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Adolf Hitler Facts for Kids

Adolf Hitler was a man who played a significant role in history, but for all the wrong reasons. He led the Nazi Party and, in 1939, started World War II by invading Poland. Hitler’s name is forever associated with terrible deeds, including the Holocaust, where millions of Jewish people and other minority groups suffered and perished. His life, upbringing, and motivations have always intrigued people, as they try to understand what drove him to commit such cruelty.

Table of Contents

Early Years of Adolf Hitler 

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Austria, to his parents Klara and Alois.

His father had a quick temper, and even though Hitler lived in a comfortable house, he felt intimidated by his dad.

Hitler had five siblings, but sadly, four of them passed away when they were very young.

In 1900, his brother Edmund died, and this event marked a change in Hitler’s personality. He went from being confident and outgoing to becoming reclusive and detached. He started having conflicts with his father and teachers at school.

Hitler loved painting, but his father didn’t support his artistic dreams. So, he went to secondary school but purposely did poorly to show his father how much he wanted to pursue art.

Moving Around Austria and Germany 

Hitler’s father passed away in 1903, and his mother later died in 1907 from breast cancer.

In 1905, Hitler lived in Vienna, a place filled with racism, religious prejudice, and anti-Semitic ideas. He started to dislike the multicultural and multi-ethnic nature of Austria, so he moved to Munich in 1913.

In 1914, as World War I broke out, Hitler was eager to serve Germany and prove his loyalty. He joined the army and served until Germany surrendered.

After the war, Hitler was frustrated by what he saw as a lack of support for Germany from certain groups, including Jewish and socialist people. He decided to get into politics to make a change and restore what he believed was Germany’s true potential.

He was also unhappy about the Treaty of Versailles, which blamed Germany for the war and made them pay reparations for the damage caused.

While still in the army, Hitler reported on a far-right group called the German Workers’ Party. He agreed with their beliefs and eventually joined them. He began speaking at rallies and using propaganda to spread his ideas.

When the German government was in turmoil, Hitler saw a chance to bring about the change he desired. He took control of the party and renamed it the Nazi Party in 1920.

Imprisonment and Rise to Power 

After an unsuccessful attempt to start a revolution, Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison for treason. However, he only spent nine months behind bars.

During his time in prison, he wrote a book called “Mein Kampf,” which means “my struggle.” In this book, he laid out his disturbing beliefs and ideas.

Read more about World War Two

German Elections of 1932 

With growing nationalism, Hitler’s Nazi Party won 37% of the vote in the 1932 German elections, leading to his appointment as Chancellor of Germany.

Soon after becoming Chancellor, Hitler began to establish a fascist government and eventually became the dictator of Germany, modeling his rule after his idol, Benito Mussolini of Italy.

It didn’t take long for Hitler to start making plans to expand Germany’s territory.

The Nazi Party 

In 1939, Hitler announced plans to eliminate Jewish people and other “undesirable” groups from Germany, segregating them from the rest of the population.

At the annual Nuremberg rally, Hitler declared that Jewish people couldn’t have the same rights as Germans and were not allowed to marry or interact with Germans.

Hitler expanded Germany by annexing Austria and Czechoslovakia.

When he invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Britain and France declared war.

Hitler formed an alliance with imperial Japan and fascist Italy and faced opposition from the “Allied Powers” of Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States.

Hitler and the Nazis used “Blitzkrieg” tactics and quickly captured much of Europe.

As the war continued, Hitler made the fateful decision to break the non-aggression pact he had signed with Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union, diverting his attention from the challenging battles on the western front against the Allies.

By 1944, shortly after the Allies’ victory on D-Day in Normandy, Hitler realized that the Soviet Red Army from the east and the Allies from the west were closing in on him.

By 1945, with no way to win the war and avoid capture, Hitler chose to end his own life. On April 30, 1945, he took his own life, and shortly after, the war came to an end. His beliefs and actions continue to be seen as immoral and a dark chapter in history.

Portrait of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler as a Child

Hitler’s Mein Kampf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler

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Adolf Hitler facts for kids

Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) was a German politician and the leader of Nazi Germany . He became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, after a democratic election in 1932. He became Führer (leader) of Nazi Germany in 1934.

Hitler led the Nazi Party NSDAP from 1921. When in power, the Nazis created a dictatorship called the Third Reich . In 1933, they blocked out all other political parties . This gave Hitler absolute power.

Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland in 1939, and this started World War II . Because of Hitler, at least 50 million people died. During World War II, Hitler was the Commander-in-Chief of the German Armed Forces and made all the important decisions. This was part of the so-called Führerprinzip (leader principle). He shot himself in 1945, as the Soviet Army got to Berlin because he did not want to be captured alive by the Soviet Union .

Hitler and the Nazi regime were responsible for the killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war . In addition, 28.7 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in Europe.

Nazi forces committed many war crimes during the war. They were doing what Hitler told them to do. They killed their enemies or put them in concentration camps and death camps . Hitler and his men persecuted and killed Jews and other ethnic , religious , and political minorities . In what is called the Holocaust , the Nazis killed six million Jews, Roma people , homosexuals , Slavs , and many other groups of people.

Family background

Childhood and early adulthood, world war i, entry into politics, during the weimar republic, start of the dictatorship, adolf hitler quotes, important facts about adolf hitler, related pages, images for kids.

Hitler's family was born in Waldviertel , in Lower Austria . At the time, the name Hitler changed in this region several times among Hüttler , Hiedler , Hittler , and Hitler . The name was commonly in the German -speaking area of Europe in the 19th century . The literature says that this name is descended from the Czech name Hidlar or Hidlarcek .

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, as the fourth child of six in Braunau am Inn . This is a small town near Linz in the province of Upper Austria. It is close to the German border , in what was then Austria-Hungary . His parents were Klara Pölzl and Alois Hitler . Because of his father's job , Hitler moved from Braunau to Passau , later to Lambach , and finally to Leonding . Adolf attended several Volksschules .

Hitler's mother, Klara Pölzl, was his father's cousin and third wife. Hitler's father died in 1903.

Hitler failed high school exams in Linz twice. In 1905, he left school. He became interested in the anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish), Pan-German teachings of Professor Leopold Poetsch . In September 1907, he went to Vienna and took an entrance examination. On October 1 and 2, he failed the second examination. Hitler went back to Linz at the end of October. In December 1907, Hitler's mother died and, because of that, he was depressed. Hitler's mother was Catholic , but Hitler hated Christianity . He also hated Jews.

In 1909, Hitler again went to Vienna to study art . He tried to become a student at the Academy of Arts but failed the first entrance examination. Hitler said he first became an anti-Semite in Vienna. This town had a large Jewish community.

In 1913, Hitler was 24 years old. At that time, all young Austrian men had to join the army . Hitler did not like the Austrian army, so he left Austria for Germany. He lived in the German city of Munich .

Hitler was also a painter. He produced hundreds of works and sold his paintings and postcards to try to earn a living during his Vienna years (1908–1913). Despite little success professionally, he continued to paint throughout the whole of his life.

A number of his paintings were recovered after the Second World War and have been sold at auction for tens of thousands of dollars. Others were seized by the United States Army and are still held by the US government .

On August 16, 1914, Hitler joined the Bavarian army. He fought for Germany in World War I . Hitler served in Belgium and France in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment. He spent nearly the whole time on the Western Front . He was a runner, one of the most dangerous jobs on the Front. That means he ran from one position to another one to carry messages. On November 1, 1914, Hitler became a Gefreiter (which was like being a private first-class in the United States Army , or a lance corporal in the British Army ). The government awarded him the Iron Cross Second Class on December 2, 1914.

On October 5, 1916, Hitler was hurt by a bullet shell . Between October 9 and December 1, he was in the military hospital Belitz . In March 1917, he went back to the front. There, he fought in a battle and was awarded the Militärverdienstkreuz Third Class with swords .

In March 1918, Hitler participated in the Spring Offensive . On August 4, 1918, Hitler was awarded the Iron Cross First Class by the Jewish Hugo Gutmann. After Germany surrendered , Hitler was shocked, because the German army still held enemy area in November 1918.

After World War I, Hitler stayed in the army and returned to Munich. There he attended the funeral march of the Bavarian prime minister Kurt Eisner , who had been killed. In 1919, he participated in a training program for propaganda speakers from June 5 to 12 and June 26 to July 5.

Later that year, Hitler joined a small political party called the German Workers Party . He became member number 555. He soon won the support of the party's members. Two years later, he became the party's leader. He renamed the party the National Socialist German Workers Party . It became known as the Nazi Party.

In 1923, Hitler got together several hundred other members of the Nazi Party and tried to take over the Weimar Republic government (1918–34) in the Beer Hall Putsch . The coup failed. The government killed 13 of his men (the 13 dead men were later declared saints in Nazi ideology ). They also put Hitler in the Landsberg Prison. They said that he would stay in prison for five years, but they let him leave after nine months.

While Hitler was in prison, he wrote a book with the help of his close friend Rudolf Hess . At first, Hitler wanted to call the book Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice . In the end, he called the book " Mein Kampf " ("My Struggle").

Mein Kampf brought together some of Hitler's different ideas and explains where they came from:

• His idea of life as a battle: He got this idea from Social Darwinism , which was influenced by the English evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin .
• His idea that the " Aryan race " was better than everybody else: This came from Arthur de Gobineau 's book called The Inequality of the Human Races .
• His plans for an Empire in the East: These plans came from the way Germany had captured farming land in the First World War.
• The idea that Judaism and communism were connected: He got this idea from the Nazi writer Alfred Rosenberg.

In 1933, Hitler was elected into the German government. He ended freedom of speech and put his enemies in jail or killed them. He did not allow any other political party except the Nazi party. Hitler and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels , spread extreme nationalism within Germany. All media had to praise the Nazis. Also, more people were born because Hitler wanted more people of the " master race " (those he called "Aryans"). He made Germany a totalitarian Nazi state.

World War II and The Holocaust

Despite Poland being carved out of former German territory, Hitler is credited with starting World War II by ordering the German Army to invade Poland . His army took over Poland and most of Europe , including France and a large part of the Soviet Union .

During the war, Hitler ordered the Nazis to kill many people, including women and children. The Nazis killed around six million Jews in The Holocaust . Other people that the Nazis killed were Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals , Slavs such as Russians and Poles , and his political opponents.

Finally, some of the other countries in the world worked together to defeat Germany. Hitler lost all of the land that he had taken. Millions of Germans were killed in the war. At the end of World War II, Hitler gave all people in the Führerbunker (leader bunker) permission to leave it. Many people did and moved to the region of Berchtesgaden . They used planes and truck convoys.

Hitler, the Goebbels family, Martin Bormann , Eva Braun , and some other staff remained in the bunker. Hitler married Eva Braun on April 29, 1945.

Less than 24 hours after Hitler and Eva Braun got married in Berlin , both of them used poison to kill themselves then Hitler shot himself with his gun. Before this, Hitler ordered that their bodies be burned. This prevented him from being captured alive by soldiers of the Red Army , who were closing in on him.

• "The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature."
• "He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future."
• "The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."
• "Humanitarianism is the expression of stupidity and cowardice."
• “Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.”
• “What good fortune for those in power that people do not think.”
• Adolf Hitler was born in Austria .
• Adolf was not a good student. He failed his high school exams twice.
• After leaving school, Adolf became interested in the teachings of Professor Leopold Poetsch , who taught that any race except the German race was inferior (less important or valuable than the German race).
• Hitler was also a painter and produced hundreds of works throughout his life.
• Hitler would never take off his coat in public, no matter how hot it got.
• Adolf Hitler fought for Germany as a soldier during World War I .
• After the War, Hitler joined a small political party called the German Workers Party , which was renamed the National Socialist German Workers Party , and finally, the Nazi Party .
• Hitler was put in prison for nine months for trying to take over the Weimar Republic government.
• While Hitler was in prison, he and his close friend Rudolf Hess wrote Mein Kampf , which means "My Struggle."
• In 1933, Hitler was elected into the German government. He got rid of freedom of speech and severely punished or killed anyone who disagreed with him.
• Hitler is given credit for starting World War II when he ordered the German Army to invade Poland .
• During World War II, Hitler ordered the Nazis to kill millions of people.
• Over six million Jews were killed in The Holocaust .
• Hitler also had Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, Slavs , and his political opponents killed.
• Hitler ended up losing all of the lands he had conquered when the Allies, a group of other countries who worked together , defeated Germany.
• When Hitler knew he had lost, he hid in a bunker and married Eva Braun . Less than 24 hours later, they both used poison to kill themselves, then Hitler shot himself with his gun so that they could not be captured.
• Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
• World War II

The house in Leonding, Austria where Hitler spent his early adolescence (photo taken in July 2012)

The Alter Hof in Munich . Watercolour by Adolf Hitler, 1914

Hitler (far right, seated) with his army comrades of the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment   16 ( c.  1914–18)

Hitler and Nazi Party treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz at the dedication of the renovation of the Palais Barlow on Brienner Straße in Munich into the Brown House headquarters, December 1930

Hitler, at the window of the Reich Chancellery, receives an ovation on the evening of his inauguration as chancellor , 30 January 1933.

Hitler and Paul von Hindenburg on the Day of Potsdam, 21 March 1933

In 1934, Hitler became Germany's head of state with the title of Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor of the Reich).

Ceremony honouring the dead (Totenehrung) on the terrace in front of the Hall of Honour (Ehrenhalle) at the Nazi party rally grounds, Nuremberg , September 1934

Benito Mussolini with Hitler on 25 October 1936, when the axis between Italy and Germany was declared

Hitler and the Japanese foreign minister, Yōsuke Matsuoka , at a meeting in Berlin in March 1941. In the background is Joachim von Ribbentrop .

October 1938: Hitler is driven through the crowd in Cheb (German: Eger ), in the Sudetenland .

Hitler reviews troops on the march during the campaign against Poland (September 1939).

Hitler visits Paris with architect Albert Speer (left) and sculptor Arno Breker (right), 23 June 1940.

Boundaries of the Nazi planned Greater Germanic Reich

Hitler announcing the declaration of war against the United States to the Reichstag on 11 December 1941

The destroyed map room at the Wolf's Lair , Hitler's eastern command post, after the 20 July plot

Front page of the US Armed Forces newspaper, Stars and Stripes , 2 May 1945, announcing Hitler's death

Hitler's order for Aktion T4 , dated 1 September 1939

Hitler during a meeting at the headquarters of Army Group South in June 1942

Hitler in 1942 with his long-time lover Eva Braun

Hitler shaking hands with Bishop Ludwig Müller in Germany in the 1930s

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Adolf Hitler

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Hitler was on the edge of victory before he made a number of costly mistakes. His ideas and policies regarding the Jews and other races resulted in the loss of millions of lives. In the end, he could not deal well with being on the defensive militarily and refused to listen to his commanders. This refusal to listen was one of the reasons why Germany lost the war.

Early Years

Hitler was born on April 20, 1889. His family name was originally Schicklgruber but his father changed it to Hitler. Hitler always said this was the best thing his father ever did for him.

His father died in 1903 but left the family fairly well off. When Hitler was sixteen, he dropped out of school and lived off the money his father had left the family. Hitler wanted to become an artist, so he applied to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. In 1907, his mother became very ill with breast cancer, and although Hitler was upset about his mother, he decided to travel to Vienna in September anyway to write the entrance exam for the Academy of Fine Arts.

He failed the entrance exam and returned home where he began to look after his mother. She died on December 21, 1907 and Hitler returned to Vienna. He kept his failure a secret out of embarrassment and also fear that his new guardian would cut off his monthly allowance if she found out that he failed.

Hitler stayed in Vienna for a while but then moved to Munich. He was now twenty-four years old and had just received his inheritance that had been set aside at his father’s death. He also had to leave Vienna because the authorities were looking for him. He was supposed to register for the Austrian army but Hitler hated Austria and did not want to serve in its army.

World War I

In August, 1914, just a few days after the start of World War I, Hitler joined the Bavarian army. After a few weeks of training, he was sent to the front. Hitler was injured in a battle on the Somme. He was sent to a hospital in Beelitz where he was shocked by the low morale of the troops and the citizens. He began to blame the Jews for this and felt that Jews were all avoiding the fighting at the front.

Hitler was partially blinded during a mustard attack and was once again sent to a hospital. The war ended before Hitler had recovered enough to rejoin the fighting. He was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class for his performance during the war.

Rise to Power

Hitler joined the German Workers’ Party in 1919 and because of his speaking skill, quickly rose in the ranks. The German Workers’ Party changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) and began to expand its influence. Hitler became head of the NSDAP in 1921 which was now known as the Nazi party.

Germany had to make a number of large payments to other countries as reparations for World War I. These payments were difficult for the German government to meet and the government decided to stop the payments. In retaliation, the French invaded the Ruhr in 1923. The German government decided to resume making the payments much to the anger of the German population.

Hitler decided that the time was ripe to overthrow the government. He planned to kidnap a number of government leaders. The revolution fell apart and Hitler was sentenced to five years in jail. This was a very easy sentence for attempting to overthrow the government and may have been partly due to the fact that the judge at Hitler’s trial was very sympathetic to Hitler.

It was while in prison that Hitler wrote his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle). He was treated well in prison and lived in relative luxury. He only had to serve one year of his five year sentence and when he was released, he set out to rebuild the NSDAP.

Rebuilding the NSDAP

The NSDAP had been banned, so Hitler’s first goal was to get the ban lifted. Once the ban was lifted, Hitler began to rebuild the party. Hitler demanded that anyone who wanted to join the new party had to swear loyalty to both Hitler and the new party.

The party was better organized than the first NSDAP and within a few years, was three times the size of the original party. The economic problems caused by the Great Depression allowed Hitler to begin his move into government. He argued that democracy had failed the people and a new government system was needed.

Becoming Chancellor

The NSDAP was able to make significant gains in the next elections and soon became the biggest party in the government. Since they were the biggest party, Hitler demanded that he be made chancellor but this request was refused. Hitler was very angry by the refusal. A new election was held and the Nazi party still held the balance of power so Hitler was able to force the issue and became the new chancellor.

The Reichstag Fire

Once he was the new chancellor, Hitler convinced the German Reich President, Paul von Hindenburg, to hold new elections. The elections were very violent and the Reichstag (the German government buildings) were set on fire. A communist by the name of Marinus van der Lubbe, admitted to setting the fire although there is some question as to whether Hitler’s party actually set the fire. Hitler used the fire to build fear about a communist plot and to build support for his party. After the election, the NSDAP was the largest party in the government.

Consolidating Power

Hitler conducted a purge of his party to remove all threats to his leadership. During the purge (known as the Night of the Long Knives) approximately 150 to 200 people were killed. Hitler then moved to create a dictatorship by having Parliament pass a law combining both the presidency and the chancellorship. Hitler took over the new position and set about increasing his power.

Hitler took over control of the army by removing the commanders that disapproved of his plan to expand German territory into Austria and Czechoslovakia. Once Hitler took over Austria and part of Czechoslovakia, he was able to get the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, to accept the German invasions.

World War II

Hitler started the war with the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. On September 3, both Britain and France declared war on Germany.

Germany completed the conquest of Poland very quickly and it was a brutal, bloody affair. Over two hundred thousand Poles were killed or wounded and after the fighting was over, mass executions were held every day in an effort to Germanize the captured area.

After the conquest of Germany, Hitler turned his attention to Denmark and Norway. After the quick conquest of these two countries, Hitler followed it up with invasions of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg. He then attacked northern France and within five weeks had conquered the country. Germany and France signed a peace treaty on June 22, 1940.

Hitler tried to make a peace treaty with Britain but Winston Churchill refused. Hitler ordered the German air force to begin bombing Britain. This battle, the Battle of Britain, was characterized by the bombing of each countries’ cities. Hitler was unable to defeat British air power and ended up having to call off the invasion of Britain.

Soviet Union

Hitler had made a pact with Stalin (dictator of the Soviet Union) but he soon decided to attack the Soviet Union. During the planning, Hitler would often make changes to the plan and dismiss his staff’s opinions. The invasion occurred on June 22, 1941 and although the German army was successful in the beginning stages of the invasion, the German army’s advance soon slowed down. Hitler argued with his General Staff and often ignored their opinions.

When the German army began to suffer a number of setbacks in the Soviet invasion, Hitler took official command of the German army. Hitler ordered that there would be no retreat and ordered the army to fight to the last man.

Hitler became convinced that he was the only man capable of leading the army. He felt that he had to not only worry about his enemies but also about the German commander who Hitler viewed as being either disloyal or inadequate. Hitler had his biggest defeat so far at the Battle of Stalingrad, which was characterized by hand-to-hand fighting in the streets. The Russian counterattack broke the German lines and they were forced to surrender.

Stalingrad was not the only defeat that Hitler was facing. His forces were being defeated in North Africa and Italy surrendered to the Allied forces on September 8, 1943. The German population began to blame Hitler for the defeats and he cut himself off from the population. Hitler began to blame the German people for the defeats as well as focusing a lot of the blame on the Jews. His concentration camps continued with the extermination of the Jews and other so-called undesirables.

Even though he was facing disaster on a number of fronts, Hitler still believed he could win the war. Some members of his staff wanted to negotiate a surrender but Hitler would not allow it. Some of Hitler’s General Staff even tried to assassinate him but the attempt was unsuccessful and resulted in a bloody retaliation.

The Allied forces had successfully landed at Normandy and were making their way through France towards Berlin. The Soviets were also pushing towards Berlin from the east. Hitler decided to focus his attack on the Western allies in an effort to stop their advance. This counterattack became known as the Battle of the Bulge and was ultimately unsuccessful.

In January 1945, the Soviets launched a major attack and soon entered Germany. On April 23, 1945, the Soviets had surrounded Berlin and Hitler realized that the war was lost.

He was hiding in a bunker and on April 30, 1945, Hitler, along with his wife, Eva Braun, (they just married that day) committed suicide. Hitler shot himself and Eva Braun took cyanide. Their bodies were then burned to stop the Allies from getting a hold of the bodies.

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Adolf Hitler

By: History.com Editors

Updated: April 30, 2024 | Original: October 29, 2009

Adolf Hitler, the leader of Germany’s  Nazi Party , was one of the most powerful and notorious dictators of the 20th century. After serving with the German military in World War I , Hitler capitalized on economic woes, popular discontent and political infighting during the Weimar Republic to rise through the ranks of the Nazi Party.

In a series of ruthless and violent actions—including the Reichstag Fire and the Night of Long Knives—Hitler took absolute power in Germany by 1933. Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 led to the outbreak of  World War II , and by 1941, Nazi forces had used “blitzkrieg” military tactics to occupy much of Europe. Hitler’s virulent  anti-Semitism  and obsessive pursuit of Aryan supremacy fueled the murder of some 6 million Jews, along with other victims of the  Holocaust . After the tide of war turned against him, Hitler committed suicide in a Berlin bunker in April 1945.

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, a small Austrian town near the Austro-German frontier. After his father, Alois, retired as a state customs official, young Adolf spent most of his childhood in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria.

Not wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps as a civil servant, he began struggling in secondary school and eventually dropped out. Alois died in 1903, and Adolf pursued his dream of being an artist, though he was rejected from Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts.

After his mother, Klara, died in 1908, Hitler moved to Vienna, where he pieced together a living painting scenery and monuments and selling the images. Lonely, isolated and a voracious reader, Hitler became interested in politics during his years in Vienna, and developed many of the ideas that would shape Nazi ideology.

Military Career of Adolf Hitler

In 1913, Hitler moved to Munich, in the German state of Bavaria. When World War I broke out the following summer, he successfully petitioned the Bavarian king to be allowed to volunteer in a reserve infantry regiment.

Deployed in October 1914 to Belgium, Hitler served throughout the Great War and won two decorations for bravery, including the rare Iron Cross First Class, which he wore to the end of his life.

Hitler was wounded twice during the conflict: He was hit in the leg during the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and temporarily blinded by a British gas attack near Ypres in 1918. A month later, he was recuperating in a hospital at Pasewalk, northeast of Berlin, when news arrived of the armistice and Germany’s defeat in World War I .

Like many Germans, Hitler came to believe the country’s devastating defeat could be attributed not to the Allies, but to insufficiently patriotic “traitors” at home—a myth that would undermine the post-war Weimar Republic and set the stage for Hitler’s rise.

After Hitler returned to Munich in late 1918, he joined the small German Workers’ Party, which aimed to unite the interests of the working class with a strong German nationalism. His skilled oratory and charismatic energy helped propel him in the party’s ranks, and in 1920 he left the army and took charge of its propaganda efforts.

In one of Hitler’s strokes of propaganda genius, the newly renamed National Socialist German Workers Party, or  Nazi Party , adopted a version of the swastika—an ancient sacred symbol of  Hinduism , Jainism and Buddhism —as its emblem. Printed in a white circle on a red background, Hitler’s swastika would take on terrifying symbolic power in the years to come.

By the end of 1921, Hitler led the growing Nazi Party, capitalizing on widespread discontent with the Weimar Republic and the punishing terms of the Versailles Treaty . Many dissatisfied former army officers in Munich would join the Nazis, notably Ernst Röhm, who recruited the “strong arm” squads—known as the Sturmabteilung (SA)—which Hitler used to protect party meetings and attack opponents.

Beer Hall Putsch 

On the evening of November 8, 1923, members of the SA and others forced their way into a large beer hall where another right-wing leader was addressing the crowd. Wielding a revolver, Hitler proclaimed the beginning of a national revolution and led marchers to the center of Munich, where they got into a gun battle with police.

Hitler fled quickly, but he and other rebel leaders were later arrested. Even though it failed spectacularly, the Beer Hall Putsch established Hitler as a national figure , and (in the eyes of many) a hero of right-wing nationalism.

'Mein Kampf' 

Tried for treason, Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison, but would serve only nine months in the relative comfort of Landsberg Castle. During this period, he began to dictate the book that would become " Mein Kampf " (“My Struggle”), the first volume of which was published in 1925.

In it, Hitler expanded on the nationalistic, anti-Semitic views he had begun to develop in Vienna in his early twenties, and laid out plans for the Germany—and the world—he sought to create when he came to power.

Hitler would finish the second volume of "Mein Kampf" after his release, while relaxing in the mountain village of Berchtesgaden. It sold modestly at first, but with Hitler’s rise it became Germany’s best-selling book after the Bible. By 1940, it had sold some 6 million copies there.

Hitler’s second book, “The Zweites Buch,” was written in 1928 and contained his thoughts on foreign policy. It was not published in his lifetime due to the poor initial sales of “Mein Kampf.” The first English translations of “The Zweites Buch” did not appear until 1962 and was published under the title “Hitler's Secret Book.” 

Obsessed with race and the idea of ethnic “purity,” Hitler saw a natural order that placed the so-called “Aryan race” at the top.

For him, the unity of the Volk (the German people) would find its truest incarnation not in democratic or parliamentary government, but in one supreme leader, or Führer.

" Mein Kampf " also addressed the need for Lebensraum (or living space): In order to fulfill its destiny, Germany should take over lands to the east that were now occupied by “inferior” Slavic peoples—including Austria, the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia), Poland and Russia.

The Schutzstaffel (SS) 

By the time Hitler left prison, economic recovery had restored some popular support for the Weimar Republic, and support for right-wing causes like Nazism appeared to be waning.

Over the next few years, Hitler laid low and worked on reorganizing and reshaping the Nazi Party. He established the Hitler Youth  to organize youngsters, and created the Schutzstaffel (SS) as a more reliable alternative to the SA.

Members of the SS wore black uniforms and swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler. (After 1929, under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler , the SS would develop from a group of some 200 men into a force that would dominate Germany and terrorize the rest of occupied Europe during World War II .)

Hitler spent much of his time at Berchtesgaden during these years, and his half-sister, Angela Raubal, and her two daughters often joined him. After Hitler became infatuated with his beautiful blonde niece, Geli Raubal, his possessive jealousy apparently led her to commit suicide in 1931.

Devastated by the loss, Hitler would consider Geli the only true love affair of his life. He soon began a long relationship with Eva Braun , a shop assistant from Munich, but refused to marry her.

The worldwide Great Depression that began in 1929 again threatened the stability of the Weimar Republic. Determined to achieve political power in order to affect his revolution, Hitler built up Nazi support among German conservatives, including army, business and industrial leaders.

The Third Reich

In 1932, Hitler ran against the war hero Paul von Hindenburg for president, and received 36.8 percent of the vote. With the government in chaos, three successive chancellors failed to maintain control, and in late January 1933 Hindenburg named the 43-year-old Hitler as chancellor, capping the stunning rise of an unlikely leader.

January 30, 1933 marked the birth of the Third Reich, or as the Nazis called it, the “Thousand-Year Reich” (after Hitler’s boast that it would endure for a millennium).

HISTORY Vault: Third Reich: The Rise

Rare and never-before-seen amateur films offer a unique perspective on the rise of Nazi Germany from Germans who experienced it. How were millions of people so vulnerable to fascism?

Reichstag Fire 

Though the Nazis never attained more than 37 percent of the vote at the height of their popularity in 1932, Hitler was able to grab absolute power in Germany largely due to divisions and inaction among the majority who opposed Nazism.

After a devastating fire at Germany’s parliament building, the Reichstag, in February 1933—possibly the work of a Dutch communist, though later evidence suggested Nazis set the  Reichstag fire  themselves—Hitler had an excuse to step up the political oppression and violence against his opponents.

On March 23, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, giving full powers to Hitler and celebrating the union of National Socialism with the old German establishment (i.e., Hindenburg ).

That July, the government passed a law stating that the Nazi Party “constitutes the only political party in Germany,” and within months all non-Nazi parties, trade unions and other organizations had ceased to exist.

His autocratic power now secure within Germany, Hitler turned his eyes toward the rest of Europe.

In 1933, Germany was diplomatically isolated, with a weak military and hostile neighbors (France and Poland). In a famous speech in May 1933, Hitler struck a surprisingly conciliatory tone, claiming Germany supported disarmament and peace.

But behind this appeasement strategy, the domination and expansion of the Volk remained Hitler’s overriding aim.

By early the following year, he had withdrawn Germany from the League of Nations and begun to militarize the nation in anticipation of his plans for territorial conquest.

Night of the Long Knives

On June 29, 1934, the infamous Night of the Long Knives , Hitler had Röhm, former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and hundreds of other problematic members of his own party murdered, in particular troublesome members of the SA.

When the 86-year-old Hindenburg died on August 2, military leaders agreed to combine the presidency and chancellorship into one position, meaning Hitler would command all the armed forces of the Reich.

Persecution of Jews

On September 15, 1935, passage of the Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of German citizenship, and barred them from marrying or having relations with persons of “German or related blood.”

Though the Nazis attempted to downplay its persecution of Jews in order to placate the international community during the 1936 Berlin Olympics (in which German-Jewish athletes were not allowed to compete), additional decrees over the next few years disenfranchised Jews and took away their political and civil rights.

In addition to its pervasive anti-Semitism, Hitler’s government also sought to establish the cultural dominance of Nazism by burning books, forcing newspapers out of business, using radio and movies for propaganda purposes and forcing teachers throughout Germany’s educational system to join the party.

Much of the Nazi persecution of Jews and other targets occurred at the hands of the Geheime Staatspolizei (GESTAPO), or Secret State Police, an arm of the SS that expanded during this period.

Outbreak of World War II

In March 1936, against the advice of his generals, Hitler ordered German troops to reoccupy the demilitarized left bank of the Rhine.

Over the next two years, Germany concluded alliances with Italy and Japan, annexed Austria and moved against Czechoslovakia—all essentially without resistance from Great Britain, France or the rest of the international community.

Once he confirmed the alliance with Italy in the so-called “Pact of Steel” in May 1939, Hitler then signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union . On September 1, 1939, Nazi troops invaded Poland, finally prompting Britain and France to declare war on Germany.

Blitzkrieg 

After ordering the occupation of Norway and Denmark in April 1940, Hitler adopted a plan proposed by one of his generals to attack France through the Ardennes Forest. The blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) attack began on May 10; Holland quickly surrendered, followed by Belgium.

German troops made it all the way to the English Channel, forcing British and French forces to evacuate en masse from Dunkirk in late May. On June 22, France was forced to sign an armistice with Germany.

Hitler had hoped to force Britain to seek peace as well, but when that failed he went ahead with his attacks on that country, followed by an invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor that December, the United States declared war on Japan, and Germany’s alliance with Japan demanded that Hitler declare war on the United States as well.

At that point in the conflict, Hitler shifted his central strategy to focus on breaking the alliance of his main opponents (Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union) by forcing one of them to make peace with him.

Concentration Camps

Beginning in 1933, the SS had operated a network of concentration camps, including a notorious camp at Dachau , near Munich, to hold Jews and other targets of the Nazi regime.

After war broke out, the Nazis shifted from expelling Jews from German-controlled territories to exterminating them. Einsatzgruppen, or mobile death squads, executed entire Jewish communities during the Soviet invasion, while the existing concentration-camp network expanded to include death camps like Auschwitz -Birkenau in occupied Poland.

In addition to forced labor and mass execution, certain Jews at Auschwitz were targeted as the subjects of horrific medical experiments carried out by eugenicist Josef Mengele, known as the “Angel of Death.” Mengele’s experiments focused on twins and exposed 3,000 child prisoners to disease, disfigurement and torture under the guise of medical research.

Though the Nazis also imprisoned and killed Catholics, homosexuals, political dissidents, Roma (gypsies) and the disabled, above all they targeted Jews—some 6 million of whom were killed in German-occupied Europe by war’s end.

End of World War II

With defeats at El-Alamein and Stalingrad , as well as the landing of U.S. troops in North Africa by the end of 1942, the tide of the war turned against Germany.

As the conflict continued, Hitler became increasingly unwell, isolated and dependent on medications administered by his personal physician.

Several attempts were made on his life, including one that came close to succeeding in July 1944, when Col. Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb that exploded during a conference at Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia.

Within a few months of the successful Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the Allies had begun liberating cities across Europe. That December, Hitler attempted to direct another offensive through the Ardennes, trying to split British and American forces.

But after January 1945, he holed up in a bunker beneath the Chancellery in Berlin. With Soviet forces closing in, Hitler made plans for a last-ditch resistance before finally abandoning that plan.

How Did Adolf Hitler Die?

At midnight on the night of April 28-29, Hitler married Eva Braun in the Berlin bunker. After dictating his political testament,  Hitler shot himself  in his suite on April 30; Braun took poison. Their bodies were burned according to Hitler’s instructions.

With Soviet troops occupying Berlin, Germany surrendered unconditionally on all fronts on May 7, 1945, bringing the war in Europe to a close.

In the end, Hitler’s planned “Thousand-Year Reich” lasted just over 12 years, but wreaked unfathomable destruction and devastation during that time, forever transforming the history of Germany, Europe and the world.

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich iWonder – Adolf Hitler: Man and Monster, BBC . The Holocaust : A Learning Site for Students, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum .

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Biography of Adolf Hitler

The enforcement of hitler’s ideologies.

• Hitler and World War II

Hitler’s Death

• General Curiosities About Hitler

Key Facts And Information

Let’s know more about adolf hitler.

• Adolf Hitler grew up in a difficult family environment, mainly due to his father. After the death of his parents, he wanted to become an artist; however, he was rejected by university.
• Following his involvement in politics, he was arrested, and during his months in prison, he wrote a political autobiography titled “Mein Kampf”. After his release, he managed to become the leader of the Nazi Party and eventually took control of it. While expanding across Europe during WWII, he adopted harsh measures against the Jewish people.
• Having lost the war, he committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin together with his then wife, Eva Braun - him shooting himself in the temple and her poisoning herself by taking a cyanide pill.

• Adolf Hitler is certainly one of the most controversial, cruel and immoral people that marked the 20th century.
• He was born in Braunau am Inn (Austria) on 20 April, 1889.
• He grew up in Linz (Austria) and had an uneasy childhood.
• Hitler did not like his father Alois (as a matter of fact, he was afraid of him), and his death in 1903 possibly caused him much relief (Lukacs et al. 2019).
• When his mother Klara died in 1907, Hitler and his siblings were supported by their dead father’s pension and savings.
• Hitler was not a great student, and in fact, never made it ‘beyond secondary education’ (Lukacs et al. 2019).
• Following a trip to Vienna, Hitler’s ambition was to become an artist.
• However, his entry to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna was rejected twice.
• Nonetheless, he managed to make a modest living by ‘painting postcards and advertisements’ while he was ‘drifting from one municipal hostel to another’ (Lukacs et al. 2019).
• In 1913, tired of Vienna’s cosmopolitanism, Hitler moved to Munich where he attempted to join the Austrian military service the following year.
• However, the future leader of the Germans ‘was classified as unfit because of inadequate physical vigour’ (Lukacs et al. 2019).
• At the outbreak of World War I, Hitler was allowed to fight in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment: he was trained for eight weeks, and subsequently was moved to Belgium (Lukacs et al. 2019).
• Hitler felt rewarded by the efforts he put into the war since he felt heroic and virtuous, especially when he was awarded the Second and First Class Iron Cross, respectively in December 1914 and August 1918 (Lukacs et al. 2019).
• Following the end of the war, Germany was in a state of chaos and disruption. For this reason, in 1919, Hitler undertook various political positions in Munich: he became an army political agent in the German Workers’ Party, and the following year, in 1920, he was responsible for the party’s propaganda (Lukacs et al. 2019).
• The German Workers’ Party was renamed the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP (later known as the Nazi Party), and started to gain much traction amongst the German people that were dissatisfied with the outcomes of the First World War.
• Within the party, Hitler met Ernst Röhm, who supported his advancement within the party.
• Röhm had an important role in the party because he ‘recruited the “strong arm” squads’ in order to protect the party meeting, as well as launch violent attacks against the party’s opposition such as the socialists and communists (Lukacs et al. 2019).
• In June 1921, Hitler became the leader of the party and used the newspaper Völkischer Beobachter in order to spread his ideology.
• In no time, Hitler gained the approval of thousands of people.
• However, in 1923, Hitler attempted the “Beer Hall Putsch” to destroy the Weimar Republic by convincing the Bavarian government to proclaim a revolution.
• Hitler’s plan did not go as smoothly as he had desired, and as a consequence, in 1924 he was arrested on the charge of treason and sentenced for five years.
• Hitler, however, remained in prison for only 9 months, and it is during this period that he wrote Mein Kampf, i.e. ‘his political autobiography as well as a compendium of his multitudinous ideas’ (Lukacs et al. 2019). The book was released in 1925 and became a bestseller.

• Through this book, Hitler’s wicked ideology is evident: in fact, he supported inequality between ‘races, nations, and individuals’, as well as the Aryan race (Lukacs et al. 2019).
• Hitler’s two greater enemies were Marxism and Jews. In 1919, he wrote ‘[the] final objective must be the removal of Jews altogether’ since he believed the Jewish people were the ‘destroyer[s] of culture, [..] parasite[s] within the nation, [..] and a menace’ (Lukacs et al. 2019; citing Hitler).
• Following his release from prison, Hitler was not allowed to give public speeches across Germany, and it was only in 1926 that he regained control over the Nazi Party.
• During this time, he created the Hitler Youth and the Schutzstaffel (SS) (at first his own personal guards, and subsequently the group that enforced Hitler’s ideas by means of force) (History Editors 2019).
• The SS was very similar to the Italian fascist groups put together by Mussolini: ‘they wore black uniforms and swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler’ (History Editors 2019).
• Hitler spent much of his life in Berchtesgaden (in the Bavarian Alps), where he lived with his half-sister and her two daughters.
• In terms of his romantic relationships, he did not have one in public as he wanted to project an image of a chaste man committed to his work and to Germany.
• However, some accounts have claimed that he might have fallen in love with his niece Geli Raubal.
• Geli was 20 years Hitler’s junior. Their alleged relationship was short lived, however, as Geli committed suicide in 1931 due to the dysfunctional dynamics of their relationship (History Editors 2019).
• Hitler was truly and profoundly in love with his step-sister’s daughter, and notwithstanding the tragic incident, he became infatuated with Eva Braun, who he met in the shop of Heinrich Hoffman (the official photographer of the Nazi Party).
• Hitler was not as devoted to Eva as he was to Geli.
• In fact, he always refused to make their love public: she was not allowed to appear in official photos, he pretended he didn’t know her whenever they were both in meetings, and married her only the day before they both committed suicide.
• In January 1933, Paul von Hindenburg nominated Hitler as chancellor. In 1934, following Hindenburg’s death, Hitler became Führer.
• Hitler’s party did not have any opposition (largely due to the SS repressions) and was able to gain absolute power using the Great Depression of the 1930s as an advantage.
• Interestingly, a new law had stated that the Nazi Party was the only political party within Germany. Soon after this proclamation, ‘non-Nazi parties, trade unions, and other organisation had ceased to exist’ (History Editors 2019).
• Once he had Germany under his control, Hitler intended to expand his power across Europe.
• In fact, in 1934, Germany was no longer part of the League of Nations (a diplomatic group formed after WWI that sought to prevent war), and Hitler started to ‘militarise the nation in anticipation of his plans for territorial conquest’ (History Editors 2019).
• In 1935, Hitler started his persecution of the Jews: the harsh Nuremberg Laws were introduced and the Jews were denied any civil right. These laws consisted of two: the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, and the Law of the Reich Citizen.
• They lost their German citizenship and were not allowed to have relations of any type with people that had ‘German or related blood’ (History Editors 2019).
• The force that was in charge of persecuting the Jews was the Secret State Police, most commonly known as GESTAPO (Geheime Staatspolizei).
• Moreover, the Nazis employed other means of repression in order to get rid of opponents.
• For example, they burnt books, censored newspapers; and employed the radio and films in order to promote their messages.

World War II

• Between 1936 and 1939, Hitler signed pacts and alliances with several countries.

• In fact, he allied with Austria and Japan, signed the Pact of Steel with Italy in May 1939, and stipulated the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of non-aggression with the Soviet Union.
• Having strategically made his alliances, on 1 September, 1939, Poland was invaded and France and England declared war on Hitler.
• Throughout the war, the Führer adopted the blitzkrieg technique, i.e. the ‘lightning war’ strategy which consisted of concentrating all his forces on one point in order to confuse and disarm their opponent.
• Throughout 1940, Europe was rapidly falling under German control.
• Hitler now had control over Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia and Greece.
• Hitler was not only involved in the military operations throughout World War II.
• He was also central to the perpetration of the Holocaust.
• The Holocaust was “the ideological and systematic state-sponsored persecution and mass murder of millions of European Jews (as well as Gypsies, the intellectually disabled, dissidents, and homosexuals) by the German Nazi regime” (History Editors 2020).
• Going back to Hitler’s ideologies, he was clearly anti-Semitic.
• He believed that Jews were an inferior race which was a threat to the purity of the German race and the cause of Germany’s defeat in 1918.
• For years of Nazi rule in Germany where Jews were constantly persecuted through the harsh Nuremberg Laws, Hitler’s “final solution” was the Holocaust.
• The Holocaust murdered “approximately six million Jews and some five million others” (History Editors 2020).
• Killings were carried out through mass shootings, extermination through work in concentration camps, and gas chambers in extermination camps.
• The largest of these Nazi concentration and extermination camps was Auschwitz.
• At the end of April 1945, the war was coming to a close and Germany was about to be defeated by the Soviet Union.

• There was nothing left to do for the Führer and on the night of 29 April, 1945, he got married in his bunker to Eva Braun.
• The following day, the couple committed suicide with Braun poisoning herself with cyanide and Hitler shooting himself in the temple with his pistol.
• Women in Germany absolutely loved Hitler: they thought he was a charming, handsome and powerful man.
• One of Hitler’s major anxieties was that of appearing ridiculous: he wanted to feel “superior” in every context, and for this reason, he often ‘was rude and liked to ridicule people’ (Katelyn’s Socials, no date).
• He did not like to be photographed wearing bathing suits since he was afraid of appearing pathetic.
• He was not a good listener: in fact, people defined him as ‘unreachable’ or lost in his own mind, thinking about other things whilst people were talking to him (Katelyn’s Socials, no date).
• Ironically, Hitler was a vegetarian and loved animals.

Image sources

[1.] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-S33882%2C_Adolf_Hitler_retouched.jpg

[2.] https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8015/7106028925_e7b7bf2711_b.jpg

[3.] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Hitler_and_Mussolini_June_1940.jpg

[4] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Stars_%26_Stripes_%26_Hitler_Dead2.jpg

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany. His fascist agenda led to World War II and the deaths of at least 11 million people, including some six million Jews.

(1889-1945)

Who Was Adolf Hitler?

Hitler’s fascist policies precipitated World War II and led to the genocide known as the Holocaust , which resulted in the deaths of some six million Jews and another five million noncombatants.

The fourth of six children, Hitler was born to Alois Hitler and Klara Polzl . As a child, Hitler clashed frequently with his emotionally harsh father, who also didn't approve of his son's later interest in fine art as a career.

Following the death of his younger brother, Edmund, in 1900, Hitler became detached and introverted.

Young Hitler

Hitler showed an early interest in German nationalism, rejecting the authority of Austria-Hungary. This nationalism would become the motivating force of Hitler's life.

In 1903, Hitler’s father died suddenly. Two years later, Hitler's mother allowed her son to drop out of school. After her death in December 1907, Hitler moved to Vienna and worked as a casual laborer and watercolor painter. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts twice and was rejected both times.

Lacking money outside of an orphan's pension and funds from selling postcards, he stayed in homeless shelters. Hitler later pointed to these years as the time when he first cultivated his anti-Semitism, though there is some debate about this account.

In 1913, Hitler relocated to Munich. At the outbreak of World War I , he applied to serve in the German army. He was accepted in August 1914, though he was still an Austrian citizen.

Although Hitler spent much of his time away from the front lines (with some reports that his recollections of his time on the field were generally exaggerated), he was present at a number of significant battles and was wounded at the Battle of the Somme . He was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross First Class and the Black Wound Badge.

Hitler became embittered over the collapse of the war effort. The experience reinforced his passionate German patriotism, and he was shocked by Germany's surrender in 1918. Like other German nationalists, he purportedly believed that the German army had been betrayed by civilian leaders and Marxists.

He found the Treaty of Versailles degrading, particularly the demilitarization of the Rhineland and the stipulation that Germany accepts responsibility for starting the war.

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Nazi Germany and Speeches

After World War I, Hitler returned to Munich and continued to work for the German military. As an intelligence officer, he monitored the activities of the German Workers’ Party (DAP) and adopted many of the anti-Semitic, nationalist and anti-Marxist ideas of party founder Anton Drexler.

In September 1919, Hitler joined the DAP, which changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) — often abbreviated to Nazi.

Hitler personally designed the Nazi party banner, appropriating the swastika symbol and placing it in a white circle on a red background. He soon gained notoriety for his vitriolic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians, Marxists and Jews. In 1921, Hitler replaced Drexler as the Nazi party chairman.

Hitler's fervid beer-hall speeches began attracting regular audiences. Early followers included army captain Ernst Rohm, the head of the Nazi paramilitary organization the Sturmabteilung (SA), which protected meetings and frequently attacked political opponents.

Beer Hall Putsch

On November 8, 1923, Hitler and the SA stormed a public meeting featuring Bavarian prime minister Gustav Kahr at a large beer hall in Munich. Hitler announced that the national revolution had begun and declared the formation of a new government.

After a short struggle that led to several deaths, the coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch failed. Hitler was arrested and tried for high treason and sentenced to nine months in prison.

'Mein Kampf'

During Hitler’s nine months in prison in 1924, he dictated most of the first volume of his autobiographical book and political manifesto, Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), to his deputy, Rudolf Hess.

The first volume was published in 1925, and a second volume came out in 1927. It was abridged and translated into 11 languages, selling more than five million copies by 1939. A work of propaganda and falsehoods, the book laid out Hitler's plans for transforming German society into one based on race.

In the first volume, Hitler shared his Anti-Semitic, pro-Aryan worldview along with his sense of “betrayal” at the outcome of World War I, calling for revenge against France and expansion eastward into Russia.

The second volume outlined his plan to gain and maintain power. While often illogical and full of grammatical errors, Mein Kampf was provocative and subversive, making it appealing to the many Germans who felt displaced at the end of World War I.

Rise to Power

With millions unemployed, the Great Depression in Germany provided a political opportunity for Hitler. Germans were ambivalent to the parliamentary republic and increasingly open to extremist options. In 1932, Hitler ran against 84-year-old Paul von Hindenburg for the presidency.

Hitler came in second in both rounds of the election, garnering more than 36 percent of the vote in the final count. The results established Hitler as a strong force in German politics. Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor in order to promote political balance.

Hitler as Führer

Hitler used his position as chancellor to form a de facto legal dictatorship. The Reichstag Fire Decree, announced after a suspicious fire at Germany's parliament building, suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial.

Hitler also engineered the passage of the Enabling Act, which gave his cabinet full legislative powers for a period of four years and allowed for deviations from the constitution.

Anointing himself as Führer ("leader") and having achieved full control over the legislative and executive branches of government, Hitler and his political allies embarked on a systematic suppression of the remaining political opposition.

By the end of June, the other parties had been intimidated into disbanding. On July 14, 1933, Hitler's Nazi Party was declared the only legal political party in Germany. In October of that year, Hitler ordered Germany's withdrawal from the League of Nations .

Night of the Long Knives

Military opposition was also punished. The demands of the SA for more political and military power led to the infamous Night of the Long Knives , a series of assassinations that took place from June 30 to July 2, 1934.

Rohm, a perceived rival, and other SA leaders, along with a number of Hitler's political enemies, were hunted down and murdered at locations across Germany.

The day before Hindenburg's death in August 1934, the cabinet had enacted a law abolishing the office of president, combining its powers with those of the chancellor. Hitler thus became head of state as well as head of government and was formally named leader and chancellor. As the undisputed head of state, Hitler became supreme commander of the armed forces.

Hitler the Vegetarian

Hitler’s self-imposed dietary restrictions towards the end of his life included abstinence from alcohol and meat.

Fueled by fanaticism over what he believed was a superior Aryan race, he encouraged Germans to keep their bodies pure of any intoxicating or unclean substances and promoted anti-smoking campaigns across the country.

Hitler’s Laws and Regulations Against Jews

From 1933 until the start of the war in 1939, Hitler and his Nazi regime instituted hundreds of laws and regulations to restrict and exclude Jews in society. These anti-Semitic laws were issued throughout all levels of government, making good on the Nazis’ pledge to persecute Jews.

On April 1, 1933, Hitler implemented a national boycott of Jewish businesses. This was followed by the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" of April 7, 1933, which excluded Jews from state service.

The law was a Nazi implementation of the Aryan Paragraph, which called for the exclusion of Jews and non-Aryans from organizations, employment and eventually all aspects of public life.

Additional legislation restricted the number of Jewish students at schools and universities, limited Jews working in medical and legal professions, and revoked the licenses of Jewish tax consultants.

The Main Office for Press and Propaganda of the German Student Union also called for "Action Against the Un-German Spirit,” prompting students to burn more than 25,000 “Un-German” books, ushering in an era of censorship and Nazi propaganda. By 1934, Jewish actors were forbidden from performing in film or in the theater.

On September 15, 1935, the Reichstag introduced the Nuremberg Laws, which defined a "Jew" as anyone with three or four grandparents who were Jewish, regardless of whether the person considered themselves Jewish or observed the religion.

The Nuremberg Laws also set forth the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour," which banned marriage between non-Jewish and Jewish Germans; and the Reich Citizenship Law, which deprived "non-Aryans" of the benefits of German citizenship.

In 1936, Hitler and his regime muted their Anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions when Germany hosted the Winter and Summer Olympic Games , in an effort to avoid criticism on the world stage and a negative impact on tourism.

After the Olympics, the Nazi persecution of Jews intensified with the continued "Aryanization" of Jewish businesses, which involved the firing of Jewish workers and takeover by non-Jewish owners. The Nazis continued to segregate Jews from German society, banning them from public school, universities, theaters, sports events and "Aryan" zones.

Jewish doctors were also barred from treating "Aryan" patients. Jews were required to carry identity cards and, in the fall of 1938, Jewish people had to have their passports stamped with a "J."

Kristallnacht

On November 9 and 10, 1938, a wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms swept Germany, Austria and parts of the Sudetenland. Nazis destroyed synagogues and vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses. Close to 100 Jews were murdered.

Called Kristallnacht , the "Night of Crystal" or the "Night of Broken Glass," referring to the broken window glass left in the wake of the destruction, it escalated the Nazi persecution of Jews to another level of brutality and violence. Almost 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps, signaling more horrors to come.

Persecution of Homosexuals and People with Disabilities

Hitler's eugenic policies also targeted children with physical and developmental disabilities, later authorizing a euthanasia program for disabled adults.

His regime also persecuted homosexuals, arresting an estimated 100,000 men from 1933 to 1945, some of whom were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps. At the camps, gay prisoners were forced to wear pink triangles to identify their homosexuality, which Nazis considered a crime and a disease.

The Holocaust and Concentration Camps

Between the start of World War II, in 1939, and its end, in 1945, Nazis and their collaborators were responsible for the deaths of at least 11 million noncombatants, including about six million Jews, representing two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe.

As part of Hitler's "Final Solution," the genocide enacted by the regime would come to be known as the Holocaust.

Deaths and mass executions took place in concentration and extermination camps including Auschwitz -Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau and Treblinka, among many others. Other persecuted groups included Poles, communists, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and trade unionists.

Prisoners were used as forced laborers for SS construction projects, and in some instances they were forced to build and expand concentration camps. They were subject to starvation, torture and horrific brutalities, including gruesome and painful medical experiments.

Hitler probably never visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the mass killings. However, Germans documented the atrocities committed at the camps on paper and in films.

• World War II

In 1938, Hitler, along with several other European leaders, signed the Munich Pact. The treaty ceded the Sudetenland districts to Germany, reversing part of the Versailles Treaty. As a result of the summit, Hitler was named Time magazine's Man of the Year for 1938.

This diplomatic win only whetted his appetite for a renewed German dominance. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, sparking the beginning of World War II. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later.

In 1940 Hitler escalated his military activities, invading Norway, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium. By July, Hitler ordered bombing raids on the United Kingdom, with the goal of invasion.

Germany’s formal alliance with Japan and Italy, known collectively as the Axis powers, was agreed upon toward the end of September to deter the United States from supporting and protecting the British.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler violated the 1939 non-aggression pact with Joseph Stalin , sending a massive army of German troops into the Soviet Union . The invading force seized a huge area of Russia before Hitler temporarily halted the invasion and diverted forces to encircle Leningrad and Kiev.

The pause allowed the Red Army to regroup and conduct a counter-offensive attack, and the German advance was stopped outside Moscow in December 1941.

On December 7, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Honoring the alliance with Japan, Hitler was now at war against the Allied powers, a coalition that included Britain, the world's largest empire, led by Prime Minister Winston Churchill ; the United States, the world's greatest financial power, led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt ; and the Soviet Union, which had the world's largest army, commanded by Stalin.

Stumbling Toward Defeat

Initially hoping that he could play the Allies off of one another, Hitler's military judgment became increasingly erratic, and the Axis powers could not sustain his aggressive and expansive war.

In late 1942, German forces failed to seize the Suez Canal , leading to the loss of German control over North Africa. The German army also suffered defeats at the Battle of Stalingrad (1942-43), seen as a turning point in the war, and the Battle of Kursk (1943).

On June 6, 1944, on what would come to be known as D-Day , the Western Allied armies landed in northern France. As a result of these significant setbacks, many German officers concluded that defeat was inevitable and that Hitler's continued rule would result in the destruction of the country.

Organized efforts to assassinate the dictator gained traction, and opponents came close in 1944 with the notorious July Plot , though it ultimately proved unsuccessful.

Hitler's Bunker

By early 1945, Hitler realized that Germany was going to lose the war. The Soviets had driven the German army back into Western Europe, their Red Army had surrounded Berlin and the Allies were advancing into Germany from the west.

On January 16, 1945, Hitler moved his center of command to an underground air-raid shelter near the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Known as the Führerbunker, the reinforced concrete shelter had about 30 rooms spread out over some 2,700 square feet.

Hitler's bunker was furnished with framed oil paintings and upholstered furniture, fresh drinking water from a well, pumps to remove groundwater, a diesel electricity generator and other amenities.

At midnight, going into April 29, 1945, Hitler married his girlfriend, Eva Braun , in a small civil ceremony in his underground bunker. Around this time, Hitler was informed of the execution of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini . He reportedly feared the same fate could befall him.

Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945, fearful of being captured by enemy troops. Hitler took a dose of cyanide and then shot himself in the head. Eva Braun is believed to have poisoned herself with cyanide at around the same time.

Their bodies were carried to a bomb crater near the Reich Chancellery, where their remains were doused with gasoline and burned. Hitler was 56 years old at the time of his death.

Berlin fell to Soviet troops on May 2, 1945. Five days later, on May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies.

A 2018 analysis of the exhumed remains of Hitler's teeth and skull , secretly preserved for decades by Russian intelligence agencies, have confirmed that the Führer was killed by means of cyanide and a gunshot wound.

Hitler's political programs brought about a horribly destructive world war, leaving behind a devastated and impoverished Eastern and Central Europe, including Germany.

His policies inflicted human suffering on an unprecedented scale and resulted in the death of tens of millions of people, including more than 20 million in the Soviet Union and six million Jews in Europe.

Hitler's defeat marked the end of Germany's dominance in European history and the defeat of fascism. A new ideological global conflict, the Cold War , emerged in the aftermath of the devastating violence of World War II.

Winston Churchill

Benito Mussolini

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Joseph Stalin

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Adolf Hitler
• Birth Year: 1889
• Birth date: April 20, 1889
• Birth City: Braunau am Inn
• Birth Country: Austria
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany. His fascist agenda led to World War II and the deaths of at least 11 million people, including some six million Jews.
• World Politics
• Astrological Sign: Taurus
• Nacionalities
• Interesting Facts
• Adolf Hitler wanted to be a painter in his youth, but his applications to obtain proper schooling were rejected.
• Hitler personally designed the Nazi party banner, appropriating the swastika symbol and placing it in a white circle on a red background.
• Hitler avoided multiple assassination attempts by chance.
• Death Year: 1945
• Death date: April 30, 1945
• Death City: Berlin
• Death Country: Germany

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Adolf Hitler Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/political-figures/adolf-hitler
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E Television Networks
• Last Updated: March 26, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.
• We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was 'legal.'” (Martin Luther King Jr.)
• It is not truth that matters, but victory.
• History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.
• Any alliance whose purpose is not the intention to wage war is senseless and useless.
• All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.
• We will meet propaganda with propaganda, terror with terror, and violence with violence.
• By shrewd and constant application of propaganda, heaven can be presented to the people as hell and, vice versa, the wretchedest existence as a paradise.
• And what nonsense it is to aspire to a Heaven to which, according to the Church's own teaching, only those have entry who have made a complete failure of life on earth!
• But there's one thing I can predict to eaters of meat, that the world of the future will be vegetarian!
• Strength lies not in defense but in attack.
• I don't see much future for the Americans. In my view, it's a decayed country.
• Germany will either be a world power or will not be at all.
• I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker.
• If you want to shine like sun first you have to burn like it.

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Adolf Hitler

Our Adolf Hitler lesson plan teaches students about the dictator Adolf Hitler and his impact on the world as he led Germany and was responsible for millions of deaths during the Holocaust. Students learn about his early life, his rise to power, his beliefs, and more.

Included with this lesson plan is an “Options for Lesson” section which provides some ideas for additions or modifications to the lesson. One of the optional additions suggests inviting a historian who studies this period of history to your class to speak about Hitler in depth.

Description

Additional information, what our adolf hitler lesson plan includes.

Lesson Objectives and Overview: Our Adolf Hitler lesson plan introduces students to Adolf Hitler and his impact on the world as he led Germany and was responsible for millions of deaths during the Holocaust. Most students will have heard of Hitler but may not fully understand the negative impact he had on people’s lives during World War II. You may use this lesson in conjunction with other lessons relates to World War II, the Nazi Party, and the Holocaust. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to identify Adolf Hitler, identify his impact on the world, and list other facts about his life. This lesson is for students in 5th grade and 6th grade.

Classroom Procedure

Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the orange box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand. For this lesson, the only supplies you will need are the classroom handouts. To prepare ahead of time, you can group students for the activity and copy the handouts.

Options for Lesson

Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for activities to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. One of the optional additions to this lesson plan is to have students create a timeline of Hitler’s life, including events from World War II, the Holocaust, and other related events. You can also invite someone to speak to your class who was alive during the second World War, or a historian who specialized in the time period. If you want to add another activity to the lesson, you can have students write an essay about how they think someone could become a dictator. Finally, you could assign each student a different dictator to research and present to the class.

Teacher Notes

The teacher notes page includes a paragraph with additional guidelines and things to think about as you begin to plan your lesson. This page also includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson. 

ADOLF HITLER LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES

The Adolf Hitler lesson plan includes five pages of content. The first part of this lesson introduces students to Hitler’s background and some of the things that he’s most known for, like being one of the world’s most infamous dictators and orchestrating the Holocaust. Students will learn that he was actually born in Austria, a Central European German-speaking country, but moved to Germany when he was three years old. Hitler became interested in German nationalism at a young age and this interest led to many of his choices over the years. He applied to art school but they did not accept him. Despite not being a German citizen, Hitler served in the German army during World War I, and their surrender in 1918 devastated him. He strengthened his belief in German nationalism during this time, and he believed Marxists had betrayed the German army.

Students will learn that, following the war, he continued to work for the military and in the government and eventually became the leader of the German Workers’ Party. During this time, he also began giving speeches against Jewish people, Marxists, other political parties, and more. He continued to spread his ideas to others and even attempted to throw over the government! They arrested him and he spent a year in jail. He wrote his famous book, Mein Kampf , during this time. This book contains many of Hitler’s ideas and ideals and advocates for the transformation of Germany based on race.

Rise to Power

The next section of the lesson discusses how Hitler gained power in the 1930s and early 1940s. Students will learn that Germany experienced a Great Depression during early 1930s. This allowed Hitler the opportunity to gain political power. He ran for president in 1932 but came in second place. However, in 1933, they appointed him chancellor of Germany. Immediately, Hitler began seizing more and more power. He used his power to deny people their basic rights and even outlawed all political parties except for his, the Nazi Party.

Students will learn that Hitler officially became head of state of Germany in August 1934. He mobilized for war, withdrew Germany from the League of Nations, and expanded the German armed forces. All of these things strengthened his position and personal grasp of power in the country. His government started imposing many rules on the citizens of Germany. These included everything from dietary restrictions to banning marriage between Jewish and non-Jewish people. Hitler and his followers believed in the supremacy of the Aryan Society. This meant that they considered people who were white and non-Jewish to be genetically superior to everyone else. This is also when he began to target disabled people, as well.

The Holocaust and War

The final section of this lesson plan delves into Hitler’s role in the Holocaust and World War II. Students will learn that Hitler orchestrated a horrible tragedy called the Holocaust. They murdered 11 to 14 million people during the Holocaust, including 6 million Jewish people. These killings happened in concentration and extermination camps.

Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1938 caused Britain and France to declare war, beginning World War II. The war escalated over the next few years. Germany entered an alliance with Japan and Italy, forming the Axis powers. Students will learn that the United States entered the war in 1941, following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. joined the Allied powers, which included Britain and the Soviet Union. Then, on D-Day, June 6th, 1944, the Allies made significant progress and turned the tides of the war.

Students will learn that it was at this point that Hitler knew he was going to lose the war. He was hiding out in a bunker and married his girlfriend there. He also found out that they had assassinated another dictator at the time, Mussolini. Hitler and his wife committed suicide in the bunker the day after they got married. He left behind a ravaged Europe and a legacy of destruction. Hitler was responsible for the murder of millions of people during the Holocaust and immense suffering. He failed in his mission to create a single-race society.

Here is a list of the vocabulary words students will learn in this lesson plan:

• Dictator: ruler of a country who has obtained their power by force
• Nationalism: a patriotic feeling, a superiority over other countries
• Anti-Semitism: a hate, hostility, and prejudice against Jewish people
• Holocaust: systematic killing of millions of Jewish people by the Nazi Party
• Marxism: an economic system based on socialism
• DAP: the German Workers’ Party
• Mein Kampf : Hitler’s famous book translated as “My Struggle”
• Nazi Party: in 1933, declared the only legal political party in Germany
• Aryan Society: Hitler supporters who are white and of non-Jewish descent
• Concentration and extermination camps: camps where mass suffering and executions took place
• Munich Treaty: it ceded land area back to Germany
• Axis: powers that included Germany, Italy, and Japan
• Ally: powers that included Britain, the Soviet Union, and the U.S.
• D-Day: June 6, 1944; the Western Allied armies landed in northern France

ADOLF HITLER LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS

The Adolf Hitler lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.

GROUP DISCUSSION ACTIVITY WORKSHEET

Students will work in groups for the activity worksheet. They will read several questions and discuss their answers with the group. Every student will have the opportunity to contribute to the discussion. Students will write their answers down on the worksheet.

Students can also work alone for this activity if you’d prefer. You can also add additional questions to this activity or conduct the entire activity as a class discussion!

CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER PRACTICE WORKSHEET

For the practice worksheet, students will place 20 events in Hitler’s life in chronological order. These events span from Hitler’s birth to his death.

ADOLF HITLER HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

The homework assignment asks students to complete two exercises on their own to demonstrate their understanding of the lesson material. First, they will complete an exercise where they have to match terms related to this lesson with their definitions. These terms include “dictator” and “Munich Treaty.” The second exercise they will complete asks them to answer questions related to the lesson.

Worksheet Answer Keys

This lesson plan includes answer keys for the practice worksheet and the homework assignment. No answer key is included for the activity worksheet as students’ answers will vary.  If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.

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Great reading and discussion questions!

The reading is written in a way for students to easily understand the material. The discussion questions included were very engaging. I used them in groups and then a share out to the class, and they students were very into the topics and enjoyed discussing.

Great Resource!

Valuable information about a fascinating human being.

we are in the process of reading Africa

Adolf ******

The students loved it.!

Great Resource

good resource, some word choices will have to be addressed depending on grade level

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Adolf Hitler Facts & Worksheets

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Table of Contents

Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Party who initiated the Second World War in 1939 when he invaded Poland . Known as an evil dictator responsible for the death of millions of Jewish people and other minority groups during the Holocaust, Hitler’s life, upbringing and drivers remain of interest in what drove him to such cruelty.

See the fact file below for more information on the Adolf Hitler or alternatively, you can download our 25-page Adolf Hitler worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

• Adolf Hitler was born in Austria on April 20, 1889 to his mother, Klara, and his father, Alois.
• Hitler’s father had an angry temperament, and although Hitler grew up in a relatively comfortable house, he felt intimidated by his father.
• Hitler had 5 siblings – four of which died in infancy.
• The death of his brother Edmund in 1900 marked the point when Hitler changed from a confident and outgoing boy to a reclusive and detached boy who fought a lot with his father and his teachers at school.
• Hitler loved painting, and wanted to pursue his passion, but his father didn’t approve, and sent him away to secondary school, where Hitler purposely did poorly so his father could see how much he was struggling, and let him pursue his artistic dreams.

HITLER MOVES TO AUSTRIA AND GERMANY

• Hitler’s father died in 1903, and his mother later on in 1907, from breast cancer.
• In 1905 Hitler lived in Vienna, which was rife with racism, religious prejudice, and anti-Semitic rhetoric.
• It was here that he began to hate the multicultural and multi-ethnic composition of Austria, so he eventually moved to Munich in 1913.
• The following year, Hitler was eager to serve Germany and prove his loyalty, so he enlisted in the army during the outbreak of the First World War .
• He served until Germany surrendered.
• Upon surrender, Hitler was outraged at the lack of support for Germany from the Jewish population, and people he deemed as socialist. He resolved to get into politics so he could make a change and restore Germany to what he believed to be its full potential.
• Another thing Hitler was not happy about was the Treaty of Versailles , which basically laid blame on Germany for starting the war, and made them pay for many of the damages associated with the war. These payments were called reparations.
• Still in the army, Hitler went to report on a far-right group that was emerging as a result of the war – they were called the German Workers’ Party.
• Hitler agreed with their beliefs, and decided to join.
• He began speaking at rallies, and eventually began engaging in propaganda tactics.
• At the time, the German government was collapsing.
• Hitler saw an opportunity to create the change he desired through revolution, and, when given sole control, took over the party and re-named it the Nazi Party in 1920.

HITLER GETS SENT TO PRISON

• After trying to start a revolution and failing, Hitler was sentenced to 5 years in prison for treason, although he only ended up spending 9 months in jail.
• It was here that he wrote his famous book “Mein Kampf”, which means “my struggle”. In it, he detailed his troubling beliefs.

GERMAN ELECTIONS OF 1932

• With growing nationalism, Hitler’s Nazi Party won 37% of the vote in the 1932 German elections, and he became Chancellor of Germany shortly after.
• Soon after his appointment, Hitler began installing a fascist government, and eventually became dictator of Germany, modeled after his long-time idol, Benito Mussolini, of Italy .
• It wasn’t long before Hitler put in motion plans to expand Germany.

THE NAZI PARTY

• In 1939, Hitler introduced plans to eliminate Jewish people, and other “undesirables” from Germany, which consisted of segregating these people from the rest of the German population.
• These plans were announced at the Nuremberg rally, which occurred every year. Hitler announced that Jewish people were not allowed to have the same rights as Germans, and they were also prohibited from marrying or interacting with Germans.
• Hitler began expanding Germany by annexing Austria and Czechoslovakia.
• When he invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Britain and France declared war.
• Hitler immediately formed an alliance with imperial Japan and fascist Italy.
• He met opposition in the form of the “Allied Powers” of Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States .
• Hitler and the Nazis used “Blitzkrieg” war tactics, and soon captured much of Europe .
• As the war waged, Hitler decided to contravene the non-aggression pact he signed with Stalin by invading the Soviet Union.
• This distracted him from the increasingly difficult battles that occurred on the western front of Europe from the Allies.
• By 1944, shortly after the Allied victory on D-Day in Normandy, Hitler realized that the Red Army (Soviets) from the east, and the Allies from the west were closing in on him.
• By 1945, Hitler could see no other way to win the war and avoid capture.
• On April 30, 1945, he shot himself, and shortly after, the war was over. His ideals remain immoral to this day.

Adolf Hitler Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Adolf Hitler across 25 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Adolf Hitler worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Adolf Hitler who was the leader of the Nazi Party who initiated the Second World War in 1939 when he invaded Poland. Known as an evil dictator responsible for the death of millions of Jewish people and other minority groups during the Holocaust, Hitler’s life, upbringing and drivers remain of interest in what drove him to such cruelty.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

• Adolf Hitler Facts
• Adolf Hitler Crossword
• Timeline of Events
• Treaty of Versailles Analysis
• Fill In The Blanks
• Speech Analysis
• Color It True
• Civilians’ Reactions
• Holocaust Memorial Colouring Page
• Cartoon Analysis
• Letter to the Jews

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Biography of Adolf Hitler, Leader of the Third Reich

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The First World War

Hitler enters politics, the beer hall putsch, president and führer, world war ii and the failure of the third reich.

• M.A., Medieval Studies, Sheffield University
• B.A., Medieval Studies, Sheffield University

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) was the leader of Germany during the Third Reich (1933–1945). He was the primary instigator of both the Second World War in Europe and the mass execution of millions of people deemed to be "enemies," or inferior to the Aryan ideal. He rose from being a talentless painter to the dictator of Germany and, for a few months, emperor of much of Europe. His empire was crushed by an array of the world's strongest nations; he killed himself before he could be tried and brought to justice.

Fast Facts: Adolf Hitler

• Known For : Leading the German Nazi party and instigating World War II
• Born : April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria
• Parents : Alois Hitler and Klara Poelzl
• Died : April 30, 1945 in Berlin, Germany
• Education : Realschule in Steyr
• Published Works : Mein Kampf
• Spouse : Eva Braun
• Notable Quote : "In starting and waging a war it is not right that matters but victory."

Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, on April 20, 1889 to Alois Hitler (who, as an illegitimate child, had previously used his mother’s name of Schickelgruber) and Klara Poelzl. A moody child, he grew hostile towards his father, especially once the latter had retired and the family had moved to the outskirts of Linz. Alois died in 1903 but left money to take care of the family. Adolf was close to his mother, who was highly indulgent of him, and he was deeply affected when she died in 1907. He left school at age 16 in 1905, intending to become a painter. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't a very good one.

Hitler went to Vienna in 1907 where he applied to the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts but was twice turned down. This experience further embittered the increasingly angry Hitler. He returned to Vienna again when his mother died, living first with a more successful friend (Kubizek) and then moving from hostel to hostel as a lonely, vagabond figure. He recovered to make a living selling his art cheaply as a resident in a community "Men's Home."

During this period, Hitler appears to have developed the worldview that would characterize his whole life, and which centered on hatred for Jews and Marxists. Hitler was well-placed to be influenced by the demagogy of Karl Lueger, Vienna’s deeply anti-Semitic mayor and a man who used hate to help create a party of mass support. Hitler had previously been influenced by Schonerer, an Austrian politician against liberals, socialists, Catholics, and Jews. Vienna was also highly anti-Semitic; Hitler's hate was not unusual, it was simply part of the popular mindset. What Hitler went on to do was present these ideas more successfully than ever before.

Hitler moved to Munich in 1913 and avoided Austrian military service in early 1914 by virtue of being unfit for service. However, when the First World War broke out in 1914, he joined the 16th Bavarian Infantry Regiment, serving throughout the war, mostly as a corporal after refusing promotion. He proved to be an able and brave soldier as a dispatch runner, winning the Iron Cross on two occasions (First and Second Class). He was also wounded twice, and four weeks before the war ended he suffered a gas attack that temporarily blinded and hospitalized him. It was there he learned of Germany’s surrender, which he took as a betrayal. He especially hated the Treaty of Versailles , which Germany had to sign after the war as part of the settlement.

After WWI, Hitler became convinced he was destined to help Germany, but his first move was to stay in the army for as long as possible because it paid wages, and to do so, he went along with the socialists now in charge of Germany. He was soon able to turn the tables and drew the attention of army anti-socialists, who were setting up anti-revolutionary units. In 1919, working for an army unit, he was assigned to spy on a political party of roughly 40 idealists called the German Workers Party. Instead, he joined it, swiftly rose to a position of dominance (he was chairman by 1921), and renamed it the Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). He gave the party the Swastika as a symbol and organized a personal army of "storm troopers" (the SA or Brownshirts) and bodyguards of black-shirted men, the Schutzstaffel (SS), to attack opponents. He also discovered, and used, his powerful ability for public speaking.

In November 1923, Hitler organized Bavarian nationalists under a figurehead of General Ludendorff into a coup (or "putsch"). They declared their new government in a beer hall in Munich; a group of 3,000 marched through the streets, but they were met by police who opened fire, killing 16.

Hitler was arrested in1924 and used his trial to spread his name and his ideas widely. He was sentenced to just five years in prison, a sentence often described as a sign of tacit agreement with his views.

Hitler served only nine months in prison, during which he wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), a book outlining his theories on race, Germany, and Jews. It sold five million copies by 1939. Only then, in prison, did Hitler come to believe he was destined to be a leader. The man who thought he was paving the way for a German leader of genius now thought he was the genius who could take and use power.

After the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler resolved to seek power through subverting the Weimar government system, and he carefully rebuilt the NSDAP, or Nazi, party, allying with future key figures like Goering and propaganda mastermind Goebbels. Over time, he expanded the party’s support, partly by exploiting the fears of socialists and partly by appealing to everyone who felt their economic livelihood threatened by the depression of the 1930s.

Over time, he gained the interest of big business, the press, and the middle classes. Nazi votes jumped to 107 seats in the Reichstag in 1930. It's important to stress that Hitler wasn't a socialist . The Nazi party that he was molding was based on race, not the idea of socialism, but it took a good few years for Hitler to grow powerful enough to expel the socialists from the party. Hitler didn't take power in Germany overnight and took years for him to take full power of his party overnight.

In 1932, Hitler acquired German citizenship and ran for president, coming in second to von Hindenburg . Later that year, the Nazi party acquired 230 seats in the Reichstag, making them the largest party in Germany. At first, Hitler was refused the office of Chancellor by a president who distrusted him, and a continued snub might have seen Hitler cast out as his support failed. However, factional divisions at the top of government meant that, thanks to conservative politicians believing they could control Hitler, he was appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. Hitler moved with great speed to isolate and expel opponents from power, shutting trade unions and removing communists, conservatives, and Jews.

Later that year, Hitler perfectly exploited an act of arson on the Reichstag (which some believe the Nazis helped cause) to begin the creation of a totalitarian state, dominating the March 5 elections thanks to support from nationalist groups. Hitler soon took over the role of president when Hindenburg died and merged the role with that of chancellor to become führer ("leader") of Germany.

Hitler continued to move with speed in radically changing Germany, consolidating power, locking up “enemies” in camps, bending culture to his will, rebuilding the army, and breaking the constraints of the Treaty of Versailles. He tried to change the social fabric of Germany by encouraging women to breed more and bringing in laws to secure racial purity; Jews were particularly targeted. Employment, high elsewhere in a time of depression, fell to zero in Germany. Hitler also made himself head of the army, smashed the power of his former brownshirt street warriors, and expunged the socialists fully from his party and his state. Nazism was the dominant ideology. Socialists were the first in the death camps.

Hitler believed he must make Germany great again through creating an empire and engineered territorial expansion, uniting with Austria in an Anschluss and dismembering Czechoslovakia. The rest of Europe was worried, but France and Britain were prepared to concede limited expansion with Germany, taking within it the German fringe. Hitler, however, wanted more.

It was in September 1939, when German forces invaded Poland, that other nations took a stand and declared war. This was not unappealing to Hitler, who believed Germany should make itself great through war, and invasions in 1940 went well. Over the course of that year, France fell and the Third Reich expanded. However, his fatal mistake occurred in 1941 with the invasion of Russia, through which he wished to create lebensraum, or "living room." After initial success, German forces were pushed back by Russia, and defeats in Africa and West Europe followed as Germany was slowly beaten.

During the last years of the war, Hitler became gradually more paranoid and divorced from the world, retreating to a bunker. As armies approached Berlin from two directions, Hitler married his mistress Eva Braun and on April 30, 1945, he killed himself. The Soviets found his body soon after and spirited it away so it would never become a memorial. A piece remains in a Russian archive.

Hitler will forever be remembered for starting the Second World War, the most costly conflict in world history, thanks to his desire to expand Germany’s borders through force. He will equally be remembered for his dreams of racial purity, which prompted him to order the execution of millions of people , perhaps as high as 11 million. Although every arm of German bureaucracy was turned to pursuing the executions, Hitler was the chief driving force.

In the decades since Hitler’s death, many commentators have concluded that he must have been mentally ill and that, if he wasn’t when he started his rule, the pressures of his failed wars must have driven him mad. Given that he ordered genocide and ranted and raved, it is easy to see why people have come to this conclusion, but it’s important to state that there is no consensus among historians that he was insane, or what psychological problems he may have had.

“ Adolf Hitler .” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 14 Feb. 2019.

Alan Bullock, Baron Bullock, et al. “ Adolf Hitler .” Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 19 Dec. 2018.

• 10 Facts About Adolf Hitler
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Adolf Hitler: Early Years, 1889–1913

Adolf hitler.

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Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) was born on April 20, 1889, in the Upper Austrian border town Braunau am Inn, located approximately 65 miles east of Munich and nearly 30 miles north of Salzburg. He was baptized a Catholic.

His father, Alois Hitler (1837–1903), was a mid-level customs official. Born out of wedlock to Maria Anna Schickelgruber in 1837, Alois Schickelgruber had changed his name in 1876 to Hitler, the Christian name of the man who married his mother five years after his birth.

Alois Hitler's illegitimacy would cause speculation as early as the 1920s—and still present in popular culture today—that Hitler's grandfather was Jewish. Credible evidence to support the notion of Hitler's Jewish descent has never turned up. The two most likely candidates to have been Hitler's grandfather are the man who married his grandmother and that man's brother.

In 1898, the Hitler family moved to Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. Hitler wanted a career in the visual arts. He fought bitterly with his father, who wanted him to enter the Habsburg civil service. After his father's death, Hitler eventually persuaded his mother, Klara Hitler, née Pölzl, to permit him to pursue his dream of becoming an artist. As Klara was dying of breast cancer in the autumn of 1907, Hitler took the entrance exam to the Vienna Academy of the Arts. He failed to gain acceptance. In early 1908, some weeks after Klara's death in December 1907, Hitler moved to Vienna, ostensibly in the hope of renewing efforts to enter the Academy of Arts.

Hitler lived in Vienna between February 1908 and May 1913. He had grown up in a middle-class family, with relatively few contacts with Jewish people, in a region of the Habsburg state in which many German nationalists had been disappointed that the German Empire founded in 1871 had not included the German-speaking regions of the Habsburg Monarchy. Yet the legacy of the Vienna years is not as clear as Hitler depicted it in his political autobiography. His impoverishment and residence in homeless shelters began only a year after his arrival and after he had frittered away a generous inheritance left by his parents and rejected all arguments of surviving relatives and family friends that he embark upon a career in the civil service.

By the end of 1909, Hitler knew real poverty as his sources of income dried up. That winter, however, helped briefly by a last gift from his aunt, he began to paint watercolor scenes of Vienna for a business partner. He made enough to live on until he left for Munich in 1913.

It is likely that Hitler experienced, and possibly also shared, the general antisemitism common among middle-class German nationalists. Nevertheless, he had personal and business relationships with Jews in Vienna. He was also, at times, dependent in part on Jews for his living. While this may have been a cause for discretion about his actual feelings about Jews, it was not until after World War I that Hitler can be demonstrated to have adopted an “antisemitic” ideology.

Influences upon Hitler in Vienna

Hitler was genuinely influenced in Vienna by two political movements. The first was the German racist nationalism propagated by the Upper Austrian Pan-German politician Georg von Schönerer. The second key influence was that of Karl Lueger, Mayor of Vienna from 1897 to his death in 1910.

Lueger was still in power when Hitler arrived in Vienna. Lueger promoted an antisemitism that was more practical and organizational than ideological. Nevertheless, it reinforced anti-Jewish stereotypes and cast Jews as enemies of the German middle and lower classes. Unlike Schönerer, who was more comfortable with the elitist nationalism of the student fraternities, Lueger was comfortable with big city crowds and knew how to channel their protest into political gain. Hitler drew his ideology in large part from Schönerer, but his strategy and tactics from Lueger.

Hitler moved to Munich, Germany, in May 1913. He did so to avoid arrest for evading his military service obligation to Habsburg Austria. He financed his move with the last installment of his inheritance from his father. In Munich, he continued to drift. He supported himself on his watercolors and sketches until the outbreak of World War I gave his life direction and a cause to which he could commit himself totally.

Series: Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler: Key Dates

Making a Leader

Adolf Hitler and World War I: 1913–1919

Adolf Hitler: 1919-1924

Adolf hitler: 1924-1930.

Adolf Hitler: 1930-1933

The July 20, 1944, Plot to Assassinate Adolf Hitler

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Student Wears Nazi Costume, Does Adolf Hitler Salute For Graduation Photo; Netizens Appalled

A graduating student in the Philippines received backlash after his "graduation pic," showing him wearing an Adolf Hitler costume, went viral on Facebook.

In late May, a graduating high school student, later discovered to be from Lumil Integrated National High School in Cavite, took to Facebook to change his profile photo with a picture of him in a Nazi costume and captioned it, "Graduation pic goes hard."

The photo went viral on Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, and received backlash from many social media users.

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"If our college/university admission process was the same with the United States, he would never get into a [university]," opined one Facebook user, per the comments obtained by Inquirer  before the photo got deleted.

"Stupidy at its finest," commented another person.

"There are really a lot of uneducated Gen Zs today. They consider themselves Filipinos, but they are joining the White Power supremacy," wrote someone else in Filipino.

"Edgy a** immature," said a different commenter.

Amid the negative reactions, some came to the student's defense, claiming that others were just "too sensitive" or "OA" with their responses.

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"Have you seen what the Jews in Israel are doing to [the] Palestinians? Or is it alright if he cosplayed as Netanyahu? Do you equally hate someone if he wears a shirt with Stalin, Che Guevarra, or Mao printed on it?" commented one Facebook user.

"You are overreacting. He's just a kid," opined another person.

After receiving criticism for his post, the student deleted his profile picture and eventually deactivated his account.

Before his Facebook account deletion, he wrote a public apology, saying, "I apologize to everyone offended by me regarding the trending post of me wearing Adolf's Uniform. I want to inform you all that I never intended to offend anyone, and I never expected it to go viral."

"As for the caption, 'Graduation pic goes hard,' that photo was taken outside the school, and that was never my actual graduation picture since, of course, no school allows pictures like this to be taken as a graduation pic."

"I don't know why some people said that I study as Sto. Domingo NHS. The schools [that are] being mentioned -- Sto. Domingo NHS and Lumil Integrated NHS -- have nothing to do with this. The photograph was taken after our actualgraduation pic," he added, clarifying that his school had nothing to do with his viral photo.

"Also to those who are thinking about why I didn't take immediate action during the period of it going viral was because I was already asleep."

His school, Lumil Integrated NHS, also issued an apology: "Lumil Integrated National High School would like to express our sincerest apology to those who were offended by the photo of one of our completers."

"We have taken immediate action to resolve the matter and are committed to ensuring these issues do not occur in the future. We deeply value your trust and support. This is a lesson for all the parties involved."