Read below to learn more about this ruthless dictator.
Adolf Hitler
When WWI broke out, he applied and got into the German Army. Even though he spent most of the time away from the front lines, he was present at many major battles, like the Battle of the Somme, where he was wounded and received the Black Wound Badge and the Iron Cross First Class. When Germany agreed to an armistice in 1918, Hitler was shocked. He and other German nationalists blamed the civilian leaders and Marxism, which was is a kind of political system. Also, like many other Germans, was angry about the Treaty of Versailles, which blamed the Germans for the war.
The day before Hindenburg’s death in 1934, the cabinet said that the chancellor had ultimate power; there wouldn’t be a need for a president anymore. Hitler began readying the country for war by withdrawing from the League of Nations and building up a huge army. The Nazis also started a campaign to get people to stop smoking, drinking, and consume meat. Even with this campaign, the main thing that they focused on was the persecution of Jews. They treated them unfairly by making laws on pointless things like marriage between Jews and non- Jews. Then, they sent them to ghettos and from there concentration camps where they were killed. This was called the Holocaust which Karen and Pranati will tell you about later. The Holocaust was during WWII. WWII was the conflict originally between Poland and Germany, until Britain and France declared war on Germany. Germany and Hitler had been taking land like this for some time now, and the other countries backed off wanting to avoid war. The U.S. hadn’t entered the war yet, because it was unnecessary. That all changed on December 7, 1941, when Japanese bombers attacked the Pearl Harbor military base. The U.S. declared war on Japan the following day. The rest of war was sort of a slog, with Germany winning most of the battles. That all changed on D-Day. The war was quickly ending after D-Day. D-Day was when the U.S. attacked Normandy, France and this was the turning point in the war. The war ended 10 months after that. On April 29, 1945, one day before committing suicide, Hitler married Eva Braun, his long- time love. The next day in his underground bunker, he and his wife bit into a cyanide pill and shot themselves in the head. Shortly after, he asked an S.S. officer to burn his and his wife’s body before burial. He did this because Mussolini, the leader of the Italians, committed suicide and his and his wife’s body was found and the public threw rocks at the bodies. Hitler had died. Hitler has left a lasting legacy on the world.
Adolf Hitler was born in Branau am Inn, Austria on April 20, 1889. He was the fourth of six children of Alois and Klara Hitler. When he was three, the family moved to Germany. As a child, he frequently fought with his father. Hitler wanted to study art but his father wanted him to study business. In addition to art, Hitler was also developed a strong sense of nationalism. In 1905, two years after his father died, he went to Vienna, Austria to study art at the Academy of Fine Arts twice, but was rejected twice. He ran out of money and started living at a homeless shelter, where he said he got his anti- Semitism views from. After WWI, Hitler returned to Munich, Germany to continue work as an intelligence officer. While monitoring the activity of German Worker’s Party (DAP), he found he had very similar anti-Semitism, anti-Marxism, and nationalist ideas as DAP founder Anton Drexler. Drexler invited Hitler to join DAP. In 1921, he replaced Drexler as the chairman of the party. He then renamed the party the German Nationalists Socialists Party, or Nazi for short. His speeches at beer halls gave him many followers including Army Captain Ernst Rohm, head of the paramilitary organization Sturmabteilung (SA), which provided security at the beer hall speeches. On November 8, 1923, Hitler and the SA stormed a public meeting in a beer hall in Munich, which resulted in twenty deaths. This became known as the “Beer Hall Putsch”. Hitler was charged with high treason and had a one year sentence in prison, where he wrote Mein Kamph (My Struggle). The world- wide Great Depression was in full swing at the time, and this provided plenty political opportunity to Hitler. At the time, everyone was really desperate, even an extremist dictator sounded great to the people. In 1932, Hitler ran against Paul von Hindenburg for president and lost. Unluckily for the world, von Hindenburg gave Hitler the chancellor position with ultimate power. Hitler used his power to ultimately create a dictatorship. Somethings Hitler did was set up the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended basic rights and said that a person could be jailed without a fair trial. He also set up the Enabling Act, stating that gave his cabinet full legislative power instead of the Bundestag and Bundesrat and allowed deviations against the Basic Law (their Constitution). On July 14, 1933, Hitler said that all political and military opposition must be destroyed. The SA leaders and other political enemies were shot on the Night of Long Knives from June 30, 1934- July 2 1934.