The personality of Adolf Hitler - Research Paper Example

? 28 May, Adolf Hitler: Adolf Hitler, one of the world’s most talented yet ferociousleaders was born in the town of Braunau-am-Inn in Austria on 20 April 1889. This town is located close to the border between Germany and Austria. Hitler’s father, Alois, used to check the goods crossing the border in the capacity of a customs officer. Ida and Gustav were two children born to Hitler’s mother, Klara and Alois before Hitler, but none of the two had managed to survive the infancy. Hitler was six years of age when he started to go to school. The family spent time in several villages in Linz towards the east of Braunau. Klara and Alois gave birth to Edmund. Edmund was Hitler’s younger brother who did not live after six years of age. Finally, Hitler’s younger sister Paula was born in 1896, who lived even longer than Hitler did. Adolf Hitler was very weak in studies. He had no interest whatsoever in studies and thus, maintained a very poor record in school. His tuition was not completed when he left the school to fulfill his desire of becoming an artist. When Hitler turned thirteen, Alois passed away. Klara was left with Hitler and Paula and had to take care of the two children on her own. As a teenager, Hitler neither studied nor worked. Instead, he cultivated interest in the fields of history and politics. Meanwhile, Hitler made an attempt to study in the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and applied for it, but the application went atrophy. In 1908, Klara could not survive cancer and passed away. From the age of nineteen onwards, Hitler and Paula were left all alone. Although Hitler did have uncles and aunts from his mother’s and father’s families, yet they were not keen on supporting the children. Hitler resolved to travel to Vienna in 1909 with a view to earning money. For almost a year or perhaps more, Hitler had no food or shelter. He was homeless and had his meals in the charity soup-kitchens. He never continued a job for long. Instead, he would do occasional menial jobs. He also persuaded people that would show the slightest interest in Hitler’s paintings into buying them. This was how Hitler spent his life from his mother’s death till 1913. The penniless vagabond, Adolf Hitler traveled to the southern part of Germany in 1913 and reached Munich. In 1914, when the World War I commenced, Hitler applied to join in the German Army. He was fortunate enough to be selected for the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment. This was the turning point in the life of Adolf Hitler. He became a soldier from a penniless drifter. Hitler participated in the World War I from the side of Germany and fought very bravely. Owing to the display of immense courage and bravery in the war, Hitler was promoted to Corporal. He was also granted the awards of First Class and the Iron Cross Second Class. Hitler kept wearing the former throughout his life until the day of his death. An attack of British gas had blinded Hitler temporarily and he was hospitalized on the day, on which the armistice was announced in 1918. By the end of 1918, Hitler rejoined his regiment in Munich. In the four months from December 1918 till March of the following year, Hitler served in Traunstein at a camp of prisoner-of-war. After that, he moved back to Munich and saw that the local Communists had initiated a takeover bid. The Communists had snatched the authority before the army could expel them. Hitler was offered an opportunity to join a local army organization that aimed at convincing the returning soldiers to stay away from pacifism or communism. The training Hitler received in it and the duties that followed helped him improve his oratory skills. One of his duties was to spy on some political groups. At one gathering of the German Worker’s Party, Hitler became extremely angry to hear a speech and berated the speaker. Anion Drexler, who was that party’s founder was extremely overwhelmed with the overt expression of courage made by Hitler and thus, invited Hitler to become a part of his organization. Hitler gave Drexler’s invitation due consideration, and finally acceded to it. This decision made him the seventh official of that committee in September 1919. Hitler was assigned the responsibility of propaganda, Hitler addressed the audience of more than a hundred people. His oratory skills were greatly appreciated in the meeting and he made another speech in Munich Hofbrauhaus in February, 1920 in which he addressed the audience of more than two thousand people. Although Hitler was not supposedly the prime speaker in that meeting, yet he made the audience spell-bound when upon his turn and pacified a disorderly audience. In his speech, Hitler proposed a programme of twenty five points which were essentially the ideas upon which the party was based. On 1 April 1920, the party was named as the National Socialist German Workers Party. In short, the party was called as Nazi. Shortly after the speech that he had made in February, Hitler was released from the army. That was the point in time when Hitler totally plunged into politics and sustained influencing the party. He started making a private group of hooligans that would organize the meetings of his own party and would distort the meetings of other parties. This was the very group that was later introduced as Sturmabteilung. The group had troopers with brown shirts in it. From that time onwards, Hitler assumed the role of prime speaker at the events of the party. Making use of his excellent oratory skills, Hitler managed to attract large audiences. Swastika was chosen by Hitler in 1920 to serve as the insignia of the Nazi party. Hitler achieved complete control over the Nazi party in 1921, though he was not the favorite of all Nazis. In order to get the Nazi party freed of the influence of Hitler, the unhappy members of the Nazi party tried to merge their party with another party in Nuremburg while Hitler was in Berlin. As the news approached Hitler, he immediately returned to Munich and threatened the party that he would resign if the merger took place. This was not affordable for the members of the party because they were aware of the fact that Hitler was funding the organization through the earnings of his wonderful speeches that he made in meetings and several considerate sources. Having realized their weakness, Hitler turned the tables on the unhappy members of the organization and resolved to take the lead of that party making use of his dictatorial powers. A very important reason behind the empowerment of Nazis in Germany was the peace settlement of the Treaty of Versailles. After the World War I had terminated, Germans were forced into signing it. They had no other option to choose but to sign the Treaty of Versailles. This Treaty was visualized by the people of Germany as a symbol of their defeat and they considered it a mere insult to Germany. Its terms were quite humiliating and unacceptable to the Germans in general. According to the Treaty, Germans were obliged as a punishment to make up for the losses of the victims of war. The Germans had to treat their neighbors with respect and had to get their military handicapped. The Germans were also required by the Treaty to shut their industries down (Lewis). This flared up the agitation in Germans against the government and the Germans wanted to get rid of the current political setup. The German government was being extremely abhorred by the public who wanted the government to change. This anger made the circumstances very fortunate for Hitler whose expansionism and straightforwardness totally appealed the public. Hitler committed to the German public that he would abolish the Treaty of Versailles. This promise also earned him the support of public. In 1929, unemployment in Germany reached its apogee after US retracted its loans from Germany. This happened shortly after the incident of the Wall Street Crash and Germany’s economy had been greatly damaged as a result of that. People wanted drastic changes in the circumstances that had become unbearable for them. They did not have food to eat. Consequentially, Nazis succeeded in the elections and Germans accepted Nazism. The Nazi seats in the Reichstag increased in number from 12 to 230 from 1928 to 1932. The Great Depression showed Hitler as a ray of light to the Germans who had long been in darkness. Hitler tried to abolish the Bavarian government in the end of 1923 with the help of General Lundendroff and local nationalists. By shooting the ceiling with his pistol, Hitler declared that his new provisional government would openly oppose Red Berlin. The resulting police fight killed 16 people and Hitler was sent behind the bars. Hitler’s speech on 26 February 1926 ended with these words, “Pronounce us guilty a thousand times over: the goddess of the eternal court of history will smile and tear to pieces the State Prosecutor's submission and the court's verdict for she acquits us” (Lemons 62). On 30 April 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in Berlin in the underground bunker along with his wife, Eva before Soviets could capture him. Germany announced Hitler’s death on 1 May 1945. Adolf Hitler was born with a lot of talents. He knew the magic of words and knew the art of organization. His natural artistic skills that urged him to pursue his career in arts in his early childhood, and when he could not achieve that, the art instead reflected in his speech and organization and Hitler became a wonderful politician. Hitler used to think that God had selected him to be the dictator in Germany. Moved by his desire to rule the whole world, Hitler went to such extreme lengths to which his contemporaries could not even think of going. Hitler was trusted by masses for his self confidence, though this was certainly not the only reason of empowerment of Nazis in Germany. Adolph Hitler as a Fuhrer of the German nation could find the ideal delirium for locating and finding the pleasure which lacked to his own image. This love and this interest which the psychotic subject wears as an own image stays under the name of transsexual pleasure (a term given by Jacques Lacan) and it express itself as the pleasure attached to his self image and lacking of a sexual symbolism. (Gelan 188). Works Cited: Gelan, Cristina. “Adolph Hitler or an ideology delirium.” International Journal of Anxiology. n.d. Web. 28 May 2011. . Lemons, Everette. The Third Reich, A Revolution of Ideological Inhumanity: The Power of Perception. Lulu.com, 2005. Print. Lewis, James. “How the Great Depression brought Adolf Hitler to power.” 8 Mar. 2009. Web. 28 May 2011. . Read More