Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was the ruler of Germany from 1933 to 1945. Guided by concepts of elitism and racism, he established a brutal totalitarian regime under the ideological banner of National Socialism, or Nazism. His drive for empire resulted in the devastation of World War II, culminating in Germany's defeat and the reordering of world power relationships.
Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in the Austrian town of Braunau am Inn, the son of Alois, a customs official, and Klara Hitler. Alois, who was illegitimate, used his mother's name, Schicklgruber, until 1876, when he adopted the name Hitler. He was very stern with his son and abhorred Adolf's dreamy ways. His death, in 1903, came as a relief to Adolf. Adolf idealized his mother, however, whose death in 1907 had a traumatic effect on him. Hitler failed as a student in the classical secondary schools, a situation that contributed to his desire to become an artist.
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Munich, Germa...
Mussolini (left) and Hitler sent their armies to N...
Adolf Hitler in Yugoslavia.He went to Vienna in 1907 but was unable to gain admission to the Academy of Fine Arts. He lived a shadowy, alienated existence in multiracial Vienna until 1913. His years there were characterized by melancholy, aimlessness, and racial hatred--in Vienna he developed his lifelong obsession with the "danger" that world Jewry posed to the "Aryan race." In 1913, Hitler went to Munich, partly to evade conscription into the Austrian army. There, however, he answered the call to colors at the outbreak (August 1914) of World War I. Serving in the Bavarian Sixteenth Regiment on the western front, he distinguished himself for bravery and was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class. For the first time in his life Hitler had found a home; he glorified the raw majesty of life under fire, the beauty of comradeship, and the nobility of the warrior.