adolf hitler biography essay

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Adolf Hitler

By: History.com Editors

Updated: April 30, 2024 | Original: October 29, 2009

Adolf Hitler, the leader of Germany’s  Nazi Party , was one of the most powerful and notorious dictators of the 20th century. After serving with the German military in World War I , Hitler capitalized on economic woes, popular discontent and political infighting during the Weimar Republic to rise through the ranks of the Nazi Party.

In a series of ruthless and violent actions—including the Reichstag Fire and the Night of Long Knives—Hitler took absolute power in Germany by 1933. Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 led to the outbreak of  World War II , and by 1941, Nazi forces had used “blitzkrieg” military tactics to occupy much of Europe. Hitler’s virulent  anti-Semitism  and obsessive pursuit of Aryan supremacy fueled the murder of some 6 million Jews, along with other victims of the  Holocaust . After the tide of war turned against him, Hitler committed suicide in a Berlin bunker in April 1945.

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, a small Austrian town near the Austro-German frontier. After his father, Alois, retired as a state customs official, young Adolf spent most of his childhood in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria.

Not wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps as a civil servant, he began struggling in secondary school and eventually dropped out. Alois died in 1903, and Adolf pursued his dream of being an artist, though he was rejected from Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts.

After his mother, Klara, died in 1908, Hitler moved to Vienna, where he pieced together a living painting scenery and monuments and selling the images. Lonely, isolated and a voracious reader, Hitler became interested in politics during his years in Vienna, and developed many of the ideas that would shape Nazi ideology.

Military Career of Adolf Hitler

In 1913, Hitler moved to Munich, in the German state of Bavaria. When World War I broke out the following summer, he successfully petitioned the Bavarian king to be allowed to volunteer in a reserve infantry regiment.

Deployed in October 1914 to Belgium, Hitler served throughout the Great War and won two decorations for bravery, including the rare Iron Cross First Class, which he wore to the end of his life.

Hitler was wounded twice during the conflict: He was hit in the leg during the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and temporarily blinded by a British gas attack near Ypres in 1918. A month later, he was recuperating in a hospital at Pasewalk, northeast of Berlin, when news arrived of the armistice and Germany’s defeat in World War I .

Like many Germans, Hitler came to believe the country’s devastating defeat could be attributed not to the Allies, but to insufficiently patriotic “traitors” at home—a myth that would undermine the post-war Weimar Republic and set the stage for Hitler’s rise.

After Hitler returned to Munich in late 1918, he joined the small German Workers’ Party, which aimed to unite the interests of the working class with a strong German nationalism. His skilled oratory and charismatic energy helped propel him in the party’s ranks, and in 1920 he left the army and took charge of its propaganda efforts.

In one of Hitler’s strokes of propaganda genius, the newly renamed National Socialist German Workers Party, or  Nazi Party , adopted a version of the swastika—an ancient sacred symbol of  Hinduism , Jainism and Buddhism —as its emblem. Printed in a white circle on a red background, Hitler’s swastika would take on terrifying symbolic power in the years to come.

By the end of 1921, Hitler led the growing Nazi Party, capitalizing on widespread discontent with the Weimar Republic and the punishing terms of the Versailles Treaty . Many dissatisfied former army officers in Munich would join the Nazis, notably Ernst Röhm, who recruited the “strong arm” squads—known as the Sturmabteilung (SA)—which Hitler used to protect party meetings and attack opponents.

Beer Hall Putsch 

On the evening of November 8, 1923, members of the SA and others forced their way into a large beer hall where another right-wing leader was addressing the crowd. Wielding a revolver, Hitler proclaimed the beginning of a national revolution and led marchers to the center of Munich, where they got into a gun battle with police.

Hitler fled quickly, but he and other rebel leaders were later arrested. Even though it failed spectacularly, the Beer Hall Putsch established Hitler as a national figure , and (in the eyes of many) a hero of right-wing nationalism.

'Mein Kampf' 

Tried for treason, Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison, but would serve only nine months in the relative comfort of Landsberg Castle. During this period, he began to dictate the book that would become " Mein Kampf " (“My Struggle”), the first volume of which was published in 1925.

In it, Hitler expanded on the nationalistic, anti-Semitic views he had begun to develop in Vienna in his early twenties, and laid out plans for the Germany—and the world—he sought to create when he came to power.

Hitler would finish the second volume of "Mein Kampf" after his release, while relaxing in the mountain village of Berchtesgaden. It sold modestly at first, but with Hitler’s rise it became Germany’s best-selling book after the Bible. By 1940, it had sold some 6 million copies there.

Hitler’s second book, “The Zweites Buch,” was written in 1928 and contained his thoughts on foreign policy. It was not published in his lifetime due to the poor initial sales of “Mein Kampf.” The first English translations of “The Zweites Buch” did not appear until 1962 and was published under the title “Hitler's Secret Book.” 

Obsessed with race and the idea of ethnic “purity,” Hitler saw a natural order that placed the so-called “Aryan race” at the top.

For him, the unity of the Volk (the German people) would find its truest incarnation not in democratic or parliamentary government, but in one supreme leader, or Führer.

" Mein Kampf " also addressed the need for Lebensraum (or living space): In order to fulfill its destiny, Germany should take over lands to the east that were now occupied by “inferior” Slavic peoples—including Austria, the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia), Poland and Russia.

The Schutzstaffel (SS) 

By the time Hitler left prison, economic recovery had restored some popular support for the Weimar Republic, and support for right-wing causes like Nazism appeared to be waning.

Over the next few years, Hitler laid low and worked on reorganizing and reshaping the Nazi Party. He established the Hitler Youth  to organize youngsters, and created the Schutzstaffel (SS) as a more reliable alternative to the SA.

Members of the SS wore black uniforms and swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler. (After 1929, under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler , the SS would develop from a group of some 200 men into a force that would dominate Germany and terrorize the rest of occupied Europe during World War II .)

Hitler spent much of his time at Berchtesgaden during these years, and his half-sister, Angela Raubal, and her two daughters often joined him. After Hitler became infatuated with his beautiful blonde niece, Geli Raubal, his possessive jealousy apparently led her to commit suicide in 1931.

Devastated by the loss, Hitler would consider Geli the only true love affair of his life. He soon began a long relationship with Eva Braun , a shop assistant from Munich, but refused to marry her.

The worldwide Great Depression that began in 1929 again threatened the stability of the Weimar Republic. Determined to achieve political power in order to affect his revolution, Hitler built up Nazi support among German conservatives, including army, business and industrial leaders.

The Third Reich

In 1932, Hitler ran against the war hero Paul von Hindenburg for president, and received 36.8 percent of the vote. With the government in chaos, three successive chancellors failed to maintain control, and in late January 1933 Hindenburg named the 43-year-old Hitler as chancellor, capping the stunning rise of an unlikely leader.

January 30, 1933 marked the birth of the Third Reich, or as the Nazis called it, the “Thousand-Year Reich” (after Hitler’s boast that it would endure for a millennium).

HISTORY Vault: Third Reich: The Rise

Rare and never-before-seen amateur films offer a unique perspective on the rise of Nazi Germany from Germans who experienced it. How were millions of people so vulnerable to fascism?

Reichstag Fire 

Though the Nazis never attained more than 37 percent of the vote at the height of their popularity in 1932, Hitler was able to grab absolute power in Germany largely due to divisions and inaction among the majority who opposed Nazism.

After a devastating fire at Germany’s parliament building, the Reichstag, in February 1933—possibly the work of a Dutch communist, though later evidence suggested Nazis set the  Reichstag fire  themselves—Hitler had an excuse to step up the political oppression and violence against his opponents.

On March 23, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, giving full powers to Hitler and celebrating the union of National Socialism with the old German establishment (i.e., Hindenburg ).

That July, the government passed a law stating that the Nazi Party “constitutes the only political party in Germany,” and within months all non-Nazi parties, trade unions and other organizations had ceased to exist.

His autocratic power now secure within Germany, Hitler turned his eyes toward the rest of Europe.

In 1933, Germany was diplomatically isolated, with a weak military and hostile neighbors (France and Poland). In a famous speech in May 1933, Hitler struck a surprisingly conciliatory tone, claiming Germany supported disarmament and peace.

But behind this appeasement strategy, the domination and expansion of the Volk remained Hitler’s overriding aim.

By early the following year, he had withdrawn Germany from the League of Nations and begun to militarize the nation in anticipation of his plans for territorial conquest.

Night of the Long Knives

On June 29, 1934, the infamous Night of the Long Knives , Hitler had Röhm, former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and hundreds of other problematic members of his own party murdered, in particular troublesome members of the SA.

When the 86-year-old Hindenburg died on August 2, military leaders agreed to combine the presidency and chancellorship into one position, meaning Hitler would command all the armed forces of the Reich.

Persecution of Jews

On September 15, 1935, passage of the Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of German citizenship, and barred them from marrying or having relations with persons of “German or related blood.”

Though the Nazis attempted to downplay its persecution of Jews in order to placate the international community during the 1936 Berlin Olympics (in which German-Jewish athletes were not allowed to compete), additional decrees over the next few years disenfranchised Jews and took away their political and civil rights.

In addition to its pervasive anti-Semitism, Hitler’s government also sought to establish the cultural dominance of Nazism by burning books, forcing newspapers out of business, using radio and movies for propaganda purposes and forcing teachers throughout Germany’s educational system to join the party.

Much of the Nazi persecution of Jews and other targets occurred at the hands of the Geheime Staatspolizei (GESTAPO), or Secret State Police, an arm of the SS that expanded during this period.

Outbreak of World War II

In March 1936, against the advice of his generals, Hitler ordered German troops to reoccupy the demilitarized left bank of the Rhine.

Over the next two years, Germany concluded alliances with Italy and Japan, annexed Austria and moved against Czechoslovakia—all essentially without resistance from Great Britain, France or the rest of the international community.

Once he confirmed the alliance with Italy in the so-called “Pact of Steel” in May 1939, Hitler then signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union . On September 1, 1939, Nazi troops invaded Poland, finally prompting Britain and France to declare war on Germany.

Blitzkrieg 

After ordering the occupation of Norway and Denmark in April 1940, Hitler adopted a plan proposed by one of his generals to attack France through the Ardennes Forest. The blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) attack began on May 10; Holland quickly surrendered, followed by Belgium.

German troops made it all the way to the English Channel, forcing British and French forces to evacuate en masse from Dunkirk in late May. On June 22, France was forced to sign an armistice with Germany.

Hitler had hoped to force Britain to seek peace as well, but when that failed he went ahead with his attacks on that country, followed by an invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor that December, the United States declared war on Japan, and Germany’s alliance with Japan demanded that Hitler declare war on the United States as well.

At that point in the conflict, Hitler shifted his central strategy to focus on breaking the alliance of his main opponents (Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union) by forcing one of them to make peace with him.

Concentration Camps

Beginning in 1933, the SS had operated a network of concentration camps, including a notorious camp at Dachau , near Munich, to hold Jews and other targets of the Nazi regime.

After war broke out, the Nazis shifted from expelling Jews from German-controlled territories to exterminating them. Einsatzgruppen, or mobile death squads, executed entire Jewish communities during the Soviet invasion, while the existing concentration-camp network expanded to include death camps like Auschwitz -Birkenau in occupied Poland.

In addition to forced labor and mass execution, certain Jews at Auschwitz were targeted as the subjects of horrific medical experiments carried out by eugenicist Josef Mengele, known as the “Angel of Death.” Mengele’s experiments focused on twins and exposed 3,000 child prisoners to disease, disfigurement and torture under the guise of medical research.

Though the Nazis also imprisoned and killed Catholics, homosexuals, political dissidents, Roma (gypsies) and the disabled, above all they targeted Jews—some 6 million of whom were killed in German-occupied Europe by war’s end.

End of World War II

With defeats at El-Alamein and Stalingrad , as well as the landing of U.S. troops in North Africa by the end of 1942, the tide of the war turned against Germany.

As the conflict continued, Hitler became increasingly unwell, isolated and dependent on medications administered by his personal physician.

Several attempts were made on his life, including one that came close to succeeding in July 1944, when Col. Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb that exploded during a conference at Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia.

Within a few months of the successful Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the Allies had begun liberating cities across Europe. That December, Hitler attempted to direct another offensive through the Ardennes, trying to split British and American forces.

But after January 1945, he holed up in a bunker beneath the Chancellery in Berlin. With Soviet forces closing in, Hitler made plans for a last-ditch resistance before finally abandoning that plan.

How Did Adolf Hitler Die?

At midnight on the night of April 28-29, Hitler married Eva Braun in the Berlin bunker. After dictating his political testament,  Hitler shot himself  in his suite on April 30; Braun took poison. Their bodies were burned according to Hitler’s instructions.

With Soviet troops occupying Berlin, Germany surrendered unconditionally on all fronts on May 7, 1945, bringing the war in Europe to a close.

In the end, Hitler’s planned “Thousand-Year Reich” lasted just over 12 years, but wreaked unfathomable destruction and devastation during that time, forever transforming the history of Germany, Europe and the world.

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich iWonder – Adolf Hitler: Man and Monster, BBC . The Holocaust : A Learning Site for Students, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum .

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Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany. His fascist agenda led to World War II and the deaths of at least 11 million people, including some six million Jews.

(1889-1945)

Who Was Adolf Hitler?

Adolf Hitler 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.

Hitler’s fascist policies precipitated World War II and led to the genocide known as the Holocaust , which resulted in the deaths of some six million Jews and another five million noncombatants.

The fourth of six children, Hitler was born to Alois Hitler and Klara Polzl . As a child, Hitler clashed frequently with his emotionally harsh father, who also didn't approve of his son's later interest in fine art as a career.

Following the death of his younger brother, Edmund, in 1900, Hitler became detached and introverted.

Young Hitler

Hitler showed an early interest in German nationalism, rejecting the authority of Austria-Hungary. This nationalism would become the motivating force of Hitler's life.

In 1903, Hitler’s father died suddenly. Two years later, Hitler's mother allowed her son to drop out of school. After her death in December 1907, Hitler moved to Vienna and worked as a casual laborer and watercolor painter. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts twice and was rejected both times.

Lacking money outside of an orphan's pension and funds from selling postcards, he stayed in homeless shelters. Hitler later pointed to these years as the time when he first cultivated his anti-Semitism, though there is some debate about this account.

In 1913, Hitler relocated to Munich. At the outbreak of World War I , he applied to serve in the German army. He was accepted in August 1914, though he was still an Austrian citizen.

Although Hitler spent much of his time away from the front lines (with some reports that his recollections of his time on the field were generally exaggerated), he was present at a number of significant battles and was wounded at the Battle of the Somme . He was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross First Class and the Black Wound Badge.

Hitler became embittered over the collapse of the war effort. The experience reinforced his passionate German patriotism, and he was shocked by Germany's surrender in 1918. Like other German nationalists, he purportedly believed that the German army had been betrayed by civilian leaders and Marxists.

He found the Treaty of Versailles degrading, particularly the demilitarization of the Rhineland and the stipulation that Germany accepts responsibility for starting the war.

DOWNLOAD BIOGRAPHY'S ADOLF HITLER FACT CARD

Nazi Germany and Speeches

After World War I, Hitler returned to Munich and continued to work for the German military. As an intelligence officer, he monitored the activities of the German Workers’ Party (DAP) and adopted many of the anti-Semitic, nationalist and anti-Marxist ideas of party founder Anton Drexler.

In September 1919, Hitler joined the DAP, which changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) — often abbreviated to Nazi.

Hitler personally designed the Nazi party banner, appropriating the swastika symbol and placing it in a white circle on a red background. He soon gained notoriety for his vitriolic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians, Marxists and Jews. In 1921, Hitler replaced Drexler as the Nazi party chairman.

Hitler's fervid beer-hall speeches began attracting regular audiences. Early followers included army captain Ernst Rohm, the head of the Nazi paramilitary organization the Sturmabteilung (SA), which protected meetings and frequently attacked political opponents.

Beer Hall Putsch

On November 8, 1923, Hitler and the SA stormed a public meeting featuring Bavarian prime minister Gustav Kahr at a large beer hall in Munich. Hitler announced that the national revolution had begun and declared the formation of a new government.

After a short struggle that led to several deaths, the coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch failed. Hitler was arrested and tried for high treason and sentenced to nine months in prison.

'Mein Kampf'

During Hitler’s nine months in prison in 1924, he dictated most of the first volume of his autobiographical book and political manifesto, Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), to his deputy, Rudolf Hess.

The first volume was published in 1925, and a second volume came out in 1927. It was abridged and translated into 11 languages, selling more than five million copies by 1939. A work of propaganda and falsehoods, the book laid out Hitler's plans for transforming German society into one based on race.

In the first volume, Hitler shared his Anti-Semitic, pro-Aryan worldview along with his sense of “betrayal” at the outcome of World War I, calling for revenge against France and expansion eastward into Russia.

The second volume outlined his plan to gain and maintain power. While often illogical and full of grammatical errors, Mein Kampf was provocative and subversive, making it appealing to the many Germans who felt displaced at the end of World War I.

Rise to Power

With millions unemployed, the Great Depression in Germany provided a political opportunity for Hitler. Germans were ambivalent to the parliamentary republic and increasingly open to extremist options. In 1932, Hitler ran against 84-year-old Paul von Hindenburg for the presidency.

Hitler came in second in both rounds of the election, garnering more than 36 percent of the vote in the final count. The results established Hitler as a strong force in German politics. Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor in order to promote political balance.

Hitler as Führer

Hitler used his position as chancellor to form a de facto legal dictatorship. The Reichstag Fire Decree, announced after a suspicious fire at Germany's parliament building, suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial.

Hitler also engineered the passage of the Enabling Act, which gave his cabinet full legislative powers for a period of four years and allowed for deviations from the constitution.

Anointing himself as Führer ("leader") and having achieved full control over the legislative and executive branches of government, Hitler and his political allies embarked on a systematic suppression of the remaining political opposition.

By the end of June, the other parties had been intimidated into disbanding. On July 14, 1933, Hitler's Nazi Party was declared the only legal political party in Germany. In October of that year, Hitler ordered Germany's withdrawal from the League of Nations .

Night of the Long Knives

Military opposition was also punished. The demands of the SA for more political and military power led to the infamous Night of the Long Knives , a series of assassinations that took place from June 30 to July 2, 1934.

Rohm, a perceived rival, and other SA leaders, along with a number of Hitler's political enemies, were hunted down and murdered at locations across Germany.

The day before Hindenburg's death in August 1934, the cabinet had enacted a law abolishing the office of president, combining its powers with those of the chancellor. Hitler thus became head of state as well as head of government and was formally named leader and chancellor. As the undisputed head of state, Hitler became supreme commander of the armed forces.

Hitler the Vegetarian

Hitler’s self-imposed dietary restrictions towards the end of his life included abstinence from alcohol and meat.

Fueled by fanaticism over what he believed was a superior Aryan race, he encouraged Germans to keep their bodies pure of any intoxicating or unclean substances and promoted anti-smoking campaigns across the country.

Hitler’s Laws and Regulations Against Jews

From 1933 until the start of the war in 1939, Hitler and his Nazi regime instituted hundreds of laws and regulations to restrict and exclude Jews in society. These anti-Semitic laws were issued throughout all levels of government, making good on the Nazis’ pledge to persecute Jews.

On April 1, 1933, Hitler implemented a national boycott of Jewish businesses. This was followed by the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" of April 7, 1933, which excluded Jews from state service.

The law was a Nazi implementation of the Aryan Paragraph, which called for the exclusion of Jews and non-Aryans from organizations, employment and eventually all aspects of public life.

Additional legislation restricted the number of Jewish students at schools and universities, limited Jews working in medical and legal professions, and revoked the licenses of Jewish tax consultants.

The Main Office for Press and Propaganda of the German Student Union also called for "Action Against the Un-German Spirit,” prompting students to burn more than 25,000 “Un-German” books, ushering in an era of censorship and Nazi propaganda. By 1934, Jewish actors were forbidden from performing in film or in the theater.

On September 15, 1935, the Reichstag introduced the Nuremberg Laws, which defined a "Jew" as anyone with three or four grandparents who were Jewish, regardless of whether the person considered themselves Jewish or observed the religion.

The Nuremberg Laws also set forth the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour," which banned marriage between non-Jewish and Jewish Germans; and the Reich Citizenship Law, which deprived "non-Aryans" of the benefits of German citizenship.

In 1936, Hitler and his regime muted their Anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions when Germany hosted the Winter and Summer Olympic Games , in an effort to avoid criticism on the world stage and a negative impact on tourism.

After the Olympics, the Nazi persecution of Jews intensified with the continued "Aryanization" of Jewish businesses, which involved the firing of Jewish workers and takeover by non-Jewish owners. The Nazis continued to segregate Jews from German society, banning them from public school, universities, theaters, sports events and "Aryan" zones.

Jewish doctors were also barred from treating "Aryan" patients. Jews were required to carry identity cards and, in the fall of 1938, Jewish people had to have their passports stamped with a "J."

Kristallnacht

On November 9 and 10, 1938, a wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms swept Germany, Austria and parts of the Sudetenland. Nazis destroyed synagogues and vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses. Close to 100 Jews were murdered.

Called Kristallnacht , the "Night of Crystal" or the "Night of Broken Glass," referring to the broken window glass left in the wake of the destruction, it escalated the Nazi persecution of Jews to another level of brutality and violence. Almost 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps, signaling more horrors to come.

Persecution of Homosexuals and People with Disabilities

Hitler's eugenic policies also targeted children with physical and developmental disabilities, later authorizing a euthanasia program for disabled adults.

His regime also persecuted homosexuals, arresting an estimated 100,000 men from 1933 to 1945, some of whom were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps. At the camps, gay prisoners were forced to wear pink triangles to identify their homosexuality, which Nazis considered a crime and a disease.

The Holocaust and Concentration Camps

Between the start of World War II, in 1939, and its end, in 1945, Nazis and their collaborators were responsible for the deaths of at least 11 million noncombatants, including about six million Jews, representing two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe.

As part of Hitler's "Final Solution," the genocide enacted by the regime would come to be known as the Holocaust.

Deaths and mass executions took place in concentration and extermination camps including Auschwitz -Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau and Treblinka, among many others. Other persecuted groups included Poles, communists, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and trade unionists.

Prisoners were used as forced laborers for SS construction projects, and in some instances they were forced to build and expand concentration camps. They were subject to starvation, torture and horrific brutalities, including gruesome and painful medical experiments.

Hitler probably never visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the mass killings. However, Germans documented the atrocities committed at the camps on paper and in films.

• World War II

In 1938, Hitler, along with several other European leaders, signed the Munich Pact. The treaty ceded the Sudetenland districts to Germany, reversing part of the Versailles Treaty. As a result of the summit, Hitler was named Time magazine's Man of the Year for 1938.

This diplomatic win only whetted his appetite for a renewed German dominance. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, sparking the beginning of World War II. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later.

In 1940 Hitler escalated his military activities, invading Norway, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium. By July, Hitler ordered bombing raids on the United Kingdom, with the goal of invasion.

Germany’s formal alliance with Japan and Italy, known collectively as the Axis powers, was agreed upon toward the end of September to deter the United States from supporting and protecting the British.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler violated the 1939 non-aggression pact with Joseph Stalin , sending a massive army of German troops into the Soviet Union . The invading force seized a huge area of Russia before Hitler temporarily halted the invasion and diverted forces to encircle Leningrad and Kiev.

The pause allowed the Red Army to regroup and conduct a counter-offensive attack, and the German advance was stopped outside Moscow in December 1941.

On December 7, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Honoring the alliance with Japan, Hitler was now at war against the Allied powers, a coalition that included Britain, the world's largest empire, led by Prime Minister Winston Churchill ; the United States, the world's greatest financial power, led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt ; and the Soviet Union, which had the world's largest army, commanded by Stalin.

Stumbling Toward Defeat

Initially hoping that he could play the Allies off of one another, Hitler's military judgment became increasingly erratic, and the Axis powers could not sustain his aggressive and expansive war.

In late 1942, German forces failed to seize the Suez Canal , leading to the loss of German control over North Africa. The German army also suffered defeats at the Battle of Stalingrad (1942-43), seen as a turning point in the war, and the Battle of Kursk (1943).

On June 6, 1944, on what would come to be known as D-Day , the Western Allied armies landed in northern France. As a result of these significant setbacks, many German officers concluded that defeat was inevitable and that Hitler's continued rule would result in the destruction of the country.

Organized efforts to assassinate the dictator gained traction, and opponents came close in 1944 with the notorious July Plot , though it ultimately proved unsuccessful.

Hitler's Bunker

By early 1945, Hitler realized that Germany was going to lose the war. The Soviets had driven the German army back into Western Europe, their Red Army had surrounded Berlin and the Allies were advancing into Germany from the west.

On January 16, 1945, Hitler moved his center of command to an underground air-raid shelter near the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Known as the Führerbunker, the reinforced concrete shelter had about 30 rooms spread out over some 2,700 square feet.

Hitler's bunker was furnished with framed oil paintings and upholstered furniture, fresh drinking water from a well, pumps to remove groundwater, a diesel electricity generator and other amenities.

At midnight, going into April 29, 1945, Hitler married his girlfriend, Eva Braun , in a small civil ceremony in his underground bunker. Around this time, Hitler was informed of the execution of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini . He reportedly feared the same fate could befall him.

Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945, fearful of being captured by enemy troops. Hitler took a dose of cyanide and then shot himself in the head. Eva Braun is believed to have poisoned herself with cyanide at around the same time.

Their bodies were carried to a bomb crater near the Reich Chancellery, where their remains were doused with gasoline and burned. Hitler was 56 years old at the time of his death.

Berlin fell to Soviet troops on May 2, 1945. Five days later, on May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies.

A 2018 analysis of the exhumed remains of Hitler's teeth and skull , secretly preserved for decades by Russian intelligence agencies, have confirmed that the Führer was killed by means of cyanide and a gunshot wound.

Hitler's political programs brought about a horribly destructive world war, leaving behind a devastated and impoverished Eastern and Central Europe, including Germany.

His policies inflicted human suffering on an unprecedented scale and resulted in the death of tens of millions of people, including more than 20 million in the Soviet Union and six million Jews in Europe.

Hitler's defeat marked the end of Germany's dominance in European history and the defeat of fascism. A new ideological global conflict, the Cold War , emerged in the aftermath of the devastating violence of World War II.

Winston Churchill

Benito Mussolini

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Joseph Stalin

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Adolf Hitler
• Birth Year: 1889
• Birth date: April 20, 1889
• Birth City: Braunau am Inn
• Birth Country: Austria
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany. His fascist agenda led to World War II and the deaths of at least 11 million people, including some six million Jews.
• World Politics
• Astrological Sign: Taurus
• Nacionalities
• Interesting Facts
• Adolf Hitler wanted to be a painter in his youth, but his applications to obtain proper schooling were rejected.
• Hitler personally designed the Nazi party banner, appropriating the swastika symbol and placing it in a white circle on a red background.
• Hitler avoided multiple assassination attempts by chance.
• Death Year: 1945
• Death date: April 30, 1945
• Death City: Berlin
• Death Country: Germany

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Adolf Hitler Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/political-figures/adolf-hitler
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E Television Networks
• Last Updated: March 26, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.
• We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was 'legal.'” (Martin Luther King Jr.)
• It is not truth that matters, but victory.
• History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.
• Any alliance whose purpose is not the intention to wage war is senseless and useless.
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• We will meet propaganda with propaganda, terror with terror, and violence with violence.
• By shrewd and constant application of propaganda, heaven can be presented to the people as hell and, vice versa, the wretchedest existence as a paradise.
• And what nonsense it is to aspire to a Heaven to which, according to the Church's own teaching, only those have entry who have made a complete failure of life on earth!
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• I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker.
• If you want to shine like sun first you have to burn like it.

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Hitler caught between British and Russian military might, 1942-1944 (INF 2/31) View details in catalogue

Adolf Hitler

Lesson at a glance, was hitler a 'passionate lunatic', teachers' notes, external links, connections to curriculum.

Hitler is perhaps one of the most reviled historical figures of the 20th century. After he became Chancellor of Germany in 1933 parliamentary democracy came to an end. A timeline of these events in Germany can be found here .

Before the outbreak of the Second World War, in the period 1935-38, Hitler acted against the terms of the Treaty of Versailles by re-arming and re-building the German army through conscription (1935). He also moved troops into the di-militarised Rhineland (1936). He also tried to unite Germany and Austria with the ‘Anschluss’ (1938). Later that year he demanded the Sudetenland, the German speaking part of Czechoslovakia. Throughout this time he made passionate speeches about expanding German territory. These words and deeds worried foreign observers.

Use the sources in this lesson to find out how he was viewed by some of these commentators. Was he to be regarded as a ‘passionate lunatic’ who would take over Europe? Or an odd eccentric who was rebuilding Germany?

1. Look at source 1. Report by Mr. Law, a British businessman, who worked in Germany.

• What impression does this source give of Hitler?
• Why, in Mr. Law’s opinion, was Hitler dangerous?
• The ‘bombardment of Almería’ mentioned in the source took place during the Spanish Civil War in May 1937. Find out how Germany was involved.
• How does Mr Law view the ability of Russia, France, Spain and Britain to prevent war?
• Does Mr. Law favour granting further concessions to Hitler?

2. Read source 2. This is a report on a conversation with Count Bernstorff, a German anti-Nazi campaigner.

• Which words suggest that Bernstorff disliked the Nazi regime?
• What type of leader was Hitler according to this source?
• Does this account of Hitler back up the view of Hitler in Source 1?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of Bernstorff’s account?

3. Look at source 3. Drawing by Richard Ziegler entitled “Unhappy-looking uniformed Hitler” 1944-1945, produced by the Ministry of Information responsible for publicity and propaganda in the Second World War. It also controlled news and press censorship; home publicity; and overseas publicity in Allied and neutral countries.

• What impression of Hitler does the picture give you?
• How has the artist created this impression?
• The government paid the artist to produce this picture. What instructions do you think the artist was given by the government?
• Can the picture be considered as reliable evidence of what Hitler was like?
• Does the drawing provide an accurate impression of Hitler as leader of Germany in 1944-45? [Clue: Refer to events during the Second World War at that time]

4. Read source 4. This is a a short description of Hitler prepared by the British Embassy in Berlin.

• Does this account of Hitler confirm that he was a ‘passionate lunatic’ as described in Source 1?
• How would you describe Hitler based upon this report?

5. Of the three accounts you have now read, is any one more reliable than the others? Explain your answer

6. you have been asked by the british government to prepare a report on hitler’s state of mind..

You have been provided with the sources above. Your report should:

• Explain whether or not you think your evidence is reliable
• Say whether Hitler is sane or not and provide evidence from the sources to support your answer

When Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 some people regarded him as a strong leader merely getting back German territory and restoring Germany’s national pride. They thought he would stop once he had reversed the terms the Treaty of Versailles which limited the power and strength of Germany. Others feared that this was only the beginning of a far more aggressive foreign policy. They were to be proved right by Hitler’s decision to takeover of the whole of Czechoslovakia in 1939 after annexing the Sudetenland in 1938. Germany then invaded Poland, bringing about the beginning of the Second World War.

How the British government dealt with Hitler in the run up to the outbreak of the Second World War has come under close scrutiny. Of course at the time, Winston Churchill, no longer in Government from the early 1930s, was a significant critic of the Munich Agreement which allowed Germany to take over Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia an attempt to prevent a war. Churchill continued to criticize Hitler and call for Britain to rearm. When war was declared with Germany in 1939 he returned to power as First Lord of the Admiralty and later became wartime Prime Minister of a national government on 10 May 1940.

Appeasement was the name given to Britain’s policy in the 1930s which permitted Hitler to expand German territory unchecked and did little to stop him in his early moves against the Treaty of Versailles. It was closely linked to the Prime Minister at the time, Neville Chamberlain and was popular although is now regarded as a policy of weakness.

Appeasement found support with the British public who wanted to avoid the huge losses of the First World War. There was a strong anti-war or pacifist sentiment. Britain could not afford the financial cost of another war, nor could France, the country’s main ally.

Of course to have stopped Hitler might have meant declaring war – a massive decision when most countries wanted to avoid war at all costs. Britain kept a close watch on developments in Germany. In particular the government was very interested in Hitler’s personality. They wanted to find out what he was like, what he wanted to achieve for Germany, what kind of leader he was and, strangely enough, if he was sane.

The purpose of this lesson is to encourage students to handle conflicting evidence on the character and personality of Hitler and assess their reliability. The first source is an extract from a report by Mr. Law, a British businessman, who worked in Germany provided to the Foreign Office. The second is an extract from an account given by Johann Heinrich Count von Bernstorff, a founding member of the German Democratic Party and a supporter of the League of Nations. He left Germany in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. Both sources present a very unfavourable view of Hitler.

Students later examine a drawing which presents him differently. Why is this the case? The final source offers yet another angle. It is a short description of Hitler prepared by the British Embassy in Berlin. Students are required to contrast this to the earlier sources and consider what factors make a ‘reliable’ source. Does this impact on the value of a source or not?

All sources are provided with transcripts. Students could work on the sources individually or pairs and report back to the group with their findings.

The lesson can also be used as an introduction to a wider enquiry into appeasement and the decisions made by the British Government and others before the outbreak of the war in 1939. Students could use the background notes as a starting point for researching the wider context of appeasement and follow up by attempting the linked lessons on the German re-occupation of the Rhineland and Chamberlain and the Munich Crisis in Related Resources.

Illustration : INF 2/31 Hitler caught between British and Russian military might

Source 1 – FO371/20733 Report by Mr Law, a British businessman who worked in Germany (1937)

Source 2 – FO371/20733 Report on a conversation with Count Bernstorff (1937)

Source 3 – INF 3/1298: Drawing by Richard Ziegler entitled “Unhappy-looking uniformed Hitler”, 1944-1945.

Source 4 – FO 408/67 A short description of Hitler prepared by the British Embassy in Berlin (January 1937)

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A New Biography of Hitler Separates the Man From the Myths

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By Adam Kirsch

• Oct. 14, 2016

HITLER Ascent 1889-1939 By Volker Ullrich Translated by Jefferson Chase Illustrated. 998 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $40.

When Adolf Hitler turned 30, in 1919, his life was more than half over, yet he had made not the slightest mark on the world. He had no close friends and was probably still a virgin. As a young man, he had dreamed of being a painter or an architect, but he was rejected twice from Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts. He had never held a job; during his years in the Austrian capital before World War I, he survived by peddling his paintings and postcards, and was sometimes homeless. When war broke out in 1914, he entered the German Army as a private, and when the war ended four years later, he was still a private. He was never promoted, the regimental adjutant explained, because he “lacked leadership qualities.”

Yet within a few years, large crowds of Nazi supporters would be hailing this anonymous failure as their Führer. At 43, Hitler became the chancellor of Germany, and by 52 he could claim to be the most powerful man in the history of Europe, with an empire that spanned the continent. In the sheer unlikely speed of his rise — and then of his catastrophic fall — Hitler was a phenomenon with few precedents in world history. Extraordinary, too, was the amount of destruction and suffering for which he was responsible: the tens of millions of soldiers and civilians killed in World War II, the six million Jews exterminated in the Holocaust, the countless prisoners tortured and murdered in his concentration camps. Hitler’s very face has become a universally recognizable icon of evil, along with the swastika, the symbol of his Nazi Party.

Ever since Hitler came to power in 1933, writers have been trying to fathom him, and he is already the subject of major biographies by Alan Bullock, Joachim Fest and Ian Kershaw. The goal of these books, and thousands of others, is — in the words of the title of Ron Rosenbaum’s fascinating study — “explaining Hitler.” Hitler cries out for explanation, and perhaps always will, because even when we know all the facts, his story remains incredible, unacceptable. How could so insignificant a man have become so potent a force for evil? How could the world have allowed it to happen? And always, the unspoken fear: Could it happen again?

The latest attempt to come to grips with these questions is “Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939,” the first of two planned volumes of a new biography by the German historian and journalist Volker Ullrich. Every generation of historians produces its own version of Hitler, and Ullrich, writing more than 15 years after Kershaw, is no exception. He has taken on board the latest primary scholarship; but more important, he writes, is his desire “to refocus attention on Hitler” the man. This means treating him as neither a myth, as many of Hitler’s admirers and enemies were inclined to do, nor as a nonentity who just happened to be in the right place at the right time to capitalize on Germany’s rage and disorder. Rather, Ullrich sees his subject as a consummate political tactician, and still more important, as a gifted actor, able to show each of his audiences — from the rowdies at mass meetings in beer halls to the elites in the salons of rich industrialists — the leader it wanted to see.

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Adolf Hitler

Introduction.

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, Austria. He grew up in Linz, Austria. In about 1913 Hitler moved to Munich, Germany. When World War I began in 1914, he joined the German army.

After the war Hitler joined a tiny political group in Munich. In 1921 Hitler took control of the group. By then it was known as the Nazi Party .

The Third Reich

Hitler soon put his beliefs into practice. Soon Jews were not allowed to own businesses or attend certain schools. Many were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Hitler also strengthened Germany’s military power.

World War II and the Holocaust

Hitler then moved to enlarge the Third Reich. He took over neighboring countries. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, World War II began.

During the war Hitler stepped up his campaign against the Jews. The Nazis killed many in the concentration camps. Others died while working as slave laborers. Eventually some 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust.

By 1944 the war was going badly for Hitler. Hitler killed himself on April 30, 1945, in Berlin, Germany. Germany surrendered, and the war in Europe ended on May 8.

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Hitler's rise and fall: Timeline

Track the key events in Adolf Hitler's life, including his childhood in Austria, his decisions as Fuehrer of Germany, his leadership in the Second World War, and his eventual suicide.

This content is associated with The Open University History courses and qualifications .                  

• Birth and childhood
• Entry into politics
• Rise to power
• Third Reich
• World War II

Hitler's birth and childhood

His parents' families are both of poor peasant backgrounds. His father, Alois, regarded as strict and distant, becomes a customs official and expects Adolf to follow a career into the civil service. Hitler’s mother, Klara, is of a more compassionate nature, adoring and indulging her son.

At the age of six Adolf attends school and, while clearly intelligent, he is uninterested in formal education, eventually leaving with a poor educational record of achievement.

The death of his father when Adolf was 13, releases the pressure on him to get a job working for the civil service, Adolf is able to pursue his preferred choice of study, that of art. He attends art school and regards himself as an artist, absorbing diverse cultural influences, the opera, theatre, reading and drawing.

Hitler moves to Vienna with the aim of attending the Vienna Academy of Art, but his application is rejected. His disappointment is compounded by his failure to also get into the Vienna School of Architecture due to his inability to provide a school leaving certificate.

Without any means of money, Hitler struggles to survive in Vienna, living in a men’s hostel. He sells postcards which he’s drawn, of famous sights, and undertakes a series of menial jobs, to earn money.

During this period of poverty, Hitler engages in much political activity, attending meetings, absorbing political newspapers and literature.

Faced with military service for the Habsburg Empire , Hitler takes action to evade this by moving to Munich in Southern Germany. This move is possible in part due to his inheritance of a small legacy from his father’s estate. Here his life continues much as before, until world events changed the course of Hitler’s life.

At the outbreak of the First World War , Hitler volunteers for service in the German army and joined the 16 th Barvarian Reserve Infantry Regiment. He distinguishes himself in service, being promoted to corporal and decorated with the Iron Cross for services as a runner on the western front.

The origins of the First World War

Take an in-depth look at how Europe ended up fighting a four-year war (1914-1918) on a global scale with this collection on the First World War.

Level: 1 Introductory

How did a Scottish golf club shape how we remember the First World War?

A meeting at a convalescence hospital brought together three men whose war poetry shaped how we view the First World War.

At the time of the armistice, Hitler is lying in hospital suffering from temporary blindness due to a British gas attack in Ypres Salient. He returns to his regiment in Munich, later in the year.

Intent on remaining in the army, having found real purpose to his life, Hitler is appointed to the Intelligence/Propaganda section where he undertakes political training. His activities involve making speeches to the troops advocating German nationalism and anti-Socialism, where he developed further his oratory skills .

He also acts as an army informer, spying on small political parties. He joins the German Workers’ Party, an extreme anti-communist, anti-Semitic right wing organisation.

Hitler's entry into politics

Hitler is discharged from the army. In the German Worker’s Party he undertakes responsibility for publicity and propaganda. He changes the party’s name to the National Socialist German Workers Party, (or Nazi for short) The party represents a combination of intense hatred for the politicians who they considered had dishonoured Germany by signing the Versailles Treaty and exploiting local grievances against a weak federal government.

Hitler challenges Anton Drexler to become leader of the Nazi party. After initial resistance, Drexler agrees and Hitler becomes the new leader of the party.

Along with other right wing factions and General Ludendorff he attempts to overthrow the Bavarian government with an armed uprising. The event became known as The Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler and 2000 Nazi’s march through Munich to the Beer Hall, to take over a meeting chaired by three of the most important individuals in Bavarian politics.

Hitler re-founds the Nazi party.

Hitler's half-sister (Angela Raubal) and her daughter Geli, move into Hitler's home on the Obersalzburg. Hitler's relationship towards Geli initially kindly, eventually borders on the obsessive, fueling rumours that they were romantically linked; Hitler denied this.

In the General Election, the Nazi Party increases its representatives in parliament from 14 to 107. Hitler is now the leader of the second largest party in Germany.

Hitler challenges Paul von Hindenburg for the presidency, but fails to win.

Geli Raubal found dead at Hitler's flat in Munich. She was 23. Verdict: suicide.

Hitler's rise to power

Hitler becomes a German citizen—enabling him to stand in the Presidential election against Hindenburg.

Became the first person to electioneer by aircraft, the campaign (masterminded by Josef Goebbels) was entitled 'Hitler over Germany '.

Hitler becomes chancellor of a coalition government, where the Nazis have a third of the seats in the Reichstag.

The German Reichstag is destroyed by fire. The plot and execution is almost certainly due to the Nazis but they point the finger at the communists and trigger a General Election.

He proclaims the Nazi Party is the only political party permitted in Germany. All other parties and trade unions are disbanded. Individual German states lose any autonomous powers, while Nazi officials become state governors.

Communist party banned.

Socialists, Trade Unions and strikes banned.

Hitler withdraws from the League of Nations. In the following months, he trebles the size of the German Army and ignores the arms restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.

Night of the Long Knives . Hitler crushes all opposition within his own party—thus eliminating any of his rivals.

Hitler's Third Reich

After the death of President Hindenburg, Hitler becomes “Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor” and abolishes the title of President.

Hitler re-arms Germany with the aim of undoing the Treaty of Versailles and uniting all the German peoples. Military conscription is introduced.

British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain meets Hitler in Germany. Britain, France and Italy sign the Munich Agreement which gives the Sudetenland (the German populated borderlands of Czechoslavakia), to Germany.

German army occupies the Sudetenland.

In what is historically referred to as Crystal Night , 7,500 Jewish shops are destroyed and 400 synagogues are burnt. The attack is portrayed as a spontaneous reaction to the death of a German diplomat by a Jewish refugee in Paris. It is actually orchestrated by the Nazi party who also kill many Jews and send 20,000 to concentration camps.

Crystal Night is considered to be the beginning of the Final Solution and the Holocaust, which you can study in more depth. The mass killing represented by the Holocaust raises many questions concerning the development of European civilisation during the twentieth century.

Hitler and World War II

Peace treaty with Russia secured with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Hitler invades Poland on September 1st and after 3 weeks of lightning war or ‘ Blitzkrieg ’ the country is divided between Russia and Germany. On September 3rd France, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand declared war on Germany.

The Nazis occupy Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France. Romania and Yugoslavia are invaded.

Japanese Air Force attacks Pearl Harbour and war is declared on the US.

Although commanded by Hitler to stand and fight, the Germans surrender in the battle of Stalingrad. From this point in the war, Germany is continually retreating.

Hitler survives an assassination attempt by Colonel Stauffenberg, who places a bomb in a briefcase under a table close to Hitler. As a result, Hitler purges the army of all possible suspects.

Soviet troops enter Nazi Germany.

Hitler decides to stay in Berlin to the last.

Berlin completely besieged by the Soviet Army Fronts of Marshals Koniev and Zhukov.

Hitler's death

Hitler commits suicide with his wife of two days, Eva Braun; their bodies are believed to have been cremated.

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Early life and rise to power, the nazi regime and world war ii.

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• Public Broadcasting Service - American Experience - Hitler and Goebbels: A Deadly Partnership
• Spartacus Educational - Biography of Adolf Hitler
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Holocaust Encyclopedia - Adolf Hitler: Early Years, 1889–1913
• The National WWII Museum - How Did Adolf Hitler Happen?
• BBC - iWonder - Adolf Hitler: Man and Monster
• Jewish Virtual Library - Biography of Adolf Hitler
• Adolf Hitler - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• Adolf Hitler - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

Germany’s war strategy was assumed by Hitler from the first. When the successful campaign against Poland failed to produce the desired peace accord with Britain , he ordered the army to prepare for an immediate offensive in the west. Bad weather made some of his reluctant generals postpone the western offensive. This in turn led to two major changes in planning. The first was Hitler’s order to forestall an eventual British presence in Norway by occupying that country and Denmark in April 1940. Hitler took a close personal interest in this daring operation. From this time onward his intervention in the detail of military operations grew steadily greater. The second was Hitler’s important adoption of General Erich von Manstein ’s plan for an attack through the Ardennes (which began May 10) instead of farther north. This was a brilliant and startling success. The German armies reached the Channel ports (which they had been unable to reach during World War I ) in 10 days. Holland surrendered after 4 days and Belgium after 16 days. Hitler held back General Gerd von Rundstedt ’s tanks south of Dunkirk , thus enabling the British to evacuate most of their army, but the western campaign as a whole was amazingly successful. On June 10 Italy entered the war on the side of Germany. On June 22 Hitler signed a triumphant armistice with the French on the site of the Armistice of 1918.

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Hitler hoped that the British would negotiate an armistice. When this did not happen, he proceeded to plan the invasion of Britain, together with the elimination of British air power. At the same time preparations were begun for the invasion of the Soviet Union , which in Hitler’s view was Britain’s last hope for a bulwark against German control of the continent. Then Mussolini invaded Greece , where the failures of the Italian armies made it necessary for German forces to come to their aid in the Balkans and North Africa . Hitler’s plans were further disrupted by a coup d’état in Yugoslavia in March 1941, overthrowing the government that had made an agreement with Germany. Hitler immediately ordered his armies to subdue Yugoslavia. The campaigns in the Mediterranean theatre, although successful, were limited, compared to the invasion of Russia . Hitler would spare few forces from Operation Barbarossa , the planned invasion of the Soviet Union.

The attack against the U.S.S.R. was launched on June 22, 1941. The German army advanced swiftly into the Soviet Union, corralling almost three million Russian prisoners, but it failed to destroy its Russian opponent. Hitler became overbearing in his relations with his generals. He disagreed with them about the object of the main attack, and he wasted time and strength by failing to concentrate on a single objective. In December 1941, a few miles before Moscow , a Russian counteroffensive finally made it clear that Hitler’s hopes of a single campaign could not be realized.

On December 7, the next day, the Japanese attacked U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor . Hitler’s alliance with Japan forced him to declare war on the United States . From this moment on his entire strategy changed. He hoped and tried (like his idol Frederick II the Great ) to break what he deemed was the unnatural coalition of his opponents by forcing one or the other of them to make peace. (In the end, the “unnatural” coalition between Stalin and Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt did break up, but too late for Hitler.) He also ordered the reorganization of the German economy on a full wartime basis.

Meanwhile, Himmler prepared the ground for a “new order” in Europe . From 1933 to 1939 and in some instances even during the first years of the war, Hitler’s purpose was to expel the Jews from the Greater German Reich. In 1941 this policy changed from expulsion to extermination. The concentration camps created under the Nazi regime were thereby expanded to include extermination camps , such as Auschwitz , and mobile extermination squads, the Einsatzgruppen . Although Catholics, Poles, homosexuals, Roma (Gypsies), and the handicapped were targeted for persecution, if not outright extermination , the Jews of Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union were by far the most numerous among the victims; in German-occupied Europe some six million Jews were killed during the war. The sufferings of other peoples were only less when measured in their numbers killed.

At the end of 1942, defeat at El-Alamein and at Stalingrad and the American landing in French North Africa brought the turning point in the war, and Hitler’s character and way of life began to change. Directing operations from his headquarters in the east, he refused to visit bombed cities or to allow some withdrawals , and he became increasingly dependent on his physician, Theodor Morell, and on the large amounts and varieties of medicines he ingested. Yet Hitler had not lost the power to react vigorously in the face of misfortune. After the arrest of Mussolini in July 1943 and the Italian armistice , he not only directed the occupation of all important positions held by the Italian army but also ordered the rescue of Mussolini, with the intention that he should head a new fascist government . On the eastern front, however, there was less and less possibility of holding up the advance. Relations with his army commanders grew strained, the more so with the growing importance given to the SS ( Schutzstaffel ) divisions. Meanwhile, the general failure of the U-boat campaign and the bombing of Germany made chances of German victory very unlikely.

Desperate officers and anti-Nazi civilians became ready to remove Hitler and negotiate a peace. Several attempts on Hitler’s life were planned in 1943–44; the most nearly successful was made on July 20, 1944, when Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg exploded a bomb at a conference being held at Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia . But Hitler escaped with superficial injuries, and, with few exceptions, those implicated in the plot were executed. The reduction of the army’s independence was now made complete; National Socialist political officers were appointed to all military headquarters.

Thereafter, Hitler was increasingly ill; but he did not relax or lose control, and he continued to exercise an almost hypnotic power over his close subordinates, none of whom wielded any independent authority. The Allied invasion of Normandy (June 6, 1944) marked the beginning of the end. Within a few months, eight European capitals ( Rome , Paris , Brussels , Bucharest , Sofia , Athens , Belgrade , Helsinki ) were liberated by the Allies or surrendered to them. In December 1944 Hitler moved his headquarters to the west to direct an offensive in the Ardennes aimed at splitting the American and the British armies. When this failed, his hopes for victory became ever more visionary, based on the use of new weapons (German rockets had been fired on London since June 1944) or on the breakup of the Allied Powers.

After January 1945 Hitler never left the Chancellery in Berlin or its bunker, abandoning a plan to lead a final resistance in the south as the Soviet forces closed in on Berlin. In a state of extreme nervous exhaustion, he at last accepted the inevitability of defeat and thereupon prepared to take his own life, leaving to its fate the country over which he had taken absolute command. Before this, two further acts remained. At midnight on April 28–29 he married Eva Braun . Immediately afterward he dictated his political testament, justifying his career and appointing Admiral Karl Dönitz as head of the state and Joseph Goebbels as chancellor .

On April 30 he said farewell to Goebbels and the few others remaining, then retired to his suite and shot himself. His wife took poison . In accordance with his instructions, their bodies were burned.

Hitler’s success was due to the susceptibility of postwar Germany to his unique talents as a national leader. His rise to power was not inevitable; yet there was no one who equalled his ability to exploit and shape events to his own ends. The power that he wielded was unprecedented, both in its scope and in the technical resources at its command. His ideas and purposes were accepted in whole or in part by millions of people, especially in Germany but also elsewhere. By the time he was defeated, he had destroyed most of what was left of old Europe , while the German people had to face what they would later call “Year Zero,” 1945.

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Series: Adolf Hitler

Under the racist and antisemitic leadership of Adolf Hitler, the Nazi regime was responsible for the mass murder of 6 million Jews and millions of other victims. Browse a series of articles that explain some of the factors underlying Hitler's ideology; describe strategies he used to mobilize popular support for the Nazi Party; and show how he eventually dismantled German democratic structures.

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler: Key Dates

Making a Leader

Adolf Hitler: Early Years, 1889–1913

Adolf Hitler and World War I: 1913–1919

Adolf Hitler: 1919-1924

Adolf Hitler: 1924-1930

Adolf hitler: 1930-1933.

The July 20, 1944, Plot to Assassinate Adolf Hitler

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