If World War II was the Armageddon of our times, then the Nazi Regime
embodied in both mind and spirit, the legions and armies of the damned, lead by their
Fuhrer, a figure who came to represent not one, but all of the four horsemen of the
apocalypse. War, Conquest, Famine and Death, came into flesh and were personified by
one man, Adolf Hitler. From his beginning, Hitler had never found purpose in life until
he was a message courier for the German Army during The Great War; even having
earned the Iron Cross twice, a highly distinguished honor, Hitler never advanced in rank
(from the lowly Corporal), yet he proclaimed his love of War. Hitler believed his cause
and mission to be one of providence. The National Socialism of the Nazi Party should be
spread across the European continent in a mass crusade, and eventually reach domination
over the entire globe, thus proving Hitler’s incarnation of Conquest. He cared only about
the economy in regards to its preparation for war and its ability to provide for
rearmament and German expansion after the humiliating “Stab in the Back” that was the
Treaty of Versailles. Although he did at first appear to crush unemployment with his
wave of economic policies, in reality, Hitler did not care about the German people, which
would later be exemplified when food reserves ran out and Hitler chose to remain
focused on the war effort rather than devise a means of feeding his own people. Many of
Hitler’s ‘fellow’ countrymen succumbed to famine during the war. Finally, Hitler acted
as the herald of Death, attempting and partially succeeding in the industrialized, mass
eradication of Soviet-Communism, as well as the Jewish race, whom Hitler had deemed
as the architects of Marxism. Nazi foreign policy, or in actuality, Hitler’s foreign policy,
never focused on war or territorial expansion over and above other areas of domestic or
foreign politics, but was, in essence, consumed entirely by these two goals. From his rise
to power and appointment as Chancellor in 1933 to the beginning of Blitzkrieg against
Poland in September of 1940, in the mind of Hitler, there was no Nazi foreign policy
without the objectives of territorial expansion with war as his end game. In reality, the
only true objectives of Nazi foreign policy were to expand its realm of influence and
control across the entire continent by any means necessary, uniting all the ethnic German
peoples into the apex Aryan race. The Nazi’s plan would only culminate with National
Socialism vaccinating the entire globe while simultaneously annihilating the ravenous
epidemic that was Communism, as well as the plague bearers who spread it. According to
Hitler, the Bolsheviks, Marxists and the ‘racially impure’ Jews had to be eradicated in
order to create a racially pure and superior one thousand year Third Reich. Commencing
the moment of Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich on November 8 1923, to the
end of his trial in February of 1924 and eventual release on good behavior in 1925, the
future Fuhrer began to formulate and restructure his blueprints for an even stronger,
united and reborn Germany, what he would come to dub as Grossdeutchland (Great
Germany). In summation, Nazi foreign policy can be broken down into three major
(chronologically overlapping) phases from 1933 to 1941, which are the periods of
revisionism, expansionism and finally culminating in destructionism (of both Nazi
Germany itself and its enemies). The first period of revisionism consisted of Hitler
framing a series of non-aggression pacts in order to conceal himself as a wolf among
sheep in order to justify his goals of rearmament. The second period of expansionism was
focused on Hitler’s demand for ‘Lebensraum’ or living space, which was required to fuel
the German’s economic demands for preparing for war, involving a series of territorial
acquisitions to solidify the German political and tactical position in Europe at the time.
These acquisitions were only successful because of the time and circumstances which
Nazi Germany was in; after being blamed as the sole cause of The Great War and then
being forced into the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, there began to appear a global
opinion that Germany had been treated too harshly and unfairly and in order to prevent
another war, it would be in the best interest of the world to concede and appeal to Hitler’s
demands. The notion of appeasement was born, supported to the end by Britain’s Neville
Chamberlain as well as many other world leaders of the time. It was also the Great
Depression so many of the ‘Big Three’ (which were Great Britain, France and the United
States of America), or the Great Powers and victors of The First World War, were
economically weak, and financially unprepared for war, concluding that appeasement
would be the most cost efficient and effective (in terms of money and blood) mode of
answering the problem that was Hitler’s Nazi regime. The newly forming and massive
Third Reich, with its entire ethnic German people now united, would require space to live
of course as well as areas to expand agriculturally, industrially and economically. After
obtaining and regaining over five different pieces of territory through consent and
coercion over a short period of only five years, Hitler moved into the final and absolutely
bloodiest phase of his Nazi Foreign policy; what can come to be called destructionism. At
the onset of Hitler’s political career, he developed a great hatred of Communists,
Marxists and Bolsheviks, whom he believed to be ultimately responsible for Germany’s
humiliating demise at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors at the
Versailles Palace. Anti-Semitism was spreading like a feverous social disease at the time,
throughout the world, however it was especially strong within Hitler and the Nazi Party,
who had become focused with eugenics and social Darwinism. Hitler believed these
named demography’s to be genetically inferior, tainting the German blood, and thus had
to be terminated in order to achieve his race of superior German Aryans. The “Question
of the Jewish Problem” had taken shape over some time in Nazi Germany, however
Hitler’s answer had been developing for almost as much time in his head; The Final
Solution was soon put into effect. Concentration camps across Germany and occupied
Poland, intended for political dissidents during the rise of the Nazi regime now had a
renewed purpose as mechanized extermination camps for Communists, Jews,
handicapped peoples and anyone else deemed to be unfit to contribute to the future gene
pool by Hitler and the Nazi’s. Destructionism began with the plan to invade and destroy
the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa of June 22, 1941, which was intended to be a
swift process of succession and destruction of the Russian territory and people. Six
months later Germany was at war with the United States, due to their alliance with
Imperial Japan, who had attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 attempting to and
partially crippling the American Pacific Naval Fleet; Nazi’s declared war against the
Americans four days after the Japanese bombings. These two moves were huge gambles,
‘Va Banque’ (all for nothing/go for broke) plays that backfired on Hitler; instead of
spreading National Socialism to a new continent, he sealed its fate to be doomed by over
confident, self-destructionist policy. The day the Americans entered the War marked the
beginning of the end for this arrogant prince of evil, a switch from German destruction to
German Self destruction if you will. No miracle weapon would be able to save Hitler and
the Nazi’s from the depths of the sinkhole which they had placed themselves in. After
extrapolating on and examining all of the facts given, we as historians will be able to
confer as to whether or not Hitler was the messiah of German National Socialism or the
harbinger of its downfall.
Revisionism:
Without the economic crash of October 29 1929, Hitler would have remained, and gone
down in history books as a political nutcase. The Great Depression was the cataclysmic
event that allowed Hitler to turn political fervor of the destitute German people towards
supporting the resurging Nazi party and cause, which had just recently been legalized
again. The German public began to truly believe Hitler was the man who would save
them from the depths of unemployment and depression.
The myth of Hitler, as the supreme savior of Germany, was further fueled by the favt on a
mission of providence.
Democracy died to the sounds of cheering in germany
Versailles was a straight jacket, which constricted the true power of the army
Adolf Hitler, hotel porter, failed artist, war hero, government spy, traitor, criminal, writer,
politician & orator, Chancellor, Supreme dictator, genocidal mass murder, war criminal,
egotist, suicidal-psychopath; evil incarnate or unstable political genius left out of control
under a series of imperfect circumstances? Is there a true difference between the two?
Had Hitler been admitted to arts school then history as we know it could have been rewritten, while at the same time saving tens of millions of lives. However we as historians
cannot legitimately form or conclude a concrete answer to this question, as the Nazi party
had a multitude of many other leaders vying for power and ready to restore the once great
German empire and people.