On April 20, 1889 at the Braunau am Inn, in a village in Upper Austria, bordering Germany, Adolf Hitler was born, the fourth child of six. Adolf’s father, Alois Hitler, (1837–1903), was a customs official in Austria-Hungary, on the border with the German Empire. Klara Pölzl, (1860–1907) was Hitler’s mother. Of the six children, only Adolf and his sister Paula reached adulthood.
The name, "Adolf", comes from Old High German for "noble wolf" ("Adel"="nobility" + "wolf"). One of Hitler's nicknames was Wolf or Herr Wolf.
Because Hitler was not sure who his paternal grandfather there were rumours that Hitler was one-quarter Jewish and that his paternal grandmother, Maria Schicklgruber, became pregnant while working as a servant in a Jewish household. During the Second World War opponents tried to prove that Hitler, the leader of the anti-Semitic Nazi Party, was a Jew. These rumours were reason enough to conceal his roots even though they were never confirmed. Soviet propaganda insisted Hitler was Jewish. Maybe as a result of the allegations Hitler made it illegal for German women to work in Jewish households, and after the "Anschluss" (annexation) of Austria, Hitler had his father's hometown destroyed by turning it into an artillery practice area. It seems that Hitler feared he was Jewish.
Hitler was reportedly a good student however, in sixth grade (1900/1901) he failed completely and had to repeat the grade. This educational slump as Hitler explained was a kind of rebellion against his father, who wanted him to become a customs official like himself, when Adolf wanted to become a painter. After his father died on January 3, 1903, when Adolf was 13, Hitler's schoolwork did not improve. By the age of 16, abandoned school without any qualifications.
From 1905 and on, Hitler lived a Bohemian existence with support from his mother. Being told his abilities lay in the field of architecture he was rejected twice by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1907 / 1908) due to "unfitness for painting." Following the recommendation, he became convinced that architecture was the path to pursue, but the absence of the proper academic preparation for architecture school stopped him.
His mother, Klara died from breast cancer on December 21, 1907, at the age of 47. He worked as a struggling painter in Vienna, selling his paintings to merchants and tourists. Hitler gradually ran out of money. he sought refuge in a homeless shelter in 1909, and by the beginning of 1910 had settled into a house for poor working men.
Hitler first became an active anti-Semite in Vienna. Hitler began to claim the Jews were natural enemies of what he called the Aryan race. He held them responsible for Austria's crisis. Blaming the Jews for Germany's military defeat at the 1917 Revolutions. He considered Jews the felons of Imperial Germany's military defeat and following economic problems as well.
Hitler moved to Munich in 1913. Moving to Munich helped him evade service in Austria for a while, but was later arrested by the Austrian army. After a physical exam he was deemed unfit for service and allowed to return to Munich. However, in August 1914 when Germany entered The First World War, Hitler petitioned to King Ludwig III for permission to serve in a Bavarian regiment, he granted the request, and Adolf Hitler enlisted in the Bavarian army.
Hitler was a soldier in France and Belgium. He was a messenger for the regimental headquarters of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment .He drew cartoons and instructional drawings for the army newspaper. His duties required taking dispatches in between fighting areas and was twice decorated receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in December 1914 and later the Iron Cross, First Class, in August 1918, an honour rarely given to a Gefreiter (the equivalent of a private). During October 1916 in northern France, Hitler was wounded in the leg, but returned to the front in March 1917. He received the Wound Badge later that year, as his injury was the direct result of hostile fire.
Hitler was sent to a field hospital on October 15, 1918, temporarily blinded by a poison gas attack. Hitler said it was during this experience that he became convinced the purpose of his life was to "save Germany".After World War I, Hitler remained in the army and returned to Munich.
After the Bavarian Soviet Republic was subdued , Hitler took part in "national thinking" courses organized by the Education and Propaganda Department of the Bavarian Reichswehr Group. Creating a culprit for the war and Germany's defeat was one of the key purposes of this group. They scapegoated Jews, communists, and politicians across the party range, especially the parties of the Weimar Coalition, who were deemed "November Criminals".Hitler was appointed a police spy of an Intelligence Commando of the Reichswehr in July 1919 to influence other soldiers toward similar ideas.
Hitler was discharged from the army in 1920 and began participating full time in the party's activities. Adolf Hitler was becoming highly effective at speaking in front of large crowds. In February, Hitler spoke before a crowd of nearly six thousand in Munich. he sent out two truckloads of his Party’s supporters to drive around with swastikas, to cause a commotion and to throw out brochures, this was the first time they used this strategy. On July 29, 1921, Adolf Hitler was introduced as Führer of the National Socialist Party, the first time this title was publicly used. Hitler also changed the name of the party to the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei).
On November 8, 1923 the military withdrew their support during a meeting in the Bürgerbräukeller, a large beer hall outside of Munich. The Nazi’s captured members in the beer hall in belief that the police would surrender and make Hitler Governor, this was called the “Beer Hall Revolt” or “Beer Hall Putsch.” He was later arrested. On April 1, 1924 Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison for the crime of conspiracy to commit treason. Hitler was released on December 20, 1924 after it was decided that he was not a danger to the public. He had served just over one year of his five-year sentence. During the time in prison he wrote his book called “Mein Kampf” or “My Struggle,” it expressed his belief of the superiority of the German race and that all other races where inferior especially Jews. He also wrote about his dream of the “Aryan Race” which means a pure blooded race.
When the depression hit Germany the leading German party fell into a stance of a minority government. The Nazi Party gained a lot of ground winning 18% of the votes and becoming the second largest party in Germany in 1931. On January 30, 1933 Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany, finally getting his German citizenship allowed him to run. Adolf then ordered "Operation Hummingbird" or "the Blood Purge", he ordered all potential political rivals to be killed in order for his party to keep the Majority in Germany. Remembered as The Night of the Long Knives on Saturday June 30 and Sunday July 1, 1934, 82 opponents were officially dead, but some believe around 200 were slaughtered.
Hitler oversaw one of the greatest expansions of industrial production and civil improvement Germany had ever seen, the unemployment rate was cut substantially, mostly through arms production and sending women home so that men could take their jobs. There were claims that the German economy achieved near full employment . 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 was beaming in popularity. But now Hitler began his mass murdering of Jews trying to realize his dream of the Aryan Race.
Germany’s military grew stronger in the next years and they formed an Axis between Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. On March 12, 1938, Hitler pressured Austria into unification with Germany (the Anschluss). Next, he intensified a crisis over the German-speaking districts of Czechoslovakia. This led to the Munich Agreement of September 1938, which authorized the annexation and immediate military occupation of these districts by Germany. As a result , Hitler was TIME magazine's Man of the Year for 1938 considered a “peacemaker.” British prime minister Neville Chamberlain let Hitler have the German unification with Austria and a large part of Czechoslovakia. Hitler ordered Germany's army to enter Prague on March 10, 1939 and from Prague Castle proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate. However the Munich agreement was quickly broken in 1939 as the German army invaded Poland.
Britain, France, and the USSR vowed to help Poland and declared war on Germany it was the beginning of the Second World War. Germany won most of the battles up until the end 1942, conquering places like France and the Netherlands, them along with Italy and Japan formed the formidable Axis Evils, then it started getting sour for Nazi Germany, the army was suffering from a lack of supplies and Hitler began getting suspicious of generals threatening his hold on Germany, he began making bad decisions and refused to surrender, eventually they began getting overpowered by the allies, now included the United States of America.
By the end of the war Hitler and the Nazi’s had killed around 9 million to 18 million Jews and people Hitler deemed unfit to live. In April 1945, Soviet forces were at the outskirts of Berlin. Hitler's closest lieutenants urged him to flee to Bavaria or Austria to make a last stand , but he seemed determined to either live or die in the capital. Hitler committed suicide in the Führer bunker on April 30, 1945, he shot himself in the head while simultaneously biting into a cyanide capsule. Hitler's body and that of Eva Braun (his long-term mistress whom he had married the day before) were put in a bomb crater, partially burned with gasoline by Führer bunker aides and hastily buried in the Chancellory garden. It marked the end of the German dictator, and soon Nazi Germany, it surrendered on May 8, signing a document of unconditional surrender.