Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler (20 April, 1889-30 April 1945) was a German politician who ruled 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 inspired and facilitated the Holocaust.

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, but 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.

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.

Bibliography

Biography

• 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

Nazi State

• Abel, Theodore. Why Hitler Came into Power. Harvard U. Press, 1986. 315 pp.
• 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.
• Overy, Richard J. War and Economy in the Third Reich. Oxford U. Press, 1994. 390 pp.
• Overy, Richard J. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich (1997)
• Turner, Henry Ashby, Jr. Hitler's Thirty Days to Power: January 1933. Addison-Wesley, 1996. 272 pp.
• Weinberg, Gerhard L. Germany, Hitler, and World War II: Essays in Modern German and World History. Cambridge U. Press, 1995. 336 pp.
• Zentner, Christian and Bedürftig, Friedemann, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. 2 vol. Macmillan, 1991. 1120 pp.

Comparative

• Aronson, Shlomo. Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews. Cambridge U. Pr., 2004. 382 pp.
• Bullock, Alan. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. Knopf, 1992. 1081 pp.
• 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)
• Weinberg, Gerhard L. Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders. Cambridge U. Press, 2005. 292 pp.
• 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)