Adolf Hitler: The Biography of the Nazi Leader

adolfhitler is historically known as one of the most memorable names in the 20th century and in human history. He marked history in a negative way, as he was the leader of one of the worst totalitarian regimes existing and was one of those that founded one of the greatest genocides in human history: the Holocaust.

Hitler, who was Austrian, fought for Germany in the First World War and it rose in the German political scene, through its radical discourse that turned to certain groups of German society, such as Jews, Social Democrats and Communists. He assumed power in 1933 and led Germany into the Second World War.

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Hitler during his youth

By 1929, Adolf Hitler was already an important figure on the German political scene.[1]

hitler was Austrian and was born in a country town called Braunau am Inn on April 20, 1889. Adolf Hitler's parents were called aloishitler and KlaraPolzl, and he was the fourth child of this couple (the first to survive long term). The children of Alois and Klara who were born before Hitler and who died were Gustav, Otto and Ida.

Hitler's father, formerly Alois Schicklgruber (changed his name in the 1870s), worked as an inspector at a customs post in Braunau am Inn and so Hitler grew up in a familiar environment in middle class it's from healthy financial condition. The good financial condition, however, did not make the family of Hitler have a good relationship, especially for the your father's explosive mood. Hitler's relationship with his mother, in turn, was the opposite and quite loving.

Hitler's parents died while the future German dictator was still just a teenager. His father, Alois, died on January 3, 1903, of a breakdown while drinking wine. He is thought to have died from a pleural effusion (a build-up of fluid inside the lung). His mother, Klara, died of cancer on December 21, 1907.

His father's death put an end to a big problem for Hitler: his career. Hitler's father wanted his son to pursue a career in the civil service and become a customs official just as he had been. Hitler, however, had another wish for his life and, after his mother died, he moved to Vienna.

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Historian Ian Kershaw says that after his mother's death, Hitler had savings that could support him for a year in Vienna|1|. In this city, he tried to join the Academy of Fine Arts, but failed twice. He also tried to become an architect, but was unsuccessful.

In Vienna he lived like a not busy, not making a point of getting a job to survive. His income came entirely from his mother's pension and a loan he had taken from his aunt. In this, Vienna's agitated political environment played a crucial role in shaping Hitler's prejudices, as Ian Kershaw sentences.|2|.

The strong anti-Semitism of Hitler, for example, began to be built during the years he lived in Vienna, there he had contact with racist and anti-Semitic publications. Austria's situation in this respect was no different from Germany's, and in both places anti-Semitism had been circulating in political debates since the nineteenth century.

Hitler in World War I

On May 16, 1913, Hitler had access to the inheritance that your father, who died in 1903, had left it to him. In all, he received the sum of 819 kroner and, once in possession of this money, he decided to move to the city of Munich. To acquaintances he justified his trip to Bavaria to join the Munich Academy of Arts.

The real factors in Hitler moving to Germany were: first, he hated Austria, and, second, it was fleeing from mandatory Austrian military service. Once established in Munich, Hitler continued to carry on the same idle routine that he had in Vienna. However, his life changed drastically when World War I broke out in 1914.

With the war, Hitler, "laden with patriotic feeling", enlisted in the german army, even though I can't do it. By the German army he was called up, on August 16, 1914, and joined the Second Reserve Battalion of the Second Infantry Regiment, and then transferred to the 16th Infantry Reserve Regiment of the Bavaria.

In the army it was just one cable and played a role as messenger. His job was to take messages from the command post to the commanders in the front of battle. War experience also shaped part of the Austrian's radical views, and after the Germans were defeated, Hitler became involved with far right movements.

When Germany surrendered in 1918, Hitler was confined to the infirmary as a result of a mustard gas attack. He never accepted German defeat, and from then on he embraced conspiracy theories about it. The best known of them was the "stab in the back”, which spoke of a conspiracy of socialists and Jews responsible for sabotaging Germany in the war.

During this world conflict, Hitler received two decorations, one of which was the Iron Cross, for showing bravery in delivering an important message. This decoration from Hitler was a recommendation of his officer, ironically, a Jew named Hugo Gutmann.

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birth of nazism

After World War I, the situation in Germany became critical. Popular unrest was intense and the country's economy suffered from the war. After the surrender, the situation worsened and the country sank into a terrible economic crisis, on the verge of a popular revolution. Conspiracy theories and the action of far-right groups spread violence in the territory.

Germany has become a democracyliberal, call Weimar Republic, as a consequence of the defeat in the war and the fall of the monarchy, and it was in this moderately democratic environment that Hitler began to engage and grow politically. After the end of the war, he became a agitatorpolitical and delivered his speeches in places like breweries.

His speeches considerably attacked the Jews, accusing them of being behind the “treason” that Germany suffered in the war and of being responsible for the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. He also attacked the Social Democrats, the group that ruled Germany in the Weimar Republic. It was in this climate that Nazism was born.

In 1919, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party and, within a few years, he had become an important person within it but also among extreme right-wing radicals. Hitler's success is explained, by Ian Kershaw, by the fact that he was a excellentpropagandist and his rhetorical ability stood out|3|.

The party that Hitler was part of was the far right German and had a speech nationalist, anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist. In February 1920, the party changed its name to National Socialist Party of German Workers. Hitler's party still nailed red posters around the city, and the intention of these actions was to attract the attention of the country's workers.

When the Nazi Party was inaugurated, its program had 25 points that summarized their ideology. By then, Hitler was already declaring the large groups he would seek to fight: the Jews, the Social Democrats and, ultimately, the Communists. Historian Richard J. Evans summarizes Hitler's views on the first group:

Hitler declared in numerous speeches that the Jews were a race of parasites that could only live by subverting other peoples, above all the most superior and best of all races, the Aryan […]. Jews should 'be exterminated' […]. The 'solution to the Jewish question', […] could only be solved by 'brute force'. […] 'we know that when we put our hands in power: May God have mercy on you then!'|4|.

Hitler's oratorical ability made his party grow. Between 1920 and 1921, his speeches attracted attention and caused the number of party members to increase considerably. By 1922, Hitler was already an important personality among nationalists and, in 1923, he became nationally known for being involved in thePutschgivesBrewery.

This event consisted basically of an attempted coup carried out by the Nazis in Bavaria. The coup failed, and Hitler turned out to be stuck and remaining a year in jail. During this period, he organized the Nazi ideology in the book called meinkampf, which means “my fight” in Portuguese.

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Hitler as leader of Nazism

Even before his arrest, Hitler had become convinced of his idea of ​​his role as the leader of Nazism, and that is why he led the coup in Bavaria. After he got out of prison, he took over the leadership of Nazism and took the lead in far-right nationalist movements in Germany.

Ian Kershaw says that Hitler's first speech, after leaving jail, was attended by three thousand people, and the only reason there was no more audience was because two thousand more were banned from entering, because the place was crammed|5|. This event was of symbolic importance, as it proved Hitler's prominent role among far-right movements.

Thereafter, Hitler sought to increase the popularity of Nazism in Germany. For this, it began to develop actions to spread Nazi ideas among various groups in the society, such as doctors, lawyers, teachers, women, students and, of course, workers impoverished. Hitler was thus able to amplify the scope of his nationalist, anti-Semitic and radical discourse.

During this period of growth of the party, some names began to emerge as leaders within Nazism, such as Rudolfhess, HermannGoring and JosephGoebbels. Nazism also began to become popular among classes such as peasants. The growth of the party caused the "Heil Hitler" greeting (“Save Hitler”, in Portuguese) was popularized.

The arm raised in front followed by a “Heil Hitler” was the official Nazi salute to their leader.[2]

The growth of Nazism under Hitler's leadership was shown by the electoral results. In 1928, the Nazis won 12 seats in the Reichstag (the German Parliament); in 1930, the number of seats jumped to 107; and, in 1932, the Nazis conquered 230 seats. So, the Nazi Party became thebiggest in germany.

In 1932, Hitler obtained his German nationality, and this allowed him to run for the presidential election in that country. In that election, Hitler ran against the incumbent president, Paul von Hindenburg. In the first round, Hitler received 30% of the vote, and in the second, 37%.

Hitler lost, but his expressive vote made clear the party's strong position and further spread Nazi propaganda across Germany. The defeat turned into victory for the Nazis, as strong popular pressure on Hindenburg made him name Adolf Hitler as chancellor of germany.

Hitler in power

Hitler's rise marked the beginning of the German journey towards totalitarianism. Appointed chancellor, Hitler acted openly to establish himself as an absolute figure in German politics and acted to end the democratic regime that marked the Weimar Republic. THE persecution against opponents of Nazism began immediately.

Some of its first actions were to end the Weimar Constitution and impose persecution on Social Democrats and Communists. For this, Hitler relied on luck. In February 1933, the Nazis had the perfect excuse to start their authoritarian shift: the fireofReichstag.

On the night of February 27, 1933, a Dutch Anarcho-Syndicalist named Marinus van der Lubbe, broke into the Reichstag and set the building on fire. The German police authorities and the Nazis knew that the Dutchman had acted on his own, but they ended up taking advantage of the situation and began to advertise that the action was part of a large plot communist.

This ended up being used as a justification for the Nazis to radicalize. The following day the document was approved. For the Protection of the People and the State, a decree that ended all individual freedoms guaranteed by the Weimar Constitution and which guaranteed the government the right to intervene in the German federations (states) to “restore the order".

In the 1930s, Hitler was the absolute leader of Germany and his apparitions were watched by thousands of people.[2]

Also in 1933, Hitler started the persecutionagainstthe social democrats and communists, imprisoning them and sending them to the concentration camp of Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp. Also, he dissolved the parliament that year and banned other political parties to act - only the Nazi Party was allowed to function.

In the economy, Hitler had as a great mission to recover the country's economy. His policy, in this sense, had ups and downs and acted by taking property from many Jews, encouraging production of paper money and the promotion of public works as a way to fight the extremely high level of unemployment in the country.

hitler acted against the League of Nations removing Germany from this organization and began to question the principles of Treaty of Versailles. Among the actions are the reconstruction of the German army, the formation of the navy and war aviation, the remilitarization of the Rhineland (border region with France) and the end of payment of stipulated indemnities in the treaty.

Hitler's powers expanded considerably in 1934, when the President of Germany, Hindenburg, died at 86 years old. The president's death made Hitler mobilize German ministers to approve the Law on the Head of State of the German Reich. With that, Hitler absorbed the presidential powers and became head of government and state, possessing unlimited powers.

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• persecution of jews

Once established in power, Hitler saw to it that his anti-Jewish speech was practiced. After years of hateful rhetoric against this group, it was not difficult for him to pursue them. Between 1933 and 1939, a series of measures were taken to progressively exclude this group from German society.

The Jews were initially excluded from public service German, and violence against them began to increase with militias (mainly assault troops) attacking Jewish families and with part of society boycotting businesses run by Jews. In 1935, Hitler authorized the consolidation of laws that legally imposed segregation of the Jews in Germany.

known as Nuremberg Laws, these were a set of legal orders that dealt with miscegenation and German citizenship, for example. Marriages between Jews and non-Jews were prohibited in Germany, as well as those were prohibited from having sex with non-Jews.

The Nazis also stipulated concepts that defined German citizenship. Thus, it was decided who had and who was not entitled to receive citizenship. Jews, of course, were excluded. Legal exclusion fostered physical violence, and in 1938 the situation took on a new dimension.

In 1938, in retaliation for the murder of a German by a Jew in Paris, Hitler authorized a pogrom (physical attack) against the Jews in Germany. At the turn of November 9 to 10, 1938, Nazis across Germany were mobilized to attack Jews. Their homes were raided, people were beaten, stores and synagogues were set on fire. This event was known as night of crystals.

It is speculated that in that attack thousands of people were killed, although the official death toll is 91, and thousands of shops and synagogues were destroyed across the country. Another important event is that, during this pogrom, about 30,000 Jews throughout Germany weretrapped and sent to the concentration camps of Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen.

Hitler at war

Throughout his life, Hitler gave numerous demonstrations of exaltation of the war. Throughout the 1930s, as mentioned, he strengthened the German army in order to form his coveted Third Reich. That reich it was the construction of a new German empire, based on what he advocated as lebensraum, O "spacevital”.

Living space was a concept that advocated building a great German empire through the occupation of lands that had historically been occupied by the Germanic population. In this land, the Germans could prosper based on the exploitation of peoples perceived as “inferior”, such as the Slavs.

Once the strength of the German army was guaranteed, Hitler moved to the phaseexpansionist. He acted openly to promote the expansion of German territory over the Austria and the Czechoslovakia. Both territories were merged with Germany in 1938 and 1939, respectively. The unification of Czechoslovakia even started a diplomatic crisis between Germany, France and the United Kingdom, which resulted in the call Munich Conference.

At this conference, Hitler made a commitment not to claim new territories in Europe, but this was a major bluff by the German dictator. Your next target was already set: a Poland, a country that emerged largely from the territory of former Prussia and which, until the beginning of the 20th century, had a large number of ethnically German inhabitants.

Poland, in turn, had cooperation agreements with the French and the British, and Hitler, despite receiving ultimatums from the two great nations of Western Europe, decided to move forward. He organized a false flag operation and invaded poland on September 1, 1939. Two days later, French and British declared war on Germany.

THE French and British declaration of war shocked Hitler (and Germany). He did not expect the reaction of his opponents and, according to Ian Kershaw, his plan was to fight the French and the British between 1943 and 1945 and not before that. The historian also claims that the pressure from the Nazi top and their own ambitions made Hitler take the risky pass of invading Poland|6|. He knew the risks and ruined everything.

Ian Kershaw also establishes very well what the war meant to Hitler. In the view of the Nazi leader, “Germany's future […] could only be determined through war. In his dualist vision, victory would guarantee survival, defeat would mean the total eradication, the end of the German people. For him, war was inevitable"|7|.

Hitler, however, forgot (or ignored) the limitations of the country he commanded, as a war against all of Europe was impossible to sustain in the long term. Germany's initial victories in the war further obscured Hitler's vision, which took it to its ultimate consequences. The result for Germany was disastrous.

From 1939 to 1941, Hitler was enthusiastic about the conquest of Poland, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Yugoslavia and Greece. The Nazis still fought in North Africa and sought to defeat the British at the Battle of the Atlantic. Hitler then decided to put into practice the daring plan of invasion of the Soviet Union.

From June to November 1941, the Germans invaded and rapidly advanced into Soviet territory. At the end of November, the Germans They loststrength, and Hitler was told that it was necessary end the war through a political agreement, as the industrial capacity of the Allies was superior to the German one.

Hitler was also informed that to ensure the country's support in the war in order to lead Germany to victory, it was necessary for the country to spend 150 billion dollarsonly in the production of armaments. This report did not take into account other expenses that the country would have on food and vehicle production, for example|8|. Hitler ignored the warnings.

German continuity in the war dragged the country into ruin. From 1942 onwards, Hitler struggled to postpone the inevitable. Gradually the Germans were being defeated, and as defeat approached, the more upset he became. O the stress caused by the approach of defeat was directly reflected in his health..

Between 1944 and 1945, his tests showed high blood pressure, heart problems, and stomach and intestinal problems. In 1944, Hitler also suffered from jaundice, even missing some meetings due to the worsening of his condition. His mood also became more and more explosive, in addition the dictator became hypochondriac and dependent on doses of methamphetamine.

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Assassination Attempts: Operation Valkyrie

With Hitler's approval, the Germans spread terror across Europe. extermination groupskilled over a million Jews on the mainland, ghettos were formed and put Jews to live in deplorable conditions, and finally came the extermination camps. Six Nazi camps were created to be death machines: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sobibor, Belzec, Treblinka, Chelmno and Majdanek.

Germany's involvement in a war that would devastate the country and the horror practiced in Europe through the Holocaust they convinced people in that country that it was necessary to get rid of the leader in order to stop the war and the barbarism caused. by him. One of these people was the German army officer called Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg.

Stauffenberg decided that it was necessary to assassinate Hitler in late 1942, and by 1943 he was already involved with other conspirators. with HenningvonTresckow and HansOster, for example, the Valkyrie Operation, a plan aimed at taking the German state through the execution of Hitler and other Nazi leaders.

Stauffenberg tried to mobilize people interested in carrying out the attacks, but many refused or were unable to carry them out due to circumstances. On July 1, 1944, Stauffenberg had direct access to Hitler and decided that he would kill him himself.

Operation Valkyrie was carried out in a Nazi bunker located in Rastenburg, now Polish territory.[3]

After three attempts that had to be aborted, Stauffenberg had the chance to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944. On a bunker located in Rastenburg, Stauffenberg tried to perform a bomb attack against Hitler, but he ended up making a mistake in setting the bombs, and only set one of the two he had. The bomb exploded, but Hitler only had minor injuries.

Stauffenberg and other conspirators were denounced by one of their accomplices named Friedrichfromm. On July 21st, Stauffenberg went executed by the Nazis and their snitch, Fromm, was also months later. The failure of the attack made Hitler mobilize a violent reaction against his opponents and more than five thousand people were killed as a result.

Hitler's death

In April 1945, the Soviets cerface the city of berlin and began the conquest of the German capital. went to last battle fought by the nazis and it went on throughout that entire month. Hitler and the entire top Nazi dome remained hidden in the underground bunker. As the Soviets entered the German capital, the Nazi authorities urged Hitler to flee, but he refused that possibility.

The day before they committed suicide, Hitler and Eva Braun were married.[2]

On the 29th, Hitler married his partner, EveBraun. On the 30th, the Soviets entered the Reichstag and were less than 500 meters from the bunker in which it was hiding. On the same day, Hitler and his wife committed suicide. Eva Braun ingested acidhydrocyanic and Hitler killed himself with a skull shot.

The German dictator, responsible for the Holocaust and for dragging the world into the worst war in history, was dead. Moments later, his body was taken to the surface and was burned down by bunker guards. Ian Kershaw Says About This, “The End of the Leader Whose Presence, A Few Years Earlier, electrified millions, was not witnessed by a single one of his followers, including his closest ones” |9|.

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Holocaust

As mentioned, Hitler's anti-Semitism was born during his youth in the troubled scene of Vienna and consolidated with Germany's defeat in World War I, as the country began to embrace conspiracy theories to explain it. THE German society was openly anti-Semitic, but Hitler, when he became an influential public figure, contributed to further heighten the hatred of Jews in that country.

We have already seen that, after taking power in 1933, he began to carry out measures that segregated Jews from German society and openly encouraged violence against them. After the war broke out and defeat began to become a real possibility, the Nazis started the Jewish extermination plan with the endorsement of Hitler.

Hitler was the architect of anti-Semitism in German society, and on that basis this society, poisoned, took this hatred to its ultimate consequences. The way found to exterminate the Jews was planned by top members of the Nazi Party and became known as Final Solution. Through them, what we know as the Holocaust was built and structured.

the Holocaust killed six million people among Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, blacks, communists, etc. The killings took place through mass shootings in ghettos and in concentration and extermination camps built to enslave and kill Jews. In certain parts of Eastern Europe, the Jewish population was completely exterminated.

Grades

|1| KERSHAW, Ian. Hitler. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2010, p. 50.

|2| Idem, p. 51.

|3| Idem, p. 113.

|4| EVANS, Richard J. The arrival of the Third Reich. São Paulo: Planet, 2016, pp. 229-230.

|5| KERSHAW, Ian. Hitler. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2010, p. 196.

|6| Idem, p. 545-546.

|7| Idem, p.545.

|8| HASTINGS, Max. Hell: the world at war 1939-1945. Rio de Janeiro: Intrinsic, 2012, p.177-178.

|9| KERSHAW, Ian. Hitler. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2010, p. 992.

Image credits

[1] roman nerud and Shutterstock

[2] Everett Historical and Shutterstock

[3] Karolis Kavolelis and Shutterstock

By Daniel Neves
Graduated in History