Adolf HItler

 

Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889-30 April 1945) was an Austrian born German politician who was the dictator of Germany from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of Fuhrer und Reichskanzler in 1934. During his dictatorship, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland on 1 September 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the genocide of about six million jews and millions of other victims.

Hitler was born in Braunau am inn in Austria-Hungary and was raised near Linz. He lived in vienna later in the first decade of the 1990s before moving to Germany in 1913. He was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I. In 1919, he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the Nazi Party and, in 1921 was appointed leader of the Nazi Party. In 1923, he attempted to seized governmental power in a failed coup in Munich and was sentenced to five years in prison, While there he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"). After his early release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting pan-Germanism, in anti-Semitism and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. He frequently denounced capitalism and communism as part of an international Jewish conspiracy.

By November 1932, the Nazi Party held the most seats in the Reichstag but did not have a majority. No political parties were able to form a majority coalition in support of candidate for chancellor. Former chancellor Franz von Papen and other conservative leaders convinced President Paul von Hidenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor on 30 January 1933. Shortly thereafter, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act of 1933 which began the process of transforming the Weimar Republic into Nazi Germany a one party dictatorship based on totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism.