Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria. Adolf was the son of Alois and Klara Hitler. His father was a customs official, and used his mother's last name of Schicklgruber, until he adopted the name Hitler. When his father died in 1903, Adolf was relieved from his constant criticism. Adolf, however, had cherished his mother. Her death in 1907 had a traumatic effect on him. He failed in school, which only raised his desire to become an artist. He then traveled to Vienna to attend the Academy of Fine Arts, but was rejected. In 1914, World War I began, and he instead accepted the call to join the army. He served in the Bavarian Sixteenth Regiment on the western front. For his show of bravery, he was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class. But when Germany was defeated, he became convinced that the Jews and Marxists stabbed Germany in the back.
Mussolini (left) and Hitler sent their armies to N...
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Munich, Germa...
According to Bullock, Hitler was an opportunistic ...Soon after Germany established the Peace of Versailles, Hitler founded the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). He led the party into the unsuccessful Munich Putsch, which lead to his imprisonment in Landsberg. While he was still in prison, he wrote Mein Kampf. It defined the enemy as world Jewry, communism, liberalism, and capitalization. Hitler offered instead pure Aryan blood and the renewal of German nationalism. Germany would then become the leading power and gain it's living space (Lebensraum) in Central Europe and Russia. He was released from prison after 9 months of a 5-year sentence. Hitler reemerged as NSDAP's leader and immediately reformed the party.
The Great Depression of the 1930s helped Hitler in his success. Mass unemployment, Communist revolt, and an alliance with the industrialist Alfred Hugenburg's Nationalist party all contributed to the NSDAP's electoral breakthrough in September 1930. This increased...