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Adolf Hitler | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 20 April 1889 Braunau am Inn, Upper Austria, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 30 April 1945 Berlin, Gau Berlin, Nazi Germany |
| Cause of death | Suicide by gunshot |
| Nationality | Austrian (1889–1925) Stateless (1925–1932) German (1932–1945) |
| Political orientation | Fascism Nazism Anti-communism |
| Political party | Nazi Party |
Adolf Hitler[Note 1] was an Austrian-born German far-right politician and leader of the Nazi Party, who served as Chancellor from 1933 to 1934 and Führer from 1934 until his death in 1945. Hitler was responsible for remilitarisation, privatisation, the occupation of foreign countries, World War II, and the industrialised genocide of 11 million people commonly known as the Holocaust.
Life
Adolf Hitler was born at 06:30 on 20 April 1889, at Nr. 15. Salzburger Vorstadt Straße[1] in Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary. He was the third child of Alois Hitler, a civil servant; and Klara Hitler, a housekeeper. Hitler was ill from a young age, and given the fate of his older siblings (Gustav and Ida) before him, his mother Klara would constantly fret over Adolf's health.
Hitler was baptised on 22 April 1889 at the Parish Church of St. Stephen, a Roman Catholic church also in Braunau, by Father Ignaz Probst.[2]
Hitler joined the German Workers' Party (then a fringe, far-right, antisemitic, and anti-Marxist party), which was led by Chairman Anton Drexler, in September 1919. His membership card listed him as having joined the party on 1 January 1920 as the 7th member, but in the earliest-surviving list of party members, written on 2 February 1920, Hitler was not in fact listed as the 7th member. Rather, he was listed as the 555th member. Both numbers are false, as the list began at 500 to create the impression that the party was much larger than it actually was. Historian Ian Kershaw claims Drexler wrote in an unsent letter to Hitler in 1940 that:
"No one knows better than you yourself, my Führer, that you were never the seventh member of the party, but at best the seventh member of the committee, which I asked you to join as recruitment director. And a few years ago I had to complain to a party office that your first proper membership card of the DAP, bearing the signatures of Schüssler and myself, was falsified, with the number 555 being erased and number 7 entered." -Anton Drexler[3]
On 24 February 1920, the German Workers' Party was renamed to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party by its enemies[Note 2]. Stalin said "The party of the Hitlerites is a party of imperialists, moreover, the most predatory and plunderous imperialists among all the imperialists of the world". In 1923 the Hitlerites made a failed coup attempt in Munich ("beer hall putsch"). In 1933, in a deep economic and political crisis in Germany, the German imperialists called the Hitlerites to power.
Hitler and his clique, Stalin pointed out in 1942, "are the chain dogs of German bankers, putting the interests of the latter above all other interests".
With the approval of the ruling circles of England, France and the USA and with the assistance of the leaders of the German Social Democracy, Hitler established a terrorist dictatorship in Germany.
International reaction bet on Fascist Germany as the main force in the fight against the USSR and the revolutionary movement in order to strengthen the capitalist system and, on this basis, assisted Hitler. monopolies and using the support of the reactionary governments of England, France and the USA, which pursued a policy of collusion with aggressors, Hitlerites eliminated by a unilateral act the military limitations set by the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 and came to acts of direct aggression. Together with Italian Fascists they carried out an armed intervention against Republican Spain (1936-39), formed a block of aggressive states, invaded Austria (1938) and Czechoslovakia (1938-39), and unleashed the Second World War. After capturing a number of European countries, Hitler's Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. "It is very likely," Stalin pointed out as early as 1942, "that a war to liberate the Soviet land will lead to the expulsion or destruction of the Hitler clique. We would welcome such an outcome. But it would be ridiculous to identify the Hitler clique with the German people, with the German state. The experience of history tells us that Hitlers come and go, but the German people and the German state remain".
The Soviet Union decisively defeated Hitler's Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45, freed the German people from Hitlerism, ensured the preservation of national independence of the German people and opened the way to freedom and democracy.
Out of fear of a fair trial of the nations, Hitler committed suicide, as reported on May 1, 1945 by the German High Command.
Notes
- ↑ Baptised as Adolfus Hitler. Often anglicised as Adolph Hitler.
- ↑ In Bavaria (where the NSDAP was founded), Nazi had been used as a diminutive of the name Ignaz for centuries and, in other parts of Germany, as a derogative for Bavarians (who were typically viewed as backwards, idiot, peasant farmers). Comparisons can be drawn to the use of the word Redneck in the United States. Needless to say, this may explain why usage of the word was so prevalent among those who fashioned themselves as enemies of Nazism, and why Nazis themselves generally avoid the term (with some exception).
References
- ↑ Boteach, Shmuley (2020).: Finding Meaning in the 75th Anniversary of Hitler's Suicide. The Jewish Journal. Archived from the original on 2022-05-06. Retrieved 2022-01-26.
- ↑ Pfarre Braunau am Inn (1889).: Matriken, Taufen-Duplikate 1889, Nr. Currens 49. Matricula Online. Archived from the original on 2020-07-02. Retrieved 2023-01-13.
- ↑ Kershaw, Ian (1998).: Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris. Penguin Books. p. 127.