Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler (20 April, 1889-30 April 1945) was a German politician controlled the Nazi Party, and came to power legally in January 1933, ruling as Chancellor of Germany from January 1933, and Führer (Leader) of Germany from August 1934 until his death in 1945.

Hitler came to power as leader of the NSDAP or Nazi Party. He suppressed all opposition parties, and restored German prosperity. All officials reported to him and followed his policies, but they had considerable autonomy on a daily basis. The Gestapo (secret police) under Heinrich Himmler destroyed the liberal, Socialist and Communist opposition and harassed the Jews. The Nazi party (under Martin Borman) took control of the courts, local government, and all civic organizations except the Protestant and Catholic churches. The Nazi state idolized its Fuehrer, putting all powers in his hands, and tolerating no criticism whatever, Opponents were forced into exile, killed, or sent to concentration camps (which were different from the death camps that were used to kill Jews after 1941). All expressions of public opinion were controlled by Hitler's propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels. Hitler did not nationalize industry, but he destroyed the labor unions and his finance ministry worked closely with banks and industry. During the war an alternative state economy was created under the SS (headed by Himmler).

Hitler's aggressive foreign policy led to World War II in Europe in September 1939. His racial ideology of Aryan supremacy and hatred of the Jews led to escalating antisemitic measures culminating in the wartime Holocaust that systematically killed 6 million Jews in conquered areas.

Hitler's diplomatic strategy was to make outrageous demands, threatening war. When the opponents tried to appease him, he accepted the gains that were offered, then went to the next target. That aggressive strategy worked as Germany pulled out of the League of Nations (1933), rejected the Versailles Treaty and began to re-arm (1935), took back the Saar (1935), remilitarized the Rhineland (1936), formed an alliance ("axis") with Mussolini's Italy (1936). sent an air force to help Franco in the Spanish Civil War, seized Austria (1938), took over Czechoslovakia after the Munich Agreement of 1938, formed a peace pact with Stalin's Russia in 1939, and finally invaded Poland in September 1939.

Hitler in 1938 took direct command of the armed forces, and spent most of the war years focused on military operations. At first his moves were brilliantly successful, as in the "blitzkrieg" invasions of Poland (1939), Norway (1940), the Low countries (1940), and above all the stunningly successful invasion and quick conquest of France in 1940. Hitler probably wanted peace with Britain in late 1940, but Winston Churchill, standing alone, was dogged in his defiance. Churchill had major financial, military and diplomatic help from President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the U.S., another implacable foe of Hitler. Hitler's emphasis on maintaining high living standards postponed the full mobilization of the national economy until 1942, years after the great rivals Britain, Russia and the U.S. had fully mobilized.

Troubles began in 1941, when Hitler broke with his Russian allies and invaded the Soviet Union, but was stopped at the gates of Moscow. Hitler had a loose pact with Japan, and was unaware of plans for the Pearl Harbor attack, but nevertheless declared war on the U.S. in December, 1941. With the invasion of Russia the systematic roundup and quick murder or "Holocaust" of 5 million Jews in the east began (along with Jews in Germany itself, France, the Low Countries and elsewhere).

Hitler was technologically oriented, and promoted a series of new secret weapons, such as the jet plane, the jet-powered missile (V-1), the rocket-powered missile (V-2), and vastly improved submarines. However he failed to support development of nuclear weapons or proximity fuzes, and trailed the Allies in radar. He failed to take advantage of the German lead in jet planes.

In 1942 the Soviet victory at Stalingrad marked the beginning of the end, as Germany was unable to cope with the superior manpower and industrial resources of the Allies. North Africa, Sicily and southern Italy fell in 1943. Hitler rescued Mussolini, who became a mere puppet. The Russians pushed forward relentlessly in the East, while the Allies in the west launched a major bombing campaign in 1944-45 that burned out the major German cities, ruined transportation, and signaled to civilians how hopeless it was. The Allies invaded France in June 1944 as the Russians launched another attack on the east. Both attacks were successful and by the end of 1944 the end was in sight. Disregarding the generals, Hitler rejected withdrawals and retreats, counting more and more on nonexistent armies. He committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin as his last soldiers were overwhelmed by Soviet armies in intensely bloody battles overhead.

All his works and images were systematically destroyed and overthrown as Germany was denazified and Hitler became the worldwide symbol of evil.

Early Life to 1919

Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria-Hungary to a devout Catholic family of working class status. Little is known of his ancestry. His father, Alois, was the illegitimate son of a servant girl, Marianne Schickelgruber in Graz. Alois used the name Schickelgruber until 1876, when he legally changed it to Alois Hitler. Alois married three times. His third wife, Klara Poelzl Hitler--who was 23 years his junior--bore him six children, only two of whom reached maturity: Adolf, and his younger sister Paula, who died in 1960.

Roots of Hitler's Antisemitism

Wistrich (2001) examines Hitler's years in Vienna in 1907-13 for the seeds of the anti-Semitism and pan-Germanism that were the foundation of his political career. Moving from Linz to Vienna in 1907 at the age of 18, Hitler had most likely already absorbed the pan-German and anti-Semitic sentiments of his schoolteachers and political leaders like Georg von Schoenerer, though not to the deadly and radical degree of his later years. His experiences as a failed artist living in a poorer section of the city, combined with his regard of Vienna from a provincial and antimodernist point of view, contributed to Hitler's hatred of Vienna and his perception of his years there as the most difficult and saddest time of his life. Furthermore, Hitler associated the ills of the big, multicultural, and modern city, particularly the sexual debauchery in early-20th-century Vienna, with Jews, many of whom were Orthodox Eastern immigrants lacking an "Aryan" look.

Weimar Years 1919-1933

By 1924, certain elements of Hitler's worldview (Weltanschauung) had fully crystallized, namely his concept of history as a racial struggle and the threat of Marxism. However, the notion of Lebensraum (living space) and the idea of a heroic Führer, underdeveloped in 1924, became fully crystallized by 1928. Hitler offered only "distant goals" not a "blueprint for rule." There is scant evidence to support the notion that he was a conscious modernizer, and his social goal was to destroy Marxism and create the Volksgemeinschaft (folk community).

The key element in Hitler's success in 1932-33 was the decision of powerful non-Nazi conservative nationalists to support his selection as chancellor, since the Nazis did not have a majority in the Reichstag.

Fuehrer 1933-45

Kershaw (2002) suggests that the character of Hitler's dictatorship was fundamentally different from that of Stalin. A key difference was that the Nazi state was a classic "charismatic" leadership regime, whereas the Soviet state under Stalin was not. This contrast between the essential character of the two dictatorships is used to suggest reasons why ordered government and administration disintegrated in the Third Reich, how this was related to the gathering momentum of radicalization, and how Hitler's ideological imperatives became transformed into practical policy options.

Antisemitism

The most dramatic episode was the pogrom of 9-10 November 1938 known as Kristallnacht. The pogrom is partially explained by the complementary goals of three participants: Joseph Goebbels, who determined the timing; Heinrich Himmler and the Schutzstaffel (SS), who had already developed plans to arrest prominent Jews; and Hermann Göring, who along with several ministries implemented preexisting plans to exclude Jews completely from the German economy in the wake of the violence. Hitler's role was to approve of these actions. World reaction was overwhelmingly negative. Before the war started Hitler on January 30, 1939 spoke to the Reichstag (parliament), outlining his plan to eliminate the Jewish population under Nazi domination. By threatening to expel or murder European Jews, Hitler hoped to pressure the international community to increase Jewish immigration quotas quickly and to accept the Reich's monetary demands for loans in order to finance the rearmament of the German defense forces. Hitler utilized inflammatory speeches to inspire radical German elements to transform the threatening rhetoric into systematic annihilation practices.

Economics

Hitler was fascinated with high speed expensice automobiles, but he also admired Henry Ford for mass producing the cheap Model T for the masses. Ford had a small plant in Germany. König (2004) shows American mass consumption and mass motorization, particularly Ford's Model T, influenced Nazi planning for the Volkswagen, which was supposed to turn the German car from an investment into a consumer good. However, Nazi policy was unable to create a sound economic basis for the Volkswagen. In the mid 1930s incomes were still low; Hitler refused to raise wages, choosing instead to use productivity gains for rearmament and economic autarky or independence from the British and American economies. He sought to lower prices through efficiency and to have industries that did not seek profits manufacture the "people's products." The Nazis' demands were so high that companies envisioned that they would fail and declined to cooperate. Consequently, German car manufacturers, including American-owned Ford and GM, pulled out of the Volkswagen project. Its transfer to the Deutsche Arbeitsfront did not resolve the issue of production costs and affordability. Hitler was certain that Germany could emerge as a consumer society without employing Ford's formula of mass production, high wages, and low prices. He did build an autobahn system that was primarily designed as a construction project and as a new transportation system for trucks.

War Years 1939-45

War with the U.S.

Lukacs argues that Hitler felt that Roosevelt was behind Churchill and that the Jews were behind Roosevelt. By the end of July 1940, Hitler's moves were often in response to those of RooseveltHe gave his navy orders not to provoke the U.S. in an effort to prevent Roosevelt from getting popular support for entrance into the war. Pearl Harbor, because of Hitler's treaty with Japan, changed all that. Throughout, Hitler wished that he had not had to fight the United States, but held Roosevelt responsible for that. He and the Germans also became more fearful of the invading Russians than of the invading Anglo-American forces as the war neared an end. Roosevelt's determination to support the British in 1940 led to Hitler's ultimate defeat. An isolationist president, Lukacs concludes, would have made decisions leading to different outcomes for the war.

Bibliography

Biographies

• Bullock, Alan. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, (1962) online edition
• Fest, J. Hitler (1974), stress on psychology
• Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris. W. W. Norton, 1999. 700 pp. the leading scholarly biography, vol 1
• Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis. W. W. Norton, 2000. 832 pp. the leading scholarly biography, vol 2
• Kershaw, Ian. The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich. Oxford U. Press, 1987. 297 pp.
• Kershaw, Ian. Hitler (2002) short biography
• Nicholls, David. Adolf Hitler: A Biographical Companion. ABC-CLIO, 2000. 344 pp.
• Rosenbaum, Ron. Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil. Random House, 1998. 448 pp.
• Stone, Norman. Hitler. Little, Brown, 1980. 224 pp
• Toland, John. Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography (1991); popular biography; Kershaw is much more definitive
• Welch, David. "Hitler' UCL Press 1998. 123pp

Antisemitism and Holocaust

• Aronson, Shlomo. Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews. Cambridge U. Press, 2004. 382 pp.
• Burleigh, Michael. The Third Reich: A New History. 2000. 864 pp., stresses central role of antisemitism.
• Dawidowicz, Lucy. The war against the Jews, 1933-45, (1977).
• Gutman, Israel, ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vol (1989)
• Heinsohn, Gunnar. "What Makes the Holocaust a Uniquely Unique Genocide?" Journal of Genocide Research 2000 2(3): 411-430. Issn: 1462-3528 Fulltext: in Ebsco
• Levy, Richard, ed. Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution (2005)
• Wistrich, Robert S. Hitler and the Holocaust. 2001. 295 pp.

Nazi State

• Abel, Theodore. Why Hitler Came into Power. Harvard U. Press, 1986. 315 pp.
• Binion, R. Hitler among the Germans (1976). public opinion inside Germany
• Bracher, Karl D. The German dictatorship: the origins, structure and consequences of national socialism (1973). influential analysis by political scientist
• Burleigh, Michael. The Third Reich: A New History. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000. 864 pp.
• Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich: A History. Viking Penguin, 2004. 622 pp.
• Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power: 1933-1939. Penguin, 2005. 800 pp.
• Kershaw, Ian. The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (3rd edition, 1999)
• König, Wolfgang. "Adolf Hitler Vs. Henry Ford: the Volkswagen, the Role of America as a Model, and the Failure of a Nazi Consumer Society." German Studies Review 2004 27(2): 249-268. Issn: 0149-7952
• Knox, Macgregor. "1 October 1942: Adolf Hitler, Wehrmacht Officer Policy, and Social Revolution." Historical Journal 2000 43(3): 801-825. Issn: 0018-246x [ http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0018-246X(200009)43%3A3%3C801%3A1O1AHW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 in Jstor]
• Overy, Richard J. War and Economy in the Third Reich. Oxford U. Press, 1994. 390 pp.
• Overy, Richard J. The Nazi economic recovery 1932-38 (1982).
• Overy, Richard J. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich (1997)
• Overy, Richard J. "Hitler's war and the German economy: a reinterpretation," Economic History Review 35 (1982), 272-91:
• Turner, Henry Ashby, Jr. Hitler's Thirty Days to Power: January 1933. Addison-Wesley, 1996. 272 pp.
• Weinberg, Gerhard L. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, (2005), 1200pp, best overview of military strategy and diplomacy of the entire war.
• Weinberg, Gerhard L. Germany, Hitler, and World War II: Essays in Modern German and World History. Cambridge U. Press, 1995. 336 pp.
• Williamson, David. "Was Hitler a Weak Dictator?," History Review. 2002. pp 9+. online version
• Zentner, Christian and Bedürftig, Friedemann, eds. The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. 2 vol. Macmillan, 1991. 1120 pp.

Military

• Deutsch, Harold C. Hitler and His Generals: The Hidden Crisis, January-June 1938, 1974 online edition
• Duffy, James P. Hitler Slept Late: And Other Blunders That Cost Him the War, Praeger 1991. online edition
• Martienssen, Anthony. Hitler and His Admirals, (1949) online edition

Comparative

• Bullock, Alan. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. Knopf, 1992. 1081 pp.
• Dear, I. C. B., and M. R. D. Foot. eds. The Oxford Companion to World War II (2002) 1100pp; the most complete encyclopedia; strong on military and economic affairs
• Englund, Steven. "Napoleon and Hitler." Journal of the Historical Society 2006 6(1): 151-169. Issn: 1529-921x Fulltext: in Ebsco
• Kershaw, Ian. "Hitler and the Uniqueness of Nazism." Journal of Contemporary History 2004 39(2): 239-254. Issn: 0022-0094 Fulltext: in Ebsco
• Lukacs, John. June 1941: Hitler and Stalin. Yale U. Pr., 2006. 192 pp.
• Richard Overy. The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia (2005)
• Wilt, Alan F. War from the Top: German and British Military Decision Making during World War II. Indiana U. Press, 1990. 390 pp.

Primary sources

• Heiber, Helmut and Glantz, David M., ed. Hitler and His Generals: Military Conferences 1942-1945. 2 vol. New York: Enigma, 2003. 1100 pp.
• Adolf Hitler. Mein Kampf (numerous edition)

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