Adolf Hitler, notorious leader of the German Nazi party and, from 1933 until his death, dictator of Germany, built his Fascist regime in Germany and spread his terroristic reign across Europe during World War II. Born on April 20, 1889, at Braunau-am-Inn, Austria, Hitler was to be one of the most frightening dictators in all of history. Besides one of the world's greatest atrocities -- the inhumane extermination of approximately 6 million Jews, Hitler's rule resulted in the destruction of Germany and its society, and the ruin of much of Europe's traditional structure.
After the death of his father, Hitler went to Vienna to study art and architecture, but failed twice in 1907 and 1908 to get admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts. Discouraged and broke, Hitler found himself impressed by the writings of minor authors who espoused racist and anti-Semitic ideas. Hitler soon took a fervent German nationalistic and partial Marxist political view, but it was not until 1913, when he moved to Germany in the hopes of evading the Austrian military service, that he began his involvement in and fascination with war. Serving as a volunteer in the Bavarian infantry, Hitler received unusually high honors for his services in 1918. His place during World War I filled the void in his life, and Hitler soon became directly involved in politics. After Germany's defeat in World War I, Hitler became disgusted by the revolution in Germany and the pacifist Weimar Republic. In 1920 he joined the National Socialist German Workers' party (NSDAP), better known as the Nazi party. Hitler's master political propaganda promotions soon gained him mass support, especially of the urban petty bourgeoisie. In 1921 Hitler became the party chairman with dictatorial powers. His goal to overthrow the government met with strong right-wing opposition, especially from his friend Roehm's Storm Troopers (SA). In November, Hitler's putsch attempted to capture the Bavarian authorities and failed. Hitler was placed in jail and used his trial to gain nationwide attention for his cause. Hitler served nine months of his 5-year sentence in prison, where he wrote his famous Mein Kampf, which tried to show that his leadership was based on intellectual as well as political superiority. He used Darwinism concepts to argue that the German people were racially superior and were threatened by liberalism, Marxism, humanism, and Judaism.
Upon his release from prison, Germany had regained some economic and political stability which made it difficult for Hitler to rebuild the Nazi party. In 1929, however, he made a breakthrough when the German Nationalist party made Hitler politically respectable by soliciting his aid in its campaign against the Young Plan's arrangements for German reparations. After the Nazi party gained 18.3 percent of the vote in the 1930 national elections, Hitler's rise to power quickened at a remarkable speed. His newest platform still used propaganda, demagoguery, and terror, but Hitler also added a policy of legality so as to appeal to the conservatives, nationalists, and the military, as well as the lower class victims of Germany's depression. The Nazi party nearly lost its hold of the people in 1932, but Hitler was saved from demise when the elderly President Hindenburg appointed him chancellor in a coalition government with the conservatives, on January 30, 1933. Within four months, Hitler had destroyed the Communist and Socialist parties of the labor unions, destroyed the paramilitary organizations, dissolved the bourgeois and right wing parties, eliminated the federal structure of the republic, and won an enabling law from the intimidated Reichstag gave him full dictatorial power. How did he do it? Hitler's success came from the strategic use of terror by the SA and the Nazi-controlled police, pseudo-democratic mass demonstrations, and a seemingly conservative program. Hitler received opposition from the SA party, still led by Roehm, and from the Nazi left. In 1934 he gained the support of the party leaders, the army, and Himmler's SS (or Blackshirts) and chose a radical route, murdering a number of SA leaders, monarchists, and other opponents. When Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934, Hitler officially became the supreme head of Germany.
By 1938 Germany had retrieved considerable economic stability, which the people wrongly attributed to Hitler. Meanwhile, Hitler consolidated his dictatorship and encouraged Himmler to build a reign of terror through the SS, the Gestapo, and the concentration camps. In 1935 the Nuremberg Laws legalized the persecution of the Jews, depriving them of full citizenship and making intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews illegal. Within the next few years, Hitler forced the large-scale emigration of Jews, socialists, and intellectuals and destroyed the Weimer Republic. In foreign affairs, Hitler withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933. He strengthened his international position by remilitarizing the Rhineland in 1936 and by winning the neutrality of Britain through a naval treaty in June 1935. He confirmed Italy's support by backing Mussolini in the Spanish Civil War in 1936, and soon began his plans to take over the world. In 1938 Hitler annexed Austria and the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and signed a nonaggression pact with Russia later that year. After he attacked Poland on September 1, 1938, France and Britain declared war on Germany. The early phases of World War II were successful ones for Hitler. In 1940 German troops conquered Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Hitler forced France to sign an armistice, now placing him at the pinnacle of his career. He embarked on the building of his New Order in Europe, enforcing barbaric means of exterminating the "subhuman" Jews through slave labor, concentration camps, gas chambers, firing squads, and starvation.
In 1941 Hitler launched an unsuccessful attack on Russia. At the same time, Japan, with which Germany had a nonaggression pact, bombed Pearl Harbor, and Hitler declared war on the United States. The Allies soon reconquered North Africa in 1943, Mussolini's Fascist regime collapsed, and Hitler began losing ground. German conspirator Colonel Claus von Stauffernberg attempted to assassinate Hitler in 1944, but his failure just confirmed Hitler's own faith in his invincibility. That same year, the Allies invaded France and the Russians moved to Hitler's headquarters in Berlin. Not only did Hitler's health increasingly decline, but so did his country's support. Hitler at last acknowledged defeat and committed suicide with a pistol on April 30, 1945 in his army bunker in Berlin.
1913 - Volunteered for the Bavarian infantry.
1918 - Received honors for his services.
1920 - Joined the Nazi party.
1921 - Became Nazi party chairman; put in jail for trying to capture the; wrote Mein Kampf. (My Struggle)
1929 - Nazi party began to gain public support.
1933 - Appointed chancellor by President Hindenburg;
Germany withdrew from the of League of Nations.
1934 - Hindenburg died; Hitler named supreme head of Germany.
1935 - Nuremberg Laws allow persecution of the Jews.
1936 - Remilitarized the Rhineland; gained Italy's allegiance.
1938 - Annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia;
signed pact with Russia called the Nazi - Soviet Pact;
1939- Blitzkreiged through Poland; Great Britain and France and declared war on Germany.
1940 - Conquered Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France;
1940 - Final Solution of the Jews.
1941 - Defeated by the Russians; Japan bombed Pearl Harbor; Germany declared on the United States.
1943 - Allies gained North Africa; Mussolini's regime collapsed.
1944 - Assassination attempt on Hitler; Allies gained in the war.