Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler (20 April, 1889-30 April 1945) was a dominant world figure 1933-45, leading Germany to the conquest of almost all Europe and the murder of 6 million Jews until the Allies crushed his "Third Reich" in 1945. He became the symbol of evil in the modern world. Hitler controlled Germany's Nazi Party, and came to power legally in January 1933 but threw out the laws and as Führer (supreme leader) was the dictator of Germany, hypnotizing the people with his magnetic personality and spellbinding voice. He started World War II with stunning blitzkrieg victories and spent all his attention on military and diplomatic strategy, which turned sour after his failed invasion of Russia in 1941.

Hitler came to power as leader of the NSDAP or Nazi Party. He suppressed all opposition parties, and restored German prosperity. All officials reported to him and followed his policies, but they had considerable autonomy on a daily basis. The Gestapo (secret police) under Heinrich Himmler destroyed the liberal, Socialist and Communist opposition and harassed the Jews. The Nazi party (under Martin Borman) took control of the courts, local government, and all civic organizations except the Protestant and Catholic churches. The Nazi state idolized its Fuehrer, putting all powers in his hands, and tolerating no criticism whatever, Opponents were forced into exile, killed, or sent to concentration camps (which were different from the death camps that were used to kill Jews after 1941). All expressions of public opinion were controlled by Hitler's propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels. Hitler did not nationalize industry, but he destroyed the labor unions and his finance ministry worked closely with banks and industry. During the war an alternative state economy was created under the SS (headed by Himmler).

Hitler's aggressive foreign policy led to World War II in Europe in September 1939. His racial ideology of Aryan supremacy and hatred of the Jews led to escalating antisemitic measures culminating in the wartime Holocaust that systematically killed 6 million Jews in conquered areas.

Hitler's diplomatic strategy was to make outrageous demands, threatening war. When the opponents tried to appease him, he accepted the gains that were offered, then went to the next target. That aggressive strategy worked as Germany pulled out of the League of Nations (1933), rejected the Versailles Treaty and began to re-arm (1935), took back the Saar (1935), remilitarized the Rhineland (1936), formed an alliance ("axis") with Mussolini's Italy (1936). sent massive military aid to Franco in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), seized Austria (1938), took over Czechoslovakia after the British and French appeasement of the Munich Agreement of 1938, formed a peace pact with Stalin's Russia in 1939, and finally invaded Poland in September 1939.

Hitler in 1938 took direct command of the armed forces, and spent most of the war years focused on military operations. At first his moves were brilliantly successful, as in the "blitzkrieg" invasions of Poland (1939), Norway (1940), the Low countries (1940), and above all the stunningly successful invasion and quick conquest of France in 1940. Hitler probably wanted peace with Britain in late 1940, but Winston Churchill, standing alone, was dogged in his defiance. Churchill had major financial, military and diplomatic help from President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the U.S., another implacable foe of Hitler. Hitler's emphasis on maintaining high living standards postponed the full mobilization of the national economy until 1942, years after the great rivals Britain, Russia and the U.S. had fully mobilized.

Troubles began in 1941, when Hitler broke with his Russian allies and invaded the Soviet Union, but was stopped at the gates of Moscow. Hitler had a loose pact with Japan, and was unaware of plans for the Pearl Harbor attack, but nevertheless declared war on the U.S. in December, 1941. With the invasion of Russia the systematic roundup and quick murder or "Holocaust" of 5 million Jews in the east began (along with Jews in Germany itself, France, the Low Countries and elsewhere).

Hitler was technologically oriented, and promoted a series of new secret weapons, such as the jet plane, the jet-powered missile (V-1), the rocket-powered missile (V-2), and vastly improved submarines. However he failed to support development of nuclear weapons or proximity fuzes, and trailed the Allies in radar. He failed to take advantage of the German lead in jet planes.

In 1942 the Soviet victory at Stalingrad marked the beginning of the end, as Germany was unable to cope with the superior manpower and industrial resources of the Allies. North Africa, Sicily and southern Italy fell in 1943. Hitler rescued Mussolini, who became a mere puppet. The Russians pushed forward relentlessly in the East, while the Allies in the west launched a major bombing campaign in 1944-45 that burned out the major German cities, ruined transportation, and signaled to civilians how hopeless it was. The Allies invaded France in June 1944 as the Russians launched another attack on the east. Both attacks were successful and by the end of 1944 the end was in sight. Disregarding the generals, Hitler rejected withdrawals and retreats, counting more and more on nonexistent armies. He committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin as his last soldiers were overwhelmed by Soviet armies in intensely bloody battles overhead.

All his works and images were systematically destroyed and overthrown as Germany was denazified and Hitler became the worldwide symbol of evil.

Early Life to 1919

Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria-Hungary to a devout Catholic family of middle class status. Little is known of his ancestry. His father, Alois, was the illegitimate son of a servant girl, Marianne Schickelgruber in Graz. In 1876 Alois legally changed his name to Alois Hitler. He was a minor official of the Imperial Austrian customs service, a prestigious white collar position. Alois was widowed twice. His third wife, Klara Poelzl Hitler--who was 23 years his junior--bore him six children, only two of whom reached maturity: Adolf, and his younger sister Paula, who died in 1960. Hitler did not get along well with his father, who died in 1903; his mother had a pension and sent Adolph to good schools and encouraged his Catholicism. A mediocre student, he dropped out at age 16, as was normal for someone not headed to university.

Roots of Hitler's Antisemitism

Wistrich (2001) examines Hitler's years in Vienna in 1907-13 for the seeds of the anti-Semitism and pan-Germanism that were the foundation of his political career. Moving from Linz to Vienna in 1907 at the age of 18, Hitler had most likely already absorbed the pan-German and anti-Semitic sentiments of his schoolteachers and political leaders like Georg von Schoenerer, though not to the deadly and radical degree of his later years. His experiences as a failed artist living in a poorer section of the city, combined with his regard of Vienna from a provincial and antimodernist point of view, contributed to Hitler's hatred of Vienna and his perception of his years there as the most difficult and saddest time of his life. Furthermore, Hitler associated the ills of the big, multicultural, and modern city, particularly the sexual debauchery in early-20th-century Vienna, with Jews, many of whom were Orthodox Eastern immigrants lacking an "Aryan" look. Historians have discovered the mystical and occult sources of Hitler's racial ideology. For Hitler, race was not simply a political issue, but the foundation of world history. He believed that the Aryan race, "to which all 'true' Germans belonged was the race whose blood (soul) was of the highest degree." To Hitler, the Jews were not members of a religious creed, but a specific race, which was "the embodiment of evil." Hitler's views were influenced by pseudoscientific racial studies and the revival of an interest in occultism in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. Leading occultists emphasized the racial superiority of the Aryan Germans and employed a variety of occult symbols, including the swastika. In addition, during the 1920s, Hitler associated with the Thule Society, an occult group in Munich.

Weimar Years 1919-1933

By 1924, certain elements of Hitler's worldview (Weltanschauung) had fully crystallized, namely his concept of history as a racial struggle and the threat of Marxism. However, the notion of Lebensraum (living space) and the idea of a heroic Führer, underdeveloped in 1924, became fully crystallized by 1928. Hitler offered only "distant goals" not a "blueprint for rule." There is scant evidence to support the notion that he was a conscious modernizer, and his social goal was to destroy Marxism and create the Volksgemeinschaft (folk community).

The key element in Hitler's success in 1932-33 was the decision of powerful non-Nazi conservative nationalists to support his selection as chancellor, since the Nazis did not have a majority in the Reichstag.

Fuehrer 1933-45

Kershaw (2002) suggests that the character of Hitler's dictatorship was fundamentally different from that of Stalin. A key difference was that the Nazi state was a classic "charismatic" leadership regime, whereas the Soviet state under Stalin was not. This contrast between the essential character of the two dictatorships is used to suggest reasons why ordered government and administration disintegrated in the Third Reich, how this was related to the gathering momentum of radicalization, and how Hitler's ideological imperatives became transformed into practical policy options. In terms of controlling the party a major challenge came from the SA. Between 1929 and 1933 the SA (Sturmabteilung) was instrumental in Hitler's rise to power. Led by Ernst Röhm, an ambitious professional soldier, the SA became increasingly violent in its support of the Nazi Party. When Röhm refused to curtail the violence after the Nazis came to power, Hitler ordered Röhm and his top aides to be executed. The purge, known as the "Night of the Long Knives," (30 June 1934 to July 2) eliminated rivals, suppressed radicalism and consolidated Hitler's power.

Foreign Policies

Watt (1989) rejects the idea that appeasement was a mistake. He concludes it is unlikely war could have been prevented by France and Great Britain challenging Germany earlier. Hitler made aggressive action a centerpiece of his long-term strategy and seemed to need it personally. France and Great Britain were, in fact, the ultimate aim of Hitler's negotiations leading to war in 1939. Had those two powers intervened with force in the earlier crises of 1936 or 1938, neither would have been as well prepared to fight as in 1939. In the end, when France and Great Britain did stand up to German aggression with their guarantees to Poland in 1939, Hitler did not take the threats seriously.

At a key meeting in November, 1937, between Hitler and his five top military advisors, Hitler revealed his plan to preserve and extend Aryan supremacy, which included the acquisition of new "Lebensraum" in the east. He spoke of seizing Austria and Czechoslovakia, and going to war with Britain, France or Russia. Hitler expected Germany would reach its peak, relative to the strength of itsenemies, in about 1943-45, suggesting that was the target date for a major war. The "Hossbach Memorandum" summarized the plans. Hitler purged the dissenters, War Minister Werner von Blomberg and Army Commander Werner von Fritsch, thereby reducing the threat of a military coup. Subsequently, he surrounded himself with compliant, but less competent, military officers.

Antisemitism

The most dramatic episode was the pogrom of 9-10 November 1938 known as Kristallnacht. The pogrom is partially explained by the complementary goals of three participants: Joseph Goebbels, who determined the timing; Heinrich Himmler and the Schutzstaffel (SS), who had already developed plans to arrest prominent Jews; and Hermann Göring, who along with several ministries implemented preexisting plans to exclude Jews completely from the German economy in the wake of the violence. Hitler's role was to approve of these actions. World reaction was overwhelmingly negative. Before the war started Hitler on January 30, 1939 spoke to the Reichstag (parliament), outlining his plan to eliminate the Jewish population under Nazi domination. By threatening to expel or murder European Jews, Hitler hoped to pressure the international community to increase Jewish immigration quotas quickly and to accept the Reich's monetary demands for loans in order to finance the rearmament of the German defense forces. Hitler utilized inflammatory speeches to inspire radical German elements to transform the threatening rhetoric into systematic annihilation practices.

Economics

Hitler was fascinated with high speed expensice automobiles, but he also admired Henry Ford for mass producing the cheap Model T for the masses. Ford had a small plant in Germany. König (2004) shows American mass consumption and mass motorization, particularly Ford's Model T, influenced Nazi planning for the Volkswagen, which was supposed to turn the German car from an investment into a consumer good. However, Nazi policy was unable to create a sound economic basis for the Volkswagen. In the mid 1930s incomes were still low; Hitler refused to raise wages, choosing instead to use productivity gains for rearmament and economic autarky or independence from the British and American economies. He sought to lower prices through efficiency and to have industries that did not seek profits manufacture the "people's products." The Nazis' demands were so high that companies envisioned that they would fail and declined to cooperate. Consequently, German car manufacturers, including American-owned Ford and GM, pulled out of the Volkswagen project. Its transfer to the Deutsche Arbeitsfront did not resolve the issue of production costs and affordability. Hitler was certain that Germany could emerge as a consumer society without employing Ford's formula of mass production, high wages, and low prices. He did build an autobahn system that was primarily designed as a construction project and as a new transportation system for trucks.

Overy argues the German economy in 1939 was not a crisis-ridden one dragged out of control by grumbling managers and laborers, but an economy remarkably resurgent after a severe economic crisis in the early 1930's that brought Germany to the brink of bankruptcy and threw German politics into the "melting pot." In fact, domestic political peace and a more stable economy were essential preconditions for the period of active expansion undertaken by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The war was not a reaction to domestic crisis, but a response to the disintegration of the established international power structure during the 1930's. Hitler sought, with support from military and administrative circles in Germany, to pursue a strategy that would free Germany from Western economic and political interests and establish German international power.

War Years 1939-45

War with the U.S.

Lukacs argues that Hitler felt that Roosevelt was behind Churchill and that the Jews were behind Roosevelt. By the end of July 1940, Hitler's moves were often in response to those of RooseveltHe gave his navy orders not to provoke the U.S. in an effort to prevent Roosevelt from getting popular support for entrance into the war. Pearl Harbor, because of Hitler's treaty with Japan, changed all that. Throughout, Hitler wished that he had not had to fight the United States, but held Roosevelt responsible for that. He and the Germans also became more fearful of the invading Russians than of the invading Anglo-American forces as the war neared an end. Roosevelt's determination to support the British in 1940 led to Hitler's ultimate defeat. An isolationist president, Lukacs concludes, would have made decisions leading to different outcomes for the war.

Transformation of the military

The war saw not only the expansion of the military but also entireky new forms, especially as the SS created its own armies, and the Luftwaffe grew in importance. Knox (2000) examines the process that transmuted Germany's most hallowed social institution and professional group, the officer corps, into a functional elite of "National Socialist Führer-personalities." Some historians argue that the "structural pressures of modern war" - the immense losses of summer 1942 - compelled the abolition of time-honored educational and social qualifications for officer candidacy and the basing of promotions almost solely on battlefield prowess, and that "National Socialist elite manipulation" was at best a secondary factor. Knox argues that the pressures of war took second place in the army's official mind to the need to preserve order and tradition, and that it was above all Hitler himself who dictated the timing, shape, and extent of changes that the bureaucrats were largely incapable of imagining. "Führer-selection through battle" was simultaneously the most far-reaching and lasting element in the social revolution that Hitler sought, and a decisive step in steeling the German armed forces for their fight to the bitter end. In this as in other areas, it was National Socialism's very modernity that endowed it with demonic force.

Wartime Antisemitism

Heinsohn (2000) argues Hitler's aims included strengthening Germany by exterminating the nation's weak and by conquering vast eastern territories and annihilating their inhabitants in order to create "Lebensraum" (living space) for Germans. Hitler understood that in order to boost the genocidal effort in the east the German military needed to be rid of its inhibition to kill noncombatants. He targeted the Jewish code of ethics, the principle of the sanctity of life, which had permeated Christianity, as the force which had destroyed the German "killing mentality." For the entire German military to be prepared for the killing deemed necessary for eastward territorial expansion, Germans would have to unlearn the Jewish-Christian code. Hitler reeducated German soldiers (and educated the Hitler Youth) by granting them the license to kill without being court-martialed, substituting neo-archaic commandments about killing, and removing Jewish influence through systematic extermination. Thus, it was not out of racist anti-Semitism that Hitler persecuted the Jews, though German perpetrators - and Hitler himself - justified it in these terms.

Invasion of Russia

Weinberg (1995) argues that decisions concerning the invasion of the Soviet Union in June of 1941 must be understood in the broader context of Hitler's ideological motivations and long-term goals. Although Hitler had decided to invade the Soviet Union as early as 1940, German resources never reflected this; armaments production, tank and aircraft construction, and logistical preparations focused on the West. Diplomatic activity was similarly skewed; Hitler granted Stalin any territory he wanted (such as Lithuania), knowing they would soon be at war and Germany would reclaim it anyway. Hitler, blinded by his racist prejudices against Slavs, believed the Eastern campaign would be quick and easy. His real strategic concern was Great Britain and the United States, and his planning consistently demonstrated this. Ukrainian territory was vital to the resolution of the problem of German Lebensraum. In accord with Hitler's conception, Ukraine was to be fully controlled and exploited for the benefit of Germany. Under the Generalplan Ost, Hitler's projections for Ukraine were well underway by 1942.

Bibliography

Biographies

• Bullock, Alan. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, (1962) online edition
• Fest, J. Hitler (1974), stress on psychology
• Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris. W. W. Norton, 1999. 700 pp. the leading scholarly biography, vol 1
• Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis. W. W. Norton, 2000. 832 pp. the leading scholarly biography, vol 2
• Kershaw, Ian. The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich. Oxford U. Press, 1987. 297 pp.
• Kershaw, Ian. Hitler (2002) short biography
• Nicholls, David. Adolf Hitler: A Biographical Companion. ABC-CLIO, 2000. 344 pp.
• Rosenbaum, Ron. Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil. Random House, 1998. 448 pp.
• Stone, Norman. Hitler. Little, Brown, 1980. 224 pp
• Toland, John. Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography (1991); popular biography; Kershaw is much more definitive
• Welch, David. "Hitler' UCL Press 1998. 123pp

Antisemitism and Holocaust

• Aronson, Shlomo. Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews. Cambridge U. Press, 2004. 382 pp.
• Burleigh, Michael. The Third Reich: A New History. 2000. 864 pp., stresses central role of antisemitism.
• Dawidowicz, Lucy. The war against the Jews, 1933-45, (1977).
• Gutman, Israel, ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vol (1989)
• Heinsohn, Gunnar. "What Makes the Holocaust a Uniquely Unique Genocide?" Journal of Genocide Research 2000 2(3): 411-430. Issn: 1462-3528 Fulltext: in Ebsco
• Levy, Richard, ed. Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution (2005)
• Wistrich, Robert S. Hitler and the Holocaust. 2001. 295 pp.

Nazi State

• Abel, Theodore. Why Hitler Came into Power. Harvard U. Press, 1986. 315 pp.
• Binion, R. Hitler among the Germans (1976). public opinion inside Germany
• Bracher, Karl D. The German dictatorship: the origins, structure and consequences of national socialism (1973). influential analysis by political scientist
• Burleigh, Michael. The Third Reich: A New History. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000. 864 pp.
• Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich: A History. Viking Penguin, 2004. 622 pp.
• Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power: 1933-1939. Penguin, 2005. 800 pp.
• Kershaw, Ian. The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (3rd edition, 1999)
• Knox, Macgregor. "1 October 1942: Adolf Hitler, Wehrmacht Officer Policy, and Social Revolution." Historical Journal 2000 43(3): 801-825. Issn: 0018-246x in Jstor
• König, Wolfgang. "Adolf Hitler Vs. Henry Ford: the Volkswagen, the Role of America as a Model, and the Failure of a Nazi Consumer Society." German Studies Review 2004 27(2): 249-268. Issn: 0149-7952
• Overy, Richard J. War and Economy in the Third Reich. Oxford U. Press, 1994. 390 pp.
• Overy, Richard J. The Nazi economic recovery 1932-38 (1982).
• Overy, Richard J. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich (1997)
• Overy, Richard J. "Hitler's war and the German economy: a reinterpretation," Economic History Review 35 (1982), 272-91:
• Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, (1960) well-written popular history; no longer considered authoritative
• Turner, Henry Ashby, Jr. Hitler's Thirty Days to Power: January 1933. Addison-Wesley, 1996. 272 pp.
• Williamson, David. "Was Hitler a Weak Dictator?," History Review. 2002. pp 9+. online version
• Zentner, Christian and Bedürftig, Friedemann, eds. The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. 2 vol. Macmillan, 1991. 1120 pp.

Military and diplomatic

• Deutsch, Harold C. Hitler and His Generals: The Hidden Crisis, January-June 1938, 1974 online edition
• Duffy, James P. Hitler Slept Late: And Other Blunders That Cost Him the War, Praeger 1991. online edition
• Herzstein, Robert Edwin. Roosevelt and Hitler: Prelude to War. (1989) 500pp
• Martienssen, Anthony. Hitler and His Admirals, (1949) online edition
• Read, Anthony and Fisher, David. The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin and the Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939-1941. (1988). 675 pp.
• Watt, Donald C. How War Came (1989) comprehensive history of 1938-39
• Weinberg, Gerhard L. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, (2005), 1200pp, best overview of military strategy and diplomacy of the entire war.
• Weinberg, Gerhard L. Germany, Hitler, and World War II: Essays in Modern German and World History. Cambridge U. Press, 1995. 336 pp.
• Wilt, Alan F. War from the Top: German and British Military Decision Making during World War II. Indiana U. Press, 1990. 390 pp.

Comparative

• Bullock, Alan. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. Knopf, 1992. 1081 pp.
• Dear, I. C. B., and M. R. D. Foot. eds. The Oxford Companion to World War II (2002) 1100pp; the most complete encyclopedia; strong on military and economic affairs
• Englund, Steven. "Napoleon and Hitler." Journal of the Historical Society 2006 6(1): 151-169. Issn: 1529-921x Fulltext: in Ebsco
• Kershaw, Ian. "Hitler and the Uniqueness of Nazism." Journal of Contemporary History 2004 39(2): 239-254. Issn: 0022-0094 Fulltext: in Ebsco
• Lukacs, John. June 1941: Hitler and Stalin. Yale U. Press, 2006. 192 pp.
• Richard Overy. The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia (2005)
• Wilt, Alan F. War from the Top: German and British Military Decision Making during World War II. Indiana U. Press, 1990. 390 pp.

Primary sources

• Heiber, Helmut and Glantz, David M., ed. Hitler and His Generals: Military Conferences 1942-1945. 2 vol. New York: Enigma, 2003. 1100 pp.
• Adolf Hitler. Mein Kampf (numerous edition)

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