Adolf Hilter

Sydney Sullivan 7th hour

Early Life Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in the small town of braunau, Austria. His father, Alois Hitler, was a Senior customs official. His mother, Klara Hitler had come from a poor family. In his primary school days, He excelled and showed great qualities of intelligence and leadership. But as he passed into secondary school, it grew difficult and Hitler was discouraged by that and stopped trying in school. At age 15 he failed his exams, instead of just retaking the year, he dropped out and did not receive a formal education. After his father's death in 1903, at age 18, he took all of his inheritance money and pursued a career in art. He applied for the Vienna Academy of Art and the School of Architecture. He was rejected from both schools, some believe that this was when he first showed interest in politics. WWI Hitler moved to Munich, Germany in 1913. He was barely surviving off of selling his artwork when something happened that set him on the path to his political career. World War 1 started, and Hitler was an excellent soldier. He was often commended for his bravery and by the end of the war he had been promoted to Corporal, had been wounded twice (in 1916 and 1918) and had been awarded several medals. In 1918 he had been partially blinded by mustard gas and was in a hospital when he had heard the news that Germany had surrendered. The end of the war took an enormous emotional toll on him. Hitler in the Government A frustrated Hitler joined a small political organization called The German Workers Party, after the war that left the country economically depressed and politically unstable. This Party promoted Anti-semitism and nationalism. They also felt that the Treaty of Versailles was unfair because of the reparations that they could never pay off. Hitler came to be charismatic public

Adolf Hilter
Sydney Sullivan 7th hour

speaker, with speeches blaming jews and promoting extreme nationalism with talk of an Aryan Master Race. By 1921 he had claimed leadership of this party, which by now was known as The Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party or more commonly known as the Nazi Party. Hitler continued to speak to the public, with few minor setbacks, until he was elected the Chancellor in 1933, soon his Nazi party controlled every aspect of German life. In 1933, Nazis opened their first concentration camp in Dachau, Germany for political prisoners. This camp would later become one of the death camps that would kill 11 million people from malnutrition, disease and being overwork or were executed. But Jews werent the only ones that didnt qualify for Hitlers Master Race, the camps prisoners held innocent people that were incurably ill , Gypsies, the physically and mentally handicapped and homosexuals.
The Start of the War

As Hitler gained power over the government, he directed Germanys foreign policy toward undoing the Treaty of Versailles and restoring Germanys strong standing in the world. He argued against the treatys map of Europe. He reasoned that it denied Germany, Europes most populated nation, living space for the growing number of people living there. He had also reasoned that it had separated Germans from Germans by creating new postwar states as Austria and Czechoslovakia, where many Germans lived. During the last half of the 1930s, Hitler destroyed the terms of the Treaty day by day. He withdrew Germany from the League of Nations in 1933, rebuilt German armed forces past the point of what was permitted by the treaty. He also annexed Austria in 1938 and invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939. When Germany moved to Poland, Britain and France said that they would defend Poland in the event of any attacks.However, Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain and France declared war on Germany. Six years of Hitler's rule had ignited WWII.

Adolf Hilter
Sydney Sullivan 7th hour

WWII After taking control of Poland, Hitler focused on beating Britain and France. As the war grew, the Nazi Party formed alliances with Japan and Italy in the Tripartite Pact of 1940, and honored its 1939 Non Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union until 1941, when Germany had the blitzkrieg invasion of the Soviet Union. After the United States entered the war in 1941, Germany came to start fighting in North Africa, Italy, France, the Balkans and Soviet Union. At the start of the war, Hitler and his Nazi Party were fighting to dominate Europe. Only five years later they were fighting to stay alive. The Murder of Millions By late 1938, Jews were banned from almost all of the public places in Germany. During the war, the Nazis anti-Jewish campaigns increased greatly. After the invasion and occupation of Poland, German troops had killed hundreds of Polish Jews, shipped many to ghettoes where they starved to death and began sending others to death camps in different parts of Poland. There they were either killed immediately or forced into slave labor. By the early 1940, the Nazi Party decided that last part of what they called the Final Solution of the Jewish problem and planned out murder of all European Jews. As the early 1940s continued, Jews in countries including France and Belgium were sent by the thousands to the death camps that occupied Poland. There large death camps such as Auschwitz began killing people with sickening efficiency. The murder of Jews in lands occupied by Germans stopped only in the final months of the war, as the German armies were retreating toward Berlin. By the time Hitler committed suicide in April 1945, some 6 million Jews had died, 11 million people total had been killed in concentration camps.