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Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 - April 30, 1945) was the leader of the Nazi Party (from 1919) and dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945. A compelling orator, he was appointed Reichskanzler (Reich Chancellor) on January 30, 1933 and assumed the twin titles of Führer und Reichskanzler (Leader and Reich Chancellor) after President Paul von Hindenburg's death on August 2, 1934. Under his leadership, Germany started World War II and committed the Holocaust.

Early years

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn a small town in upper Austria on the Austro-German border

Hitler was born in a family of a customs officer. Hitler's father, Alois (born 1837), was illegitimate and for a time bore his mother's name, Schicklgruber, but by 1876 he had established his claim to the surname Hitler. Adolf never used any other name, and the name Schicklgruber was revived only by his political opponents in Germany and Austria in the 1930s.

Hitler tried unsuccessfully to become a fine arts student at the Vienna Arts Academy. He developed a special interest in architecture. He had several odd jobs, but never long enough to escape poverty. He often lived on the streets as a street painter. He spent some time in the public gallery of the Austrian Parliament. He later wrote that his observations there developed his contempt of democracy and what he saw as the contaminating dominance of Jews in parliament and society. He also cultivated his love of Germanism, and observed how political activists influenced the masses. In Spring 1912 he moved to Munich where he hoped to start his artistic career anew.

Hitler's introduction to war and politics

In 1914, Hitler volunteered to the 16th Bavarian Infantry Regiment and fought in World War I on the western front. He was wounded once in the thigh and later in a gas attack at the end of the war. Hitler was an enthusiastic soldier, sometimes to the dismay of his compatriots. He was well liked by his peers and superiors but his lack of a sense of humor was notable. Later most of his comrades became Nazis. Corporal Hitler was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class for completing a dangerous delivery of a dispatch in 1918.

The war ended while Hitler was in the hospital recovering from his injuries due to gas. He was devastated by the news of German capitulation and wept. On discharge from the hospital he returned to his regiment in Munich, Germany. Bavaria was in the hands of a revolutionary government, the Rätrepublik; his barracks was governed by an elected council, to which he was elected. After the suppression of the revolutionary government, Hitler remained in the army and served as a propagandist in the reindoctination of the troops. He was noted for his talent in this work and at the request of the army joined a small political party, the German Workers' Party, Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, which was to become the Nazi Party, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei .

In April 1919, while still in the army, he became the leader of the party (He was not discharged from the army until March 31, 1920). Due to Hitler's organizing and speaking talents the party gained increasing popularity. On November 8 and November 9, 1923, he was involved in an abortive coup known as the Munich Beer Hall Putsch. He was accused of state treason and received a five-year prison sentence and was jailed in Landsberg. During his imprisonment he wrote his political manifesto: Mein Kampf. After nine months he received amnesty and was released from prison. He soon rebuilt his party and again gained tremendous popularity.

Rise to power

See the Origins and Commencement of World War II for details missing here.

Hitler became Chancellor of the Weimar Republic in 1933 through a coalition with conservative and right wing parties, who had hoped to use Hitler's popularity to gain power. Once in power he initiated what was called the "legal seizure of power." In the course of a few years he managed to consolidate dictatorial powers through parliamentary legislation. Later he turned out to be an erratic and unpredictable leader of the armed forces, often disregarding opinions of experienced generals and marshals.

Under Hitler's leadership, driven by a vision of a Nordic master race, Germany invaded several of its smaller neighbors, igniting World War II. This vision also drove an attempt to systematically exterminate other peoples--notably the Jews--later called the Holocaust, in which 5-10 million people were killed. Other hated peoples included the Romani or Tzigane (Gypsies) of which between 600,000 and 2 million were killed (about 70% of the population in German controlled areas).

World War II itself brought the death of tens of millions more, including 20 million casualties in the Soviet Union alone.

After the Soviet Red Army reached Berlin, Adolf Hitler committed suicide together with Eva Braun (whom he had married just two days before) on April 30, 1945, in the Führerbunker (Leader's bunker). He was aged 56.

In the testament he left, he circumvented other Nazi leaders and appointed Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor.

Psychoanalytic interpretation

In her 1980 book "Am Anfang war Erziehung" (translated as "For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-rearing and the Roots of Violence"), Alice Miller attempts an explanation of Hitler's violent urges from childhood trauma.

His mother had married a man 23 years her elder whom she called "uncle Alois"; her three small children died in the course of a few years surrounding Adolf's birth, leading to extreme pampering of Adolf by his mother. He was regularly beaten and ridiculed by his father; once when Adolf tried to escape from home he was almost beaten to death. Adolf hated his father throughout his life and there are reports of him having nightmares about his father in late life. When Nazi Germany had occupied Austria, Hitler had the village where his father grew up destroyed.

Throughout Hitler's (and his father's) life, there were speculations that the father of his father was a Jew (his grandmother was a maid in a Jewish household which later paid alimony for her son); this would have been a great shame in the pervasive anti-semitism of the times. This insecurity correlates with Hitler's later command that every German prove their non-Jewish ancestry up to the third generation.

Cultural depictions and representation

Hitler has frequently been used as a character in works of fiction. An early example of a cryptic depiction is in Bertolt Brecht's play, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui in which Hitler (in the persona of the principal character Arturo Ui), a Chicago racketeer in the cauliflower trade, is ruthlessly satirised.

The photomontage artist John Heartfield made frequent use of Hitler's image as a target for his brand of barbed satire.

See also:

• nazi, genocide

Further reading:

• Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris, Ian Kershaw, W.W. Norton, 1999, hardcover, 700 pages, ISBN 0393046710
• Hitler 1937-1945 Nemesis, Ian Kershaw, W.W. Norton, 2000, hardcover, 832 pages, ISBN 0393049949