Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, on April 20, 1889. He finished his studies at age 16 and unsuccessfully pursued a career as a painter. In Vienna, he became steeped in the political theories associated with anti-Semitic Pan-Germanism. At the end of World War I, he viewed the armistice as a national betrayal. In early 1919, Hitler was recruited into the army as an anti-Bolshevik propagandist.
In 1920, Hitler took over as leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. His key themes were ultranationalism, anti-Semitism, anti-parliamentarianism, anti-communism, and condemnation of the “diktat” of the Treaty of Versailles (the peace treaty between Germany and the Allies). Hitler brought the fervor of the crowds he incited to a fever pitch. He attempted a coup on November 8, 1923, but failed.
While in prison, he wrote *Mein Kampf * (*My Struggle*), which was published in 1925. Capitalizing on a difficult economic and social situation, Hitler—who devoted himself to glorifying Nazism—was appointed chancellor by President Hindenburg on January 30, 1933. On the night of June 30, 1934—known as “the Night of the Long Knives”—he ordered the army to execute numerous political opponents.
Upon Hindenburg’s death on August 2, 1934, Hitler merged the offices of president and chancellor.
He proclaimed himself Führer und Reichskanzler (“Leader and Chancellor of the Reich”). He enacted radical anti-Jewish racial measures codified in the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. Jews, political opponents, and democrats were sent to concentration camps.
Based on the idea that Germans belonged to a supposed “superior race,” the “Aryan race,” Hitler embarked on a dictatorial policy of territorial conquest and annexed neighboring German-speaking countries: Austria and Czechoslovakia. In 1940, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway, followed by the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Hitler became the ruler of much of Europe.
In 1941, he invaded the USSR. Beginning in 1942, he implemented the “Final Solution,” which was intended to lead to the extermination of the Roma and all Jews on the European continent. Nearly 6 million Jews were murdered.
On April 30, 1945, Red Army troops entered Berlin. Europe lay in ruins, but the Allies had won the war. Hitler took his own life in his bunker. Nazism, the symbol of “absolute evil,” was defeated.
Reference:
François Kersaudy, 2013, *Hitler*, Édition Perrin.
