Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler (20 April, 1889-30 April 1945) was a German politician who ruled as Chancellor of Germany from January 1933, and Führer (Leader) of Germany from August 1934 until his death in 1945.

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 inspired and facilitated the Holocaust.

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 an air force to help Franco in the Spanish Civil War, seized Austria (1938), took over Czechoslovakia after 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 working class status. Little is known of his ancestry. His father, Alois, was the illegitimate son of a servant girl, Marianne Schickelgruber in Graz. Alois used the name Schickelgruber until 1876, when he legally changed it to Alois Hitler. Alois married three times. 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.

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.

Weimar Years 1919-1933

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

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 German Reichstag, 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.

War Years 1939-45

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.

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

• Dawidowicz, Lucy. The war against the Jews, 1933-45, (1977).
• 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
• 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)
• 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
• Knox, Macgregor. "1 October 1942: Adolf Hitler, Wehrmacht Officer Policy, and Social Revolution." Historical Journal 2000 43(3): 801-825. Issn: 0018-246x [ http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0018-246X(200009)43%3A3%3C801%3A1O1AHW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 in Jstor]
• 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:
• Turner, Henry Ashby, Jr. Hitler's Thirty Days to Power: January 1933. Addison-Wesley, 1996. 272 pp.
• 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.
• 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

• 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
• Martienssen, Anthony. Hitler and His Admirals, (1949) online edition

Comparative

• Aronson, Shlomo. Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews. Cambridge U. Pr., 2004. 382 pp.
• 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. Pr., 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)