Adolf Hitler

Baptized a Catholic, 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.

His father, Alois Hitler (1837-1903), was a mid-level customs official. Born out of wedlock to Maria Anna Schickelgruber in 1837, Alois Schickelgruber 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.

Hitler served only nine months of his five-year term. While in prison, he wrote the first volume of Mein Kampf. It was partly an autobiographical book (although filled with glorified inaccuracies, self-serving half-truths and outright revisionism) which also detailed his views on the future of the German people. There were several targets of the vicious diatribes in the book, such as democrats, Communists, and internationalists. But he reserved the brunt of his vituperation for the Jews, whom he portrayed as responsible for all of the problems and evils of the world, particularly democracy, Communism, and internationalism, as well as Germany's defeat in the War. Jews were the German nation's true enemy, he wrote. They had no culture of their own, he asserted, but perverted existing cultures such as Germany's with their parasitism. As such, they were not a race, but an anti-race.

There are many factors that contributed to the start of the war. Mistakes were made that may have played a huge role in starting the war. There are many reasons for the start of the war and no one reason started it. Hitler was a vengeful man who was still angry at the world from what happened to Germany in the last world war and how they had to pay reparations. Hitler started his army and they began to rearm and the league of nations did nothing to stop him. Hitler was trying to better Germany and he didn't care about anyone else.

Once released from prison, Hitler decided to seize power constitutionally rather than by force of arms. Using demagogic oratory, Hitler spoke to scores of mass audiences, calling for the German people to resist the yoke of Jews and Communists, and to create a new empire which would rule the world for 1,000 years.

Hitler's Nazi party captured 18% of the popular vote in the 1930 elections. In 1932, Hitler ran for President and won 30% of the vote, forcing the eventual victor, Paul von Hindenburg, into a runoff election. A political deal was made to make Hitler chancellor in exchange for his political support. He was appointed to that office in January 1933.

Upon the death of Hindenburg in August 1934, Hitler was the consensus successor. With an improving economy, Hitler claimed credit and consolidated his position as a dictator, having succeeded in eliminating challenges from other political parties and government institutions. The German industrial machine was built up in preparation for war. By 1937, he was comfortable enough to put his master plan, as outlined in Mein Kampf, into effect. Calling his top military aides together at the "FÅhrer Conference" in November 1937, he outlined his plans for world domination. Those who objected to the plan were dismissed.

Hitler wanted to see how far he could go he thought no one could stop him. When Hitler broke the treaty of Versailles and marched his troops into Rhineland a non-military zone that caused some tension and that was just one of the first things that Hitler got away with. His actions of persecution towards the people in germany and the places that he took over also contributed a lot too the war. France had requested to the league of nations to get Hitler's troops out of Rhineland and The League of Nations still did nothing. Many of the European countries were not prepared for war and they decided that Hitler had not done anything severe enough to take any action upon him. Hitler wanted to kill the impurities in their population so he started the mass killings of the jews in an attempt to make them extinct. in territory and when he demanded to have a piece of Czecholslavakia the league of nations gave it to him to appease him. Instead we ended up in a war of epic proportions. Hitler believed that his country was impure because of the other nationalities living in it. He claimed that Germany will not have the moral right to enter into colonial politics until he got rid of the impurities in his own country. Eventually Hitler thought that he would not be stopped and went on to take over other areas. When all along they should have taken action from the start and stopped him while they could before he rearmed himself to the point of no return. Instead of appeasing Hitler and giving him what he wants to subside him we should have taken a collective security approach and crushed the uprising.


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