Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was the fourth of six children born to Alois Hitler, an Austrian customs officer who had been previously married, and Klara Polzl. He grew up in a small Austrian town during the late 19th century. As a child, Hitler was a slow learner and performed poorly in school. He was often physically punished by his authoritarian father. His situation worsened after his older brother, Alois Jr., ran away from home. His mother, though mild-mannered, occasionally tried to protect him but was largely ineffective. At age 11, Hitler attempted to run away, but was unsuccessful. When his father died at age 14, Hitler was relieved, as he had a poor relationship with him. He left high school at 16 and moved to Vienna, where he sought to become an artist but was rejected twice by the Vienna Art Academy. By this time, Hitler had become a fervent German nationalist, despite being Austrian. When World War I broke out, he crossed into Germany and joined a Bavarian regiment in the German army. He served as a message runner and saw combat. In 1918, he was temporarily blinded in a gas attack in Flanders and received the Iron Cross 2nd Class, which led to his promotion from private to corporal. After the war ended, Hitler remained in the army and was assigned to the Intelligence division, where he was tasked with monitoring radical political groups. One such group was the German Workers' Party, which he joined after being influenced by its founder, Dietrich Eckart. With the help of his military intelligence connections, Hitler became the party's spokesman in 1919, renamed it the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP/NAZI), and declared himself its Führer the following year. In 1920, Hitler's intelligence handler, Colonel Karl Haushofer, introduced the swastika as the party's insignia. Haushofer also founded the paramilitary Storm Troopers ("Sturmabteilung", or SA), composed of WWI veterans and intelligence officers. The SA supported Hitler's failed 1923 "beer hall putsch" in Munich, an attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government. During the failed coup, Hitler's men fired at police, who responded with gunfire, resulting in several Nazi deaths and Hitler's arrest. He was convicted of treason and sentenced to prison, where he dictated his book "Mein Kampf" to his deputy, Rudolf Hess. He served only a short portion of his sentence before being released. By 1925, the Nazi Party had gained financial and organizational strength through the support of wealthy conservative industrialists. Hitler was given a personal bodyguard unit known as the "Schutzstaffel" (SS). The Nazis expanded their influence through networks of army and WWI veterans, and Hitler ran for President in 1931 but was defeated by Paul von Hindenburg. He later became Chancellor of Germany in 1933 through political deals with conservative businessmen and right-wing politicians. One month after his appointment, the Reichstag was set on fire, an event the Nazis blamed on "terrorists" but which was later found to have been orchestrated by the Nazis. Hitler used the incident to justify emergency decrees that increased his power. In March 1933, he secured the Enabling Act, which made him the de facto dictator of Germany. By the end of 1933, Hitler had abolished trade unions and arrested members of rival political groups, making the Nazi Party the only legal political party in Germany. In 1934, he purged the SA, a group he had once supported, after viewing them as a threat to his power. Ernst Röhm, the SA leader and one of Hitler's longtime allies, was assassinated during the purge. After President Hindenburg's death, Hitler merged the offices of Chancellor and President. In 1935, Hitler authorized the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws. In 1936, he sent troops into the Rhineland, violating the Treaty of Versailles. In 1938, he annexed Austria and seized the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, claiming to protect ethnic Germans. In March 1939, Hitler occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia. On August 23, 1939, he signed a non-aggression pact with Joseph Stalin. In September 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland, prompting France and the British Commonwealth to declare war on Germany. In 1940, Germany occupied Denmark, Norway, and the Low Countries, and launched an offensive against France. After France surrendered, Hitler considered invading the UK, but the invasion was abandoned after the German Air Force was defeated in the Battle of Britain. The British had begun bombing German cities in May 1940, and in response, Hitler ordered the Blitz. In 1941, German forces assisted Italy in its invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece. At the same time, a program of mass extermination of Jews was underway in Germany and occupied territories. On June 22, 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union.