Hitler Essay, Research Paper
Adolf Hitler was the ruler of Germany from 1933 to 1945. Guided by concepts of elitism
and racism, he established a brutal totalitarian regime under the ideological banner of
National Socialism, or Nazism. His drive for empire resulted in the devastation of World
War II, culminating in Germany’s defeat and the reordering of world power relationships.
Hitler was born on Apr. 20, 1889, in the Austrian town of Braunau am Inn, the son of
Alois, a customs official, and Klara Hitler. Alois, who was illegitimate, used his mother’s
name, Schicklgruber, until 1876, when he adopted the name Hitler. He was very stern
with his son and abhorred Adolf’s dreamy ways. His death, in 1903, came as a relief to
Adolf. Adolf idealized his mother, however, whose death in 1907 had a traumatic effect
on him. Hitler failed as a student in the classical secondary schools, a situation that
contributed to his desire to become an artist. He went to Vienna in 1907 but was unable
to gain admission to the Academy of Fine Arts. He lived a shadowy, alienated existence
in multiracial Vienna until 1913. His years there were characterized by melancholy,
aimlessness, and racial hatred–in Vienna he developed his lifelong obsession with the
“danger” that world Jewry posed to the “Aryan race.”
In 1913, Hitler went to Munich, partly to evade conscription into the Austrian
army. There, however, he answered the call to colors at the outbreak of World War I.
Serving in the Bavarian Sixteenth Regiment on the western front, he distinguished
himself for bravery and was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class. For the first time in his
life Hitler had found a home; he glorified the raw majesty of life under fire, and the
nobility of the warrior. His soldierly dreams of victory and fulfillment were shattered,
however, by Germany’s defeat. He became convinced that Germany had been “stabbed in
the back” by Jews and Marxists. The attempt to root parliamentary democracy in
Germany was beset from the beginning by grave problems. There were so many political
parties–at least six major and many more minor ones- -that it was hard to form stable
coalitions for effective government. Militant minorities–the Communists on the far left
and monarchists and racists on the opposite extreme–sometimes resorted to force in
efforts to overturn the republic. Notable among these efforts was the Munich Putsch of
1923, in which the tiny National Socialist party, led by Adolf Hitler, made a somewhat
farcical attempt to seize power in Bavaria. The continuing unrest made the national
government even more dependent on the basically conservative army.
The year 1923 was one of major crisis. The payment of reparations, in both cash
and kind, had placed an enormous strain on a country already bankrupted by more than
four years of war. As inflation had mounted, Germany had suspended payment in 1922,
provoking the French to occupy the Ruhr area in January 1923. Workers in Ruhr mines
and factories resisted by striking, but such resistance contributed to inflation, which
brought on economic collapse. The situation was saved in November 1923 when the
ablest of Germany’s republican politicians, Gustav Stressman, introduced a new currency
and improved Germany’s relations with the western nations, paving the way for foreign
loans and a more reasonable schedule of reparations payments. During the later 1920s,
therefore, the German economy revived, and politics settled down. Also, during those
years, a remarkable avant-garde culture blossomed in Germany, extending from the epic
theater of Bertolt Brecht, to the Bauhaus school of functional art and architecture, to the
relativity physics of Albert Einstien, and to the existential philosophy of Martin
Heidegger.
This new Germany was cut down in its infancy by the onset of the depression of
the 1930?s and the Nazi seizure of power. Depression conditions once more radicalized
politics and so divided the parties in the Reichstag that parliamentary government became
all but impossible. From 1930 on, government functioned by emergency decree. The
Communists profited briefly from this radicalization, but the main beneficiary was
Hitler’s National Socialist, or Nazi party, which had the twin attractions of appearing to
offer radical solutions to economic problems while upholding patriotic values.
Nazism had several elements: (1) A belief–with a theoretical
and pseudoscientific basis in the works of the comte de Gobineau,
Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and Alfred Rosenberg–in an
Aryan German race superior to all others and destined to rule,
together with a violent hatred of Jews that led to the establishment
of concentration camps and to the Holocaust. (2) An extreme
nationalism that called for the unification of all German-speaking
peoples. This led to the occupation of Austria, a German-speaking
country, and of Czechoslovakia, which had a large German minority.
(3) A belief in some form of corporative state socialism, although the
left-leaning members of the party were purged in 1934. (4) A private
army, called the SS or Blackshirts. (5) A youth cult that emphasized
sports and paramilitary outdoor activities. (6) The massive use of
propaganda, masterminded by Joseph Goebbels. (7) The submission
of all decisions to the supreme leader Adolf Hitler, and the glorification
of strength and discipline.
Nazism somewhat resembled Fascism, which preceded it in Italy. It spawned several
small Nazi parties in the occupied countries, Britain, and the United States. By 1932 it
was the largest party in the Reichstag. The following year President Paul von Hindenburg
appointed Hitler chancellor after allowing himself to be convinced by generals and
right-wing politicians that only the Nazi leader could restore order in Germany and that
he could be controlled.
Hitler’s rise to power paralleled the unstable course of the Weimar Republic,
which replaced the fallen Hohenzollern monarchy. The abortive Communist revolution
in Germany and the dictated Peace of Versailles determined Hitler’s decision to enter
politics. In 1919 he joined a small political faction in Munich and within the next year
formed the National Socialist German Workers’ party (NSDAP). He directed the
organization with an iron hand and used its meetings to deliver forceful rhetorical assaults
on Germany’s “enemies.” In 1923 he led the party into the ill-fated Munich Putsch. This
action resulted in his imprisonment. While in prison at Landsberg, Hitler wrote Mein
Kampf, which became the standard work of Nazi political philosophy. He defined the
enemy as world Jewry, international communism, effete liberalism, and decadent
capitalism. Hitler offered instead pure Aryan blood and the renewal of German
nationalism under a fighting elite.
One of the most important political tracts of the 20th century,
Mein Kampf is considered the bible of Nazism. Written by
Adolf Hitler while he served a sentence in Landsberg Prison,
the book presents Hitler’s major ideas on anti-Semitism,
anti-Communism, superiority of the Aryan race, German
nationalism, the state’s superiority over the individual, and
Hitler’s feelings of hostility for democracy and miscegenation.
The importance of the book, which calls for German domination
of Europe, is derived from the notoriety of its author rather than
from his logical presentation of National Socialist ideas.?
Germany would once more become the leading power on the Continent and gain its
living space in central Europe and Russia. Released after serving 9 months of a 5-year
sentence, Hitler reemerged as the NSDAP’s leader in 1925. He moved swiftly to reshape
the party and neutralize Gregor Strasser, who had built a Nazi power base for himself in
the industrial north. Hitler gathered around him a devoted cadre of lieutenants, including
the air ace Hermann Goering, the propagandist Joseph Goebbels, the police technician
Heinrich Himmler, and the rabid anti-Semitic journalist Julius Streicher.
The Great Depression opened the way for Hitler’s success.
No country suffered more than Germany from the
worldwide economic collapse. Foreign loans abruptly
ceased or were recalled. Factories ground to a halt. There
were 6 million unemployed. The middle class had not
really recovered from the great inflation of 1923; when
struck again, after so brief a respite, they lost all faith in
the economic system and in its system. The Communists
vote steadily mounted; the great middling masses, who
saw in communism their own death warrant, and who
are extremely numerous in any highly developed society,
looked about desperately for someone to save them
from Bolshevism.(Palmer and Colton p.822)
Mass unemployment, Communist insurgency, and an alliance between the Nazis
and the industrialist Alfred Hugenberg’s Nationalist party all contributed to the NSDAP’s
electoral breakthrough in September 1930. It increased its seats in the Reichstag from 12
to 107, becoming the second largest party. Hitler capitalized on the violent political
climate by employing the Brownshirts, the Nazi paramilitary arm, in the battle for the
streets. His strategy worked. In April 1932 he only narrowly lost the presidential
election to the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg, and elections in July made the Nazis the
largest party in the Reichstag, with 37% of the vote. The party retained this position
despite a decline in its vote in the November elections. Finally, Hindenburg, having
failed to gain stability under the regimes of Heinrich Brunning, Franz von Papen, and
Kurt von Schleicher, named Hitler as chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933. Nazi Dictatorship
Most Germans who supported Hitler during his rise to power did so out of
desperation, scarcely knowing what he planned to do. They received much more than
they had bargained for. After half -persuading, half-coercing the Reichstag to grant him
absolute power, Hitler lost no time in founding a totalitarian state, known unofficially as
the Third Reich–supposedly in the tradition of the Holy Roman Empire and the unified
German Empire set up by Bismarck.
Hitler called his new order the Third Reich. He declared
that, following on the First Reich, or Holy Roman Empire,
and the Second Reich, or empire founded by Bismarck,
the Third Reich carried on the process of true German
history, of which, he said it, it was the organic outgrowth
and natural culmination. The Third Reich he prophesized,
would last a thousand years.(Palmer and Colton p.826)
When confronted by demands from Storm Trooper, Brownshirts leader Ernst Roehm and
others for a second revolution that would make good on Nazi claims to socialist ideals,
Hitler purged Roehm and his associates on the weekend of June 30, 1934. Four years
later, he forced out two of the top generals on trumped-up charges in order to assure
himself of full control of the expanding German armed forces. Hitler’s virulent racism
gave rise to a cruel system of Anti- Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws of September 1935,
which deprived Jews of most civil rights, were supplemented by other measures designed
to rid Germany of Jews. These measures were to culminate in a policy of deliberate
extermination during World War II, taking the lives of approximately 6 million European
Jews. More immediately, however, a concerted state program of ending unemployment
with public works projects and a restoration of business confidence produced remarkable
economic recovery in Germany. The efficient propaganda ministry of Joseph Goebbles
controlled the media to assure that Hitler would be viewed as a genius and Nazi Germany
as the best of all possible worlds.
Propaganda became a principle branch of government. Propaganda
was hardly new, but in the past, and still in the democratic countries,
and had been a piecemeal affair, urging the public to accept this or
that political party, or to buy this or that brand of coffee. Now, like
all else, it became ?total?. Propaganda was monopolized by the state,
and it demanded faith in a whole view of life and in every detail of this
coordinated whole. Formerly the control of books and newspapers had
been mainly negative; under Napolean or Metternich, for example, censors
had forbidden statements on particular subjects, events or persons. Now in
totalitarian countries (Germany) control of the press became frighteningly
positive. (Palmer and Colton p.830)
Given this combination of coercion, achievement, and thought control, it is perhaps not
surprising that there was little resistance, aside from limited opposition from some
elements in the churches and the army.
Hitler’s consolidation of power was a gradual process that involved both the
assumption of dictatorial authority and the elimination of opposition outside and within
the Nazi party. The Reichstag fire of Feb. 27, 1933, provided a pretext for outlawing the
Communist party and arresting its leaders. The real breakthrough, however, came with
the Reichstag’s passage of the Enabling Act on Mar. 23, 1933, giving Hitler 4 years of
dictatorial powers. Having won a commanding lead in the last free elections, held in
March, Hitler proceeded to dismantle all parties except the NSDAP. All federal and state
institutions and organizations were “coordinated,” purged of Jewish influence, and
brought under party control. On June 30, 1934, Hitler liquidated Ernst Roehm,
commander of the SA, along with hundreds of other Nazi radicals. With the death of
Hindenburg in August 1934, Hitler also assumed the functions of the presidency. He
adopted the title of Fuhrer, or supreme leader, of the Third Reich.
Institutional supremacy was reinforced by an elaborate terror apparatus,
established by Reichsfuhrer Himmler, leader of the SS Blackshirts, the paramilitary
organization that supplanted the Brownshirts. The Brownshirts and Gestapo instituted
the notorious system of Concentration Camps. Although other groups and institutions
suffered persecution by the Nazis because of their political unacceptability, the Jews were
abused solely because of their racial identity. One decree after another eliminated
them from their positions in the professions and bureaucracy. The Nuremberg Racial
Laws of 1935 deprived them of their citizenship. Propaganda went hand in hand with
terror. Goebbels adroitly orchestrated themes that were synchronized with Hitler’s
successes in both domestic and foreign affairs. Germany’s economic recovery reinforced
the widespread support Hitler enjoyed throughout the Reich during in the 1930s.
Hitler’s economic policies were initially geared to recovery from the depression;
thereafter, they were tied to his foreign-policy goals. By appointing Hjalmar Schacht, the
architect of Germany’s financial recovery in the 1920s, as his economics minister, Hitler
reaffirmed his support of conservative economic policies. He undertook a vast program
of public works, including construction of a network of superhighways (Autobahnen),
which both returned the unemployed to work and primed the economy. By naming
Goering director of the Four Year Plan in 1936, however, Hitler focused the entire
economy on preparations for war.
Hitler’s foreign-policy goals were spelled out in Mein Kampf: to overturn the
Versailles settlement and unite all Germans in a single Greater Germany, to destroy
Bolshevism, and to conquer and colonize eastern Europe. At first he proceeded
cautiously. He withdrew Germany from the League of Nations as early as October 1933,
but he offset criticism by repeated declarations of his peaceful intentions and by
concluding a series of bilateral agreements, including a nonaggression pact with Poland
(1934). As the indecisiveness of his opponents became clear, Hitler acted more
forcefully.
In March 1935 he announced the rearmament of Germany in open violation of
the Treaty of Versailles. He was rewarded by Britain’s concurrence in the form of an
Anglo-German Naval Pact (June 1935). The following year, without warning, he
remilitarized the Rhineland, and France remained immobile. The two major European
democracies, fearful of war, seemed set on the course of appeasement.
Bolstered by the formation (1936) of the Rome-Berlin Axis and the
Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan, Hitler outlined his war plans to the German military
leaders in a secret meeting in November 1937. Several of them objected and were
promptly dismissed. In March 1938 he annexed Austria. Later that year, after an
international crisis over alleged abuses to ethnic Germans in the Sudeten area of western
Czechoslovakia, Britain and France joined Italy in signing the Sudetenland over to
Germany at the Munich Conference. In March 1939, German troops completed the
dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Belatedly, Britain and France moved to guarantee
Poland’s integrity. Hitler, undeterred, concluded (August 1939) the Nazi-Soviet Pact,
which cleared the way for his attack on Poland on September 1. He was surprised but
prepared when France and Britain declared war on September 3. The pact with the USSR
provided him the opportunity to crush his enemies in the west piecemeal.
Adolf Hitler?s rise to power was partly because of excellent timing; Germany was
looking for someone to save their economy and do away with the Weimar Rupublic,
which germans no longer had any faith in its effectiveness. The person the people chose
was Adolf Hitler. His rise was also due to planning. Hitler used propaganda to convince
Germany he was the person to save them. He new the rise of nationalism would unite
Germany behind him and give him a strong hold over the government. Hitler controlled
everything in government and he won much support by being the major figure in
Germany?s economic recovery. Hitler was a brilliant leader as far as gaining control and
building a strong, successful country. His rise to power would change the world and the
future forever.