Hitler - Eng A

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Adolf Hitler was born half past six on the evening of April 20th 1889 in a little inn in the small town of Braunau in Austria. The europe he was born in gave an unusally strong impression of stability and safe existance in the time around his birth, this stabilty would change radically over the next 55 years. The two episodes that changed the world the most under this time, was the episodes of world war. Hitler took part in both of the wars, and even pushed the trigger that sent the world into its second world war, a conflict between many nations which resulted in over 70 million deaths around the world.

Early Life

In Hitler’s litterary work "Mein Kampf" he posed his childhood as a time of poverty and despair. Actually, his father Alois had a decent pension and gave his son the chance of a good upbringing. Adolf dropped out of his school in Linz 1904, not because his mother was too poor to pay the fees since the fathers death in 1903, but for the fact that he to poor grades and was forced to move to another school where he eventually graduated at 16 years of age. After this he lived in his own world and let his mother stand for all expenses, refusing to deal with silly things such as money or work.

Hitler picked up an interest for art and eventually wanted to become an artist. In the fall of 1907, he applied for the academy of arts but was rejected, this came as a bitter chock. He was advised by the principal of the academy to seek a career in architecture, but Hitler refused to accept the failure and remained in Vienna to persue his dream. Not even his dying mother braught him back to Linz, he eventually came back in time for the funeral and remained there for two more months until he returned to Vienna for his life as an "art student".

Living alongside with him in Vienna was his only friend Kubizek whom he had persuaded into following him to Linz and to tryout for the cities well known music conservatory. Aside from Kubizek, Hitler lived the life of a hermit, he had no other friends beside him. He was popular amongst the women, but he showed no interest towards them. A large quantity of his time spent dreaming and pondering about life in general, while Kubizek managed his studies Hitler seemed to be completely unable to perform any systematic work.

He has been said to have shared the uneven temper that is common amongst artist but lacked talent, education and creation energy. Kubizek left Vienna for the summer but when he came back, Hitler was nowere to be found. While Kubizek was out of Vienna, Hitler applied to the acedemy of arts yet again, but this time he was refues to even tryout, Hitler applied for the School of Architecture shortly after but was declined because of his lacking education. The most probable reason for Hitler hiding from his only friend over the next five years was the fact the he was so ashamed over his recent failueres. Over the next few years he lived in a homeless shelter and eventually in a house for poor working men.

Hitler claimed that he became an anti-semite in Vienna, the city had a wide spread jewish community, he made the transition from oppsong anti-Semitism on religous grounds to supporting it on racial grounds when he saw a Orthodox Jew in central Vienna. He had first questioned himself if the person he saw was a jew, but then as he examined the jew''''s face feature by feature he eventually asked himself: Is this a german?


World War I

Hitler left Vienna in 1913 for Munich, he claims that he did this because he was disgusted by all the versatile nationalities in Vienna and the jews which he described as "human fungus". However, he dosen''''t explain why he choosed that particuler time to leave the city. The most probobale explanaistion for this is that he wanted to escape military service. He was eventually tracked down and deemed as unfit for military service because of his weak condition. However, war came along and Hitler joined the army volunteerly because he wanted to fight for his country. There is one quote which reminds you of his gravely deranged state of mind: "I sank down upon my knees and thanked Heaven out of the fullness of my heart for the mercy of living in a time like this."

After mere two months of basic training, Hitler''''s regiment was deployed on the battlefield of europe and put to fight against the British and the Belgians at Ypres, Belgium. Hitler came close to death severals times during the war, and was awarded with two Iron Crosses for bravery. In October, 1918, Hitler was admitted to a field hospital, blinded for a short period of time by a mustard gas attack. Some scientists and psychologists suggests that the blindness may have been the result of a phenomen knows as "hysterical blindness" which is not uncommon amongst psychologically damaged soldiers during intense combat situations. Hitler said that it was during this experience he started to form thaughts of his destiny was to "save Germany". Some scientist argue that his intention to exterminate the Jews was formed in Hitler''''s mind at this time, and that it was most probably caused by some kind of a post dramatical stress dissorder.

A new career

The latest years had hardened him and strenghtened his confidence. With these years came the the ideas that would stick with him, and so many others, for the rest of his life: jew-hatred, contempt for democracy, for globalization, equality and for peace. But most importantly, he had formed an idea of how to gain great political power and how to use it, an idea that would fully developed lead to a carreer without likehood in history. He had not yet decided that he wanted to be a politician, but the seed was planted, and just waiting for a trigger.
The trigger came almost immedietly, Germany lost the war and the empire was no more.

Hitler had admired Germany for a long time, and during the war he had grown into a devoted German patriot. Hitler and fellow German nationalists were shocked by Germany''''s caputulation in 1918 because of the fact that the German army was still in control of enemy territory at the time. He immedietly started supporting the nationalist''''s theory of the "dagger-stab legend" which claimed that the army was "stabbed in the back" by civilian leaders,marxists and jews at home.

He remained on the army''''s payroll and in 1919 he got the mission of infiltrating a small party, the deutche arbeitr partie. When he was inspecting the party he was impressed by the anti-semitic founder Anton Drexler. Hitler left the army in 1920 and started to pay all of his attention to the party. One year later hed had developed into a extremely efficent public speaker and was starting to gain popularity.

Eventually the party held a voting concerning the leadership of the party, and Hitler was voted to be the new leader of the party. He procalimed himself as the führer of party and switched its name from Deuche Arbeiter Partie to Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. Wich essentially means: National Socialist German Workers Party, or, The Nazi party.

The party had gained greatly in numbers and public support, and Hitler decided that they were going to overthrow the ruling government, and create their own. On the 8th of november, 1923, Hitler and his henchmen stormed a public meeting and demanded control of the country. One of the leading figures in the plan, Gustav von Kahr, turned on them and joined the opposition. The coup ended in disaster, as Hitler and his men marched to the government building, they were attacked by the army, 16 members of the NSDAP were killed, and Hitler
was convicted for high treason and sentenced to five years in prison.

While in prison he wrote a book, Mein Kampf, an autobiopraphy and a exposition of his Nazi ideology. Hitler had a quite comfortable time in prison, being favourised by the gaurds and was eventually released after serving only one year of his sentance. When Hitler was released he immediatly took charge in rebuilding and spreading the party all across the country. The party grained great success through the rip in the national pride since the loss of the war.
Germany was hold as responsible for the war and was forced to pay a great debth for the rebuilding of the war-torn europe. He promised them greatness and proclaimed that the Versailles was unfair and that it was all a conspiracy dictated by the jews, whose sole interest was to steal money from the German society.

Since Hitler had failed seizing control of the country by a coup, he decided that he would go the legal way, and then when in control, transform the liberal democracy into a Nazi Dictatorship. In 1930, a great depression hit Germany, and the partys that had inetially ruled togheter broke up, which forced the country into premature elections. The Nazi party gained an unexpected upswing and received 19.8% of the total votes, making it the second most influental party in the whole German parliament. Hitler was granted citizenship in 1932 and ran in the presidential elections against Paul Von Hindernburg and a communist candiate. He finished second, even though he did loose to Hindenburg, he had established himself as a possible alternative to the leadership of Germany.

Hindenburg was shaken by the fact that the Nazi’s were now the largy party in the German parliament, and eventually forced to appoint Hitler as the chancellor of the newly founded coalliton-governemnt between the NSDAP and the DNVP. Hitler managed to talk the president into starting a new election to finnaly seize control of the whole parliement. But when the elections was just a few days away, someone set the Reichstag building on fire, since a communist was found near the bulding, the fire was blamed on a communist plot, and communists were arrested, put to flight, or murdered.

The election finally took place, the Nazi party managed managed to get an astonishing 50% but was yet again forced to form a coalition government. Hitler’s government presented a new enabling act to the reichstag, which eventually gained the support of the third greatest party, the centre party. Which led to the passing of the act, the act gave the goverment rights to ignore the constituion in some cases and led to the removal of all the parties in the reichstag that didn’t support the Nazis.



Hindenburg died in august, 1924. Hitler took the opportunity and passed a law that removed the presidency and instead named himself as the leader and chancellor of Germany. Hitler seized total power of the country and even the military. There was now no way to legally stop Hitler and his ideals from spreading into the eyes and ears of every single person in Germany, and eventually, across europe.

Hitler was demanding leibensraum, livingspace, for the aryan race, he decided that they would head east, for poland. A group of SS soldiers staged an attack on a German radiostation at the Polish border, giving them a reason the invade the country. Hitler had longed for war very long, and was convinced that it was the only way to accomplish what he wanted for his third reich. East of Berlin artillery, trucks, tanks and divison after divison of soldiers was heading towards the Polish border. In the early hours of september the 1st, the guns open fire, and thousands of men was put to the test. Hitler had got his war. Only after five and a half years, in his death, the guns would be silenced.

Alot of my free time is spent plowing through books about the second world war, even though I find stories of the simple soldier more compelling, I still can’t let go of the phenomenm that was Adolf Hitler. A simple, poor, uneducated failure of an artist grew into an idol of a whole country, and was feared by people all over the world. What faschinates me the most is how the people baught his life, his hipocracy, blaming pretty much everything that was bad in their lives on somebody else, without any support logic support at all. I suppose it was the right time for him to stick his head out, he got a chanse, and he took. How sad though, that a man with this charisma and leaderinstincts supported a brainwashed idealogy that had nothing in it but hatred. He might aswell could’ve supported a good idealogy, why does it seem that the people who do most impact on our societes, are those whom we fear? One should always question himself: Who’s worst, the fool, or the fool’s followers?

‘ It is not true that me or any one else in Germany wanted war in 1939. It was solely wanted and wished for by the international statesmen either of jewish beloning or working for jewish interests...’