I

1.10 1920s

1.11 1930s

1.12 World War II

1.13 Post-World War II

1.14 Children

2 List of family members

3 Hitler family tree

4 Braun family tree

5 Notes

6 References

7 Further reading

[edit]Family

history

[edit]Earliest

family members

The Hitler family descends from Stefan Hiedler (born 1672) and his wife, Agnes Capeller. Their grandson
was Martin Hiedler (17 November 1762 10 January 1829), who married Anna Maria Gschl (23 August
1760 7 December 1854). Martin and Anna were the parents of at least three children, Lorenz, about
whom there is no further information, Johann Georg (baptised 28 February 1792 9 February 1857),
who was the stepfather of Alois Hitler (father of Adolf), and Johann Nepomuk (19 March 1807 17
September 1888), a maternal great grandfather of Adolf Hitler.[2] They were from Spital, Austria.

[edit]Johann

Georg and Johann Nepomuk

Brothers Johann Georg and Johann Nepomuk Hiedler are connected to Adolf Hitler in several ways,
although the biological relationship is disputed.
Johann Georg was legitimized and considered the officially accepted paternal grandfather of Adolf
Hitler by the Third Reich. Whether or not he was actually Hitler's biological paternal grandfather will
remain unknown as he was not put as the father on Alois's birth certificate, but most historians are
satisfied that Alois' father was Johann Georg Hiedler.[3] He married his first wife in 1824, but she died in
childbirth five months later. In 1842, he married Maria Anna Schicklgruber and became the legal
stepfather to her illegitimate five-year-old son, Alois.
Johann Nepomuk Hiedler (also known as Johann Nepomuk Httler) was named after
a Bohemian saint, Johann von Nepomuk. Some view this name as evidence that Johann Nepomuk and
therefore his great-grandson Adolf Hitler had some Czech blood. However, Johann von Pomuk/Johann
Nepomuk was an important saint for Bohemians of both German and Czech ethnicity. The name
"Nepomuk" merely indicates ties to Bohemia, without indication of ethnicity. Johann Nepomuk became a
relatively prosperous farmer and was married to Eva Maria Decker (17921873), who was fifteen years
his senior.

[edit]Father

of Alois Hitler

Alois Hitler, Adolf's father

The identity of Alois' actual father is disputed. Legally, Johann Nepomuk was the step-uncle of Alois
Schicklgruber (later Alois Hitler), the stepson of his brother Johann Georg Hiedler, a wandering
miller.[4] For reasons unknown, he took in Alois when he was a boy and raised him. It is possible that he
was, in fact, Alois' natural father but could not acknowledge this publicly due to his marriage. Another,
perhaps simpler, explanation for this kindness is that he took pity on the ten-year-old Alois. Alois was,
after all, Johann Georg's stepson, and after the death of Alois' mother Maria, it could hardly have been a
suitable life for a ten-year-old child to be raised by an itinerant miller. Also, if Alois was in fact Johann
Georg's natural child, Johann Nepomuk may have known this. A[citation needed] Johann Nepomuk died on 17
September 1888.
In any case, when he died, Johann Nepomuk left Alois a considerable portion of his life savings. Johann
Nepomuk's granddaughter, Klara, had a longstanding affair with Alois before marrying him in 1885 after
the death of his second wife. In 1889, she gave birth to Adolf Hitler.

It was later claimed that Johann Georg had fathered Alois prior to his marriage to Maria, although Alois
had been declared illegitimate on his birth certificate and baptism papers; the claim that Johann Georg
was the true father of Alois was not made after the marriage of Maria and Johann Georg, or, indeed,
even during the lifetime of either of them. In 1877, 20 years after the death of Johann Georg and almost
30 years after the death of Maria, Alois was legally declared to have been Johann Georg's son. [5]
Accordingly, Johann Georg Hiedler is one of three people most cited by modern historians as having
possibly been the actual paternal grandfather of Adolf Hitler. The other two possibilities regarding the
paternity are Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, the younger brother of Johann Georg, and a GrazJew by the
name of Leopold Frankenberger (rumored by ex-Nazi Hans Frank during the Nuremberg Trials). In the
1950s, the third possibility became popular among historians, but modern historians have now concluded
that Frank's speculation is not reliable as it has many contradictions. He said that Maria came from
"Leonding near Linz", when in fact she came from the hamlet of Strones, near the village of Dllersheim.
No evidence has ever been found that a "Frankenberger" even existed; the Jews were expelled from
Styria (which includes Graz) in the 15th century and were not permitted to return until the 1860s, several
decades after Alois' birth.[6][7][8]

[edit]Plzl

family

Johanna Hiedler, the daughter of Johann Nepomuk and Eva Decker Hiedler, was born on 19 January
1830 in Spital (part of Weitra) in theWaldviertel of Lower Austria. She lived her entire life there and was
married to Johann Baptist Plzl (18251901), a farmer and son of Johann Plzl and Juliana (Walli) Plzl.
Johanna and Johann had 5 sons and 6 daughters, of whom 2 sons and 3 daughters survived into
adulthood, the 3 daughters being Klara, Johanna, and Theresia.

[edit]1870s
Main article: Alois Hitler
At the age of 36, Alois Hitler was married for the first time, to Anna Glasl-Hrer, who was a wealthy, 50year-old daughter of a customs official. She was sick when Alois married her and was either an invalid or
became one shortly afterwards. Not long after marrying her, Alois Hitler began an affair with 19-year-old
Franziska "Fanni" Matzelsberger, one of the young female servants employed at the Pommer Inn, house
#219, in the city of Braunau am Inn, where he was renting the top floor as a lodging. Smith states that
Alois had numerous affairs in the 1870s, resulting in his wife initiating legal action; on 7 November 1880
Alois and Anna separated by mutual agreement. Matzelsberger became the 43-year-old Hitler's
girlfriend, but the two could not marry since underRoman Catholic canon law, divorce is not permitted. In
1876, three years after Alois married Anna, he hired Klara Plzl as a household servant. She was the 16year-old granddaughter of his step-uncle (and possible father or biological uncle) Nepomuk. If Nepomuk
was Alois' father, Klara was Alois' half-niece. If his father was Johann Georg, she was his first cousin

once removed. Matzelsberger demanded that the "servant girl" Klara find another job, and Hitler sent
Plzl away.

[edit]1880s

Klara Plzl Hitler, third wife of Alois and mother of Adolf.

On 13 January 1882, Matzelsberger gave birth to Hitler's illegitimate son, also named Alois, but since
they were not married, the child was Alois Matzelsberger. Hitler kept Matzelsberger as his wife while his
lawful wife Anna grew sicker and died on 6 April 1883. The next month, on 22 May at a ceremony in
Braunau with fellow customs officials as witnesses, Hitler, 45, married Matzelsberger, 21. He then
legitimized his son as Alois Hitler, Jr.[9]Matzelsberger went to Vienna to give birth to Angela Hitler. When
she was still only 23, she acquired a lung disorder and became too ill to function. She was moved to
Ranshofen, a small village near Braunau. During the last months of Matzelsberger's life, Klara Plzl
returned to Alois' home to look after the invalid and their two children.[10] Matzelsberger died in
Ranshofen on 10 August 1884 at the age of 23. After her death, Plzl remained in Hitler's home as
housekeeper.[10]
Plzl was soon pregnant by Alois. Smith writes that if Hitler had been free to do as he wished, he would
have married Plzl immediately, but because of the affidavit concerning his paternity, Hitler was now
legally Plzl's first cousin once removed, too close to marry. He submitted an appeal to the church for a
humanitarian waiver.[11] Permission came, and on 7 January 1885 a wedding was held at Hitler's rented
rooms on the top floor of the Pommer Inn. A meal was served for the few guests and witnesses. Hitler
then went to work for the rest of the day. Even Klara found the wedding to be a short ceremony.
Throughout the marriage, she continued to call him uncle.

On 17 May 1885, five months after the wedding, the new Frau Klara Hitler gave birth to her first child,
Gustav. A year later, on 25 September 1886, she gave birth to a daughter, Ida. Her son Otto followed Ida
in 1887, but he died shortly after birth.[12] During the winter of 18871888, diphtheria struck the Hitler
household, resulting in the deaths of both Gustav (8 December) and Ida (2 January). Klara and Alois had
been married for three years, and all their children were dead, but Alois still had the children from his
relationship with Matzelsberger, Alois Jr., and Angela. On 20 April 1889, Klara gave birth to Adolf.

[edit]1890s

Infant Adolf, son of Alois and Klara.

Adolf was a sickly child, and his mother fretted over him. Alois was 51 when he was born, had little
interest in child rearing and left it all to his wife. When not at work he was either in a tavern or busy with
his hobby, keeping bees. In 1892, Hitler was transferred from Braunau to Passau. He was 55, Klara 32,
Alois Jr. 10, Angela 9, and Adolf was three years old. In 1894, Hitler was reassigned to Linz. Klara gave
birth to their fifth child, Edmund, on 24 March 1894, and so it was decided that she and the children
would stay in Passau for the time being.
In February 1895, Hitler purchased a house on a 9-acre (36,000 m) plot in Hafeld near Lambach,
approximately 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Linz. The farm was called the Rauscher Gut. He moved his
family to the farm and retired on 25 June 1895 at the age of 58 after 40 years in the customs service. He
found farming difficult; he lost money, and the value of the property declined. On 21 January
1896, Paula was born. Alois was often home with his family. He had five children ranging in age from
infancy to 14; Smith suggests he yelled at the children almost continually and made long visits to the
local tavern. Robert G. L. Waite noted, "Even one of his closest friends admitted that Alois was 'awfully

rough' with his wife [Klara] and 'hardly ever spoke a word to her at home.'" If Hitler was in a bad mood, he
picked on the older children or Klara herself, in front of them.
After Hitler and his oldest son Alois Jr had a climactic and violent argument, Alois Jr left home at 14, and
the elder Alois swore he would never give the boy a penny of inheritance beyond what the law required.
Apparently his relations with his stepmother Klara were also strained. After working as an apprentice
waiter in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, Ireland, he was arrested for theft and served a five-month
sentence in 1900, followed by an eight-month sentence in 1902.

[edit]1900s
Edmund, the youngest Hitler boy, died of measles on 2 February 1900. Alois wanted his son Adolf to
seek a career in the civil service. However, Adolf had become so alienated from his father that he was
repulsed by whatever Alois wanted. Adolf sneered at the thought of a lifetime spent enforcing petty rules.
Alois tried to browbeat his son into obedience while Adolf did his best to be the opposite of whatever his
father wanted.
Alois Hitler died in 1903, leaving Klara a government pension. She sold the house in Leonding and
moved with young Adolf and Paula to an apartment in Linz, where they lived frugally. Three or four years
later a tumor was diagnosed in her breast. Following a long series of painful iodoform treatments given
by her doctor Eduard Bloch, Klara died at home in Linz on 21 December 1907. Adolf and Paula were at
her side.[13][14] The siblings were left with some financial support from their mother's pension and her
modest estate. Klara was buried in Leonding.
Adolf Hitler had a close relationship with his mother, was crushed by her death and carried the grief for
the rest of his life. Speaking of Hitler, Bloch later recalled that after Klara's death he had seen in "one
young man never so much pain and suffering".[15]
On 14 September 1903[16][17] Angela Hitler, Adolf's half-sister, married Leo Raubal (11 June 1879 10
August 1910), a junior tax inspector, and on 12 October 1906 she gave birth to a son, Leo. On 4 June
1908 Angela gave birth to Geli and in 1910 to a second daughter, Elfriede (Elfriede Maria Hochegger, 10
January 1910 24 September 1993).

[edit]1910s
In 1909, Alois Hitler, Jr. met an Irishwoman by the name of Bridget Dowling at the Dublin Horse Show.
They eloped to London and married on June 3, 1910. William Dowling, Bridget's father, threatened to
have Alois arrested for kidnapping, but Bridget dissuaded him. The couple settled in Liverpool, where
their son William Patrick Hitler was born in 1911. The family lived in a flat at 102 Upper Stanhope Street.
The house was destroyed in the last German air-raid on Liverpool on 10 January 1942. Nothing remains
of the house or those that surrounded it, and the area was eventually cleared and grassed over. Bridget

Dowling's memoirs claim Adolf Hitler lived with them in Liverpool from 1912 to 1913 while he was on the
run for dodging the draft in his native Austria-Hungary, but most historians dismiss this story as a fiction
invented to make the book more appealing to publishers.[18] Alois attempted to make money by running a
small restaurant in Dale Street, a boarding house on Parliament Street and a hotel on Mount Pleasant,
all of which failed. Alois Jr. left his family in May 1914 and he returned alone to the German Empire to
establish himself in the safety-razor business.
Paula had moved to Vienna, where she worked as a secretary. She did not have contact with Adolf
during the period comprising his difficult years as a painter in Vienna and later Munich, military service
during World War I and early political activities back in Munich. She was delighted to meet him again in
Vienna during the early 1920s, though she later claimed to have been privately distraught at his
subsequent rising fame.

[edit]World War I
Main article: Military career of Adolf Hitler
When World War I broke out, Alois Jr. was stranded in Germany and it was impossible for his wife and
son to join him. He married another woman, Hedwig Heidemann (or Hedwig Mickley[19]), in 1916. After
the war, a third party informed Bridget that he was dead.
At the outbreak of World War I, Hitler was a resident of Munich and volunteered to serve in the Bavarian
Army as an Austrian citizen.[20] Posted to the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (1st Company of
the List Regiment).[21][20] Hitler's case was not exceptional as he was not the only Austrian soldier in the
List Regiment. It is likely Hitler was accepted into the Bavarian army either simply because nobody had
asked him whether or not he was a German citizen when he first volunteered or because the recruiting
authorities were happy to accept any volunteer and simply did not care what Hitler's nationality was, or
because he might have told the Bavarian authorities that he intended on becoming a German citizen. We
cannot know.[22]

Hitler with his army comrades of the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (c. 19141918)

He served as a dispatch runner on the Western Front in France and Belgium,[23] spending nearly half his
time well behind the front lines.[24][25] He was present at the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme,
the Battle of Arras, and the Battle of Passchendaele, and was wounded at the Somme.[26]
He was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in 1914.[26] Recommended
by Hugo Gutmann, he received the Iron Cross, First Class, on 4 August 1918,[27] a decoration rarely
awarded to one of Hitler's rank (Gefreiter). Hitler's post at regimental headquarters, providing frequent
interactions with senior officers, may have helped him receive this decoration.[28] Though his rewarded
actions may have been courageous, they were probably not highly exceptional.[29] He also received
the Black Wound Badge on 18 May 1918.[30]
During his service at the headquarters, Hitler pursued his artwork, drawing cartoons, and instructions for
an army newspaper. During the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, he was wounded either in the
groin area[31] or the left thigh by a shell that had exploded in the dispatch runners' dugout.[32]

Adolf Hitler as a soldier during the First World War (19141918)

Hitler spent almost two months in the Red Cross hospital at Beelitz, returning to his regiment on 5 March
1917.[33]On 15 October 1918, he was temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack and was hospitalised
in Pasewalk.[34]While there, Hitler learnt of Germany's defeat,[35] andby his own accounton receiving
this news, he suffered a second bout of blindness.[36]
Hitler became embittered over the collapse of the war effort, and his ideological development began to
firmly take shape.[37] He described the war as "the greatest of all experiences", and was praised by his
commanding officers for his bravery.[38] The experience reinforced his passionate German patriotism and
he was shocked by Germany's capitulation in November 1918.[39] Like other German nationalists, he
believed in the Dolchstolegende (stab-in-the-back legend), which claimed that the German army,

"undefeated in the field", had been "stabbed in the back" on the home front by civilian leaders
and Marxists, later dubbed the "November criminals".[40]
The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany must relinquish several of its territories
and demilitarise the Rhineland. The treaty imposed economic sanctions and levied heavy reparations on
the country. Many Germans perceived the treatyespecially Article 231, which declared Germany
responsible for the waras a humiliation.[41] The Versailles Treaty and the economic, social, and political
conditions in Germany after the war were later exploited by Hitler for political gains.[42]

[edit]1920s
On 14 March 1920, Heinrich "Heinz" Hitler was born to Alois Jr and his second wife, Hedwig Heidemann.
In 1924, Alois Jr was prosecuted for bigamy, but acquitted due to Bridget's intervention on his behalf. His
older son, William Patrick, stayed with Alois and his new family during his early trips to Weimar
Republic Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
When Adolf was confined in Landsberg, Angela made the trip from Vienna to visit him. Angela's
daughters, Geli and Elfriede, accompanied their mother when she became Hitler's housekeeper in 1925;
Geli Raubal was 17 at the time and would spend the next six years in close contact with her halfuncle.[43] Her mother was given a position as housekeeper at the Berghof villa nearBerchtesgaden in
1928.[44] Geli moved into Hitler's Munich apartment in 1929 when she enrolled in the Ludwig Maximilian
University to study medicine. She did not complete her medical studies.[45]
As he rose to power as leader of the Nazi Party, Adolf kept a tight rein over his half-niece and behaved in
a domineering and possessive manner.[46] When he discovered she was having a relationship with his
chauffeur, Emil Maurice, he forced an end to the affair and dismissed Maurice from his service.[45][47] After
that he did not allow her to freely associate with friends, and attempted to have himself or someone he
trusted near her at all times, accompanying her on shopping trips, to the movies, and to the opera.[46]
Adolf met Eva Braun, 23 years his junior, at Heinrich Hoffmann's photography studio in Munich in
October 1929.[48] He occasionally dated other women as well, including Hoffmann's daughter, Henrietta,
and Maria Reiter.[49]

[edit]1930s
Some historians believe that Hitler had a sexual relationship with his half-niece, Geli, who
committed suicide in 1931.[citation needed]
After having little contact with her brother Adolf, Paula was delighted to meet him again in Vienna during
the early 1930s.[50] By her own account, after losing a job with a Viennese insurance company in 1930
when her employers found out who she was, Paula received financial support from her brother (which
continued until his suicide in late April 1945). She lived under the assumed family name Wolf at Hitler's

request (this was a childhood nickname of his which he had also used during the 1920s for security
purposes) and worked sporadically. She later claimed to have seen her brother about once a year during
the 1930s and early 1940s.[citation needed]
In 1934, Alois Jr. established a restaurant in Berlin which became a popular meeting place for SA
Stormtroopers. He managed to keep the restaurant open through the duration of World War II.[citation needed]
Angela strongly disapproved of Adolf's relationship with Eva Braun; she eventually left Berchtesgaden as
a result and moved to Dresden. Hitler broke off relations with Angela and did not attend her second
wedding. On 20 January 1936 she married German architect Professor Martin Hammitzsch, the Director
of the State School of Building Construction in Dresden.[citation needed]

[edit]World

War II

As Adolf led Germany into World War II, he become distant to his family. Despite having previously
becoming estranged after disapproval of Adolf's relationship with Eva Braun, Angela and Adolf eventually
re-established contact during the war. Angela was his intermediary to the rest of the family, because
Adolf did not want contact. In 1941, she sold her memoirs of her years with Hitler to the Eher Verlag,
which brought her 20,000 Reichsmark. Meanwhile, Alois Jr. continued to manage his restaurant
throughout the duration of the war. He was arrested by the British, but released when it became clear he
had played no role in his brother's regime.
A couple of Adolf's relatives served in Nazi Germany during the war. Adolf's nephew Heinz was a
member of the Nazi Party. He attended an elite Nazi military academy, the National Political Institutes of
Education (Napola) in Ballenstedt/Saxony-Anhalt[1]. Aspiring to be an officer, Heinz joined the Wehrmacht
as a signals NCO with the 23rd Potsdamer Artillery Regiment in 1941, and he participated in the invasion
of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa. On 10 January 1942, he was captured by Soviet forces and
sent to the Moscow military prison Butyrka, where he died, aged 21, after interrogation and torture.
Adolf's other nephew, Leo Rudolf Raubal, was drafted by the Luftwaffe. He was injured in January 1943
during the Battle of Stalingrad,[51] and Friedrich Paulus asked Hitler for a plane to evacuate Raubal to
Germany.[52] Hitler refused and Raubal was captured by the Soviets on 31 January 1943. Hitler gave
orders to check out the possibility of a prisoner exchange with the Soviets for Stalin's son Yakov
Dzhugashvili, who was in German captivity since 16 July 1941.[53] Stalin refused to exchange him either
for Raubal or for Friedrich Paulus,[54] and said "war is war."[55]
In the spring of 1945, after the destruction of Dresden in the massive bomb attack of February 13/14,
Adolf moved Angela to Berchtesgaden to avoid her being captured by the Soviets. Also, he let her and
his younger sister Paula have over 100,000 Reichsmark. Paula barely saw her brother during the war.
There is some evidence Paula shared her brother's strong German nationalist beliefs, but she was not

politically active and never joined the Nazi Party.[56] During the closing days of the war, at the age of 49,
she was driven to Berchtesgaden, Germany, apparently on the orders ofMartin Bormann.
Adolf and Eva Braun committed suicide in the Fhrerbunker on 30 April 1945.[57]

[edit]Post-World

War II

In Hitler's Last Will and Testament, he guaranteed Angela a pension of 1,000 Reichsmark monthly. It is
uncertain if she ever received a penny of this amount. Nevertheless, she spoke very highly of him even
after the war, and claimed that neither her brother nor she herself had known anything about
the Holocaust. She declared that if Adolf had known what was going on in theconcentration camps, he
would have stopped them.
Adolf's sister Paula was arrested by US intelligence officers in May 1945 and debriefed later that
year.[58] A transcript shows one of the agents remarking she bore a physical resemblance to her sibling.
She told them the Russians had confiscated her house in Austria, the Americans had expropriated her
Vienna apartment and that she was taking English lessons. She characterized her childhood relationship
with her brother as one of both constant bickering and strong affection. Paula said she could not bring
herself to believe her brother had been responsible for the Holocaust. She also told them she had met
Eva Braun only once. Paula was released from American custody and returned to Vienna where she
lived on her savings for a time, then worked in an arts and crafts shop. In 1952, she moved
to Berchtesgaden, Germany, reportedly living "in seclusion" in a two-room flat as Paula Wolff. During this
time, she was looked after by former members of the SSand survivors of her brother's inner circle.[58] In
February 1959, she agreed to be interviewed by Peter Morley, a documentary producer
for British television station Associated-Rediffusion. The resulting conversation was the only filmed
interview she ever gave and was broadcast as part of a programme called Tyranny: The Years of Adolf
Hitler. She talked mostly about Hitler's childhood.
Angela died of a stroke on 30 October 1949. Her brother, Alois Jr., died on 20 May 1956 in Hamburg.
Paula, Adolf's last surviving sibling, died on 1 June 1960, at the age of 64. [59]

[edit]Children
It is alleged that Hitler had a son, Jean-Marie Loret, with a Frenchwoman named Charlotte Lobjoie. JeanMarie Loret was born in March 1918 and died in 1985, aged 67.[60] Loret married several times, and had
up to nine children. His family's lawyer has suggested that, if their descent from Hitler could be proven,
they may be able to claim royalties for Hitler's book, Mein Kampf.[61]However, the dominant view, as
represented by historians such as Anton Joachimsthaler,[62] and Sir Ian Kershaw,[63] is that Hitler's
paternity is unlikely or impossible.

[edit]List

of family members

Adolf Hitler (18891945), German Chancellor

Eva Braun (19121945), wife

Alois Hitler, Sr. (18371903), father

Klara Hitler (18601907), mother

Alois Hitler, Jr. (ne Matzelsberger) (18821956), elder half-brother

Angela Hitler (18831949), elder half-sister

Four of Adolf's siblings died in infancy or early childhood of illnesses:

Gustav Hitler (18851887), died of diphtheria

Ida Hitler (18861888), died of diphtheria

Otto Hitler (18871887), died of diphtheria

Edmund Hitler (18941900), died of measles

Paula Hitler (18961960), younger sister and only full sibling to survive into adulthood

Bridget Dowling, sister-in-law

Geli Raubal, niece

Gretl Braun, sister-in-law through Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun

Heinz Hitler, nephew

Ilse Braun, sister-in-law through Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun

Johann Georg Hiedler ( 17921857), presumed grandfather

Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, maternal great-grandfather, presumed great uncle, and possibly
Hitler's true paternal grandfather

Leo Raubal Jr, nephew

Maria Schicklgruber (17951847), paternal grandmother

Johann Plzl, maternal grandfather

Johanna Hiedler, maternal grandmother

William Patrick Hitler, nephew, born in Liverpool, England

Wikimedia Commons has
media related to: Hitler family
photographs

[edit]Hitler

family tree

Note: For simplicity, the first (childless) marriage of Alois Hitler (b.1837) to Anna Glasl-Hrer has
been excluded, as have any marriages that may have occurred after 1945.
Stefan Hiedler

Agnes Capeller

(1672?)

(1674?)
Maria Anna
Neugeschwandter

Johann Hiedler
(1725?)

Martin Hiedler
(17621829)

Lorenz Hiedler

Theresia
Pfeisinger
(1769
1821)

Johannes
Schicklgruber
(17641847)

Disputed
paternity
:
Read
details

Maria
Schicklgrube
r
(17951847)

Willia
m
Patrick
Hitler
(1911
1987)

Alois
Hitler
Jr.
(1882
1956)

Hedwig
Heidemann

Heinz
Hitler
(1920
1942)

[edit]Braun

Johann
Nepomuk
Hiedler
(18071888)

Johann Georg
Hiedler
(17921857)

Eva Maria
Decker(1792
1873)

Walburga
Hiedler
(18321900)

Leo Raubal Sr.

(18791910)

Leo Rudolf
Raubal Jr
(19061977)

Laurenz
Plzl
(1788
1841)

Klara
Plzl
(1860

1907)

Angela Hitler
(18831949)

Geli Raubal
(19081931)

Martin
Hammitzsc
h
(1878
1945)

Gusta
v
Hitler
(1885
87)

Elfriede
Raubal
(19101993)

Note: For simplicity, the second marriages after 1945 of Ilse and Gretl have been excluded.
Franziska Kronberger

Johanna
Plzl
(1863
1911)
Theresi
a Plzl
(1868
1935)

Otto Hitler
(188787)
Adolf
Hitler
(1889
1945)
Eva Braun
Ida Hitler
(1912
(1886
1945)
88)
Edmund
Hitler
(1894
1900)
Paula
Hitler
(1896
1960)

family tree

Friedrich Braun

Juliana
Walli
(1797
1831)

Johann
Baptist
Plzl
(1828
1902)

Johanna
Hiedler
(1830
1906)

Alois
Hitler
(1837
1903)

Franziska
Matzelberger
(18611884)

Bridget
Dowling
(18911969)

Anna Maria
Goschl
(17601854)

(Herr) Hofsttter

Ilse Braun
(19091979)

(18791964)

(18851976)

Adolf Hitler
(18891945)

Eva Braun
(19121945)

Gretl Braun
(19151987)

Hermann Fegelein
(19061945)

Eva Barbara Fegelein

(19451971)

[edit]Notes

1.

a b

Jeremy Roberts (1 February 2001). Adolf Hitler: A Study in Hate. The Rosen Publishing

Group. pp. 8. ISBN 978-0-8239-3317-4.

2.

a b

See, e.g., Adolf Hitler's online family tree (1998, drawn by Jennifer Rosenberg) at

about.com, Online Family Tree. Family trees can also be found in various Hitler
biographies; see, e.g., Toland, John (1976). Adolf Hitler. Garden City, New York: Doubleday &
Company. pp. 1011. ISBN 0-385-03724-4 ("Toland"); Kershaw, p. 5.
3.

^ See, e.g., Kershaw, p. 4.

4.

^ Toland, p. 4.

5.

^ Toland, pp. 45. Johann Georg's younger brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, engineered the
plan to change Alois' surname to "Hitler" and to have Johann Georg declared the biological
father of Alois in 1876. Johann Nepomuk collected three "witnesses" (his son-in-law and two
others) who testified before a notary in Weitra that Johann Georg had several times stated in
their presence that he was the actual father of Alois and wanted to make Alois his legitimate son
and heir. The parish priest in Doellersheim, where the original birth certificate of Alois resided,
altered the birth register. Alois was 39 years old at the time and was well-known in the
community as "Alois Shicklgruber".

6.

^ Brigitte Hamann; Hans Mommsen (3 August 2010). Hitler's Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant As
a Young Man. Tauris Parke Paperbacks. pp. 50. ISBN 978-1-84885-277-8.

7.

^ Donald McKale (16 December 2011). Nazis After Hitler: How Perpetrators of the Holocaust
Cheated Justice and Truth. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 147. ISBN 978-1-4422-1318-0.

8.

^ See Toland, pp. 24647; Kershaw, pp. 89. Toland's conclusion is based on the research of
Nikolaus Preradovic, University of Graz, who examined the books of the Jewish congregation at
Graz and concluded that prior to 1856 there had not been "one single Jew" in Graz since the
15th century. Kershaw concludes that, whoever Alois' father may have been, he was not a Jew
from Graz.

9.

^ "Hitler As He Knows Himself", report by Walter Langer for the OSS

10. ^

a b

Langer, Walter (1972). The Mind of Adolf Hitler, New York, p. 114

11. ^ Alois petitioned the church for an episcopal dispensation citing "bilateral affinity in the third
degree touching the second" to describe his rather complicated family relationship to Klara. The

local bishop apparently believed this relationship was too close to approve on his own authority,
so he forwarded the petition to Rome on behalf of Alois, seeking instead a papal dispensation,
which was approved before the birth of the couple's first child. See Rosenblum article.
12. ^ Binion, Rudolph (1976). Hitler among the Germans. New York: Elsevier. p. 144. ISBN 0-44499033-X.
13. ^ http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/mother.htm
14. ^ Biography of Klara Hitler Spartacus Educational. Retrieved on 17 August 2007.
15. ^ http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitler.html
16. ^ Hauner, Milan (1983). Hitler: a chronology of his life and time. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0333-30983-9.
17. ^ Zdral, Wolfgang. Die Hitlers. Campus Verlag GmbH. p. 104. ISBN 3-593-37457-9.
18. ^ "Hitler: His Irish Relatives", by Tony McCarthy in Irish Roots magazine. Retrieved: 2010-10-22.
19. ^ cicero.de/97
20. ^

a b

Kershaw 1999, p. 90.

21. ^ Weber 2010, pp. 1213.

22. ^ Weber 2010, p. 16.
23. ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 53.
24. ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 54.
25. ^ Weber 2010, p. 100.
26. ^

a b

Shirer 1960, p. 30.

27. ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 59.

28. ^ Bullock 1962, p. 52.
29. ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 96.
30. ^ Steiner 1976, p. 392.
31. ^ Jamieson 2008.
32. ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 57.
33. ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 58.
34. ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 59, 60.
35. ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 97.
36. ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 102.
37. ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 61, 62.
38. ^ Keegan 1987, pp. 238240.
39. ^ Bullock 1962, p. 60.
40. ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 6163.

41. ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 96.

42. ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 80, 90, 92.
43. ^ Bullock 1999, p. 393.
44. ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 177.
45. ^

a b

Grtemaker 2011, p. 43.

46. ^

a b

Kershaw 2008, p. 219.

47. ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 220.

48. ^ Grtemaker 2011, p. 13.
49. ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 218.
50. ^ Langer, Walter (1972). The Mind of Adolf Hitler, New York 1972 pp. 122-123
51. ^ Deighton, Len (1987). Winter: a novel of a Berlin family. New York: Knopf. p. 464. ISBN 0-39455177-X.
52. ^ Hauner, Milan (1983). Hitler: A Chronology of his Life and Time. London: Macmillan.
p. 181. ISBN 0-333-30983-9.
53. ^ Elliott, Mark R. (1982). Pawns of Yalta: Soviet refugees and America's role in their repatriation.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 185. ISBN 0-252-00897-9.
54. ^ Bailey, Ronald Albert (1981). Prisoners of War. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books.
p. 123. ISBN 0-8094-3391-5.
55. ^ Tolstoy, Nikolai (1978). The Secret Betrayal. New York: Scribner. p. 296. ISBN 0-684-156350.
56. ^ Interrogation II with Paula Hitler.
57. ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 955.
58. ^

a b

Interview with Paula Wolff

59. ^ "Paula Hitler". Associated Press in Washington Post. June 3, 1960. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
"Berchtesgaden, Germany (AP) Paula Hitler, sister of Adolph [sic] Hitler, died Wednesday,
according to police."
60. ^ Peter Allen (2012-02-17). "Hitler had son with French teen". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved
2012-02-22.
61. ^ Wordsworth, Araminta (February 17, 2012). "Is Jean-Marie Loret Hitler's long-lost
son?". National Post. Retrieved March 29, 2012.
62. ^ Korrektur einer Biographie. Adolf Hitler, 19081920 [Emendation of a Biography. Adolf Hitler,
19081920], Munich, 1989, pp. 16264
63. ^ Hitler 18891936: Hubris; Vol. 1, note 116 to Chapter 3

[edit]References

Bullock, Alan (1999) [1952]. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. New York: Konecky &
Konecky. ISBN 978-1-56852-036-0.

Jamieson, Alastair (19 November 2008). "Nazi leader Hitler really did have only one ball". The
Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 27 May 2011.

Kershaw, Ian (1999). Hitler 18891936: Hubris. W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-04671-0.

Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06757-6.

Maser, Werner (1973). Hitler: Legend, Myth and Reality. Penguin Books Ltd. ISBN 0-06-0128313.

Shirer, William L. (1960). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon &
Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-62420-0.

Smith, Bradley F. (1967). Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth. Hoover
Instituted. ISBN 0-8179-1622-9.

Steiner, John Michael (1976). Power Politics and Social Change in National Socialist Germany:
A Process of Escalation into Mass Destruction. The Hague: Mouton. ISBN 978-90-279-7651-2.

(Dutch) Vermeeren, Marc (2007). De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 18891907 en zijn familie en

voorouders. Soesterberg: Uitgeverij Aspekt. pp. 420 blz. ISBN 90-5911-606-2.

Weber, Thomas (2010). Hitler's First War: Adolf Hitler, The Men of the List Regiment, and the
First World War. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-923320-5.

[edit]Further

reading

Fest, Joachim C. (1973). Hitler. Verlag Ullstein. ISBN 0-15-141650-8.

Toland, John (1992) [1976]. Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-38542053-2.

August Kubizek
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear
because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help toimprove this article
by introducing more precise citations. (February 2013)

August Kubizek, 1907

August ("Gustl") Kubizek (3 August 1888, Linz 23 October 1956, Eferding) was a close friend of Adolf
Hitler when both were in their late teens. He later wrote about their friendship.
Contents
[hide]

1 Early life

2 Later contact with Hitler

3 Later life, imprisonment and memoirs

4 See also

5 References

6 External links

[edit]Early

life

August was the first born and only surviving child of Michael and Maria Kubizek. His sisters Maria,
Therese and Karoline died in early childhood. Kubizek later wrote that this was a striking parallel
between his own life and that of Adolf Hitler, whose mother had lost four children prematurely. As the
surviving sons of grief-stricken mothers, August and Adolf could not help but feel they had been spared
or "chosen" by fate.[1]

Kubizek and Hitler first met while competing for standing room in the Landestheater in Linz, Austria.
Because of their shared passion for the operas of Richard Wagner they quickly became close friends
and later roommates in Vienna while both sought admission into college. The two shared a small room in
Stumpergasse 29/2 door 17 in the sixth district of Vienna from 22 February to early July 1908.
As the only son of a self-employed upholsterer, August was expected to someday take over his father's
business, but he secretly harboured dreams of becoming a conductor. With Adolf's encouragement, he
devoted more and more of his time to this passion, completing all the musical training available to him in
Linz. However, to achieve his goal, he would require higher education in music which was offered only in
Vienna.
It was Adolf Hitler who, at the age of eighteen, successfully persuaded Kubizek's father to let his son go
to the metropolis to attend the conservatory. This, Kubizek wrote, changed the course of his life for good.
He was immediately accepted into the Vienna Conservatory where he quickly made a name for himself.
Hitler, however, was twice denied entrance into Vienna's art academy, a fact which he kept hidden from
his friend for some time. In 1908 Hitler abruptly broke off the friendship and drifted into homelessness.
Kubizek completed his studies in 1912 and was hired as conductor of the orchestra in Marburg on
the Drau, Austria (called Maribor in Slovenia after 1918). He was later offered a position at the
Stadttheater in Klagenfurt,[2] but this job and his musical career were cut short by the beginning of World
War I. Before leaving for the front he married Anna Funke (7 October 1887 4 October 1976), a violinist
from Vienna with whom he had three sons: Augustin, Karl Maria and Rudolf.
From August 1914 until November 1918 Kubizek served as a reservist in Regiment 2 of the AustroHungarian Infantry. In the Carpathian winter campaign of 1915, he was wounded at Eperjes in Hungary
(now Preov in Slovakia) and later evacuated to Budapest in an ambulance train. After months of
convalescence, he returned to the front and was attached to a mechanised corps in Vienna. After the war
Kubizek accepted a position as an official in the municipal council of Eferding, Upper Austria and music
became his hobby.

[edit]Later

contact with Hitler

After seeing Hitler on the front page of the Mnchner Illustrierte (circa 1920) Kubizek followed his friend's
career with some interest, although he did not attempt to contact him until 1933 when he wrote to
congratulate him on having become Chancellor of Germany. Six months later Kubizek received an
unexpected reply from Hitler, who wrote to his old friend "Gustl" saying, "I should be very glad... to revive
once more with you those memories of the best years of my life."[3] Thirty years after Hitler had broken off
contact with Kubizek the two friends were reunited on 9 April 1938 during one of Hitler's visits in Linz.
The two spoke for over an hour at the Hotel Weinzinger and Hitler offered Kubizek the conductorship of

an orchestra, which Kubizek politely refused. Upon learning of his friend's three sons Hitler did, however,
insist on financing their educations at the Anton Bruckner Conservatory in Linz. Hitler later invited
Kubizek to attend the Bayreuth festival as his guest in 1939 and again in 1940, experiences described by
Kubizek as "the happiest hours of my earthly existence".
In 1938, Kubizek was hired by the Nazi party to write two short propaganda booklets
called Reminiscences about his youth with Hitler. In one episode Kubizek said Hitler had a great love for
a girl named "Stefanie" and wrote her many love poems but never sent them. Hitler biographer John
Toland noted that when Stefanie learned she had been an early object of Hitler's affection, she was
stunned.
Kubizek saw Hitler for the last time on 23 July 1940, although as late as 1944 Hitler sent Kubizek's
mother a food basket for her 80th birthday. His friend told him: "This war will set us back many years in
our building programme. It is a tragedy. I did not become Chancellor of the Greater German Reich to
fight wars." The Fhrer was speaking after the successful campaigns in Poland and France.
When the tide began to turn against Hitler's favour, Kubizek, who had avoided politics all his life, became
a member of the NSDAP in 1942 as a gesture of loyalty to his friend.[1]

[edit]Later

life, imprisonment and memoirs

In December 1945, Kubizek gathered the collection of postcards and other keepsakes given to him by
Hitler during their youth and concealed them carefully in the basement of his house inEferding. He was
arrested shortly afterwards and held at Glasenbach, where he was imprisoned and interrogated by
the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command for 16 months. His home was searched, but the Hitler
correspondence and drawings were not found. He was released on 8 April 1947.
In 1951, Kubizek, who had rejected other post-war offers for his memoirs, agreed to publish "Adolf Hitler,
mein Jugendfreund" ("Adolf Hitler, My Childhood Friend") through the Leopold Stocker Verlag. The
original manuscript was 293 pages long and included several pictures, many of which showed postcards
and sketches given to the author by the young Hitler between the years 1906 and 1908. The book is
divided into three parts and consists of a prologue, 24 chapters and an epilogue.
It caused a stir when it was released in 1953 and was later translated into several languages. In the
epilogue Kubizek wrote, "Even though I, a fundamentally unpolitical individual, had always kept aloof
from the political events of the period which ended forever in 1945, nevertheless no power on earth could
compel me to deny my friendship with Adolf Hitler."
Kubizek's second wife and widow Pauline (19062001) was credited with having provided the Stocker
Verlag with additional photographs for the book's fourth edition in 1975.

On 8 January 1956 Kubizek was named the first honorary member of the Musikverein in Eferding. [4] He
died on 23 October 1956, aged 68, in Linz and is buried in Eferding, Upper Austria.

[edit]See

also

Lothar Machtan

[edit]References

a b

1.

August Kubizek in Adolf Hitler, mein Jugendfreund

2.

^ Brigitte Hamann in Hitlers Wien, Lehrjahre eines Diktators

3.

^ William L. Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (p. 14) The letter is dated August 4

4.

^ Stadtgemeinde Eferding in EFERDING: Stadt an der Nibelungenstrasse

Adolf Hitler, mein Jugendfreund - August Kubizek (1953) & (2002) ISBN 3-7020-0971-X, ISBN 37020-0213-8, English translation: Young Hitler, the Story of Our Friendship (1955) & (1976)

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - William L. Shirer (1960) Simon & Schuster, Inc. ISBN 0-67172869-5 (1990 30th Anniversary edition)

[edit]External

links

Download Kubizek's The Young Hitler I Knew on archive.org

Stefanie Rabatsch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stefanie Rabatsch

Stefanie Isak

Born

Residence

Urfahr, Linz, Austria

Vienna, Austria

Known for

Hitler's crush

Stefanie Rabatsch (ne Isak) was the object of Adolf Hitler's love when he was a teenager. August
Kubizek, a close childhood friend and later biographer of his childhood experience with Hitler, wrote
about this in his memoirs, Adolf Hitler, mein Jugendfreund (Adolf Hitler, My Childhood Friend; published
in English as The Young Hitler I Knew). However, Stefanie Rabatsch stated in interviews that she was
unaware of Hitler's feelings.
Contents
[hide]

1 Background

2 Interaction with Hitler

3 Scholarly reaction

4 Bibliography

5 References

[edit]Background
According to Kubizek, Hitler's passion for Stefanie began in spring 1905, when he was 16 and attending
school in Linz, and lasted four years, until he was 20.[1] Kubizek wrote that Hitler often admired Stefanie
Isak, as she then was, whom he describes as "a distinguished-looking girl, tall and slim",[1] and would
hang about the Landstrasse (country road) near the main street of Urfahr, the suburb where she lived
and to which Hitler's mother later moved from Leonding. When Hitler's mother died, the funeral
procession went through Urfahr to Leonding and Kubizek remarks that Hitler said he had seen Stefanie
at the funeral procession behind her window, stating he had found consolation in that.[2][3][4] During the
Nazi era, Kubizek's book was heavily cut, especially the details of Hitler's passion for Stefanie. [1]

[edit]Interaction

with Hitler

According to Kubizek, Hitler never spoke to Stefanie, always saying he would do so "tomorrow",[1] and
loathed those who flirted with her, especially the military officers, whom he called "conceited
blockheads"; he came to feel an "uncompromising enmity towards the officer class as a whole, and
everything military in general. It annoyed him intensely that Stefanie mixed with such idlers who, he
insisted, wore corsets and used scent".[1] Since Hitler disliked dancing, once he learnt that Stefanie loved
to dance, he said, "Once Stefanie is my wife, she won't have the slightest desire to dance!" [1]
Kubizek further states: "Stefanie had no idea how deeply Adolf was in love with her; she regarded him as
a somewhat shy, but nevertheless remarkably tenacious and faithful, admirer. When she responded with
a smile to his inquiring glance, he was happy and his mood became unlike anything I had ever observed
in him. But when Stefanie, as happened just as often, coldly ignored his gaze, he was crushed and ready
to destroy himself and the whole world."[1][5] He finally planned to kidnap Stefanie and kill both her and
himself by jumping off a bridge into the Danube.[1] Instead he moved to Vienna, where an idealised image
of Stefanie became his moral touchstone.[6]
Rabatsch stated in later interviews that she was unaware of Hitler at the time, but that she had received
an anonymous love letter asking her to wait for him to graduate and then to marry him, which she only
realised after being questioned about him, must have been from Hitler.[6] She married an Austrian army
officer, and after the Second World War lived in Vienna.[1][6] She was interviewed and Hitler's love for her
dramatised in a 1973 Austro-German television documentary written by Georg Stefan Troller and
directed by Axel Corti.[7]

[edit]Scholarly

reaction

Ian Kershaw, the biographer of Hitler, in whose judgement Kubizek's book had the assistance of a
ghostwriter, considers the story of Stefanie exaggerated.[1][8]

[edit]Bibliography

August Kubizek. Adolf Hitler, mein Jugendfreund. 4th ed. Graz: Stocker, 1975. ISBN
9783702002138 (German)

August Kubizek. The Young Hitler I Knew: The Memoirs of Hitler's Childhood Friend. Tr. Geoffrey
Brooks. Barnsley, West Yorkshire: Greenhill/Frontline, 2011. ISBN 9781848326071

Guido Knopp. Geheimnisse des "Dritten Reichs". Munich: Bertelsmann, 2011. ISBN 9783570101063 (German)

[edit]References

1.

a b c d e f g h i j

Andrew Roberts, "Hitler's secret Jewish girlfriend", The Daily Mail, 8 September 2006.

2.

^ Steffi Schbel and Anja Greulich, "Hitler und die Frauen", Geheimnisse des "Dritten Reichs" Part 5,
television documentary, ZDF, 2011, DVD OCLC 772658972 (German)

3.

^ Guido Knopp, Geheimnisse des "Dritten Reichs", Munich: Bertelsmann, 2011 (German)

4.

^ Linz, Urfahr & Leonding, The Hitler Pages, created from the work of Steven Lehrer, a tour lecturer
on Hitler

5.

^ August Kubizek, tr. Geoffrey Brooks, The Young Hitler I Knew: The Memoirs of Hitler's Childhood
Friend, Barnsley, West Yorkshire: Greenhill/Frontline, 2011, ISBN 9781848326071, p. 67.
a b c

6.

Kubizek, p. 216.

7.

^ "Hitler-Film: Wie wurde der das?", Der Spiegel 26 November 1973 (German)

8.

^ Ian Kershaw, Introduction to August Kubizek, The Young Hitler I Knew, pp. 11, 15.

Anton Drexler
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve
this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may
be challenged and removed. (November 2009)

Anton Drexler

Chairman of the DAP

In office
19191921

Preceded by

Karl Harrer

Succeeded by

Adolf Hitler

Personal details

Born

13 June 1884
Munich, Germany

Died

24 February 1942 (aged 57)

Munich, Germany

Nationality

German

Political party

DAP

Occupation

Politician

Anton Drexler (13 June 1884 24 February 1942) was a German far-right political leader of the 1920s,
instrumental in the formation of the anti-communist German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei DAP), the antecedent of the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei- NSDAP). Drexler
served as mentor to Adolf Hitler during his early days in politics.

Contents
[hide]

1 Biography

2 In popular culture

3 Notes

4 References

5 External links

[edit]Biography
Born in Munich, Drexler was a machine-fitter before becoming a railway locksmith in Berlin in 1902. He
joined the Fatherland Party during World War I. He was a poet and a member of the vlkisch agitators
who, together with journalist Karl Harrer, founded the German Workers' Party (DAP), in Munich
with Gottfried Feder and Dietrich Eckart in 1919.[citation needed]
At a meeting of the Party in Munich in September 1919, the main speaker was Gottfried Feder. When he
had finished speaking, a member of the audience stood up and suggested that Bavariashould break
away from Prussia and form a separate nation with Austria. Adolf Hitler[1] sprang up from the audience to
rebut the argument. Drexler approached Hitler and thrust a booklet into his hand. It was My Political
Awakening and, according to Hitler in his book Mein Kampf, it reflected the ideals he already believed in.
Later the same day Hitler received a postcard telling him that he had been accepted for membership of
what was at that time the German Workers' Party.[1] By 1921, Hitler was rapidly becoming the undisputed
leader of the Party. In June 1921, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin, a mutiny
broke out within the NSDAP in Munich. Members of its executive committee, some of whom considered
Hitler to be too overbearing, wanted to merge with the rival German Socialist Party (DSP).[2] Hitler
returned to Munich on 11 July and angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised his
resignation would mean the end of the party.[3] Hitler announced he would rejoin on the condition that he
would replace Drexler as party chairman, and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich. [4] The
committee agreed; he rejoined the party as member 3,680. Drexler was thereafter moved to the purely
symbolic position of honorary president, and left the Party in 1923.[5]
Drexler was also a member of a vlkisch political club for affluent members of Munich society known as
the Thule Society. His membership in the NSDAP ended when it was temporarily outlawed in 1923
following the Beer Hall Putsch, in which Drexler had not taken part. In 1924 he was elected to the
Bavarian state parliament for another party, in which he served as vice-president until 1928. He had no
part in the NSDAP's refounding in 1925, and rejoined only after Hitler had come to power in 1933. He

received the party's Blood Order in 1934 and was still occasionally used as apropaganda tool until about
1937, but he was never again allowed any real power.

[edit]In

popular culture

In Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory Series of alternate history novels, the character Anthony Dresser
appears to be based on Drexler.[citation needed]
In the 2003 film Hitler: The Rise of Evil, British actor Robert Glenister plays Drexler, although Drexler is
portrayed without his trademark spectacles and moustache.

[edit]Notes
a b

1.

Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf, 1925.

2.

^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 100, 101.

3.

^ Kershaw 2008, p. 102.

4.

^ Kershaw 2008, p. 103.

5.

^ Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 41

[edit]References

Hitler, Adolf (1999) [1925]. Mein Kampf. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-92503-4.

Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-39306757-6.

Shirer, William L. (1960). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon &
Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-62420-0.

[edit]External

links

Party political offices

Preceded by
Karl Harrer

Chairman of the DAP

19191921

Succeeded by
Adolf Hitler

Anton Drexler
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve
this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may
be challenged and removed. (November 2009)

Anton Drexler

Chairman of the DAP

In office
19191921

Preceded by

Karl Harrer

Succeeded by

Adolf Hitler

Personal details

Born

13 June 1884
Munich, Germany

Died

24 February 1942 (aged 57)

Munich, Germany

Nationality

German

Political party

DAP

Occupation

Politician

Anton Drexler (13 June 1884 24 February 1942) was a German far-right political leader of the 1920s,
instrumental in the formation of the anti-communist German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei DAP), the antecedent of the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei- NSDAP). Drexler
served as mentor to Adolf Hitler during his early days in politics.

Contents
[hide]

1 Biography

2 In popular culture

3 Notes

4 References

5 External links

[edit]Biography
Born in Munich, Drexler was a machine-fitter before becoming a railway locksmith in Berlin in 1902. He
joined the Fatherland Party during World War I. He was a poet and a member of the vlkisch agitators
who, together with journalist Karl Harrer, founded the German Workers' Party (DAP), in Munich
with Gottfried Feder and Dietrich Eckart in 1919.[citation needed]
At a meeting of the Party in Munich in September 1919, the main speaker was Gottfried Feder. When he
had finished speaking, a member of the audience stood up and suggested that Bavariashould break
away from Prussia and form a separate nation with Austria. Adolf Hitler[1] sprang up from the audience to
rebut the argument. Drexler approached Hitler and thrust a booklet into his hand. It was My Political
Awakening and, according to Hitler in his book Mein Kampf, it reflected the ideals he already believed in.
Later the same day Hitler received a postcard telling him that he had been accepted for membership of
what was at that time the German Workers' Party.[1] By 1921, Hitler was rapidly becoming the undisputed
leader of the Party. In June 1921, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin, a mutiny
broke out within the NSDAP in Munich. Members of its executive committee, some of whom considered
Hitler to be too overbearing, wanted to merge with the rival German Socialist Party (DSP).[2] Hitler
returned to Munich on 11 July and angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised his
resignation would mean the end of the party.[3] Hitler announced he would rejoin on the condition that he
would replace Drexler as party chairman, and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich.[4] The
committee agreed; he rejoined the party as member 3,680. Drexler was thereafter moved to the purely
symbolic position of honorary president, and left the Party in 1923.[5]
Drexler was also a member of a vlkisch political club for affluent members of Munich society known as
the Thule Society. His membership in the NSDAP ended when it was temporarily outlawed in 1923
following the Beer Hall Putsch, in which Drexler had not taken part. In 1924 he was elected to the
Bavarian state parliament for another party, in which he served as vice-president until 1928. He had no
part in the NSDAP's refounding in 1925, and rejoined only after Hitler had come to power in 1933. He

received the party's Blood Order in 1934 and was still occasionally used as apropaganda tool until about
1937, but he was never again allowed any real power.

[edit]In

popular culture

In Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory Series of alternate history novels, the character Anthony Dresser
appears to be based on Drexler.[citation needed]
In the 2003 film Hitler: The Rise of Evil, British actor Robert Glenister plays Drexler, although Drexler is
portrayed without his trademark spectacles and moustache.

[edit]Notes
a b

1.

Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf, 1925.

2.

^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 100, 101.

3.

^ Kershaw 2008, p. 102.

4.

^ Kershaw 2008, p. 103.

5.

^ Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 41

[edit]References

Hitler, Adolf (1999) [1925]. Mein Kampf. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-92503-4.

Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-39306757-6.

Shirer, William L. (1960). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon &
Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-62420-0.

[edit]External

links

Party political offices

Preceded by
Karl Harrer

Chairman of the DAP

19191921

Succeeded by
Adolf Hitler

Karl Harrer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve
this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (February 2009)

Karl Harrer

Chairman of the DAP

In office
19191920

Succeeded by

Anton Drexler

Personal details

Born

October 8, 1890

Died

5 September 1926 (aged 35)

Nationality

German

Political party

DAP

Occupation

Politician

Karl Harrer (8 October 1890 - 5 September 1926) was a German journalist and politician, one of the
founding members of the "Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" ("German Workers' Party", DAP) in 1919, the party
that soon would become the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei(NSDAP), more commonly
known as the Nazi Party.
Harrer was also a member of the Thule Society, which gave him the task of founding a "Politischer
Arbeiterzirkel" ("political workers' union"), an order he carried out together with Anton Drexler in October
1918. On January 5, 1919, the DAP was formed, in which not only Harrer and Drexler but alsoGottfried
Feder and Dietrich Eckart were involved.

Karl Harrer died, not quite 36, of natural causes in Munich.

[edit]See

also

Nazism

Weimar Republic

Party political offices

Preceded by
none

Chairman of the DAP Succeeded by

1919
Anton Drexler

Gottfried Feder
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gottfried Feder

National Socialism

Born

27 January 1883
Wrzburg, Bavaria, German Empire

Died

24 September 1941 (aged 58)

Murnau am Staffelsee,Germany

Nationality

German

Institution

Berlin Institute of Technology

Field

Urbanism

Alma mater

Humboldt University of Berlin

Influenced

Adolf Hitler, Uz Nishiyama

Contributions

National Socialism
Strasserism
Anti-capitalism
Planned community

Gottfried Feder (27 January 1883 24 September 1941) was an economist and one of the early key
members of the Nazi Party. He was their economic theoretician. Initially, it was his lecture in 1919 that
drew Hitler into the party.[1]
Contents
[hide]

1 Biography

1.1 1920s

1.2 Nazi Germany

2 Footnotes

3 See also

4 External links

[edit]Biography
Feder was born in Wrzburg, Germany on 27 January 1883 as the son of civil servant Hanse Feder and
Mathilde Feder (ne Luz). After attendinghumanistic schools in Ansbach and Munich, he studied
engineering in Berlin and Zrich (Switzerland); after graduating, he founded a construction company in
1908 that subsequently was particularly active in Bulgaria where it built a number of official buildings.
From 1917 on, Feder studied financial politics and economics on his own; he developed a hostility
towards wealthy bankers during World War I and wrote a "manifesto on breaking the shackles of interest"
("Brechung der Zinsknechtschaft") in 1919. This was soon followed by the founding of a "task force"
dedicated to those goals that demanded a nationalisation of all banks and an abolition of interest.
In the same year, Feder, together with Anton Drexler, Dietrich Eckart and Karl Harrer, was also involved
in the founding of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei("German worker's party," DAP), which would later change
its name to Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, more commonly known as the Nazi party.

Adolf Hitler met him in summer 1919, and Feder became his mentor in finance and economics. He was
the inspirer of Hitler's opposition to "Jewish finance capitalism."[2]

[edit]1920s
In February 1920, together with Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler, Federwho also was a member of
the Thule Society[citation needed]drafted the so-called "25 points" which summed up the party's views, and
introduced his own anti-capitalist views into the program. When the paper was announced on 24
February 1920, more than 2,000 people attended the rally.
Feder took part in the party's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. After Hitler's arrest, he remained one of the
leaders of the party and was elected to theReichstag in 1924, in which he stayed until 1936 and where
he demanded freezing of interest rates and dispossession of Jewish citizens. He remained one of the
leaders of the anti-capitalistic wing of the NSDAP, and published several papers, including "National and
social bases of the German state" (1920), "Das Programm der NSDAP und seine weltanschaulichen
Grundlagen" ("The programme of the NSDAP and the world views it's based on," 1927) and "Was will
Adolf Hitler?" ("What does Adolf Hitler want?", 1931).
Feder briefly dominated the NSDAP's official views on financial politics, but after he became chairman of
the party's economic council in 1931, his anti-capitalist views led to a great decline in financial support
from Germany's major industrialists. Following pressure from Walther Funk, Albert Voegler, Gustav
Krupp, Friedrich Flick, Fritz Thyssen, Hjalmar Schacht and Emil Kirdorf, Hitler decided to move the party
away from Feder's economic views; when Hitler became Reichskanzler in 1933, he appointed Feder as
under-secretary at the ministry of economics in July. This disappointed Feder, who had hoped for a much
higher position.

[edit]Nazi

Germany

Feder continued to write papers, putting out "Kampf gegen die Hochfinanz" ("The Fight against high
finance", 1933) and the anti-semitic "Die Juden" ("The Jews," 1933); in 1934, he
becameReichskommissar (Reich commissioner).
In 1939 he wrote Die Neue Stadt (the New City). This can be considered a Nazi attempt at Garden
City building. Here he proposed creating agricultural cities of 20,000 people divided into nine
autonomous units and surrounded by agricultural areas. Each city was to be fully autonomous and selfsufficient; detailed plans for daily living and urban amenities are taken into consideration. Unlike other
garden city theorists, he believed that urban areas could be reformed by subdividing the existing built
environment into self-sufficient neighborhoods. This idea of creating clusters of self-contained
neighbourhoods forming a mid-sized city was popularised by Uz Nishiyama in Japan. It would later be
applied in the era of Japanese New Town construction.[3]

However, despite his implementation of the blood and soil ideology of the Nazis, decentralized factories,
generals and Junkers successfully opposed him.[4] Generals objected because it interfered with
rearmament, and Junkers because it would prevent their exploiting their estates for the international
market.[5]
After the Night of the Long Knives in June 1934, where SA leaders like Ernst Rhm and left leaning party
officials like Gregor Strasser were murdered, Feder began to withdraw from the government, finally
becoming a professor at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin in December 1936, where he stayed until
his death in Murnau on 24 September 1941.

[edit]Footnotes

1.

^ Dornberg, John (1982). Munich 1923. New York: Harper & Row. p. 344. ISBN 978-0-06-038025-0.

2.

^ Ian Kershaw, Hitler: A Profile in Power, Chapter I (London, 1991, rev. 2001)

3.

^ Hein, Carola. Visionary Plans and Planners. In Japanese Capitals in Historical Perspective (Fiv,
Waley eds.) RoutledgeCurzon

4.

^ Richard Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich, pp. 153-4, ISBN 03-076435-1

5.

^ Richard Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich, p. 154, ISBN 03-076435-1

[edit]See

also

Strasserism

[edit]External

links

Das Programm des NSDAP und sein weltshauliched Grundgedanken "The Program of the NSDAR
and its Ideological Foundations" by Gottfreid Feder at archive.org

Programme of the Party of Hitler, the NSDAP and its General Conceptions in English

Das Manifest zur Brechung der Zinsknechtschaft des Geldes "The Manifesto for Breaking the
Chains of Gold" by Gottfried Feder at archive.org

Dietrich Eckart
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve
this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may
be challenged and removed. (January 2008)

Dietrich Eckart

Dietrich Eckart (23 March 1868 26 December 1923) was a German journalist and politician and,
with Adolf Hitler, was one of the early key members of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and a participant in the
1923 Beer Hall Putsch.
Contents
[hide]

1 Biography

2 Portrayals in popular culture

3 References

4 Works

5 Sources

6 External links

[edit]Biography

Eckart was born Johann Dietrich Eckart in 1868 in Neumarkt, Upper Palatinate (about twenty miles
southeast of Nuremberg) in the Kingdom of Bavaria, the son of royal notary and lawyer Christian Eckart
and his wife Anna, a devout Catholic. His mother died when he was ten years old. Young Dietrich was
expelled from several schools; in 1895, his father died also, leaving him a considerable amount of money
that Eckart soon spent.
Eckart initially studied law at Erlangen, later medicine at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and
was an eager member of the fencing and drinking Korps. But he finally decided in 1891 to work as a
poet, playwright, and journalist. Diagnosed with morphine addiction and nearly stranded, he moved
to Berlin in 1899. There he wrote a number of plays, often autobiographical, and became the protg of
Count Georg von Hlsen-Haeseler (18581922), the artistic director of the Prussian Royal Theatre.
Eckart was a successful playwright, especially with his 1912 adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, one
of the best attended productions of the age with more than 600 performances in Berlin alone. This
success not only made Eckart wealthy, it gave him the social contacts needed to introduce Hitler to
dozens of important German citizens. These introductions proved to be pivotal in Hitler's ultimate rise to
power.
Later on, Eckart developed an ideology of a "genius superman", based on writings by
the Vlkisch author Jrg Lanz von Liebenfels; he saw himself following the tradition of Heinrich
Heine, Arthur Schopenhauer and Angelus Silesius. He also became fascinated by the Buddhist doctrine
of Maya (illusion). Eckart loved and strongly identified with Peer Gynt, but never had much sympathy for
the scientific method. From 1907 he lived with his brother Wilhelm in the Dberitz mansion colony west
of the Berlin city limits. In 1913 he married Rosa Marx, an affluent widow from Bad Blankenburg, and
returned to Munich.
After World War I, Eckart edited the antisemitic periodical Auf gut Deutsch ("In good German"), working
with Alfred Rosenberg and Gottfried Feder. A fierce critic of the German Revolution and theWeimar
Republic, he vehemently opposed the Treaty of Versailles, which he viewed as treason, and was a
proponent of the so-called stab-in-the-back legend (Dolchstolegende), according to which the Social
Democrats and Jews were to blame for Germany's defeat in the war.
In 1919, Eckart, Gottfried Feder, and Anton Drexler founded the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German
Workers' Party), which became the Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP "National
Socialist German Workers' Party"); that is, the Nazi Party. He was the original publisher of the party
newspaper, the Vlkischer Beobachter, and also wrote the lyrics of Deutschland erwache ("Germany
awake"), which became an anthem of the Nazi Party.
Eckart met Adolf Hitler when Hitler gave a speech before party members in 1919. Eckart was involved
with the Thule Society, although not a member. The Society was a secretive group of occultists who

believed in the coming of a German Messiah who would redeem Germany after its defeat in World War
I.[1] Eckart expressed his anticipation in a poem he wrote months before he first met Hitler. In the poem,
Eckart refers to the Great One, the Nameless One, Whom all can sense but no one saw. When Eckart
met Hitler, Eckart was convinced that he had encountered the prophesied redeemer.[2] Eckart exerted
considerable influence on Hitler in the following years and is strongly believed to have helped establish
the theories and beliefs of the Nazi party. Few other people had as much influence on Hitler in his
lifetime.
It was Eckart who introduced Alfred Rosenberg to Adolf Hitler. Between 1920 and 1923, Eckart and
Rosenberg labored tirelessly in the service of Hitler and the party. Through Rosenberg, Hitler was
introduced to the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Rosenberg's inspiration. Rosenberg edited
the Mnchener Beobachter, a party newspaper, originally owned by the Thule Society. Rosenberg
published the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Beobachter.
To raise funds for the Party, Eckart introduced Hitler into influential circles. While staying in the house of
a wealthy manufacturer in Berlin, Hitler was given instruction in public speaking by a teacher of
drama, Erik Jan Hanussen.[citation needed]
On 9 November 1923, Eckart participated in the failed Beer Hall Putsch. He was arrested and placed
in Landsberg Prison along with Hitler and other party officials, but was released shortly thereafter due to
illness. He died of a heart attack in Berchtesgaden on 26 December 1923. He was buried in
Berchtesgaden's old cemetery, not far from the eventual graves of Nazi party officialHans Lammers and
his wife and daughter.

Dietrich-Eckart-Bhne, 1939

Hitler dedicated the second volume of Mein Kampf to Eckart, and also named the Waldbhne arena near
the Olympic Stadium in Berlin as the "Dietrich-Eckart-Bhne" when it was opened for the 1936 Summer
Olympics. The 5th Standarte (regiment) of the SS-Totenkopfverbnde was given the honour-title Dietrich
Eckart.
In 1925, Eckart's unfinished essay Der Bolschewismus von Moses bis Lenin: Zwiegesprch zwischen
Hitler und mir ("Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin: Dialogues Between Hitler and Me") was published
posthumously, although it has been shown (Plewnia 1970) that the dialogues were an invention; the
essay was written by Eckart alone. "However, this book still remains a reliable indicator of [Eckart's] own
views."[3] The historian Richard Steigmann-Gall quotes from Eckart's book:[3]
"In Christ, the embodiment of all manliness, we find all that we need. And if we occasionally speak
of Baldur (a god in Norse mythology), our words always contain some joy, some satisfaction, that our

pagan ancestors were already so Christian as to have an indication of Christ in this ideal figure."
Dietrich Eckart
Steigmann-Gall concludes that, "far from advocating a paganism or anti-Christian religion, Eckart held
that, in Germany's postwar tailspin, Christ was a leader to be emulated."[3]
Eckart was descried by Edgar Ansel Mowrer as "a strange drunken genius," he died of drug addiction
and alcoholism.[4] his antisemitism arose from aGnostic, Manichean mysticism and he spent hours with
Hitler discussing art and the place of the Jews in world history, he has been called the spiritual father of
National Socialism.[5]

[edit]Portrayals

in popular culture

A fictionalized, female version of Eckart (Dietlinde Eckhart) appeared as the main villain and head of
the Thule Society in the 2005 anime movie Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa.
In part 4, Phase 1 of the 2000AD story Zenith by Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell Eckardt is referred to
and depicted as the poet and mystic who initiated a German army corporal (Adolf Hitler) into the occult
group called the Cult of the Black Sun after recognizing his potential as a medium. Eckardt and
Haushofer put Hitler in contact with the Great Old Ones with their goal of helping the Nazis engineer
superhuman bodies that could act as physical vehicles for these Dark Gods.
In episode 15 of NCIS: Los Angeles (season 4), Hetty Lange discusses Hitler's mentor, Dietrich Eckart,
and how without Eckart's influence, there may never have been a holocaust.

[edit]References

1.

^ Greer, John Michael (2003). The new encyclopedia of the occult. Llewellyn Publications.
p. 322. ISBN 978-1-56718-336-8.

2.

^ Hant, Claus. Young Hitler, Quartet Books, London 2010, p. 395 http://www.younghitler.com

3.

4.

^ Arthur Mitchell (30 January 2007). Hitler's Mountain: The Fhrer, Obersalzberg and the American

a b c

Steigmann-Gall 2003: 18

Occupation of Berchtesgaden. McFarland. pp. 18. ISBN 978-0-7864-2458-0. Retrieved 13 March

2013.
5.

^ Cyprian P. Blamires (2006). World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 185
. ISBN 978-1-57607-940-9. Retrieved 13 March 2013.

[edit]Works

Dietrich Eckart: "Der Bolschewismus von Moses bis Lenin". Zwiegesprch zwischen Adolf Hitler und
mir, Mnchen, 1924 (PDF)

Dietrich Eckart: "Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin: A Dialogue Between Adolf Hitler and Me", English
translation (PDF)

Dietrich Eckart: "El Bolchevismo de Moiss a Lenin: Un dilogo entre Adolfo Hitler y yo", Traduccin
al espaol (PDF)

: " :
", Russian translation from German original (PDF)

[edit]Sources

Above text lifted nearly word-for-word

from: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Eckart.html

Plewnia, M.: "Auf dem Weg zu Hitler. Der 'vlkische' Publizist Dietrich Eckart", Bremen,
Schnemann Universittsverlag, 1970.

Rosenberg, Alfred. Dietrich Eckart: Ein Vermchtnis, Munich, 1928 ff.

Steigmann-Gall, Richard: The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 19191945. Cambridge
University Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-521-82371-5, esp. pp. 1719

[edit]External

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Eckart%22 Online books from Dietrich

Eckart

links

Biography

Alfred Rosenberg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg in January 1941, photograph by Heinrich Hoffmann

Leader of the Foreign Policy Office of the NSDAP

In office
19331945

Preceded by

Position established

Succeeded by

None

Commissar for Supervision of Intellectual and Ideological Education

of the NSDAP (aka Rosenberg office)

In office

19341945

Preceded by

Position established

Succeeded by

None

Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories

In office
19411945

President

Adolf Hitler

Chancellor

Adolf Hitler

Preceded by

Position established

Succeeded by

None

Reichsleiter

In office
2 June 1933 8 May 1945

Leader

Adolf Hitler

Personal details

Born

Alfred Ernst Rosenberg

12 January 1893
Reval, Governorate of Estonia,Russian Empire

Died

16 October 1946 (aged 53)

Nuremberg, Germany
(Executed by hanging)

Political party

National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP)

Spouse(s)

Hilda Leesmann
(19151923; divorce)
Hedwig Kramer
(19251946)

Children

Alma mater

Riga Polytechnical Institute

Moscow Highest Technical School

Profession

Architect, politician, writer

Cabinet

Hitler

Signature

Alfred Ernst Rosenberg (

listen (helpinfo))

(12 January 1893 16 October 1946) was an early and

intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf
Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government. He is considered
one of the main authors of key Nazi ideological creeds, including its racial theory, persecution of the
Jews, Lebensraum, abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles, and opposition to "degenerate" modern art. He
is also known for his rejection of Christianity,[1] having played an important role in the development
of Positive Christianity, which he intended to be transitional to a new Nazi faith.[2] At Nuremberg he was
tried, sentenced to death and executed by hanging as a war criminal.
Contents
[hide]

1 Early life

2 Racial theories

3 Religious theories

4 Wartime activities

4.1 Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories

4.2 Wartime propaganda efforts

4.3 Trial and execution

5 Nazi policy and Rosenberg's views

6 Family life

7 Writings

8 See also

9 Notes

10 References

11 External links

[edit]Early

life

Rosenberg was born in 1893 in Reval (today's Tallinn, in Estonia, then part of the Russian Empire) to a
family of Baltic Germans: his father, Waldemar Wilhelm Rosenberg,[3] was a wealthy merchant
from Latvia, his mother, Elfriede, was from Estonia. (Tallinn archivist J. Rajandi claimed in the 1930s that
Rosenberg's family had Estonian origins.)[4]
The young Rosenberg studied architecture at the Riga Polytechnical Institute and engineering
at Moscow's Highest Technical School[5][6] completing his PhD studies in 1917. While in Riga, he was a
member of the Baltic German student fraternity "Rubonia". During the Russian Revolution of
1917Rosenberg supported the counter-revolutionaries; following their failure he emigrated to Germany in
1918 along with Max Scheubner-Richter who served as something of a mentor to Rosenberg and to his
ideology. Arriving in Munich, he contributed to Dietrich Eckart's publication, the Vlkischer
Beobachter (Ethnic/Nationalist Observer). By this time, he was both an antisemite influenced
by Houston Stewart Chamberlain's book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (one of the key
proto-Nazi books of racial theory) and an anti-bolshevik (as a result of his family's exile).[7]Rosenberg
became one of the earliest members of the German Workers Party (later the National Socialist German
Workers Party, better known as the Nazi Party), joining in January 1919; Adolf Hitler did not join until
October 1919. Rosenberg had also been a member of the Thule Society, with Eckart. After
the Vlkischer Beobachter became the Nazi party newspaper (December 1920), Rosenberg became its
editor in 1923.[8] Rosenberg was a leading member of Aufbau Vereinigung, Reconstruction Organisation,
a conspiratorial organisation of White Russian migrs which had a critical influence on early Nazi
policy.[9]
In 1923, after the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Hitlerwho had been imprisoned for treasonappointed
Rosenberg as a leader of the Nazi movement, a position he held until Hitler's release. Hitler remarked

privately in later years that his choice of Rosenberg, whom he regarded as weak and lazy, was strategic;
Hitler did not want the temporary leader of the Nazis to become overly popular or hungry for power,
because a person with either of those two qualities might not want to cede the party leadership after
Hitler's release. However, at the time of the appointment Hitler had no reason to believe that he would
soon be released, and Rosenberg had not appeared weak, so this may have been Hitler reading back
into history his dissatisfaction with Rosenberg for the job he did.[10]
In 1929 Rosenberg founded the Militant League for German Culture. He later formed the "Institute for the
Study of the Jewish Question", dedicated to identifying and attacking Jewish influence in German culture
and to recording the history of Judaism from an antisemitic perspective. He became aReichstag Deputy
in 1930 and published his book on racial theory The Myth of the Twentieth Century (Der Mythus des 20.
Jahrhunderts) which deals with key issues in the national socialist ideology, such as the "Jewish
question". Rosenberg intended his book as a sequel to Houston Stewart Chamberlain's above-cited
book. Despite selling more than a million copies by 1945, its influence within Nazism (beyond providing
specious intellectual cover for unintellectual governance) remains doubtful. It is often said to have been a
book that was officially venerated within Nazism, but one that few had actually read beyond the first
chapter or even found comprehensible.[11] Hitler called it "stuff nobody can understand"[12] and
disapproved of its pseudo-religious tone.[7]
Rosenberg convinced Hitler of the communist threat and of the supposed fragility of the Soviet Union's
political structure. "Jewish-Bolshevism" was accepted as a target for Nazism during the early 1920s.[7]
Rosenberg was named leader of the Nazi Party's foreign political office in 1933, but he played little
practical part in the role. He visited Britain in that year, designed to reassure the British that the Nazis
would not be a threat and to encourage links between the new regime and the British Empire. It was a
notable failure. When Rosenberg laid a wreath bearing a swastika at the tomb of the unknown soldier, a
British war veteran promptly threw it in the Thames.[13] In January 1934 Hitler granted Rosenberg
responsibility for the spiritual and philosophical education of the Party and all related organizations.

[edit]Racial

theories

As the Nazi Party's chief racial theorist, Rosenberg oversaw the construction of a human racial "ladder"
that justified Hitler's genocidal policies. Rosenberg built on the works of Arthur de Gobineau, Houston
Stewart Chamberlain and Madison Grant, as well as the beliefs of Hitler. He placed blacks and Jews at
the very bottom of the ladder, while at the very top stood the white or "Aryan" race. Rosenberg promoted
the Nordic theory which regarded Germans as the "master race", superior to all others, including to other
Aryans (Indo-Europeans).

Rosenberg reshaped Nazi racial policy over the years, but it always consisted of Aryan supremacy,
extreme German nationalism and rabid antisemitism. Rosenberg also outspokenly opposed
homosexuality notably in his pamphlet "Der Sumpf" ("The Swamp") having viewed homosexuality
(particularly lesbianism) as a hindrance to the expansion of the Nordic population.
Rosenberg's attitude towards the Slavs was politically motivated and depended on the particular nation
involved. He despised Czechs and Poles, and wrote "no considerations can be taken for Poles, Czechs
etc., who are as impotent as they are valueless and overbearing. They must be driven back to the east,
so that the soil may become free to be tilled by the horny hands of Teutonic peasants". As a result of the
ideology of "Drang nach Osten" Rosenberg saw his mission as the conquest and colonization of the
Slavic East.[14][15] In Der Mythus des 20. JahrhundertsRosenberg describes Slavs, in particular Poles, as
racial "subhumans".[16] Regarding Ukrainians he favoured setting up a buffer state to ease pressure on
the German eastern frontier, while agreeing with the notion that Russia should be exploited for the
benefit of Germany.[17]

[edit]Religious

theories

Rosenberg argued for a new "religion of the blood," based on the supposed innate promptings of the
Nordic soul to defend its noble character against racial and cultural degeneration. He believed that this
had been embodied in early Indo-European religions, notably ancient European
(Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Roman) paganism, Zoroastrianism and Vedic Hinduism.
He rejected Christianity for its universality, for original sin, at least for Germans whom he declared on
one occasion were born noble, and for the immortality of the soul.[18] Indeed, absorbing Christianity
enfeebled a people.[19] Publicly, he affected to deplore Christianity's degeneration owing to Jewish
influence.[20] Following Chamberlain's ideas, he condemned what he called "negative Christianity," the
orthodox beliefs of Protestant and Catholic churches, arguing instead for a so-called "positive"
Christianity based on Chamberlain's claim that Jesus was a member of an Indo-European, Nordic
enclave resident in ancient Galilee who struggled against Judaism. Significantly, in his turgid, tortuous
work explicating the Nazi intellectual belief system, The Myth of the Twentieth Century, Rosenberg
cryptically alludes to and lauds the anti-Judaic arch-heretic Marcion and the Manichaean-inspired, "AryoIranian" Cathari, as being the more authentic interpreters of Christianity versus historically dominant
Judaeo-Christianity; moreover these ancient, externally Christian metaphysical forms were more
"organically compatible with the Nordic sense of the spiritual and the Nordic 'blood-soul'." For Rosenberg,
the anti-intellectual intellectual, religious doctrine was inseparable, in the peculiar Nazi outlook of
"mystical Darwinist vitalism", from serving the interests of the Nordic race, connecting the individual to his
racial nature. Rosenberg stated that "The general ideas of the Roman and of the Protestant churches are

negative Christianity and do not, therefore, accord with our (German) soul."[21] His support for Luther as a
great German figure was always ambivalent.[22]

[edit]Wartime

activities

Alfred Rosenberg around 1935

Alfred Rosenberg in 1939

In 1940 Rosenberg was made head of the Hohe Schule (literally "high school", but in Germanic
languages refers to a college), the Centre of National Socialist Ideological and Educational Research. He
created a "Special Task Force for Music" (Sonderstab Musik) to collect the best musical instruments and
scores for use in a university to be built in Hitler's home town of Linz, Austria. The orders given
the Sonderstab Musik were to loot all forms of Jewish property in Germany and of those found in any

country taken over by the German army and any musical instruments or scores were to be immediately
shipped to Berlin.[citation needed]

[edit]Reich

Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories

Following the invasion of the USSR, Rosenberg was appointed head of the Reich Ministry for the
Occupied Eastern Territories (Reichsministerium fr die besetzten Ostgebiete). Alfred Meyer served as
his deputy and represented him at the Wannsee Conference. Another official of the Ministry, Georg
Leibbrandt, also attended the conference, at Rosenberg's request.
Rosenberg had presented Hitler with his plan for the organization of the conquered Eastern territories,
suggesting the establishment of new administrative districts, to replace the previously Soviet-controlled
territories with newReichskommissariats. These would be:

Ostland (Baltic countries and Belarus),

Ukraine (Ukraine and nearest territories),

Kaukasus (Caucasus area),

Moskau (Moscow metropolitan area and the rest of nearest Russian European areas)

Such suggestions were intended to encourage certain non-Russian nationalism and to promote German
interests for the benefit of future Aryan generations, in accord with geopolitical "Lebensraum im Osten"
plans. They would provide a buffer against Soviet expansion in preparation for the total eradication of
Communism and Bolshevism by decisive pre-emptive military action.
Following these plans, when Wehrmacht forces invaded Soviet-controlled territory, they immediately
implemented the first of the proposed Reichskommissariats of Ostland and Ukraine, under the leadership
of Hinrich Lohse and Erich Koch, respectively. The organization of these administrative territories led to
conflict between Rosenberg and the SS over the treatment of Slavs under German occupation. As Nazi
Germany's chief racial theorist, Rosenberg considered Slavs, though lesser than Germans, to be Aryan.
Rosenberg often complained to Hitler and Himmler about the treatment of non-Jewish occupied
peoples.[23] He proposed creation of buffer satellite states made out of Greater Finland, Baltica, Ukraine,
Caucasus.[17] He made no complaints about the murders of Jews. At the Nuremberg Trials he claimed to
be ignorant of the Holocaust, despite the fact that Leibbrandt and Meyer were present at the Wannsee
conference.[24]

[edit]Wartime

propaganda efforts

Because the invasion of the Soviet Union intended to impose the New Order was essentially a war of
conquest and extermination, German propaganda efforts designed to win over Russian opinion were, at
best, patchy and inconsistent. Alfred Rosenberg was one of the few in the Nazi hierarchy who advocated
a policy designed to encourage anti-Communist opinion.

Amongst other things, Rosenberg issued a series of posters announcing the end of the Soviet collective
farms (kolkhoz). He also issued an Agrarian Law in February 1942, annulling all Soviet legislation on
farming, restoring family farms for those willing to collaborate with the occupiers. But decollectivisation
conflicted with the wider demands of wartime food production, and Hermann Gring demanded that the
collective farms be retained, save for a change of name. Hitler himself denounced the redistribution of
land as "stupid".[25]
There were numerous German armed forces (Wehrmacht) posters asking for assistance in
the Bandenkrieg, the war against the Soviet partisans, though, once again, German policy had the effect
of adding to their problems. Posters for "volunteer" labour, with inscriptions like "Come work with us to
shorten the war", hid the appalling realities faced by Russian workers in Germany. Many people joined
the partisans rather than risk being sent to an unknown fate in the west.[citation needed]
Another of Rosenberg's initiatives, the "Free Caucasus" campaign, was rather more successful,
attracting various nationalities into the so-called Eastern Legion (Ostlegionen), though in the end this
made little difference.

[edit]Trial

and execution

Alfred Rosenberg at the Nuremberg trials. Rosenberg is first from right, with Hans Frank(centre) and Alfred Jodl (left)

Rosenberg was captured by Allied troops at the end of the war. He was tried at Nuremberg and found
guilty of conspiracy to commit crimes against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of
aggression; war crimes; and crimes against humanity.[26] He was sentenced to death and executed with
other condemned co-defendants at Nuremberg on the morning of 16 October 1946.[27] Throughout the
trial, it was agreed that Rosenberg had a decisive role in shaping Nazi philosophy and ideology; such
examples include: his book, Myth of the Twentieth Century, which was published in 1930, where he
incited hatred against "Liberal Imperialism" and "Bolshevik Marxism"; furthering the influence of the

"Lebensraum" idea in Germany during the war; facilitating the persecution of Christian churches and the
Jews in particular; and opposition to the Versailles Treaty.[28][29]

Alfred Rosenberg after his hanging

According to Howard K. Smith, who covered the executions for the International News Service,
Rosenberg was the only condemned man, who when asked at the gallows if he had any last statement to
make, replied with only one word: "No".

[edit]Nazi

policy and Rosenberg's views

Hitler was a leader oriented towards practical politics, whereas, for Rosenberg, religion and philosophy
were key and culturally he was the most influential within the party.[30] Several accounts of the time
before the Nazi ascension to power, indeed, speak of Hitler as being a mouthpiece for Rosenberg's
views, and he clearly exerted a great deal of intellectual influence.[31]
Rosenberg's influence in the Nazi Party is controversial. He was perceived as lacking the charisma and
political skills of the other Nazi leaders, and was somewhat isolated. In some of his speeches Hitler
appeared to be close to Rosenberg's views: rejecting traditional Christianity as a religion based on
Jewish culture, preferring an ethnically and culturally pure "Race" whose destiny was supposed to be
assigned to the German people by "Providence". In others, he adhered to the Nazi Party line, which
advocated a "positive Christianity".
After Hitler's assumption of power he moved to reassure the Protestant and Catholic churches that the
party was not intending to reinstitute Germanic paganism. He placed himself in the position of being the
man to save Positive Christianity from utter destruction at the hands of the atheistic antitheist
Communists of the Soviet Union.[32] This was especially true immediately before and after the elections of
1932; Hitler wanted to appear non-threatening to major Christian faiths and consolidate his power.
Further, Hitler felt that Catholic-Protestant infighting had been a major factor in weakening the German
state and allowing its dominance by foreign powers.

Some Nazi leaders, such as Martin Bormann, were anti-Christian and sympathetic to
Rosenberg.[33] Once in power, Hitler and most Nazi leaders sought to unify the Christian denominations
in favor of "positive Christianity". Hitler privately condemned mystical and pseudoreligious interests as
"nonsense".[34] However, he and Goebbels agreed that after the Endsieg (Final Victory) theReich
Church should be pressed into evolving into a German social evolutionist organisation proclaiming the
cult of race, blood and battle, instead of Redemption and the Ten Commandments ofMoses, which they
deemed outdated and Jewish.[35]
Heinrich Himmler's views were among the closest to Rosenberg's, and their estrangement was perhaps
created by Himmler's abilities to put into action what Rosenberg had only written. [36] Also, while
Rosenberg thought Christianity should be allowed to die out, Himmler actively set out to create
countering pagan rituals.[36]
Lieutenant Colonel William Harold Dunn (18981955) wrote a medical and psychiatric report on him in
prison to evaluate him as a suicide risk:
He gave the impression of clinging to his own theories in a fanatical and unyielding fashion and to have
been little influenced by the unfolding during the trial of the cruelty and crimes of the party. [37]
Summarizing the unresolved conflict between the personal views of Rosenberg and the pragmatism of
the Nazi elite:
The ruthless pursuit of Nazi aims turned out to mean not, as Rosenberg had hoped, the permeation of
German life with the new ideology; it meant concentration of the combined resources of party and state
on total war.[38]

[edit]Family

life

Rosenberg was married twice. He married his first wife, Hilda Leesmann, an ethnic Estonian, in 1915;
after eight years of marriage, they divorced in 1923.[39] He married his second wife, Hedwig Kramer, in
1925;[39] the marriage lasted until his death. He and Kramer had two children; a son, who died in infancy,
and a daughter, Irene, who was born in 1930.[40] His daughter has refused contact with anyone seeking
information about her father.

[edit]Writings

Das Verbrechen der Freimaurerei: Judentum, Jesuitismus, Deutsches Christentum, 1921 ("The
Crime of Freemasonry: Judaism, Jesuitism, German Christianity")

Pest in Russland, 1922, Deutscher Volks-Verlag, Muenchen

Die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion und die jdische Weltpolitik, 1923 ("The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion and the Jewish World Politics")

Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts, 1930 ("The Myth of the 20th Century")

Dietrich Eckhart. Ein Vermchtnis, 1935 ("Dietrich Eckhart: A Legacy")

An die Dunkelmnner unserer Zeit. Eine Antwort auf die Angriffe gegen den Mythus des 20.
Jahrhunderts, 1937 ("The Obscurantists of Our Time: A Response to the Attacks Against 'The Myth
of the 20th Century'")

Protestantische Rompilger. Der Verrat an Luther und der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts, 1937
("Protestant Rome Pilgrims: The Betrayal of Luther and the 'Myth of the 20th Century'")

[edit]See

also

Antisemitism

Myth of the Twentieth Century

Nordische Gesellschaft

Racism

[edit]Notes

1.

^ Hexham, Irving (2007). "Inventing 'Paganists': a Close Reading of Richard Steigmann-Gall's the
Holy Reich". Journal of Contemporary History (SAGE Publications) 42 (1): 59
78.doi:10.1177/0022009407071632.

2.

^ "Alfred Rosenberg". Jewish Virtual Library (American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise). Retrieved

2008-05-07.

3.

^ [1]

4.

^ Jri Remmelgas. Kolm kuuske. Tallinn 2004, p. 50

5.

^ Der Nrnberger Proze, 15.04.1946

6.

^ Hasenfratz, H. P. (1989). "Die Religion Alfred Rosenbergs". Numen 36 (1): 113

126.doi:10.2307/3269855. edit

7.

a b c

Evans, Richard J (2004). The Coming of the Third Reich. London: Penguin Books. pp. 178

179. ISBN 0-14-100975-6.

8.

^ Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology p. 34. ISBN 0396-06577-5

9.

^ Kellogg 227228

10. ^ Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology, pp. 423.ISBN 0396-06577-5
11. ^ Goldensohn, Leon; Gellately, Robert (ed) (2004). The Nuremberg Interviews. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf. xvii, 7375, 108109, 200, 284. ISBN 0-375-41469-X.

12. ^ Speer, Albert (1970). Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs by Albert Speer. Translated by Richard and
Clara Winston. New York: Macmillan. p. 115.
13. ^ Time Magazine, 1941
14. ^ Owicim, 19401945: przewodnik po muzeum, Kazimierz Smole, Pastwowe Muzeum w
Owicimiu, 1978, page 12
15. ^ Metapolitics: from Wagner and the German Romantics to Hitler, page 221, Peter Viereck,
Transaction Publishers 2003
16. ^ Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts: Eine Wertung der seelischgeistigen
Gestaltungskmpfe unserer Zeit, Mnchen: Hoheneichen, 1930, here p.214.
17. ^

a b

Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Movement: Soviet Reality and Emigr Theories Catherine

Andreyev, page 30, Cambridge University Press, 1990

18. ^ Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology pp. 845.ISBN 0396-06577-5
19. ^ Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology, p. 92. ISBN 0396-06577-5
20. ^ Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology p. 85. ISBN 0396-06577-5
21. ^ "Churchmen to Hitler". Time Magazine. 10 August 1936. Retrieved 2008-08-14.
22. ^ Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology pp. 878.ISBN 0396-06577-5
23. ^ Kevin P. Spicer, Antisemitism, Christian ambivalence, and the Holocaust, Center for Advanced
Holocaust Studies, Indiana University Press, 2007, p. 308
24. ^ http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Leibbrandt.html
25. ^ Leonid Grenkevich, The Soviet Partisan Movement, 19411945: A Critical Historiographical
Analysis, Routledge, New York, 1999, pp. 169171.
26. ^ The Avalon Project : Judgment : Rosenberg
27. ^ International Military Tribunal: the Defendants
28. ^ Alfred Rosenberg Nuremberg Charges
29. ^ Rosenberg case for the defense at Nuremberg trials (Spanish)
30. ^ Richard Steigmann-Gall (2003). The Holy Reich: Nazi conceptions of Christianity, 19191945.
Cambridge University Press. pp. 91. ISBN 978-0-521-82371-5. Retrieved 24 October 2010.
31. ^ Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology p. 45. ISBN 0396-06577-5

32. ^ Kershaw, Ian (2001). The 'Hitler Myth': Image and Reality in the Third Reich. Oxford University
Press. p. 109. ISBN 0-19-280206-2. OCLC 47063365. "Hitler's evident ability to simulate, even to
potentially critical Church leaders, an image of a leader keen to uphold and protect Christianity was
crucial to the mediation of such an image to the church-going public by influential members of both
major denominations. It was the reason why church-going Christians, so often encouraged by their
'opinion-leaders' in the Church hierarchies, were frequently able to exclude Hitler from their
condemnation of the anti-Christian Party radicals, continuing to see in him the last hope of protecting
Christianity from Bolshevism."
33. ^ Stiegmann-Gall, Richard, The Holy Reich, CUP, pp. 2435
34. ^ Speer 1971, p. 141, 212.
35. ^ Hrten, H. "'Endlsung' fr den Katholizismus? Das nationalsozialistische Regime und seine
Zukunftsplne gegenber der Kirche," in: Stimmen der Zeit, 203 (1985) pp. 534546
36. ^

a b

Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology p. 119.ISBN 0-

396-06577-5
37. ^ Cecil, p. 219
38. ^ Cecil, p. 160
39. ^

a b

Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology p. 52.ISBN 0-

396-06577-5
40. ^ Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology, pp. 523.ISBN 0396-06577-5

[edit]References

Bollmus, Reinhard (1970). Das Amt Rosenberg und seine Gegner: Studien zum Machtkampf im
Nationalsozialistichen Herrschaftssystem. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt.

Cecil, Robert (1972). The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology. Dodd
Mead & Co. ISBN 0-396-06577-5.

Chandler, Albert R. (1945). Rosenberg's Nazi Myth. Greenwood Press.

Gilbert, G. M. (1995). Nuremberg Diary. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80661-4.

Goldensohn, Leon (2004). Nuremberg Interviews. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-41469-X.

Kellogg, Michael. (2005). The Russian Roots of Nazism White migrs and the Making of National
Socialism,. Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-521-07005-8.

Nova, Fritz (1986). Alfred Rosenberg: Nazi Theorist of the Holocaust. Buccaneer Books. ISBN 087052-222-1.

Speer, Albert (1971) [1969]. Inside the Third Reich. New York: Avon. ISBN 978-0-380-00071-5.

Rosenberg, Alfred (1930). Der Mythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts.

Rothfeder, Herbert P. (1963). A Study of Alfred Rosenberg's Organization for National Socialist
Ideology (Michigan, Phil. Diss. 1963). University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.

Rothfeder, Herbert P. (1981). Amt Schrifttumspflege: A Study in Literary Control, in: German Studies
Review. Vol. IV, Nr. 1, Febr. 1981, p. 6378.

Steigmann-Gall, Richard, (2003). The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity. Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 0-521-82371-4.

Whisker, James B. (1990). The Philosophy of Alfred Rosenberg. Noontide Press. ISBN 0-93948225-8.

[edit]External

links

Wikiquote has a collection

of quotations related
to: Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg at the Internet Movie Database

Rosenbergs 1946 memoirs, at archive.org

The Myth of the Twentieth Century at archive.org

Der Mythus Des Zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts at archive.org (German)

Der Protestantische Rompilger at archive.org. (German)

An die Dunkelmnner unserer Zeit at archive.org. (German)

Tradition und Gegenwart Reden und Aufstze 19361940 at archive.org. (German)

Die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion und die jdische Weltpolitik at archive.org. (German)

Unmoral in Talmud at archive.org. (German)

Wesen, Grundstze und Ziele der NSDAP Das Programm der Bewegung at archive.org. (German)

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Alfred Rosenberg

Rosenberg on Churchill

Rosenberg on Nuremberg Rally

Chapter V, Faith and Thought in National Socialist Germany, The War Against the West, Aurel
Kolnai