Hitler Essay Research Paper Hitler Adolf 18891945

Hitler Essay, Research Paper

Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945) Early Years

Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, the son of a minor customs official

and a peasant girl. A poor student, he never completed high school. He

applied for admission to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna twice but was

rejected for lack of talent. Staying in Vienna until 1913, he lived first on an

orphan’s pension, later on small earnings from pictures he drew. He read

voraciously, developing anti-Jewish and antidemocratic convictions, an

admiration for the outstanding individual, and a contempt for the masses.

In World War I (1914-1918), Hitler, by then in Munich, volunteered for service

in the Bavarian army. He proved a dedicated, courageous soldier, but was

never promoted beyond private first class because his superiors thought him

lacking in leadership qualities. After Germany’s defeat in 1918 he returned to

Munich, remaining in the army until 1920. His commander made him an

education officer, with the mandate to immunize his charges against pacifist

and democratic ideas. In September 1919 he joined the nationalist German

Workers’ Party, and in April 1920 he went to work full time for the party, now

renamed the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party. In 1921 he was

elected party chairman (F.hrer) with dictatorial powers.

Rise to Power

Hitler spread his gospel of racial hatred and contempt for democracy. He

organized meetings, and terrorized political foes with his personal bodyguard

force, the Sturmabteilung (SA, or Storm Troopers). He soon became a key

figure in Bavarian politics, aided by high officials and businessmen. In

November 1923, a time of political and economic chaos, he led an uprising

(Putsch) in Munich against the postwar Weimar Republic, proclaiming himself

chancellor of a new authoritarian regime. Without military support, however,

the Putsch collapsed.

As leader of the plot, Hitler was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and

served nine months, which he spent dictating his autobiography Mein Kampf

(My Struggle). The failure of the uprising taught Hitler that the Nazi Party must

use legal means to assume power. Released as a result of a general amnesty

in December 1924, he rebuilt his party without interference from those whose

government he had tried to overthrow. When the Great Depression struck in

1929, he explained it as a Jewish-Communist plot, an explanation accepted by

many Germans. Promising a strong Germany, jobs, and national glory, he

attracted millions of voters. Nazi representation in the Reichstag (parliament)

rose from 12 seats in 1928 to 107 in 1930.

During the following two years the party kept expanding, benefiting from

growing unemployment, fear of Communism, Hitler’s self-certainty, and the

diffidence of his political rivals. Nevertheless, when Hitler was appointed

chancellor in January 1933, he was expected to be an easily controlled tool of

big business.

Germany’s Dictator

Once in power, however, Hitler quickly established himself as a dictator. A

subservient legislature passed the Enabling Act that permitted Hitler’s

government to make laws without the legislature. The act effectively made the

legislature powerless. Hitler used the act to Nazify the bureaucracy and the

judiciary, replace all labor unions with one Nazi-controlled German Labor

Front, and ban all political parties except his own. The economy, the media,

and all cultural activities were brought under Nazi authority by making an

individual’s livelihood dependent on his or her political loyalty. Thousands of

anti-Nazis were taken to concentration camps and all signs of dissent

suppressed.

Hitler relied on his secret police, the Gestapo, and on jails and camps to

intimidate his opponents, but many Germans supported him enthusiastically.

His armament drive wiped out unemployment, an ambitious recreational

program attracted workers and employees, and his foreign policy successes

impressed the nation. He thus managed to build support among the German

people; he needed their support to establish German rule over Europe and

other parts of the world. Discrediting the churches with charges of corruption

and immorality, he imposed his own brutal moral code. He derided the concept

of human equality and claimed racial superiority for the Aryans, of which he

said the Germans were the highest form. As the master race, they were told,

they had the right to dominate all nations they subjected. The increasingly

ruthless persecution of the Jews was to inure the Germans to this task.

Hitler successfully appealed to a Germany that was humiliated by defeat in

World War I and the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. Many Germans, and even

other Europeans, believed that the terms of the treaty were too harsh, and

Hitler was successful in defying some of them. H

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