Adolf Hitler - The Picture Encyclopedia of Cultural Images

Adolf Hitler - The Picture Encyclopedia of Cultural Images

Adolf Hitler was chancellor of pre-World War II Germany and Fuhrer of the Third Reich. His rise to power led to World War II and the internment and extermination of nearly 11 million people, among whom were 6 million Jews.

Adolf Hitler was born in Austria in 1889. He left school early, and wanted to be an artist, but he was rejected repeatedly from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Hitler moved to Munich and painted postcards for living. Seeing the richness of Austrian and German Jews, and the hardships of his and other people’s life, he started to blame the Jews for the problems of society. When World War I broke out in 1914, he volunteered to the Bavarian army.

Hitler served as a messenger during World War I, and was awarded the Iron Cross twice for his heroism. He was never promoted beyond the rank of private because his superiors believed that he is unfit for commanding others. He was wounded twice during the war, the later of which was temporary blindness caused by poison gas, which supposedly led to the idea of using gas to exterminate Jews.

After the war, Hitler, tempted by its anti-Marxist and anti-Semitic ideas, joined the German Worker’s Party. From 1921 on, he had proven to be an effective and talented speaker, attacking Jews, the peace treaty of Versailles, and the communists, and expressing revisionist views in his speeches. With careful tactics, Hitler shortly became leader – or Fuhrer - of the Party now known as National Socialist Worker’s Party (NSDAP).

Shortly after, Hitler attempted a coup d’etat, to overthrow the government with the help of Bavarian authorities. In the last minute, the high officials abandoned him, and he was arrested for treason. The court, however, sympathized with Hitler’s views, and allowed him to propagate his ideas on the trial. In 1924. Hitler was sentenced for 5 years in prison.

Thanks to an amnesty in December 1924, Hitler only spent 9 months in prison, during which he wrote his autobiography, the infamous Mein Kampf. In this work, besides the story of his life, he writes about his views on the Jews, the theory of living space, and the superiority of the Germans (Arya race). Mein Kampf quickly became popular among the Germans who felt humiliated by the Versailles Peace Treaty.

After his release, Hitler started to work his way towards the German chancellor’s seat. The great depression in 1930 turned things in his favor, as he managed to appeal more to people’s hatred towards the Jews who maintained some of their wealth. The Nazi party led by Hitler achieved great successes on the elections in the early 1930’s, and became the biggest party in the Reichstag by 1932. Hitler took the seat of chancellor in 1933, and, after the death of President Hindenburg in 1934, he established the Third Reich under his sole command.

After taking command, Hitler started to re-arm Germany, which opposed to the Versailles Treaty, but France and Great Britain hoped to avoid another war by avoiding confrontation with Germany. The economic reforms he introduced also gave work to people and boosted the economy, further increasing Hitler’s acceptance among the Germans. In 1936, Germany occupied Czechoslovakia in two steps, despite a treaty he signed with Britain and France earlier that year. In 1936, Hitler also supported Francisco Franco’s fascist rebellion against the government in Spain.

By 1939, the outbreak of World War II, Hitler was the leader of a powerful Germany. He had formed alliances with Mussolini’s Italy, Japan, and most of the losing countries of the Versailles Treaty. Right before the war, in August Germany entered a treaty with Russia about sharing Poland between the two countries.

On 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, starting World War II. Due to the intention of France and Great Britain to avoid the war, German troops advanced through Europe without significant difficulty. By the end of 1940, the Axis forces, led by Germany, occupied most of Europe. According to Hitler’s orders and his views spread through the German leadership, internment camps were established, where in the following years of the war, nearly 11 million people were killed, including over 6 million Jews.

In 1941, Hitler turned against Stalin’s Soviet Union, which was at that time an ally of Germany, and was unprepared for the attack. German troops kept pushing forward until, in late 1941, they were stopped only a few kilometers off Moscow.

The tide of the war started to turn by the end of 1942, when Germany was defeated in North-Africa. One year after, in 1943, the German Army lost the oil resources in the Soviet Union when they were defeated at Stalingrad. Moreover, in the same year, Hitler’s most important ally, Mussolini was overthrown and executed. In early 1944 the Allies landed in Normandy, and the Red Army had liberated most of eastern-Europe, forcing the Germans to a constant retreat. In July 1944 high ranking German officers, led by Stauffenberg, tried to assassinate Hitler with a bomb, but they failed.

Adolf Hitler remained the Fuhrer of the Third Reich until its absolute defeat in April 1945, when the Russian Red Army reached Berlin. On 30 April 1945 Hitler committed suicide together with his lover Eva Braun, in their bunker in Berlin. Their bodies were partially cremated in a hurry, but the arriving Soviet troops managed to identify the corpses.

Through the following years, (West-) Germany did everything to escape the heritage of Hitler and achieve a rightful place among the European nations. Hitler’s views still serve as a basis for neo-Nazis and anti-Semites throughout the world. His book, Mein Kampf is only printed for educational purposes, and with comments added to it. The name of Adolf Hitler, due to the crimes he committed against mankind, generally became associated with evil.

Picture 1: Adolf Hitler