Adolf Hitler
Feeling that all was lost, Hitler shot
himself on April 30, 1945. By orders
formally given by him before his death,
SS officers immersed Hitler’s body in
gasoline and burned it in the garden of
the Chancellery. Soon after the suicide
of Hitler, the Germ On Easter Sunday
April 20, 1889, at an inn called the Gasth
of Zum Pommer, the wife of an
Austrian Customs official gave birth to a son,
Adolf Hitler. He was the
fourth child to the parents of Alois and Klara Hitler
of Austria. Hitler was
a good student. One of the teachers in his high school
classified young
Hitler as "notorious, cantankerous, willful, arrogant, and
irascible. He has
an obvious difficulty in fitting in at school." He did
well enough to get by
in some of his courses but had no time for Adolf saw no
real reason to stay
in high school. He left school at age sixteen without a
leaving certificate.
In September 1907, Hitler left home taking with him all the
money left to him
by his father, who had died a few years earlier. The money
would preliminary
examination, the applicant was asked to submit drawings.
Biblical
drawings were most preferred. Hitler’s drawings were returned saying
they
were "too wooden and too lifeless." He was rejected. He tried
three months
later and did not get pa Hitler moved into an apartment with his
friend in
Vienna. He pretended to be a student living off his relatives money.
He
read many books and sat in on the Austrian government sessions .
Hitler
speaks of his life in Vienna as "five years in which I had In 1913,
Hitler
moved to Munich. Life was not much better there until the First World
War
started in 1914. While many people were frightened and sad at the thought
of a
world war, Hitler was delighted. He held the rank of corporal, and
in
forty-seven b On October 13th 1918, a month before Germany surrendered to
the
Allies, his good luck ran out. When Hitler and his fellow dispatch
runners were
waiting in line for their food rations, British troops began
lobbing high
explosive shells nearby. Some of th Hitler soon regained use of
his eyes, but as
he was about to rejoin his regiment, he got the terrible
news of Germany’s
surrender. "Once again, everything went black before my
eyes, and I
tottered and groped my way back to the place where we slept and
bu As part of
Hitler’s job, he investigated a party called "the German
Workers’
Party." He was disgusted how the group had no organization,
although he was
in favor of many of the party’s ideas. To follow up with his
job, he joined
the group to make sure t Hitler finally found his talent as a
great orator. He
first became aware of his talent while teaching at the
University of Munich.
When he talked, he held his audiences spellbound.
He would sometimes lose five
pounds a night by getting so active in his He
persuaded the other party members
to rent one of the largest halls in
Munich—one that seated at least 2,000
people. There Hitler made of list of
demands to the German government. Point
twenty-five said, "For modern
society, a colossus with feet of cl Ernst
Rohm, a friend of Hitler’s,
organized a group of storm troopers for Hitler.
The German name for storm
troopers was Storm Abtcilung, or SA for short. They
first beat and killed
hecklers at Nazi speakings. When there were no hecklers,
they found Je By the
summer of 1923, the Nazi party had grown to 150,000
members. With the Nazi
movement growing so rapidly, Hitler knew it was time to
make a move on
Germany. November 11, 1923 seemed like a perfect time for Hitler
to make the
grab for power. It was Hitler captured the government leaders and
forced them
to join him. His 3,000 men then marched to Berlin in an attempt to
take it
over. The German police were waiting. Shots were fired and sixteen nazis
and
two policemen lay dead. Hundreds more were w The trial was a
"political
circus". Hitler was allowed to speak for hours at a time. During
one of his
speeches he said, "It is the External Court of History ... That
court will
judge us ... as Germans who wanted the best for their people and
their fatherla
Hitler served only nine months of his five-year sentence.
The guards gave him a
suite of several adjoining rooms where guests could
come or go as they pleased.
He was sent many gifts and grew visibly
fatter. He wrote a book called Mein
Kampf, or My Str The government
banned the Nazi party after the revolt. There
were also many reasons for lack
of Nazi activity. The Allies had loosened their
grip on the German economy.
The French had left the Ruhr leaving Germany’s
industries intact, and the
United St The depression in America caused the
economic system in Germany to
plummet. Because of the harsh times, Nazis got two
million more votes then
the Communist party. The election put them just under
the Democratic party
and gave them 107 more seats in the House. Hitler was
planning on running for
President of Germany against Paul Von Hinderburg, a
social democrat. Hitler
campaigned frequently, going to every major city and
town. He was the f By
1932 the SA troops numbered 400,000. The SA’s goal was
to make people afraid,
and they accomplished that with ease. One of the most
popular chants of the
SA troops is as follows: "Sharpen the knives on the
sidewalk so that they can
cut the enemy’s. In the election of 1932, Hitler
could not beat out the
eighty-five year old President Hindenburg. However, 230
Nazi candidates
held seats, and Hitler was made Chancellor of Germany. It was
the second
highest position in the German government. With only Hitler still was
not
elected to the Presidency. Using force, Hitler got Hinderburg to pass a
law
that abolished freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly. Hitler
then
brought before the court the Enabling Act. This law gave Hitler the
power of a
After the bills were passed, the German military feared that
when Hitler took
full leadership of the country, they would lose control, and
the SA would take
over. Hitler assured the military that this was not true.
To gain their trust,
he gave them a li In August of 1934 President Hindenburg
died. Hitler’s last
obstacle in his quest for complete power was removed.
Using his unlimited
powers, he combined the offices of president and
chancellor. To everyone in
Germany he was now Der Fuhrer, the leader.
Avoiding capture by the approaching
forces, Hitler shot himself on April 30,
1945. The world was never the same
again. Hitler’s Reich was over, and
millions of Jews were dead.