Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was the leader of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He joined the Nazi party in 1920 and became its leader in 1921. Through charismatic speeches promoting nationalism, antisemitism, and anti-communism, he established a totalitarian fascist dictatorship after becoming Chancellor in 1933. He pursued expanding German territory in Europe and directed Germany's resources toward this goal, invading Poland in 1939 and starting World War II. Hitler grew up in Austria-Hungary and struggled as an artist in Vienna before World War I, developing antisemitic and nationalist views that shaped his political rise.
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was the leader of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He joined the Nazi party in 1920 and became its leader in 1921. Through charismatic speeches promoting nationalism, antisemitism, and anti-communism, he established a totalitarian fascist dictatorship after becoming Chancellor in 1933. He pursued expanding German territory in Europe and directed Germany's resources toward this goal, invading Poland in 1939 and starting World War II. Hitler grew up in Austria-Hungary and struggled as an artist in Vienna before World War I, developing antisemitic and nationalist views that shaped his political rise.
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was the leader of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He joined the Nazi party in 1920 and became its leader in 1921. Through charismatic speeches promoting nationalism, antisemitism, and anti-communism, he established a totalitarian fascist dictatorship after becoming Chancellor in 1933. He pursued expanding German territory in Europe and directed Germany's resources toward this goal, invading Poland in 1939 and starting World War II. Hitler grew up in Austria-Hungary and struggled as an artist in Vienna before World War I, developing antisemitic and nationalist views that shaped his political rise.
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born
politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers
Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP), also called the Nazi Party. He was the ruler of Germany from 1933 to 1945, serving as Chancellor from 19331945 and Fhrer (head of state) from 19341945. A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the Nazi Party in 1920 and became its leader in 1921. Following his imprisonment after a 1923 failed coup, he gained support by promoting nationalism, antisemitism and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and propaganda. He was ultimately named chancellor in 1933, and quickly established a totalitarian and fascist dictatorship. Hitler pursued a foreign policy with the declared goal of seizing Lebensraum ("living space"), and directed the resources of the state, including the economy, toward this goal. His rebuilt Wehrmacht invaded Poland in 1939, leading to the outbreak of World War II in Europe.[2]
Childhood and heritage
Childhood Adolf Hitler was born at the Gasthof zum Pommer, an inn in Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary, on 20 April 1889,[4] the fourth child of six.[5] His father, Alois Hitler (18371903), was a customs official. His mother, Klara Plzl (18601907), was Alois' third wife. She was also his half-niece, so a papal dispensation was obtained for the marriage. Of Alois and Klara's six children, only Adolf and his sister Paula, seven years his junior, reached adulthood.[6] Hitler's father also had a son, Alois, Jr., and a daughter, Angela, by his second wife.[6] Hitler's family moved often, from Braunau am Inn to Passau, Lambach, Leonding, and Linz. The young Hitler was a good student in elementary school. But in the sixth grade, his first year of high school (Realschule) in Linz he failed and had to repeat the grade. His teachers said that he had "no desire to work". One of Hitler's fellow pupils in the Realschule was Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the great philosophers of the 20th century.[8]
In Mein Kampf, Hitler attributed his conversion to German nationalism
to a time during his early teenage years when he read a book of his father's about the Franco-Prussian War, which caused him to question why his father and other German Austrians failed to fight for the Germans during the war.[9] Heritage Hitler's father, Alois Hitler, was an illegitimate child. For the first 39 years of his life he bore his mother's surname, Schicklgruber. In 1876, he took the surname of his stepfather, Johann Georg Hiedler. The name was spelled Hiedler, Huetler, Huettler and Hitler, and was probably regularized to Hitler by a clerk. The origin of the name is either 'one who lives in a hut' (Standard German Htte), 'shepherd' (Standard German hten 'to guard,' English heed), or is from the Slavic word Hidlar and Hidlarcek. (Regarding the first two theories: some German dialects make little or no distinction between the -sound and the isound.) The name "Adolf" comes from Old High German for "noble wolf" (Adel=nobility + wolf). Hence, one of Hitler's self-given nicknames was Wolf or Herr Wolf; he began using this nickname in the early 1920s and was addressed by it only by intimates (as "Uncle Wolf" by the Wagners) up until the fall of the Third Reich.[10] The names of his various headquarters scattered throughout continental Europe (Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, Wolfsschlucht in France, Werwolf in Ukraine, etc.) reflect this. By his closest family and relatives, Hitler was known as "Adi". Hitler's paternal grandfather was most likely one of the brothers Johann Georg Hiedler or Johann Nepomuk Hiedler. There were rumors that Hitler was one-quarter Jewish and that his grandmother, Maria Schicklgruber, became pregnant while working as a servant in a Jewish household. The implications of these rumors were politically explosive for the proponent of a racist and antisemitic ideology. Opponents tried to prove that Hitler had Jewish or Czech ancestors. Although these rumors were never confirmed, for Hitler they were reason enough to conceal his origins.
Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich
From 1905 on, Hitler lived a bohemian life in Vienna on an orphan's pension and support from his mother. He was rejected twice by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (19071908), citing "unfitness for painting", and was told his abilities lay instead in the field of architecture.[11] His memoirs reflect a fascination with the subject: On 21 December 1907, Hitler's mother died of breast cancer at age 47. Ordered by a court in Linz, Hitler gave his share of the orphans' benefits to his sister Paula. When he was 21, he inherited money from an aunt. He struggled as a painter in Vienna, copying scenes from postcards and selling his paintings to merchants and tourists. After being rejected a second time by the Academy of Arts, Hitler ran out of money. In 1909, he lived in a shelter for the homeless. By 1910, he had settled into a house for poor working men on Meldemannstrae. Hitler claimed that Jews were enemies of the Aryan race. He held them responsible for Austria's crisis. He also identified certain forms of Socialism and Bolshevism, which had many Jewish leaders, as Jewish movements, merging his antisemitism with anti-Marxism. Later, blaming Germany's military defeat in World War I on the 1918 revolutions, he considered Jews the culprits of Imperial Germany's downfall and subsequent economic problems as well. Generalising from tumultuous scenes in the parliament of the multinational Austrian monarchy, he decided that the democratic parliamentary system was unworkable. However, according to August Kubizek, his one-time roommate, he was more interested in Wagner's operas than in his politics.