Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany
Adolf Hitler, byname Der Führer (German: “The Leader”) (born April 20, 1889, Braunau am Inn, Austria—died April 30, 1945, Berlin, Germany), leader of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party (from 1920/21) and chancellor (Kanzler) and Führer of Germany
(1933–45). He was chancellor from January 30, 1933, and, after
President Paul von Hindenburg’s death, assumed the twin titles of Führer
and chancellor (August 2, 1934).
Hitler’s father, Alois (born 1837), was illegitimate.
For a time he bore his mother’s name, Schicklgruber, but by 1876 he had
established his family claim to the surname Hitler. Adolf never used
any other surname.
Early life
After his father’s retirement from the state customs service, Adolf Hitler spent most of his childhood in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria.
It remained his favourite city throughout his life, and he expressed
his wish to be buried there. Alois Hitler died in 1903 but left an
adequate pension and savings to support his wife and children. Although
Hitler feared and disliked his father, he was a devoted son to his
mother, who died after much suffering in 1907. With a mixed record as a
student, Hitler never advanced beyond a secondary education. After leaving school, he visited Vienna,
then returned to Linz, where he dreamed of becoming an artist. Later,
he used the small allowance he continued to draw to maintain himself in
Vienna. He wished to study art, for which he had some faculties, but he
twice failed to secure entry to the Academy of Fine Arts. For some years
he lived a lonely and isolated life, earning a precarious livelihood by
painting postcards and advertisements and drifting from one municipal
hostel to another. Hitler already showed traits that characterized his
later life: loneliness and secretiveness, a bohemian mode of everyday
existence, and hatred of cosmopolitanism and of the multinational
character of Vienna.
In 1913 Hitler moved to Munich.
Screened for Austrian military service in February 1914, he was
classified as unfit because of inadequate physical vigour; but when World War I broke out, he petitioned Bavarian King Louis III
to be allowed to serve, and one day after submitting that request, he
was notified that he would be permitted to join the 16th Bavarian
Reserve Infantry Regiment. After some eight weeks of training, Hitler
was deployed in October 1914 to Belgium, where he participated in the First Battle of Ypres. He served throughout the war,
was wounded in October 1916, and was gassed two years later near Ypres.
He was hospitalized when the conflict ended. During the war, he was
continuously in the front line as a headquarters runner; his bravery in
action was rewarded with the Iron Cross, Second Class, in December 1914, and the Iron Cross, First Class (a rare decoration for a corporal), in August 1918. He greeted the war with enthusiasm, as a great relief from the frustration and aimlessness of civilian life. He found discipline and comradeship satisfying and was confirmed in his belief in the heroic virtues of war.
Dictator, 1933–39
Once in power, Hitler established an absolute dictatorship. He secured the president’s assent for new elections. The Reichstag fire,
on the night of February 27, 1933 (apparently the work of a Dutch
Communist, Marinus van der Lubbe), provided an excuse for a decree
overriding all guarantees of freedom and for an intensified campaign of
violence. In these conditions, when the elections were held (March 5),
the Nazis polled 43.9 percent of the votes. On March 21 the Reichstag
assembled in the Potsdam Garrison Church to demonstrate the unity of
National Socialism with the old conservative
Germany, represented by Hindenburg. Two days later the Enabling Bill,
giving full powers to Hitler, was passed in the Reichstag by the
combined votes of Nazi, Nationalist, and Centre party deputies (March
23, 1933). Less than three months later all non-Nazi parties,
organizations, and labor unions ceased to exist. The disappearance of
the Catholic Centre Party was followed by a German Concordat with the
Vatican in July. (See )
Hitler
had no desire to spark a radical revolution. Conservative “ideas” were
still necessary if he was to succeed to the presidency and retain the
support of the army;
moreover, he did not intend to expropriate the leaders of industry,
provided they served the interests of the Nazi state. Ernst Röhm,
however, was a protagonist of the “continuing revolution”; he was also,
as head of the SA, distrusted by the army. Hitler tried first to secure
Röhm’s support for his policies by persuasion. Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler
were eager to remove Röhm, but Hitler hesitated until the last moment.
Finally, on June 29, 1934, he reached his decision. On the “Night of the
Long Knives,” Röhm and his lieutenant Edmund Heines were executed
without trial, along with Gregor Strasser, Kurt von Schleicher,
and others. The army leaders, satisfied at seeing the SA broken up,
approved Hitler’s actions. When Hindenburg died on August 2, the army
leaders, together with Papen, assented to the merging of the
chancellorship and the presidency—with which went the supreme command of
the armed forces of the Reich. Now officers and men took an oath of allegiance to Hitler personally. Economic recovery and a fast reduction in unemployment
(coincident with world recovery, but for which Hitler took credit) made
the regime increasingly popular, and a combination of success and
police terror brought the support of 90 percent of the voters in a plebiscite.
Hitler devoted little
attention to the organization and running of the domestic affairs of the
Nazi state. Responsible for the broad lines of policy, as well as for
the system of terror that upheld the state, he left detailed
administration to his subordinates. Each of these exercised arbitrary
power in his own sphere; but by deliberately creating offices and
organizations with overlapping authority, Hitler effectively prevented
any one of these particular realms from ever becoming sufficiently
strong to challenge his own absolute authority.
Foreign policy claimed his greater interest. As he had made clear in Mein Kampf, the reunion of the German peoples was his overriding ambition. Beyond that, the natural field of expansion lay eastward, in Poland, the Ukraine, and the U.S.S.R.—expansion that would necessarily involve renewal of Germany’s
historic conflict with the Slavic peoples, who would be subordinate in
the new order to the Teutonic master race. He saw fascist Italy as his natural ally in this crusade. Britain was a possible ally, provided it abandon its traditional policy of maintaining the balance of power in Europe and limit itself to its interests overseas. In the west France remained the natural enemy of Germany and must, therefore, be cowed or subdued to make expansion eastward possible.
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Before such expansion was possible, it was necessary to remove the restrictions placed on Germany at the end of World War I by the Treaty of Versailles.
Hitler used all the arts of propaganda to allay the suspicions of the
other powers. He posed as the champion of Europe against the scourge of
Bolshevism and insisted that he was a man of peace who wished only to
remove the inequalities of the Versailles Treaty. He withdrew from the Disarmament Conference and from the League of Nations
(October 1933), and he signed a nonaggression treaty with Poland
(January 1934). Every repudiation of the treaty was followed by an offer
to negotiate a fresh agreement and insistence on the limited nature of
Germany’s ambitions. Only once did the Nazis overreach themselves: when Austrian Nazis, with the connivance of German organizations, murdered Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss of Austria and attempted a revolt (July 1934). The attempt failed, and Hitler disclaimed all responsibility. In January 1935 a plebiscite in the Saarland, with a more than 90 percent majority, returned that territory to Germany. In March of the same year, Hitler introduced conscription. Although this action provoked protests from Britain, France, and Italy, the opposition was restrained, and Hitler’s peace diplomacy
was sufficiently successful to persuade the British to negotiate a
naval treaty (June 1935) recognizing Germany’s right to a considerable
navy. His greatest stroke came in March 1936, when he used the excuse of
a pact between France and the Soviet Union to march into the
demilitarized Rhineland—a decision that he took against the advice of many generals. Meanwhile the alliance with Italy, foreseen in Mein Kampf,
rapidly became a reality as a result of the sanctions imposed by
Britain and France against Italy during the Ethiopian war. In October
1936, a Rome–Berlin axis was proclaimed by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini; shortly afterward came the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan; and a year later all three countries joined in a pact. Although on paper France had a number of allies in Europe, while Germany had none, Hitler’s Third Reich had become the principal European power.
Adolf Hitler (right) with Benito Mussolini.Photos.com/Thinkstock
In November 1937, at a secret meeting of his military leaders, Hitler outlined his plans for future conquest (beginning with Austria and Czechoslovakia). In January 1938 he dispensed with the services of those who were not wholehearted in their acceptance of Nazi dynamism—Hjalmar Schacht, who was concerned with the German economy; Werner von Fritsch, a representative of the caution of professional soldiers; and Konstantin von Neurath, Hindenburg’s appointment at the foreign office. In February Hitler invited the Austrian chancellor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, to Berchtesgaden and forced him to sign an agreement including Austrian Nazis within the Vienna
government. When Schuschnigg attempted to resist, announcing a
plebiscite about Austrian independence, Hitler immediately ordered the
invasion of Austria by German troops. The enthusiastic reception that
Hitler received convinced him to settle the future of Austria by
outright annexation (Anschluss).
He returned in triumph to Vienna, the scene of his youthful
humiliations and hardships. No resistance was encountered from Britain
and France. Hitler had taken special care to secure the support of
Italy; as this was forthcoming he proclaimed his undying gratitude to
Mussolini.
Adolf Hitler reviewing German troops in Vienna, 1938.AP Images
In spite of his assurances that Anschluss would not affect Germany’s relations with Czechoslovakia, Hitler proceeded at once with his plans against that country. Konrad Henlein, leader of the German minority in Czechoslovakia, was instructed to agitate for impossible demands on the part of the Sudetenland Germans, thereby enabling Hitler to move ahead on the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Britain’s and France’s
willingness to accept the cession of the Sudetenland areas to Germany
presented Hitler with the choice between substantial gains by peaceful
agreement or by a spectacular war against Czechoslovakia. The
intervention by Mussolini and British prime minister Neville Chamberlain appear to have been decisive. Hitler accepted the Munich Agreement on September 30. He also declared that these were his last territorial demands in Europe.
Only a few months later, he proceeded to occupy the rest of Czechoslovakia. On March 15, 1939, he marched into Prague
declaring that the rest of “Czechia” would become a German
protectorate. A few days later (March 23) the Lithuanian government was
forced to cede Memel (Klaipeda), next to the northern frontier of East Prussia, to Germany.
Immediately Hitler turned on Poland.
Confronted by the Polish nation and its leaders, whose resolution to
resist him was strengthened by a guarantee from Britain and France,
Hitler confirmed his alliance with Italy (the “Pact of Steel,” May
1939). Moreover, on August 23, just within the deadline set for an
attack on Poland, he signed a nonaggression pact with Joseph Stalin’s
Soviet Union—the greatest diplomatic bombshell in centuries. Hitler
still disclaimed any quarrel with Britain, but to no avail; the German
invasion of Poland (September 1) was followed two days later by a
British and French declaration of war on Germany.
In his foreign policy,
Hitler combined opportunism and clever timing. He showed astonishing
skill in judging the mood of the democratic leaders and exploiting their
weaknesses—in spite of the fact that he had scarcely set foot outside Austria
and Germany and spoke no foreign language. Up to this point every move
had been successful. Even his anxiety over British and French entry into
the war was dispelled by the rapid success of the campaign in Poland.
He could, he thought, rely on his talents during the war as he relied on
them before.
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