Childhood
Born on
April 20, 1889 to
Alois Schickelgruber Hitler and
Klara Poelzl in
Braunau,
Austria. A fourth child of the two, two of his other
siblings died from
diphtheria, and one died right after birth. His father was a customs official, a
bastard (the
original definition of the word), and was described by a
maid as a "very strict but comfortable" man. Adolf was loved and loved by his
mother and loved her back.
When he was three, the family moved to Passau, on the German side of the the Inn River. A brother, Edmond, was born two years later. The family moved again in 1895 to the farm community of Hafeld, southwest of Linz. Another sister, Paula, was born a year later, the sixth child. The family was filled out now, along with a half-brother and half-sister from one of his father's previous marriages (2).
They moved again, and Adolf lived six months across from a Benedictine monastery. The monastery's coat of arms' had a swastika. Adolf wanted to be a priest. There has been anecdotal evidence that Adolf's father regularly beat him, but it was not unusual for discipline to be physical during that time.
By 1900, Hitler's was recognized to be a somewhat talented artist. He was good enough in school to attend the university preparatory "gymnasium" or the technical/scientific Realschule. Due to a drawing course, Adolf’s father decided to enroll him in the Realschule, which was acceptable to Adolf. He did not do well in school after this.
Alois Schickelgruber, his father, died in 1903 due to a pleural hemorrhage. Adolf wasn’t exactly totally healthy, either, and had regular lung infections. He quit school at 16, partially ill health and partially school work.
In 1906, Adolf visited Vienna, but was unable get admitted to art school.
His mother developed breast cancer and was treated by Dr. Edward Bloch, a Jewish doctor who served poor people. An operation later, and excruciatingly painful and expensive treatments with dangerous drugs, she died in agony on December 21, 1907. This hit Hitler particularly hard. He was truly a momma’s boy.
Hitler spent six years in Vienna, living on a small inheritance from father and an orphan's pension. Dead broke by 1909, he lived as a transient, sleeping in bars, flophouses, and shelters for the homeless, (including those financed by Jewish philanthropists). Off and on he would sell watercolor paintings. This didn't really work out for him. (We may want see the upcoming film Max, with John Cusack, which seems potentially interesting.)
During this his prejudices about Jews grew, as did his interest in politics. He honed his debating skills. John Toland’s biography claims that two of his closest friends at this time were Jewish, and Adolf admired Jewish art dealers and Jewish operatic performers and producers. Despite this, Vienna was a center of anti-Semitism, and the media portrayed Jews as scapegoats with stereotyped attributes. (For a cool fictional account of some of this, read Henry James’ Midnight Song.)
In May 1913, Hitler left Vienna for
Munich, the capital of
Bavaria to avoid
military service, living off money from a dying aunt. In
January, police came with a draft notice from
Austria. They threatened a year in prison and a fine for leaving his native land with the intent of evading
conscription. Hitler was
arrested and taken to the
Austrian Consulate. When he arrived at
Salzburg for duty, he was found "unfit...too weak...and unable to bear arms."
This did not end his military involvment, however.
World War I was offically started by the assassination of the heir to the Austrian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serb. Hitler's biases, particularly Slavs, were inflamed. Caught up in the patriotism of the time he petitioned to enlist in the Bavarian army.
Less than two months of training later, Hitler's regiment saw its first combat near Ypres, against Belgians and British. Hitler nearly died in battle several times, and was awarded two Iron Crosses for bravery. He was eventually awarded the rank of lance corporal. In October 1916, he was wounded by a shell and taken to a Berlin hospital. After serving four years in the trenches, he was temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack in Belgium in October 1918. (October doesn’t seem to be his month.)
Communist insurrections ran through Germany while Hitler was recovering. Jews were sometime leaders of these unsuccessful revolutions, and this helped spread hatred of Jews as well as Communists. On November 9th, the Kaiser abdicated and the Socialists gained control. Anarchy was more like it.
With the loss of the
WWI, the
German monarchy came to an
end, and replaced with a
republic. A constitution was written, a President with political and military power and a
parliamentary.
National elections were held to elect 423 people to the
National Assembly. Centrist parties were popular. This became what was known as the
Weimar Republic.
On June 28, 1919, the government ratified the Treaty of Versailles. Under the terms of the treaty which ended hostilities, Germany had to pay reparations for all civilian war damages. Germany also lost colonies and large portions of territory. A 30-mile strip on the right bank of the Rhine was demilitarized. Limits were placed on German military strength. The terms of the treaty were humiliating, and condemnation of its terms undermined the government and was a beacon for those like Hitler who believed Germany was destined for greatness.
Soon after the WWI, Hitler joined a military intelligence unit and kept up on the German Worker's Party, which, at the time, had only a handful of members, was disorganized, and had no program, but its members views rang sympathetically with Hitler's. He saw this party as a vehicle to reach his ends. His hatred of the Jews grew and became part of the political platform. Hitler built up the party, from a de facto discussion group to an real political party. Advertising for party meetings appeared in anti-Semitic newspapers.
The turning point of Hitler's mesmerizing oratorical career occurred at one meeting held on October 16, 1919. Hitler's impromptu speech captivated his audience. Word of mouth spread, donations poured into the party's, and subsequent mass meetings attracted hundreds of Germans to hear the young, forceful, and hypnotic leader.
With the assistance of his staff, Hitler drafted a program consisting of twenty-five points. This was presented at a public meeting on February 24, 1920, with over 2,000 participants. After hecklers were removed by supporters armed with rubber truncheons and whips, Hitler drew in the audience with his demagoguery. Jews were the target. Some of the 25 points were revoking the Versailles Treaty, confiscating war profits, expropriating land without compensation for use by the state, revoking civil rights for Jews, and expelling Jews who had emigrated into Germany after the war began.
The following day, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were published in a local anti-Semitic newspaper. Soon after, treatment of the Jews was a major theme of Hitler's orations, and the blaming of Jews for inflation, political instability, unemployment, and the humiliation, found a audience. Jews got tied to "internationalism" by Hitler. The party name was changed to the National Socialist German Worker's party, and the red flag with the swastika was the party symbol. In a shrewd move, a local newspaper which appealed to anti-Semites was going bankrupt--Hitler raised funds to purchase it for the party.
January 1923, Belgian and French troops march into Germany to settle a reparations dispute. This occupation had an adverse effect on the economy, and was disliked intensely by the population. The party benefited by the reaction, and exploited it by holding protest rallies despite a ban by the local police.
The Nazi party drew thousands of members, many victims of hyper-inflation and found comfort in blaming Jews. The price of an egg was 30 million times its original price 10 years ago. Economic upheaval is nearly always tied with political upheaval, and 1920s Germany was not an exception.
Aborted Revolution
The Bavarian government accused the
Weimar Republic of being too far left. Hitler wanted the Weimar Republic to fall, and declared at a public rally on
October 30, 1923 that he was prepared to march on
Berlin to rid the government of the Communists and Jews. On
November 8, 1923, Hitler held a rally at a
Munich beer hall and proclaimed
revolution. The next day, he led 2,000 "
brown-shirts," who were armed, in an attempt to take over the Bavarian government. This coup was put down--more than a dozen were killed. Hitler’s arm was dislocated and broken in the
fighting, was arrested, and imprisoned at
Landsberg. He got a five-year sentence.
Hitler served nine months of his term. In prison, he dictated the first
volume of
Mein Kampf to
Rudolf Hess. Partly autobiographical, it also detailed his views on the future of the
German people. He attacked
democrats,
Communists,
internationalists, and more. He reserved most of his viciousness for the Jews, whom he portrayed as responsible for all evils of the world, specifically
democracy,
Communism, and
internationalism, as well as Germany's defeat in
WWI. Jews were
Germany’s true enemy, he wrote. They had no culture of their own, he asserted, but
perverted existing ones, like Germany's with their
parasitism. They were not a
race, but an
anti-race.
"[The Jews'] ultimate goal is the denaturalization, the promiscuous bastardization of other peoples, the lowering of the racial level of the highest peoples as well as the domination of his racial mishmash through the extirpation of the folkish intelligentsia and its replacement by the members of his own people," he wrote. The German people were of the highest racial purity and destined to be the master race, at least according to Hitler. To maintain purity, it was necessary to avoid intermarriage with subhuman races such as Jews and Slavs.
Germany could stop the Jews from conquering the world by eliminating them. Also, Germany needed to find Lebensraum, living space, without which German culture would decay. This living space, Hitler continued, would come from conquering Russia (which was under the control of Jewish Marxists, he believed) and the Slavic countries. This empire would be launched after democracy was eliminated and a "Führer" called upon to rebuild the German Reich.
A second volume of Mein Kampf was published in 1927 and had a history of the Nazi party to that time and programs, as well as a primer on how to obtain and retain political power, howtos on propaganda and terrorism, and building a political organization.
The book sold more than five million copies by the start of World War II.
After he got out of
jail, and a ban on the
Nazi Party was lifted, Hitler decided to seize power constitutionally rather than by force. Using his amazing
demagogic oratory, Hitler spoke to huge audiences, calling for the German people to resist the Jews and Communists, and to create a new empire which would rule the world for 1,000 years.
Hitler's Nazi party captured 18% of the popular vote in the 1930 elections. Febuary, 1932, Hitler became an official German citizen. Later that year, he ran for President and won 30% of the vote, forcing the eventual victor, Paul von Hindenburg, into a runoff election. A deal was made to make Hitler chancellor in exchange for political support. He was appointed to that office in January 1933. He was not elected to this position, though he had popular support, generally.
However, president Hindenburg died in August 1934, Hitler was the obvious successor. The economy was improving, and Hitler claimed credit. He consolidated his power as a dictator, having eliminated challenges from other parties and institutions. The German industrial machine was built up for war. By 1937, he put his master plan, as outlined in Mein Kampf, into effect. He called his military aides together for the "Führer Conference" in November 1937, he outlined his plans for world domination. Those who objected were dismissed.
Hitler annexed Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938. Then invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, sparking France and England to declare war on Germany. A Blitzkrieg (lightning war) of tanks and infantry swept through Western Europe.
Occult Influences in the Nazi Party
Heinrich Himmler seems to be the main proponant of occult activities. From promoting sex in cemetaries where war heros were buried to help create a new master race. But Hitler followed along pretty vigorously. Nazi Archeologists were sent as far as Tibet looking for evidence of the master race. This is an entirely facinating subject, and totally worthy of its own node
The Beginning of end
Hitler ignored a
non-aggression pact he had signed with the
Soviet Union in August
1939. Several victories against the Soviet Union were reversed with defeats at
Moscow (December 1941) and
Stalingrad (
Winter, 1942-43). The
United States entered the war in December 1941. By 1944,
Allies invaded
Europe at
Normandy Beach on the
French coast, German cities were being dismantled by bombing, and
Italy, Germany's
major ally under the leadership of
Fascist dictator
Benito Mussolini, had fallen.
There were several assassination attempts Hitler's life during the war, but none was successful. As he realized that the war was lost and his hand-picked lieutenants, seeing the end being near, defied his orders, he killed himself on April 30, 1945. His long-term girlfriend and recent bride, Eva Braun, joined him. He shot himself in the mouth and they were brought to Reich Chancellary, covered in petrol and burned
By that time, two-thirds of European Jewry had been annihalated.
A couple small facts w/r/t Hitler:
Liked
water sports.
Claimed to have painted over one thousand
paintings.
Claimed up to three paintings a day.
Ordered all forged works destroyed.
Main criticism w/r/t his art was that he lacked creativity.
1938
Time Magazine Man of the Year.