There are numerous things that could be said about Adolf Hitler. Many opinions and arguments

have been made in favor and opposition for this man who is considered both the greatest

murderer of all times and probably the most powerful person ever to exist. He is also probably

one of the most common names in history. Either way I will show you Hitler, the man, the

terror, the legend, you decided.

Many conservatives accuse Hitler of being a leftist, on the grounds that this party was

named "National Socialist." But socialism requires worker ownership and control of the means of

production. In Nazi Germany, private capitalist individuals owned the means of production, and

they in turn were frequently controlled by the Nazi party and state. True socialism does

not advocate such economic dictatorship it can only be democratic. Hitler's other political

beliefs place him almost always on the far right. He advocated racism over racial tolerance,

eugenics over freedom of reproduction, merit over equality, competition over cooperation,

power politics and militarism over pacifism, dictatorship over democracy, capitalism over

Marxism, realism over idealism, nationalism over internationalism, exclusiveness over

inclusiveness, common sense over theory or science, and even held friendly relations with the

Church, even though he was an atheist. Adolf Hitler was a German political and government

leader and one of the 20th century's most powerful dictators, who converted Germany into a

fully militarized society and launched World War II in 1939. Making anti-Semitism a keystone

of his propaganda and policies, he built the Nazi Party into a mass movement. For a time he

dominated most of Europe and North Africa. He caused the slaughter of millions of Jews and

other people whom he considered inferior.

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

and a peasant girl. He never completed high school, because he was a poor student. 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, in which lasted from 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 or "Nazi" Party. In 1921 he was elected

party chairman with dictatorial powers.

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

organized meetings, and terrorized political foes with his personal bodyguard force, the

Sturmabteilung1 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,

Putsch2, 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 or "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 Reichstag3 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.

Nevertheless, Hitler once in power 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 derived 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 insure 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. His

efforts to rearm Germany in 1935 met with little protest from other European countries, and

when he sent troops into the demilitarized Rhineland in 1936, France did not react.

When the Spanish Civil War began in July 1936, Hitler supported Nationalist

leader Francisco Franco, supplying airplanes and weapons. German aid to Franco gave Hitler

the opportunity to test his strategies and weapons technology. In October 1936 Hitler signed a

pact with Italy's Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini. In November 1936 he signed the

Anti-Comintern treaty with Japan. In 1940 Germany signed a tripartite alliance with both Italy

and Japan, pledging mutual support.

Hitler believed that Germany needed to expand to the east in order to find

living space, or Lebensraum, which could be used as both agricultural and industrial land. In

1938 when Hitler occupied Austria claiming that Germans were being persecuted, he

encountered no resistance. In September 1938, stating that Germans in the Sudetenland in

Czechoslovakia were being oppressed, he encouraged them to make demands on the

Czechoslovakian government that it could not fulfill. Thus Germany had an excuse to march

into Czechoslovakia. Britain and France feared the outbreak of war and agreed to the Munich

Pact, which gave the Sudetenland to Germany in exchange for Germany's promise not to take

additional Czech territory. However, by March 1939 Hitler had brought the remainder of

Czechoslovakia under German control. He was actively preparing for an aggressive maneuver

toward the east.

Germany signed a nonaggression pact with the Union of Soviet Socialist

Republics in August 1939 and in the pact, the two countries secretly divided up Poland.

Having neutralized the USSR, Hitler attacked Poland in September 1939. The Poles were

quickly overpowered, and their allies, the British and French, who had declared war on

Germany, would do nothing to help. In the spring of 1940 Hitler's forces overran Denmark and

Norway and a few weeks later routed the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. The defeat of

Britain was averted by the Royal Air Force, which fended off the German Luftwaffe.

Driven by his need for land and his hatred of communism, Hitler invaded the

USSR in June 1941. Believing that the war would be brief, he did not allow the troops to take

provisions for the winter. The German troops were initially successful and almost reached

Moscow and Leningrad4 as before the Soviet armies counterattacked in December 1941.

Hitler, who had assumed total control of the army, severely underestimated the size and the

endurance of the Soviet armies. He also misjudged the significance of the entrance of the

United States into the war. Obsessed with defeating the USSR, Hitler neglected the Western

Front.

Throughout this period he continued the campaign to destroy world Jewry. In

1942 Hitler met with high ranking Reich officials to create the final solution to the Jewish

problem. The Germans began building large extermination camps to accompany the

concentration camps. Six million Jews were murdered in these camps. Endless trains took

millions of Jews to the camps, seriously interfering with the war effort.

As time passed and defeat became more likely, Hitler refused to surrender. In

1944, a group of German officers attempted to assassinate Hitler but the attempt failed. Finally,

on April 30, 1945, with all of Germany overrun by Allied invaders, Hitler committed suicide in

his Berlin bunker, as did his long-time companion, Eva Braun, whom he had married the day

before.

Hitler had a forceful, charismatic personality. An amoral man, rootless and

incapable of personal friendships, he looked on his fellow humans as mere bricks structured in

the world he wished to erect. He knew how to appeal to people's baser instincts and made use

of their fears and insecurities. He was successful, however, only because many Germans were

willing to be led, even though his program was one of hatred and violence. His impact was

wholly destructive, and nothing of what he instituted and built survived.

As I come to know more of Hitler, this man who was of no means of great wealth or

stature at a young age. To rise up to become a powerful, strong, ruthless leader of a country not

even of his own citizen. Ingenious, leadership, masterfully cunning and influential these are

qualities not thought to describe Hitler, but was definitely worthy of them. Instead, we all know

him to be a monster against humanity, the dark cloud that lies over history and ruined and

destroyed the lives of millions of people and families. He was to have become a indenturing

mark in the book of history.

Bibliography

1. Marrin, Albert. HITLER. 1987. Viking Penguin Inc. New York.

A biography on Adolf Hitler, from his humble beginnings to his rise of power.

2. Dolan, Edward F. Adolf Hitler: A portrait of a Tyranny. 1981. Dodd, Mead & Co.

New York.

A pictorial view of Adolf Hitler and his life and his rein of The Third Reich.

3. Holden, Matthew. Hitler. 1974. St. Martin Press. New York.

A simple view and analysis of Hitler's rise to power and fall from grace