Adolf Hitler

DICTATOR OF GERMANY
• Adolf Hitler, byname Der Führer (German: “The Lea
der”), (born April 20, 1889, Braunau am Inn, Austria
—died April 30, 1945, Berlin, Germany), leader of t
he Nazi Party (from 1920/21) and chancellor (Kanzl
er) and Führer of Germany (1933–45). He was chan
cellor from January 30, 1933, and, after President P
aul von Hindenburg’s death, assumed the twin title
s of Führer and chancellor (August 2, 1934).
Adolf Hitler reviewing troops on the Eastern
Front, 1939.
Heinrich Hoffmann, Munich
 Early Life
• After his father’s retirement from the state customs service, Adolf Hitler spent mos
t of his childhood in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. It remained his favourite city
throughout his life, and he expressed his wish to be buried there. Alois Hitler died i
n 1903 but left an adequate pension and savings to support his wife and children.
Although Hitler feared and disliked his father, he was a devoted son to his mother,
who died after much suffering in 1907. With a mixed record as a student, Hitler ne
ver advanced beyond a secondary education. After leaving school, he visited Vienn
a, then returned to Linz, where he dreamed of becoming an artist. Later, he used t
he small allowance he continued to draw to maintain himself in Vienna. He wished
to study art, for which he had some faculties, but he twice failed to secure entry to
the Academy of Fine Arts. For some years he lived a lonely and isolated life, earnin
g a precarious livelihood by painting postcards and advertisements and drifting fro
m one municipal hostel to another. Hitler already showed traits that characterized
his later life: loneliness and secretiveness, a bohemian mode of everyday existence
, and hatred of cosmopolitanism and of the multinational character of Vienna.
In 1913 Hitler moved to Munich. Screened for Austrian military
service in February 1914, he was classified as unfit because of i
nadequate physical vigour; but when World War I broke out, he
petitioned Bavarian King Louis III to be allowed to serve, and on
e day after submitting that request, he was notified that he wo
uld be permitted to join the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Reg
iment. After some eight weeks of training, Hitler was deployed i
n October 1914 to Belgium, where he participated in the First B
attle of Ypres. He served throughout the war, was wounded in
October 1916, and was gassed two years later near Ypres. He w
as hospitalized when the conflict ended. During the war, he was
continuously in the front line as a headquarters runner; his bra
very in action was rewarded with the Iron Cross, Second Class, i
n December 1914, and the Iron Cross, First Class (a rare decora
tion for a corporal), in August 1918. He greeted the war with en
thusiasm, as a great relief from the frustration and aimlessness
of civilian life. He found discipline and comradeship satisfying a
nd was confirmed in his belief in the heroic virtues of war.
•