adolf hitler biography

List of members of the July 20 plot

2005-04-23T01:26:00.000-07:00

B
Generaloberst i.G. Ludwig Beck, (*1880, †1944)
Oberstleutnant Robert Bernardis, (*1908 †1944)
Botschaftsrat a.D. Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
Major Hans Jürgen Graf von Blumenthal
Oberstleutnant i.G. Hasso von Boehmer
Eugen Bolz, former Staatspräsident of Württemberg, (*1881 †1945)
Oberstleutnant Georg Freiherr von Boeselager
Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager
Claus Bonhoeffer, Rechtsanwalt
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Pfarrer und Mitglied der Bekennenden Kirche, (*1906 †1945)
Randolf Freiherr von Breidbach-Bürresheim
Dr. Eduard Brücklmeier, Legationsrat im Auswärtigen Amt

C
Oscar Caminecci, Landwirt
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Chef des deutschen militärischen Nachrichtendienstes
Walter-Wilhelm Cramer, Industrieller

D
Professor Alfred Delp, Pater S.J., (*1907 †1945)
Oberregierungsrat Dr. Wilhelm Dieckmann
Heinrich Graf zu Dohna-Tolksdorf, Gutsbesitzer
Reichsgerichtsrat Hans von Dohnanyi
Oberleutnant Hans Martin Dorsch
Hauptmann Max-Ulrich Graf von Drechsel

E
Oberstleutnant Hans Otto Erdmann
Professor Fritz Elsas, ehemaliger zweiter Bürgermeister von Berlin
Oberstleutnant i.G. Karl-Heinz Engelhorn
[edit]

F
Alexander Freiherr von Falkenhausen, Militärbefehlshaber von Belgien und Nordfrankreich, (*1878 †1966)
General der Nachrichtentruppe Erich Fellgiebel, (*1886 †1944)
Oberst i.G. Eberhard Finckh (*1899 - †1944)
Professor Max Fleischmann
Rechtsanwalt Reinhold Frank
Ehrengard Frank-Schultz
Walter Frick, Kaufmann
Oberst i.G. Wessel Freiherr von Freytag-Loringhoven

G
Hauptmann Ludwig Gehre
Hans Bernd Gisevius, (*1904 †1974)
Erich Gloeden, Architekt
Elisabeth Charlotte Gloeden, Ehefrau
Fritz Goerdeler, Stadtkämmerer von Königsberg
Nikolaus Groß, Redakteur, (*1898 †1945)
Oberst i.G. Helmuth Groscurth
Carl Ludwig Freiherr von Guttenberg, Landwirt
H
Max Habermann, christlicher Gewerkschaftsführer
Hans Bernd von Haeften, Legationsrat im Auswärtigen Amt
Oberleutnant Werner von Haeften, (*1908, †1944)
Syndikus Albrecht von Hagen, (*1904, †1944)
Oberst Kurt Hahn
Nikolaus-Christoph von Halem, Kaufmann
Staatssekretär a.D. Eduard Hamm, (*1879 †1944)
Oberst i.G. Georg Hansen
Oberst i.G. Bodo von Harbow
Regierungspräsident a.D. Ernst von Harnack
Generalleutnant Paul von Hase, Kommandant von Berlin, (*1885 †1944)
Ulrich von Hassell, ehemaliger deutscher Botschafter in Rom, (*1881 †1944)
Theodor Haubach, führender Sozialdemokrat
Professor Albrecht-Georg Haushofer
Major i.G. Egberd Hayessen
Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf, Polizeipräsident von Berlin
Generalmajor Otto Herfurth
Andreas Hermes, Reichsminister für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft a. D., (*1878 †1964)
Generaloberst Erich Hoepner, (*1886 †1944)
Oberstleutnant Dr. Cäsar von Hofacker, (*1896 †1944)
Major Roland von Hößlin
Otto Hübner, Versicherungsdirektor
J
Oberst Friedrich Gustav Jaeger, (*1895, †1944)
Max Jennewein, Mechaniker
Professor Jens-Peter Jessen
Hans John, Jurist
K
Studienrat Hermann Kaiser
Jakob Kaiser, (*1888 †1961)
Staatssekretär a.D. Franz Kempner
Otto Kiep, Gesandter
Georg Conrad Kießling, Landwirt
Oberstleutnant Bernhard Klamroth
Georg-Johannes Klamroth, Kaufmann
Hauptmann Friedrich Karl Klausing, (*1920 †1944)
Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin, (*1890 †1945)
Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist, (*1922)
Major Gerhard Knaack
Dr. Hans Koch, Rechtsanwalt, (*1893 †1945)
Heinrich Körner, Gewerkschaftsführer
Korvettenkapitän Alfred Kranzfelder
Legationsrat Richard Kuenzer
Elise Auguste Kutznitzki, geb. von Liliencron
L
Oberstleutnant Fritz von der Lancken, Internatsleiter
Carl Langbehn, Rechtsanwalt
Dr. Julius Leber, Sozialdemokrat, (*1891 †1945)
Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort, Landwirt
Syndikus Dr. Paul Lejeune-Jung, (*1882 †1944)
Bernhard Letterhaus, Führer der katholischen Arbeitergemeinde, (*1894 †1944)
Franz Leuninger, ehemaliger Generalsekretär des christlichen Metallarbeiter-Verbandes
Wilhelm Leuschner, führender Sozialdemokrat, ehemaliger hessischer Innenminister
General der Artillerie Fritz Lindemann
Oberst i.G. Ottfried von Linstow
Paul Löbe, (*1875 †1967)
Major Ludwig Freiherr von Loenrod
Ewald Loeser, (*1888 †1970)
Ferdinand Freiherr von Lüninck, Oberpräsident von Westfalen
Wilhelm Graf zu Lynar, Landwirt
M
Hermann Maaß, führender Sozialdemokrat
Oberst Rudolf Graf von Marogna-Redwitz
Karl Marks, Kaufmann
Regierungsdirektor Michael Graf von Matuschka
Oberst Joachim Meichssner
Oberst Ritter Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, (*1905, †1944)
Oberstleutnant i.G. Karl Michel
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, Rechtsanwalt
Prälat Dr. Otto Müller
Legationsrat a.G. Herbert Mumm von Schwarzenstein
Oberstleutnant Ernst Munziger
N
Arthur Nebe, Chef der Reichskriminalpolizei
Stadtbaurat Wilhelm zur Nieden
O
Major i.G. Ulrich von Oertzen
General Friedrich Olbricht, (*1880, †1944)
Generalmajor Hans Oster
P
Friedrich Justus Perels, Rechtsberater der Bekennenden Kirche
Staatssekretär a.D. Erwin Planck
Kurt Freiherr von Plettenberg
Dr. Johannes Popitz, preußischer Finanzminister
R
General Friedrich von Rabenau
Oberstleutnant i.G. Karl Ernst Rathgens
Professor Adolf Reichwein, führender Sozialdemokrat
Oberst Alexis Freiherr von Roenne
Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel (*1891 †1944)
Cuno Raabe, Jurist, (*1888, †1971)
S
Generalstabsrichter Karl Sack
Oberstleutnant i.G. Joachim Sadrozinski
Anton Saefkow, Maschinenbauer
Major Hans-Viktor Graf von Salviati
Professor Rüdiger Schleicher
Ernst Wilhelm Schneppenhorst, ehemaliger Gewerkschaftsführer
Friedrich Scholz-Babisch, Landwirt
Oberst Hermann Schöne
Oberstleutnant Werner Schrader
Regierungspräsident Fritz-Dietlof Graf von der Schulenberg
Botschafter Friedrich Werner Graf von der Schulenberg
Oberst i.G. Georg Schultze-Büttger
Ludwig Schwamb, führender Sozialdemokrat
Ulrich Wilhelm Graf von Schwerin von Schwanenfeld, Landwirt
Stadtbaurat Hans-Ludwig Sierks
Oberstleutnant i.G. Günter Smend
Franz Sperr, Gesandter
Oberst Wilhelm Staehle
Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, Jurist
Oberst i.G. Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, (*1907, †1944)
Oberst i.G. Hans-Joachim, Freiherr von Steinaecker
Helmut Generalmajor Stieff
Theodor Strünck, Versicherungsdirektor
General Karl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, (*1886, †1944)
T
Oberstleutnant Gustav Tellgmann
Elisabeth von Thadden, Internatsleiterin
Generalleutnant Fritz Thiele
Major Busso Thoma
General Carl Freiherr von Thüngen
Oberstleutnant Gerd von Tresckow
Generalmajor Henning von Tresckow, (*1901, †1944)
Legationsrat Adam von Trott zu Solz

U
Oberst a.D. Nikolaus Graf von Uexküll

V
Fritz Voigt, ehemaliger Polizeipräsident in Breslau
Oberstleutnant Hans-Alexander von Voss
W
Generalquartiermeister des Heeres Eduard Wagner
Oberst Siegfried Wagner
Kaplan Hermann Wehrle
Carl Wenzen-Teutschenthal, Landwirt
Joseph Wirmer, Rechtsanwalt
Oswald Wiersich, Gewerkschaftsführer
Generalfeldmarschall Erwin von Witzleben
Y
Oberregierungsrat Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg
Z
Staatssekretär Artur Zarden
General Gustav von Ziehlberg

July 20 Plot

2005-04-23T01:21:00.000-07:00

The July 20 Plot was a failed coup d'état which involved an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. It was initiated on July 20, 1944, by officers of the Wehrmacht. The leader of the plot was Oberst Claus von Stauffenberg. Others who participated in the plot include General Ludwig Beck, Carl Goerdeler, Alfred Delp and scores of others including Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and Günther von Kluge may have been involved in the plot and in any event were forced to commit suicide because of it.

The plan required Stauffenberg to place a time bomb near the seat of Hitler at the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia, and then immediately travel to Berlin to command the troops of the uprising. A new government had already been formed, with Beck as Head of State (although most of the plotters hoped for a restoration of the Hohenzollerns at some point in the future), and Goerdeler as Chancellor. The military plans for the coup were known as Operation Valkyrie which was ostensibly a plan for allowing the military recovery of Berlin assuming a takeover by slave laborers. This cover allowed coup plotters to plan troop deployments before the actual coup.
However, due to unexpected circumstances, Hitler survived the bombing: because the day was unusually hot, the meeting at which Hitler was to have been killed took place above ground rather than in a bunker. Moreover, Stauffenberg could arm only one of the two bombs and didn't place the unarmed one in the briefcase. Stauffenberg successfully managed to get next to Hitler, telling him that his hearing had been damaged during the war. Hitler accepted this, and Stauffenberg stood next to him. However, Hitler was shielded from the blast by the conference table. Although four people were killed and almost all present were injured, Hitler was injured only lightly. Stauffenberg only learned of the failure later in Berlin.
Assuming Hitler was dead, Stauffenberg and Haeften flew to Berlin to meet up with their fellow conspirators in the Bendler-Block. Due to a misunderstanding, General Friedrich Olbricht did not launch Operation Valkyrie directly after the attempted assassination. Thus, the coup could only be set in motion four hours later, when Stauffenberg arrived.
In the course of the uprising, conspirators failed to win control over radio stations, therefore the news that Hitler had survived could not be suppressed. Reserve army troops in Berlin, which had carried out Stauffenberg's orders at the beginning, would soon refuse to continue doing so, causing the coup to collapse.
The plot ringleaders, Oberst Claus von Stauffenberg, General Friedrich Olbricht, Oberst Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim and Leutnant Werner von Haeften were caught in the late evening and shot by firing squad in the courtyard of the Bendler-Block (War Ministry), although many including Hitler believed that the quick trials and executions were intended to quickly silence the coup plotters so that they would not implicate others. Hitler went on to instigate the purge and execute nearly 5,000 known opponents of his regime, some of whom were tortured to death.
In modern Germany the resistance fighters are honoured

Adolf Hitler's medical health

2005-04-23T01:18:00.000-07:00

Adolf Hitler's medical health has long been a subject of controversy.
Doctors and Drugs
From the early 1930s the care for Hitler's health was entrusted to the young SS officer and surgeon Dr. Karl Brandt who was assisted by Professor Werner Haase. Unbeknownst to most people today, and especially to Germans at the time, Hitler suffered from a number of medical problems. Hitler's favorite physician, Professor Theodore Morell, with whom he became acquainted in the late 1930s and who had a reputation for prescribing effective syphilis treatment, was somewhat responsible for this.
Adolf Hitler suffered from two problems when he first met Morell, terrible gastro-intestinal problems, often resulting in flatulence, and skin lesions on his thighs. Later, under the care of Morell, he developed an irregular heartbeat and aggressive tremors throughout the left side of his body. In addition he became dependent on (and possibly addicted to) methamphetamines supplied to him daily by Morell, which the doctor called Multivitamin (both via injection and in little tablets in innocent looking gold packages). By 1945, Hitler had become addicted to cocaine as well, which Morell applied via eye drops.
Diet
Though there are disputed claims that Hitler became a vegetarian and eschewed alcohol (until the war went badly, when he used it to aid his sleep), his eating habits in general were extremely unhealthy and irregular. He had a bad sweet tooth and as a result, ate large amounts of chocolate and pastries, often to the exclusion of more proper foodstuffs. According to the Wagner family, for example, he always added at least seven teaspoons of sugar to every cup of tea he drank. Combined with the fact that Hitler refused to engage in any regular exercise besides walking, he put on weight as he aged.
Hitler's penchant for sweets contributed to bad dental health as well. By the 1930s, he had many bridges and fillings, and his teeth were stained brown, despite the fact that he was obsessive about brushing his teeth. Some observers have claimed this is one reason for Hitler's famous "pose" - he rarely smiled in public, and when he did laugh, often covered his mouth with one hand.
Syphilis?
Hitler's tremors and irregular heartbeat could be the result of syphilis, and Morell diagnosed them as such by early 1945 in a joint report to Heinrich Himmler along with another doctor. Another piece of supporting evidence is Hitler's discussion of Syphilis through 14 pages of Mein Kampf, which he called a "Jewish disease." This leads to the belief that he may have had the disease himself, because it is difficult for historians to imagine another reason for such a tirade. Also, Hitler's symptoms throughout the last years of his life closely resemble the tertiary stage of syphilis.
However, the historian Robert Waite disagrees, claiming that Hitler tested negative on a Wassermann test as late as 1939. Waite and others argue that, because of his obsession with syphilis and the Jews, Hitler lived in constant fear of the disease, even taking treatment for it, no matter what doctors told him.

Other Possible Maladies
It is also speculated that it could have been Parkinson's disease as Morell started treating Hitler with a medication commonly used to treat the condition in 1945, although Morell was such an unreliable doctor that there is some doubt as to the validity of any of the doctor's diagnoses.
Doctors who don't believe Hitler suffered from any of these diseases dismiss his ailments as hypochondria, pointing out that his health appeared to decline drastically as Germany began to lose World War II.
Mental Health
If Hitler's physical health is controversial, then his mental health is a verifiable minefield of theories and arguments. One of the major problems when dealing with this is that many people, both historians and laymen, believe that if someone finds a psychological explanation for Hitler, that may serve as an excuse for his atrocities.
Waite, the author of the most complete psychohistory of Hitler, concluded that he suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder, which manifested itself in numerous ways. This diagnosis also holds that Hitler was in full control of himself and his actions. However, Waite and his contemporaries also must admit that Hitler never visited a psychiatrist; therefore, it is really impossible to do anything but speculate based on his known actions.
Hitler's sex life falls under the same problem. A report by the OSS claimed that Hitler received sexual gratification by being severely degraded by women, as in masochism and being urinated on. This theory has been picked up by others, such as Waite. However, journalist Ron Rosenbaum later tracked down the psychiatrist who had this theory attributed to her, and she denied it.
Albert Speer, based on conversations with Eva Braun, claimed Hitler was impotent. Hans Frank claimed Hitler was afraid of sexual intercourse because he was afraid of carrying Jewish blood.
Rosenbaum, in his book Explaining Hitler, sarcastically remarked that theories concerning Hitler's mental state and sexual activity shed more light on the theorists than on Hitler himself.

Autopsy comment on anatomy
The Soviet autopsy stated that Hitler's left testicle was missing. This was probably post-war propaganda (see Hitler has only got one ball). Lev Bezymenski, the author of the Hitler autopsy report, later admitted it was falsified. Although Hitler was routinely examined by many doctors throughout his childhood, military service and later political career, no clinical mention of such a condition has ever been discovered. However, records show that he was wounded in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme, and some sources describe his injury as a wound to the groin. Hitler's World War I company commander has said that a VD exam found that Hitler had only one testicle.

Hitler and the church

2005-04-23T01:10:00.000-07:00

Despite Germany's long history as the seat of the Holy Roman Empire and the birthplace of the Reformation, Christianity was in a decline during the rise of the Nazi Party. Some of the factors leading to this decline were the after affects of World War I which challanged "traditional" European viewpoints, the decline in political parties backed by the Catholic Church. The decline of the Centre Party Germany was a enabler for the rise of the Nazi Party.
Hitler often adapted elements of Christian theology into his speeches. However he and other Nazi leaders depended less on Christianity for inspiration than on mysticism and myth about German racial superiority. These beliefs were especially strong in the SS and SA.

The Catholic Church
Hitler viewed the Catholic backed Centre Party as a threat. The Centre Party was one of the few parties to support the imposed Weimar Republic. Hitler calculated that knocking out the Centre Party would destabilized the government. Therefore Hitler took many steps to restrict Christianity and remove it as a political influence in Germany. Chief among these were the Reich Concordat with the Catholic Church. The Reich Concordat preserved funding for the Catholic Church but at the cost of making the Catholic Church subservient to the Nazi Party.

The Protestant Church
During the 1930s Hitler tried to nationalize Germany's churches (German Christian), with restrictions allowing only German membership. Only some Protestants resisted by forming the Confessing Church. A common Nazi song replaced the words to the German carol Silent Night with the following lyrics:
Silent night! Holy night!
All is calm, and all is bright
Only the Chancellor steadfast in fight
Watches o’er Germany by day and by night
Always caring for us.
Silent night! Holy night!
All is calm, and all is bright
Adolf Hitler is Germany’s wealth
Brings us greatness, favor and health
Oh give us Germans all power!
After a failed assassination on Hitler's life in 1943 which involved elements of the Confessing Church (a protestant organization), Hitler ordered the arrest of Protestant, mainly Lutheran clergy. Catholic clergy were also suppressed if they spoke out against the regime.

2005-04-23T01:06:00.000-07:00

The last will and testament of Adolf Hitler were dictated by Hitler to his secretary in the Berlin Fuhrer bunker on April 29, 1945 the day he and Eva Braun married. They committed suicide the next day (April 30), which was three days before the surrender of Berlin to the Soviets on May 2 and just over a week before the end of World War II in Europe on May 8. It consisted of two seperate documents a will and a political testament.

Last will
The last will was a short document signed on 29 April at 4:00am :
It acknowledged his marrage but does not name Eva Braun, that they choose death over disgrace of deposition or capitulation and that their bodies were to be burnt.
His art collection is left to a gallery in my home town of Linz on Donau
Objects of sentimental value or is necessary for the maintenance of a modest simple life went to his relations and his faithful co-workers like Secretary Frau Winter.
Whatever else of value he possesed went to the party.
Martin Bormann was nominated as Executor of the will and it was witnessed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Martin Bormann and Colonel Nicholaus von Below.

Last political testament
The last political testament was signed at the same time as Hitler's last will, 4:00am on April 29, 1945. The first part of the testament is a restatement of the political position and justifications which he had stated many times before. His intention to commit suicide soon after writing the testament and the imminent destruction of the Third Reich did not alter his political position. The second part lays out Hitler's intentions for the government of Germany and the Nazi Party after his demise.
Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering is expelled from the party.
Reichsfuehrer-SS and Minister of the Interior, Heinrich Himmler, is expelled from the party.
Grossadmiral Karl Dönitz is appointed President of the Reich and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.
Hitler appointed the following a the new Cabinet and as "as leaders of the nation":
President of the Reich (Reichspräsident): Karl Dönitz
Chancellor of the Reich (Reichskanzler): DR. Joseph Goebbels
Party Minister (Parteiminister): Martin Bormann
Foreign Minister (Aussenminister): Arthur Seyss-Inquart
Interior Minister (Innenminister): Gauleiter Paul Giesler
Minister of War (Kriegsminister): Dönitz
Commander-in-Chief of the Army (Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres): Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner
Commander-in-Chief of the Navy (Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine): Dönitz
Commander-in-Chief of the luftwaffe (Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe): General Ritter von Greim
Commander-in-Chief of the SS and Chief of Police (Reichsführer-SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei): Gauleiter Karl Hanke
Minister of Economy (Wirtschaft): Walter Funk
Minister of Agriculture (Landwirtschaft): Herbert Backe
Minister of Justice (Justiz): Otto Thierack
Minister of Culture (Kultus): Dr. Gustav Adolf Scheel
Minister of Propaganda (Propaganda): Dr. Werner Naumann
Minister of Finance (Finanzen): Graf Lutz von Schwerin-Crossigk
Minister of Labour (Arbeit): Dr. Theo Hupfauer
Minister of Munitions (Rüstung): Otto Saur
Director of the German Labour Front and member of the Cabinate (Leiter der Deutschen Arbeitsfront und Mitglied des Reichskabinetts: Reichsminister) Dr. Robert Ley.
Witnessed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Martin Bormann and Hans Krebs

Einsatzgruppen

2005-04-23T01:04:00.000-07:00

Einsatzgruppen (a German military term meaning "mission squads") were semi-military groups formed in Nazi Germany before and during World War II. These death squads belonged to the S.S. and followed the Wehrmacht in their attacks first on Poland and then the Soviet Union. Their mission was to eliminate all sources of resistance to German domination, increasingly radicalized in their ambition by racial principlies. They killed "undesirable" people ("anyone who gives us sharp looks", as Hitler said), almost exclusively civilians, without judicial review and later without semblance of legality (no reading of sentences of martial or administrative law were read), starting with the Polish intelligentsia and eventually including Jewish women and children.
After the occupation of Poland in 1939, they killed Poles belonging to the intelligentsia, such as priests and teachers. The Nazis considered all Slavic people untermenschen, or sub-humans, and wanted to use the Polish lower classes as servants and slaves. The mission of the Einsatzgruppen was therefore the forceful depoliticisation of the Polish people and the elimination of the groups most clearly identified with Polish national identity.
After the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Einsatzgruppen's main assignment was to kill Communist officers and Jews which they did on a much larger scale than in Poland. They were under control of the RSHA; i.e., under Reinhard Heydrich and his successor Ernst Kaltenbrunner. They executed more than half a million Jews, Communists, prisoners of war, and Roma ("Gypsies") in total. They also assisted Wehrmacht units and local anti-Semites in killing half a million more. They were mobile forces in the beginning of the invasion, but settled down after the occupation.
The standard method employed by the Einsatzgruppen was to post a proclamation ordering all the Jews and other condemned people in an occupied area to gather on a certain day. Once their victims were assembled, the squads led them to their place of execution, which was usually an open, isolated area where mass graves had been prepared. Sometimes, natural features of the landscape like the ravine at Babi Yar were used. The victims were forced to surrender their belongings and undress, after which they were positioned either on the edge of the grave or in it and shot.
The Nazis were not satisfied with shooting as a method of mass murder, however. It was costly in ammunition and effort, there were too many potential witness to the murders, and the constant, close-quarters killing of defenseless men, women and children took a heavy psychological toll on the killers themselves. The men in charge of the Final Solution began searching for an alternative.
In some areas, the Einsatzgruppen also brought along specialized trucks called gas vans, developed for the since-terminated T4 euthanasia program operated by the Reich Chancellery. Victims were forced into the backs of vehicles into which the exhaust from the engine was routed. The victims were then variably suffocated, poisoned, and/or asphyxiated from the carbon monoxide accumulating within the truck compartment as the vehicle traveled to a burial pit. Gas trucks were subsequently employed at the Chelmno extermination camp. The stationary gas chambers of the subsequent death camps of Poland were an outgrowth of this idea, resourced by T4 staff on loan to the SS.

Organization
Einsatzgruppe A for the Baltic Republics with the Sonderkommandos 1 a and 1 b (German for special forces, not to be confused with the Sonderkommandos in the concentration camps) and the Einsatzkommandos 2 and 3. Attached to Army Group North.
Einsatzgruppe B for Belarus with the Sonderkommandos 7a and 7 b, the Einsatzkommandos 8 and 9, and also with a special force in case Moscow was captured . Attached to Army Group Centre.
Einsatzgruppe C for the Northern and central Ukraine with the Sonderkommandos 4 a and 4 b and the Einsatzkommandos 5 and 6. Attached to Army Group South.
Einsatzgruppe D for Bessarabia, the Southern Ukraine, the Crimea and (eventually) the Caucasus with the Sonderkommandos 10 a and 10 b and the Einsatzkommandos 11 a, 11 b and 12. Attached to Army Group South.
Einsatzgruppen leaders
Group A: SS-Brigadeführer Dr. Franz Walter Stahlecker (until 23 March 1942)
Group B: SS-Brigadeführer Artur Nebe (until Oct. 1941)
Group C: SS-Gruppenführer Dr. Otto Rasch (until Oct. 1941)
Group D: SS-Gruppenführer Prof. Otto Ohlendorf ( until June 1942)

Racial policy of Nazi Germany

2005-04-23T01:02:00.000-07:00

Racial policy of Nazi Germany originated with as the Dolchstoslegende, ("betrayal legend") of disgruntled WW I German nationalists who blamed non-Germans for the loss of the war. Exploiting these sentiments, the Nazis expanded them to action, which later became codified under the Nuremburg Laws.

1933 to 1939
Nazi racial policy changed extensively in the years between 1933 and 1939. The Nazi Party became increasingly extreme in its treatment of the minorities of Germany, particularly Jews.
During the years 1933-1934, Nazi policy was fairly moderate, not wishing to scare off voters or moderately-minded politicians. Jews had been disliked for years before, and the Nazi Party used this anger to gain votes. The blame for poverty, unemployment, and the loss of World War I were all placed on the Jews. In 1933, persecution of the Jews became active Nazi policy, but laws were not as rigorously obeyed and were not as devastating as in later years.
On 1 April 1933, Jewish doctors, shops, lawyers and stores were boycotted. Only 6 days later, the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" was passed, banning Jews from government jobs. These laws meant that Jews were now indirectly and directly dissuaded or banned from privileged and superior positions reserved for "Aryan" Germans. From then on, Jews were forced to work at more menial positions, beneath other non-Jews.
On 2 August 1934, President Paul von Hindenburg died. No new President was selected; instead the powers of the Chancellor and President were combined. This, and a tame government with no opposition parties, allowed Hitler totalitarian control of law-making. The army also swore an oath of loyalty personally to the Führer, giving Hitler power over the army also. This allowed Hitler to easily create more pressure on the Jews than ever before.

The Nuremberg Laws
However, in the years 1935-1936, persecution of the Jews increased apace. In May 1935, Jews were forbidden to join the Wehrmacht (Army), and in the summer of the same year, anti-Jewish propaganda appeared in Nazi-German shops and restaurants. The Nuremberg Laws were passed around the time of the great Nazi rallies at Nuremberg; On 15 September 1935 the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour" was passed preventing marriage between any Jew and non-Jew. At the same time the "Reich Citizenship Law" was passed, and was reinforced in November by a decree, stating that all Jews, even quarter- and half-Jews, were no longer citizens of their own country (their official title became "subject of the state"). This meant that they had no basic citizens' rights, e.g., to vote. This removal of basic citizens' rights allowed harsher laws to be passed in the future against Jews. The drafting of the Nuremberg Laws is often attributed to Hans Globke.
In 1936, Jews were banned from all professional jobs, effectively preventing them having any influence in education, politics, higher education and industry. Because of this, there was nothing to stop the anti-Jewish actions that spread across the Nazi-German economy.
After the "Night of the Long Knives", the SS became the dominant policing power in Germany. Hermann Göring was eager to please Hitler, and so willingly obeyed his orders. Since the SS had been Hitler's personal bodyguard, they were far more loyal and professional than the SA had been. Because of this, they were also supported by the army, which was now more willing to agree with Hitler's decisions than when the SA had still existed.
All of this allowed Hitler more direct control over the government and political attitude to Jews in Nazi Germany. In the period 1937-1938, harsh new laws were implemented, and the segregation of Jews from the true German "Aryan" population was started. In particular, Jews were punished financially for their race.
On 1 March 1938, Government contracts could not be awarded to Jewish businesses. On 30 September of the same year, "Aryan" doctors could only treat "Aryan" patients. Provision of medical care to Jews was already hampered by the fact that Jews were banned from being doctors or having any professional jobs.
On 17 August, Jews had to add "Israel" (males) or "Sarah" (females) to their names, and a large letter "J" was to be imprinted on their passports on 5 October. On 15 November Jewish children were banned from going to normal schools. By April 1939, nearly all Jewish companies had either collapsed under financial pressure and declining profits, or had been persuaded to sell out to the Nazi-German government. This further reduced their rights as human beings; they were in many ways officially separated from the German populace.
The increasing totalitarian, militaristic regime that was being imposed on Germany by Hitler allowed him to control the actions of the SS and the army. On 7 November 1938, a young Polish Jew attacked and shot two German officials in the Nazi-German embassy in Paris. He was angry about the treatment of his parents by the Nazi-Germans. Goebbels took the opportunity to impress Hitler, and ordered retaliation. That night the SS conducted the Night of Broken Glass ("Kristallnacht"), in which the storefronts of Jewish shops and offices were smashed and vandalised. Approximately 100 Jews were killed, and another 20,000 sent to the newly formed concentration camps. Many Germans were disgusted by this action when the full extent of the damage was discovered, so Hitler ordered it to be blamed on the Jews. Collectively the Jews were made to pay back one billion RM in damages; the fine being raised by confiscating 20% of every Jew's property.
In conclusion, it is determined that Nazi-German racial policy grew increasingly violent and aggressive through the years 1933 and 1939. This, in many ways, was Hitler's aim; he wanted the German populace to accept and support his outrageous theories and, in order for this to happen, he had to implement the regime of terror gradually. It worked fantastically, and the vast majority of Germans essentially agreed with his policies or kept silent. Those who disagreed were prevented from occupying prominent positions in politics and industry through laws and decrees passed during these years. Possibly the most important action that Hitler undertook was the Reich Citizenship Law, in which Jews were stripped of all Citizens' rights and officially segregated from German society. It also paved the way for other laws to come in the near future.

Jewish response to the Nuremberg Laws
The Reichsvertretung* der Juden in Deutschland (Representation of the German Jews) announces the following:
"The Laws decided upon by the Reichstag in Nuremberg have come as the heaviest of blows for the Jews in Germany. But they must create a basis on which a tolerable relationship becomes possible between the German and the Jewish people. The Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland is willing to contribute to this end with all its powers. A precondition for such a tolerable relationship is the hope that the Jews and Jewish communities of Germany will be enabled to keep a moral and economic means of existence by the halting of defamation and boycott.
The organization of the life of the Jews in Germany requires governmental recognition of an autonomous Jewish leadership. The Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland is the agency competent to undertake this.
The most urgent tasks for the Reichsvertretung, which it will press energetically and with full commitment, following the avenues it has previously taken, are:
1. Our own Jewish educational system must serve to prepare the youth to be upright Jews, secure in their faith, who will draw the strength to face the onerous demands which life will make on them from conscious solidarity with the Jewish community, from work for the Jewish present and faith in the Jewish future. In addition to transmitting knowledge, the Jewish schools must also serve in the systematic preparation for future occupations. With regard to preparation for emigration, particularly to Palestine, emphasis will be placed on guidance toward manual work and the study of the Hebrew language. The education and vocational training of girls must be directed to preparing them to carry out their responsibilities as upholders of the family and mothers of the next generation.

1939-1941-1945
In the General Government in 1940 the population was divided on different groups. Each group had different rights, food ratios, allowed strips in the cities, public transportation and restricted restaurants. Listed from the most privilaged to the least:
Germans from Germany(Reichdeutsche)
Germans from outside, active ethnic Germans, Volksliste category 1 and 2 (see Volksdeutsche)
Germans from outside, passive Germans and members of families, handicapped (this group included also many ethnic Poles), Volksliste category 3 and 4,
Ukrainians,
Highlanders (Goralenvolk) - an attempt to split Polish nation by using local collaborators
Poles,
Jews (eventually sentenced to extermination as a category).

Members of Hitler's cabinet

2005-04-23T00:54:00.000-07:00

This is a list of members of Hitler's cabinet from January 1933 to April 1945
January 1933
Adolf Hitler (NSDAP) - Chancellor
Franz von Papen - Vice Chancellor
Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath - Minister of Foreign Affairs
Wilhelm Frick (NSDAP) - Minister of the Interior
Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk - Minister of Finance
Alfred Hugenberg (DNVP) - Minister of Economics and Food
Franz Seldte - Minister of Labour
Franz Gürtner (DNVP) - Minister of Justice
Werner von Blomberg - Minister of Defence
Paul Freiherr Eltz von Rübenach - Minister of Posts and Transport
Hermann Göring (NSDAP) - Minister without Portfolio
Changes
March 1933: Joseph Goebbels enters the cabinet as Minister of Propaganda.
April 1933: Göring takes a portfolio as Minister of Aviation.
June 1933: Kurt Schmitt succeeds Hugenberg as Minister of Economics. Walter Darré succeeds Hugenberg as Minister of Food.
December 1933: Ernst Röhm and Rudolf Hess enter the Cabinet as Ministers without Portfolio.
May 1934: Bernhard Rust enters the Cabinet as Minister of Science and Education.
June 1934: Hanns Kerrl enters the Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio. Röhm, Minister without Portfolio, is murdered.
July 1934: Göring takes another portfolio as Minister of Forestry.
August 1934: Franz von Papen resigns as Vice-Chancellor. He is not replaced. Hjalmar Schacht succeeds Schmitt as Minister of Economics.
December 1934: Hans Frank enters the Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio.
March 1935: Göring takes yet another portfolio as Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe.
May 1935: The title of Minister of Defence is replaced by that of Minister of War. Blomberg retains the office.
July 1935: Hanns Kerrl takes a portfolio as Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs.
April 1936: Werner von Fritsch enters the Cabinet as Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Erich Raeder enters the cabinet as Commander in Chief of the Navy.
February 1937: Wilhelm Ohnesorge succeeds Eltz as Minister of Posts. Julius Dorpmüller succeeds Eltz as Minister of Transport.
November 1937: Hermann Göring succeeds Schacht as Minister of Economics. Schact becomes Minister without Portfolio
December 1937: Otto Meissner enters the Cabinet as Minister of State and Head of the Chancellery.
January 1938: Walter Funk succeeds Göring as Minister of Economics.
February 1938: Joachim von Ribbentrop replaces Neurath as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Neurath becomes Minister without Portfolio. Blomberg resigns as Minister of War and his office is abolished. His role is taken by General Wilhelm Keitel as Director of the OKW. Walther von Brauchitsch succeeds Fritsch as Commander-in-Chief of the Army.
May 1939: Arthur Seyss-Inquart enters the Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio.
March 1940: Fritz Todt becomes Minister of armament and ammunition.
January 1941: Franz Schlegelberger succeeds Gürtner as Minister of Justice.
May 1941: Rudolf Hess is suspended from the Cabinet.
December 1941: Hanns Kerrl, the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs, dies. He is not replaced. Hitler himself takes up the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Army.
February 1942: Albert Speer succeeds Todt as minister of armament and amunition.
May 1942: Herbert Backe succeeds Darré as Minister of Food.
August 1942: Otto Georg Thierack succeeds Schlegelberger as Minister of Justice.
January 1943: Karl Dönitz succeeds Raeder as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.
August 1943: Heinrich Himmler succeeds Frick as Minister of the Interior.
July 1944: Schacht departs the Cabinet.

Hitler's death

2005-04-23T00:48:00.000-07:00

The April 1945 death of Adolf Hitler is generally accepted and the most commonly cited cause of his death is that he shot himself in the head while simultaneously biting into an ampule of cyanide. However, due to the chaos and fluidity of circumstances in the Führerbunker at the time, no theory has ever been completely accepted.
Standard account of the circumstances of Hitler's death
Hitler relocated to the Führerbunker on 16 January 1945 and from that location he presided over the rapid disintegration of his Third Reich before the Allies advancing from both east and west. By late April Soviet forces were fighting within Berlin itself and Hitler began to make preparations for his suicide. At 4:00 am on April 29 he finished his last will and testament. Shortly after midnight on the morning of 30 April 1945 Hitler married Eva Braun in a small ceremony in a map room within the bunker complex. He then dictated his personal will and political testament to secretary Traudl Junge before retiring to bed at around 4am.
That afternoon Hitler had a short meeting with Party Secretary Bormann before eating a small lunch (said to be "spaghetti with a light sauce"). Adolf and Eva Hitler then said their personal farewells to members of the Führerbunker staff and fellow occupants including the Goebbels family, Bormann, the secretaries and several military officers. Adolf and Eva Hitler then retired to Hitler's personal study.
After a period of time Hitler's valet Heinz Linge, with Bormann at his side, opened the door to the study. Linge later stated that he immediately noted a scent of burned almonds in the small study, a common observation made in the presence of prussic acid, a form of cyanide. The Hitlers were both sitting on a small sofa, Eva on the left, Adolf to the right. Eva's body slumped away from Adolf's. Hitler appeared to have shot himself in the right temple with a 7.65mm pistol which lay at his feet. Blood was dripping from the wound to his right temple and had made a large stain on the left arm of the sofa. Eva had no visible physical wounds and Linge assumed that she had poisoned herself.

Autopsy, controversy and urban myth
Reports of the autopsy performed on Hitler's alleged remains immediately after the fall of Berlin, along with two conflicting accounts of the cause of death, resulted in years of controversy following World War II.
Witnesses stated that following his reported suicide, Hitler's remains (along with those of Eva Hitler) were taken to a small garden outside the bunker complex where they were doused with petrol and set alight by Linge and members of Hitler's personal SS bodyguard. The SS guards and Linge later noted the fire did not completely destroy the remains, but Russian shelling of the bunker compound made any further cremations attempts impossible.
The badly burned and partially buried remains were recovered by a SMERSH unit which had been assigned the task of locating Hitler's body (this unit was attached to the 79th Rifle Corps of the Soviet Third Shock Army and is frequestly referred to simply as 79th SMERSH). An autopsy was performed by the SMERSH unit, led by Chief Forensic Pathologist Dr. Faust Sherovsky in an attempt to determine the exact cause of death. The team first identified Hitler using odontological records relating to removable dental fittings given to Hitler by his dentist Hugo Blaschke. Two of Blaschke's arrested assistants, Fritz Echtmann and Kaethe Hausermann, confirmed the dental records as being accurate. The autopsy ultimately led to the discovery of traces of cyanide in the tissues of both bodies and the official cause of death published by the team was poisoning by cyanide with no mention of any gunshot wound. The findings were released by the USSR on May 16, 1945 but were quickly recognised as lacking by both Soviet and Western authorities.

Autopsy report declared false
The autopsy report was publicly questioned by both Stalin and the Allies due to persistent testimony from other members of the Führerbunker staff that Hitler had shot himself. Stalin, apparently concerned the autopsy may have been botched and that the Soviet Union had a major embarrassment on its hands, directed Marshal Zhukov to announce on June 9, 1945 that the remains of Hitler had not been found and that Hitler was probably still alive.
This statement was never retracted. The motives were made clearer when the KGB/FSB opened their files on the matter to the public in 1993 (a book by Soviet journalist Lev Bezymensky which detailed the SMERSH autopsy report had been published in the west in 1968 but was associated with other disinformation attempts and was considered untrustworthy).

Hitler's escape?
For decades after World War II rumours of Hitler's escape from Berlin and supposed flight to Argentina, Spain or even a moated castle in Westphalia continued to circulate.
The initial announcement of the discovery of Hitler's remains, quickly followed by a Soviet denial that the remains had been found and a statement that Hitler was probably still alive led many to believe Hitler had indeed escaped to South America along with other prominent Nazis

Skull fragment
Dr. Sherovsky had noted in his initial autopsy report that a piece of Hitler's skull cap was missing. A skull fragment was later recovered from the Führerbunker and was found to contain a single bullet hole, most likely from a 7.65mm round. This bullet hole, together with the cyanide trace elements found in the body tissue and witness accounts, ultimately led to the widely accepted conclusion that Hitler had shot himself in the right temple with a 7.65mm pistol while simultaneously biting down on a glass cyanide ampule. The skull fragment was taken to Moscow in 1946 along with the jaw section used for the dental identification and eventually found its way to the Moscow Archives.
There was a rumour, probably an urban legend, that the skull fragment was presented as a gift to Stalin, who then used the fragment as an ashtray in an ultimate show of triumph over his previous enemy. This story may have gotten started with the fact that the fragments were stored for a time in a wooden cigar box by a member of 79th SMERSH who was tasked with their safe-keeping.
The skull fragment disappeared from official records but was later located in the Moscow Archives basement after the fall of the Soviet Union and publicly displayed as part of an exhibition on the fall of the Third Reich entitled The Agony of the Third Reich.

Debate
Some suggested that the traces of cyanide found in the body were a result of the medicines prescribed to Hitler by his personal physician Theo Morrell and that the probable cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head. Critics point out that although Morrell often prescribed unorthodox treatment including doses of arsenic and strychnine, cyanide compounds were never included. Also, according to Dr. Sherovsky's autopsy report shards of glass were found inside the mouth suggesting a glass ampule (similar to those used by Himmler and Göring) had been bitten.
Journalist James O'Donnell, after extensive interviews with the inhabitants of the bunker (including those who were unavailable for years due to Russian detention), noted agreement among them that shortly before his death, Hitler had a conversation with another doctor, Werner Haase, who gave him instructions on how to make sure the suicide was successful, describing a combination of cyanide and a gunshot to the temple. However, Haase died in Russian captivity and O'Donnell had to rely on witness accounts.
One often-repeated idea is that the "gunshot only" argument was an attempt to portray a more honorable "soldier's death" for Hitler by way of gunshot, as opposed to an "honorless" suicide by poisoning. This idea was later extended to include any suicide scenerio that involved Hitler shooting himself (as opposed to using poison only). O'Donnell, citing the body of evidence that indicates otherwise, noted that such claims are based on ideology, not fact, and remarked that such claimants should learn how to "give the devil his due."

Physically possible?
Another continuing point of speculation is whether Hitler was physically capable of shooting himself while taking poison at the same time, given the rapid and violent convulsions often evident during cyanide poisoning. This led to another theory that Hitler ingested cyanide, died and then his body was shot by someone else to either ensure he was dead or make it appear the Führer had died a soldier's suicide by gunshot. As for who the shooter might have been, Eva Braun is sometimes mentioned. She had trained with a pistol during the preceding weeks (as did many German women in response to stories of widespread rape and murder by advancing Red Army soldiers) and was presumably one of the only people Hitler trusted at the end of his life. Other possibilities would include Heinz Linge, Hitler's valet, and Martin Bormann who both had the opportunity to be alone with the body long enough to inflict a gunshot wound before it was removed from the bunker. However, historians for the most part discount this possibility.

Destruction of remains
In the decades following the war there was much speculation regarding the exact location of Hitler's final resting place. Historians have reached a general consensus (based on reports from declassified KGB files and statements by former KGB members) that following the autopsy, the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun were at first frequently buried and exhumed by SMERSH during the unit's relocation from Berlin to a new facility at 30-32 Klausnerstrasse in Magdeburg.
Once in Magdeburg they were permanently buried in an unmarked grave underneath a paved section of the front courtyard and the location was kept highly secret. By 1970 the SMERSH facility (now controlled by the KGB) was scheduled to be handed over to the East German government. Keen to destroy any possibility of Hitler's burial site becoming a Neo-Nazi shrine, KGB director Yuri Andropov authorised a special operation to destroy the remains. On 4 April 1970 a Russian KGB team (who had been given detailed burial charts) exhumed the bodies and burned the remains before dumping the ashes in the Elbe river.

In 2005 the skull and jaw fragments taken to Moscow were still kept in the Moscow Archives. An earlier public display on the destruction of the Third Reich contained the skull fragment, although the jaw fragment was not shown as it is apparently too fragile to be handled.
The overall confusion as to the wherabouts of Hitler's corpse can be attributed to Stalin's growing paranoia in his later years, which included ideas that Hitler escaped death. A slight possibility remains that agents and doctors in the USSR attempted to qualm Stalin's fears by producing a body, even though it may have rotted away to nothing long before.

Could he be alive today?
On 31 October 2003 Kamato Hongo, the only living person known to be older than Adolf Hitler, passed away. As of 14th of April 2005 no one born in the decade of the 1880s, male or female, was known to be alive. In effect, if Hitler were still alive he would be the oldest living person in the world.

2005-04-23T00:21:00.000-07:00

Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary – 30 April 1945 in Berlin, Germany) was leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (more widely known as the Nazi Party) and Führer und Reichskanzler (Leader and Chancellor) of Germany, and founder of the Third Reich (1933-1945). A charismatic orator, Hitler is widely regarded as one of the most significant and reviled leaders in world history. The military-industrial complex he fostered dominated most of Europe at its zenith.
Hitler's attempt to create a Greater Germany (Grossdeutschland)—beginning with the annexation of Austria (Anschluss) and the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland—was the primary cause of World War II in Europe, which began in 1939. The embrace of total war by both the Axis and Allied powers during this time led to widespread destruction in Europe. He implemented the racial policies of Nazi Germany and his government instituted the genocidal Holocaust of millions of Jews, Slavs, and Gypsies. Although he had hoped to be the founder of a thousand-year empire, he committed suicide in his bunker with the Soviet Red Army closing in.
Early life
Childhood

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 at Braunau am Inn, a small town 90 km (55 miles) west of Linz in the province of Upper Austria not far from the German border in what was then Austria-Hungary. He was the fourth of six children of Alois Hitler (1837–1903), a customs official, and Klara Pölzl, Alois' niece and third wife. Of these six children, only Adolf and his sister Paula reached adulthood. Alois Hitler also had a son (Alois Junior) and a daughter (Angela) with his second wife. In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler describes his father as an irascible tyrant; however, there is little indication that Alois Hitler treated his son more strictly than was usual for that time and place.
Alois Hitler was born out of wedlock, and, until he was 40, used his mother's surname Schicklgruber. In 1876 he began using the name of his stepfather Johann Georg Hiedler after visiting a priest responsible for birth registries and declaring that Georg was his father (Alois gave the impression that Georg was still alive, but he was long dead). The spelling was probably changed by a clerk. Later, Adolf Hitler was accused by his political enemies of not rightfully being a Hitler, but a Schicklgruber. This was also exploited in Allied propaganda during the Second World War when pamphlets bearing the phrase Heil Schicklgruber were airdropped over German cities. He was legally born a Hitler, however and ironically, closely related to Hiedler through his mother's family, too.
Hitler did not know for sure the identity of his paternal grandfather although it was likely either Johann Georg Hiedler or his brother Johann von Nepomuk Hiedler. There have been rumours Hitler was one quarter Jewish and that his grandmother Maria Schicklgruber had become pregnant after working as a servant in a Jewish household in Graz, Austria. During the 1920s the implications of this along with his known family history were politically explosive for the proponent of a racist ideology. Opponents tried to prove the leader of the antisemitic and nationalistic NSDAP had Jewish or Czech ancestors. Although these rumours were never confirmed, for Hitler they were reason enough to conceal his origins. Soviet propaganda insisted he was a Jew, though newer research tends to diminish the probability Hitler had Jewish or Czech ancestors. Historians such as Werner Maser and Ian Kershaw argue this was impossible since the Jews had been expelled from Graz in the 15th century and were not allowed to return until well after Maria Schicklgruber's alleged employment. [1] (http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa070197.htm) [2] (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_325b.html)
Because of Alois Hitler's profession his family moved frequently, from Braunau to Passau, Lambach, Leonding and next to Linz. Young Adolf was reportedly a good pupil at the various elementary schools he attended, however in sixth grade (1900/01) his first year of high school (Realschule) in Linz, he failed completely and had to repeat. His teachers remarked he had "no desire to work."
Hitler later explained this as a kind of rebellion against his father Alois, who wanted the boy to follow him in a career as a customs official, although Adolf wanted to become a painter. This is further supported by Hitler's later description of himself as a misunderstood artist. After Hitler's father died on January 3, 1903 at age 65, his schoolwork didn't improve and at the age of sixteen Hitler left school without graduating.
Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich
From 1905 on Hitler was able to live the life of a Bohèmien on a fatherless child's pension and support from his mother. After he was rejected twice by the Academy of Arts in Vienna (1907 and 1908) for "lack of talent", which he resented deeply, he didn't try to find a different job or learn a profession. He was told he should become an architect, since he had some flair for painting buildings. On 21 December 1907 his mother Klara died a painful death from breast cancer. He gave his share of the orphans' benefits to his younger sister Paula but soon after inherited some money from an aunt. He worked as a struggling painter in Vienna, copying scenes from postcards and selling his paintings to merchants and tourists (there is evidence he produced over 2000 paintings and drawings before the First World War).
It was in Vienna that Hitler began to develop into an active anti-Semite, which was common among Austrians at the time and deeply ingrained in the Austrian Catholic culture Hitler grew up in. Vienna had a large Jewish community, including many Orthodox Jews from Eastern Europe. He was influenced by the pseudoscientific and neo-religious writings of the race ideologist and anti-Semite Lanz von Liebenfels and polemics from politicians such as Karl Lueger, the Mayor of Vienna and Georg Ritter von Schönerer, the "Führer" (leader) of the Pan-Germanistic movement. Hitler acquired a belief in the superiority of the "Aryan race", which formed the basis of his political views. He came to claim the Jews were natural enemies of "Aryans" and were responsible for Germany's economic problems. According to August Kubizek, his close friend and room-mate at the time, he was interested more in the operas of Richard Wagner than in politics.
After the second refusal by the Academy of Arts, Hitler gradually ran out of money. By 1909 he sought refuge in a homeless shelter and by the beginning of 1910 had settled permanently into a house for poor working men. He made spending money by painting tourist postcards of Vienna scenery. His anti-Semitism during this period has been debated somewhat since, seemingly contrary to statements he later made in Mein Kampf, a Jewish resident of the house named Hanisch was helping him sell his postcards.
He was given a small inheritance from his father in May 1913 and moved to Munich. He later wrote in Mein Kampf that he had always longed to live in a German city. In Munich he became more interested in architecture and the racist writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Moving to Munich also helped him escape military service in Austria for a time, but the Austrian army later arrested him. After a physical exam (during which his height was measured at 5 ft 8 in or 1.73 m) and a contrite plea, he was found unfit for service and allowed to return to Munich. However in August 1914 when the German Empire entered World War I he immediately enlisted in the Bavarian Army.
First World War

He saw active service in France and Belgium as a messenger for the 16th Bavarian reserve infantry regiment, which exposed him to enemy fire. He also drew some cartoons and instructional drawings for the army newspaper. Though Hitler's service record was exemplary he was never promoted beyond corporal because he wasn't a German citizen. He was twice cited for bravery in action, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in December 1915 and the Iron Cross, First Class (an honour rarely given to corporals) in August 1918. In October 1916 in northern France Hitler was wounded in the leg. At the beginning of March 1917 he returned to the front.
Hitler was considered a "correct" soldier but was reportedly unpopular with his comrades because of an uncritical attitude towards officers. "Respect the superior, don't contradict anybody, obey blindly", he said, describing his attitude while on trial for his Beer Hall Putsch in 1924. One comrade later remarked, "we all grumbled on him and found it intolerable that we had a white raven among us."
On 15 October 1918, shortly before the end of war, Hitler was admitted to a field hospital, temporarily blind following a poison gas attack. Recent research however indicates the blindness may have been the result of an hysterical reaction to Germany's military defeat. Hitler was treated by a military physician who specialized in psychiatrics and reportedly diagnosed the corporal as "incompetent to command people" and "dangerously psychotic". His commander at the time said , "I will never promote this hysteric!" However, the historian Sebastian Haffner refers to Hitler's experience at the front as his only education and suggests he did have some understanding of the military.
During the war Hitler became a passionate German patriot, although he did not become a German citizen until 1932. He was shocked by the capitulation of Germany in November 1918 while the German army remained, in popular German belief, undefeated. Like many other German nationalists he blamed civilian politicians (the "November criminals") for the surrender. The wide-spread right-wing, conservative explanation for the capitulation was the Dolchstosslegende (lit. "dagger stab legend") purporting that, behind the backs of the army, liberal politicians had betrayed and "back-stabbed" Germany's people and its soldiers. The Treaty of Versailles was viewed by most Germans as a humiliation. It imposed high monetary reparations, declaring Germany responsible for unleashing the Great War upon the world. This is considered by some historians as one of the factors that supported Hitler and his party in their drive to absolute power.
During the Weimar Republic

The Early Nazi Party
After the war Hitler remained in the army, which was mainly engaged in suppressing socialist uprisings breaking out across Germany, including Munich, where Hitler returned in 1919. He took part in "national thinking" courses organised by the Education and Propaganda Department (Dept Ib/P) of the Bavarian Reichswehr Group, Headquarters 4 under Captain Mayr. A key purpose of this group was to create a scapegoat for the outbreak of the war and Germany's defeat. The scapegoats were found in "international Jewry", communists and politicians across the party spectrum.
In July 1919, Hitler, because of his intelligence and oratory skills, was appointed a V-Mann (Verbindungsmann is the German term for a police spy) of an "Enlightenment Commando" by the Reichswehr, for the purpose of influencing other soldiers towards similar ideas and was assigned to infiltrate a small nationalist party, the German Workers' Party. On September 12, he went to a party meeting to listen to the speech How and by what means is capitalism to be eliminated?. At the end of the speech a separatist made Hitler enrage and speak forcefully for German unity. This got one of the founders of DAP say to another: he's got the gift of the gab. We could use him. Soon after, they got Hitler to join the party (September 1919). Here Hitler met Dietrich Eckart, an anti-Semite and one of the early founders of the party.[3] (http://ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/festjc/chap2.htm)

Hitler was discharged from the army in 1920 and began participating full time in the party's activities. He soon became its leader and changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP), usually known as the Nazi party .
Hitler had discovered he had two remarkable talents, one for public oratory and another for inspiring personal loyalty. His street-corner oratory, attacking Jews, socialists and liberals, capitalists and Communists, began attracting adherents. Early followers included Rudolf Hess, Hermann Göring, and Ernst Röhm, head of the Nazis' paramilitary organisation, the SA. Another admirer was wartime General Erich Ludendorff. Hitler decided to use Ludendorff as a front in an attempt to seize power in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, in an abortive coup later known as the "Hitler Putsch" or "March to Berlin" of November 8, 1923, when the Nazis marched from a beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry, intending to overthrow Bavaria's right-wing separatist government and then march on Berlin. The army quickly dispersed them and Hitler was arrested. To protect his own position, Hitler appointed Alfred Rosenberg as temporary leader of the group.
Upon being arrested, Hitler found himself in an environment somewhat receptive to his beliefs. During his trial for high treason in April 1924, sympathetic conservative magistrates left over from pre-Weimar allowed Hitler to turn the debacle into a propaganda stunt. Hitler was allotted unlimited amounts of time to present his arguments to the courts as well as a large body of the German people. His polemics, filled with strong undertones of nationalism, voiced a sentiment much shared by the public; using his oft-quoted "There is no such thing as treason against the traitors of 1918", Hitler gave his popularity a tremendous boost by voicing sentiments that resonated with the people. For a crime of conspiracy against his nation, Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg prison, where he received favoured treatment from the guards and had much fan mail from admirers, including many women. While at Landsberg he dictated his political book Mein Kampf (My Struggle) to his deputy Rudolf Hess. The first volume, called eine "Abrechnung" (payback) was later published and became the platform of the Nazi party (by the late 1930s nearly every household in Germany had a copy of it). Meanwhile, considered relatively harmless, Hitler was given an early amnesty and released in December 1924. By this time the Nazi party had dwindled down to a bare existence and Hitler began a long effort to rebuild it.
A key element of Hitler's appeal was his ability to convey a sense of offended national pride caused by the Treaty of Versailles imposed on the defeated German Empire by the Allies. Germany had lost territory in Europe and its colonies, had to admit to sole responsibility for the war and pay a huge reparations bill totaling $6,600,000 (32 billion marks). Most Germans bitterly resented these terms, but early attempts to gain support by blaming these humiliations on "international Jewry" were not particularly successful with the electorate. The party learned quickly and soon a more subtle propaganda emerged, combining anti-Semitism with an attack on the failures of the "Weimar system" and the parties supporting it.
In 2004, it was discovered that Hitler had spent years evading taxes on income from sales of Mein Kampf and owed the German government 405,000 Reichmarks (equivalent to $8 million at 2004 exchange rates) by the time he took power and the tax debt was forgiven.

The road to power

The political turning point for Hitler came with the Depression which hit Germany in 1930. The democratic regime established in Germany in 1919 (the Weimar Republic) had never been accepted by conservatives and was openly opposed by fascists. The Social Democrats and traditional parties of the centre and right were unable to cope with the shock of the Depression. In the September 1930 elections the Nazis suddenly rose from obscurity to win more than 18% of the vote along with 107 seats in the Reichstag, becoming the second largest party in Germany.
Hitler appealed to the bulk of German farmers, war veterans and the middle-class, who had been hard-hit by both the inflation of the 1920s and the unemployment of the Depression. The urban working classes generally ignored Hitler's appeals and Berlin and the Ruhr towns were particularly hostile. The 1930 election was a disaster for Heinrich Brüning's centre-right government, which was now deprived of a majority in the Reichstag.
Meanwhile in December 1931 Hitler's niece Geli Raubal was found dead in her bedroom in his Munich apartment (his half-sister Angela and her daughter Geli had been with him in Munich since 1929), an apparent suicide. Geli was much younger than he was, she was his niece and she used his gun, drawing rumours of a relationship between the two. There is still speculation regarding the circumstances of her death, which is generally viewed as an event of lasting turmoil for Hitler.
While Brüning's austerity measures were bringing little economic improvement, the government was anxious to avoid a presidential election in 1932 and hoped to secure Nazi agreement to an extension of President Paul von Hindenburg's term. Hitler refused and ultimately competed against Hindenburg in the 1932 presidential election, coming in second on both rounds of the election. He attained more than 35% of the vote during the second round in April.

Adolf Hitler greeting supporters from aboard a parade vehicle
Hindenburg dismissed the government, appointing a new one under the conservative Franz von Papen, which immediately called for new Reichstag elections. In July 1932 the Nazis had their best election showing yet, winning 230 seats and becoming the largest party in the Reichstag. Since the Nazis and the communists now together controlled a majority of the Reichstag, the formation of a stable government of mainstream parties had become impossible. After a vote of no-confidence in the Papen government, supported by 84% of the delegates, the new Reichstag was dissolved and new elections were called.
Papen and the Centre Party (Zentrumspartei) began negotiations to secure Nazi participation in the new government but Hitler set high terms, demanding the Chancellorship along with the President's agreement that he be able to use emergency powers. The offer was rebuffed, and combined with the Nazis' failure to win working class support, some Nazi supporters were alienated. During the November 1932 elections the Nazis lost votes although they remained by far the largest party in the Reichstag. Since Papen had failed to secure a majority, Hindenburg dismissed him and appointed General Kurt von Schleicher, who promised he could secure a majority government by negotiations with both Social Democratic labour unions and the dissident Nazi faction led by Gregor Strasser.
Papen and Alfred Hugenberg (Chairman of the German National People's Party, the DNVP, before the Nazis became Germany's principal right-wing party) conspired to persuade Hindenburg to appoint Hitler Chancellor in a coalition with the DNVP, promising they would be able to control him. When Schleicher was forced to admit failure in his efforts to form a coalition and asked Hindenburg for yet another Reichstag dissolution, Hindenburg fired him and appointed Hitler Chancellor, Papen Vice-Chancellor and Hugenberg Minister of Economics in a cabinet which included only three Nazis, Hitler, Göring and Wilhelm Frick. On 30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler was officially sworn in as Chancellor in the Reichstag chamber with thousands of Nazi supporters looking on and cheering.
In the March 1933 elections the Nazis received 43.9% of the vote. The party gained control of a majority of seats in the Reichstag through a formal coalition with the DNVP. After the Reichtag was set on fire (and the communists blamed for it) the Enabling Act gave Hitler dictatorial authority, passed by the Reichstag after the Nazis expelled the Communist deputies. Under the Enabling Act the Nazi cabinet had the power to pass legislation just as the Reichstag did. The Act further specified that the cabinet could only approve measures submitted by the Chancellor (Hitler) and that it would lapse after four years time or upon the installation of a new government. The Enabling Act was dutifully renewed every four years, even during World War II.
A series of decrees followed soon after the passage of the Enabling Act. Other parties were suppressed and all opposition was banned. In only a few months Hitler had achieved authoritarian control. President Paul von Hindenburg died in early August 1934. Rather than have new presidential elections, Hitler's cabinet passed a law combining the offices of President and Chancellor, with Hitler holding both offices (including the President's decree powers) as "Leader and National Chancellor." This consolidation was claimed by the Nazis to be approved by the electorate in what was actually a show election (the outcome was 90% "approval") in mid-August 1934. Then, in an unprecedented step, Hitler ordered every member of the military to swear a personal oath of allegiance to him.

The Third Reich

Having secured supreme political power without an electoral mandate from the majority of Germans, Hitler went on to gain their support and remained overwhelmingly popular until the very end of his regime. He was a master orator and with all of Germany's mass media under the control of his propaganda chief, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, he persuaded most Germans he was their saviour from the Depression, the Communists, the Versailles Treaty and the Jews.

Economics and culture
Hitler oversaw one of the greatest expansions of industrial production and civil improvement Germany had ever seen, mostly based on debt floatation and expansion of the military. Nazi policies towards women strongly encouraged them to stay at home to bear children and keep house. The unemployment rate was cut substantially, mostly through arms production and sending women home, letting men take their jobs. Given this, claims that the German economy achieved near full employment are at least partly artifacts of propaganda from the era. Hitler also oversaw one of the largest infrastructure improvement campaigns in German history, with the construction of dozens of dams, autobahns, railroads and other civil works. Hitler's policies emphasised the importance of family life: Men were the "breadwinners", womens' priorities were "church, kitchen and children."
Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale, with Albert Speer becoming famous as the first architect of the Reich. In 1936 Berlin hosted the summer Olympic games, which were opened by Hitler and choreographed to demonstrate Aryan superiority over all other races.
Although Hitler made plans for a Breitspurbahn (broad gauge railroad network), they were preempted by World War II. Had the railroad been built, its gauge would have been three meters, even wider than the old Great Western Railway of Britain.

Repression

For the unpersuaded, the SA, SS and Gestapo (secret state police) were given a free hand. Thousands disappeared into concentration camps. Many thousands more emigrated, including about half of Germany's Jews.
By 1934 Ernst Röhm's SA had become unpopular with most of the other influential political and military groups in Germany. Hitler ordered his lieutenant Himmler to murder Röhm and dozens of other real and potential enemies during the night of June 29-June 30, 1934, the Night of the Long Knives.
Under the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, Jews lost their German citizenship and were expelled from government employment, the professions and most forms of economic activity. They were also subject to a barrage of hateful propaganda. Few non-Jewish Germans objected to these steps. Restrictions were further tightened later, particularly after the 1938 anti-Jewish operation known as Kristallnacht. From 1941 Jews were required to wear a yellow star in public. Between November 1938 and September 1939 more than 180,000 Jews fled Germany and the Nazis seized whatever property they left behind.

Rearmament and new alliances

In March 1935 Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles by reintroducing conscription in Germany. He set about building a massive military machine, including a new Navy (the Kriegsmarine) and an Air Force (the Luftwaffe). The enlistment of vast numbers of men and women in the new military seemed to solve unemployment problems but seriously distorted the economy.
In March 1936 he again violated the Treaty of Versailles by reoccupying the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland. When Britain and France did nothing, he grew bolder. In July 1936 the Spanish Civil War began when the military, led by General Francisco Franco, rebelled against the elected Popular Front government of Spain. Hitler sent troops to support Franco and Spain served as a testing ground for Germany's new armed forces and their methods, including the bombing of undefended towns such as Guernica, which was destroyed by the Luftwaffe in April 1937, prompting Pablo Picasso's famous eponymous painting (see Guernica (painting)).
An Axis was declared between Germany and Italy by Galeazzo Ciano, foreign minister of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini on October 25, 1936. This alliance was later expanded to include Japan, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. They were collectively known as the Axis Powers. Then on November 5, 1937 at the Reich Chancellory, Adolf Hitler held a secret meeting and stated his plans for acquiring "living space" (Lebensraum) for the German people.
The Holocaust

Between 1942 and 1945 the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, systematically killed approximately 6 million people in concentration camps, ghettos and mass executions, or through less systematic methods elsewhere. Besides being gassed to death, many also died of starvation and disease while working as slave laborers. Along with Jews, alleged communists or political opposition, homosexuals, dissenting Roman Catholics and Protestants, Roma, the physically handicapped and mentally retarded, Soviet prisoners of war, the Polish intelligentsia, Jehovah's Witnesses, anti-Nazi clergy, trade unionists, and psychiatric patients were killed. The industrial-scale genocide of Jews in Europe during this period is referred to as the Holocaust.
The massacres that led to the word "genocide" being coined (the Endlösung) were planned and ordered by leading Nazis, with Himmler playing a key role. While no specific order from Hitler authorizing the mass killing of the Jews has surfaced, there is documentation he approved the Einsatzgruppen and the evidence also suggests that sometime in the fall of 1941 Himmler and Hitler agreed in principle on mass murder by gassing. To make for smoother intra-governmental cooperation in the implementation of this "Final Solution" to the "Jewish question", the Wannsee conference was held near Berlin on January 20, 1942 with fifteen senior officials participating, led by Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann. The records of this meeting provide the clearest evidence of central planning for the Holocaust. Days later, on February 22, Hitler was recorded saying to his closest associates, "We shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews."
World War II

Opening moves

Adolf Hitler saluting a crowd at a parade (undated photograph)
On 12 March 1938 Hitler pressured his native Austria into unification with Germany (the Anschluss) and made a triumphal entry into Vienna. Next he intensified a crisis over the German-speaking Sudetenland district of Czechoslovakia. This led to the Munich Agreement of September 1938, which British prime minister Neville Chamberlain hailed as Peace in our time. At Munich, Britain and France had weakly given way to his demands, averting war but failing to save Czechoslovakia. As a result of the summit Hitler was Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1938.
Hitler ordered Germany's army to enter Prague on 10 March 1939, claiming territories ceded to Poland under the Versailles Treaty. Britain hadn't been able to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union for an alliance against Germany, and, on 23 August 1939, Hitler concluded a secret non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) with Stalin. On 1 September Germany invaded Poland. Britain and France, who had guaranteed assistance to Poland, declared war on Germany.
After conquering Poland by the end of September, Hitler built up his forces much further during what was colloquially called the Sitzkrieg (sitting war). The Sitzkrieg ended in March 1940 when he ordered German forces to march into Denmark and Norway. In May 1940, Hitler ordered his forces to attack France, conquering the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium in the process. France surrendered on 22 June 1940. This string of victories convinced his main ally, Benito Mussolini of Italy, to join the war on Hitler's side in May 1940.
Britain, whose forces had been driven from France at the coastal town of Dunkirk, continued to fight on alone. After having his overtures for peace systematically rejected by the British Government, now led by Winston Churchill, Hitler ordered bombing raids on the British Isles, leading to the Battle of Britain, which was meant to be the prelude of a German invasion. However, the RAF defeated the Luftwaffe by the end of October 1940, and Hitler therefore ordered bombing raids to be carried out on British cities, including London and Coventry, mostly at night. This was the so-called Blitz and it lasted until May 1941.
On 22 June 1941 Hitler gave the signal for three million German troops to attack the Soviet Union, breaking the non-aggression pact he had concluded with Stalin less than two years earlier. This invasion, called Operation Barbarossa, seized huge amounts of territory, especially the Baltic states and Ukraine, resulting in the destruction of many Soviet forces. German forces were stopped short of Moscow in December 1941 by a harsh winter and fierce Soviet resistance, however (see Battle of Moscow), and the invasion failed to achieve the quick triumph over the Soviet Union which Hitler had anticipated.
Path of defeat

German forces were eventually defeated at the Battle of Stalingrad, the first major loss Germany suffered in the war. The other major loss came when in North Africa Britain defeated Germany at the battle of El Alamein, thwarting Hitler's plans to seize the Suez Canal and the Middle East. Both defeats were turning points in the war. After these, Hitler's military decisions became increasingly erratic as Germany's military and economic position deteriorated. His health was deteriorating too. His left hand had started shaking and he found it difficult to control. The biographer Ian Kershaw believes he suffered from Parkinson's disease.
His declaration of war against the United States on December 11, 1941, (which arguably was called for by treaty with Japan) set him against a coalition of the world's largest empire (the British Empire), the world's greatest industrial and financial power (the USA) and the world's largest nation (the Soviet Union).
Hitler's ally Benito Mussolini was overthrown in 1943 after American forces invaded and occupied Sicily. Meanwhile the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the eastern front. On 6 June 1944 (D-Day) Allied armies landed in northern France. Realists in the German army knew defeat was inevitable and some officers plotted to remove Hitler from power. In July 1944 one of them, Claus von Stauffenberg, planted a bomb at Hitler's military headquarters (the so-called July 20 Plot), but Hitler narrowly escaped death. Savage reprisals followed, resulting in the executions of more than 4,000 people (often by starvation in solitary confinement followed by slow strangulation). The resistance movement was crushed.
Defeat and death

By the end of 1944 the Soviets had driven the last German troops from their territory and began charging into Central Europe. The western armies were advancing into Germany. The Germans had lost the war from a military perspective but Hitler allowed no peace talks with the Allied forces and as a consequence the German military continued to fight. By April 1945 Soviet forces were at the gates of Berlin. Hitler's closest lieutenants urged him to flee to Bavaria or Austria to make a last stand in the mountains but he was determined to die in his capital.
As Soviet troops battled their way toward his Reich Chancellory in the centre of the city, Hitler is generally believed to have committed suicide in his Führerbunker on 30 April 1945 in Berlin, Germany by means of a self-delivered shot to the head while biting into a cyanide ampule. Hitler's body and that of Eva Braun, his long-term mistress whom he had married the day before, were burned and buried shortly thereafter in the Chancellory garden.
When Russian forces reached the Chancellory, they exhumed his body and performed an autopsy, using dental records (and German dental assistants who were familiar with them) to confirm the identification. To avoid any possibility of creating a potential shrine, the remains were then secretly buried by SMERSH at their new headquarters in Magdeburg. In April 1970, when the facility was about to be turned over to the East German government, the remains were reportedly exhumed, thoroughly burned and disposed of in the Elbe river. In Moscow there is a skull and a mandible fragment which is said to be Hitler's (having been saved from the dental identification process). DNA samples have been compared to those of known surviving Hitler relatives and the matching results indicated the fragment is most likely genuine.
Legacy
I would have preferred it if he'd followed his original ambition and become an architect. - Paula Hitler (his younger sister), during an interview with a US intelligence operative in late 1945.
In his will Hitler dismissed other Nazi leaders and appointed Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Reichspräsident (President of Germany) and Goebbels as Reichskanzler (Chancellor of Germany). However, Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide on 1 May 1945. On 8 May 1945 in Reims, France the German armed forces surrendered unconditionally ending the war in Europe and with the creation of the Allied Control Council on 5 June 1945 the four powers assumed "supreme authority with respect to Germany." Hitler's proclaimed Thousand Year Reich had lasted 12 years.
While some Revisionist historians note Hitler's attempts to improve the economic and political standing and conditions of his people and claim his tactics were in essence no different from those of many other leaders in history, his methods and legacy, as interpreted by most historians, have caused him to be one of the most despised leaders in history.

Medical health
Hitler's medical health has long been the subject of debate, and he has variously been suggested to have suffered from irritable bowel syndrome, skin lesions, irregular heartbeat, tremors on the left side of his body, syphilis, Parkinson's disease and addiction to methamphetamines.
Hitler's family

Adolf Hitler's Genealogy
See also: Hitler (disambiguation)
Eva Braun, mistress and then wife
Alois Hitler, father
Klara Hitler, mother
Paula Hitler, sister
Alois Hitler, Jr., half-brother
Bridget Dowling, sister-in-law
William Patrick Hitler, nephew
Angela Hitler Raubal, half-sister
Geli Raubal, niece and rumoured mistress
Maria Schicklgruber, grandmother
Johann Georg Hiedler, presumed grandfather
Johann von Nepomuk Hiedler, maternal great-grandfather, presumed great uncle and possibly Hitler's true paternal grandfather

The origin of the name "Hitler"
There are two theories about the origin of the name "Hitler":
(1) From German Hüttler and similar, "one who lives in a hut", "shepherd".
(2) From Slavonic Hidlar and Hidlarcek and similar

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Hitler biography
Adolf Hitler was born on April 20 1889 at Braunau-am-Inn, a small town near Linz in the province of Upper Austria, near the German border, in what was then Austria-Hungary. His father, Alois Schickelgruber Hitler,(1832-1903) worked as a minor customs officer on the border crossing. His mother, a young peasant girl, Klara Poelzl, from the backwoods of lower Austria, was Alois's third wife and 23 years younger than Alois. She was so closely related to her husband that a special dispensation was sought from Rome before they could marry in 1884.Of their six children, only Adolf, the fourth child, and his younger sister, Paula, survived infancy. Four siblings died in childhood: Gustav (1885-1887), Ida (1886-1888), Otto (1887), Edmund (1894-1900).Alois Hitler was born illegitimate, and as a young man he used his mother's surname, Schicklgruber. In 1876 he legally adopted his natural father's surname, Hitler. Adolf Hitler never used the name Schicklgruber: this was a canard circulated later by his political enemies—as were insinuations that he was of Jewish descent, the background of Alois was a potential source of embarrassment for the future leader.Adolf Hitler was known by the nickname "Adi" as a youth. Adolf Hitler was an intelligent but moody boy, and he twice failed to pass the examinations to gain admission to the high school in Linz.Adolf Hitler was devoted to his indulgent mother hard-working mother, whose death from cancer in December 1908 was a shattering blow to the adolescent Hitler and developed a hatred for his father, whom he later portrayed as a sadistic tyrant, although in fact he was probably no more than a normal, strict German father.Alois Hitler had died and Klara brought up Adolf and Paula on her own. Between the ages of sixteen and nineteen, young Adolf neither worked to earn his keep, nor formally studied, but had gained an interest in politics and history. During this time he unsuccessfully applied for admission to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts.Vienna and MunichAdolf Hitler grew up with a poor record at school and left, before completing his tuition, with an ambition to become an artistIn January 1903 Alois Hitler died after suffering a pleural hemorrhage when Adolf was thirteen, and on December 21, 1907 his widow Klara died of cancer. She was held in love and affection by Hitler, her Jewish doctor, Eduard Bloch, later recalled: 'I have never witnessed a closer attachment.' Hitler carried her picture with him down to the last days in the bunker. Her portrait stood in his rooms in Munich, Berlin, and at his alpine residence near Berchtesgaden, Obersalzberg. His mother may well have been the only person Adolf Hitler genuinely loved in his entire life.Eighteen-year-old Adolf was orphaned and he soon left home for Vienna, where he had vague hopes of becoming an artist. He was entitled to an orphan's pension, and eked this out by working as an illustrator. He had a little artistic talent but was rejected by Vienna schools of art and architecture. He lost his pension in 1910, but by then he had inherited some money from an aunt.It was in Vienna that Hitler began developing into an active anti-Semite, a passion that was to rule his life and was the key to all his subsequent actions. Anti-Semitism was deeply ingrained in the south German Catholic culture in which Hitler was raised. Vienna had a large Jewish community, including many Orthodox Jews from Eastern Europe. Hitler later recorded his disgust on encountering Viennese Jews.In Vienna he acquired his first education in politics by studying the demagogic techniques of the popular Christian-social Mayor, Karl Lueger, and picked up the stereotyped, obsessive anti-semitism with its brutal, violent sexual connotations and concern with the 'purity of blood' that remained with him to the end of his career. From crackpot racial theorists like the defrocked monk, Lanz von Liebenfels, and the Austrian Pan-German leader, Georg von Schoenerer, the young Hitler learned to discern in the 'Eternal Jew' the symbol and cause of all chaos, corruption and destruction in culture, politics and the economy. The press, prostitution, syphilis, capitalism, Marxism, democracy and pacifism - all were so many means which 'the Jew' exploited in his conspiracy to undermine the German nation and the purity of the creative Aryan race. From them Hitler acquired the belief in the superiority of the "Aryan race" which formed the basis of his political views. Hitler came to believe that the Jews were the natural enemies of the "Aryans," and was also in some way responsible for his poverty and his failure to achieve the success he believed he deserved.World War IIn May 1913, Adolf Hitler moved to Munich to avoid military service in the Austro-Hungarian army. But in August 1914 when the German Empire entered World War I, he at once enlisted in the German Army he joined the Sixteenth Bavarian Infantry Regiment, serving as a despatch runner. Hitler proved an able, courageous soldier, receiving the Iron Cross (First Class) for bravery, but did not rise above the rank of Lance Corporal and saw active service in France and Belgium as a messenger. Twice wounded, he was badly gassed four weeks before the end of the war and spent three months recuperating in a hospital in Pomerania recovering from temporary blindness caused by a British gas attack in the Ypres Salient. He was wounded and gassed and won the Iron Cross for bravery. During the war he acquired a passionate German patriotism, despite not being a German citizen (a detail he did not rectify until 1932). Temporarily blinded and driven to impotent rage by the abortive November 1918 revolution in Germany as well as the military defeat, when the German army was (so he believed) undefeated and He, like many other German nationalists, blamed civilian politicians (the "November criminals") for the surrender. Hitler, once restored, was convinced that fate had chosen him to rescue a humiliated nation from the shackles of the Versailles Treaty, from Bolsheviks and Jews.In December 1918 he returned to his regiment back in Munich. [Ironically the regimental captain who recommended him for the award was Jewish].Early Politics - 1918-1919When he started his political career; he certainly did not want people to know that he was lazy and a poor achiever at school. He fell out with one of his earliest supporters - Eduard Humer - in 1923 over the fact that Humer told people what Hitler had been like at school.Hitler was certainly gifted in some subjects, but he lacked self-control. He was argumentative and bad-tempered, and unable to submit to school discipline....moreover, he was lazy. He reacted with hostility to advice or criticism. (Humer)Humer had been Hitler’s French teacher and was in an excellent position to "spill the beans" - but this met with Hitler’s stern disapproval. Such behaviour would have been seriously punished after 1933 - the year when Hitler came to power. After 1933, those who had known Hitler in his early years either kept quiet about what they knew or told those who chose to listen that he was an ideal student etc.Between December 1918 and March 1919 Hitler worked at a prisoner-of-war camp at Traunstein before returning again to Munich. Shortly after his return he witnessed a takeover bid by local Communists who seized power before being ousted by the army. After he gave evidence at an investigation into the takeover he was asked to become part of a local army organization which was responsible for persuading returning soldiers not to turn to communism or pacifism. During his training for this task and during his subsequent duties he was able to hone his oratory skills. Assigned by the Reichswehr in the summer of 1919 to 'educational' duties which consisted largely of spying on political parties in the overheated atmosphere of post-revolutionary Munich, Hitler was sent to investigate a small nationalistic group of idealists, the German Workers' Party. On 16 September 1919 he entered the Party (which had approximately forty members), soon changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) (National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeitspartei - NSDAP), and during a meeting of the German Workers' Party he became so incensed by one of the speeches that he delivered a fierce harangue to the speaker. The founder of the party, Anion Drexler, was so impressed by Hitler's tirade that he asked him to join their organization. Hitler, after some thought, finally agreed to join the committee and became their seventh official in September 1919.The First Hofbrauhaus Speech - 1919-1920Given responsibility for publicity and propaganda, Hitler first succeeded in attracting over a hundred people to a meeting in held October at which he delivered his first speech to a large audience. The meeting and his oratory were a great success, and subsequently in February 1920 he organized a much larger event for a crowd of nearly two thousand in the Munich Hofbrauhaus. Hitler himself was not the main speaker, but when his turn came he succeeded in calming a rowdy audience and presented a twenty-five point programme of ideas which were to be the basis of the party. The name of the party was itself changed to the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi for short) on April 1st 1920. Not long after the February speech he was discharged from the army. Hitler continued to expand his influence in the party and began to form a private group of thugs which he used to quash disorder at party meetings and later to break up rival party's meetings. This group subsequently became the Sturmabteilung or S.A. - Hitler's brown shirted storm troopers. He also became the regular main speaker at party events from then onwards, attracting large crowds for each meeting. During the summer of 1920 Hitler chose the swastika as the Nazi party emblem and its greeting 'Heil!’ His hoarse, grating voice, for all the bombastic, humorless, histrionic content of his speeches, dominated audiences by dint of his tone of impassioned conviction and gift for self-dramatization.Hitler discovered a powerful talent for oratory as well as giving the new Party its symbol - the swastika - By November 1921 Hitler was recognized as Fuhrer of a movement which had 3,000 members, and boosted his personal power by organizing strong- arm squads to keep order at his meetings and break up those of his opponents. Out of these squads grew the storm troopers (SA) organized by Captain Ernst Rohm and Hitler's black-shirted personal bodyguard, the Schutzstaffel ("Protection Unit" or SS).Hitler focused his propaganda against the Versailles Treaty, the 'November criminals', the Marxists and the visible, internal enemy No. 1, the 'Jew', who was responsible for all Germany's domestic problems. In the twenty-five-point programmed of the NSDAP announced on 24 February 1920, the exclusion of the Jews from the Volk community, the myth of Aryan race supremacy and extreme nationalism were combined with 'socialistic' ideas of profit-sharing and nationalization inspired by ideologues like Gottfried Feder. Hitler's first written utterance on political questions dating from this period emphasized that what he called 'the anti-Semitism of reason' must lead 'to the systematic combating and elimination of Jewish privileges. Its ultimate goal must implacably be the total removal of the Jews.'Leader of the Nazi Party – 1921By 1921 Adolf Hitler had virtually secured total control of the Nazi party, however this was not to the liking of all Nazis. In July of that year, whilst Hitler was away in Berlin, the discontent members of the party proposed a merger with a like-minded political party in Nuremburg in the hope that this would dilute Hitler's influence. On hearing the news of the proposed merger, Hitler rushed back to Munich to confront the party and threatened to resign. The other members were aware that Hitler was bringing in the lion's share of funds into the organization, from the collections following his speeches at meetings and from other sympathetic sources. Thus they knew they couldn't afford his resignation. Hitler then proceeded to turn the tables on the committee members and forced them to accept him as formal leader of the party with dictatorial powers. By November 1921 Hitler was recognized as Fuhrer of a movement which had 3,000 members, and boosted his personal power by organizing strong- arm squads to keep order at his meetings and break up those of his opponents. Out of these squads grew the storm troopers (SA) organized by Captain Ernst Rohm and Hitler's black-shirted personal bodyguard, the Schutzstaffel (SS).Hitler focused his propaganda against the Versailles Treaty, the 'November criminals', the Marxists and the visible, internal enemy No. 1, the 'Jew', who was responsible for all Germany's domestic problems. In the twenty-five-point programmed of the NSDAP announced on 24 February 1920, the exclusion of the Jews from the Volk community, the myth of Aryan race supremacy and extreme nationalism were combined with 'socialistic' ideas of profit-sharing and nationalization inspired by ideologues like Gottfried Feder. Hitler's first written utterance on political questions dating from this period emphasized that what he called 'the anti-Semitism of reason' must lead 'to the systematic combating and elimination of Jewish privileges. Its ultimate goal must implacably be the total removal of the Jews.'Munich Beer Hall Putsch – 1923
By November 1923 Hitler was convinced that the Weimar Republic was on the verge of collapse and, together with General Ludendorff and local nationalist groups, sought to overthrow the Bavarian government in Munich. On November 8th 1923 Hitler led an attempt to take over the local Bavarian Government in Munich in an action that became known as the "Beer Hall Putsch." Despite initially kidnapping the Bavarian officials in the Buergerbraukeller beer hall in Munich and proclaiming a new regime using their names, the coup was not successful. Bursting into a beer-hall in Munich and firing his pistol into the ceiling, he shouted out that he was heading a new provisional government which would carry through a revolution against 'Red Berlin'. The coup was ended on the morning of November 9th, when a column of 3000 SA men headed by Hitler and General Ludendorff (one of the most senior generals of the First World War) were halted on their way to the centre of Munich by armed police which left sixteen dead and brought the attempted putsch to an ignominious end. After a brief gunfight, only General Ludendorff and his aide had made it through to the central Plaza, where they were arrested. Hitler was arrested and tried on 26 February 1924, succeeding in turning the tables on his accusers with a confident, propagandist speech which ended with the prophecy: 'Pronounce us guilty a thousand times over : the goddess of the eternal court of history will smile and tear to pieces the State Prosecutor's submission and the court's verdict for she acquits us.' Sentenced to five years' imprisonment in Landsberg fortress, Hitler was released after only nine months during which he dictated Mein Kampf (My Struggle) to his loyal follower, Rudolf Hess. Subsequently the 'bible' of the Nazi Party, this crude, half-baked hotchpotch of primitive Social Darwinism, racial myth, anti- Semitism and lebensraum fantasy had sold over five million copies by 1939 and been translated into eleven languages.Re-Building the Nazi Party - 1924-1932Hitler was released from Landsberg prison in December 1924 after serving only six months of his sentence. At that time, the Nazi Party and its associated newspapers were banned by the government and Hitler himself was forbidden from making public speeches. The support for National Socialism was waning throughout Germany.The failure of the Beer-Hall putsch and his period of imprisonment transformed Hitler from an incompetent adventurer into a shrewd political tactician, who henceforth decided that he would never again confront the gun barrels of army and police until they were under his command. He concluded that the road to power lay not through force alone but through legal subversion of the Weimar Constitution, the building of a mass movement and the combination of parliamentary strength with extra-parliamentary street terror and intimidation. Helped by Goering and Goebbels he began to reassemble his followers and rebuild the movement which had disintegrated in his absence. However at the same time, Hitler succeeded in increasing the party membership and developed the organization of the party throughout Germany with the help of Gregor Strasser who was responsible for the organization of the Nazi Party in northern Germany. During this period Hitler also created the infamous SS (Schutzstaffel) which was initially intended to be Hitler's bodyguard under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler.In January 1925 the ban on the Nazi Party was removed and Hitler regained permission to speak in public. Outmanoeuvring the 'socialist' North German wing of the Party under Gregor Strasser, Hitler re-established himself in 1926 as the ultimate arbiter to whom all factions appealed in an ideologically and socially heterogeneous movement. Avoiding rigid, programmatic definitions of National Socialism which would have undermined the charismatic nature of his legitimacy and his claim to absolute leadership, Hitler succeeded in extending his appeal beyond Bavaria and attracting both Right and Left to his movement.Though the Nazi Party won only twelve seats in the 1928 elections, the onset of the Great Depression with its devastating effects on the middle classes helped Hitler to win over all those strata in German society who felt their economic existence was threatened. In addition to peasants, artisans, craftsmen, traders, small businessmen, ex-officers, students and declasse intellectuals, the Nazis in 1929 began to win over the big industrialists, nationalist conservatives and army circles. With the backing of the press tycoon, Alfred Hugenberg, Hitler received a tremendous nationwide exposure just as the effects of the world economic crisis hit Germany, producing mass unemployment, social dissolution, fear and indignation. With demagogic virtuosity, Hitler played on national resentments, feelings of revolt and the desire for strong leadership using all the most modern techniques of mass persuasion to present himself as Germany's redeemer and messianic saviour.The collapse of the Wall St. stock exchange in 1929 led to a world wide recession which hit Germany especially hard. All loans to Germany from foreign countries dried up, German industrial production slumped and millions were made unemployed. These conditions were beneficial to Hitler and his Nazi campaigning. By July of the following year Chancellor Bruening, without a parliamentary majority in the Reichstag, was unable to pass a new finance bill and was forced to ask President Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and call for new elections for the coming September. Hitler campaigned hard for the Nazi candidates, promising the public a way out of their current hardship. When the results of the election were announced, the Nazi Party had won 6.4 million votes which made them the second largest party in the Reichstag. At this time Hitler also began to win over the support of both the army and the big industrialists, the latter contributing substantially to the finances of the Nazi Party.In the 1930 elections the Nazi vote jumped dramatically from 810,000 to 6,409,000 (18.3 per cent of the total vote) and they received 107 seats in the Reichstag. Prompted by Hjalmar Schacht and Fritz Thyssen, the great industrial magnates began to contribute liberally to the coffers of the NSDAP, reassured by Hitler's performance before the Industrial Club in Dusseldorf on 27 January 1932 that they had nothing to fear from the radicals in the Party. The following month Hitler officially acquired German citizenship and decided to run for the Presidency, receiving 13,418,011 votes in the run-off elections of 10 April 1931 as against 19,359,650 votes for the victorious von Hindenburg, but four times the vote for the communist candidate, Ernst Thaelmann. In the Reichstag elections of July 1932 the Nazis emerged as the largest political party in Germany, obtaining nearly fourteen million votes (37.3 per cent) and 230 seats. Although the NSDAP fell back in November 1932 to eleven million votes (196 seats).Assumption of Power - Jan. 30th, 1933In February 1932 Hitler decided to stand against Hindenburg in the forthcoming Presidential election. In order to do this he became a German citizen on 25th February 1932. The result of the election on 13th March 1932 gave Hindenburg 49.6 percent of the vote and Hitler 30.1 percent (two other candidates stood). As Hindenburg failed to win a majority a second election was called. The result of the second election gave Hindenburg 53 percent and Hitler 36.8 percent (one other candidate stood). Thus Hindenburg was re-elected to office and Hitler was forced to wait for another opportunity to win power.Chancellor Bruening lasted in office until June 1932, unable to maintain popular support his government resigned due to pressure from the President, who had been advised by an influential General called Schleicher. General Schleicher had plotted the overthrow of the cabinet in conspiracy with the Nazis. Power then passed to a Presidential cabinet headed by a new Chancellor, Franz von Papen. New Reichstag elections were also set for the end of July.In the July elections, the Nazi Party won 13,745,000 votes which gave them 230 out of the 608 seats in the Reichstag. Although the Nazis were the largest party, they were still short of a majority. Hitler, however, demanded that he be made Chancellor but was offered only the position of Vice-Chancellor in a coalition government, which he refused.In September 1932, the Nazi members of the Reichstag, together with support form the Center Party elected the prominent Nazi Herman Goering as President of the Reichstag (equivalent to House Speaker). Using his new position, Goering managed to prevent the Chancellor from presenting an order to dissolve the Reichstag, whilst a vote of no confidence in the Chancellor and his government was passed. Thus having forced the resignation of the new government, the Reichstag allowed its own dissolution. Although losing 34 of their seats in the following election, the Nazis retained enough influence to assure that Papen would be unable to form a new Government and the Chancellor resigned on 17th of November 1932. After Papen's resignation, Hindenburg still refused to appoint Hitler as chancellor fearing that a Hitler Government would become a dictatorship. The President then tried to re-install Papen as Chancellor, but Papen was unable to gain the support of his own cabinet, including Schleicher who was Minister of Defence. President Hindenburg then appointed Schleicher as Chancellor, the latter having assured the President that he could get the support of the Nazis in the Reichstag. However, Hitler and his Nazi party had other ideas, and Schleicher found that he was unable to win the support of any of the parties in the Reichstag and was forced to resign as Chancellor on January 28th 1933. Finally on January 30th, 1933 President Hindenburg decided to appoint Hitler Chancellor in a coalition government with Papen as Vice-Chancellor.Hitler was helped to power by a camarilla of conservative politicians led by Franz von Papen, who persuaded the reluctant von Hindenburg to nominate 'the Bohemian corporal' as Reich Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Once in the saddle, Hitler moved with great speed to outmanoeuvre his rivals, virtually ousting the conservatives from any real participation in government by July 1933, abolishing the free trade unions, eliminating the communists, Social Democrats and Jews from any role in political life and sweeping opponents into concentration camps. The penultimate steps towards Adolf Hitler gaining complete control over the destiny of Germany were taken on the night of 27th February 1933 when the Reichstag was destroyed by fire. The fire was almost certainly planned by the Nazis, Goebbels and Goering in particular. A Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was made scapegoat for the fire, but the main outcome was that Hitler was given an excuse to have all the Communist deputies of the Reichstag arrested, and managed to obtain a decree from President Hindenburg giving the Nazi goverment powers to inter anyone they thought was a threat to the nation. Furthermore the Presidential decree allowed the Nazi government to suppress the free speech of its political opponents. Despite all these advantages, in the elections of March 5th 1933, the Nazis only managed to acheive 44 percent of the votes. Even with the suppression of the Communist deputies, Hitler was still short of an overall majority and nowhere near the two-thirds majority needed for any change in the German constitution.With support from the nationalists, Hitler gained a majority at the last 'democratic' elections held in Germany on 5 March 1933 The Enabling Act, placed before the Reichstag on 23rd of March 1933 was to allow the powers of legislation to be taken away from the Reichstag and transferred to Hitler's cabinet for a period of four years. The act required a two-thirds majority, but passed easily with the support of the Center and Nationalist parties and the suppression of all Communist deputies and several Social Democrats. Thus dictatorial powers were finally conferred, legally, on Adolf Hitler. By July 14th Hitler had proclaimed a law stating that the Nazi Party was to be the only political party allowed in Germany. The Nazification of Germany was underway. All non-Nazi organizations were disbanded, including political parties and trade unions. The individual German states were stripped of any autonomous powers they might have had and Nazi officials were installed as state governors.The Night of the Long Knives - 1934After the initial rise to power of the Nazis, many of them, including the head of the SA Ernst Roehm, wanted to see a further change in the power structure of Germany by taking over control of big businesses and installing the SA as the main army of Germany with the existing army subordinate to it. Hitler however thought differently and wanted to keep the German economy in good shape, reduce unemployment and enable him to quickly re-arm the Wehrmacht. To Hitler, the SA was purely a political force not a military one. Also the ageing President Hindenburg would not survive much longer and Hitler needed the support of the Army if he was to be named as Hindenburg's successor. In May of 1934 Hitler proposed to the chiefs of the Army and the Navy that he would suppress the SA and at the same time expand the Army and Navy if they would support him as the successor to Hindenburg. The chiefs of the forces readily agreed to Hitler's endorsement. In June Hitler ordered the SA to go on leave for the entire month. However, by that time the rowdiness and lawlessness perpetrated by Nazi thugs had grown to a point where President Hindenburg and his senior generals were considering declaring a state of marshal law and Hitler was threatened with this recourse if he didn't do something to curb these excesses. These threats, coupled with rumours generated by Himmler and Goering concerning Roehm's loyalty to the Fuehrer and an impending coup against Hitler, finally prompted Hitler to order Himmler and Goering to take action against the leaders of the SA. On June 30th 1934 Himmler's SS and Goering's special police arrested and executed the leaders of the SA, including Ernst Roehm, and many others not connected with the SA, but against whom the Nazi leaders had a score to settle. These others included General von Schleicher, the former Chancellor.The Death of Hindenburg August 1934President Hindenburg died on August 2nd 1934. Hitler had already agreed with the Cabinet that upon Hindenburg's death the offices of President and Chancellor would be combined. The last wishes of Hindenburg were that upon his death the monarchy should be restored. Hitler managed to suppress these wishes and did not publish the President's will. Having already ensured the support of the Army, Hitler went a step further by making the whole of the armed forces swear an oath of loyalty to him personally. A plebiscite was then held for the public to decide on whether they approved of the changes already made - 90% of voters gave their approval. Thus Hitler had become "Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor" and the title of President was then abolished."Nazification" - 1934-1937During the years following Hitler's consolidation of power he set about the "Nazification" of Germany and its release from the armament restrictions of the Versailles Treaty. Censorship was extreme and covered all aspects of life including the press, films, radio, books and even art. Trade unions were suppressed and replaced with the centralised "Labour Front", which didn't actually function as a trade union. The churches were persecuted and ministers who preached non-Nazi doctrine were frequently arrested by the Gestapo and carted off to concentration camps. All youth associations were abolished and re-formed as a single entity as the Hitler Youth organisation. The Jewish population was increasingly persecuted and ostracised from society and under the Nuremburg Laws of September 1935 Jews were no longer considered to be German citizens and therefore no longer had any legal rights. Jews were no longer allowed to hold public office, not allowed to work in the civil-service, the media, farming, teaching, the stock exchange and eventually barred from practicing law or medicine. Hostility towards Jews from other Germans was encouraged and even shops began to deny entry to Jews. From a very early stage, Hitler geared the German economy towards war. He appointed Dr. Hjalmar Schacht minister of economics with instructions to secretly increase armaments production. This was financed in various ways, including using confiscated funds, printing bank notes and mostly by producing government bonds and credit notes.In September 1936, Goering took over most of Schacht's duties in preparing the war economy and instituted the Four-Year Plan, which was intended to make Germany self-sufficient in four years. This put Germany on a total war economy and entailed strict control of imports, materials prices and wages as well as the creation of factories and industrial plants to produce essential war materials (e.g. synthetic rubber, fuels and steel). Workers were low paid and their freedom to move between jobs was increasingly restricted. Even the workers' recreation time was strictly controlled through the "Strength Through Joy" organization. Hitler was the law when it came to the judicial system and had the ultimate say over legal actions of any kind. Any judge who was not favorable to the Nazi regime was dismissed, and a "Special Court" for political crimes and a "Peoples Court" for accusations of treason were introduced. Both of these courts were controlled by the Nazi Party and an unfortunate defendant was extremely unlikely to get a fair trial.Breaking the Versailles Treaty - 1934-1937Hitler ordered the army to be trebled in size, from the 100,000 man Versailles Treaty limit, to 300,000 men by October of 1934. This was initially ordered to be carried out under the utmost secrecy. Admiral Raeder, the chief of the navy, was given orders to begin the construction of large warships, way above the maximum size decreed by the Versailles Treaty. The construction of submarines, also forbidden by the Treaty, had already begun secretly by building parts in foreign dockyards ready for assembly. In addition, Goering had also been tasked by Hitler with the training of air force pilots and the design of military aircraft. In March 1935 Hitler decided to take a gamble and test the resolve of Britain and France by authorizing Goering to reveal to a British official the existence of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force). Even though this was a direct challenge to the Versailles Treaty, there was little reaction (its existence was already known anyway). Thus Hitler was given encouragement to take further steps. A few days later, Hitler took a further gamble and declared openly the introduction of military service and the creation of an army with 36 divisions (approx. 1/2 million men). Again, a weak reaction from Britain and France allowed Hitler the comfort of knowing that his gamble had paid off. At the same time that Hitler was increasing the strength of the armed forces, he was also following a policy of making speeches proclaiming a desire for peace and the folly of war. He also announced that he had no intention of annexing Austria or re-militarising the Rhineland and would respect all the territorial clauses of the Versailles Treaty. Hitler also announced that he was prepared to mutually disarm the heaviest of weapons and limit the strength of the German Navy. A quote from Hitler at that time: "Whoever lights the torch of war in Europe can wish for nothing but chaos."The Re-militarisation of the Rhineland – 1936On March 7th 1936 a small force of German troops marched across the Rhine bridges into the demilitarised areas of Germany towards Aachen, Trier and Saarbruecken. Once again neither the French nor British made any move to counter the flagrant breach of the Locarno Pact of 1925, which had been signed willingly by Germany and was supposed to keep these areas west of the Rhine free from German military units. The lack of French reaction was in spite of the fact that the small German force was vastly outnumbered by the French army near the border. Immediately following the re-militarisation of the Rhineland areas, Hitler once again preached in public his desire for peace throughout Europe and offered to negotiate new non-aggression pacts with several countries including France and Belgium. At the same time rapid construction of German defensive fortifications began along the French and Belgian frontiers. Meanwhile Hitler's popularity within Germany was boosted, his position as leader was strengthened and his control over the army generals was secured.Weakening of Austrian Security and the Birth of the Axis – 1936The security that Hitler had gained for Germany from the military stronghold in the Rhineland meant less security for those countries in Central Europe (e.g. Austria and Czechoslovakia) who were reliant on a swift response from France in the event of German aggression. This led the Austrian Government, headed by Dr. Schuschnigg, during the summer of 1936, to begin a course of appeasement of Hitler by, for example, giving Austrian Nazis influential positions within the government in return for a pledge from Hitler to confirm his recognition of Austrian sovereignty. The position of Austria was further undermined in October 1936 when the Italian dictator, Mussolini, who had previously pledged to maintain Austrian independence, formed an alliance with Hitler. This alliance, which became known as the Rome-Berlin Axis had been formed following the German and Italian support of fellow fascist, General Franco, in the Spanish Civil War. The Axis partnership included an agreement on a common foreign policy between the two countries.Prelude to WarDuring the next four years Hitler enjoyed a dazzling string of domestic and international successes, outwitting rival political leaders abroad just as he had defeated his opposition at home. In 1935 he abandoned the Versailles Treaty and began to build up the army by conscripting five times its permitted number. He persuaded Great Britain to allow an increase in the naval building programme and in March 1936 he occupied the demilitarized Rhineland without meeting opposition. He began building up the Luftwaffe and supplied military aid to Francoist forces in Spain, which brought about the Spanish fascist victory in 1939.The German rearmament programme led to full employment and an unrestrained expansion of production, which reinforced by his foreign policy successes - the Rome-Berlin pact of 1936,On March 12 1938 Hitler bullied Austria into unification with Germany (the Anschluss) and made a triumphal entry into Vienna. Next he created a crisis over the German-speaking Sudetenland district of Czechoslovakia brought Hitler to the zenith of his popularity. In February 1938 he dismissed sixteen senior generals and took personal command of the armed forces, thus ensuring that he would be able to implement his aggressive designs.This led to the Munich Agreement of September 1938 where Britain and France weakly gave way to his demands, averting war but sealing the fate of Czechoslovakia. Germany entered Prague on March 10 1939.At this point Britain and France decided to make a stand, and they resisted Hitler's next demands, for the return of the territories ceded to Poland under the Versailles Treaty. But the western powers were unable to come to an agreement with the Soviet Union for an alliance against Germany, and Hitler outmaneuvered them. The concentration camps, the Nuremberg racial laws against the Jews, the persecution of the churches and political dissidents were forgotten by many Germans in the euphoria of Hitler's territorial expansion and bloodless victories. The next designated target for Hitler's ambitions was Poland (her independence guaranteed by Britain and France) On August 23 1939 he concluded an alliance (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) with Stalin. On September 1 Germany invaded Poland. Hitler was surprised when Britain and France honored their pledge to the Poles by declaring war on Germany.World War IIOn 1 September 1939 German armies invaded Poland and henceforth his main energies were devoted to the conduct of a war he had unleashed to dominate Europe and secure Germany's 'living space'.The first phase of World War II was dominated by German Blitzkrieg tactics: sudden shock attacks against airfields, communications, military installations, using fast mobile armour and infantry to follow up on the first wave of bomber and fighter aircraft. Poland was overrun in nineteen days, Denmark and Norway in two months, Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg and France in six weeks. After the fall of France in June 1940 only Great Britain stood firm.The Battle of Britain, in which the Royal Air Force prevented the Luftwaffe from securing aerial control over the English Channel, was Hitler's first setback, causing the planned invasion of the British Isles to be postponed. Hitler turned to the Balkans and North Africa where his Italian allies had suffered defeats, his armies rapidly overrunning Greece, Yugoslavia, and the island of Crete and driving the British from Cyrenaica.The crucial decision of his career, the invasion of Soviet Russia on 22 June 1941, was rationalized by the idea that its destruction would prevent Great Britain from continuing the war with any prospect of success. He was convinced that once he kicked the door in, as he told Jodl (q.v.), 'the whole rotten edifice [of communist rule] will come tumbling down' and the campaign would be over in six weeks. The war against Russia was to be an anti-Bolshivek crusade, a war of annihilation in which the fate of European Jewry would finally be sealed. At the end of January 1939 Hitler had prophesied that 'if the international financial Jewry within and outside Europe should succeed once more in dragging the nations into a war, the result will be, not the Bolshevization of the world and thereby the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe'.As the war widened - the United States by the end of 1941 had entered the struggle against the Axis powers - Hitler identified the totality of Germany's enemies with 'international Jewry', who supposedly stood behind the British-American-Soviet alliance. The policy of forced emigration had manifestly failed to remove the Jews from Germany's expanded lebensraum, increasing their numbers under German rule as the Wehrmacht moved east.The widening of the conflict into a world war by the end of 1941, the refusal of the British to accept Germany's right to continental European hegemony (which Hitler attributed to 'Jewish' influence) and to agree to his 'peace' terms, the racial-ideological nature of the assault on Soviet Russia, finally drove Hitler to implement the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question' which had been under consideration since 1939. The measures already taken in those regions of Poland annexed to the Reich against Jews (and Poles) indicated the genocidal implications of Nazi-style 'Germanization' policies. The invasion of Soviet Russia was to set the seal on Hitler's notion of territorial conquest in the East, which was inextricably linked with annihilating the 'biological roots of Bolshevism' and hence with the liquidation of all Jews under German rule.At first the German armies carried all before them, overrunning vast territories, overwhelming the Red Army, encircling Leningrad and reaching within striking distance of Moscow. Within a few months of the invasion Hitler's armies had extended the Third Reich from the Atlantic to the Caucasus, from the Baltic to the Black Sea. But the Soviet Union did not collapse as expected and Hitler, instead of concentrating his attack on Moscow, ordered a pincer movement around Kiev to seize the Ukraine, increasingly procrastinating and changing his mind about objectives. Underestimating the depth of military reserves on which the Russians could call, the calibre of their generals and the resilient, fighting spirit of the Russian people (whom he dismissed as inferior peasants), Hitler prematurely proclaimed in October 1941 that the Soviet Union had been 'struck down and would never rise again'. In reality he had overlooked the pitiless Russian winter to which his own troops were now condemned and which forced the Wehrmacht to abandon the highly mobile warfare which had previously brought such spectacular successes.The disaster before Moscow in December 1941 led him to dismiss his Commander-in-Chief von Brauchitsch, and many other key commanders who sought permission for tactical withdrawals, including Guderian, Bock , Hoepner, von Rundstedt and Leeb, found themselves cashiered. Hitler now assumed personal control of all military operations, refusing to listen to advice, disregarding unpalatable facts and rejecting everything that did not fit into his preconceived picture of reality. His neglect of the Mediterranean theatre and the Middle East, the failure of the Italians, the entry of the United States into the war, and above all the stubborn determination of the Russians, pushed Hitler on to the defensive. From the winter of 1941 the writing was on the wall but Hitler refused to countenance military defeat, believing that implacable will and the rigid refusal to abandon positions could make up for inferior resources and the lack of a sound overall strategy.Convinced that his own General Staff was weak and indecisive, if not openly treacherous, Hitler became more prone to outbursts of blind, hysterical fury towards his generals, when he did not retreat into bouts of misanthropic brooding. His health, too, deteriorated under the impact of the drugs prescribed by his quack physician, Dr Theodor Morell. Hitler's personal decline, symbolized by his increasingly rare public appearances and his self-enforced isolation in the 'Wolf's Lair', his headquarters buried deep in the East Prussian forests, coincided with the visible signs of the coming German defeat which became apparent in mid-1942.Rommel's defeat at El Alamein and the subsequent loss of North Africa to the Anglo-American forces were overshadowed by the disaster at Stalingrad where General von Paulus's Sixth Army was cut off and surrendered to the Russians in January 1943. In July 1943 the Allies captured Sicily and Mussolini's regime collapsed in Italy. In September the Italians signed an armistice and the Allies landed at Salerno, reaching Naples on 1 October and taking Rome on 4 June 1944. The Allied invasion of Normandy followed on 6 June 1944 and soon a million Allied troops were driving the German armies eastwards, while from the opposite direction the Soviet forces advanced relentlessly on the Reich. The total mobilization of the German war economy under Albert Speer and the energetic propaganda efforts of Joseph Goebbels to rouse the fighting spirit of the German people were impotent to change the fact that the Third Reich lacked the resources equal to a struggle against the world alliance which Hitler himself had provoked.Hitler's ally Benito Mussolini was overthrown in 1943. Meanwhile the Soviet Union was steadily forcing Hitler's armies to retreat from their conquests in the East. But as long as western Europe was secure, Germany could hope to hold the line indefinitely.Allied bombing began to have a telling effect on German industrial production and to undermine the morale of the population. The generals, frustrated by Hitler's total refusal to trust them in the field and recognizing the inevitability of defeat, planned, together with the small anti-Nazi Resistance inside the Reich, to assassinate the Fuhrer on 20 July 1944, hoping to pave the way for a negotiated peace with the Allies that would save Germany from destruction. The plot failed and Hitler took implacable vengeance on the conspirators, watching with satisfaction a film of the grisly executions carried out on his orders.As disaster came closer, Hitler buried himself in the unreal world of the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin, clutching at fantastic hopes that his 'secret weapons', the V-1 and V-2 rockets, would yet turn the tide of war. He gestured wildly over maps, planned and directed attacks with non-existent armies and indulged in endless, night- long monologues which reflected his growing senility, misanthropy and contempt for the 'cowardly failure' of the German people.As the Red Army approached Berlin and the Anglo-Americans reached the Elbe, on 19 March 1945 Hitler ordered the destruction of what remained of German industry, communications and transport systems. He was resolved that, if he did not survive, Germany too should be destroyed. The same ruthless nihilism and passion for destruction which had led to the extermination of six million Jews in death camps, to the biological 'cleansing' of the sub-human Slavs and other subject peoples in the New Order, was finally turned on his own people.The HolocaustIt is sometimes asked why Hitler invaded the Soviet Union while leaving Britain undefeated in the west. The answer is that Hitler had two overriding objectives: creating an eastern empire for the Germans, and exterminating the Jews. The Soviet Union was harbouring the second-largest Jewish population in Europe after Poland. For Hitler, the war against the western allies was only a necessary prelude to the conquest of Eastern Europe. Here he intended to enslave, expel or kill the Russians, Poles and other Slavic peoples to make room for German settlers. This was an objective many Germans shared. But his personal obsession had always been the extermination of the Jews. The large number of Jews (3.3 million) who lived in the Soviet Union was clearly a major factor behind his order to invade that country. And, indeed, mass murder of the Jews began with the Einsatzgruppen who followed the armies into the Soviet Union, conducting mass shootings of Jews throughout the recently occupied territories which have been estimated to have killed approximately 2 million Jews.There remained the question of what to do with the millions of Jews crowded into the ghettoes of the General Government of Poland. While no specific order from Hitler authorizing the mass killing of the Jews has surfaced, the evidence suggests that sometime in the fall of 1941, Himmler and he agreed in principle on mass murder by gassing. To make for smoother intra-governmental cooperation in the implementation of this "Final Solution," to the "Jewish Question," the Wannsee conference was held near Berlin on January 20 1942 with the participation of fifteen senior officials, led by Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann, the records of which provide the best evidence of the central planning of the Holocaust. Between 1942 and 1944 the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, systematically killed approximately 3.5 million more Jews in six camps in Poland: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka. Others were killed less systematically elsewhere, or died of starvation and disease while working as slave labourers. This attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe is now generally called the Holocaust, although the Hebrew word Shoah is preferred by some Jewish writers.Other ethnic groups and social categories were also subject to persecution and in some cases extermination. Thousands of German socialists, communists and other opponents of the regime died in concentration camps, as did a large but unknown number of homosexual men. The Gypsies were regarded as an inferior race and were also shot or sent to death camps. About three million Soviet prisoners of war also died in camps or as slave labourers. All the occupied countries suffered terrible privations and mass executions: up to three million (non-Jewish) Polish civilians died during the occupation.There is no known document in which he explicitly ordered the Holocaust, but most historians believe he not only knew of it but ordered Himmler to carry it out—certainly it was entirely consistent with his lifelong beliefs.The endIn February the Soviets smashed their way through Poland and eastern Germany, and in April they arrived at the gates of Berlin. Hitler's closest lieutenants urged him to flee to Bavaria or Austria to make a last stand in the mountains, but he was determined to die in his capital. His armies crumbling, and with Russian forces fighting their way into central Berlin,With Germany lying in ruins after six devastating years of war, and with defeat imminent, the Nazi dictator decided to take his own life. But before doing so, he wanted to thank the one who'd remained completely loyal to him until the very end. Early on the morning on April 29, 1945, in a civil ceremony in his bunker, Hitler married his mistress of many years, Eva Braun.The next day a little after 3:30 p.m., they bit into thin glass vials of cyanide. As he did so, Hitler also shot himself in the head with a 7.65 mm Walther pistol.He was 56. As part of his last will, he ordered that his body be taken outside and burned. In the testament he left, he dismissed the other Nazi leaders and appointed Admiral Karl Dönitz as the new Führer and Goebbels as the new Chancellor of Germany. However, Goebbels, his wife Magda, and their six children committed suicide on May 1, 1945. On May 8 1945, Germany surrendered. Hitler's "Thousand Year Reich" had lasted a little over 12 years.Adolf Hitler's partly burnt remains were found by the Russians. They kept this fact secret, and for years the Soviet Union fostered rumours that Hitler had somehow survived the war and was living in Latin America (where many ex-Nazis actually were living).In fact, Hitler and Braun were buried behind Smersh's East German headquarters in Magdeburg, and remained for 25 years under a yard later owned by a waste-disposal firm. It was not until 1970 that the remains of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were dug up from Magdeburg and destroyed.