Hitler, Adolf (1889–1945)

ADOLF HITLER WAS the key figure of National Socialism (German Nazi fascism) beginning in 1920, fuehrer (leader, guide), and Reich chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was responsible for the Holocaust and instigator of World War II in Europe. Being one of the most charismatic and murderous dictators, Hitler hoped to conquer the world and, for several years, dominated most of Europe and much of North Africa.

In spite of mediocre capabilities and a sickly nature, the young Hitler undoubtedly was an artistically minded person and was trained as a painter for a while. His theatricality was revealed later in the staginess of his political activities. His outlook was a blend of intentionally politicized reading of ancient German-Scandinavian legends, anti-Semitism, extravagant cultural exceptionism, social Darwinism, and messianism. A fan of Richard Wagner's operas and German mythology, he acquired the belief in the superiority of an imprecise Aryan race. Germans were seen by him as the core of that master race who should build a superstate and conquer lebensraum (living space) by wiping out “wastrel peoples” (Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, etc.) in the struggle for survival among races, the struggle that he regarded as the essence of existence.

Historians may stress Hitler as a political phenomenon causality. Germany lost World War I and the imposed restrictions on Germany by the Versailles Treaty seemed ignominious. Voluntarily taking part in World War I as private first class (corporal), Hitler hardened to extreme nationalism and hatred of civilian politicians and Jews, whom he blamed for “stabbing in the back” the German army.

In the spring of 1919, he joined a small, violently nationalistic group in Munich, Germany, named the German Workers' Party, later renamed by him the National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeitspartei, NSDAP or Nazi Party. The democracy of the Weimar Republic appeared to him to be the child of disgrace and betrayal. Germany seemed to be in anticipation of a dictator. Hitler accumulated and eventually mastered these sentiments, profoundly grasping mass psychology and paving the road to absolute power. He had two remarkable talents: public oratory and inspiring personal loyalty. A key element of his appeal was the sense of offended national pride caused by the Treaty of Versailles imposed on the defeated Germany by the Allies. The Nazi ranks grew rapidly. On July 29, 1921, Hitler became the party's absolute leader, or fuehrer. The disaster [Page 683]of the 1923 hyperinflation, in the course of which the rich became richer at the expense of the rest of the population, was organized by the corrupt liberal upper crust, but was explained as the consequence of Versailles reparations. Hitler thought the hour of national revolution had struck. On November 8, 1923, he attempted to defy both the government of Bavaria and the Reich government in Berlin by starting riots in Munich known as the Beer Hall Putsch. Its failure committed Hitler to a mild detention in Landsberg Prison. There he dictated the text of Mein Kampf (My Struggle)—the bible of National Socialism.

The Great Depression of 1929 to 1933 offered Hitler another chance. Step by step, his crew took command of Germany, combining violent propaganda with provocations, parliamentary jobbing with brute force, bullyboy tactics with intuitive skill. On January 30, 1933, Hitler was officially sworn in as chancellor. He quickly turned Germany into the most extreme fascist totalitarian state, which murdered millions of objectors and national minorities. He conducted punch foreign policy, openly threatening the Treaty of Versailles. He contracted an alliance with fascist Italy and supported fascist Francisco Franco in Spain. Hitler incorporated Austria into his new empire in 1938 and induced France and Britain to bargain away at the Munich Conference the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, inhabited by ethnic Germans; his Third Reich occupied the whole of Czechoslovakia the next year. By invading Poland on September 1, 1939, he launched World War II, which brought about 40 million human deaths and innumerable suffering for the whole world. He was eventually defeated chiefly by the Soviet and American armies and committed suicide in his bunker on April 30, 1945.

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