Adolf Hitler | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 20 April 1889 Braunau am Inn, Upper Austria, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 30 April 1945 (aged 56) 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 Settler colonialism |
| Political party | Nazi Party |
Adolf Hitler[Note 1] was an Austrian-born German far-right politician and the leader of the Nazi Party who ruled Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. Hitler was responsible for the remilitarisation of Germany (in violation of the Treaty of Versailles), the occupation of foreign countries and territories (e.g. the Sudetenland from 1938, as per the Munich Agreement), the suppression of communists and other political dissidents, the initiation of World War II in Europe in 1939, and the industrialised mass murder of 6 million people commonly known as the Holocaust.
Early life
Adolf Hitler was born at 18:30 on 20 April 1889 at the Gasthof zum Pommer (a pub at Nr. 15. Salzburger Vorstadt Straße)[1][2] in Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary. He was the third child of Alois Hitler, Sr., a civil servant; and Klara Hitler, a housekeeper. Hitler was sick from a young age, and given the fate of his two siblings who came before him, his mother constantly fretted over his health.
Hitler was baptised on 22 April 1889 at the Parish Church of St. Stephen, a Roman Catholic church also located in Braunau, by priest Ignaz Probst.[3]
Fascist activism
Hitler joined the German Workers' Party (a fringe, far-right, antisemitic, and anti-Marxist party), 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, he was listed as the 555th member. Both numbers are false; the membership card was a forgery and the list began at 500 to create the impression that the party was much larger than it actually was. Historian Ian Kershaw claims that in 1940, Drexler wrote the following in an unsent letter:
"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."[4]
On 24 February 1920, the German Workers' Party was renamed to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), or the Nazi Party for short.[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 (the Beer Hall Putsch).
Hitler glorified the United States and its "unprecedented inner strength" in Mein Kampf. In 1928, he praised Americanism (Amerikanertum) and compared U.S. expansion against indigenous peoples to German expansion into Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages.[5]
In 1933, in a deep economic and political crisis in Germany, the German imperialists called the Hitlerites to power.
Rule
After the Nazi Party failed to win a majority of seats in parliament, Hitler took a different route to power and was appointed as chancellor in January 1933.[6]
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,[citation needed] Hitler established a terrorist dictatorship in Germany. After the staged Reichstag fire in February 1933, Hitler invoked Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution and then passed the Enabling Act to center executive power under himself. Over the course of 1933 and 1934, the Nazis incorporated the rest of the state and civil society under their rule. During the Night of Long Knives from 30 June to 2 July, Hitler purged his opponents within the Nazi Party.[6]
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.
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".
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".
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.
Death
Out of fear of a fair trial of the nations, Hitler committed suicide, as reported on May 1, 1945 by the German High Command.
Ideology
See main article: National Socialism
See also
Notes
- ↑ Christened as Adolfus Hitler. Often anglicised as Adolph Hitler.
- ↑ In Bavaria (where the Nazi Party was founded), Nazi had commonly been used as a diminutive of the name Ignaz for centuries and, in other parts of Germany, as an insult for Bavarians (who were typically viewed as backwards, ignorant, peasant farmers). Comparisons can be drawn to the use of words like Hillbilly or Redneck in the United States as they carry similar implications. This may explain why the term caught on in anti-Nazi circles, and why Nazis themselves generally avoided the term.
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.
- ↑ Allan Hall (2016-01-12).: A shrine to Hitler: The Nazi loving Austrian pub where the Führer was born is thrust back into spotlight with Mein Kampf release. Daily Mail. Archived from the original on 2016-01-13. Retrieved 2023-03-12.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Domenico Losurdo (2023-08-13). "The International Origins of Nazism" Red Sails. Archived from the original on 20223-08-15.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 John Bellamy Foster (2017-06-01). "This Is Not Populism" Monthly Review. Archived from the original on 2023-07-18.