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Amber Ward
Professor Tonya Wertz-Orbaugh
February 2, 2016
UWRIT 1103
Adolf Hitler: Behind the Madness
The topic I have selected for my Inquiry Proposal is Adolf Hitler. This topic interested me
because I already know as much as Id like to know about the actual killings and the
concentration camps that were involved in the Holocaust, yet I barely know anything about
Hitler himself. The areas I intend to touch on in my paper will include Hitlers early life, his rise
to power, Hitlers involvement with the Holocaust and his personal life. Before starting this
inquiry project, I didnt have that much knowledge of Hitler other than he was in charge of the
Holocaust and he killed himself.
The resources that I think that Ill need to locate for this paper will include internet
resources and maybe a few books from the Atkins library. My primary sources will definitely be
internet sources, because of the ability to instantly learn more information and easy accessibility.
There are many questions that can be posed when inquiring on a subject like Adolf Hitler, but
two specific questions that I could pose during my research about him could be, How did Hitler
rise to power so quickly? and another question could be How did Hitler acquire so many
supporters for such an awful Holocaust?
Two angles that I could use to think about my topic in a different light that usually
thought of could be: 1. Attempting to view Hitler as a human, and not the monster that he is

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portrayed as, and 2. Viewing Hitler through the eyes of the soldiers he had serving in his army.
Trying to view Hitler as a human being would be a tough angle to take because since he led such
a horrible tragedy into existence, it is hard to picture him as a human, as someone with feelings
and a personal life. To find out more about Hitler as a human, Id need to find out if any of his
family members, colleagues, or soldiers ever gave statements about him just as a person versus
him as Hitler. Viewing Hitler through the eyes of the German soldiers he had serving him and
carrying out his actions is another tough angle. It would be interesting to learn about the views
that some soldiers had, whether they agreed with Hitler or not. This could be a very interesting
angle to take because many assume that if the Germans were fighting for Hitlers cause then they
must have supported him, but many articles suggest differently.
I have many inquiry questions about this topic since it is something that I dont know
much about, but my main inquiry question would be Who was Adolf Hitler? This sounds as if
it would be too broad, but this question is intended to be followed by many other smaller
inquiries about his life and actions. But truly asking the broad question of who was he, could
bring so much information to light that I had never known before.

Peer Response Reflection

I feel that I have been a useful peer responder while reading over Nicoles paper because
I tried my best to lay out responses to each category in a clear way. Also, I tried to organize in a
way that is easy to understand.

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A couple of specific examples of this are that I followed the same order that the
assignment sheet did; I began with the Details and wrote my comment about that first, then
continuing to the Mirroring section, and finally the Responding section. Following this order
was hopefully helpful to Nicole when she looked back on her peer reviewed paper.