Hitler: The Rise Of A Madman

Anti-Semitism in society, abusive father, service in World War 1, family tragedy. All of these can be short and long term reasons for Adolf Schicklgruber, a.k.a Adolf Hitler, to become to man he was. Once a man with great potential became a man of great hate and anger. He lived his life the way he saw fit, this eventually led to his brutal end by his own hands.

Adolf's early days-

Adolf Schicklgruber (Hitler) was the 4th son of Alois and Klara Hitler. Alois's birth name was Schicklgruber but later in his life he adopted the last name of his legal father, Johann Georg Hiedler, which became the surname Hitler. Alois was an Austrian civil servant in the customs service. Alois later married his third wife, Klara, who happened to be Alois's biological cousin. They both had 3 other children before Adolf, however they all died a young death. Adolf Hitler was born in April 1889 and due to the passing of her other children, Klara cared for Adolf greatly. Over his childhood the family, with their other children, move around Austria so Adolf attended 5 different primary schools. When Alois's first born, Alois jr, left...Adolf had to do all the work around the house and was the subject that Alois took his anger out on. In result Adolf hated his father but had a strong relationship with his mother.

Adolf was an amazing student at first and was even popular with the other children. However, as time passed his grades dropped, he began to act up and tormented his pro Austrian teacher with symbolic gestures of a united German state. Where Adolf lived was filled with ethnic Germans which helped give him these ideas as well as him going against his father's beliefs. When Adolf was ten, his six-year-old brother passed away. From then on Adolf acted differently from his usual behavior. As Adolf went into high school, he lost interest in most things he liked and instead got into art.

Before Adolf finished high school, his father passed away of a lung haemorrhage which didn’t affect Adolf too much as he disliked his father. Once he passed high school Adolf celebrated reportedly by getting black out drunk and using the certificate to wipe his behind. He dint however take the overall final exam, instead dropped out. For the next 3 years he didn’t have a purpose in his eyes and instead just spent his time at the opera with his only friend, August Kubizek. Kubizek later wrote his memories of the young Adolf and said he was passionately interested in many things, felt he was in many ways better than others, quick to anger like his father and was an incredible speaker once he was ranting. When he was 18 Adolf traveled to Vienna to take the entrance exam for art school, which he failed. Once he returned home, he found his mother was very sick and when she died, he was extremely filled with grief.

Adolf's later life-

After returning to Vienna he became a homeless bum. He then spent a few years in and out of homeless shelters making his money by selling hand painted postcards. Most historians agree that it is unclear where and when he got his radical beliefs but agree that his time in Vienna may have played a role. Anti-Semitism was widespread in the city including the mayor, who Hitler supported. He bought into the conspiracy theories presented by the many right-wing anti-Semitic newsletters. As a result he belived different races were better than other with the German Aryan people being the best and the worst he believed were Jews. At 24 he moved to Munich in Germany to avoid doing military service and was a drifter on the streets until the first world war began.

He quickly enrolled in the German army and throughout the war evaded death coutless times until he was injured in 1916 by an artillary shell and in 1918 where he was temporarily blinded in a gas attack. While recovering he learnt about Germany's surrender and was out raged. Hatred then grew in him against the Jews and communists who he thought responsible for the defeat. After the war Adolf was no longer to be allowed to be a soldier due to the treaty of Versailles but however continued working as an informant. After the war communists in Germany attempted to start a revolution so Hitler was tasked with infiltrating and reporting on any new political parties that could pose a communist threat. One party rose some red flags, so Adolf attended on of their meetings but found out that they were not communist but instead fascist and shared many of his beliefs.

He then left the army and signed up to join the party. Very quickly he rose to the top of the party due to his fantastic speaking ability. Adolf then renamed the party from The German Workers Party to the National Socialist German Workers Party or Nazi for short and created the flag that is iconic to the Nazi party.

Rise of the Nazi party-

Hitler made extravagant promises to undo the Treaty of Versailles and reuniting all ethnic Germans into one nation. He also said only pure Aryan people should be allowed to be citizens and all Jews would lose their citizenship. These views were very common in extreme right politics but Hitler made the Nazi party stand out and quickly became the leading party on the extreme right. Hitler like many groups set up his own para-military wing first known as the Meeting Hall Protection Detachment then became the Storm Detachment or better known as the SA. Their jobs were to defend Nazi meetings and to intimidate political opponents and would frequently engage in battles with communists on the streets. As the military was drastically reduced many ex soldiers joined the SA which grew larger and larger over time.

To pay off the damages of World War 1, Germany started printing more money which made the currency crash and in 1923 1 US dollar was worth 4.2 trillion German marks. During this time Hitler thought than now would be a great time to start a revolution. In November 1923 Hitler stormed a beer hall and called for an uprising against the Government. With his supporters he marched on the streets of Munich however the police broke up the march and put Hitler on trial. He could have been sentenced to life however the right-wing judges were lenient and was only sentenced to 5 years but only served 9 months where he had written his book, Mein Kampf. This made Hitler very famous, but the Nazis only won around 2.6% of the votes in 1928.

​Due to the great depression unemployment rose high and poverty was widespread and Germans started moving to the communists or the Nazis. The Nazis used propaganda to influence the Germans and used the Jews to blame everything on. Some bought into his ideology, some didn’t agree with the racism but voted for him anyway, many didn’t understand and just went along with it. By 1932 the Nazis became the biggest party in the German parliament. Hitler then turned megalomaniac and decided to run for president but lost to Paul Von Hindenburg and instead got Hindenburg to make him chancellor. Hitler became chancellor in 1933 but was not yet a dictator.

In that January the German parliament building was set on fire, unclear but most likely the Nazis were responsible. He then made Hindenburg give him the power to imprison all communist as they were thought to have done it. The first concentration camp was set up in Dachau for the communists and other political threats. Hindenburg then passed away shortly after and within 2 months of being chancellor, Hitler became a dictator. Due to disagreements within the SA command, Hitler ordered some of his high command to be executed along with writers and journalists that wrote negative things about him in June 1934 in 'the night of the long knives'. Freedom of the press, expression and public assembly were suspended, Jews were branded and boycotted. Hitler would then go on the have over 6 million Jewish men, women and children executed in concentration camps.

The Hitler youth were set up and boys returned from camp violent while girls were pregnant and when their parents tried to stop it the children threatened to turn them over to the Gestapo. The standard greeting changed to 'Heil Hitler' and would be sent to concentration camps for not using it and/or speaking out against Hitler. Then these beliefs dragged the world into a tragic conflict, World War 2.

Conclusion-

Adolf Hitler is known today as the madman who imprisoned and murdered over 6 million Jewish men, women and children and drove the entire world into a second major global conflict. However, many don't know how this terrible man became a leader of a country. I believe you can narrow it down to 4 distinct reasons, Adolf's upbringing, the anti-Semitic views of the time influencing his own views, his time in World War 1 and the Great depression. Hitler was a passionate speaker which led people to support him more and more and he was able to connect with solders and give them a new purpose due to his time as a soldier himself.