Profile of Adolf Hitler 1889-1945



|Profile of Adolf Hitler 1889-1945 |

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|Adolf Hitler was born on 20th April 1889 in Austria.  His father was a customs official.  The family name was originally Schickelgruber.  Adolf Hitler grew up with |

|a poor record at school and left, before completing his tuition, with an ambition to become an artist.  He went to Vienna to fulfil his dream. |

|He failed to win a scholarship at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts.  In 1909 he moved to Vienna hoping to find work but within a year he was living in homeless |

|shelters and eating at charity soup-kitchens. He took occasional menial jobs and sold some of his paintings or advertising posters whenever he could.  In Vienna he |

|developed his hatred of foreigners and Jews. |

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|As a boy |

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|Ironically, the regimental captain who recommended Hitler for his Iron Cross (First Class) award was actually Jewish. |

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|In 1913 Hitler moved to Munich in southern Germany.  When war broke out in 1914 he immediately volunteered to join the German army.  He fought bravely and was |

|promoted to corporal.  He won the both the Iron Cross second class and first class.  At the end of the war in 1918 Hitler was in hospital recovering from temporary |

|gas-blindness.  He had been wounded by a British gas attack in the Ypres Salient.  |

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|Hitler remained in the army after the war and one of his duties was to spy on local political groups.  One such group was the German Workers Party.  Hitler became |

|interested and soon joined the party. Hitler's skills for publicity and as a speaker saw him transform it into the Nazi Party.  In 1923 he led an attempt to |

|overthrow the Bavarian government but this spectacularly failed.  He was sentenced to nine months in prison where he dictated his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle). |

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|After 1925 he rebuilt the Nazi Party, deciding he had to obtain power by democracy rather than by force.  The Wall Street Crash in 1929 and the subsequent worldwide|

|depression hit Germany hard.  Hitler used to situation to blame Jews and Communists, using them as scapegoats to gain support for himself. |

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|He became Chancellor in 1933 and President in 1934 and used the title Der Führer - leader.  During the 1930s he 'Nazified' Germany, removing any potential |

|opposition and establishing his ideas for a greater Germany. |

|He led Germany to war in 1939 and tried to exterminate the Jews and other groups in Germany.  When Germany was defeated in 1945 Hitler married his mistress Eva |

|Braun in his bomb proof bunker in Berlin.  He shot himself on 30th April. |

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|How did Hitler come to power? |

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|1. The Munich Putsch |

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|By 1923 Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Party.  With inflation running high, Hitler thought the time was ripe for his party to seize control in Germany.  With a |

|group of ex-soldiers, including a war time air ace Hermann Goring, and Field Marshall Ludendorff, the Nazis plotted to seize control of Munich, the capital of |

|Bavaria, and then stage a march on Berlin. |

|It was a disaster. The plotters had not planned things carefully enough and Hitler lost his nerve. He spent most of the crisis making speeches to his own supporters|

|in a beer hall.  When Ludendorff finally persuaded him to lead a march through the streets, the police fired on the marchers and Hitler and the Nazis ran away.  Two|

|days later Hitler was arrested. |

|Hitler received a five year prison sentence for the Munich Putsch, but prison was very comfortable and he was let out after serving less than a year.  He spent the |

|time writing a book about his ideas - Mein Kampf. |

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|2. A change of tactics  |

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|Hitler decided to stop trying to seize power and sought election by legal means.  He claimed he would have to use democracy. His chance came after 1929.  America's |

|economy was in trouble, so the Americans stopped lending Germany money.  The German economy collapsed. |

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|Thousands of Germans were thrown out of work.  In the election of 1932 the Nazi Party made a very attractive set of promises based on what Hitler had written in |

|Mein Kampf. Hitler promised to provide jobs, sort out the economy and make Germany proud and strong again.  In July 1932 the Nazi party was the biggest in the |

|Reichstag, the German Parliament building.  Yet in November 1932, the Nazi vote dropped back again. |

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|3. Hitler becomes Chancellor  |

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|There was a power struggle in Germany after the 1932 election.  Many of the political parties thought they could use Hitler's popularity to their advantage.  The |

|power struggle ended in the President asking Hitler to become Chancellor. |

|It was thought that other experienced politicians could control Hitler and the Nazis.  They soon found that this was a mistake.  Hitler quickly organised another |

|election and made sure the Nazis would do well... |

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|4. The Reichstag Fire  |

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|Just before the election in 1933 the Reichstag building was set on fire.  Hitler cleverly blamed the Communists, who were feared by many Germans.  Most historians |

|think that Hitler organised the entire event to make people more afraid of the Communists and thus vote for the Nazis. |

|The Nazi vote increased in the election.  By 1934 Hitler tightened his grip on Germany and had banned other political parties.  He created a Nazi dictatorship. |

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|Why did people support Hitler? |

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|Hitler's promises |

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|People supported Hitler because he promised them what they wanted and needed to hear. |

|The Weimar Republic appeared to have no idea how to solve the problems of the Depression.  The Nazis on the other hand promised to solve the |

|problems.  Hitler promised most groups in Germany what they wanted.  Hitler used the Jews and other sections of society as scapegoats, blaming |

|all the problems on them.  To Germans at the time Hitler made sense, he united everyone by providing explanations for Germany's problems. |

|People in Germany were tired of their poor quality of life.  Hitler promised to make Germany proud again - it was exactly what people wanted to |

|hear.  Hitler pledged something for every part of Germany society: |

| Group |

| Promise |

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| Farmers |

|Higher prices for their produce - making up for all their losses during the Depression. |

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| Unemployed workers |

|Jobs building public works such as roads and stadiums. |

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| Middle Class |

|To restore the profits of small business and the value of savings.  To end the Communist threat. |

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|Why did people support Hitler? |

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|Nazi beliefs |

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|Behind the promises were a set of beliefs that were to lead to the Second World War and the death of millions of innocent people: |

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|1. Rearm Germany and retake what was lost at Versailles. |

|2. The German Race (blonde, blue eyed Aryans) were a superior race.  Anyone else was racially impure and should be removed from Germany.  Hitler|

|called the Germans the 'master race'. |

|3. The 'master race' needed more living space - known (in German) as Lebensraum'. |

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|To all Germans Hitler promised to restore German honour by tearing up the hated Treaty of Versailles and by making Germany great again. |

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