Facts About Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler is one of the most notorious figures in history, yet one of the figures, people are very curious about, although more than half a century has elapsed, since his death. Here are a few facts about him.
Facts about Hitler's Personal Life
Born on the 20th of April, 1889, in Brannau am Inn, a town in Austria, Adolf Hitler was the 4th child of Klara Pölzl (née Hitler) and Alois Hitler, who was a customs official. Other than him, his parents had 5 children, however, only his sister Paula lived into her adulthood. He also had a step-brother and a step-sister from his father's previous marriage.
Adolf Hitler's early life was spent in Austria. As a child, he was an excellent in academics, however, after he lost his younger brother, Edmund, to measles, there came about a drastic change in him. He became depressed and detached and would fight with people around him, especially his father and his teachers.
Hitler was interested in becoming an artist; however, he was sent to a technical school called Realschule in Linz by his father. He did not do well in school, hoping his father would let him pursue his dream. However, that was not to be. After the sudden demise of his father in 1903, his behavior at school went from bad to worse, due to which he was asked to leave the technical school he was studying in.
After being thrown out of school and demise of his father, finances were hard to come by and he lived on orphan benefits and from support from his mother. Although he liked drawing; he was unsuccessful in passing the examination at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, twice. He was instead asked to go in for architecture.
He lost his mother to cancer, 4 years after he lost his father. When he was unsuccessful in his exam at the Academy twice, he had to resort to being a casual laborer, a painter or doing some odd jobs before he joined the infantry.
Little is said about Hitler's personal life. Eva Braun was the woman, who was by his side since 1929, however, he did not marry her till 1945. It is said that Hitler was in a romantic relationship with his half-niece Geli Raubal, who committed suicide in his Munich apartment in 1931, using Hitler's Walther gun. Apparently it was the same gun, which Hitler used to commit suicide. Either a bust or portrait of Raubal was placed in each of Hitler's bedrooms. It is said, that the suicide of Geli Raubal had a deep impact on Hitler.
Hitler's Tryst with Politics
At the start of the First World War, he went to Munich and joined the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment of World War I and served as a runner. During the war, he was gassed and wounded. After the war he was given an award for bravery in action during the war.
It was in 1919, after the end of the war, that Hitler joined what was known as the German Workers Party, which he later renamed as the National Socialist German Workers Party, which in turn was abbreviated to the Nazi Party. Soon, he took charge of the propaganda of the party and by the year 1921 he was made the leader.
It was in 1923 that the National Socialist German Workers Party, led by Adolf Hitler tried to seize power, from the ruling German Weimar Republic, in the famous Beer-Hall Putsch. However, Hitler was unsuccessful and was imprisoned. It was during the nine months that he spent in prison that Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, or My Struggle, his autobiography as well as his manifesto. He then emerged from prison and became a populist spokesman for nationalistic and poor Germans.
After that, in 1932, Hitler tried to become the chancellor by challenging Paul von Hindenburg in the election that was held, but could not succeed. Later, after the death of Hindenburg, Adolf Hitler became the Führer and Chancellor, or Reichskanzler, in 1934.
And Emerges the Dictator
After assuming power and becoming the Reichskanzler, he at once set about establishing an absolute dictatorship, enforcing his newly formed rules with the help of the Gestapo, the brutal secret police. Concentration camps were set up for the organized killing of Jews, political opponents and Gypsies.
He then went about invading and annexing as much territory as he could in Europe, such as the Sudetenland and Austria, in 1938, and then invading Poland on the 1st of September, 1939, whereupon France and Britain declared war on Germany on the 3rd of September, thus beginning World War II.
World War II and Hitler
In the initial years of the war, Adolf Hitler, using the might of the German infantry and tanks to unleash a Blitzkrieg, had remarkable success, sweeping through large parts of Western Europe, with nations falling one by one to the great German war machine.
Hitler attacked the U.S.S.R. in 1941, ignoring a non-aggression pact he had earlier signed with them in 1939. After initial victories, Hitler's forces suffered crushing defeats, first at Moscow in December 1941, and then later in Stalingrad, in the winter of 1942 to 1943.
It was in the month of December in 1941 that the United States of America entered the war. The Allies began their invasion of occupied Europe by landing on the French coast at Normandy Beach, in 1944. Then German cities began being bombed and destroyed and the allied troops entered Germany and made their way to Berlin by 1945. In the meantime, Italy, under the rule of the Fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, who was an ally of Germany, also fell.
During the war, many high-ranking Nazis became desperate, and several attempts were made to assassinate Hitler, all of which were unsuccessful. In the meantime, the forces of the Soviet Union were also closing in on Berlin, which was the place Hitler had his headquarters.
The End...
As it became apparent that the war was lost, and his hand-picked lieutenants went against his orders, on realizing the futility of continuing, Adolf Hitler committed suicide on the 30th of April, 1945. However, on the night before, he married Eva Braun, his long-term mistress, who also committed suicide with him. Thus came to an end both the war as well as Nazi rule. The official name of the Nazi regime was the Third Reich, which Hitler had bragged would last 1000 years, but it collapsed within a week after the death of Hitler.
However, the Adolf Hitler facts cannot be complete, without the mention of what Hitler brought to the table. It can be said Hitler was the one who was responsible for three of 20th century's most climactic events: 1) The Holocaust; 2) World War II; and 3) The Cold War, which followed World War II. Plus, Israel would not have come into existence in the Middle East if the Holocaust had not taken place.
All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people. ~ Adolf Hitler
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