Adolf Hitler Short Biography

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was the leader of the German Nazi Party (NSDAP) and was the dictator of Nazi Germany between 1933-1945. He came to power by playing on the general discontent and distress that prevailed in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period in connection with the economic depression. Hitler’s aggressive foreign and domestic policies led to World War II and the Holocaust when millions of Jews and other people were murdered.

Early Life and Education of Hitler

Adolf Hitler was born in the Austrian city ​​of Braunau , the son of a customs officer. During his first years of schooling, Hitler was a good student, but it got worse as he got older and his family moved to the city of Linz. Hitler became increasingly tired of school and was forced to take two classes before leaving school at the age of 16 without graduating.

Hitler during Childhood

Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 in the Austrian city of Braunau. His father, Alois Schickelgrüber-Hitler, worked as a customs officer.

Alois had become a widower twice and had several children. The third wife, the maid Klara Poelzl, became the mother of Adolf. It was a strange family. Klara gave her child a lot of love and pampered him. She claimed that Adolf was ill and she was afraid of losing him. But the nanny remembered Adolf as a healthy, lively child. Surely he was not normally brought up. He was neurotic and motherly. Klara confused his judgment by constantly telling him how different he was from other children. The father, on the other hand, was harsh on his children and Adolf was often beaten.

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The dreamer Hitler

On the way to school, Adolf Hitler passed the castle Kürnberg, where it was said that the Nibelungenslied had been composed. Hitler’s school road went over steep hills, through forests and villages with churches. All this affected his national romantic mind. The supernatural atmosphere over the alpine landscape around his homeland made him a dreamer. In southern Germany, some of the shimmer of the Middle Ages remained and here there had always been dreamers and romantics. The population lived in a fabulous alpine world where the houses looked like theatrical scenes. For Hitler, it was like living in a Wagnerian opera. According to a later observer, Hitler had to force himself out of his dreams.

In 1908 he went to Vienna. There he had a hard time getting a permanent job. Hitler wanted to be an artist or an architect, but did not enter the Academy of Fine Arts or the School of Architecture. Instead, he was forced to support himself on various casual jobs, including painting postcards.

Hitler and the First World War

On January 18, 1914, a uniformed Austrian policeman handed a letter to Hitler asking him to go to Linz for enlistment on January 20. Hitler was suspected of leaving Austria to avoid military service. Hitler wrote a letter saying it was impossible for him to come to Linz due to financial problems. Therefore, he underwent enlistment in Salzburg on February 5, but was declared unfit as a soldier. The Austrian authorities wrote: “Unsuitable for weapons and rescue services, too weak. Unable to carry a weapon ”.

Glad the war started

When Adolf Hitler was in prison in Landsberg, after his failed coup in 1923, he looked back with warmth on the weekend when the war began, for him it was the best weekend of his life. In the book Mein Kampf he wrote: “I do not hesitate now either to admit that I, overwhelmed by stormy rapture, sank to my knees and with an overflowing heart thanked the sky for giving me the happiness of experiencing this time.”

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Since Hitler was an Austrian citizen, he became a German citizen shortly before he was appointed Chancellor, he was not called up to any of the regular regiments. Therefore, at the age of 25, he enlisted in a voluntary regiment set up in Bavaria. Hitler later wrote: “I did not want to fight for the Habsburg state, but was prepared to die for my people and the kingdom that these people embodied.”

The regiment, called the Regiment List, was usually deployed in sections of the front where it was fairly calm. As the stockpile of helmets was depleted, Hitler and his comrades fitted oilcloth caps of gray cotton casing that would make the hats look like helmets. There were 25 Jews in Hitler’s regiment, and at that time all Germans believed that the Jews were pulling their strings during the war effort.

Ordinance of the Regiment Staff

Hitler served the first two weeks as a marksman, but then served as a regular in the regimental staff. It was a quiet existence compared to the soldiers who lay in the trenches . The regimental staff was always 10 kilometers behind the front and there they were always clean, got good food, unlike the front soldiers who suffered in the wet, dirt and grenade rain in the trenches in front of the front lines.

Hitler’s task was to deliver messages to and from the battalion staffs, which were admittedly closer to the front, but at a reasonable distance.

On October 29, 1914, Hitler came into contact with battles, it was during the short period he was a marksman. Hitler’s regiment was in Belgium and British troops attacked the regiment. Hitler later claimed in the book Mein Kampf that the soldiers sang what would become Germany’s national anthem in 1922: “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt”.

It was probably a lie by Hitler because no other soldier could confirm this. Hitler later claimed that he was the only one in the Haufen group who survived today’s battles, which has also proved to be a lie. After a day of fighting, the Germans were forced to withdraw. This did not stop Hitler from portraying the battle as a triumph.

Hitler’s mission is described in a Nazi children’s book

In Nazi school books and children’s books, Hitler’s duties during the war were described as a very dangerous job where he had to carry messages through machine gun fire from trench to trench while the other soldiers could seek refuge in the trenches. From a children’s book published in 1935, Hitler was described as follows: “Hitler was always one of the bravest soldiers of all kinds. Because he was so brave and trustworthy, he was appointed ordinance. He must run right through the hail of bullets and pass news from one officer to another. This was a very dangerous job, but Hitler always did it bravely and humbly. “

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Hitler was wounded

On October 5, 1916, on the fourth day of the Somme offensive , Hitler and two of his ordinance’s colleagues were injured when a British grenade hit their shelter. A shrapnel hit Hitler in the upper left thigh. The shelter they were in was far away from the front itself.

Long afterwards, Hitler lied that he was at the very front when he was injured. After Hitler was taken to hospital, fighting at the Somme increased and as many as 78 percent of the soldiers in Hitler’s regiment were killed. Hitler was taken to an army hospital near Berlin where he stayed for almost two months.

Did you know that:

• When World War I broke out in 1914, Hitler was overjoyed. He was one of the first to volunteer. “I fell on my knees and thanked heaven with an overflowing heart that it had given me the happiness of living in this time,” he wrote in Mein Kampf.
• Hitler is often described as short, but he was of normal height. He was 173 cm tall and weighed about 70 kg. The surroundings thought from the beginning that his mustache was outdated and they suggested that he let it grow to the sides. But he replied: “If short mustaches are not popular now, they will be later, because I wear one.”

During World War I , he served as an ordinance (messenger) for a regimental staff.

Hitler experienced the collapse of Germany in 1918 as a disaster. He was convinced that Germany would have won the war if the politicians and the Jews had not betrayed the motherland. This was a common perception among many Germans.

In 1919 he joined a political party which in 1920 adopted the name “National Socialist German Workers’ Party” (NSDAP). In 1921 he became its leader. Now he had a platform from which he could spread his political ideas and worldview that was marked by racist master ideas and Greater German nationalism .

In 1923, Hitler led a failed coup attempt in Munich . Shortly afterwards, he was accused of high treason and sentenced to five years in prison. In prison, he wrote the book Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in which he reveals his future plans for Germany, which would dominate the world. In the book, Hitler also develops his racial ideology and believes that there are genetic differences between different races. The most developed is the Aryan Germanic race to which the German and Nordic peoples belonged. The lowest of the Nazi race scale was the Jewish race. Hitler also takes the opportunity to accuse the Jews of many of the accidents that befell Germany at the end of the war and in the years that followed.

During the Depression of the 1930s, Hitler emerged as the man who could solve Germany’s economic problems. Hitler used force, cunning and fraud to gain power. In 1933, the Nazis received 44 percent of the votes in the parliamentary elections. Shortly afterwards, all other political parties were banned.

As a dictator, Hitler tried to realize his dream of the “millennial kingdom” ( Third Reich ) where the Germans would rule. The persecution of dissidents gained momentum, as did the preparations for war. Hitler wanted to create a Greater Germany with extra lebensraum (living space) in the east. In September 1939, World War II broke out .

Hitler’s last days

On January 15, 1945, Hitler traveled in his special train from his western headquarters in Ziegenberg to Berlin. That was the last time he came to Berlin. Hitler was disappointed with the failed successes in the West and now the Soviet offensive in the East was the most important issue. Hitler arrived in a bombed-out capital and traveled directly to the Chancellery, where he received his generals to discuss the Soviet offensive. On Tuesday, January 30, 1945, Hitler gave his last radio speech. Despite the withdrawal of German troops on all fronts, Hitler spoke carelessly about the successes of National Socialism, about miracle weapons and about the final victory.

April 1945 – doom approaches

On April 15, 1945, Hitler sank in his bunker in Berlin. Adolf Hitler was then 56 years old and a decomposed physical wreck. He could not use one arm after the assassination attempt he was subjected to in 1944. Officers belonging to the resistance movement had detonated a bomb at Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia. Hitler survived the attack but was seriously injured. A large number of officers involved in the attack were executed. The body shook. Hitler also suffered from the severe Parkinson’s disease that was breaking him down.

At this time, the population of Berlin was plagued by violent Allied attacks. In the mornings came the American bomb fleets, after midnight the British night bombers. In the west, the Allies pushed forward . Hitler had just lost the offensive in the Ardennes . In eastern Germany , millions of Soviet soldiers advanced. ..

When Russian troops began to infiltrate Berlin , Hitler committed suicide in his bunker on April 30, 1945, along with his mistress Eva Braun, whom he had married the day before.

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