Adolf Hitler - Research Paper Example

? Adolf Hitler A visionary leader to some and the most evil man to others, Hitler was arguably one of the most effective and powerful leaders of the 20th century. Driven by his dream of a “New Germany” (Kries 2009), Hitler was responsible for World War II and his leadership led to the deaths and sufferings of millions across Europe. From humble beginnings in his childhood, Hitler went on to become the Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when he committed suicide to avoid being arrested at the hands of allied forces trying to reign in the German invasion of Europe. Adolf Hitler was born to Alois Hitler and Klara Polzl on April 20, 1889 in a small Austrian village of Braunau Am near the German border. Alois was an illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. It is suspected that the father was a Jewish boy of the house where Maria used to work although there is no certain evidence to support this. This is important because Hitler would later in his life go on to start a campaign of eliminating Jews and their lineages, however remote they be. By the time Alois married Adolf’s mother, he already had two kids from previous marriages – a boy and a girl. Adolf was the fourth of the six children from this marriage, the previous three having died before reaching age 3 - so Hitler would get special attention from his mother due to her fear of losing him. Alois, a civil servant, retired after 40 years of service in 1896, the same year as Adolf started attending school at age six. Having been used to strict working life, Alois would often take out his frustration of retirement on the oldest boy in the household - Alois Jr., who was 13. He, however, ran away from home at age 14 which meant that Adolf, at age 7, would now be the subject of harsh words and beating from their father. At this time, the family moved to Lambach, Austria and then to Leonding, near Linz in 1898. Around this time, one day while rummaging through his father’s library, Hitler came across a book on the Franco-German war of 1870-71. He found the book very interesting and soon became more and more enthusiastic about anything related to war. In his memoires, Mein Kampf, Hitler recalls “It was not long before the great heroic struggle had become my greatest inner experience. From then on I became more and more enthusiastic about everything that was in any way connected with war or, for that matter, with soldiering.” When Adolf Hitler completed grade school, he wanted to become an artist but his father forced him to go to the technical school with the wish that Adolf become a civil servant one day just like Alois had been. Hitler did quite poorly in the first year as he wanted to show his father that he was unsuitable for technical school as he wrote in Mein Kampf (Chapter 2) "I thought that once my father saw what little progress I was making at the [technical school] he would let me devote myself to the happiness I dreamed of." But his father refused to listen and persisted with Adolf staying in the technical school which made Adolf perform badly in the school and indulge in various pranks and disobedience of his teachers. Then in 1903, Adolf’s father died of lung hemorrhage making Adolf the head male of the house. This also meant that his struggles with his father over the choice of career would come to an end and there would be no more harsh words or arguing with his father. In 1904, Hitler left the high school at Linz and moved to another one at Steyr, a town 25 miles from Linz. Here, Hitler lived in a small house with another boy and the boys would sometimes amuse themselves by shooting rats. During summer 1905, Hitler suffered from an inherited lungs disease. In September 1905, after passing an exam, Hitler and his friends celebrated it with drinks leading to him getting drunk and being woken up next day in the streets. After this incident, Hitler swore never to drink again. Using his poor health as an excuse, Hitler finally got rid of the school at age 16 and after spending some free time roaming around, attending operas, admiring art and drawing himself, in 1907, Hitler went to live and study art in Vienna at the prestigious Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Hitler failed the entrance test and was told that while he had some talent in drawing architecture and buildings, he had little talent in drawing human forms. Devastated, Hitler returned home to attend to his ailing mother who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. After the death of his mother in December 1907, in February 1908 Hitler moved back to Vienna with the ambition to become an artist. Here he spent some the worst years of his life from 1909 to 1913, and formulated strong opinions on politics and race which would have immense consequences on the future. After failing the admission test to the art academy again in 1908, and having spent all his possessions, Hitler ended up begging for money and sleeping on park benches. In December 1909, he moved to a homeless shelter. Later, he started earning some money by doing petty jobs and then, by selling paintings of Austrian landmarks. By the age of 21, Hitler started taking keen interest in politics and was introduced to anti-Semitism (against Jews) by the Austrian press and the speeches of Karl Lueger, the Mayor of Vienna, a noted anti-semite and a member of the Christian Social Party. In his own words in Mein Kampf (Chapter 2), Hitler describes how at first he despised the idea of anti-Semitism but later began to question himself whether the Jews were really Germans. In May 1913, at age 24, in order to avoid serving the Austrian army, Hitler fled to Germany and settled in Munich. However, in August 1914 he voluntarily joined the German Army and enlisted himself in the Bavarian Regiment. Hitler served two years in the army with some lucky escapes until 1916 when he was wounded in the leg and hospitalized in Germany. After recovering, he went to Berlin where he was appalled to see the anti-war sentiment of the general public for which he blamed the Jews as conspirators to spread unrest and to undermine the German war effort. He observed that most offices were taken up by Jews compared to their very low numbers at the front, and by year 1917 nearly all production and economic activity was handled by the Jews. I felt very badly about this behavior. Thus, the seeds of deep hatred against the Jews were germinated in Hitler and he wrote about it in Mein Kampf (Chapter 7) as “While the Bavarian and the Prussian fought, he stole the existence of both of them from under their nose; while the Bavarians were cursing the Prussians, the Jew organized the revolution and smashed Prussia and Bavaria at once.” In March 1917, Hitler asked to be sent back to the front and in August 1918, he received the iron cross – a rarity for a foot soldier. In October 1918, after getting temporarily blinded in the war, Hitler was sent back to a hospital to recover where he heard the news of Germany’s loss at war. Hitler had not the military but the politicians and the Jews to blame for this loss and Hitler decided to make an impact by entering politics. He writes in Mein Kampf (Chapter 7) “There is no making pacts with Jews; there can only be the hard: either-or. I, for my part, decided to go into politics.” The Treaty of Versailles signed June 1919, brought shame and insult to Germany as all blame for World War I was laid on Germany, land forced to be given to France and Poland, and several military restrictions were placed on Germany. The post-war Germany was getting largely communist and in 1919, Corporal Adolf Hitler was ordered to “take a look at and report” on a political organization which went by the name “German Workers’ Party.” It wasn’t long before Hitler impressed everyone in this party with his oratory skills and in 1920, at age 31, Hitler resigned from military and became the party leader of this tiny group. On February 20, Hitler made his first mass public speech in Munich which lasted 4 hours and laid out a 25-point propaganda of the party. The key elements included the union of all Germans, the rejection of the treaty of Versailles, and citizenship to be considered by race and no Jew to be considered a German (The History Place 1996). Soon after, Hitler decided that the party needed a symbol for people to identify it with, and thus one of history’s most infamous symbols, the Swastika, was chosen for the party. Hitler described the Swastika as “In the red we see the social idea of the movement, in the white the national idea, in the swastika the mission to struggle for the victory of Aryan man and at the same time the victory of the idea of creative work, which is eternally anti-Semitic and will always be anti-Semitic (Choat n.d.).” Soon the German Workers’ Party name was changed to include the term “National Socialist” and its short and more popular form was created, the Nazi party. By the end of 1920, the Nazi party has about 3000 members and started raising money by selling a tobacco called “anti-Semite” (Vat 1997). On July 29, 1921 Hitler was formally introduced as Fuhrer (leader) of the Nazi Party after some internal conflict in the Nazi party. Meanwhile, Germany’s economy continued to go down. By 1923, Germany’s economy was under hyper-inflation and most Germans had lost almost everything. The peace treaty and the Jewish traders were blamed for this condition. Eager for power, Hitler led his supporters to take over capture members of the local government of Bavaria and declared himself the new political master of Bavaria. However, the revolution failed and Hitler was sent to 5 years of imprisonment for this mutiny. The actual imprisonment lasted only 9 months but during this time Hitler drew the first plans of his Nazi Germany and the Third Reich (the third German empire). In the prison, he dictated his book “Mein Kampf” outlining his political ideology. Meanwhile, the Germans, in general, also began to “steadily drift back towards a more totalitarianism and militarism” (2Worldwar2.com n.d.). From 1924 to 1928, the Nazi party saw small growth as the economic crisis in Germany began to fade away. However, as the Great Depression hit the world in 1929 and unemployment in Germany reached 43%, Hitler began to rise meteorically in political circles as he promised return to old grandeur and a brighter future for Germany. On election day, September 14, 1930 Hitler’s Nazi party became the second largest political party in Germany with 107 seats and 6.37 million votes (The History Place 1996). With growing popularity of the Nazi party with increasing number of party workers and donations from businesses, Hitler could now settle and ask his step sister, Angela, to come and take care of the house. Angela came with her two daughters, one of who was the 20 year-old Geli who soon became Hitler’s love interest. However, Geli was rather flirtatious and Hitler was rather possessive about Geli. Frequent arguments soon began taking place and finally in September 1931, after a long argument over Geli wanting leaving for Vienna while Hitler was away on a meeting in Hamburg, she shot herself dead. With that ended Hitler’s first and only love interest. Hitler also stopped eating meat after this incident (The History Place 1996). In 1932, Hitler ran for President with the slogan “Freedom and Bread” against the current 84 year old President Hindenburg. The following election and a run-off election resulted in victory for Hindenburg. Political upheaval, ups and downs, double crossing and backstabbing followed among various contenders for the next Chancellor’s post and finally around noon on January 30, 1933, Hitler was confirmed as Germany’s new Chancellor. Within the next few days, and weeks, Hitler changed the German political set up to a complete dictatorship by installing his Nazi loyalists on all major posts, suspending and banning non-Nazi meetings, and abolishing all human rights. By March, 1933 he got the congress (at gun point) to confide in him complete and absolute power for legislation. By July 1933, all opposition members were either murdered or had fled and the Nazi party was the only legal party in Germany. Hitler could now concentrate on his propaganda for a “New Germany”. In order to ensure his total and personal control on Germany, Hitler encouraged parallel and rival groups doing nearly the same job. Each group spied on the others and reported to Hitler. For internal security for example, he had the regular police, the SA militia, the SS, and the Gestapo. Hitler instituted several anti-Jew laws – most were imprisoned and/or killed. In terms of economy, Hitler had little or no “economic policy” present but still reduced unemployment within three years to zero – he wanted Germany to re-arm itself so most jobs were created for manufacture of arms and multiple police organizations. According to the biography of Hitler on 2worldwar2 “…while he allowed the Nazi party to brutally dominate all other aspects of life, he kept it away from the industry and the military, because for his intended war he wanted them both to reach peak performance as soon as possible.” Within the next two years, Hitler was ready to start his expansion plans for Germany – without going to war at first. He sent his military to the neutral Saar region and the demilitarized Rhine region in 1935/36 and annexed Austria in 1938. His excuses were that these regions were part of Germany and that each time it was his last demand. On September 30, 1938 during a one-day conference in Munich, Hitler reached an agreement with Great Britain for peace and transfer of land that was rightfully German and that had been forcefully taken from Germany after World War 1. For the result of this summit, Hitler was declared as Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1938 (The Time Magazine 1939). Hitler, however, felt deprived of the war he had always wanted. He wanted to annex Poland followed by Soviet Union so that he could develop a large naval base from which he could launch attacks on the British Empire and the rest of the world. So, in March 1939, after annexing Czechoslovakia, he annulled the non-aggression pact with Poland. This led Great Britain and France to contemplate an alliance with Soviet Union but before this could happen, Hitler secretly agreed with Soviet Union to jointly invade Poland and divide it between them. On September 1, 1939 the German army and Air Force attacked Poland with incredible speed and efficiency. The new powerful attack tactic was called Blitzkrieg (Lighting war). The World War 2 had begun. Wherever, the German army invaded, Hitler ordered the Jews to be killed or made to starve and work in prisons. After military success in Denmark, Norway, and Western Europe, Hitler failed in his attempt to conquer Great Britain in 1941. Following this and despite frivolous attempts by his generals to change his mind, Hitler went to war against Russia in June 1941 – his first big mistake in the war. He wanted to control Moscow before the winter set in. But while advancing in Russia, Hitler thought he would be better off if he could get control on the resource rich Ukraine first. Again despite several warnings from his generals, Hitler made his forces divert to Ukraine first. This was another big mistake in the war by Hitler. By the time his forces began their re-advance to Moscow, winter was about to set in. The German forces were no longer able to move fast enough and this turned to be a big turning point in the war. Soviet Union retaliated with a counter attack and killed and/or drove away most of the German army on the front. Soon, the allied forces against Germany got bigger with the involvement and cooperation from Soviet Union and the US. Meanwhile, Hitler made his pact with the Japanese and the Italians forming the axis force. As with most wars, the progress was not as expected by the aggressor. After initial successes, Hitler’s forces began to lose morale and confidence in their leader. In 1942, the advance of the axis forces was arrested following defeats of Japan in naval battles and land forces in Stalingrad. Finally, in 1944/45 the allied forces entered Germany and took control of Munich in 1945. The entry of allied forces in Munich and the death of his Italian counterpart Mussolini on April 29, 1945 had meant certain capture and death for Hitler as well. So, Hitler married his long time companion Eva Braun on the midnight of April 29, 1945 and they both committed suicide the next day on April 30, 1945. Berlin surrendered on May 2, 1945. During his entire lifetime, Hitler survived nearly 30 assassination plots. 14 of those were made before the start of World War II and the remaining 16 during the war from 1939 to its end in 1945. The most notable of these was the one on July 20, 1944 in Wolfschanze when Oberst Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg placed a bomb in the situation room where Hitler was in discussions with his generals. The bomb killed four people, but only wounded Hitler (Axis History 2004). He was destined to die at his own hands. Hitler’s hunger for German glory and a war proved too costly. Estimates suggest that the Wrold War 2 cost nearly 21 military and 27 million civilian lives across the world (Warchronicle 2000). While most people remember Hitler as an evil force responsible for so many deaths, there are some who write about Hitler in a more neutral or positive sense. At Hitler’s birthplace in Braunau Am in Austria, a stone engraving states that the millions of deaths warn us of no more fascism for sake for peace and democracy. Hitler and his Nazi party has also been the subject of many films and documentaries nearly all of which portray him as cruel and evil. Frederick Meinecke, a noted German Historian, describes Hitler’s life as “…it is one of the great examples of the singular and incalculable power of personality in historical life.” (Shirer 1990). References 2Worldwar2.com. Adolf Hitler - Biography. http://www.2worldwar2.com/adolf-hitler.htm (accessed June 13, 2011). Axis History. Assassination Plots and Attempts. 2004. http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=2972 (accessed June 14, 2011). Choat, Colin. Project Gutenberg Australia, Translation of Mein Kampf. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt (accessed June 13, 2011). Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/ (accessed June 13, 2011). Kries, Steven. "Lecture 11: Hitler and World War Two." The History Guide. August 2009. http://www.historyguide.org/europe/lecture11.html (accessed June 13, 2011). Shirer, William L. "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany." 5. 1990. The History Place. 25 Points of Hitler’s Nazi Party. 1996. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points.htm (accessed June 13, 2011). —. Germans Elect nazis. 1996. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/elect.htm (accessed June 13, 2011). —. Success and a Suicide. 1996. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/success.htm (accessed June 13, 2011). The Time Magazine. Adolf Hitler: Man of the Year, 1938. 1939. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760539-1,00.html (accessed June 14, 2011). Vat, Dan van der. "The Good Nazi: The Life and Lies of Albert Speer." 30. George Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997. Warchronicle. Estimated war dead World War II. 2000. http://warchronicle.com/numbers/WWII/deaths.htm (accessed June 14, 2011). Read More