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Adolf Hitler was the ruler of Germany from 1933 to 1945. Guided by concepts of elitism and racism, he established a brutal totalitarian regime under the ideological banner of National Socialism, or Nazism. His drive for empire resulted in the devastation of World War II, culminating in Germany's defeat and the reordering of world power relationships. Hitler was born on Apr. 20, 1889, in the Austrian town of Braunau am Inn, the son of Alois, a customs official, and Klara Hitler. Alois, who was illegitimate, used his mothers name, Schicklgruber, until 1876, when he adopted the name Hitler.
He was very stern with his son and abhorred Adolf's dreamy ways. His death, in 1903, came as a relief to Adolf. Adolf idealized his mother, however, whose death in 1907 had a traumatic effect on him. Hitler failed as a student in the classical secondary schools, a situation that contributed to his desire to become an artist.
He went to Vienna in 1907 but was unable to gain admission to the Academy of Fine Arts. He lived a shadowy, alienated existence in multiracial Vienna until 1913. His years there were characterized by melancholy, aimlessness, and racial hatred Vienna he developed his lifelong obsession with the danger that world Jewry posed to the Aryan race. In 1913, Hitler went to Munich, partly to evade conscription into the Austrian army. There, however, he answered the call to colors at the outbreak of World War I. Serving in the Bavarian Sixteenth Regiment on the western front, he distinguished himself for bravery and was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class.
For the first time in his life Hitler had found a home; he glorified the raw majesty of life under fire, and the nobility of the warrior. His soldierly dreams of victory and fulfillment were shattered, however, by Germany's defeat. He became convinced that Germany had been stabbed in the back by Jews and Marxists. The attempt to root parliamentary democracy in Germany was beset from the beginning by grave problems.
There were so many political parties least six major and many more minor ones- -that it was hard to form stable coalitions for effective government. Militant minorities the Communists on the far left and monarchists and racists on the opposite extreme sometimes resorted to force in efforts to overturn the republic. Notable among these efforts was the Munich Putsch of 1923, in which the tiny National Socialist party, led by Adolf Hitler, made a somewhat farcical attempt to seize power in Bavaria. The continuing unrest made the national government even more dependent on the basically conservative army. The year 1923 was one of major crisis. The payment of reparations, in both cash and kind, had placed an enormous strain on a country already bankrupted by more than four years of war.
As inflation had mounted, Germany had suspended payment in 1922, provoking the French to occupy the Ruhr area in January 1923. Workers in Ruhr mines and factories resisted by striking, but such resistance contributed to inflation, which brought on economic collapse. The situation was saved in November 1923 when the ablest of Germany's republican politicians, Gustav Stress man, introduced a new currency and improved Germany's relations with the western nations, paving the way for foreign loans and a more reasonable schedule of reparations payments. During the later 1920 s, therefore, the German economy revived, and politics settled down.
Also, during those years, a remarkable avant-garde culture blossomed in Germany, extending from the epic theater of Bertolt Brecht, to the Bauhaus school of functional art and architecture, to the relativity physics of Albert Einstien, and to the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger. This new Germany was cut down in its infancy by the onset of the depression of the 1930? s and the Nazi seizure of power. Depression conditions once more radicalized politics and so divided the parties in the Reichstag that parliamentary government became all but impossible. From 1930 on, government functioned by emergency decree. The Communists profited briefly from this radicalization, but the main beneficiary was Hitlers National Socialist, or Nazi party, which had the twin attractions of appearing to offer radical solutions to economic problems while upholding patriotic values.
Nazism had several elements: (1) A belief with a theoretical and pseudo scientific basis in the works of the comte de Gobineau, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and Alfred Rosenberg in an Aryan German race superior to all others and destined to rule, together with a violent hatred of Jews that led to the establishment of concentration camps and to the Holocaust. (2) An extreme nationalism that called for the unification of all German-speaking peoples. This led to the occupation of Austria, a German-speaking country, and of Czechoslovakia, which had a large German minority. (3) A belief in some form of corporative state socialism, although the left-leaning members of the party were purged in 1934. (4) A private army, called the SS or Blackshirts. (5) A youth cult that emphasized sports and paramilitary outdoor activities. (6) The massive use of propaganda, masterminded by Joseph Goebbels. (7) The submission of all decisions to the supreme leader Adolf Hitler, and the glorification of strength and discipline. Nazism somewhat resembled Fascism, which preceded it in Italy. It spawned several small Nazi parties in the occupied countries, Britain, and the United States. By 1932 it was the largest party in the Reichstag. The following year President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor after allowing himself to be convinced by generals and right-wing politicians that only the Nazi leader could restore order in Germany and that he could be controlled.
Hitlers rise to power paralleled the unstable course of the Weimar Republic, which replaced the fallen Hohenzollern monarchy. The abortive Communist revolution in Germany and the dictated Peace of Versailles determined Hitlers decision to enter politics. In 1919 he joined a small political faction in Munich and within the next year formed the National Socialist German Workers party (NSDAP). He directed the organization with an iron hand and used its meetings to deliver forceful rhetorical assaults on Germany's enemies. In 1923 he led the party into the ill-fated Munich Putsch. This action resulted in his imprisonment.
While in prison at Landsberg, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, which became the standard work of Nazi political philosophy. He defined the enemy as world Jewry, international communism, effete liberalism, and decadent capitalism. Hitler offered instead pure Aryan blood and the renewal of German nationalism under a fighting elite. One of the most important political tracts of the 20 th century, Mein Kampf is considered the bible of Nazism. Written by Adolf Hitler while he served a sentence in Landsberg Prison, the book presents Hitlers major ideas on anti-Semitism, anti-Communism, superiority of the Aryan race, German nationalism, the states superiority over the individual, and Hitlers feelings of hostility for democracy and miscegenation. The importance of the book, which calls for German domination of Europe, is derived from the notoriety of its author rather than from his logical presentation of National Socialist ideas. ?
Germany would once more become the leading power on the Continent and gain its living space in central Europe and Russia. Released after serving 9 months of a 5 -year sentence, Hitler reemerged as the Nsdap's leader in 1925. He moved swiftly to reshape the party and neutralize Gregor Strasser, who had built a Nazi power base for himself in the industrial north. Hitler gathered around him a devoted cadre of lieutenants, including the air ace Hermann Goering, the propagandist Joseph Goebbels, the police technician Heinrich Himmler, and the rabid anti-Semitic journalist Julius Stretcher. The Great Depression opened the way for Hitlers success. No country suffered more than Germany from the worldwide economic collapse.
Foreign loans abruptly ceased or were recalled. Factories ground to a halt. There were 6 million unemployed. The middle class had not really recovered from the great inflation of 1923; when struck again, after so brief a respite, they lost all faith in the economic system and in its system. The Communists vote steadily mounted; the great middling masses, who saw in communism their own death warrant, and who are extremely numerous in any highly developed society, looked about desperately for someone to save them from Bolshevism. (Palmer and Colton p. 822) Mass unemployment, Communist insurgency, and an alliance between the Nazis and the industrialist Alfred Hugenbergs Nationalist party all contributed to the Nsdap's electoral breakthrough in September 1930. It increased its seats in the Reichstag from 12 to 107, becoming the second largest party.
Hitler capitalized on the violent political climate by employing the Brownshirts, the Nazi paramilitary arm, in the battle for the streets. His strategy worked. In April 1932 he only narrowly lost the presidential election to the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg, and elections in July made the Nazis the largest party in the Reichstag, with 37 % of the vote. The party retained this position despite a decline in its vote in the November elections. Finally, Hindenburg, having failed to gain stability under the regimes of Heinrich Burning, Franz von Papen, and Kurt von Schleicher, named Hitler as chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933. Nazi Dictatorship Most Germans who supported Hitler during his rise to power did so out of desperation, scarcely knowing what he planned to do.
They received much more than they had bargained for. After half -persuading, half-coercing the Reichstag to grant him absolute power, Hitler lost no time in founding a totalitarian state, known unofficially as the Third Reichsupposedly in the tradition of the Holy Roman Empire and the unified German Empire set up by Bismarck. Hitler called his new order the Third Reich. He declared that, following on the First Reich, or Holy Roman Empire, and the Second Reich, or empire founded by Bismarck, the Third Reich carried on the process of true German history, of which, he said it, it was the organic outgrowth and natural culmination. The Third Reich he prophesied, would last a thousand years. (Palmer and Colton p. 826) When confronted by demands from Storm Trooper, Brownshirts leader Ernst Roehm and others for a second revolution that would make good on Nazi claims to socialist ideals, Hitler purged Roehm and his associates on the weekend of June 30, 1934. Four years later, he forced out two of the top generals on trumped-up charges in order to assure himself of full control of the expanding German armed forces.
Hitlers virulent racism gave rise to a cruel system of Anti- Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws of September 1935, which deprived Jews of most civil rights, were supplemented by other measures designed to rid Germany of Jews. These measures were to culminate in a policy of deliberate extermination during World War II, taking the lives of approximately 6 million European Jews. More immediately, however, a concerted state program of ending unemployment with public works projects and a restoration of business confidence produced remarkable economic recovery in Germany. The efficient propaganda ministry of Joseph Goebbels controlled the media to assure that Hitler would be viewed as a genius and Nazi Germany as the best of all possible worlds. Propaganda became a principle branch of government.
Propaganda was hardly new, but in the past, and still in the democratic countries, and had been a piecemeal affair, urging the public to accept this or that political party, or to buy this or that brand of coffee. Now, like all else, it became? total? . Propaganda was monopolized by the state, and it demanded faith in a whole view of life and in every detail of this coordinated whole. Formerly the control of books and newspapers had been mainly negative; under Napolean or Metternich, for example, censors had forbidden statements on particular subjects, events or persons. Now in totalitarian countries (Germany) control of the press became frighteningly positive. (Palmer and Colton p. 830) Given this combination of coercion, achievement, and thought control, it is perhaps not surprising that there was little resistance, aside from limited opposition from some elements in the churches and the army.
Hitlers consolidation of power was a gradual process that involved both the assumption of dictatorial authority and the elimination of opposition outside and within the Nazi party. The Reichstag fire of Feb. 27, 1933, provided a pretext for outlawing the Communist party and arresting its leaders. The real breakthrough, however, came with the Reichstags passage of the Enabling Act on Mar. 23, 1933, giving Hitler 4 years of dictatorial powers. Having won a commanding lead in the last free elections, held in March, Hitler proceeded to dismantle all parties except the NSDAP.
All federal and state institutions and organizations were coordinated, purged of Jewish influence, and brought under party control. On June 30, 1934, Hitler liquidated Ernst Roehm, commander of the SA, along with hundreds of other Nazi radicals. With the death of Hindenburg in August 1934, Hitler also assumed the functions of the presidency. He adopted the title of Fuhrer, or supreme leader, of the Third Reich. Institutional supremacy was reinforced by an elaborate terror apparatus, established by Reichsfuhrer Himmler, leader of the SS Blackshirts, the paramilitary organization that supplanted the Brownshirts.
The Brownshirts and Gestapo instituted the notorious system of Concentration Camps. Although other groups and institutions suffered persecution by the Nazis because of their political unacceptability, the Jews were abused solely because of their racial identity. One decree after another eliminated them from their positions in the professions and bureaucracy. The Nuremberg Racial Laws of 1935 deprived them of their citizenship.
Propaganda went hand in hand with terror. Goebbels adroitly orchestrated themes that were synchronized with Hitlers successes in both domestic and foreign affairs. Germany's economic recovery reinforced the widespread support Hitler enjoyed throughout the Reich during in the 1930 s. Hitlers economic policies were initially geared to recovery from the depression; thereafter, they were tied to his foreign-policy goals. By appointing Hjalmar Schacht, the architect of Germany's financial recovery in the 1920 s, as his economics minister, Hitler reaffirmed his support of conservative economic policies. He undertook a vast program of public works, including construction of a network of superhighways (Autobahn en), which both returned the unemployed to work and primed the economy.
By naming Goering director of the Four Year Plan in 1936, however, Hitler focused the entire economy on preparations for war. Hitlers foreign-policy goals were spelled out in Mein Kampf: to overturn the Versailles settlement and unite all Germans in a single Greater Germany, to destroy Bolshevism, and to conquer and colonize eastern Europe. At first he proceeded cautiously. He withdrew Germany from the League of Nations as early as October 1933, but he offset criticism by repeated declarations of his peaceful intentions and by concluding a series of bilateral agreements, including a nonaggression pact with Poland (1934). As the indecisiveness of his opponents became clear, Hitler acted more forcefully. In March 1935 he announced the rearmament of Germany in open violation of the Treaty of Versailles.
He was rewarded by Britains concurrence in the form of an Anglo-German Naval Pact (June 1935). The following year, without warning, he remilitarized the Rhineland, and France remained immobile. The two major European democracies, fearful of war, seemed set on the course of appeasement. Bolstered by the formation (1936) of the Rome-Berlin Axis and the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan, Hitler outlined his war plans to the German military leaders in a secret meeting in November 1937. Several of them objected and were promptly dismissed.
In March 1938 he annexed Austria. Later that year, after an international crisis over alleged abuses to ethnic Germans in the Sudeten area of western Czechoslovakia, Britain and France joined Italy in signing the Sudetenland over to Germany at the Munich Conference. In March 1939, German troops completed the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Belatedly, Britain and France moved to guarantee Poland's integrity. Hitler, undeterred, concluded (August 1939) the Nazi-Soviet Pact, which cleared the way for his attack on Poland on September 1. He was surprised but prepared when France and Britain declared war on September 3.
The pact with the USSR provided him the opportunity to crush his enemies in the west piecemeal. Adolf Hitler? s rise to power was partly because of excellent timing; Germany was looking for someone to save their economy and do away with the Weimar Republic, which germans no longer had any faith in its effectiveness. The person the people chose was Adolf Hitler.
His rise was also due to planning. Hitler used propaganda to convince Germany he was the person to save them. He new the rise of nationalism would unite Germany behind him and give him a strong hold over the government. Hitler controlled everything in government and he won much support by being the major figure in Germany?
s economic recovery. Hitler was a brilliant leader as far as gaining control and building a strong, successful country. His rise to power would change the world and the future forever.
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