history essay on hitler

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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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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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The Forgotten History of Hitler’s Establishment Enablers

By Adam Gopnik

Hitler is so fully imagined a subject—so obsessively present on our televisions and in our bookstores—that to reimagine him seems pointless. As with the Hollywood fascination with Charles Manson , speculative curiosity gives retrospective glamour to evil. Hitler created a world in which women were transported with their children for days in closed train cars and then had to watch those children die alongside them, naked, gasping for breath in a gas chamber. To ask whether the man responsible for this was motivated by reading Oswald Spengler or merely by meeting him seems to attribute too much complexity of purpose to him, not to mention posthumous dignity. Yet allowing the specifics of his ascent to be clouded by disdain is not much better than allowing his memory to be ennobled by mystery.

So the historian Timothy W. Ryback’s choice to make his new book, “ Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power ” (Knopf), an aggressively specific chronicle of a single year, 1932, seems a wise, even an inspired one. Ryback details, week by week, day by day, and sometimes hour by hour, how a country with a functional, if flawed, democratic machinery handed absolute power over to someone who could never claim a majority in an actual election and whom the entire conservative political class regarded as a chaotic clown with a violent following. Ryback shows how major players thought they could find some ulterior advantage in managing him. Each was sure that, after the passing of a brief storm cloud, so obviously overloaded that it had to expend itself, they would emerge in possession of power. The corporate bosses thought that, if you looked past the strutting and the performative antisemitism, you had someone who would protect your money. Communist ideologues thought that, if you peered deeply enough into the strutting and the performative antisemitism, you could spy the pattern of a popular revolution. The decent right thought that he was too obviously deranged to remain in power long, and the decent left, tempered by earlier fights against different enemies, thought that, if they forcibly stuck to the rule of law, then the law would somehow by itself entrap a lawless leader. In a now familiar paradox, the rational forces stuck to magical thinking, while the irrational ones were more logical, parsing the brute equations of power. And so the storm never passed. In a way, it still has not.

Podcast: The New Yorker Radio Hour Adam Gopnik considers Hitler’s rise to power.

Ryback’s story begins soon after Hitler’s very incomplete victory in the Weimar Republic’s parliamentary elections of July, 1932. Hitler’s party, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (its German initials were N.S.D.A.P.), emerged with thirty-seven per cent of the vote, and two hundred and thirty out of six hundred and eight seats in the Reichstag, the German parliament—substantially ahead of any of its rivals. In the normal course of events, this would have led the aging warrior Paul von Hindenburg, Germany’s President, to appoint Hitler Chancellor. The equivalent of Prime Minister in other parliamentary systems, the Chancellor was meant to answer to his party, to the Reichstag, and to the President, who appointed him and who could remove him. Yet both Hindenburg and the sitting Chancellor, Franz von Papen, had been firm never-Hitler men, and naïvely entreated Hitler to recognize his own unsuitability for the role.

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The N.S.D.A.P. had been in existence since right after the Great War, as one of many völkisch , or populist, groups; its label, by including “national” and “socialist,” was intended to appeal to both right-wing nationalists and left-wing socialists, who were thought to share a common enemy: the élite class of Jewish bankers who, they said, manipulated Germany behind the scenes and had been responsible for the German surrender. The Nazis, as they were called—a put-down made into a popular label, like “Impressionists”—began as one of many fringe and populist antisemitic groups in Germany, including the Thule Society, which was filled with bizarre pre- QAnon conspiracy adepts. Hitler, an Austrian corporal with a toothbrush mustache (when Charlie Chaplin first saw him in newsreels, he assumed Hitler was aping his Little Tramp character), had seized control of the Party in 1921. Then a failed attempt at a putsch in Munich, in 1923, left him in prison, but with many comforts, much respect, and paper and time with which to write his memoir, “Mein Kampf.” He reëmerged as the leader of all the nationalists fighting for election, with an accompanying paramilitary organization, the Sturmabteilung (S.A.), under the direction of the more or less openly homosexual Ernst Röhm, and a press office, under the direction of Joseph Goebbels. (In the American style, the press office recognized the political significance of the era’s new technology and social media, exploiting sound recordings, newsreels, and radio, and even having Hitler campaign by airplane.) Hitler’s plans were deliberately ambiguous, but his purposes were not. Ever since his unsuccessful putsch in Munich, he had, Ryback writes, “been driven by a single ambition: to destroy the political system that he held responsible for the myriad ills plaguing the German people.”

Ryback skips past the underlying mechanics of the July, 1932, election on the way to his real subject—Hitler’s manipulation of the conservative politicians and tycoons who thought that they were manipulating him—but there’s a notable academic literature on what actually happened when Germans voted that summer. The political scientists and historians who study it tell us that the election was a “normal” one, in the sense that the behavior of groups and subgroups proceeded in the usual way, responding more to the perception of political interests than to some convulsions of apocalyptic feeling.

The popular picture of the decline of the Weimar Republic—in which hyperinflation produced mass unemployment, which produced an unstoppable wave of fascism—is far from the truth. The hyperinflation had ended in 1923, and the period right afterward, in the mid-twenties, was, in Germany as elsewhere, golden. The financial crash of 1929 certainly energized the parties of the far left and the far right. Still, the results of the July, 1932, election weren’t obviously catastrophic. The Nazis came out as the largest single party, but both Hitler and Goebbels were bitterly disappointed by their standing. The unemployed actually opposed Hitler and voted en masse for the parties of the left. Hitler won the support of self-employed people, who were in decent economic shape but felt that their lives and livelihoods were threatened; of rural Protestant voters; and of domestic workers (still a sizable group), perhaps because they felt unsafe outside a rigid hierarchy. What was once called the petite bourgeoisie, then, was key to his support—not people feeling the brunt of economic precarity but people feeling the possibility of it. Having nothing to fear but fear itself is having something significant to fear.

It was indeed a “normal” election in that respect, responding not least to the outburst of “normal” politics with which Hitler had littered his program: he had, in the months beforehand, damped down his usual ranting about Jews and bankers and moneyed élites and the rest. He had recorded a widely distributed phonograph album (the era’s equivalent of a podcast) designed to make him seem, well, Chancellor-ish. He emphasized agricultural support and a return to better times, aiming, as Ryback writes, “to bridge divides of class and conscience, socialism and nationalism.” By the strange alchemy of demagoguery, a brief visit to the surface of sanity annulled years and years of crazy.

The Germans were voting, in the absent-minded way of democratic voters everywhere, for easy reassurances, for stability, with classes siding against their historical enemies. They weren’t wild-eyed nationalists voting for a millennial authoritarian regime that would rule forever and restore Germany to glory, and, certainly, they weren’t voting for an apocalyptic nightmare that would leave tens of millions of people dead and the cities of Germany destroyed. They were voting for specific programs that they thought would benefit them, and for a year’s insurance against the people they feared.

Ryback spends most of his time with two pillars of respectable conservative Germany, General Kurt von Schleicher and the right-wing media magnate Alfred Hugenberg. Utterly contemptuous of Hitler as a lazy buffoon—he didn’t wake up until eleven most mornings and spent much of his time watching and talking about movies—the two men still hated the Communists and even the center-left Social Democrats more than they did anyone on the right, and they spent most of 1932 and 1933 scheming to use Hitler as a stalking horse for their own ambitions.

Schleicher is perhaps first among Ryback’s too-clever-for-their-own-good villains, and the book presents a piercingly novelistic picture of him. Though in some ways a classic Prussian militarist, Schleicher, like so many of the German upper classes, was also a cultivated and cosmopolitan bon vivant, whom the well-connected journalist and diarist Bella Fromm called “a man of almost irresistible charm.” He was a character out of a Jean Renoir film, the regretful Junker caught in modern times. He had no illusions about Hitler (“What am I to do with that psychopath?” he said after hearing about his behavior), but, infinitely ambitious, he thought that Hitler’s call for strongman rule might awaken the German people to the need for a real strongman, i.e., Schleicher. Ryback tells us that Schleicher had a strategy he dubbed the Zähmungsprozess , or “taming process,” which was meant to sideline the radicals of the Nazi Party and bring the movement into mainstream politics. He publicly commended Hitler as a “modest, orderly man who only wants what is best” and who would follow the rule of law. He praised Hitler’s paramilitary troops, too, defending them against press reports of street violence. In fact, as Ryback explains, the game plan was to have the Brown Shirts crush the forces of the left—and then to have the regular German Army crush the Brown Shirts.

Schleicher imagined himself a master manipulator of men and causes. He liked to play with a menagerie of glass animal figurines on his desk, leaving the impression that lesser beings were mere toys to be handled. In June of 1932, he prevailed on Hindenburg to give the Chancellorship to Papen, a weak politician widely viewed as Schleicher’s puppet; Papen, in turn, installed Schleicher as minister of defense. Then they dissolved the Reichstag and held those July elections which, predictably, gave the Nazis a big boost.

Ryback spends many mordant pages tracking Schleicher’s whirling-dervish intrigues, as he tried to realize his fantasy of the Zähmungsprozess . Many of these involved schemes shared with the patriotic and staunchly anti-Nazi General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord (familiar to viewers of “Babylon Berlin” as Major General Seegers). Hammerstein was one of the few German officers to fully grasp Hitler’s real nature. At a meeting with Hitler in the spring of 1932, Hammerstein told him bluntly, “Herr Hitler, if you achieve power legally, that would be fine with me. If the circumstances are different, I will use arms.” He later felt reassured when Hindenburg intimated that, if the Nazi paramilitary troops acted, he could order the Army to fire on them.

Yet Hammerstein remained impotent. At various moments, Schleicher, as the minister of defense, entertained what was in effect a plan for imposing martial law with himself in charge and Hammerstein at his side. In retrospect, it was the last hope of protecting the republic from Hitler—but after President Hindenburg rejected it, not out of democratic misgivings but out of suspicion of Schleicher’s purposes, Hammerstein, an essentially tragic figure, was unable to act alone. He suffered from a malady found among decent military men suddenly thrust into positions of political power: his scruples were at odds with his habits of deference to hierarchy. Generals became generals by learning to take orders before they learned how to give them. Hammerstein hated Hitler, but he waited for someone else of impeccable authority to give a clear direction before he would act. (He went on waiting right through the war, as part of the equally impotent military nexus that wanted Hitler dead but, until it was too late, lacked the will to kill him.)

The extra-parliamentary actions that were fleetingly contemplated in the months after the election—a war in the streets, or, more likely, a civil confrontation leading to a military coup—seemed horrific. The trouble, unknowable to the people of the time, is that, since what did happen is the worst thing that has ever happened, any alternative would have been less horrific. One wants to shout to Hammerstein and his cohorts, Go ahead, take over the government! Arrest Hitler and his henchmen, rule for a few years, and then try again. It won’t be as bad as what happens next. But, of course, they cannot hear us. They couldn’t have heard us then.

Ryback’s gift for detail joins with a nice feeling for the black comedy of the period. He makes much sport of the attempts by foreign journalists resident in Germany, particularly the New York Times’ Frederick T. Birchall, to normalize the Nazi ascent—with Birchall continually assuring his readers that Hitler, an out-of-his-depth simpleton, was not the threat he seemed to be, and that the other conservatives were far more potent in their political maneuvering. When Papen made a speech denying that Hitler’s paramilitary forces represented “the German nation,” Birchall wrote that the speech “contained dynamite enough to change completely the political situation in the Reich.” On another occasion, Birchall wrote that “the Hitlerites” were deluded to think they “hold the best cards”; there was every reason to think that “the big cards, the ones that will really decide the game,” were in the hands of people such as Papen, Hindenburg, and, “above all,” Schleicher.

Ryback, focussing on the self-entrapped German conservatives, generally avoids the question that seems most obvious to a contemporary reader: Why was a coalition between the moderate-left Social Democrats and the conservative but far from Nazified Catholic Centrists never even seriously attempted? Given that Hitler had repeatedly vowed to use the democratic process in order to destroy democracy, why did the people committed to democracy let him do it?

Many historians have jousted with this question, but perhaps the most piercing account remains an early one, written less than a decade after the war by the émigré German scholar Lewis Edinger, who had known the leaders of the Social Democrats well and consulted them directly—the ones who had survived, that is—for his study. His conclusion was that they simply “trusted that constitutional processes and the return of reason and fair play would assure the survival of the Weimar Republic and its chief supporters.” The Social Democratic leadership had become a gerontocracy, out of touch with the generational changes beneath them. The top Social Democratic leaders were, on average, two decades older than their Nazi counterparts.

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Worse, the Social Democrats remained in the grip of a long struggle with Bismarckian nationalism, which, however oppressive it might have been, still operated with a broad idea of legitimacy and the rule of law. The institutional procedures of parliamentarianism had always seen the Social Democrats through—why would those procedures not continue to protect them? In a battle between demagoguery and democracy, surely democracy had the advantage. Edinger writes that Karl Kautsky, among the most eminent of the Party’s theorists, believed that after the election Hitler’s supporters would realize he was incapable of fulfilling his promises and drift away.

The Social Democrats may have been hobbled, too, by their commitment to team leadership—which meant that no single charismatic individual represented them. Proceduralists and institutionalists by temperament and training, they were, as Edinger demonstrates, unable to imagine the nature of their adversary. They acceded to Hitler’s ascent with the belief that by respecting the rules themselves they would encourage the other side to play by them as well. Even after Hitler consolidated his power, he was seen to have secured the Chancellorship by constitutional means. Edinger quotes Arnold Brecht, a fellow exiled statesman: “To rise against him on the first night would make the rebels the technical violators of the Constitution that they wanted to defend.”

Meanwhile, the centrist Catholics—whom Hitler shrewdly recognized as his most formidable potential adversaries—were handicapped in any desire to join with the Democratic Socialists by their fear of the Communists. Though the Communists had previously made various alliances of convenience with the Social Democrats, by 1932 they were tightly controlled by Stalin, who had ordered them to depict the Social Democrats as being as great a threat to the working class as Hitler.

And, when a rumor spread that Hitler had once spat out a Communion Host, it only made him more popular among Catholics, since it called attention to his Catholic upbringing. Indeed, most attempts to highlight Hitler’s personal depravities (including his possibly sexual relationship with his niece Geli, which was no secret in the press of the time; her apparent suicide, less than a year before the election, had been a tabloid scandal) made him more popular. In any case, Hitler was skilled at reassuring the Catholic center, promising to be “the strong protector of Christianity as the basis of our common moral order.”

Hitler’s hatred of parliamentary democracy, even more than his hatred of Jews, was central to his identity, Ryback emphasizes. Antisemitism was a regular feature of populist politics in the region: Hitler had learned much of it in his youth from the Vienna mayor Karl Lueger. But Lueger was a genuine populist democrat, who brought universal male suffrage to the city. Hitler’s originality lay elsewhere. “Unlike Hitler’s anti-Semitism, a toxic brew of pseudoscientific readings and malignant mentoring, Hitler’s hatred of the Weimar Republic was the result of personal observation of political processes,” Ryback writes. “He hated the haggling and compromise of coalition politics inherent in multiparty political systems.”

Second only to Schleicher in Ryback’s accounting of Hitler’s establishment enablers is the media magnate Alfred Hugenberg. The owner of the country’s leading film studio and of the national news service, which supplied some sixteen hundred newspapers, he was far from an admirer. He regarded Hitler as manic and unreliable but found him essential for the furtherance of their common program, and was in and out of political alliance with him during the crucial year.

Hugenberg had begun constructing his media empire in the late nineteen-teens, in response to what he saw as the bias against conservatives in much of the German press, and he shared Hitler’s hatred of democracy and of the Jews. But he thought of himself as a much more sophisticated player, and intended to use his control of modern media in pursuit of what he called a Katastrophenpolitik —a “catastrophe politics” of cultural warfare, in which the strategy, Ryback says, was to “flood the public space with inflammatory news stories, half-truths, rumors, and outright lies.” The aim was to polarize the public, and to crater anything like consensus. Hugenberg gave Hitler money as well as publicity, but Hugenberg had his own political ambitions (somewhat undermined by a personal aura described by his nickname, der Hamster) and his own party, and Hitler was furiously jealous of the spotlight. While giving Hitler support in his media—a support sometimes interrupted by impatience—Hugenberg urged him to act rationally and settle for Nazi positions in the cabinet if he could not have the Chancellorship.

What strengthened the Nazis throughout the conspiratorial maneuverings of the period was certainly not any great display of discipline. The Nazi movement was a chaotic mess of struggling in-groups who feared and despised one another. Hitler rightly mistrusted the loyalty even of his chief lieutenant, Gregor Strasser, who fell on the “socialist” side of the National Socialists label. The members of the S.A., the Storm Troopers, meanwhile, were loyal mainly to their own leader, Ernst Röhm, and embarrassed Hitler with their run of sexual scandals. The N.S.D.A.P. was a hive of internal antipathies that could resolve only in violence—a condition that would endure to the last weeks of the war, when, standing amid the ruins of Germany, Hitler was enraged to discover that Heinrich Himmler was trying to negotiate a separate peace with the Western Allies.

The strength of the Nazis lay, rather, in the curiously enclosed and benumbed character of their leader. Hitler was impossible to discourage, not because he ran an efficient machine but because he was immune to the normal human impediments to absolute power: shame, calculation, or even a desire to see a particular political program put in place. Hindenburg, knowing of Hitler’s genuinely courageous military service in the Great War, appealed in their meetings to his patriotism, his love of the Fatherland. But Hitler, an Austrian who did not receive German citizenship until shortly before the 1932 election, did not love the Fatherland. He ran on the hydrogen fuel of pure hatred. He did not want power in order to implement a program; he wanted power in order to realize his pain. A fascinating and once classified document, prepared for the precursor of the C.I.A. , the O.S.S., by the psychoanalyst Walter Langer, used first-person accounts to gauge the scale of Hitler’s narcissism: “It may be of interest to note at this time that of all the titles that Hitler might have chosen for himself he is content with the simple one of ‘Fuehrer.’ To him this title is the greatest of them all. He has spent his life searching for a person worthy of the role but was unable to find one until he discovered himself.” Or, as the acute Hungarian American historian John Lukacs, who spent a lifetime studying Hitler’s psychology, observed, “His hatred for his opponents was both stronger and less abstract than was his love for his people. That was (and remains) a distinguishing mark of the mind of every extreme nationalist.”

In November of 1932, one more Reichstag election was held. Once again, it was a bitter disappointment to Hitler and Goebbels—“a disaster,” as Goebbels declared on Election Night. (An earlier Presidential election had also reaffirmed Hindenburg over the Hitler movement.) The Nazi wave that everyone had expected failed to materialize. The Nazis lost seats, and, once again, they could not crack fifty per cent. The Times explained that the Hitler movement had passed its high-water mark, and that “the country is getting tired of the Nazis.” Everywhere, Ryback says, the cartoonists and editorialists delighted in Hitler’s discomfiture. One cartoonist showed him presiding over a graveyard of swastikas. In December of 1932, having lost three elections in a row, Hitler seemed to be finished.

The subsequent maneuverings are as dispiriting to read about as they are exhausting to follow. Basically, Schleicher conspired to have Papen fired as Chancellor by Hindenburg and replaced by himself. He calculated that he could cleave Gregor Strasser and the more respectable elements of the Nazis from Hitler, form a coalition with them, and leave Hitler on the outside looking in. But Papen, a small man in everything except his taste for revenge, turned on Schleicher in a rage and went directly to Hitler, proposing, despite his earlier never-Hitler views, that they form their own coalition. Schleicher’s plan to spirit Strasser away from Hitler and break the Nazi Party in two then stumbled on the reality that the real base of the Party was fanatically loyal only to its leader—and Strasser, knowing this, refused to leave the Party, even as he conspired with Schleicher to undermine it.

Then, in mid-January, a small regional election in Lipperland took place. Though the results were again disappointing for Hitler and Goebbels—the National Socialist German Workers’ Party still hadn’t surmounted the fifty-per-cent mark—they managed to sell the election as a kind of triumph. At Party meetings, Hitler denounced Strasser. The idea, much beloved by Schleicher and his allies, of breaking a Strasser wing of the Party off from Hitler became obviously impossible.

Hindenburg, in his mid-eighties and growing weak, became fed up with Schleicher’s Machiavellian stratagems and dispensed with him as Chancellor. Papen, dismissed not long before, was received by the President. He promised that he could form a working majority in the Reichstag by simple means: Hindenburg should go ahead and appoint Hitler Chancellor. Hitler, he explained, had made significant “concessions,” and could be controlled. He would want only the Chancellorship, and not more seats in the cabinet. What could go wrong? “You mean to tell me I have the unpleasant task of appointing this Hitler as the next Chancellor?” Hindenburg reportedly asked. He did. The conservative strategists celebrated their victory. “So, we box Hitler in,” Hugenberg said confidently. Papen crowed, “Within two months, we will have pressed Hitler into a corner so tight that he’ll squeak!”

“The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the tools to its own destruction,” Goebbels said as the Nazis rose to power—one of those quotes that sound apocryphal but are not. The ultimate fates of Ryback’s players are varied, and instructive. Schleicher, the conservative who saw right through Hitler’s weakness—who had found a way to entrap him, and then use him against the left—was killed by the S.A. during the Night of the Long Knives, in 1934, when Hitler consolidated his hold over his own movement by murdering his less loyal lieutenants. Strasser and Röhm were murdered then, too. Hitler and Goebbels, of course, died by their own hands in defeat, having left tens of millions of Europeans dead and their country in ruins. But Hugenberg, sidelined during the Third Reich, was exonerated by a denazification court in the years after the war. And Papen, who had ushered Hitler directly into power, was acquitted at Nuremberg ; in the nineteen-fifties, he was awarded the highest honorary order of the Catholic Church.

Does history have patterns or merely circumstances and unique contingencies? Certainly, the Germany of 1932 was a place unto itself. The truth, that some cycles may recur but inexactly, is best captured in that fine aphorism “History does not repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes.” Appropriately, no historian is exactly sure who said this: widely credited to Mark Twain , it was more likely first said long after his death.

We see through a glass darkly, as patterns of authoritarian ambition seem to flash before our eyes: the demagogue made strong not by conviction but by being numb to normal human encouragements and admonitions; the aging center left; the media lords who want something like what the demagogue wants but in the end are controlled by him; the political maneuverers who think they can outwit the demagogue; the resistance and sudden surrender. Democracy doesn’t die in darkness. It dies in bright midafternoon light, where politicians fall back on familiarities and make faint offers to authoritarians and say a firm and final no—and then wake up a few days later and say, Well, maybe this time, it might all work out, and look at the other side! Precise circumstances never repeat, yet shapes and patterns so often recur. In history, it’s true, the same thing never happens twice. But the same things do. ♦

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The Rise of Hitler to Power Essay

Introduction, the weimar republic, anti-semitism, reference list.

Adolf Hitler rose to power as the chancellor of Germany in 1933 through a legal election and formed a coalition government of the NSDAO-DNVP Party. Many issues in Hitler’s life and manipulations behind the curtains preceded this event.

Hitler and the Nazi party rose to power propelled by various factors that were in play in Germany since the end of World War I. The weak Weimar Republic and Hitler’s anti-Semitism campaigns and obsession were some of the factors that favored Hitler’s rise to power and generally the Nazi beliefs (Bloxham and Kushner 2005: 54).

Every public endorsement that Hitler received was an approval for his hidden Nazi ideals of dictatorship and Semitism regardless of whether the Germans were aware or not.

Hitler’s pathway to power was rather long and coupled with challenges but he was not ready to let go; he held on to accomplish his deeply rooted obsessions and beliefs; actually, vote for Hitler was a vote for the Holocaust.

Hitler joined the German Worker’s Party in the year 1919 as its fifth member. His oratory talent and anti-Semitism values quickly popularized him and by 1920, he was already the head of propaganda.

The party later changed its name to Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartel (NSDPA) and formed paramilitary groups in the name of security men or gymnastics and sports division.

It was this paramilitary formed by Hitler that would cause unrest later to tarnish the name of the communists leading to distrust of communism by the Germans and on the other hand rise of popularity of the Nazi (Burleigh 1997: 78).

A turning point of Hitler took place when he led the Beer Hall Putsch, in a failed coup de tat and the government later imprisoned him on accusations of treason. The resulting trial earned him a lot of publicity, he used the occasion to attack the Weimar republic, and later while in prison, he rethought his approach to get into power.

The military defeat and German revolution in November 1918 after the First World War saw the formation of Weimar republic.The military government handed over power to the civilian government and later on revolutions in form of mutinies, violent uprisings and declaration of independence occurred until early 1919.

Then there was formation of constituent assembly and promulgated of new constitution, which included the infamous article 48. None of the many political parties could gain a majority vote to form government and therefore many small parties formed a coalition government.

What followed were a short period of political stability mainly because of the coalition government in place and the later the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. Many factors caused the rise of the Nazi party to power.

The most notable factor was his ability to take advantage of Germany’s poor leadership, economical and political instability.

The Weimar’s Republic collapse under pressure due to hyperinflation and civil unrest was the result of Hitler’s ability to manipulate the German media and public while at the same time taking advantage of the country’s poor leadership (Schleunes 1990: 295).

The period between 1921 and 1922, Germany was struggling with economic instability due to high inflation and hyperinflation rates prior to the absolute collapse of the German currency. The German mark became almost useless resulting into instability-fuelled unrest in many sectors of the economy. To counter the effects, the government printed huge amounts of paper money.

Germany had to sign the unforgiving treaty of Versailles, which the Weimar Republic was responsible for and was later to become the ‘noose around Germany’s neck’, a situation that caused “feelings of distrust, fear, resentment, and insecurity towards the Weimar Republic” (Bartov 2000: 54).

Hitler built on these volatile emotions and offered the option of a secure and promising leadership of the extremist Nazi party as opposed to the weak and unstable coalition government of the Weimar republic. Dippel notes, “Hitler’s ability to build upon people’s disappointed view of the hatred of the treaty of Versailles was one of the major reason for the Nazi party’s and Hitler’s rise to power” (1996: 220).

The Treaty of Versailles introduced the German population to a period of economic insatiability and caused an escalation of hard economic standards. The opportunistic appearance of an extremist group that promised better options than the prevailing situation presented a temptation to the vulnerable Germans to accept it (Dippel 1996: 219).

During the period of hyperinflation, unemployment rose sharply and children were largely malnourished. The value of people’s savings spiraled downwards leading to low living standards and reduction in people buying power.

People became desperate and started a frantic search for a better alternative to the Weimar Government. Germany in a state of disillusionment became a prey to the convincing promises of Hitler. Hitler promised full employment and security in form of a strong central government.

The Weimar republic also faced political challenges from both left-wingers and right-wingers. The communists wanted radical changes like those one implemented in Russia while the conservatives thought that the Weimar government was too weak and liberal.

The Germans longed for a leader with the leadership qualities of Bismark especially with the disillusionment of the Weimar republic. They blamed the government for the hated Versailles treaty and they all came out to look for a scapegoat to their overwhelming challenges (Thalmann and Feinermann 1990: 133).

In their bid to look for scapegoats, many Germans led by Hitler and Nazi party blamed the German Jews for their economic and political problems.

Hitler made a failed attempt to seize power through a coup de tat that led to his arrest and imprisonment. In prison, he wrote a book that was later to become the guide to Nazism known as Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

The book reflected Hitler’s obsessions to nationalism, racism, and anti-Semitism and he insisted that Germans belonged to a superior race of Aryans meaning light-skinned Europeans. According to Hitler, the greatest enemies of the Aryans were the Jews and therefore the Germans should eliminate them at all costs since they were the genesis of all their misfortunes.

These views on Semitism could trace its genesis in history from which it Historians suspect that Hitler’s ideas were rooted. In this view, Christians persecuted Jews mainly because of their difference in beliefs.

Nationalism in the 19 th century caused the society to view Jews as ethnic outsiders while Hitler viewed Jews not as members of a religion but as a unique race (Longerich 2006: 105). Consequently, he blamed the German’s defeat on a conspiracy of Marxists, Jews, corruption of politicians and businesspersons.

Hitler urged the Germans on the need to unite into a great nation so that the slaves and other inferior races could bow to their needs (Bergen 2003: 30). He further advocated for removal and elimination of the Jews from the face of the earth to create enough space for ‘great nation’.

He spread propaganda that for Germany to unite into one great nation it required a strong leader one he believed to be destined to become.

These Semitism views contributed to the sudden change of fortunes for the Nazi party and Hitler because the conditions were appropriate. The Germans were desperate for some hope in the midst of frustrating times due to the failure of the Weimar republic and rising communism (Stone 2004: 17).

They involuntarily yielded to the more appealing Nazism values especially with the promises of destroying communism and improved living standards.

However, in accepting the Nazi party and Hitler, the Germans were giving in to Semitism, which was deeply rooted in the core values of Nazism, and Hitler had clearly outlined them in the Mein Kampf, which laid out his ideas and future policies.

Hitler’s well timed and precise way of “introducing the secure option of Nazism at an appropriate time and taking advantage of a disjointed Weimar republic that faced unprecedented challenges” (Cohn-Sherbok 1999: 12) was one of the many reasons that underscored Hitler’s fame.

He promised a strong and united German nation very timely when the German nation had suffered a dent to their pride and union due to the defeat in the First World War. Hitler’s promise of a strong and powerful nation began to look very appealing causing a large proportion of Germans, who were in disillusionment, to divert their support the Nazi Party (Gordon 1987: 67).

Hitler’s opportunistic approach and perfectly timed cunning speeches as well as his manipulation of certain circumstance were significant reasons for the rise of Nazism and Hitler in Germany.

During the Great depression and release from prison, Hitler introduced large-scale propaganda and at the same time manipulated the media with his ideas. This led to the Nazi supporter’s increase of detests against their opposition and many Germans believed in the cunning lies of Hitler (Kaplan 1999: 45).

He managed to spread lies against the communist society and a case in point is when a communist supporter set the Reichstag building ablaze in one of the civil unrests in Germany, supposedly.

This event caused the communism society to loose popularity and allowed Hitler to activate the enabling act when he came to power. The act marked a turning point in the success of Hitler’s dictatorship and Historians accredit it as the foundation of the Nazi rule.

The communists later realized that the Nazis were responsible for the act at Reichstag building and the act meant to provoke hatred between the communists and Nazi supporters.

Hitler had a very charming personality that made him very easy to get along with people. His likable character and oratory skills enabled him to put forward the strong sense of authority that the Weimar Republic lacked.

This, in combination with other factors, made him very appealing to the desperate Germans, making them believe in the Nazi ideals like Semitism and supporting the Nazi party while concurrently fueling hatred of the ruling Weimar Republic.

Hitler’s ability to manipulate circumstances and situation in the favor of himself and his Nazi Party was reason for their success to rise to power. Hitler waited patiently to take hold of the realms of power before unleashing his full force of dictatorship and hatred for the Jews, which led to the holocaust. It is therefore just to state that every Hitler’s vote was a vote for the holocaust.

Bartov, O., ed., The Holocaust: origins, implementation, aftermath , Routledge, London/New York, 2000.

Bergen, D. L., War & Genocide: a concise history of the Holocaust , 2 nd ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.

Bloxham, D. & T. Kushner, The Holocaust. Critical historical approaches , Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2005.

Burleigh, M., Ethics and Extermination. Reflections on Nazi Genocide, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997.

Cohn-Sherbok, D., Understanding the Holocaust , Cassell. London/New York, 1999.

Dippel, J. H., Bound upon a Wheel of Fire. Why so many German Jews made the tragic decision to remain in Nazi Germany , Basic Books, New York, 1996.

Gordon, A. S., Hitler, Germans and the ‘Jewish Question’ , Blackwell, Oxford, 1987.

Kaplan, M., Between dignity and despair: Jewish life in Nazi Germany , New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Longerich, P., The Unwritten Order. Hitler’s Role in the Final Solution, Tempus, The Mill, GLS, 2006.

Schleunes, K. A., The Twisted Road to Auschwitz. Nazi Policy towards German Jews, 1933-9, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1990.

Stone, D., Histories of the Holocaust , Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2004.

Thalmann, R. & E. Feinermann, Crystal night, 9-10 November 1938 , Thames and Hudson, London, 1990.

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Adolf Hitler's Ascent to Power: a Historical Analysis

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Hitler’s Final Reflections on Race and International Relations (1945)

• Nazi Germany (1933-1945)
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During the final months of the Second World War and in the last weeks before he committed suicide, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), with the help of his private secretary, Martin Bormann (1900-1945), prepared his final written thoughts and testaments. These excerpts from those final writings reveal Hitler’s reflections on race and international relations at a time when it was clear Germany could not win the war it started six years earlier. After the war, the Swiss banker and right-wing extremist François Genoud came into possession of the Bormann documents in an unexplained manner and published them initially in English and French. The German text was published in 1981 with an essay by British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper and an afterword by former French High Commissioner for Germany André François-Poncet. Some historians question the authenticity of these documents.

In the first excerpt, Hitler takes stock of Europe’s imperial projects over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He argues that Britain and France should have focused on their own states, rather than have embarked on financially burdensome projects of colonial expansion. Hitler had always looked beyond Germany to study examples of “race.” He declares in the second excerpt that Germany’s failures are easy to identify: the German people lacked commitment to maintaining a “pure race”; and, they had failed to eliminate the so-called Jewish problem, which meant the problems of antisemitism would persist. The third excerpt reveals Hitler’s final frustration: his fascist ally and partner, Mussolini and Italy. The failures of the Italians during the war were Hitler’s greatest nuisance. Without the Italians, Hitler argues, the National Socialists could have incited revolutions across Africa and the Mediterranean. These excerpts point to an important and understudied factor that informed Hitler’s and the Nazis’ worldview: Hitler frequently looked beyond Europe to inform his racial thinking, to understand the place of Germany in a longer history of the world, and to conceive of Germany’s future as a global power.

A glance at history, both ancient and modern, will show that overseas enterprises have always in the long run impoverished those who undertook them. They have all, in the end, been exhausted by their efforts; and, in the inevitable nature of things, they have all succumbed to forces to which either they have themselves given birth or which they have themselves re-awakened. What better example of this than the Greeks?

What was true for the ancient Greeks remains equally true for all Europeans in modern times. To prosper, a people must concentrate its efforts on its own country. A scrutiny of any reasonably long period of history will reveal facts which confirm the truth of this contention.

Spain, France and Britain have all enfeebled, devitalized and drained themselves in these vain colonial enterprises. The continents to which Spain and Britain gave birth, which they created piece by piece, have today acquired a completely independent way of life and a completely egoistical outlook. Even so, they are but artificial worlds, with neither a soul, a culture nor a civilization of their own; and, judged from that point of view, they are nothing more than excrescences.

It is, of course, possible to make out a case for the success achieved in peopling continents which before had been empty. The United States and Australia afford good examples. Success, certainly – but only on the material side. They are artificial edifices, bodies without age, of which it is impossible to say whether they are still in a state of infancy or whether they have already been touched by senility. In those continents which were inhabited, failure has been even more marked. In them, the white races have imposed their will by force, and the influence they have had on the native inhabitants has been negligible; the Hindus have remained Hindus, the Chinese have remained Chinese, and the Moslems are still Moslems. There have been no profound transformations, and such changes as have occurred are less marked in the religious field, notwithstanding the tremendous efforts of the Christian missionaries, than in any other. There have been a few odd conversions the sincerity of which are open to considerable doubt – except, perhaps, in the case of a few simpletons and mentally deficients. The white races did, of course, give some things to the natives, and they were the worst gifts that they could possibly have made, those plagues of our own modern world – materialism, fanaticism, alcoholism and syphilis.

There is, then, no danger in the circumstances that anti-semitism will disappear, for it is the Jews themselves who add fuel to its flames and see that it is kept well stoked. Before the opposition to it can disappear, the malady itself must disappear. And from that point of view, you can rely on the Jews: as long as they survive, anti-semitism will never fade.

In saying this, I promise you I am quite free of all racial hatred. It is, in any case, undesirable that one race should mix with other races. Except for a few gratuitous successes, which I am prepared to admit, systematic cross-breeding has never produced good results. Its desire to remain racially pure is a proof of the vitality and good health of a race. Pride in one’s own race – and that does not imply contempt for other races – is also a normal and healthy sentiment. I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves. They belong to ancient civilizations, and I admit freely that their past history is superior to our own. They have the right to be proud of their past, just as we have the right to be proud of the civilization to which we belong. Indeed, I believe the more steadfast the Chinese and Japanese remain in their pride of race, the easier I shall find it to get on with them.

This pride of race is a quality which the German, fundamentally, does not possess.

Our Italian ally has been a source of embarrassment to us everywhere. It was this alliance, for instance, which prevented us from pursuing a revolutionary policy in North Africa. In the nature of things, this territory was becoming an Italian preserve and it was as such that the Duce laid claim to it. Has we been on our own, we could have emancipated the Moslem countries dominated by France; and that would have had enormous repercussions in the Near East, dominated by Britain, and in Egypt. But with our fortunes linked with those of the Italians, the pursuit of such a policy was not possible. All Islam vibrated at the news of our victories. The Egyptians, the Irakis and the whole of the Near East were all ready to rise in revolt. Just think what we could have done to help them, even to incite them as would have been both our duty and in our own interest! But the presence of the Italians at our side paralysed us; it created a feeling of malaise among our Islamic friends, who inevitably saw in us accomplices, willing or unwilling, of their oppressors. For the Italians in these parts of the world are more bitterly hated, of course, than either the British or the French. The memories of the barbarous reprisals taken against the Senussi are still vivid. Then again the ridiculous pretensions of the Duce to be regarded as The Sword of Islam evokes the same sneering chuckle now as it did before the war. This title, which is fitting for Mahomed and a great conqueror like Omar, Mussolini caused to be conferred on himself by a few wretched brutes whom he had either bribed or terrorized into doing so. We had a great chance of pursuing a splendid policy with regard to Islam. But we missed the bus, as we missed it on several other occasions, thanks to our loyalty to the Italian alliance!

Source: The Testament of Adolf Hitler: The Hitler-Bormann Documents February-April 1945 , ed. Francois Genoud. London: Icon Books, 1962 pp. 43-44, 52-53, and 70-71.

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Essay: Adolf Hitler

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Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria. His parents were Alois Hitler and Klara Polzl. Adolf was the fourth child out of six. Three years after he was born, the family relocated from Austria to Germany. Typically, Adolf Hitler and his father did not agree; the fine arts fascinated Adolf, but his father disapproved of it. Adolf Hitler was profoundly affected by the death of his younger brother, Edmund. Adolf Hitler also displayed a curiosity in German nationalism at a young age. His mother permitted him to quit school two years following his father’s death in 1903. After he abandoned school, he moved to Vienna. Adolf was an aspiring watercolor painter in Vienna. He applied two times to the Academy of Fine Arts and was rejected both times. Hitler served in the German military during World War I. Although Adolf was an Austrian citizen, he was still authorized to serve in the German army. He received the Iron Cross First Class and the Black Wound Badge after World War I. Adolf Hitler did not take likeness to the fact that the Germans had capitulated in 1918 during the First World War. Adolf Hitler began to adopt various anti-Semitic, nationalist, and anti-Marxist ideas whilst being an associate of the German Worker’s Party. While being involved with the German Worker’s Party, Adolf Hitler created the notorious swastika. Adolf Hitler started to compose speeches opposed to the Treaty of Versailles, Jews, and additional groups. An abundant amount of the history of Germany is revolved around Hitler and the Nazi Party, but it is not the respectable kind of history. The Nazi Party was primarily designated as the “German Workers’ Party” which was established via Anton Drexter and Karl Harrer. The party was to support nationalism in Germany; they additionally believed the Treaty of Versailles was a liability to Germany. The war could have been resolved without the treaty, but the party was not on the radar of anyone until Hitler joined it. He was an extremely charismatic man, and he brought numerous new members in with his speeches. The Jews were the reason the war was lost, or at least this is what Hitler said. Since the Jews were only an insignificant part of the population, this gained him several supporters. Quickly the party was renamed the “Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Party”. This name is frequently abbreviated to the Nazi Party. As time went by, Hitler got more admired and more popular, and as he got recognized, so did the Nazi Party. The country was in a fragile state and needed a dependable leader like they assumed Hitler was, and he acquired leadership of the Nazi party in July of 1921. This party was everything Hitler needed to grab the publics’ attention, and he began ascending the political ladder very quickly. The Nazi Party tried to achieve power of Germany resulting in Hitler getting five years in prison; this is where he composed his autobiography. In elections for leadership over Germany, the Nazi Party didn’t do extremely well, and their greatest percent of the ballots was 37.3%. The reason that the Nazis had considerably supplementary dominance was because of their muscle power, but they didn’t have as many supporters as certain other parties might have had. Instead of coming to power by the right technique, they forced their way to the top. Hitler had constantly been a little different, but nobody would have ever supposed it would lead to what transpires in the conclusion. When Hitler and the Nazi party gained power over Germany on January 30th, 1933, they didn’t have complete control, but he would obtain it by March. The speed at which he gained control over the entire country was impractical. Hitler’s military training assisted him a lot in the campaigning process, and his communication with the public won over much of the population. His conventions for his campaign were more like military processions than anything else because they were prearranged, coordinated, and proficient. When he communicated to the citizens, he spoke with passion and authority in every sentence. One of the main significant part of his party was the SA; also identified as the Stormtroopers. They were an assembly of men, usually discharged from the military, that functioned to protect Hitler. Instead of doing just this, they seemed to disrupt many of the other parties’ gatherings, but there was nothing the other parties could do about it. They were being attacked by Hitler and the Stormtroopers, but they were far stronger than additional parties. For instance, Hitler was sent to prison for his part in a mob occurrence on additional political subject in September of 1921. Germany, being in such a weak state, needed a strong, dependable leader, and they understood was Hitler. The Stormtroopers were just a single fragment of Hitler’s party that disrupted the harmony, but it was probably the ultimate one. The SA were comparable to a gang of individuals that terrorized additional political parties and inhabitants. They started out as predominantly veterans, but quickly there were more and more ferocious thugs in the assortment with them. Hitler was trying to accomplish being chancellor by intimidating several of the other parties, and I suppose it operated somewhat. The single reason Hitler gained control over the country was because of the Jews, and without them, he would have never been chancellor. After the war, the people of Germany desired somebody to blame for the devastation of their country. Instead of accusing themselves, they listened to Hitler and blamed the Jews, but in honesty, the Jews had nothing to do with it. They were the minority of the population, and they received the blame. When the Nazis came to power, the Holocaust started along with the downfall and the introduction to the most fatal battle in human history. The word Holocaust originally meant sacrificial offers burned on an altar, but since 1945, the term has taken on a horrific new meaning. The Holocaust entailed the genocide of 6 million Jews and other minority groups by the German Nazis throughout the Second World War. The Nazi ruler Adolf Hitler saw Jews as racially inferior and a threat to the German purity, although his reasoning and roots of his ideas are unclear. One of the leading causes of World War II is the Holocaust. After centuries of anti-Judaism which led to anti-Semitism, the Holocaust officially started when Adolf Hitler came to power as chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. The first of the concentration camps opened in Dachau in March 1933. Within four months, an estimated 27,000 people were held in custody in the camps. Many concentrations camps were built and followed therefore after, with a total of 20,000 German camps established. By this time, Jews comprised one percent of the overall German population. Throughout the following six years, the Nazis began controlling and rejecting non-Aryans from civil service, disbanding Jewish owned businesses and organizations. A set of rules called the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, established Jews and German blood and forbade marriage between the two. The Jews then became targets and objectives for persecution. This climaxed in Kristallnacht in November 1938, where Jewish buildings were ransacked and demolished. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, ghettos were established in numerous Polish cities. The ghettos integrated the Jews and effectively imprisoned them. The living circumstances in the restricted ghettos were atrocious, and illness, hunger and congestion killed the majority. The Germans expelled Jews from all over Europe to these ghettos. Meanwhile, opening in the autumn of 1939, Nazi officials chose approximately 70,000 Germans institutionalized with mental illness or debilities to be gassed to death in the Euthanasia Program. After important German spiritual leaders protested, Hitler ended the program in August 1941. Killings of the disabled persisted in secrecy, and by only four years around 275,000 people deemed handicapped had been exterminated. In retrospection, the Euthanasia Program operated as a pilot for the Holocaust. Beginning in 1941, all Jews in German territory were distinguished with a yellow star badge. As more Jews were deported to camps, experimentations with mass destruction had been continuing at the concentration camp of Auschwitz, near Krakow. The first of the mass gassings began near Lublin at the camp of Belzec. Gassing processes by vans and chambers became popular after the Einsatzgruppe members made complaints of agony after shooting large numbers of women and children, plus it was cheaper. These mobile killings entities, Einsatzgruppen, gassed mostly Jews, Roma, and the mentally ill. Zyklon B is infamous for its use in the gas chambers at Auschwitz and other camps. At Auschwitz only, more than 2 million people were slaughtered, and as many as 12,000 Jews were killed daily. The majority of the world was affected by World War II, especially the West. The war began September 1, 1939, and the concluding date from World War II was September 2, 1945. During these years an overwhelming multitude of actions happened in the West. Throughout the duration of the war, the world was divided between the axis powers, which were Germany, Italy, and Japan. Many nations fought against the axis power such as, Lebanon, San Marino, Belgium, Egypt, Liberia, Saudi Arabia, Bolivia, El Salvador, Luxembourg, South Africa, Brazil, Ethiopia, Mexico, Soviet Union, Canada, France, Mongolian People\’s Republic, Syria, Chile, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. Whilst these nations fought against the axis powers a plethora of events were occurring in the Middle East during World War II. Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine all had a role during this duration of time and were all affected by the events that the war brought about. Although there was much fighting in other parts of the world, the Middle East countries during World War II were busy being pro axis or neutral. This meant that the countries were either coinciding with the axis powers or they had been taken over by a higher power. For example, Egypt was pro axis before the war, but became neutral due to King Farouk conceding to British command over Egypt’s government. Like Egypt, Iraq was pro axis, and their pro axis sentiment was tied to anti-British. This did not sit well with the British and they invaded Iraq and occupied it until 1947. Since the British were occupying Iraq, their army could station and transit troops through Iraq, which was an exceptionally, outstanding advantage to have during the war. Syria, on the other hand, was governed by the Vichy forces after the fall of France. Once France became free, Syria and Lebanon were supposed to be free too, due to an arrangement that had been made. It was hard to accomplish freeing Syria and Lebanon. The power to carry off such a reoccupation was difficult for France, so the independence of Syria and Lebanon was not recognized till the end of the war. Meanwhile in Palestine, Jews were arriving in waves in the hope of fleeing the Nazis. Military organizations such as Haganah, IZL, and Stern Gang were very active in the region. Illegal immigrations of Jews into Palestine were often carried out with these military organizations’ assistance. Immigration restrictions on the White Paper of 1939 were violated due to the wave of Jews arriving illegally in Palestine. The move of the Jews paved the way for the creation of Israel. Palestine was then set up to become a battlefield due to the immigration of the Jews. Not only were places in the Middle East being occupied, but locations around the region of the West began to be occupied by Germans. Austria, Poland, France, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Luxembourg, Belgium, and parts of the Soviet Union were only a few of the places in the West occupied by the Germans during World War II. The occupation of these countries was a horrid time, but the liberation and end of these occupations was an occasion that would be forever remembered in history to come. On March 12, 1938, Austria became the first nation that was annexed by Nazi Germany. Austrian Nazis conspired several times to capture the Austrian government and connect with Nazi Germany. Austria’s Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg met with Adolf Hitler with hopes of confirming Austria’s independence, but returned with Austrian Nazis added to his cabinet. Schuschnigg called for a vote on annexation, but before anything could take place, Schuschnigg gave in to the pressure and resigned shortly after. He pleaded for his country not to resist any German advances into the country. The following day, German troops accompanied by Hitler entered Austria. Hitler allotted a Nazi government to rule and the annexation was proclaimed. Austria continued as a federal state of Germany until the conclusion of the War; the Allies declared the Anschluss void and reinstated Austria. By the summer of the same year of annexation, the Mauthausen camp was established, it was the main Nazi camp in the country. The Germans entitled the camp a category III camp, representing the harsh regimen and punishment. Thousands of prisoners were worked to death because of the harsh punishments including forced labor work like carrying heavy solid stone slabs up 186 steps near the camp. On November 1938, Kristallnacht or Night of Broken Glass, began when synagogues in the capital were destroyed and burned. Jewish buildings and businesses were ravaged and vandalized, and then the Jews were taken to the Dachau or Buchenwald camps. The reaction external to Germany on Kristallnacht was astonishment and outrage, making a storm of negative publicity in tabloids and among radio reporters that attended to isolate Hitler\’s Germany from the civilized nations and deteriorate any pro-Nazi attitudes in those countries. Following Kristallnacht, the United States withdrew its ambassador permanently. Another of the countries mentioned that was occupied by Germany was Poland. Poland had many difficulties withstanding their country because so many of their neighboring countries had succumbed to war. With their weak economy, Poland was unable to protect their country from invaders. Germany and the Soviet Union had a non-aggression treaty towards each other, but the countries became divided in 1939. After this happened, Germany attacked the Soviet Union during the summer of 1941 in order to become the sole occupier of Poland. Many people want to blame Germany for their cruelty towards the Polish Jews and other citizens, but the Soviet Union also was involved in abusing the citizens of Poland, who they were occupying over at this time. Although many Jews were killed in concentration camps, there were also many casualties that resulted from the horrible mentality of the Germans and Soviets. About 5.7 million Polish citizens were killed by the German occupiers, and only one hundred and fifty thousand Polish were murdered by the Soviet Union during their few years as occupiers. Clearly, the Germans were extremely more abusive than the Soviets, but any death is worthy of punishment. The Polish showed their resistance by organizing uprisings and riots to show their imprisoners that they were tired of being abused emotionally and physically. These uprisings include the ones in Warsaw where both the Ghetto citizens and the non-Jewish people rose up against their oppressors. The uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto began on April 19, 1943 when the inhabitants refused to obey their orders, and in retaliation, police commander SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop ordered the burning of the entire Ghetto. The last German troops were expelled from Poland thanks to the Red Army in March 1945, weeks before the final allied victory over Europe. France was another area occupied by Nazi Germany. The end of their occupation would not come until the summer of 1944. France was liberated by the successful allied operations called Overlord and Dragoon. Czechoslovakia was another country that became occupied by Germany in World War II, but the country was actually handed over to Germany peacefully. The Munich Pact was signed by, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. The Munich Pact was an agreement that handed over a portion of Czechoslovakia that contained voluminous amounts of German speakers, and this section of Czechoslovakia is what the German military began occupying in 1938. In March of 1938, the complete and total conquest of Czechoslovakia became Hitler’s next ambition. During late March, Czechoslovakia succumbed to German occupation because they were weak after the annexation of the German part of the country called the Sudetenland. The Germans rule would come to an end following the March 1945 Rhine Rivers crossing that precipitated the U.S. Army’s involvement with Czechoslovakia. Finally, the Czechoslovakians were freed after six long years of occupation in April of 1945. In 1938, France joined Great Britain in an attempt to appease Nazi aggression. France signed the Munich Pact and helped give Germany “permission” to invade the Sudeten territories of Czechoslovakia. It was soon clear that this attempt at appeasement failed. After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, France declared war. France\’s war against Germany did not last long. On June 22, 1940, France surrendered to Germany. France was occupied by the Germans until 1944. June 6 of that year was D-day. A massive Allied force invaded the beaches of Normandy. D-Day, also referred to as “The Invasion of Normandy”, is considered by some to be the turning point of the twentieth century. D-Day occurred on June 6, 1944 when troops of mostly American, British, and Canadian origin landed on the beaches of Normandy, France. Originally, D-Day was set for June 5, but had to be postponed because of inclement weather. In the military, the phrase “D-Day” simply represents a day of which an operation or combat attack is intended to transpire; however, the most acclaimed D-Day would be the Invasion of Normandy. The Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy with the intent of liberating France and the rest of northwest Europe from German occupation. There were 156,000 soldiers who landed on the coastline, but by the end of the invasion ten thousand soldiers were either killed, wounded, or declared missing. D-Day was and continues to be the largest amphibious assault in all of history-virtually flooding the coast of Normandy with ships. An amphibious assault is an offensive military operation using naval ships to deliver the troops to the hostile shore or landing beach. The codename for this invasion of France was “Operation Overlord”. The overall commander for this operation was American General Dwight Eisenhower. Fifty miles of coastline in Normandy, France were used for this assault with the coastline on which the soldiers landed divided into five sections. The code names for these sectors of coastline were: Omaha Beach, Utah Beach, Sword Beach, Juno Beach, and Gold Beach. Many lives were lost on these beaches, over three thousand fatalities at Omaha beach alone. Operation Overlord ended on August 19, 1944 when the Allies crossed the River Seine. In total, 425,000 troops, Allied and German were either killed, wounded, or missing by the end of D-day invasion. Another country that became occupied by Germans was Denmark. Denmark was conquered by Germany on April 9, 1940, although Hitler was not interested in the country itself but more so for control and its air bases for future attacks on Norway. Also, Denmark was to be together with Germany to prevent an Allied invasion. Denmark was relatively easy to take over and was not a challenge, considering the soldiers’ defense lasting only a few hours and then quickly surrendered. Denmark’s government negotiated with the German invasion forces on easy terms. Because the Danish were easy to cooperate with and Germany\’s absence of interest in Denmark, the occupation went quite serenely at first. The administration stayed in office and government remained mainly in Danish hands, although the police were obliged to accommodate with the Germans. Although Denmark’s population was obviously against the occupation, there was a need to handle the condition in a pragmatic manner. This era, branded the “politics of cooperation”, continued until 1943. One of the great successes out of the peaceful collaboration was that the Danish Jews were not mistreated or wronged throughout this time. By 1943, Denmark had become dissatisfied with the Germans and turned to strikes. The Germans in response tried to impose the death penalty but failed when the Danish government refused. On August 28, the cooperation between the two countries ended, and by October all the Jews were to be deported. This was ultimately prevented when the Jewish populations were transported to Sweden, where they were safe. When the statement of freedom was broadcasted on the radio on May 4, 1945, people everywhere assembled into the streets waving their countries’ flags. Denmark was liberated by the British forces by the following day, but shortly after, the island of Bornholm was occupied by the Russian Army and not liberated until 1946. Austria was occupied by Soviet and American forces during April and May 1945. The Holocaust lasted until 1945, where liberations of the camps slowly removed Hitler from authority. By the culmination of the War, there were an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 survivors who lived in occupied Europe. Since many survivors saw it impossible to return home, the Allies powers created what is present day Israel as a permanent homeland for Jewish survivors in 1948. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, or U.S.S.R. for short, became involved in World War II when it was invaded by Nazi Germany on June 22,1941. Ironically, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had signed a peace agreement in 1939 promising to avoid conflict. In this pact, called the German-Soviet Nonagression Pact, they agreed to not attack each other when World War II began and for the next ten years. Articles have stated that the reason Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signed the Nonagression Pact was to keep his nation on peaceful terms with Germany, and in addition, give his country time to make its military larger and more powerful. Adolf Hitler signed this pact for the Germans because he wanted to assure that the Germans could invade Poland unopposed. The pact was broken in June of 1941 when Nazi forces invaded the Soviet Union. This secret military offensive, known by the codename Operation Barbarossa, covered a distance of two thousand miles. The Germans had a strong, reliable, and vast army for this invasion and they were extremely confident they could defeat the Soviets with ease. However, they were proven wrong. The inability of the Germans to defeat the Soviet Union in this invasion marked a critical juncture in World War II, as the Soviet triumph weakened the German military effort and rallied the Allies. In July of 1942, the Soviet Union was yet again invaded by Nazi Germany in the Battle of Stalingrad. The Russians were determined to defend the city of Stalingrad because it served as a vital industrial and transportation center. This battle stopped the German advancement into the Soviet Union, and was a catalyst that turned the tide of the war in favor of the Allied forces. This battle was one of the bloodiest in Russian history, and is regarded as one of that country’s greatest military victories. Belgium was also an additional country that became occupied by Nazi Germany. With all the suffering that transpired in World War I, King Leopold III and the citizens of Belgium desired to be left out of World War II. Belgium was unbiased until the Germans captured their country. On May 10, 1940, Belgium was imprisoned by the Nazis. The citizens of Belgium resisted confinement; they were inexorably defeated. The Jews began to be persecuted in Belgium due to the invasion of Germans. Belgium was captured to be a location for the Germans to operate. Since Belgium borders France, Germany assumed that being situated in Belgium would provide an improved opportunity to invade. Saboteurs destroyed major railways that led from Germany to France. Belgium had a colony in the Congo of Africa where it had access to masses of uranium. Belgium gave a quantity of this uranium to the United States for the manufacturing of an atomic bomb. In 1944, Belgium was liberated from the Germans. The imprisonment by the Germans traumatized Belgium as a country along with the residents. Germany halted exports of coke to the Luxembourg steel industry which made Luxembourg slightly hostile. Although Luxembourg was impartial, the country was captured by the Nazis on May 10, 1940. Germany captured Luxembourg to have an additional base to maneuver off of; this would enable a better opportunity to attack France. The royal family and the government evacuated to Canada, so Gustav Simon took control over the government in Luxembourg. He ridded the Luxembourg citizens of anything that was French. Citizens were informed to not use French greetings any longer. People were not permitted to wear French berets. Several Jews were extradited to Spain and France, but those countries rejected them too. Other Jews were relocated to concentration camps. The Germans cleared all Jews out of Luxembourg. The additional non-Jewish citizens went about their daily existence. They sustained their routines and anticipated every day to be liberated. Luxembourg was liberated on September 10, 1944. The citizens and the country were overwhelmed by the Germans capture and interrogation. Switzerland was a neutral nation for both World War I and World War II. This allowed them to concern themselves with protecting their own country and inhabitants, while also serving as a neutral territory. Several historians claim that Switzerland remains prodigious because they allowed their country to be a safe haven for refugees, but in truth, the Swiss government laid out many restrictions towards the refugees and a countless amount were turned away. A person could not find refuge in Switzerland unless they were under personal threat because of their political activities; refugees could not enter Switzerland if they were escaping discrimination over their race, religion, or ethnicity, but eventually, Switzerland gave 300,000 refugees access to their designated refugee areas. They accepted about 27,000 Jews, and this act saved numerous lives. It seems much happened in the West during World War II. The Middle East had a wide assortment of conflicts and the end of many occupations in the West took place. In Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, many exploits occurred. The end of occupations in countries inhabiting the West had a lot of fighting, killing, and freedoms. Without everything that occurred in the West, history today would be forever changed. Hitler became chairman of the German Worker’s Party in 1921. Adolf Hitler and a Nazi paramilitary organization stormed a communal conference in a beer hall announcing that a novel government was emergent. In conclusion of his actions, Hitler was apprehended afterwards and placed in a penitentiary for a year where he composed the earliest volume of his book, Mein Kampf. This book illustrates Hitler’s strategies to convert Germany into a one race nation. In 1932, Hitler competed for presidency two times. He lost both times to Paul von Hindenburg. After coming in second place, Hitler was designated chancellor. By the uprisings, Hitler and his organization had performed, the other parties were completely intimidated, and on July 14, 1933, Hitler’s Nazi Party was the only officially permitted political party in Germany. An original decree was established stating that the presidential powers were now coalesced with the chancellor powers, so when Hindenburg died, Hitler obtained unmitigated power. The Night of the Long Knives occurred on June 30, 1934 which was the assassination of people that Hitler considered would be a threat in the future. Adolf Hitler endorsed anti-smoking campaigns. He believed in eating healthy; people’s bodies should remain unpolluted. He did not imbibe alcohol or consume meat. Adolf commenced segregating people by constructing innovative regulations where Jews could not marry non-Jews. Persecutions and exterminations transpired throughout the Holocaust if an individual happened to be Jewish, Polish, a communist, a homosexual, a Jehovah’s Witness, or a trade unionist. There are rumors about Hitler’s religion. Some people state he had Jewish or African background. One of the stories was that his father was the illegitimate child of a woman that was a maid for a wealthy Jewish man. In 1939, Germans attempted the blitzkrieg against Poland first. They corroborated it would succeed; then it was executed on Belgium, the Netherlands, and France in 1940. The residents in Germany during World War II had grocery allowances. With the provisions being rationed, various people had more victuals during rationing than they had previously. There was a scarcity of petroleum in Germany. People were permitted to utilize warm water twice a week to manage the quantity of fuel depleted. Soap was an additional article that was limited; furthermore, there was no toilet paper. The black market thrived during World War II, since denizens were exchanging regulated merchandise. In September 1940, children were advised to evacuate Berlin, but the majority did not vacate. Germans wanted women to have more children, so the population could proliferate. Additionally, Germans exhorted women to labor more, but the Germans were ineffective. After World War II, the nation and the populace of Germany were devastated. It took an extensive period for Germany to recuperate from the downfall of the nation. Hitler did not only ensue devastation upon the regions that were occupied by German forces. He has done many horrifying things to countries that were never taken over by his army. One of the wickedest things Hitler accomplished was the bombing of London, but there are many other things as well. Not only did he plunge a bomb down on London, he dropped thousands of them, and the first penetration was on September 7, 1940 when about 350 German bombers appeared above London being accompanied by 650 fighters. This bombing alone devastated London, but there was far worse to come in the future. In the first attack alone, over 450 inhabitants were slaughtered and 1,300 were sincerely injured, and while London was still picking up the pieces from the night before, Hitler and his men struck again. They did the same precise thing every single night for two whole months, and the people of London assumed it would never end. On December 29, nineteen churches were demolished; furthermore, this was a Sunday. Overall, around 30,000 bombs were dropped on London, and the first thirty days 6,000 people were killed. This overwhelmed London for a long time, but the occurrences ultimately ceased in May of 1941. Now London had to pick up what was left of their population or attempt to, but it would prove to take an extremely extensive period to get to where they were. Hitler supposed that defeating London from the air would devastate them, but they awaited patiently for it to stop and took it as it. Hitler did some horrifying things to many countries and their inhabitants, and some people blame it on his childhood. Evil was inside of him the day he was born, and the day he killed himself. The North African Campaign began in June of 1940, the campaign lasted for three years, ending during May of 1943. When the North African Campaign commenced, The Axis and Allied powers were fighting nonstop, back and forth in northern Africa. The region that is considered to be North Africa included Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Morocco, and parts of the Sahara Desert. The North African Campaign was comprised of three phases, the Western Desert Campaign, Operation Torch, and the Tunisia Campaign. The Western Desert Campaign was the opening conflict. The Axis and Allied powers fought during this campaign in the countries of Libya and Egypt. This battle was launched when Italian General Rodolfo Graziani invaded Egypt. The Western Campaign was consisted of constant battling between the Axis powers and the Allied powers. The next phase following the Western Campaign was Operation Torch. Operation Torch involved the British and United States military forces launching an amphibious maneuver in French North Africa. The French retained control over two territories, Algeria and Morocco. These territories were the location for the landing of this operation. This battle had the code name “Torch”, this name was the result of many long arguments between the American and British strategists. These planners struggled to make a decision about the future course of action for the Allies. These arguments were ultimately settled by President Franklin Roosevelt with the decision to invade North Africa. President Roosevelt worked together with British Prime Minister Winston Church Hill during this operation. Torch’s impact was important to the outcome of the war and was later recognized as one of the most significant strategic decision the Allied leaders would make. The next phase of the North African Campaign was the Tunisia Campaign. The Allies began this assault with another amphibious landing in eastern Tunisia in January, 1943. The German General, Erwin Rommel was cut off from his supply bases by the Americans and the British during his attempt to stall them with his defensive operations. The Axis powers were outgunned and outnumbered. The Allies made steady advances by forcing the Axis troops into a pocket along the northern Tunisian coast. The Allies captured the last remaining Axis port and six days after this occurred the Axis army surrendered. This left 267,000 German and Italian soldiers as prisoners of war. During the entire North African Campaign, 220,00 British and American soldiers were lost, while the German and Italians suffered 620,000 casualties. This Allied victory was critically important to the course of this War. The win in North Africa removed the Axis threat to middle eastern oil fields and also their threat to the British supply lines into Asia and Africa. The reign of Nazi Germany must have certainly felt like an eternity to the groups of people who were negatively affected by its power, but the power and control that the Nazis had accumulated did eventually wean. There were many factors to the fall of Nazi Germany, including attacks made against Germany as the government was growing weaker and the death of Hitler. The Battle of Berlin was the last major offensive of World War II leading up to Hitler’s suicide. During the Battle of Berlin, which began on April 16, 1945 and ended on May 2, 1945, Hitler assimilated himself into an underground bunker that was fifty feet below the Nazi headquarters in Berlin. The Red Army fought forces containing the German Army for control of the capital city of Nazi Germany. He married Eva Braun, whilst inside the bunker, on April 29, 1945. Multiple families of important Nazi officials joined the couple in the bunker. One of the families elected to have their children killed by cyanide. Hitler instigated the testing of cyanide pills on the family dog and its puppies. Both the doctor and Hitler desired that the pills would not fail if needed to commit suicide. When Hitler inquired the opinion of the doctor on the proper way to commit suicide, the doctor advocated a cyanide pill and gunshot at the same time. On April 30, 1945, after Soviet troops overcame the street-to-street combat in Berlin Hitler nad Braun committed suicide in the bunker. Eyewitness accounts claim that only one gunshot was heard from the room where Hitler and Eva planned to kill themselves in. A few minutes after the shot was heard, a few people, who were living in the bunker at this time, decided to open the door and see if Hitler and his wife were dead. There were no pictures taken at the site of Hitler and Eva’s death. Historians must believe the written accounts of spectators because there is no real evidence of Hitler’s death. Witnesses claimed to have seen Hitler, with his head on a table, holding a gun in his hand, and Eva sitting in a chair facing Hitler with a cyanide pill coursing through her body. Adolf and Eva Hitler were known as dead throughout the world, but their companions in the bunker seized their bodies and burned them upon request by Hitler. The Russians were ordered to find the body of Hitler in order to be sure he was dead, but the bodies were not discovered until May of 1945. From the 4th through the 8th of May, most of the remaining German armed forces in Europe surrendered which led to the end of World War II. The surrender document was signed on the 7th of May, 1945 in a Reims, France schoolhouse, which was being used as General Dwight Eisenhower’s temporary headquarters. The document was signed by Alfred Jodl, who was representing Admiral Doenitz at the meeting. The document was required to be printed out in the following four different languages: English, French, German, and Russian. Copies of the document had to be sent to London, Paris, and Moscow for approval. Press attended the meeting and took many pictures and took note of things that were said. It was noted that after Alfred Jodl signed the document, he addressed the crowd in the room and said, “I want to say a word. With this signature the German people and the German armed forces are for better or worse delivered into the victor’s hands. In this war, which has lasted more than five years, they both have achieved and suffered more than perhaps any other people in the world. In this hour I can only express the hope that the victor will treat them with generosity.” No one in the crowd had a response, and most of the Germans quietly left the room. After World War II in Europe was over, the impression that the war left on many of the Europeans who were affected by it remained intact, and the horrifying aftermath was a reminder of how hard life really was during the war. 54 million people as a result of the Holocaust. Another 60 million were uprooted from their homes. There were 11 million displaced persons, and there were more civilians killed than troops. 100,000 Jewish people were left to roam, and many of them travelled back to their home country. “Hitlerism” still lingered throughout Europe, and West Germany and East Germany were separated. The Nuremberg Trials were a series of 13 trials in Nuremberg, Germany. Starting on November 20, 1945 and ending on October 1, 1946. These trials were brought about so that the Nazi war criminals would face justice and be punished for the crimes they have committed against humanity. The defendants included Nazi Party officers, lawyers, and doctors. They were indicted on crimes against humanity and peace. Since Hitler was an important political leader, he had multiple decoys to insure his safety, but this can cause problems when looking for the real body of Hitler. Many historians believe that Hitler escaped Germany and fled to Argentina. There is a large Nazi presence in the small villages of Argentina. There are photographs were the Nazi flag can be seen being flown at many small schools. The Nazi Youth was a big organization, and it held a large manifestation in South Ameri

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8th graders given Hitler-themed assignment to rate Nazi monster as a ‘solution seeker,’ ‘ethical decision-maker’

A n Adolf Hitler-themed question-and-answer assignment given to students at a private school in Atlanta has sparked outrage among parents over its suspected antisemitic nature.

Eighth grade students at the Mount Vernon School in Atlanta were given a series of questions asking them to rate some of Adolf Hitler’s — the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, whose antisemitic ideology fueled the Holocaust — characteristics as a leader, according to Fox 5 Atlanta. 

One question posed to students asked, “According to the Mount Vernon Mindset rubric, how would you rate Adolf Hitler as a ‘solution seeker’?” 

A second question asked how students would “rate Adolf Hitler as an ethical decision-maker?”

For both questions, the students were given the option of selecting “Lacks Evidence, Approaching Expectations, Meets Expectations, Exceeds Expectations” to describe the ruthless dictator. 

The bizarre questions ignited outrage among parents — many of whom were concerned they were antisemitic by nature, according to the outlet. 

Students at the private school also found issues with the questions, with one telling the outlet the assignment was “troubling” and could be seen as glorifying the warmongering totalitarian leader. 

“Obviously, that looks horrible in the current context,” another student told the outlet. “Knowing Mount Vernon, we do things a little odd around here.”

The student added that the school is known to “try to think outside the box” but shared that “oftentimes that doesn’t work.”

Several former students told Fox 5 that those questions weren’t given to them during 8th grade.

While many parents and students were shaken over the assignment, one student believes the school attempted to pose a historically invoking question that required students to use their critical thinking skills. 

“I can definitely see why they’d be upset, but overall, I think it’s important to look at both sides of the coin in every situation, and I think it’s important to be able to compare and contrast everything that’s happened in our world history, whether it’s been good or bad,” said the student.

Upon learning the phrasing of the questions in the assignment, Mount Vernon officials said they had removed it from the school’s curriculum. 

The principal of Mount Vernon, Kristy Lundstrom, wrote in a statement that the assignment was “an exploration of World War II designed to boost student knowledge of factual events and understand the manipulation of fear leveraged by Adolf Hitler in connection to the Treaty of Versailles.” 

“Immediately following this incident, I met with the School’s Chief of Inclusion, Diversity, Equality, and Action, Head of Middle School, and a concerned Rabbi and friend of the School who shared the perspective of some of our families and supported us in a thorough review of the assignment and community impact.”

“Adolf Hitler and the events of the time period are difficult and traumatic to discuss.”

The private school, located about 16 miles outside Downtown Atlanta, is a “co-educational day school for more than 1200 students in Preschool through Grade 12,” according to the institution’s  website . 

“We are a school of inquiry, innovation, and impact. Grounded in Christian values, we prepare all students to be college ready, globally competitive, and engaged citizen leaders,” its mission statement reads.