Adolf Hitler is leader of Nazi Germany. After being appointed foreign minister in 1933, he finished the democratic institutions of the republic and established a one-party dictatorship (the Nazi party, short for National Socialist Party), from which brutally repressed all opposition and prompted a formidable propaganda machine at the service of their ideas : superiority of the Aryan race, and pan-Germanic nationalist fervor, revanchist militarism and anti-Jews.
The doctrine of "living space" and Pan-Germanic ideal of uniting the peoples of German language would lead to an aggressive expansionism; in support of its belligerent policy, Hitler rearmed Germany and reorganized and modernized its army it into a fearsome machine. France and Britain agreed the annexation of Austria and occupation of Czechoslovakia, but the German invasion of Poland finally unleashed World War II (1939-45), the first phase gave Hitler control of the whole of Europe, except Britain. The failed invasion of Russia and the US intervention reversed the course of the war; despite the inevitable defeat, Hitler rejected any negotiation dragged Germany into a desperate resistance and committed suicide in his bunker a few days before the fall of Berlin.
BiographySon of an Austrian customs, his childhood was spent in his youth in Linz and Vienna. The formation of Adolf Hitler was scarce and self, as soon as he received education. Vienna (1907-1913) failed in his vocation as a painter, malvivió as tramp and saw its racial prejudice at the sight of a cosmopolitan city, whose intellectual and multicultural vitality it was completely incomprehensible. From this period dates his conversion to German nationalism and anti-Semitism.
In 1913 Adolf Hitler fled the Austro-Hungarian Empire for no military service; he fled to Munich and joined the German army during World War I (1914-18). The defeat made him go into politics, upholding an ideology of nationalist reaction, marked by the rejection of the new democratic system of the Weimar Republic, whose politicians accused of betraying Germany accepting the humiliating peace terms of the Treaty of Versailles ( 1918).
Back in Munich, Hitler joined a small far-right party, which soon became the main leader and renamed as National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). The party declared nationalist, anti-Semitic, anti, anti-liberal, anti-democratic, anti-peace and anti-capitalist, although the latter revolutionary social component would be soon forgotten; such motley ideological conglomerate, mainly negative, fed on the fears of the German middle classes to the uncertainties of the modern world. Influenced by the fascism of Mussolini, this movement adverse to both existing as the whole trend of progress, represented the reactionary response to the crisis of the liberal state that war had accelerated.
But Hitler soon raise their propaganda. In 1923 he failed in a first attempt to seize power from Munich, supported by armed militia of Ludendorff ("Beer Hall Putsch"). He was arrested, tried and imprisoned, though he spent only one year in jail and a half, took time to translate their extremist political ideas in a book called Mein Kampf and designing the broad lines of its future action.
But Hitler soon raise their propaganda. In 1923 he failed in a first attempt to seize power from Munich, supported by armed militia of Ludendorff ("Beer Hall Putsch"). He was arrested, tried and imprisoned, though he spent only one year in jail and a half, took time to translate their extremist political ideas in a book called Mein Kampf and designing the broad lines of its future action.
Again released since 1925, Hitler was the Nazi Party expelling potential rivals and surrounded himself with a group of faithful collaborators like Goering, Himmler and Goebbels. The deep economic crisis that since 1929 and the political difficulties of the Weimar Republic gave him a growing audience among the legions of unemployed and disaffected willing to listen to his demagogic propaganda, wrapped in a paraphernalia of parades, flags, anthems and uniforms.
The Third Reich
Skillfully combining the legal political struggle with the unlawful use of violence in the streets, the National Socialists or Nazis were gaining electoral weight until Hitler (who had never obtained majority) was appointed head of government by President Hindenburg in 1933. Since the Chancellery Hitler destroyed the constitutional regime and replaced by a one-party dictatorship based on his personal power. Thus began the so-called Third Reich (Third German Empire, after the Empire Holy medieval and the Empire of 1871, disappeared with the First World War), which was not a totalitarian regime based on extreme nationalism and the exaltation of racial superiority without any scientific basis (based on stereotypes that contrasted with the ridiculous figure of Hitler himself).
After the death of Hindenburg, Hitler fuhler or "leader" of Germany was proclaimed and subjected the army to take an oath of fidelity. The bloody repression against dissidents culminated in the purge of Nazi own ranks during the "night of the long knives" (1934) and the establishment of a total police control of the company, while the persecution of Jews, which began with the racist Nuremberg Laws (1935) and the pogrom known as "Kristallnacht" (1938), lead to the systematic extermination of European Jews from 1939 (the "Final Solution").
Hitler's foreign policy was the key to their promised reconstruction of Germany, based divert attention from internal conflicts to an aggressive foreign policy. He aligned himself with the Italian fascist dictatorship, with which intervened in aid of Franco in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), a dress rehearsal for the subsequent world war; and he completed alliances with the addition of an anti-Soviet alliance in Japan (Anti-Comintern Pact, 1936) to form the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis (1937).
Hitler's foreign policy was the key to their promised reconstruction of Germany, based divert attention from internal conflicts to an aggressive foreign policy. He aligned himself with the Italian fascist dictatorship, with which intervened in aid of Franco in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), a dress rehearsal for the subsequent world war; and he completed alliances with the addition of an anti-Soviet alliance in Japan (Anti-Comintern Pact, 1936) to form the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis (1937).
Convinced militarist, Hitler began to reform the country to enforce its demands by force (restoration of compulsory military service in 1935, remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936); thereby reactivated German industry, reduced unemployment and almost overcame the economic depression that had brought him to power.
Then, leaning on the Pan-german ideal, he demanded the union of all German-speaking territories, first withdrew from the League of Nations, rejecting peaceful methods of arbitration (1933); then he forced the Dollfuss assassination of Austrian President (1934) and the Anschluss or annexation of Austria (1938); then invaded the Czech Sudetenland, and after Western diplomacy deceive promising not to have more ambitions (Munich Conference, 1938), occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia, the split into two and subjected to a protectorate; still allowed snatch Lithuania Memel territory (1939).
Then, leaning on the Pan-german ideal, he demanded the union of all German-speaking territories, first withdrew from the League of Nations, rejecting peaceful methods of arbitration (1933); then he forced the Dollfuss assassination of Austrian President (1934) and the Anschluss or annexation of Austria (1938); then invaded the Czech Sudetenland, and after Western diplomacy deceive promising not to have more ambitions (Munich Conference, 1938), occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia, the split into two and subjected to a protectorate; still allowed snatch Lithuania Memel territory (1939).
Second world war
When the conflict over the free city of Danzig led him to invade Poland, France and Britain reacted and the outbreak of World War II (1939-45). Adolf Hitler had prepared his forces for this great confrontation, which he said would allow expansion of Germany to achieve global hegemony (Hossbach Protocol, 1937); in anticipation of the outbreak of war he had strengthened its alliance with Italy (Pact of Steel, 1939) and, especially, had concluded a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union (1939), agreeing with Stalin the partition of Poland.
The modern Army had prepared scored brilliant victories on all fronts during the first years of the war, making Hitler own almost all of Europe through a 'blitzkrieg' occupied Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia and Greece (while Italy, Spain, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Finland were her allies, and countries such as Sweden and Switzerland declared a benevolent neutrality).
When the conflict over the free city of Danzig led him to invade Poland, France and Britain reacted and the outbreak of World War II (1939-45). Adolf Hitler had prepared his forces for this great confrontation, which he said would allow expansion of Germany to achieve global hegemony (Hossbach Protocol, 1937); in anticipation of the outbreak of war he had strengthened its alliance with Italy (Pact of Steel, 1939) and, especially, had concluded a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union (1939), agreeing with Stalin the partition of Poland.
The modern Army had prepared scored brilliant victories on all fronts during the first years of the war, making Hitler own almost all of Europe through a 'blitzkrieg' occupied Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia and Greece (while Italy, Spain, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Finland were her allies, and countries such as Sweden and Switzerland declared a benevolent neutrality).
Only Churchill's Britain resisted the attempted invasion (aerial Battle of Britain, 1940-1941); but the fate of Hitler began to change when he launched the invasion of Russia (1941), responding to both the basic anti ideal of Nazism as the draft snatch the "inferior" Slavic race this the "vital space" dreaming to magnify Germany. From the Battle of Stalingrad (1943), the course of the war was reversed and Soviet forces began a counteroffensive that would not stop to take Berlin in 1945; simultaneously, he reopened the Western Front with the massive contribution in men and weapons from the United States (involved in the war from 1941), which allowed the Normandy landings (1944).
Defeated and all his projects failed, Hitler saw his colleagues began to leave him while Germany itself was destroyed by the allied armies; in his limited world view there was no room for compromise or surrender, so that dragged his country to disaster. Having shaken the world with his dream of world hegemony of the German "race", causing a total war on a global scale and unprecedented genocide in concentration camps, Hitler committed suicide in the Chancellery bunker where they had taken refuge a few days after the entry of the Russians in Berlin.
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