Adolf Hitler (German pronunciation: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ], 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP), popularly known as the Nazi Party. He was the ruler of Germany from 1933 to 1945, serving as chancellor from 1933 to 1945 and as head of state (Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945.
A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the Nazi Party (DAP) in 1919 and became leader of NSDAP in 1921. Following his imprisonment after a failed coup in Bavaria in 1923, he gained support by promoting German nationalism, anti-semitism, and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and propaganda. He was appointed chancellor in 1933, and quickly established and made reality of his vision of a totalitarian, autocratic, single party, national socialist dictatorship. Hitler pursued a foreign policy with the declared goal of seizing Lebensraum ("living space" wink for Aryan peoples, directing the resources of the state towards this goal. His rebuilt Wehrmacht invaded Poland in 1939, causing the United Kingdom and France to declare war against the Third Reich, leading to the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe.[2]
Within three years, Germany and the Axis powers occupied most of Europe, and most of Northern Africa, East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean. However, the Allies gained the upper hand from 1942 onwards and in 1945 Allied armies invaded Germany from all sides. His forces committed numerous atrocities during the war, including the systematic killing of as many as 17 million civilians[3], an estimated six million of whom were Jews targeted in a genocide known as the Holocaust.
During the final days of the war in 1945, Hitler married his long-time mistress Eva Braun. Less than two days later, the two committed suicide.[4]
Childhood
Adolf Hitler was born at the Gasthof zum Pommer, an inn in Braunau am Inn, Austria–Hungary, the fourth of Alois and Klara Hitler's six children. At the age of three, his family moved to Kapuzinerstrasse 5[5] in Passau, Germany where the young Hitler would acquire Lower Bavarian rather than Austrian as his lifelong native dialect.[6] In 1894 the family moved to Leonding near Linz, then in June 1895 Alois retired to a small landholding at Hafeld near Lambach, where he tried his hand at farming and beekeeping. During this time, the young Hitler attended school in nearby Fischlham. Alois's efforts at Hafeld ended in failure and the family moved to Lambach in 1897. There, Hitler attended a Catholic school located in an 11th-century Benedictine cloister whose walls were engraved in a number of places with crests containing the symbol of the swastika.[7] In 1898, the family returned permanently to Leonding.
Hitler was close to his mother, but had a troubled relationship with his father, an authoritarian who frequently beat him, especially in the years after Alois's retirement and disappointed farming efforts. Years later Hitler told his secretary: "I then resolved never again to cry when my father whipped me. A few days later I had the opportunity of putting my will to the test. My mother, frightened, took refuge in front of the door. As for me, I counted silently the blows of the stick which lashed my rear end."
He was a poor student, which he later attributed to rebellion against his father, who wanted his son to follow in his footsteps as a customs official. He was confirmed on Whitsunday, 22 May 1904 at the Linz Cathedral.[8] His sponsor was Emanuel Lugert, a friend of his late father[9]
Ancestry
Hitler's father, Alois Hitler, was an illegitimate child.[10] For the first 39 years of his life he bore his mother's surname, Schicklgruber.[11] 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 Hütte), "shepherd" (Standard German hüten "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 ü-sound and the i-sound.)[11
Beer Hall Putsch
Main article: Beer Hall Putsch
Encouraged by this early support, Hitler decided to use Ludendorff as a front in an attempted coup later known as the Beer Hall Putsch (sometimes as the Hitler Putsch or Munich Putsch). The Nazi Party had copied Italy's fascists in appearance and had adopted some of their policies, and in 1923, Hitler wanted to emulate Benito Mussolini's "March on Rome" by staging his own "Campaign in Berlin". Hitler and Ludendorff obtained the clandestine support of Gustav von Kahr, Bavaria's de facto ruler, along with leading figures in the Reichswehr and the police. As political posters show, Ludendorff, Hitler and the heads of the Bavarian police and military planned on forming a new government.
On 8 November 1923, Hitler and the SA stormed a public meeting headed by Kahr in the Bürgerbräukeller, a large beer hall in Munich. He declared that he had set up a new government with Ludendorff and demanded, at gunpoint, the support of Kahr and the local military establishment for the destruction of the Berlin government.[33] Kahr withdrew his support and fled to join the opposition to Hitler at the first opportunity.[34] The next day, when Hitler and his followers marched from the beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry to overthrow the Bavarian government as a start to their "March on Berlin", the police dispersed them. Sixteen NSDAP members were killed.[35]
Hitler fled to the home of Ernst Hanfstaengl and contemplated suicide. He was soon arrested for high treason. Alfred Rosenberg became temporary leader of the party. During Hitler's trial, he was given almost unlimited time to speak, and his popularity soared as he voiced nationalistic sentiments in his defence speech. A Munich personality became a nationally known figure. On 1 April 1924, Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison. Hitler received favoured treatment from the guards and had much fan mail from admirers. He was pardoned and released from jail on 20 December 1924, by order of the Bavarian Supreme Court on 19 December, which issued its final rejection of the state prosecutor's objections to Hitler's early release.[36] Including time on remand, he had served little more than one year of his sentence.[37]
On 28 June 1925, Hitler wrote a letter from Uffing to the editor of The Nation in New York City stating how long he had been in prison at "Sandberg a. S." [sic] and how much his privileges had been revoked.[38]
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