Adolf Hitler
(
April 20,
1889 –
April 30,
1945) was
Chancellor of Germany from 1933, and
Führer (Leader) of
Germany (Third Reich) from 1934, until his death. He was leader of the
National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), better known as the
Nazi Party.
Hitler gained power in a Germany
facing crisis after
World War I, using
charismatic oratory and
propaganda, appealing to economic need of the lower and middle classes,
nationalism and
anti-Semitism to establish an
authoritarian regime. With a restructured economy and rearmed military, Hitler pursued an aggressive foreign policy with the intention of expanding German
Lebensraum ("living space") and triggered
World War II in Europe by invading Poland. At the height of its power, Germany occupied most of
Europe, but it and the
Axis Powers were eventually defeated by the
Allies. By then, Hitler's
racial policies had culminated in the
genocide of 11 million people, including about six million
Jews, in what is now known as the
Holocaust.
In the final days of the war,
Hitler committed suicide in
his underground bunker in
Berlin with his newlywed wife,
Eva Braun.
Childhood and heritage
|
Adolf Hitler as an infant. |
Hitler was born on
April 20,
1889, around 6:30 PM
LMT, at
Braunau am Inn,
Austria, a small town in
Upper Austria, on the border with
Germany. He was the third son and the fourth of six children of
Alois Hitler (born Schicklgruber) (1837–1903), a minor
customs official, and
Klara Pölzl (1860–1907), his second cousin, and third wife. Alois was born illegitimate and for the first thirty-nine years of his life bore his mother's name, Schicklgruber. The name Hitler appears in the maternal and paternal line. Both Hitler's grandmother on his mother's side and his grandfather on his father's side were named Hitler, or rather variants of it, for the family name was variously written as Hiedler, Huetler, Huettler and Hitler. Because of Adolf's mother, an episcopal dispensation had to be obtained for the marriage. Of Alois and Klara's six children, only Adolf and his younger sister
Paula reached adulthood. Alois Hitler also had a son (
Alois Junior) and a daughter (
Angela) by his second wife.
In 1876, Alois began using the name of his
stepfather,
Johann Georg Hiedler, after visiting a priest responsible for
birth registries and declaring that Georg was his father (Alois gave the impression that Georg was still alive but he was long dead). The spelling was probably changed to "Hitler" by a clerk. Later, Adolf Hitler was accused by his political enemies of not rightfully being a Hitler, but a Schicklgruber. This was also exploited in Allied
propaganda during the Second World War when
pamphlets bearing the phrase "Heil Schicklgruber" were
airdropped over German cities. Adolf was legally born a Hitler, however, and was also closely related to Hiedler through his maternal grandmother,
Johanna Hiedler.
Hitler was not sure who his paternal grandfather was, but it was probably either Johann Georg Hiedler or his brother
Johann Nepomuk Hiedler. There have been rumours that Hitler was one-quarter
Jewish [
1] and that his paternal grandmother,
Maria Schicklgruber, had become pregnant after working as a servant in a Jewish household in
Graz. During the 1920s, the implications of these rumours along with his known family history were politically explosive, especially for the proponent of a
racist ideology. Opponents tried to prove that Hitler, the leader of the
anti-Semitic Nazi Party, had Jewish or
Czech ancestors. Although these rumours were never confirmed, for Hitler they were reason enough to conceal his origins.
Soviet propaganda insisted Hitler was a Jew, though more modern research tends to diminish the probability that he had Jewish ancestors.
According to
William Shirer, in his famous work
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, "Hitler's native district in the Waldviertel, is a hilly, wooded country of peasant villages and small farms, and though only some fifty miles from Vienna it has a somewhat remote and impoverished air, as if the main currents of Austrian life had passed it by. The inhabitants tend to be dour, like the Czech peasants to the north of them. Intermarriage is common, as in the case of Hitler's parents, and illegitimacy is frequent."
Shirer also writes of Adolf's love affair with his niece. "In the summer of 1928, Hitler aged 39, was the Nazi party leader, and he fell in love with Geli Raubal, his 20 year old niece, the daughter of his widowed half-sister, Angela Raubal. He took her everywhere, to meetings and conferences, on long walks in the mountains and to the cafés and theaters in Munich. Gossip about the party leader and his beautiful blond niece was inevitable in Munich and throughout Nazi circles in southern Germany. By 1931 some deep rift whose origins and nature have never been fully ascertained grew between them.
"Whatever it was that darkened the love between the uncle and his niece, their quarrels became more violent and at the end of the summer of 1931 Geli announced that she was returning to Vienna to resume her voice studies. Hitler forbade her to go. The next morning Geli Raubal was found shot dead in her room. The coroner reported that a bullet had gone through her chest below the left shoulder and penetrated the heart; it seemed beyond doubt that the shot was self-inflicted. Yet for years afterward in Munich there was murky gossip that Geli Raubal had been murdered — by Hitler in a rage, by Himmler to eliminate a situation that had become embarrassing to the party. But no credible evidence ever turned up to substantiate such rumors."
Because of Alois Hitler's profession, his family moved frequently, from
Braunau to
Passau, Lambach,
Leonding, and
Linz. As a young child, Hitler was reportedly a good student at the various
elementary schools he attended; however, in
sixth grade (1900–1), his first year of
high school (
Realschule) in Linz, he failed completely and had to repeat the grade. His teachers reported that he had "no desire to work."
Hitler later explained this educational slump as a kind of
rebellion against his father Alois, who wanted the boy to follow him in a career as a customs official, although Adolf wanted to become a
painter. This explanation is further supported by Hitler's later description of himself as a misunderstood artist. However, after Alois died on
January 3,
1903, when Adolf was 13, Hitler's schoolwork did not improve. At the age of 16, Hitler left school with no
qualifications.
Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich
From 1905 onward, Hitler was able to live the life of a
Bohemian on a fatherless child's
pension and support from his mother. He was rejected twice by the
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1907 – 1908) due to "unfitness for painting", and was told his abilities lay rather in the field of
architecture. His own memoirs reflect a fascination with the subject:
"The purpose of my trip was to study the picture gallery in the Court Museum, but I had eyes for scarcely anything but the Museum itself. From morning until late at night, I ran from one object of interest to another, but it was always the buildings which held my primary interest." (Mein Kampf, Chapter II, paragraph 3).
Following the school rector's recommendation, he too became convinced this was the path to pursue, yet he lacked the proper academic preparation for
architecture school:
"''In a few days I myself knew that I should some day become an architect. To be sure, it was an incredibly hard road; for the studies I had neglected out of spite at the Realschule were sorely needed. One could not attend the Academy's architectural school without having attended the building school at the Technic, and the latter required a high-school degree. I had none of all this. The fulfillment of my artistic dream seemed physically impossible."(Mein Kampf, Chapter II, paragraph 5 & 6).
On
December 21,
1907, his mother Klara died a painful death from
breast cancer at the age of 47. Hitler gave his share of the
orphans' benefits to his younger sister
Paula, but when he was 21 he inherited some money from an
aunt. He worked as a struggling painter in Vienna, copying scenes from
postcards and selling his paintings to
merchants and tourists (there is evidence he produced over 2000 paintings and drawings before
World War I).
 |
A watercolour by Adolf Hitler depicting Laon, France. |
After the second refusal from the Academy of Arts, Hitler gradually ran out of money. By 1909, he sought refuge in a
homeless shelter, and by the beginning of 1910 had settled permanently into a house for poor working men. He earned spending money by painting tourist postcards of Vienna scenery. Several biographers have noted that a Jewish resident of the house named Hanisch helped him sell his postcards.
It was in Vienna that Hitler first became an active anti-Semite. This was a common stance among Austrians at the time, mixing traditional religious prejudice with recent racist theories. Vienna had a large Jewish community, including many
Orthodox Jews from
Eastern Europe. (See
History of Vienna.)
Hitler was slowly influenced over time by the writings of the race ideologist and anti-Semite Lanz von Liebenfels and polemics from politicians such as Karl Lueger, founder of the Christian Social Party and mayor of Vienna, and Georg Ritter von Schönerer, leader of the pan-Germanic Away from Rome!
movement. He later wrote in his book Mein Kampf that his transition from opposing anti-Semitism on religious grounds to supporting it on racial grounds came from having seen an Orthodox Jew:
"
There were very few Jews in Linz. In the course of centuries the Jews who lived there had become
Europeanized in external appearance and were so much like other human beings that I even looked upon them as Germans. The reason why I did not then perceive the absurdity of such an illusion was that the only external mark which I recognized as distinguishing them from us was the practice of their strange religion. As I thought that they were persecuted on account of their faith my aversion to hearing remarks against them grew almost into a feeling of abhorrence. I did not in the least suspect that there could be such a thing as a systematic anti-Semitism.
Once, when passing through the inner City, I suddenly encountered a phenomenon in a long caftan and wearing black side-locks. My first thought was: Is this a Jew? They certainly did not have this appearance in Linz. I carefully watched the man stealthily and cautiously but the longer I gazed at the strange countenance and examined it feature by feature, the more the question shaped itself in my brain: Is this a German?
"
(Mein Kampf'', vol. 1, chap. 2: "Years of study and suffering in Vienna")
Hitler began to claim the Jews were natural enemies of what he called the
Aryan race. He held them responsible for Austria's crisis. He also identified certain forms of
Socialism and especially
Bolshevism, which had many Jews among its leaders, as Jewish movements, merging his anti-Semitism with anti-Marxism. Blaming Germany's military defeat on the 1917 Revolutions, he considered Jews the culprit of Imperial Germany's military defeat and subsequent economic problems as well.
Hitler's obsession with the Jews sometimes verged on the ridiculous. He blamed personal misfortunes on the Jews and especially on
rabbis.
Generalising from tumultuous scenes in the parliament of the multi-national
Austria Monarchy, he developed a firm belief in the inferiority of the democratic
parliamentary system, which formed the basis of his political views. However, according to
August Kubizek, his close friend and
roommate at the time, he was more interested in the
operas of
Richard Wagner than in
politics.
|
A landscape painted by Adolf Hitler. |
Hitler received a small inheritance from his father in May 1913 and moved to
Munich. He later wrote in
Mein Kampf that he had always longed to live in a "real" German city. In Munich, he became more interested in architecture and the writings of
Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Moving to Munich also helped him escape
military service in Austria for a time, but the Austrian army later arrested him. After a physical exam (during which his height was measured at 173 cm, or 5 ft 8 in) and a contrite plea, he was deemed unfit for service and allowed to return to Munich. However, when Germany entered
World War I in August 1914, he immediately petitioned King Ludwig III of Bavaria for permission to serve in a Bavarian regiment, this request was granted, and Adolf Hitler enlisted in the
Bavarian army.
[Shirer, William L., The Rise And Fall of Adolf Hitler c 1961, Random House]World War I
 |
Hitler (seated, far left, marked with an X) during World War I. |
Hitler saw active service in
France and
Belgium as a messenger for the regimental headquarters of the 16th Bavarian Reserve
Regiment (also called
Regiment List after its first commander), which exposed him to enemy fire. Unlike his fellow soldiers, Hitler reportedly never complained about the food or hard conditions, preferring to talk about
art or
history. He also drew some
cartoons and
instructional drawings for the army newspaper. His behaviour as a soldier was considered somewhat sloppy, but his regular duties required taking dispatches to and from fighting areas and he was twice decorated for his performance of these duties. He received the
Iron Cross, Second Class in December 1914 and the Iron Cross, First Class in August 1918, an honour rarely given to a
Gefreiter. However, because of the perception of "a lack of leadership skills" on the part of some of the regimental staff, as well as (according to Kershaw) Hitler's unwillingness to leave regimental headquarters (which would have been likely in event of promotion), he was never promoted to
Unteroffizier. Other historians, however, say that the reason he was not promoted is that he did not have German citizenship. His duty station at regimental headquarters, while often dangerous, gave Hitler time to pursue his artwork. During October 1916 in northern France, Hitler was
wounded in the leg, but returned to the front in March 1917. He received the
Wound Badge later that year, as his injury was the direct result of hostile fire.
Sebastian Haffner, referring to Hitler's experience at the front, suggests he did have at least some understanding of the military.
It is also believed that during the Battle of
Fromelles, when the
Australian troops charged the bunkers, a group of around 15
Diggers were only metres from the bunker in which the young Adolf Hitler was within. Some say that had the machinegunners in the bunker reloaded some 5-10 seconds later, they would've been able to take the bunker, and no doubt capture or kill Hitler.
Hitler was considered a "correct" soldier but was reportedly unpopular with his comrades because of an
uncritical attitude toward officers. "Respect the superior, don't contradict anybody, obey blindly," he said, describing his attitude while on trial in 1924.
On
October 15,
1918, shortly before the end of the war, Hitler was admitted to a
field hospital, temporarily
blinded by a
poison gas attack. Research by Bernhard Horstmann indicates the blindness may have been the result of a
hysterical reaction to Germany's defeat. Hitler later said it was during this experience that he became convinced the purpose of his life was to "save Germany". Meanwhile he was treated by a military
physician and specialist in
psychiatry, who reportedly diagnosed the corporal as "incompetent to command people" and "dangerously
psychotic".
Some scholars, including Lucy Dawidowicz
[The War Against the Jews. Bantam. 1986], argue that an intention to mass murder Europe's Jews was fully formed in Hitler's mind, though he probably hadn't thought through how it could be done.
Two passages in
Mein Kampf mention the use of
poison gas:
At the beginning of the Great War, or even during the War, if twelve or fifteen thousand of these Jews who were corrupting the nation had been forced to submit to poison-gas . . . then the millions of sacrifices made at the front would not have been in vain. (Volume 2, Chapter 15 "The Right to Self-Defence").
These tactics are based on an accurate estimation of human weakness and must lead to success, with almost mathematical certainty, unless the other side also learns how to fight poison gas with poison gas. The weaker natures must be told that here it is a case of to be or not to be. (Volume 1, Chapter 2 "Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna")
Hitler had long admired Germany, and during the war he had become a passionate German
patriot, although he did not become a German citizen until 1932 (the year before he took over Germany). He was shocked by Germany's
capitulation in November 1918 even while the German army still held enemy territory. Like many other German
nationalists, Hitler believed in the
Dolchstoßlegende ("dagger-stab legend") which claimed that the army, "undefeated in the field," had been "stabbed in the back" by civilian leaders and Marxists back on the
home front. These politicians were later dubbed the
November Criminals.
The
Treaty of Versailles deprived Germany of various territories,
demilitarized the
Rhineland and imposed other economically damaging sanctions. The treaty also declared Germany the culprit for all the horrors of the Great War, as a basis for later imposing not yet specified reparations on Germany (the amount was repeatedly revised under the
Dawes Plan,
Young Plan and the
Hoover Moratorium). Germans, however, perceived the treaty and especially the paragraph on the German guilt as a humiliation, not least as it was damaging in the extreme to their pride. For example, there was nearly a full demilitarisation of the armed forces, allowing Germany only 6 battleships, no submarines, no air force, an army of 100,000 without conscription and no armoured vehicles. The treaty was an important factor in both the social and political conditions encountered by Hitler and his National Socialist Party as they sought power. Hitler and his party used the signing of the treaty by the "November Criminals" as a reason to build up Germany so that it could never happen again. He also used the 'November Criminals' as scapegoats, although at the Paris peace conference, these politicians had very little choice in the matter.
|
A copy of Adolf Hitler's forged DAP membership card. His actual membership number was 555 (the 55th member of the party - the 500 was added to make the group appear larger) but later the number was reduced to create the impression that Hitler was one of the founding members (Ian Kershaw Hubris). Hitler had wanted to create his own party, but was ordered by his superiors in the Reichswehr to infiltrate an existing one instead. |
Hitler's entry into politics
After the First World War, Hitler remained in the army, which was mainly engaged in suppressing
communist uprisings breaking out across Germany, including Munich (the
Bavarian Soviet Republic), where Hitler returned in 1919. He took part in "national thinking" courses organized by the
Education and Propaganda Department (Dept Ib/P) of the Bavarian
Reichswehr Group, Headquarters 4 under Captain Mayr. A key purpose of this group was to create a
scapegoat for the outbreak of the war and Germany's defeat. The scapegoats were found in "international Jewry", communists, and politicians across the party spectrum, especially the parties of the
Weimar Coalition, who were deemed "
November Criminals".In July 1919, Hitler was appointed a
Verbindungsmann (police spy) of an
Aufklärungskommando (Intelligence Commando) of the
Reichswehr, for the purpose of influencing other soldiers toward similar ideas and was assigned to
infiltrate a small party, the
German Workers' Party (DAP), which was thought of to be a possibly
socialist party. During his
inspection of the party, Hitler was impressed with
Drexler's
anti-Semitic,
nationalist and anti-
Marxist ideas, which favoured an
Hegelian concept of the strong universally present state, a "non-Jewish" version of socialism and mutual solidarity of all members of society. Here Hitler also met
Dietrich Eckart, one of the early founders of the party and member of the occult
Thule Society.
[Joachim C. Fest, The Drummer in The Face Of The Third Reich (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970; URL accessed June 11,2005).] Eckart became Hitler's mentor, exchanging ideas with him, teaching him how to dress and speak, and introducing him to a wide range of people. Hitler in return thanked Eckart by paying tribute to him in the second volume of
Mein Kampf.
Hitler was discharged from the army in March 1920 and with his former superiors' continued encouragement began participating full time in the party's activities. By early 1921, Adolf Hitler was becoming highly effective at speaking in front of even larger crowds. In February, Hitler spoke before a crowd of nearly six thousand in
Munich. To publicize the meeting, he sent out two truckloads of Party supporters to drive around with
swastikas, cause a commotion and throw out
leaflets, their first use of this tactic. Hitler gained notoriety outside of the Party for his rowdy,
polemic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians (including monarchists, nationalists and other non-internationalist socialists) and especially against Marxists and Jews.
The German Workers' Party was centred in Munich which had become a hotbed of German nationalists who included Army officers determined to crush Marxism and undermine or even overthrow the young German democracy centred in Berlin. Gradually they noticed Adolf Hitler and his growing movement as a vehicle to hitch themselves to. Hitler traveled to Berlin to visit nationalist groups during the summer of 1921 and in his absence there was an unexpected
revolt among the DAP leadership in Munich.
The Party was run by an executive
committee whose original members considered Hitler to be overbearing and even
dictatorial. To weaken Hitler's position they formed an
alliance with a group of socialists from
Augsburg. Hitler rushed back to Munich and countered them by tendering his
resignation from the Party on
July 11,
1921. When they realized the loss of Hitler would effectively mean the end of the Party, he seized the moment and announced he would return on the condition that he was made chairman and given dictatorial powers. Infuriated committee members (including founder
Anton Drexler) held out at first. Meanwhile an
anonymous pamphlet appeared entitled
Adolf Hitler: Is he a traitor?, attacking Hitler's lust for power and criticizing the violence-prone men around him. Hitler responded to its publication in a Munich newspaper by
suing for
libel and later won a small settlement.
The executive committee of the DAP eventually backed down and Hitler's demands were put to a vote of party members. Hitler received 543 votes for and only one against. At the next gathering on
July 29,
1921, Adolf Hitler was introduced as
Führer of the National Socialist Party, marking the first time this title was publicly used. Hitler changed the name of the party to the National Socialist German Workers Party (
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or
NSDAP).
Hitler's beer hall
oratory, attacking Jews,
social democrats,
liberals, reactionary
monarchists,
capitalists and
communists, began attracting adherents. Early followers included
Rudolf Hess, the former air force pilot
Hermann Göring, and the flamboyant army
captain Ernst Röhm, who became head of the Nazis'
paramilitary organization, the
SA, which protected meetings and attacked political opponents. He also attracted the attention of local business interests, was accepted into influential circles of Munich society and became associated with wartime General
Erich Ludendorff during this time.
The Beer Hall Putsch
Encouraged by this early support, Hitler decided to use Ludendorff as a front in an
attempt to seize power later known as the
Beer Hall Putsch (and sometimes as the
Hitler Putsch or Munich Putsch). The Nazi Party had copied the Italian
Fascists in appearance and also had adopted some programmatical points and now, in the turbulent year 1923, Hitler wanted to emulate
Mussolini's "
March on Rome" by staging his own "Campaign in Berlin". Hitler and Ludendorff obtained the clandestine support of
Gustav von Kahr,
Bavaria's
de facto ruler along with leading figures in the
Reichswehr and the police. As political posters show, Ludendorff, Hitler and the heads of the Bavarian police and military planned on forming a new government.
However on
November 8,
1923 Kahr and the military withdrew their support during a meeting in the Bürgerbräukeller, a large beer hall outside of Munich. A surprised Hitler had them arrested and proceeded with the coup. Unknown to him, Kahr and the other detainees had been released on Ludendorff's orders after he obtained their word not to interfere. That night they prepared resistance measures against the coup and in the morning, when Hitler and his followers marched from the beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry to overthrow the Bavarian government as a start to their "March on Berlin," the army quickly dispersed them (Ludendorff was wounded and a few other Nazis were killed).
Hitler fled to the home of
friends and contemplated
suicide. He was soon arrested for
high treason and appointed
Alfred Rosenberg as temporary leader of the party but found himself in an environment somewhat receptive to his beliefs. During Hitler's trial, sympathetic magistrates allowed Hitler to turn his debacle into a
propaganda stunt. He was given almost unlimited amounts of time to present his arguments to the court along with a large body of the German people, and his popularity soared when he voiced basic nationalistic sentiments shared by the public. On
April 1,
1924 Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at
Landsberg prison for the crime of conspiracy to commit treason. Hitler received favoured treatment from the guards and had much fan mail from
admirers. While at Landsberg he dictated his political book
Mein Kampf (
My Struggle) to his deputy
Rudolf Hess. The book, dedicated to
Thule Society member
Dietrich Eckart, was both an autobiography and an exposition of his
political ideology. It was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926 respectively, but did not sell very well until Hitler came to power (though by the late 1930s nearly every household in Germany had a copy of it). Meanwhile, as he was considered relatively harmless, Hitler was released on
December 20 1924.
The rebuilding of the party
At the time of Hitler's release, the political situation in Germany had calmed down, and the economy had improved, which hampered Hitler's opportunities for agitation. Instead, he began a long effort to rebuild the dwindling party.
Though the
Hitler Putsch had given Hitler some national prominence, his party's mainstay was still Munich. To spread the party to the north, Hitler also assimilated independent groups, such as the Nuremberg-based
Wistrich, led by
Julius Streicher, who now became
Gauleiter of
Franconia.
As Hitler was still banned from public speeches, he appointed
Gregor Strasser, who in 1924 had been elected to the
Reichstag, as
Reichsorganisationsleiter, authorizing him to organise the party in northern Germany. Gregor, joined by his younger brother
Otto and
Joseph Goebbels, steered an increasingly independent course, emphasizing the socialist element in the party's programme. The
Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Gauleiter Nord-West became an internal opposition, threatening Hitler's authority, but this faction was defeated at the
Bamberg Conference (1926), during which Goebbels joined Hitler.
After this encounter, Hitler centralized the party even more and asserted the
Führerprinzip as the basic principle of party organization. Leaders were not elected by their group but were rather appointed by their superior and were answerable to them while demanding unquestioning obedience from their inferiors. Consistent with Hitler's disdain for
democracy, all power and
authority devolved from the top down.
A key element of Hitler's appeal was his ability to convey a sense of offended national pride caused by the
Treaty of Versailles imposed on the defeated
German Empire by the
Entente. Germany had lost economically important territory in Europe along with its
colonies and in admitting to sole responsibility for the war had agreed to pay a huge
reparations bill totaling 32 billion
marks. Most Germans bitterly resented these terms but early Nazi attempts to gain support by blaming these humiliations on "international Jewry" were not particularly successful with the electorate. The party learned quickly and soon a more subtle propaganda emerged, combining anti-Semitism with an attack on the failures of the "
Weimar system" and the parties supporting it.
Having failed in overthrowing the Republic by a coup, Hitler now pursued the "strategy of legality": this meant formally adhering to the rules of the
Weimar Republic until he had legally gained power and then to transform liberal democracy into an authoritarian dictatorship. Some party members, especially in the paramilitary
SA, opposed this strategy.
Ernst Röhm, Hitler's long-time associate and leader of the SA, ridiculed Hitler as "Adolphe Legalité", resigned from his post and emigrated to
Bolivia.
The Brüning administration
The political turning point for Hitler came when the
Great Depression hit Germany in 1930. The
Weimar Republic had never been firmly rooted and was openly opposed by right-wing conservatives (including monarchists), Communists and the Nazis. As the parties loyal to the democratic, parliamentary republic found themselves unable to agree on counter-measures, their
Grand Coalition broke up and was replaced by a minority cabinet. The new Chancellor
Heinrich Brüning of the Roman Catholic
Centre Party, lacking a majority in parliament, had to implement his measures through the President's emergency decrees. Tolerated by the majority of parties, the exception soon became the rule and paved the way for authoritarian forms of government.
The Reichstag's initial opposition to Brüning's measures led to premature elections in September 1930. The republican parties lost their majority and their ability to resume the Grand Coalition, while the Nazis suddenly rose from relative obscurity to win 18.3% of the vote along with 107 seats in the
Reichstag, becoming the second largest party in Germany.
|
Hitler emerges from the Brown House in Munich (headquarters of the Nazi party during the last days of the Weimar Republic) after a post-election meeting in 1930. |
Brüning's measure of budget consolidation and financial
austerity brought little economic improvement and was extremely unpopular. Under these circumstances, Hitler appealed to the bulk of German
farmers,
war veterans and the
middle-class who had been hard-hit by both the
inflation of the 1920s and the
unemployment of the Depression. Hitler received little response from the
urban working classes and traditionally Catholic regions.
Meanwhile on
September 18,
1931 Hitler's
niece Geli Raubal was found dead in her bedroom in his Munich apartment (his half-sister
Angela and her daughter Geli had been with him in Munich since 1929), an apparent suicide. Geli was 19 years younger than he was and had used his gun, drawing rumours of a relationship between the two. The event is viewed as having caused lasting turmoil for him.
In 1932 Hitler intended to run against the aging
President Paul von Hindenburg in the scheduled
presidential elections. Though Hitler had left Austria in 1913, he still had not acquired German citizenship and hence could not run for public office. In February however, the state government of
Brunswick, in which the Nazi Party participated, appointed Hitler to some minor administrative post and also gave him citizenship. The new German citizen ran against Hindenburg, who was supported by a broad range of reactionary nationalist, monarchist, Catholic, Republican and even
social democratic parties, and against the Communist presidential candidate. His campaign was called "Hitler über Deutschland" (Hitler over Germany). The name had a double meaning.
|
Hitler over Germany. Political campaign by airplane. |
Besides an obvious reference to Hitler's dictatorial intentions, it also referred to the fact that Hitler was campaigning by airplane. This was a brand new political tactic that allowed Hitler to speak in two cities in one day, which was practically unheard of at the time. Hitler came in second on both rounds, attaining more than 35% of the vote during the second one in April. Although he lost to Hindenburg, the election established Hitler as a realistic and fresh alternative in German politics.
The cabinets of Papen and Schleicher
President Hindenburg, influenced by the
Camarilla, became increasingly estranged from Brüning and pushed his Chancellor to move the government in a decidedly authoritarian and right-wing direction. This culminated in May 1932 with the resignation of the Brüning cabinet.
Hindenburg appointed the nobleman
Franz von Papen as chancellor, heading a "cabinet of barons". Papen was bent on authoritarian rule and since in the Reichstag only the conservative
DNVP supported his administration, he immediately called for new elections in July. In these elections, the Nazis achieved their biggest success yet and won 230 seats.
The Nazis had become the largest party in the Reichstag without which no stable government could be formed. Papen tried to convince Hitler to become Vice-Chancellor and enter a new government with a parliamentary basis. Hitler however rejected this offer and put further pressure on Papen by entertaining parallel negotiations with the
Centre Party, Papen's former party, which was bent on bringing down the renegade Papen. In both negotiations Hitler demanded that he, as leader of the strongest party, must be Chancellor, but President Hindenburg consistently refused to appoint the "Bohemian private" to the Chancellorship.
After a
vote of no-confidence in the Papen government, supported by 84% of the deputies, the new Reichstag was dissolved and new elections were called in November. This time, the Nazis lost some votes but still remained the largest party in the Reichstag.
After Papen failed to secure a majority he proposed to dissolve the parliament again along with an indefinite postponement of elections. Hindenburg at first accepted this, but after General
Kurt von Schleicher and the military withdrew their support, Hindenburg instead dismissed Papen and appointed Schleicher, who promised he could secure a majority government by negotiations with both the Social Democrats, the trade unions, and dissidents from the Nazi party under
Gregor Strasser. In January 1933 however, Schleicher had to admit failure in these efforts and asked Hindenburg for emergency powers along with the same postponement of elections that he had opposed earlier, to which the President reacted by dismissing Schleicher.
Hitler's appointment as Chancellor
Meanwhile Papen, resentful because of his dismissal, tried to get his revenge on Schleicher by working toward the General's downfall, through forming an intrigue with the
camarilla and
Alfred Hugenberg, media mogul and chairman of the
DNVP. Also involved were
Hjalmar Schacht,
Fritz Thyssen and other leading German businessmen. They financially supported the Nazi Party, which had been brought to the brink of bankruptcy by the cost of heavy campaigning. The businessmen also wrote letters to Hindenburg, urging him to appoint Hitler as leader of a government "independent from parliamentary parties" which could turn into a movement that would "enrapture millions of people."
["Die Übertragung der verantwortlichen Leitung eines mit den besten sachlichen und persönlichen Kräften ausgestatteten Präsidialkabinetts an den Führer der grössten nationalen Gruppe wird die Schlacken und Fehler, die jeder Massenbewegung notgedrungen anhaften, ausmerzen und Millionen Menschen, die heute abseits stehen, zu bejahender Kraft mitreissen." Glasnost archives]Finally, the President reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler Chancellor of a coalition government formed by the
NSDAP and
DNVP. Hitler and two other Nazi ministers (
Frick,
Göring) were to be contained by a framework of conservative cabinet ministers, most notably by Papen as
Vice-Chancellor and by Hugenberg as Minister of Economics. Papen wanted to use Hitler as a figure-head, but the Nazis had gained key positions, most notably the Ministry of the Interior. On the morning of
January 30,
1933, in Hindenburg's office, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as
Chancellor during what some observers later described as a brief and simple ceremony.
Reichstag Fire and the March elections
Having become Chancellor, Hitler foiled all attempts to gain a majority in parliament and on that basis convinced President Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag again. Elections were scheduled for early March, but before that day, the
Reichstag building was set on fire on
February 27 under still unclear circumstances. Since a
Dutch independent communist was found in the building, the fire was blamed on a Communist plot to which the government reacted with the
Reichstag Fire Decree of
February 28, which suspended basic rights including
habeas corpus. Under the provisions of this decree, the
Communist Party and other groups were suppressed; Communist functionaries and deputies were arrested, put to flight or murdered.
Campaigning still continued, with the Nazis making use of paramilitary violence, anti-Communist hysteria and the government's resources for propaganda. On election day,
6 March, the NSDAP increased its result to 43.9% of the vote, remaining the largest party, but this success was marred by its failure to secure an absolute majority. Hence, Hitler had to maintain his
coalition with the
DNVP, which jointly had gained a slim majority.
The "Day of Potsdam" and the Enabling Act
On
21 March, the new Reichstag was constituted itself with an impressive opening ceremony held at Potsdam's garrison church. This "Day of Potsdam" was staged to demonstrate reconciliation and union between the revolutionary Nazi movement and "Old Prussia" with its elites and virtues. Hitler himself appeared not in Nazi uniform but in a tail coat, and humbly greeted the aged President Hindenburg.
Because of the Nazis' failure to obtain a majority on their own, Hitler's government confronted the newly elected
Reichstag with the
Enabling Act that would have vested the cabinet with
legislative powers for a period of four years. Though such a bill was not unprecedented, this act was different since it allowed for deviations from the constitution. As the bill required a two-thirds majority in order to pass, the government needed the support of other parties. The position of the Catholic
Centre Party, at this point the third largest party in the Reichstag, turned out to be decisive: under the leadership of
Ludwig Kaas, the party decided to vote for the Enabling Act. It did so in return for the government's oral guarantees regarding the
Church's liberty, the concordats signed by German states and the continued existence of the Centre Party itself.
On
23 March, the Reichstag assembled in a replacement building under extremely turbulent circumstances. Some
SA men served as guards within while large groups outside the building shouted slogans and threats toward the arriving deputies. Kaas announced that the Centre would support the bill amid "concerns put aside.", while Social Democrat
Otto Wels denounced the Act in his speech. At the end of the day, all parties except the
Social Democrats voted in favour of the bill. The
Enabling Act was dutifully renewed every four years, even through
World War II.
Removal of remaining limits
With this combination of legislative and
executive power, Hitler's government further suppressed the remaining political
opposition. The
KPD and the
SPD were banned, while all other political parties dissolved themselves.
Labour unions were merged with employers' federations into an organisation under Nazi control and the autonomy of state governments was abolished.
Hitler also used the
SA paramilitary to push Hugenberg into resigning and proceeded to politically isolate Vice Chancellor Papen. As the SA's demands for political and military power caused much anxiety among the populace in general and especially among the military, Hitler used allegations of a plot by the SA leader
Ernst Röhm to purge the paramilitary force's leadership during the
Night of the Long Knives. Opponents unconnected with the
SA were also
murdered, notably
Gregor Strasser and former Chancellor
Kurt von Schleicher.
Soon after, president
Paul von Hindenburg died on
2 August 1934. Rather than holding new presidential elections, Hitler's cabinet passed a law proclaiming the presidency dormant and transferred the role and powers of the head of state to Hitler as
Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor). Thereby Hitler also became supreme commander of the military, which swore their military
oath not to the state or the constitution but to Hitler personally. In a mid-August
plebiscite these acts found the approval of 90% of the electorate. Combining the highest offices in state, military and party in his hand, Hitler had attained supreme rule that could no longer be legally challenged.
|
Photographs like the one on the cover of Heinrich Hoffmann's book of photography were used to promote Hitler's populist-nationalist (Völkisch) image. |
Having secured supreme political power, Hitler went on to gain their support by
persuading most Germans he was their saviour from the Depression, the Communists, the Versailles Treaty, and the Jews along with other "undesirable"
minorities. The
Third Reich that he created lasted twelve years in total.
Economics and culture
Hitler oversaw one of the greatest expansions of industrial production and civil improvement Germany had ever seen, mostly based on debt flotation and expansion of the military. Nazi policies toward women strongly encouraged them to stay at home to bear children and keep house. In a September 1934 speech to the National Socialist Women's Organization, Adolf Hitler argued that for the German woman her "world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home," a policy which was reinforced by the bestowing of the Cross of Honor of the German Mother on women bearing four or more babies. The
unemployment rate was cut substantially, mostly through arms production and sending women home so that men could take their jobs. Given this, claims that the
German economy achieved near
full employment are at least partly artifacts of
propaganda from the
era. Much of the financing for Hitler's reconstruction and rearmament came from currency manipulation by
Hjalmar Schacht, including the clouded credits through the
Mefo bills. The negative effects of this
inflation were offset in later years by the acquisition of foreign
gold from the treasuries of conquered nations.
|
Another popular photo theme were Hitler and his dog Blondi, here seen at the terrace of the Berghof. |
Hitler also oversaw one of the largest infrastructure improvement campaigns in German history, with the construction of dozens of
dams,
autobahns,
railroads and other civil works. Hitler's
policies emphasised the importance of family life: Men were the "breadwinners", while women's priorities were to lie in bringing up children and in household work. This revitalising of industry and infrastructure came at the expense of the overall standard of living, at least for those not affected by the chronic unemployment of the later Weimar Republic, since wages were slightly reduced in pre-war years despite a 25% increase in the cost of living
(Shirer 1959).
Hitler's government
sponsored architecture on an immense scale, with
Albert Speer becoming famous as the first architect of the Reich. While important as an Architect in implementing Hitler's classicist reinterpretation of German culture, Speer would prove much more effective as armaments minister during the last years of WWII. In 1936 Berlin hosted the
summer Olympic games, which were opened by Hitler and
choreographed to demonstrate
Aryan superiority over all other races, achieved mixed results.
Olympia, the movie about the games and documentary propaganda films for the German Nazi Party were directed by Hitler's personal filmmaker
Leni Riefenstahl.
Although Hitler made plans for a
Breitspurbahn (
broad gauge railroad network), they were pre-empted by World War II. Had the railroad been built, its gauge would have been three metres, even wider than the old
Great Western Railway of Britain.
Hitler contributed to the design of the
car that later became the
Volkswagen Beetle, and charged
Ferdinand Porsche with its construction.
[Robert Wistrich,Who's Who in Nazi Germany (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 193.]Repression
The
Gestapo-SS complex (the
SS and
Gestapo organizations) were primarily responsible for
repression in the Nazi state. This was implemented not only against political enemies such as communists but also against perceived "asocials" such as habitual
criminals and the work-shy along with "racial enemies," mainly Jews.
The racial policies of Nazi Germany during the early to mid-1930s included the harassment and persecution of Jews through legislation, restrictions on their civil rights, and the imposition of limits on their economic opportunities. Under the 1935
Nuremberg Laws Jews lost their German citizenship and were expelled from government employment, their professions, and most forms of economic activity. To indicate their Jewishness, Jews were forced to adopt a second name and had their papers stamped with a big red "J". The policy was successful in causing the
emigration of many thousands but nevertheless turned increasingly violent in the mid to late 1930s. In 1938 a
pogrom orchestrated by
Joseph Goebbels and endorsed by Hitler called
Kristallnacht destroyed many Jewish businesses and
synagogues and resulted in about 100 deaths. Between November 1938 and September 1939 more than 180,000 Jews fled Germany and the Nazis seized whatever property they had left behind. From 1941 Jews were required to wear a yellow
Star of David in public. Throughout the 1930s, the Propaganda Ministry disseminated anti-Semitic propaganda.
Rearmament and new alliances
In March 1935 Hitler repudiated the
Treaty of Versailles by reintroducing
conscription in Germany. He set about building a massive military machine, including a new Navy (the
Kriegsmarine) and an Air Force (the
Luftwaffe). The enlistment of vast numbers of men and women in the new military seemed to solve
unemployment problems but seriously distorted the economy. For the first time in a generation, Germany's armed forces were as strong as those of her neighbour,
France.
In March 1936 Hitler again violated the
Treaty of Versailles by reoccupying the
demilitarized zone in the
Rhineland. When
Britain and France did nothing, he grew bolder. In July 1936 the
Spanish Civil War began when the military, led by General
Francisco Franco, rebelled against the elected
Popular Front government of
Spain. Hitler sent troops to support Franco and Spain served as a testing ground for Germany's new armed forces and their methods, including the bombing of undefended towns such as
Guernica, which was destroyed by the Luftwaffe in April 1937, prompting
Pablo Picasso's famous
eponymous painting (see
Guernica).
An
Axis was declared between Germany and Italy by
Galeazzo Ciano,
foreign minister of
Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini on
October 25,
1936.
Tripartite Treaty was then signed by
Saburo Kurusu of
Imperial Japan, Adolf Hitler of
Nazi Germany and Galeazzo Ciano of
Fascist Italy in
September 27,
1940 and was later expanded to include
Hungary,
Romania and
Bulgaria. They were collectively known as the
Axis Powers. Then on
November 5,
1937, at the
Reich Chancellory, Adolf Hitler held a secret meeting and stated his plans for acquiring "living space" (
Lebensraum) for the German people.
The Holocaust
Between 1939 and 1945 the SS, assisted by
collaborationist governments and recruits from
occupied countries, systematically killed about 11 million people, including about 6 million Jews
["There is no precise figure for the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. The figure commonly used is the six million quoted by Adolf Eichmann, a senior SS official. Most research confirms that the number of victims was between five to six million." How many Jews were murdered in the Holocaust? How do we know? Do we have their names?; FAQs About The Holocaust, Yad Vashem (URL accessed on January 3, 2006)]
"Between 1942 and 1944, Nazi Germany deported millions more Jews from the occupied territories to extermination camps, where they murdered them in specially developed killing facilities" The Holocaust; Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (URL accessed on January 3, 2006)., in
concentration camps,
ghettos and mass
executions, or through less systematic methods elsewhere. Besides being gassed to death, many also died of
starvation and
disease while working as
slave labourers (sometimes benefiting private companies in the process, because of the low cost of such labour). Along with Jews, non-Jewish
Poles (over 3 million of whom died), alleged
communists or political opposition, members of resistance groups, resisting
Roman Catholics and
Protestants,
homosexuals,
Roma, the physically
handicapped and mentally
retarded,
Soviet prisoners of war,
Jehovah's Witnesses, anti-Nazi
clergy,
trade unionists, and
psychiatric patients were killed. This industrial-scale
genocide in Europe is referred to as the
Holocaust (the term is also used by some
authors in a narrower sense, to refer specifically to the unprecedented destruction of European Jewry in particular).
The massacres that led to the coining of the word "
genocide" (the
Endlösung der jüdischen Frage or "
Final Solution of the Jewish Question") were planned and ordered by leading Nazis, with
Himmler playing a key role. While no specific order from Hitler authorizing the mass killing of the Jews has surfaced, there is documentation showing that he approved the
Einsatzgruppen and the evidence also suggests that sometime in the fall of 1941 Himmler and Hitler agreed in principle on mass extermination by gassing. During
interrogations by Soviet
intelligence officers declassified over fifty years later, Hitler's
valet Heinz Linge and his military
aide Otto Gunsche said Hitler had "pored over the first
blueprints of
gas chambers."
To make for smoother intra-governmental
cooperation in the implementation of this "Final Solution" to the "Jewish question", the
Wannsee conference was held near Berlin on
January 20,
1942, with fifteen senior officials participating, led by
Reinhard Heydrich and
Adolf Eichmann. The records of this meeting provide the clearest evidence of central planning for the Holocaust. Days later, on
February 22, Hitler was recorded saying to his closest associates, "we shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jew".
Opening moves
On
March 12,
1938, Hitler pressured his native
Austria into
unification with Germany (the
Anschluss) and made a triumphal entry into
Vienna. Next, he intensified a crisis over the German-speaking
Sudetenland districts of
Czechoslovakia. This led to the
Munich Agreement of September 1938, which authorized the annexation and immediate military occupation of these districts by Germany. As a result of the summit, Hitler was
TIME magazine's
Man of the Year in 1938.
British prime minister Neville Chamberlain hailed this agreement as "Peace in our time", but by giving way to Hitler's military demands Britain and France also left Czechoslovakia to Hitler's mercy.
Hitler ordered Germany's army to enter
Prague on
March 10 1939 and from
Prague Castle proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German
protectorate. After that, Hitler was claiming territories ceded to
Poland under the
Versailles Treaty. Britain had not been able to reach an agreement with the
Soviet Union for an alliance against Germany, and, on
August 23,
1939, Hitler concluded a secret
non-aggression pact (the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) with
Stalin on which it was likely agreed that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany would partition Poland. On
September 1, Germany invaded the western portion of Poland. Britain and France, who had guaranteed assistance to Poland, declared war on Germany. Not long after this, on
September 17, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland.
After capturing western Poland by the end of September, Hitler built up his forces much further during the so-called
Phony War. In April 1940, he ordered German forces to march into
Denmark and
Norway. In May 1940, Hitler ordered his forces to attack
France, conquering the
Netherlands,
Luxembourg and
Belgium in the process. France
surrendered on
June 22,
1940. This series of victories convinced his main ally,
Benito Mussolini of Italy, to join the war on Hitler's side in May 1940.
Britain, whose defeated forces had evacuated France from the coastal town of
Dunkirk, continued to fight alongside Canadian forces in the
Battle of the Atlantic. After having his overtures for peace systematically rejected by the defiant British Government, now led by
Winston Churchill, Hitler ordered
bombing raids on the British Isles, leading to the
Battle of Britain, a
prelude of the planned German invasion. The attacks began by pounding the
RAF airbases and the
radar stations protecting South-East England. However, the
Luftwaffe failed to defeat the
RAF by the end of October 1940. Air superiority for the invasion, code-named
Operation Sealion, could not be assured and Hitler ordered bombing raids to be carried out on British cities, including
London and
Coventry, mostly at night.
|
Adolf Hitler inspecting German submarines together with Hungarian admiral Horthy. |
Path to defeat
On
June 22,
1941, Hitler gave the signal for three million German troops to attack the
Soviet Union, breaking the
non-aggression pact he had concluded with Stalin less than two years earlier. This invasion, code-named
Operation Barbarossa, seized huge amounts of territory, including the
Baltic states,
Belarus, and
Ukraine, along with the
encirclement and destruction of many Soviet forces. German forces, however, were stopped short of
Moscow in December 1941 by the Russian
winter and fierce Soviet resistance (see
Battle of Moscow), and the invasion failed to achieve the quick triumph over the Soviet Union which Hitler had anticipated.
Hitler's declaration of war against the
United States on
December 11,
1941, (which arguably was called for by Germany's treaty with
Japan) set him against a coalition that included the world's largest empire (the
British Empire), the world's greatest industrial and financial power (the
USA), and the world's largest army (the
Soviet Union).
In May 1942
Reinhard Heydrich, one of the highest
SS officers and one of Hitler's favorite subordinates, was
assassinated by British-trained Czech operatives in Prague. Hitler reacted by ordering brutal reprisals, including the massacre of
Lidice.
In late 1942, German forces under
Feldmarschall Erwin Rommel were defeated in the
second battle of El Alamein, thwarting Hitler's plans to seize the
Suez Canal and the
Middle East. In February of 1943, the lengthy
Battle of Stalingrad ended with the complete encirclement and destruction of the German
6th Army. Both defeats were turning points in the war, although the latter is more commonly considered primary. From this point on, the quality of Hitler's military judgment became increasingly
erratic and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated. Hitler's health was deteriorating too. His left hand started shaking uncontrollably. The biographer
Ian Kershaw believes he suffered from
Parkinson's disease. Other conditions that are suspected by some to have caused some (at least) of his symptoms are
methamphetamine addiction and
syphilis.
Hitler's ally
Benito Mussolini was overthrown in 1943 after
Operation Husky, an American and British invasion of
Sicily. Throughout 1943 and 1944, the
Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the
eastern front. On
June 6,
1944 the Western allied armies landed in northern France in what was the largest
amphibious operation ever conducted,
Operation Overlord. Realists in the German army knew defeat was inevitable and some officers plotted to remove Hitler from power. In July 1944 one of them,
Claus von Stauffenberg, planted a
bomb at Hitler's military headquarters in
Rastenburg (the so-called
July 20 Plot), but Hitler narrowly escaped death. He ordered savage reprisals, resulting in the executions of more than 4,900 people
[Shirer, William L., Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, ch. 29, The Allied Invasion of Western Europe and the Attempt to Kill Hitler lists 4,980.] (sometimes by starvation in solitary confinement followed by slow
strangulation). The main resistance movement was destroyed although smaller isolated groups such as
Die Rote Kapelle continued to operate.
Defeat and death
|
Cover of US newspaper The Stars and Stripes, May 1945 |
By the end of 1944, the
Red Army had driven the last German troops from Soviet territory and began charging into Central Europe. The
western allies were also rapidly advancing into Germany. The Germans had lost the war from a military perspective, but Hitler allowed no negotiation with the Allied forces, and as a consequence the German military forces continued to fight. Hitler's stubbornness and defiance of military realities also allowed the continued mass killing of Jews and others to continue. He even issued the
Nero Decree on
March 19 1945, ordering the destruction of what remained of German industry, communications and transport. However,
Albert Speer, who was in charge of that plan, didn't carry it out. (The
Morgenthau Plan for postwar Germany, promulgated by the Allies, aimed at a similar deindustrialization, but also failed to carry it out.)
In April 1945 Soviet forces were at the
gates of Berlin. Hitler's closest lieutenants urged him to flee to
Bavaria or Austria to make a last stand in the mountains, but he seemed determined to either live or die in the capital.
SS leader
Heinrich Himmler tried on his own to inform the Allies (through the
Swedish diplomat Count
Folke Bernadotte) that Germany was prepared to discuss surrender terms. Meanwhile
Hermann Göring sent a telegram from Bavaria in which he argued that since Hitler was cut off in Berlin, as Hitler's designated successor he should assume leadership of Germany. Hitler angrily reacted by dismissing both Himmler and Göring from all their offices and the party and declared them traitors.
After intense
street-to-street combat, when Soviet troops were spotted within a block or two of the
Reich Chancellory in the city centre, Hitler committed suicide in the
Führerbunker on
April 30 1945 by means of a self-delivered shot to the head (it is likely he simultaneously bit into a
cyanide ampoule). Hitler's body and that of
Eva Braun (his long-term mistress whom he had married the day before) were put in a bomb crater, partially burned with
gasoline by Führerbunker aides and hastily buried in the Chancellory garden as Russian shells poured down and Red Army infantry continued to advance only two or three hundred metres away.
When Russian forces reached the Chancellory they found his body and an autopsy was performed using dental records (and German dental assistants who were familiar with them) to confirm the identification. To avoid any possibility of creating a potential shrine the remains of Hitler and Braun were repeatedly moved, then secretly buried by
SMERSH at their new headquarters in
Magdeburg. In April 1970, when the facility was about to be turned over to the East German government, the remains were reportedly exhumed, thoroughly
cremated, and the ashes finally dumped unceremoniously into the
Elbe. According to the Russian Federal Security Service, a fragment of human skull stored in its archives and displayed to the public in a 2000 exhibition came from the remains of Hitler's body uncovered by the Red Army in Berlin, and is all that remains of Hitler; however, the authenticity of the skull has been challenged by many historians and researchers.
"I would have preferred it if he'd followed his original ambition and become an architect."—
Paula Hitler, Hitler's younger sister, during an interview with a U.S. intelligence operative in late 1945.
At the time of Hitler's death most of Germany's infrastructure and major cities were in ruins and he had left explicit orders to complete the destruction. Millions of Germans were dead with millions more wounded or homeless. In his
will he dismissed other Nazi leaders and appointed Grand
Admiral Karl Dönitz as
Reichspräsident (President of Germany) and
Goebbels as
Reichskanzler (Chancellor of Germany). However, Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide on
1 May 1945. On
8 May 1945, in
Reims, France, the German armed forces
surrendered unconditionally ending the war in Europe and with the creation of the
Allied Control Council on
5 June 1945, the Four Powers assumed "supreme authority with respect to Germany." Adolf Hitler's proclaimed
Thousand Year Reich had lasted 12 years.
Since the defeat of Germany in World War II, Hitler, the Nazi Party and the
results of Nazism have been regarded in most of the world as synonymous with
evil. Historical and
cultural portrayals of Hitler in the west are almost uniformly negative, sometimes neglecting to mention the adulation the German people bestowed on Hitler during his lifetime, and the vast majority of present-day Germans share a negative view of Hitler.
The copyright of Hitler's book
Mein Kampf in Europe is claimed by the Free State of
Bavaria and will expire in 2015. Reproductions in Germany are generally authorized only for scholarly purposes and in heavily commented form. The situation is however unclear; Werner Maser (whom Theodor Heuss proposed to publish "Mein Kampf" as a weapon against Nazi Ideology) comments that intellectual property cannot be confiscated and so, it still would lie in the hands of Hitler's nephew, who, however, does not want to have anything to do with Hitler's legacy. This situation leads to contested trials eg. in Poland and Sweden. In the USA, "Mein Kampf" is still published, as well as in other countries like Turkey or Israel, from publishers with various political positions.
The display of
swastikas or other
Nazi symbols is prohibited in Germany and political extremists are generally under surveillance by the
Verfassungsschutz, one of the federal or state-based offices for the protection of the constitution.
There have been instances of public figures referring to his legacy in neutral or favourable terms, particularly in
South America, the
Islamic World and parts of
Asia. Future
Egyptian President
Anwar Sadat wrote favourably of Hitler in 1953.
Bal Thackeray, leader of the right-wing
Shiv Sena party in the
Indian state of the
Maharashtra, declared in 1995 that he was an admirer of Hitler. The
South African Prime-Minister,
Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd (1958-1966), was once accused of being an active
Nazi.
Adolf Hitler was brought up in his family's religion by his Roman Catholic parents. According to historian Bradley F. Smith, Hitler's father, though nominally a Catholic, was a
freethinker,
["Closely related to his support of education was his tolerant skepticism concerning religion. He looked upon religion as a series of conventions and as a crutch for human weakness, but, like most of his neighbors, he insisted that the women of his household fulfill all religious obligations. He restricted his own participation to donning his uniform to take his proper place in festivals and processions. As he grew older Alois shifted from relative passivity in his attitude toward the power and influence of the institutional Church to a firm opposition to "clericalism," especially when the position of the Church came into conflict with his views on education." - Bradley F. Smith: Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth Stanford/California, 1967 p.27] while his mother was a practising Catholic.
[Historian Bradley F. Smith: "Alois insisted she attend regularly as an expression of his belief that the woman's place was in the kitchen and in church....Happily, Klara really enjoyed attending services and was completely devoted to the faith and teachings of Catholicism, so her husband's requirements worked to her advantage. "Bradley F. Smith: Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth Stanford/California, 1967 p.42] According to historian Michael Rissmann young Adolf was influenced in school by
Pan-Germanism and
Darwinism and began to reject the Church and Catholicism, protesting against being
confirmed by the
bishop. A boyhood friend reports that after Hitler had left home, he never attended
Mass or received the
Sacraments.
[Michael Rissmann, Hitlers Gott. Vorsehungsglaube und Sendungsbewußtsein des deutschen Diktators, Zürich München: Pendo, 2001, pp. 94-96 ISBN 3858424218. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (sections 2041â€"2043) defines Mass attendance on Sundays and Holy Days as the "First Precept of the Church", an absolute minimum requirement.] |
Hitler in a prayer-like position, which he used often, probably to boost his influence with the Christian population of Germany. |
Hitler's religious beliefs can be gathered from his public and private statements; they present a discrepant picture and some attributed private statements remain disputed.
In public statements, especially before 1938, Hitler frequently spoke positively about the Christian heritage of German culture and belief in Christ. In doing so, he used his "ability to simulate, even to potentially critical Church leaders, an image of a leader keen to uphold and protect Christianity", according to
Ian Kershaw.
[Kershaw, Ian The ‘Hitler Myth': Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 109.]
"Hitler's evident ability to simulate, even to potentially critical Church leaders, an image of a leader keen to uphold and protect Christianity was crucial to the mediation of such an image to the church-going public by influential members of both major denominations. It was the reason why church-going Christians, so often encouraged by their ‘opinion-leaders' in the Church hierarchies, were frequently able to exclude Hitler from their condemnation of the anti-Christian Party radicals, continuing to see in him the last hope of protecting Christianity from Bolshevism." For example, on March 23, 1933, he addressed the Reichstag: "The National Government regards the two Christian confessions (i.e.
Catholicism and Protestantism) as factors essential to the soul of the German people. ... We hold the spiritual forces of Christianity to be indispensable elements in the moral uplift of the German people."
[ quoted by Dennis Barton.[2].] At one point he described his religious status: "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."
[cited by John Toland, Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography, New York: Anchor Publishing, 1992, p. 507 ISBN 0385420536.] Hitler never ended his church membership, but according to Albert Speer, "he had no real attachment to it."
[Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 96]Hitler's private statements are more mixed. There are negative statements about Christianity reported by Hitler's intimates, Goebbels, Speer, and Bormann.
[The collection called Table Talk is questioned by some; while most historians consider it a useful source, they do not regard it as wholly reliable. Ian Kershaw makes clear the questionable nature of Table Talk as a historically valid source; see his Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris London, 1998, xiv. Richard Carrier goes further contending that certain portions of Table Talk, especially those regarding Hitler's alleged hatred of Christianity, are outright inventions: see his "Hitler's Table Talk, Troubling Finds" German Studies Review26:3 (forthcoming 2003). However, although Kershaw recommends treating the work with caution, he does not suggest dispensing with it altogether. (The Holy Reich, p. 253)] Joseph Goebbels, for example, notes in a diary entry in 1939: "The Führer is deeply religious, but deeply anti-Christian. He regards Christianity as a symptom of decay." Albert Speer reports a similar statement: "You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"
[ Steigmann-Gall, pp. 252-253; Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, Orion Pub., 1997 ISBN 1857992180, p. 96.] In the
Hossbach Memorandum Hitler is recorded as saying that "only the disintegrating effect of Christianity, and the symptoms of age" were responsible for the demise of the
Roman empire.
[Online copy of the Hossbach memorandum]In contrast to other Nazi leaders, Hitler did not adhere to
esoteric ideas,
occultism, or
neo-paganism, and possibly even ridiculed such beliefs in private. Drawing on
Higher Criticism and some branches of theologically liberal Protestantism, Hitler advocated what he termed
Positive Christianity, purged of everything that he found objectionable in conventional Christianity. Hitler never directed his attacks on Jesus Himself,
[Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich p.255] but viewed traditional Christianity as a corruption of the original ideas of Jesus,
[Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 257, 260] whom Hitler regarded as an
Aryan opponent of the
Jews.
[Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich p. 260 ] In
Mein Kampf he wrote that Jesus "made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross." Hitler rejected the idea of Jesus' redemptive suffering, stating in 1927: "My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter."
[Cited in Norman H. Baynes, The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1, New York: Oxford University Press, 1942, pp. 19-20 ISBN 0598758933. In a speech delivered on 12 April 1922, Munich]Hitler did not believe in a "remote, rationalist divinity" but in an "active deity,"
[Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 26] which he frequently referred to as "Creator" or "Providence". In Hitler's belief God created a world in which different races fought each other for survival along
social darwinist lines. The "Aryan race", supposedly the bearer of civilisation, is allocated a special place:
"What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and the reproduction of our race ... so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission alloted it by the creator of the universe. ... Peoples that bastardize themselves, or let themselves be bastardized, sin against the will of eternal Providence."
The Jews he viewed as enemies of all civilisation and as materialistic, unspiritual beings, writing in
Mein Kampf: "His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine." In his rhetoric Hitler also fed on the old accusation of Jewish
Deicide. Hitler described his supposedly divine mandate for his anti-Semitism: "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
As Protestantism was more open to such reinterpretations and some branches had similar views, Hitler demonstrated a preference for Protestantism over Catholicism.
[Steigmann-Gall, p.84] His views were supported by the
German Christians movement, but rejected by the
Confessing Church. According to Steigmann-Gall, Hitler regretted that "the churches had failed to back him and his movement as he had hoped;"
[Steigmann-Gall, p.260] and he stated according to Albert Speer: "Through me the Protestant Church could become the established church, as in
England."
From childhood, Hitler admired the pomp of Catholic ritual and the hierarchical organisation of the clergy. In
Mein Kampf he argued that the "dogmatic system" of the Catholic church could be a model for the Nazis.
[Mein Kampf, vol 2, Chapter 5.] Later, he drew on these elements, organizing his party along hierarchical lines and including liturgical forms into events or using phraseology taken from hymns.
[Michael Rissmann, p. 96.] Because of these liturgical elements, Hitler's Messiah-like status and the ideology's all-encompassing nature, the Nazi movement is sometimes termed a "
political religion".
[Especially Eric Voegelin: in Political Religions, (Edward Mellen Press, 1986) ISBN 0889467676, advocated such a classification. Discussion at Rissmann, p. 191-197.] Hitler himself, however, strongly rejected the idea that Nazism was in any way a religion.
It has been argued that Christian anti-Semitism influenced Hitler's ideas, especially such works as
Martin Luther's essay
On the Jews and Their Lies and the writings of
Paul de Lagarde.
[William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 91, 236, argues that Luther's essay was influential. Uwe Siemon-Netto disputes this conclusion. Uwe Siemon-Netto, The Fabricated Luther: The Rise and Fall of the Shirer Myth (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1995), 17-20.] However in
Mein Kampf Hitler writes of an upbringing in which no particular anti-Semitic prejudice prevailed. In Linz Hitler wrote of no apparent anti-Semitism either in his family unit nor being expressed by the Catholic Church of his childhood.
Hitler's own ambivalence about Christianity is evident in a passage in which he simultaneously laments the destruction of Paganism, but at the same time says Christianity's way to state power could be a useful model for the "New Age", for
Nazism.
"The individual may establish with pain today that with the appearance of Christianity the first spiritual terror entered into the far freer ancient world, but he will not be able to contest the fact that since then the world has been afflicted and dominated by this coercion, and that coercion is broken only by coercion, and terror by terror. Only then can a new state of affairs be constructively created."
Hitler's alleged health problems in his later years have long been the subject of debate, and he has variously been suggested to have suffered from
irritable bowel syndrome,
skin lesions,
irregular heartbeat, tremors on the left side of his body,
syphilis,
Parkinson's disease and a strongly suggested addiction to
methamphetamines.He is also suspected of having
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and mental problems due to abuse from his father.
Paula Hitler, the last living member of Adolf Hitler's immediate family, died in 1960.
The most prominent, and longest-living direct descendants of Adolf Hitler's father, Alois, was his nephew
William Patrick Hitler. With his wife Phyllis, he eventually moved to
Long Island, New York and had four sons. None of William Hitler's children have yet had any children of their own.
Over the years various investigative reporters have attempted to track down other distant relatives of the Führer; many are now alleged to be living inconspicuous lives and have long since changed their last name.
*
Eva Braun, mistress and then wife
*
Alois Hitler, father
*
Klara Hitler, mother
*
Paula Hitler, sister
*
Alois Hitler, Jr., half-brother
*
Bridget Dowling, sister-in-law
*
William Patrick Hitler, nephew
*
Heinz Hitler, nephew
*
Angela Hitler Raubal, half-sister
*
Maria Schicklgruber, grandmother
*
Johann Georg Hiedler, presumed grandfather
*
Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, maternal great-grandfather, presumed great uncle and possibly Hitler's true paternal grandfather
*
Geli Raubal, niece and rumoured mistress
The origin of the name "Hitler"
There are two theories about the origin of the name "Hitler":
*(1) From
German Hittler and similar, "one who lives in a hut", "shepherd".
*(2) From
Slavic Hidlar and
Hidlarcek and similar.
*
Martin Bormann, Adolf Hitle
