THE RISE OF HITLER
Adolf Hitler was the German political and government leader and one of the
20th century’s most powerful dictators, who converted Germany into a fully
militarised society and launched World War II in 1939. Making anti-Semitism a
keystone of his propaganda and policies, he built the Nazi party into a mass
movement. For a time he dominated most of Europe and North Africa. He caused
the slaughter of millions of Jews and other people whom he considered inferior.
EARLY YEARS
Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, the son of a minor customs
official and a peasant girl. A poor student, he never completed high school. He
applied for admission to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna twice but was rejected
for lack of talent. Staying in Vienna until 1913, he lived first on an orphan’s pension,
later on small earnings from pictures he drew. He read a lot of the time, developing
anti-Jewish and antidemocratic convictions, an admiration for the outstanding
individual, and a contempt for the masses.
In World War I , Hitler, by then in Munich, volunteered for service in the
Bavarian army. He proved a dedicated, courageous soldier, but was never promoted
beyond private first class because his superiors thought him lacking in leadership
qualities. After Germany’s defeat in 1918 he returned to Munich, remaining in the
army until 1920. His commander made him an education officer, with the mandate to
immunise his charges against pacifist and democratic ideas. In September 1919 he
joined the nationalist German Workers’ party, and in April 1920 he went to work full
time for the party, now renamed the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi)
party. In 1921 he was elected party chairman (Fuhrer) with dictatorial powers.
THE RISE TO POWER
Hitler spread his gospel of racial hatred and contempt for democracy. He
organised meetings, and terrorised political foes with his personal bodyguard force,
the Sturmabteilung (SA, or Storm Troopers). He soon became a key figure in
Bavarian politics, aided by high officials and businessmen. In November 1923, a
time of political and economic chaos, he led an uprising (Putsch) in Munich against
the post war Weimar Republic, proclaiming himself chancellor of a new authoritarian
regime. Without military support, however, the Putsch collapsed.
As leader eader of the plot, Hitler was sentenced to five year’s imprisonment
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THE RISE OF HITLER
and served nine months, which he spent dictating his autobiography called Mein
Kampf (My Struggle). The failure of the uprising taught Hitler that the Nazi party
must use legal means to assume power. Released as a result of a general amnesty in
December 1924, he rebuilt his party without interference from those whose
government he had tried to overthrow. When the Great Depression struck in 1929, he
explained it as a Jewish-Communist plot, an explanation accepted by many Germans.
Promising a strong Germany, jobs, and national glory, he attracted millions of voters.
Nazi representation in the Reichstag (Parliament) rose from 12 seats in 1928 to 107
in1930.
During the following two years the party kept expanding, benefiting from
growing unemployment, fear of Communism, Hitler’s self-certainty, and the
unstableness of his political rivals. Nevertheless, when Hitler was appointed
chancellor in January 1933, he was expected to be an easily controlled tool of big
business.
GERMANY’S DICTATOR
Once in power, however, Hitler quickly established himself as a dictator. A
subservient council passed the Enabling Act that permitted Hitler’s government to
make laws without the council. The act effectively made the council powerless.
Hitler used the act to Nazify the bureaucracy and the judiciary, replace all labour
unions with one Nazi-controlled German Labour Front, and ban all political parties
except his own. The economy, the media, and all cultural activities were brought
under nazi authority by making an individual’s livelihood dependent on his or her
political loyalty. Thousands of anti-Nazis were taken to concentration camps and all
signs of dissent suppressed.
Hitler relied on his secret police, the Gestapo, and on jails and camps to
intimidate his opponents, but many Germans supported him enthusiastically. His
armament drive wiped out unemployment, an ambitious recreational programme
attracted workers and employees, and his foreign policy successes impressed the
nation. He thus managed to build support among the German people; he needed their
support to establish German rule over Europe and other parts of the world.
Discrediting the churches with charges of corruption and immorality, he imposed his
own brutal moral code. He derided the concept of human equality and claimed racial
superiority for the Aryans, of which he said the Germans were the highest form. As
the master race, they were told, they had the right to dominate all nations they
subjected. The increasingly ruthless persecution of the Jews was to familiarise the
Germans to his task.
Hitler successfully appealed to a Germany that was humiliated by defeat in
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THE RISE OF HITLER
World War I and the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. Many Germans, and even other
Europeans, believed that the terms of the treaty were too harsh, and Hitler was
successful in defying some of them. His efforts to re-arm Germany in 1935 met with
little protest from other European countries, and when he sent troops in to
demilitarised Rhineland in 1936, France did not react.
When the Spanish Civil War began in July 1936, Hitler supported Nationalist
leader Francisco Franco, supplying airplanes and weapons. German aid to Franco
gave Hitler the opportunity to test his strategies and weapons technology. In October
1936 Hitler signed a pact with Italy’s Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini. In November
1936 he signed the Anti-Comintern treaty with Japan. In 1940 Germany signed a
tripartite alliance with both Italy and Japan, pledging mutual support.
Hitler believed that Germany needed to expand to the east in order to find
living space, or Levensraum, which could be used as both agricultural and industrial
land. In 1938 when Hitler occupied Austria claiming that Germans were being
persecuted, he encountered no resistance. In September 1938, stating that Germans in
the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia were being oppressed, he encouraged the to make
demands on the Czechoslovakian government that it could not fulfill. Thus Germany
had an excuse to march in Czechoslovakia. Britain and France feared the outbreak of
war and agreed to the Munich Pact, which gave the Sudetenland to Germany in
exchange for Germany’s promise not to take additional Czech territory. However, by
March 1939 Hitler had brought the remainder of Czechoslovakia under German
control. he was actively preparing for an aggressive manoeuvre towards the east.
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