Facts about Hitler
German historian Friedrich Meinecke said that Hitler's life "is one of the great examples of the singular and incalculable power of personality in historical life.
On June 22, 1941, Hitler gave the signal for three million German troops to attack the Soviet Union, breaking the non-aggression pact he had concluded with Stalin less than two years earlier.
After this encounter, Hitler centralized the party even more and asserted the Fьhrerprinzip as the basic principle of party organization.
After the "Great Patriotic War" of 1941 to 1945, music focused on the hardships of the Belarusian people or on those who took up arms in defense of the homeland.
During October 1916 in northern France, Hitler was wounded in the leg, but returned to the front in March 1917.
Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 and Fьhrer (Leader) of Germany from 1934 until his death.
attacking Hitler's lust for power and criticizing the violence-prone men around him.
Hitler began to claim the Jews were natural enemies of what he called the Aryan race.
Meanwhile Hermann Gцring sent a telegram from Bavaria in which he argued that since Hitler was cut off in Berlin, as Hitler's designated successor, he should assume leadership of Germany.
Hitler and Ludendorff obtained the clandestine support of Gustav von Kahr, Bavaria's de facto ruler along with leading figures in the Reichswehr and the police.
To avoid any possibility of creating a potential shrine, the remains of Hitler and Braun were repeatedly moved, then secretly buried by SMERSH (Soviet counterintelligence) at their new headquarters in Magdeburg.
At the time of Hitler's death, most of Germany's infrastructure and major cities were in ruins and he had left explicit orders to complete the destruction.
Hitler's religious beliefs changed over the years and, as they are gathered from his public and private statements, present a discrepant and disputed picture.
Finally, the president reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor of a coalition government formed by the NSDAP and DNVP.
A clerk probably changed the spelling to "Hitler.” Later, Adolf Hitler's political enemies accused him of not being a Hitler, but a Schicklgruber.
Having become chancellor, Hitler foiled all attempts to gain a majority in parliament and on that basis convinced President Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag again.
Consistent with Hitler's disdain for democracy, all power and authority devolved from the top down.
Hitler also used the SA paramilitary to push Hugenberg into resigning and proceeded to politically isolate Vice Chancellor Papen.
After the war, Hitler remained in the army, which was mainly engaged in suppressing socialist uprisings breaking out across Germany, including Munich (Bavarian Soviet Republic), where Hitler returned in 1919.
Hitler's beer hall oratory, attacking Jews, socialists, liberals, capitalists, and communists, began attracting adherents.
Hitler in return thanked Eckart by paying tribute to him in the second volume of Mein Kampf.
British prime minister Neville Chamberlain hailed this agreement as "peace in our time," but by giving way to Hitler's military demands, Britain and France also left Czechoslovakia to Hitler's mercy.
On March 12, 1938, Hitler pressured his native Austria into unification with Germany (the Anschluss) and made a triumphal entry into Vienna.
Hitler was discharged from the army in March 1920 and with his former superiors' continued encouragement began participating full time in the party's activities.
Hitler's closest lieutenants urged him to flee to Bavaria or Austria to make a last stand in the mountains, but he seemed determined to either live or die in the capital.
Hitler's stubbornness and defiance of military realities also allowed the continued mass killing of Jews and others to continue.
Hitler, however, rejected this offer and put further pressure on Papen by entertaining parallel negotiations with the Centre Party, Papen's former party, which was bent on bringing down the renegade Papen.
Hitler's ally Benito Mussolini was overthrown in 1943 after Operation Husky, an American and British invasion of Sicily.
Under these circumstances, Hitler appealed to the bulk of German farmers, war veterans, and the middle-class who had been hard-hit by both the inflation of the 1920s and the unemployment of the Depression.
On April 1, 1924, Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg prison for the crime of conspiracy to commit treason.
Hitler angrily reacted by dismissing both Himmler and Gцring from all their offices and the party, declaring them traitors.
Hitler received favored treatment from the guards and received lots of mail from admirers.
During Hitler's reign, he appeared in and was involved to varying degrees with a series of propaganda films by the pioneering filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.
From this point on, the quality of Hitler's military judgment became increasingly erratic and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated.
On the morning of January 30, 1933, in Hindenburg's office, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as chancellor during what some observers later described as a brief and simple ceremony.
Hitler rushed back to Munich and countered them by tendering his resignation from the party on July 11, 1921.
The invasion failed to achieve the quick triumph over the Soviet Union that Hitler had anticipated.
In 1938, a pogrom orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels and endorsed by Hitler called Kristallnacht destroyed many Jewish businesses and synagogues and resulted in about 100 deaths.
Historical and cultural portrayals of Hitler in the West are almost uniformly negative, sometimes neglecting to mention the adulation the German people bestowed on Hitler during his lifetime.
Air superiority for the invasion, code-named Operation Sealion, could not be assured and Hitler ordered bombing raids to be carried out on British cities, including London and Coventry, mostly at night.
Geli was 19 years younger than Hitler and had used his gun, drawing rumors of a relationship between the two.
At the time of Hitler's release, the political situation in Germany had calmed down, and the economy had improved, which hampered Hitler's opportunities for agitation.
Hitler ordered Germany's army to enter Prague on March 10, 1939, and from Prague Castle proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.
About his own religious stance, he said, “I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.” Hitler’s private statements were more mixed.
The political turning point for Hitler came when the Great Depression hit Germany in 1930.
The party was run by an executive committee whose original members considered Hitler to be overbearing and even dictatorial.
Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale, with Albert Speer becoming famous as the first architect of the Reich.
Soviet propaganda insisted Hitler was a Jew; research suggests that it is unlikely that he had Jewish ancestors.
Hitler later said it was during this experience that he became convinced the purpose of his life was to save Germany.
Ernst Rцhm, Hitler's long-time associate and leader of the SA, ridiculed Hitler as "Adolphe Legalitй," resigned from his post, and emigrated to Bolivia.
Hitler gave his share of the orphans' benefits to his younger sister Paula, but when he was 21 he inherited some money from an aunt.
Hence, Hitler had to maintain his coalition with the German National People's Party (DNVP), which jointly had gained a slim majority.
According to Richard Steigmann-Gall, Hitler regretted that "the churches had failed to back him and his movement as he had hoped.
Alois Hitler also had a son (Alois) and a daughter (Angela) by his second wife.
Combining the highest offices in state, military, and party in his hand, Hitler had attained supreme rule that could no longer be legally challenged.
The businessmen also wrote letters to Hindenburg, urging him to appoint Hitler as leader of a government "independent from parliamentary parties," which could turn into a movement that would "enrapture millions of people.
In 1932, Hitler intended to run against the aging president Paul von Hindenburg in the scheduled German presidential election.
Hitler changed the name of the party to the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP).
On October 15, 1918, shortly before the end of the war, Hitler was admitted to a field hospital, temporarily blinded by a poison gas attack.
In both negotiations, Hitler demanded that he, as leader of the strongest party, must be chancellor, but President Hindenburg consistently refused to appoint the "Bohemian private" to the chancellorship.
Hitler saw active service in France and Belgium as a messenger for the regimental headquarters of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment (also called Regiment List after its first commander), which exposed him to enemy fire.
Much of the financing for Hitler's reconstruction and rearmament came from currency manipulation by Hjalmar Schacht, including the clouded credits through the Mefo bills (credit notes).
From childhood, Hitler admired the pomp of Catholic ritual and the hierarchical organization of the clergy.
Hitler responded to its publication in a Munich newspaper by suing for libel and later won a small settlement.
Days later, on February 22, Hitler was recorded saying to his closest associates, "we shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jew."
A boyhood friend reports that after Hitler had left home, he never saw him attending mass or receiving the sacraments.
According to historians, notably Professor Klaus Scholder, Hitler also agreed to initiate negotiations for the Reichskonkordat, a treaty between the Catholic Church and the German Reich.
Hitler's policies emphasized the importance of family life: Men were the "breadwinners," while women's priorities were to lie in bringing up children and in household work.
By early 1921, Adolf Hitler was becoming highly effective at speaking in front of even larger crowds.
Papen tried to convince Hitler to become vice-chancellor and enter a new government with a parliamentary basis.
Hitler oversaw one of the greatest expansions of industrial production and civil improvement Germany had ever seen, mostly based on debt flotation and expansion of the military.
From 1905 onward, Hitler was able to live the life of a Bohemian on a fatherless child's pension and support from his mother.
In 1936, Berlin hosted the Summer Olympics, which were opened by Hitler and choreographed to demonstrate Aryan superiority over all other races.
The copyright of Hitler's book Mein Kampf is held by the Free State of Bavaria and will expire in 2015.
Adolf was legally born a Hitler, however, and was also closely related to Hiedler through his maternal grandmother, Johanna Hiedler.
Michael Rissmann states that young Hitler began to object to the Church and Catholicism as an adolescent, protesting against being confirmed.
Papen wanted to use Hitler as a figurehead, but the Nazis had gained key positions, most notably the Ministry of the Interior.
According to historian Bradley F. Smith, Hitler's father, though nominally a Catholic, was a freethinker, while his mother was a devoted Catholic.
Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the eastern front.
Eckart became Hitler's mentor, exchanging ideas with him, teaching him how to dress and speak, and introducing him to a wide range of people.
Hitler received a small inheritance from his father in May 1913 and moved to Munich.
The executive committee of the DAP eventually backed down and Hitler's demands were put to a vote of party members.
Hitler and his party used the signing of the treaty by the November Criminals as a reason to build up Germany so that it could never happen again.
Still, observers are puzzled by almost a whole nation’s compliance with Hitler's racist policies.
Hitler also oversaw one of the largest infrastructure improvement campaigns in German history, with the construction of dozens of dams, autobahns, railroads, and other civil works.
Hitler contributed to the design of the car that later became the Volkswagen Beetle, and charged Ferdinand Porsche with its construction.
Realists in the German army knew defeat was inevitable and some officers plotted to remove Hitler from power.
Hitler never directed his attacks on Jesus himself, but viewed traditional Christianity as a corruption of the original ideas of Jesus, who Hitler thought of as an Aryan opponent of the Jews.
There have been rumors that Hitler was one-quarter Jewish and that his paternal grandmother, Maria Schicklgruber, had become pregnant after working as a servant in a Jewish household in Graz, Austria.
During Hitler's trial, sympathetic magistrates allowed Hitler to turn his debacle into a propaganda stunt.
Hitler found in Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927) ideas that expressed a justification for the nationalist and anti-Semitic doctrines about which he was already fanatical.
The Nazi party had decidedly pagan elements and there were quarters of Italian fascism which were quite anti-clerical, but religion did play a real part in the Ustasha in Croatia.
Hitler received little response from the urban working classes and traditionally Catholic regions.
Here Hitler also met Dietrich Eckart, one of the early founders of the Nazi Party, member of Thule Society.
After conquering western Poland by the end of September, Hitler built up his forces much further during the so-called Phony War.
Hitler's racial policies culminated in the genocide of 11 million people, including about six million Jews, in what is now known as the Holocaust.
During his inspection of the party, Hitler was impressed with Anton Drexler's anti-Semitic, nationalist, and anti-Marxist ideas.
Drawing on Higher Criticism and some branches of theologically liberal Protestantism, Hitler advocated what he termed Positive Christianity, purged of everything that he found objectionable.
The Germans had lost the war from a military perspective, but Hitler allowed no negotiation with the Allied forces, and as a consequence the German military forces continued to fight.
Hitler himself appeared not in Nazi uniform but in a tail coat, and humbly greeted the aged President Hindenburg.
Encouraged by this early support, Hitler decided to use Ludendorff as a front in an attempt to seize power later known as the Hitler Putsch (and sometimes as Beerhall Putsch or Munich Putsch).
Hitler was considered a "correct" soldier but was reportedly unpopular with his comrades because of an uncritical attitude toward officers.
Hitler gained notoriety outside of the party for his rowdy, polemic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians, and especially against Marxists and Jews.
Gradually, they noticed Adolf Hitler and his growing movement as a vehicle to hitch themselves to.
To weaken Hitler's position, they formed an alliance with a group of socialists from Augsburg.
Meanwhile, as he was considered relatively harmless, Hitler was released in December 1924.
The treaty was an important factor in both the social and political conditions encountered by Hitler and his National Socialist Party as they sought power.
The Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Gauleiter Nord-West became an internal opposition, threatening Hitler's authority, but this faction was defeated at the Bamberg Conference (1926), during which Goebbels joined Hitler.
Hitler had long admired Germany, and during the war he had become a passionate German patriot, although he did not become a German citizen until 1932 (the year before he took over Germany).
Olympia, the movie about the games and documentary propaganda films for the German Nazi Party were directed by Hitler's personal filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.
Hitler traveled to Berlin to visit nationalist groups during the summer of 1921 and in his absence there was an unexpected revolt among the DAP leadership in Munich.
During interrogations by Soviet intelligence officers declassified over 50 years later, Hitler's valet Heinz Linge and his military aide Otto Gunsche said Hitler had "pored over the first blueprints of gas chambers."
Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 to April 30, 1945) was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, serving as dictator and leader of the Nazi Party, or National Socialist German Workers Party, for the bulk of his time in power.Aug 5, 2017
n German Nazi dictator during World War II (1889-1945) Synonyms: Der Fuhrer, Hitler Example of: dictator, potentate. a ruler who is unconstrained by law. German Nazi, Nazi. a German member of Adolf Hitler's political party.