The Meaning of Hitler

Adolf Hitler is one of the most despicable men to ever have lived. His crimes during World War II and his extermination of the Jews make him a terrifying figure to look at.

This series takes a hard look at the history of Hitler and how he became such an evil man. It is the result of a collaboration between historians and filmmakers Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein.

What is Adolf Hitler?

Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in the Austrian town of Braunau am Inn. He was the fourth child of Alois Hitler and his wife, Klara Polzl. He grew up to be a nationalist and anti-Semite, who is best known as the leader of the Nazi Party.

As a child, he had a difficult relationship with his father and did not enjoy school. After he lost his younger brother Edmund in 1900, Hitler became detached and introverted. He remained this way for much of his life.

In 1919, after World War I ended, he found employment as a political officer in the army in Munich. He also joined a military intelligence unit and began keeping tabs on a small, disorganized political party called the German Workers' Party.

He admired its right-wing, nationalist and anti-Semitic doctrine, and was impressed by the group's efficient use of propaganda (spreading a message through literature and the media). When the group's leader, Karl Lueger, died in 1921, Hitler seized the opportunity to expand the organization's membership.

Hitler became a major player in the political scene after he joined the Nazi Party in 1921. He was the group's most popular and impressive speaker, and he helped to build the organization into a significant force in Germany.

His speeches often included a great deal of emotional drama. He was a gifted orator, and his hoarse voice, combined with his strong convictions, made him very popular.

After his political rise, he wrote a book called Mein Kampf, which described a Nationalist, social Darwinist, and antisemitic view of human history. He believed that the Jews were the main cause of all the evil in the world, and he sought to eliminate them from Europe.

During the 1920s, the nation of Germany was undergoing a number of social, political, and economic changes. It was in this period that Hitler first developed his anti-Semitic beliefs. He later formed the Nazi party, which took power in 1933 and ruled for the next 12 years.

Hitler's policies led to the onset of World War II and resulted in the death of millions of people, most of them Jews. The Holocaust, the systematic destruction of Jewish life in Europe, was a direct consequence of Hitler's actions. It is one of the most infamous atrocities in the modern world.

What was his life like?

Adolf Hitler, the Führer (leader) of Germany's Nazi Party and one of the most notorious dictators in history, was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, on 20 April 1889. He died on 30 April 1945, at the age of 65.

In the 1920s he was an agitator and anti-Semitic leader who became the Führer of Germany. His fascist agenda led to the death of more than 11 million people, including 6 million Jews in the Holocaust during World War II.

He was a solitary and lonely man who spent most of his life in secret, avoiding women. In his later years he became a recluse who buried himself in the unreal world of the Fuhrerbunker.

As a boy, Hitler had a normal education and was interested in art. However, his father wanted him to join the customs office like his older brother Edmund, so he was sent to a technical realschule in Linz where he didn't achieve much and rebelled against it.

After school he worked in a variety of odd jobs to earn a living, often painting postcards or advertisements for various local businesses. His solitary life, however, soon changed. He began to enjoy political harangues in cheap cafes and began to indulge in grandiose ideas about making Germany the "Greater Germany" that it should be.

It was during this period that he began to pick up the stereotyped, obsessive anti-Semitism that would be with him throughout his career. He also learned the demagogic techniques of a popular Christian-social mayor, Karl Lueger.

He also embraced the racialist philosophy of German nationalism. This belief was a product of his bitterness over the defeat of his country during World War I. He believed that it was because of the "November criminals" - civilian leaders, Jews, Marxists and those who signed the armistice that Germany had lost the war.

The Nazis grew rapidly during the 1920s, and by 1932 they were the biggest party in the Reichstag. They had strong support from the powerful officer class and millions of everyday citizens who hailed them as "national saviors" in gigantic stadium rallies.

What was his role in World War II?

Hitler was a man of many talents, one of the most remarkable of which was his ability to manipulate events in order to achieve his goals. His policies and actions left a legacy that still haunts mankind today.

In 1933, he became Chancellor of Germany and established the totalitarian one-party state called the Nazi Party. It was a dictatorship where opposition to the government was ruthlessly repressed, political opponents were arrested, and many people were imprisoned or killed.

He promised economic recovery and a return to international prominence, which he believed had been destroyed by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. He also promised that the rearmament and conscription that was prohibited by the 1919 peace settlement would be reinstated.

However, instead of focusing on the economy, his first priority was the military. He began building up the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces, and by 1935 half of all the state’s expenditures were going towards weapons.

His military plans were to expand his country by enforcing a "German master race" that would dominate Eastern Europe. He also aimed to conquer the Soviet Union and destroy or subdue all of its Slavic inhabitants, whom he deemed Untermenschen (subhumans) or socially undesirable.

This campaign was a blitzkrieg that Hitler planned from the moment he took power in 1933. He knew it would be difficult to win the war, but he believed it was worth it.

To make his campaign a success, he adopted the strategy of General Erich von Manstein. He began by attacking France and then moved eastward into Belgium and Holland, a strategic move that was incredibly successful.

He also took advantage of Britain’s decision to allow a free hand in the air during the attack on Poland. In the process, he helped to ensure that the British and French armies surrendered and that the Channel ports were reached within 10 days of the start of the attack.

By the time the war ended, the hegemony of Europe had been completely destroyed. This meant that the United States, Australia and New Zealand were now the sole defenders of the world’s order, and that Europe had lost its ability to influence the rest of the world.

What was his legacy?

Hitler shaped the modern world in many ways. His aggressive foreign policy and racism drove World War II, resulting in the deaths of millions of people. He also created the Nazi regime, which killed six million Jews and others, and was responsible for the Holocaust.

The first thing that we should note about Hitler's legacy is the immense popularity he enjoyed among Germans (and Austrians). Even his enemies, who wanted to see him killed, believed that he would win. He was a strong leader who could unite his country behind him, and this made him more successful than any other dictator in history.

He achieved that by making Germany the most powerful and feared country in Europe. He pushed through large-scale rearmament and invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union, which eventually led to a war that killed millions. He also made his country a model of Nazism and anti-Semitism.

Despite his success, Hitler was a deeply cynical man. He was also a very skilled manipulator, using his vast resources and power to bludgeon his enemies. He did this through a combination of propaganda and coercion, and through his brutal tactics.

But his most important legacy, perhaps the one that most needs to be remembered, was what he did to Europe. He destroyed the dams that had held up the great ambitions of Europe.

This exhaustion was a sad thing, but it did not mean that Europeans lost their sense of the sublime or their will to dominate. It simply meant that they had exhausted their lust for power, and therefore the impulse to make that power work.

That was why it was so difficult to defeat Hitler, and why it took the combined efforts of Britain and the Soviets to do so. That is a lesson that the world can learn a good deal from today.

The second legacy that Hitler left us is his destruction of a metaphysical sensibility that Europe had developed over centuries. That sensibility was based on a profound skepticism that turned on itself in the Enlightenment, and grew out of it.