Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in Branau, Austria, a small town across
the inn River from Germany. He was the third son of Customs Official, Alois
Hitler, and his third wife Klara. Alois moved his family into Linz, Austria
where Adolf attended school and church regularly. Young Hitler was a good
student until his mother's death when Adolf was only sixteen, and having his dad
die just two years prior, he dropped out of school and made his way to Vienna,
Austria to study art but poverty and rejection forced degradation that gnawed at
his soul. He found relief in hatred in trade unionists and Marxists and thanks
to the propaganda of Karl Lueger, in the hatred of Jews. Hitler identified all
that he wanted and couldn't have; wealth, power, culture, and made them the root
of his evil. Later Hitler explained this in an excerpt from Mein Kampf,
"Gradually I began to hate them. I was transformed from a weakly
world-citizen into a fanatic anti-Semite." Thus, he built his defenses
against hopelessness, helplessness and fear. All of which was expressed in the
art work Hitler created and sold to survive. He lived like this until 1913 when
he decided to move to Munich. Still living in Vienna and being Austrian by
birth, Hitler showed more loyalty to Germany. He thought that the Aryan race was
destined to rule the wold. Then in 1914 World War I broke out and he saw this as
a great opportunity to show his loyalty to the "fatherland" by
volunteering in the Imperial Army. Hitler received two awards for bravery before
suffering from temporary blindness that ended his life in the army. World War I
ended, in 1918, with the signing of the Versailles Treaty stripping Germany of
its land. In 1920 Hitler then went on to become a spy for the Munich government
that sent him on the case that would change the course of history forever. They
sent him to a German Workers' Party hosted by Gottfried Feder. Hitler listened
in as they talked of "patriotic German capitalism" and of the
"inferior Jew" and Hitler spoke up among them, which worked to his
advantage in the end. The Nazis assigned him National Socialist German Workers'
Party member number seven. Working for the cancellation of the Versailles
Treaty, the Nazi's party was divided up into two major political organizations.
The first was PO I- was dedicated to the undermining and overthrowing of the
German democratic republic. The second, PO II, designed to create a government
in waiting, a highly organized Nazi government within the republic that would
some day replace it. PO II even had its own departments of Agriculture, Economy,
Interior, Foreign Affairs, Justice, Race and Culture and Propaganda. The later
was headed up by Adolf Hitler himself, for his incredible public speaking
abilities. On November 9, 1923, Hitler led more than 2,000 of his Storm
Troopers(an army called upon to fight groups seeking to disband the Nazi
rallies) on a march to seize the Barvarian government. The attempt failed and
Hitler was arrested for treason and sentenced to two years in prison and two
years banned from public speaking. Hitler only served nine of those months in
prison; while in prison, Hitler, at the age of thirty-five, wrote his famous
Mein Kempf (My Struggle). The verdict of his expulsion of public speaking was a
major setback for Hitler who owed much of his success to his speech making
ability. But rather than be discouraged or slowed down, Hitler immediately began
reorganizing the Nazi Party with feverish effort. He set up a private
battle-ready elite guard known as the "Schutzstaffel" (SS) to
transport and take care of all political prisoners and people thought to be
inferior. Hitler also ordered the creation of a special police force to make
sure that all opponents would be eliminated, the Gestapo. Also teachers had to
belong to the Nazi party and the children were taught that Jews were the very
source of all their problems. In 1932 Hitler ran for Chancellor of Germany but
lost thirty-six percent to Hindenburg, fifty-three percent. Hitler lost by
little under a million, thus showing the popularity of the Nazi people. But
January 30, 1933 Chancellor Hindenburg resigned due to the Nazis in the
government, giving the title of Chancellor to Adolf Hitler. Then everything went
down hill, first he started to build up the Wehrmacht. Germany was not allowed
to have more than 100,000 men but Hitler broke the treaty and gave orders to
increase that number. At first the allies did nothing about the fact that Hitler
broke the treaty. He gave speeches in which he indicated that the German people
needed living space. Later he marched into the Reihnland, and an area which
Germany had lost. Next he moved to Austria and annexed it without a shot being
fired into the Reich. Then he gained Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia, but
when he attacked Poland, in 1939, the allies got upset. And Britain and France
declared war on Germany, starting World War II. Also, at this time the
Concentration camps were set up to exterminate the Jews in Germany, Poland and
Russia. Before Hitler was stopped in 1945 by the Allies, he had caused the
extermination of more than twelve million people. Including the life of a love
affair he'd had with his niece, Geli Raubal. Hitler committed suicide in his
bunker on April 30, 1945 and seven days later, Germany surrendered.