Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 on April 20th. He was a son to an Austrian customs official who was at the age of 52 at Hitler’s birth. His father was called Alois Schickelgruber Hitler and his mother who was a third wife of his father was called Klara Poelzi.
Both were from lower Austria. Hitler was resentful and moody he was never contented with anything; he was argumentative and short tempered. In fact he was very hostile to his father who was an authoritarian but greatly attracted to his mother who was very hard working.
His mother’s death of cancer was a very big blow to the adolescent Hitler whom he adored very much in fact he went with a photo of his mum wherever he went. His mother was loving, caring and she always sided with Hitler whenever his father’s bitterness got the better of him. Hitler and his father always crossed swords when his father insisted that Hitler should become a civil servant Hitler wanted to be an artist.
In school (Ellis J., 1945, 198) Hitler was unpopular and stayed aloof. He was an introvert and made very few friends.
He was extremely lazy and performed dismally in school. In later years he claimed that history was his favorite subject and that he performed very well something that his teacher objected to. For example, the 1905’s Hitler’s final school report shown that in history results were rated only as ‘satisfactory’. Hitler was capable of performing well but never worked for it.
When Hitler was only 13 years his father died and after that he dropped out of school as there was no strong influence to keep him in school. His mother supported him while he was in school though he performed poorly.
Even after Hitler’s father died he never stopped his dream of becoming an artist and after he left school for Vienna he started to pursue his dream although his mother’s death shattered his life. He was affected psychologically by his mother’s death of cancer. Those who were close to Hitler said that he even spent hours gazing at the dead body of his mother and drawing the sketches of it.
He had applied for a vacancy in Vienna so that he could pursue his goal of becoming an artist; his application to the Vienna academy of art was rejected. At that time he had no job and money. In the meantime, he used to sell post cards and clearing snow pathways in return for money. It is at this time that Hitler’s mind became warped.
He developed very strong animosity towards Jews. This was because the Jewish professor at Vienna academy rejected his work, secondly he blamed the Jewish doctor for not preventing the death of his mother and third because he thought that it was only the Jews who were rich and stayed in those beautiful houses on whose snow bound paths he cleared. His hatred of the Jews was known as anti-Semitism.
For the five years he stayed in Vienna he referred this time as “five year of hardship and misery” in his book “Mein Kampf” he blamed his hardship and miseries to the Jews. In an attempt to run away from his trouble, he tried to join Austrian army but he failed medically because of eating poor food and lack of sleeping enough.
According to the medical report he was too weak to carry weapons. This time he was leading a life of hand to mouth. He did occasionally odd jobs and hawking the sketches he drawn in the town.
Hitler compensated for the frustrations of his bachelor life miseries by going to the cheap cafes where he made his political harangues on his dreams of a Greater Germany to anyone who would listen to him. (Ellis J., 1945, 220)
While still in Vienna, he acquired his first education in politics by learning about the Christian social mayor’s demagogical techniques. It was at this time that he perfected his stereotyped obsessive ness in anti-Semitism. He accused the Jews of having a conspiracy to put down the German nation and the purity of the creative Aryan race
Hitler left Vienna for Munich in May 1913 and when in the following year the war broke out he joined the 16th barbarian infantry regiment where he served as a dispatch runner. Here he proved to be an able and to brave soldier. He even won the iron cross title for bravely though he never rose beyond the rank of lance corporal.
Before the end of the First World War he was wounded twice forcing him to a hospital bed in Pomerania where he spent three months recuperating.
After the November 18th abortive German revolution, Hitler became furious with age after the Germany’s military was defeated, he strongly believed he was the fit one to rescue his ravaged and humiliated nations from the hell of troubles it inherited from the Versailles treaty from Jews and Bolsheviks.
In 1924 Hitler said in a written document that he was fortunate to live at such a time. He was a regimental massager whose job was to convey messages to officers behind the front line and then back to the front line with new messages.
This was a dangerous job and proved beyond reasonable doubts that he was a brave solder. His fellow compatriots were not amused by how Hitler kept on bragging over the achievements of the trench warfare. They also hated him because he did not mix with them well. Later he was promoted to the rank of a corporal but this promotion was not fair to him taking in to consideration that after those four years he was given that simple promotion.
His colleagues thought that his inability to socialize and mix with others well and his inability to sell his ideas well to the rest of the members comprised his promotion. They argued that why should you promote someone who was not popular to his people. Though his colleagues never liked him he was much recognized by the officers for his bravely which worn him the Germany’s highest award-Iron Cross. In total he received six medals which were due in his bravery.
Up to 1918 (Gilbert M., The Second World War: p 72) Hitler was still convinced that Germany was winning the war but the war cost Hitler a lot in fact.
In the same year just one month before the war ended, he was gas attacked at type and this made him to be temporary blind though for a period of three months he as in hospital bed, when he received the news that Germany had lost out of the hospital and his eyesight restored. He felt deeply convinced that Germany was defeated simply because of the Jews.
It never occurred to him that Germany would have surrendered he felt that the Jews back stabbed Germany and it was a perfect idea if they were eliminated in Germany. Hitler had been temporarily blind because of the mustard gas attack he received in October 1918 in Belgium.
While Hitler was recovering from the injuries he sustained in the war, the communities with the help from the Jews were trying to establish themselves and sell their ideas to Germany but their moves were abortive. They wanted to revolutionize Germany from capitalism to communism and from 9th November 1918 the socialists took control of the government.
After Germany had lost the war the monarchy system came to an end and it become a republic and a constitution was made a slot for a president with political and military might.
An election was done and the Centrist government took over and it came to be called the Weimar Republic. The German government on June 28th 1919 ratified the treaty of Versailles. It stated that Germany was responsible for causing the first thus it was required to pay the reparations to the allied powers or the victorious powers like Britain, France and Italy.
The treaty was also required Germany to demilitarize the Rhineland, limit its army to only 100,000 army men and to control its military strength. These terms of the treaty were humiliating the Germans and they undermined the proper performance of the Germany’s government. These oppressive terms were used against liberating Germany from the humiliations caused by the treaty.
Hitler especially used these terms as his campaign tool. He echoed the paining terms of the treaty and condemned it. By doing this, he was able to rally behind a big mass of supporters. He believed that Germany was a great nation and was not a simple country that could be subjected to humiliations of such magnitudes.
In 1923, Hitler sensing that Weimar government was on the verge of collapsing, General Ludendorff himself and the local nationalists tried to overthrow the Bavarian government. Hitler stormed in a bar at Munich and fired a pistol in to the ceiling; he shouted out that he was the head of the new provisional government that would bring a revolution to the “Reed Berlin”
Thinking he had already overthrown the government he marched with about three thousand men but met a very strong police fire that saw 16men dead. He was captured and arrested. In 1924, February 26 he was tried and he somehow succeeded in convincing his accusers that he was pursuing the right goal.
He shouted pronounce us guilty a thousand time over the goddess of the eternal court of history will smile and tear to pieces the state prosecutors submission and the court’s verdict for she acquits us”(Morrow J., 1663; 234)
Hitler was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison in Landsbergis fortress and nine months later he was released. He advanced his stereotyped and prejudiced views against Jews. The experience he acquired from the abortive power overturn transformed him from being unskilled adventurer to a wise politician.
He realized that it is not a wise idea to face gun nozzles of the army unless he was in command. He also comes to know that Germany was not to be revolutionized through unlawful and powerful seizure of the ruling government but by the alteration of the Weimer’s constitution. He began mobilizing the mass which had become disintegrated to push for changes in the government.
He drafted the party’s manifesto which comprised of twenty five points and on 24th February read the content to his followers .Those who opposed him and his ideas were crushed with whips and rubber truncheons by his royal supporters.
Hitler was eloquent and new how to manipulate the population by employing his propagandas or what can be referred to as the demagogical skills, in his draft he openly criticized the Versailles treaty and leveled his anger on Jews.
When Hitler was released from prison having only served for only nine months, he resolved using diplomatic means to seize power. He called for Germany to stand up to the yoke of Jews and communists and support an empire that would rule them for a thousand years. In 1929, the wall stock exchange collapsed, all the external grants and loans dried up and all the industrial production flopped and many people were rendered jobless.
After the elections that were held (Adreas H, 1982; 91) Hitler’s party scooped 18% of the votes in 1930 and after two years Hitler won 30% of the votes as a president. In 1932 July the Nazi party which was the biggest than others did not get the majority.
Hitler wanted to be the chancellor but was given the post of a vice chancellor in the government which was formed by different parties but he rejected. After that a deal was reached which saw him becoming the chancellor in 1933. After Paul von Hindenburg who had beaten him in the election died (Beevor A., 2002; 137)
Hitler was agreed through a consensus to succeed Hindenburg. After Hitler took over he suppressed all the other political parties and become a dictator. With the improving economy he was able to advance his ideas he even build an industrial machine as a preparation for war. By 1937, he was ready to execute his ever dreamt of plans as were outlined in his book Mein Kampf.
Those who objected to his master plans were thrown out of the way. In 1935, he refused to stick to the terms of the Versailles treaty and started rearming by recruiting five times contrary to the agreement and he pushed Britain to let him increase his naval base. A year later he marched on to Rhineland which was supposed to be demilitarized. He met no resistance from the allied powers. Afterward, Luftwaffe was build. This re-armament created jobs and economic growth.
According to (Adreas H. 1982; 78) Hitler forced France and Britain to break the Munich agreement and led to the eventual Czechoslovakia dismantlement in 1939. He executed the Jews and political extremists who opposed his ideas. In 1939, September 1st he invaded Poland.
He applied his new war strategy which was called blitzkrieg which involved short quick attacks, fast mobile armor and ground men to wipe anything that might have been left by the bombs. Poland was defeated in less than a month. In 1941, he dishonored the non-aggression pact which he had signed with the Soviet Union.
This made him to have two front wars. In December the same year, USA joined the war against him to join hands with the allies. In 1944, the allies had greatly advanced. They bombed Germany cities and crushed Germany’s friend-Italy.
The war turned sour on his side because his soldiers started disobeying him and even mutinied. Also when his chosen lieutenants saw that they were about to be defeated, they started going against Hitler’s wishes although his dream of wiping European Jews had been realized. He had already killed 2/3 of the total; Jewish population.
When he sensed defeat, he killed himself on 1945 April 30th. Later, Eva Brawn his wife who was a long time mistress and by then newly married committed suicide to follow his husband. Hitler committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth with a pistol. Their bodies were taken to the Reich Chancellery Gardens where they were cremated in petrol fire. His death marked the end of unrealized legacy of Germanic Reich.
