Adolf Hitler may be considered the most evil human being in the history of the world. The single most influential figure of World War II, he planned it, prepared for it, and, when he was ready, launched it. His goal was to create a world ruled by a supreme Aryan race. Undesirables, those deemed “sub-humans,” would be exterminated. Others would be allowed to live as slaves of their Nazi masters.
Today that sounds like the plot for a science-fiction movie, but in the late 1930s and early 1940s, it was all too real. Hitler’s goal was a German Reich that would rule the earth and last for 1,000 years. In fact, it actually lasted only 12 years and three months, but it was long enough to bring civilization to the edge of destruction.Calling himself Führer (German for “leader”), Hitler used brute force and psycho-logical terror to bring his enemies to their knees. Tens of millions of innocents, including six million Jews, would die in the Holocaust. Others chosen for extermination included Slavs, gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals. Additionally, millions of soldiers would die on the battlefields of the war Adolf Hitler engineered.
Early Influences
Life began for Adolf Hitler in 1889 in Braunau, an Austrian town near the German border. As a young man, he wanted to be an artist, but he was refused entry into the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts.
In 1913, at age 24, Hitler moved to Munich, Germany. When World War I broke out a year later, he joined the German army. Gassed in combat, he was awarded the Iron Cross. Some theorize that Hitler chose poison gas to kill his victims because of this military experience, but that is by no means certain.
Following Germany’s defeat in World War I, Hitler joined a fledgling political group that called itself the German Workers’ Party. It later became the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or the Nazi Party for short. A spellbinding orator, Hitler quickly became leader of the Nazis. The Party called for a Germany in which only those of pure German blood would be German citizens; it required the elimination of those who contributed to a “degenerate” culture. Furthermore, the Nazis opposed the terms of the Versailles Treaty, which had ended World War I.
In 1923, the Nazis tried to seize power by force in Munich. The attempt failed, and Hitler was jailed for nine months. During this time in prison, he wrote Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”). The book’s major themes include the unfairness of the Treaty of Versailles; the vision of a much larger Germany at the expense of its neighbors; the necessity for aggressive military action and the use of slave labor to achieve the ideal Germany; and a strong emphasis on anti-Semitism.
The origins of Hitler’s anti-Semitism are unclear to biographers. It is possible that Hitler may have picked it up from Austrian rabble rousers, who used anti-Semitic campaign speeches to win votes. In any case, Mein Kampf would become the bible of the Nazi Party and the Third Reich.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, economic disaster hit Germany. High unemployment and a devastating inflation plagued the economy. In this politically volatile environment, a number of parties sought votes in the Reichstag (the German parliament), including the Nazis, the Social Democrats, the Centrists, the Communists, and numerous small parties. However, because of the multiparty system, no one party could get an absolute majority in the Reichstag to form a government. In January of 1933, after much political maneuvering, a coalition government was created, in which Adolf Hitler would become chancellor and other members of the Nazi Party would assume key government posts.
Hitler Takes Power
Once in power, Hitler proceeded to destroy his political opposition. Using his own private army to beat up opponents, trash their political headquarters, and physically prevent them from entering the Reichstag, Hitler created a rubber-stamp Reichstag. It passed legislation giving Hitler the power to rule by decree, outlawing other political parties, and utterly obliterating the rights of German Jews. Concentration camps were set up to imprison, terrorize, torture, and murder political enemies. In the beginning, Communists and trade unionists were targeted, but later, the list of political enemies expanded to include Jews, intellectuals, and clergymen who spoke out against Hitler.
The Führer began a military buildup. He tested the will of the Western powers by sending German troops to occupy the Rhineland, which violated the Treaty of Versailles. The German commander of the occupying army was under secret orders to withdraw immediately if there was any military move against him. When the Western forces failed to meet this military challenge, Hitler believed he could get away with anything. More importantly, he showed his military staff that bluffing could work. Hitler was on his way.
In 1938, using the threat of military action, he forced Austria to agree to incorporation into the German Reich. At a meeting in Munich in the fall of that year, Hitler demanded the Sudetenland, an important part of Czechoslovakia. British Prime Minister Neville Cham-berlain (Number 66) and French Premier Eduard Daladier agreed to the takeover. Several months later, Hitler usurped all of Czechoslovakia. It was only the beginning.
Hitler’s March through Europe
In August 1939, Hitler stunned the world by arranging a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Hitler was preparing to invade Poland, and he knew that France and Britain had pledged to defend Poland. The German dicta-tor agreed to split up Poland with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (Number 4). On September l, 1939, German forces moved into Poland. Two days later, England and France declared war on Germany. World War II had officially begun.The Soviet Union invaded Poland two weeks later, and the country was crushed by the two invading armies. Hitler turned with greedy eyes to the west, biding his time until the spring of 1940.
In April, German armies invaded Denmark and Norway. The following month, German troops invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. By May 12, 1940, German armies were crossing into France. The German blitzkrieg (“lightning war”)— the use of armor and air power to support the infantry—crushed Allied armies. More than 338,000 English troops were trapped near the French port at Dunkirk but were successfully evacuated by a flotilla of large and small British ships. Then, on June 22, 1940, France signed an armistice with Nazi Germany.
Hitler hoped that England would make peace and give him a free hand on the European continent, but the new British Prime Minister, Winston S. Churchill (Number 3), refused, vowing that England would fight on. Despite an unrelenting air campaign against English cities, Great Britain would not surrender, bracing itself for a Nazi invasion that never came. Through the efforts of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Number 2), England was resupplied with weapons to carry on the war.
In September 1940, Nazi Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, linking the countries as allies for 10 years in a military and economic treaty.
In the spring of 1941, Hitler invaded Yugoslavia and Greece, then finally turned on the Soviet Union. On June 22, 1941, the Führer’s armies struck deep into the heart of the Soviet Union, breaking Germany’s non-aggression pact with Stalin. Within sight of Moscow, Hitler was stopped by an early Russian winter. The day of the quick victory was over.
Fighting on the Russian front was a long and bloody affair. For nearly four years, the armies battled back and forth along a huge front. Casualties on both sides were staggering. As Hitler’s armies moved into newly conquered territories in the east, special German forces followed them, carrying out the massacres of Jews, Slavs, and other “undesirables.”
A New Battle Front
The tide was turning. In the midst of Nazi Germany’s seemingly unstoppable march through Europe, a new battle front was about to emerge. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Hitler’s Tripartite Pact with Italy and Japan required each to come to the assistance of any one of them that became involved in a war with the United States. On December 11, 1941—four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor—Hitler fulfilled his treaty obligation by declaring war on the United States. It would prove to be his most costly error of the war.In November 1942, American and British forces landed in French North Africa to battle German armies retreating from Egypt. In mid-1943, American and British forces invaded Sicily and then the mainland of Italy, which soon surrendered.
The Fall of the Third Reich
On June 6, 1944—“D-Day”—Allied armies invaded Normandy in northern France. Once the beachheads had been secured, Nazi Germany was doomed. On July 20, 1944, a cadre of German officers tried to assassinate Hitler; it failed. In a last desperate throw of the dice, Hitler ordered a surprise assault into the Ardennes. It became known as the Battle of the Bulge. There were heavy losses suffered by both German and American armies; the Germans lost 120,000 soldiers, and the Americans suffered more than 76,000 casualties, but the Nazis were stopped and the German army destroyed.With Russian forces closing in from the east and American and British forces from the west, Hitler awaited defeat in a Berlin bunker. At the end, he called in Albert Speer (Number 77) to give him his final order—an order Speer decided not to obey.
The Führer wanted Speer to have every German waterworks, power plant, bridge, tunnel, and major roadway destroyed. Hitler told Speer that the German people had failed him, were unworthy of him, and therefore should go down in destruction with him. That was what he had willed for the German people.On April 30, 1945, after marrying his mistress, Eva Braun, Hitler (and Eva) committed suicide. A week later, Germany surrendered unconditionally. Hitler’s war was over, but his legacy of hatred, death, and destruction lay amid the ashes of Europe.
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