The History Hub.

The story of Adolf Hitler is a very interesting one to read about. His life was one of epic rise and fall. Here you can learn about his rise in all its horrible detail. The rest of the war is the story of his fall.

 

Hitler began life as an artist; unfortunately his paintings and postcards were not sought after and he joined the German war effort in 1914. Here he fought as a soldier on the front line during WWI. He won the Iron Cross, a medal for bravery and was even wounded in a gas attack, coming close to blindness and death. In 1918, once he had recovered, he realised that Germany had lost the war and was not happy with the Weimar Republic and the Treaty of Versailles.

 

In 1922 Adolf Hitler and his fellow members of the Nazi Party tried to take over an area of Germany known as Bavaria. To do this they stormed a city called Munich to protest and clashed with police. The takeover failed and Hitler was thrown in jail. However, the event did bring Hitler to the attention of the German public and it did allow him speak about his policies and be heard.

 

Hitler only served a short period of time in jail and was soon released. He had used the time to write a book called Mein Kampf, in which he wrote down his racist ideas, outlined his plan to make Germany great again and blamed the Jews for Germany's poor position. Once he was let out of jail he organised his political party, the Nazi's. He had help from others within the party and they became very influential, even creating the Hitler Youth, a kind of academy for children where they were trained children to adore Hitler and believe everything the Nazi's told them. Hitler also had some armies and organisations that helped him become powerful. The SS, SA and Gestapo all made sure that nobody spoke negatively about Hitler and intimidated people into supporting him. Throughout all of this time the Weimar Republic was still in power. It had stopped the Hyperinflation of the early 1920's due to American loans of money (Germany had to burn all of its money from the early 1920's).

 

In 1928 the stock market (A place where money is invested) in America crashed. American loans to Germany stopped and the country began to collapse. By 1933 there were 6 million unemployed. What were the German people to do? Hitler was made Chancellor in 1933 (leader of Germany) as his Nazi Party was the leading party in the Reichstag (German parliament). There was also an atmosphere of worry as the Germans began to fear their country was going to collapse. Just before Hitler was made Chancellor the parliament building had been burnt down in 1933; Hitler had blamed the fire on the communists (a rival political party). Hitler was seen as the answer to Germany's problems.

 

As soon as Hitler was in power he began to eliminate his enemies. He had all the people who disagreed with him in Nazi Party killed in 1934, an event known as the Night of the Long Knives. His private army, the SS, did Hitler's dirty work and the Jews were rounded up and taken out of German Society. Hitler blamed them for Germany's problems. Hitler was now in total power of Germany and the World War Two was beginning.