The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler: From Struggling Artist to Tyrant's Demise

The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler’s journey from a high school dropout and struggling artist to becoming a warlord who ruled Germany and much of Europe is a remarkable and dark story. His early life was marked by hardship, but he eventually seized power and led the Nazi regime into World War II. How did someone who seemed invincible at the height of his power ultimately fall, and how did good conquer evil? This is the story of Adolf Hitler's rise and fall.

Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, Austria, as one of six children to Alois Hitler and Klara Hitler, who were second cousins. His early life was shaped by personal tragedy, including the deaths of three of his siblings, which had a profound impact on him.

The most difficult aspect of Hitler’s early years, however, was his strained relationship with his father. Alois Hitler was a low-ranking civil servant in the Austro-Hungarian customs service and wanted Adolf to follow in his footsteps. Growing up in rural Austria, there were few options beyond farming or military service for a stable career, but Hitler was determined to pursue art. He despised school and was rebellious, especially toward his father’s wishes. While he excelled in drawing, his academic performance suffered. Hitler’s disdain for formal education was, according to him, a form of rebellion against his father. He later claimed that his poor performance in school was intentional, but teachers who knew him described him as bright but unmotivated, with anger and narcissistic tendencies that hindered his studies. The only subject that truly captivated him was history, largely due to his history teacher, Dr. Leopold Poetsch. Poetsch, a German nationalist and anti-Semite, influenced young Hitler’s worldview, instilling in him a fascination with German history. Hitler later credited Poetsch with shaping his passion for German nationalism, and even visited him when he annexed Austria years later. When Hitler’s father died in 1903, his mother Klara hoped he would continue his education, but his academic performance only worsened. He transferred to a new high school in Steyr but showed little interest in his studies. At 15, he fell seriously ill and took a year off to recover. Upon returning, he resumed his disinterest in school and dropped out at 16. Around this time, he had his first and only experience with alcohol, drinking so heavily with friends to celebrate leaving school that he passed out on a road, swearing off alcohol for the rest of his life. After dropping out of school, Hitler lived at home, supported by his mother and relatives. He devoted his time to pursuing his dream of becoming an artist. In 1906, his family funded a two-month trip to Vienna, hoping it would help him develop his artistic career. Hitler   fell in love with the city. With it being  the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,   the city was full of fine art, architecture,  opera houses, and libraries. It was also home   to the German nationalist movement in the Empire. Hitler fell in love with Vienna and dreamed of   becoming a fine artist there. In 1907, he took  the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts entrance exam.   However, his test drawing was unsatisfactory,  and he was not admitted. Undeterred,   he tried to take the test again the following  year. However, the sample drawings he presented   to the instructors were so poor that he was not  even allowed to sit for the sample drawing again.  Hitler was incensed. On their second refusal,  he demanded an explanation from the professors.   Hitler claimed they admitted he did not  have the talent to be an artist but that   he could probably be a great architect. Being an  architect was one of Hitler's secondary dreams,   but without a high school diploma, he was  unlikely to gain entrance to one of Vienna's   numerous architecture programs. Defeated, he  returned to his hometown to live with his mother.  Upon her death from breast cancer  just before Christmas in 1907,   Hitler was devastated. He admitted that he had  honored his father despite their disagreements,   but he absolutely loved his mother. Decades  later, when he was Chancellor of Germany,   he would grant the Jewish doctor who had treated  his mother's breast cancer and his wife special   protection from the Gestapo. Hitler later granted  them visas to leave Austria for America in 1940,   as the Holocaust was already ongoing, as a measure  of gratitude for trying to save his mother's life.  After Klara’s death, Hitler decided it was  time to pack up his things and try to make a   new life in Vienna. Shortly after arriving, he  found several roommates. Instead of working or   studying in school, Hitler occupied his time by  voraciously reading books, attending the opera,   writing, and trying to ply his craft as a painter. Hitler refused to get a steady job because he   believed that society at large wanted this,  and it would stifle his free thinking. However,   he was forced to work at times to feed himself.  Hitler often did odd jobs such as shoveling snow,   carrying bags at the train stations, cleaning  carpets, and construction. He also resorted to   begging and was homeless since he often moved from  boarding house to hostel to different roommates   trying to survive. He frequently did not have  enough money to eat and relied upon charity from   several soup kitchens for hot meals. Even with such a hard lifestyle,   Hitler refused to get a job despite having  no mental or physical disabilities. Instead,   he wanted to pursue his passion as an artist.  Though political opponents later claimed that   he was a house painter, there is evidence to  support Hitler's claim he was a quote-unquote   "small artist." Hitler could not draw and instead  copied postcards of famous landmarks in Vienna.   He would then sell these crude copies to shops,  furniture stores, and restaurants to take up space   on otherwise blank walls. Hitler also apparently  did drawings for small businesses that wanted to   advertise products but wanted to avoid paying  high prices for professionally painted ads.  With this meager income, Hitler managed to  survive on the streets of Vienna for the next   five years. When he was not trying to hawk  his paintings, he became even more intently   interested in politics. Due to Vienna's strong  German nationalist movement, several political   parties emerged. Among these were the Christian  Social Party and the Pan-German Party. Of course,   Hitler was a fan of the Pan-German party, but  the organization lacked popular support because,   in his eyes, they were not adept at propaganda,  public speaking, and knowledge of social issues.   On the other hand, the Christian Social  Party had all these things because of   the leadership of Vienna Mayor Karl Lueger. Lueger founded the Christian Social Party in   the late 1800s to counter what many in the Empire  at the time saw as the disintegration of German   rule. Though the party favored a multicultural  empire, party members were clear that Germans   should be the ruling class, that the German  language and way of life were superior,   and that there would be autonomy for  the various ethnicities in the Empire.  Hitler, of course, did not agree  with these principles. He claimed he   hated the Austro-Hungarians because they allowed  so many "inferior peoples" equal status in the   Empire. During this time, the Austro-Hungarian  Empire was composed of Austrians, Hungarians,   Czechs, Slovenes, Slovaks, Croatians, Serbians,  Bosnians, Romanians, Ukrainians, and many other   Slavic peoples. Hitler absolutely detested  that these people were even part of the Empire,   much less having an equal political voice  to German-speaking Austrians. Additionally,   Hitler did not agree with the Christian Social  Party’s so-called “lenient” view towards Jews.  During his time in Vienna, if Hitler had not  been an anti-Semite before, his anti-Semitism   really took root. Frequently, throughout his  writings, Hitler wrote many disparaging remarks   about Jews. He concocted this hidden fear  that hordes of Jewish men might impregnate   Austrian women and somehow taint the gene pool.  However, his hatred of Jews during this time,   ironically enough, is probably to compensate  for his lack of luck with the ladies.  Hitler was not known to have had any sexual  relations with any woman by this time in his   life but was interested in at least one. He  never had the courage to even speak to her   despite writing long verses of love poetry  to her. Even these secret feelings he kept   to himself since he never mailed the writings to  her, and the woman likely never even knew Hitler   was infatuated with her. But she probably  would not be interested in a homeless,   starving artist who was full of himself anyway. Getting back to the Christian Social Party,   Hitler did not agree with most of their beliefs  but did take notes about the way they carried   themselves. Karl Lueger was a great public  orator. Combined with effective propaganda   campaigns and an effective information  system that allowed them to gain the   upper hand quickly in the information space, it  proved that this was the way to lead a party.  In his attempt to improve his public speaking,  Hitler often gave long-standing diatribes in   the homeless shelters, boarding houses, and  street corners he often called home. Of course,   no one probably took him seriously, but Hitler was  undeterred. With undying confidence in himself,   he used those years to shed his anxiety about  public speaking and try different methods to   anyone who listened to him for more than a moment. Despite how important his time in Vienna was for   forging him into the mad dictator he would  later become, he left his beloved city in   1913. He settled in Munich and continued the same  vagabond lifestyle as before. However, his reasons   for leaving Vienna behind are still debated. Hitler would later claim he left because the   prospect of being drafted into the multicultural  army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was something   he could not stomach. This was because the  Empire had a mandatory draft of all males,   and military authorities had been looking  for Hitler for several years to report to a   recruiting station for his entrance physical  to see if he was qualified to serve. Because   he was homeless, military authorities  could not track him down until they   finally sent a notice to him in Munich in 1913. The correspondence Hitler sent back contradicts   his claims that he left purely because he did  not want to serve in the imperial army. Due to   a lack of funds, he asked to complete the  entrance physical in Munich since Germany   also had universal military service and if the  Austrians would accept the exam. They agreed   to this. After reporting in Munich, Hitler was  found not physically fit for military service,   and so the Austrians left him alone. Over the next year, Hitler did not do   too much other than continue practicing  his oration skills and painting until   news of World War One broke out. Two days after war had been declared,   he petitioned the Bavarian government to enlist  in the German army since he normally would be   ineligible due to being an Austrian citizen.  Bavarian authorities granted the request. Why   he had not been deported after failing  his first military physical or allowed   as a foreign citizen to enlist in the army  were two questions raised in a report from   1924 after Hitler’s entrance into politics. The  report concluded that there was no known reason   other than recruiting officials turning a blind  eye to anyone who would volunteer at the time.  Hitler was posted to the Bavarian Reserve  Infantry Regiment 16, part of the 6th Bavarian   Reserve Division. His regiment first saw combat  during the disastrous First Battle of the Ypres.   His regiment entered the battle with 3,600  men and, after twenty days of slaughter,   had been reduced to just 611 combat-effective  men, including Hitler. For unknown reasons, after   this battle, Hitler was promoted from Private to  Lance Corporal and assigned duties as a regimental   runner. Veterans remarked that Hitler chided his  comrades for having sex with French prostitutes   and would continually make long orations about  how Germany was being stabbed in the back while   they suffered at the front. The only problem  was Hitler did not really suffer at the front.  Hitler’s job was as a regimental runner.  This meant he had to carry messages from   regimental headquarters situated far  behind the front lines to battalion   headquarters. Runners from those units would  bring messages to companies in the trenches.  Because of this, the few times Hitler did show  up in front-line trenches, he was harassed and   detested because of his relative comfort in  the rear. In fact, it is highly likely that   because of his reputation as a lone weirdo,  and since Hitler wanted to do nothing but   talk about politics, is why, in the aftermath  of the Ypres battle, he was sent to regimental   headquarters as a way to rid his company of him. But even though Hitler served most of the war in   relative safety, he was wounded in combat and  decorated for bravery twice. His first award   for bravery was the Iron Cross Second Class in  December 1914. This award was very common in the   German army and it is not known for what action  in particular it was awarded for. During the   battle of the Somme, he was wounded in the thigh  by shrapnel from a British artillery shell as he   was running into a trench to deliver a message. Allegedly, Hitler begged to remain at the front   but was evacuated to the rear and sent to Munich  to recover. Hitler allegedly begged his company   commander to allow him to return early to  the unit, which is likely considering how he   wanted nothing more than to be part of the war. After returning to the front in spring 1917,   Hitler’s next award came in August 1918 with  the awarding of the Iron Cross First Class.   This award, the next highest from before, was very  unusual for a Lance Corporal to be awarded. After   all, this decoration was for extreme acts  of bravery and was typically reserved for   more senior enlisted men and officers. Figuring  out exactly what he was awarded it for remained   a mystery for decades until historians  uncovered papers in the German archives.  It appears the real reason why Hitler was  awarded the medal was because his regiment   was suffering atrocious losses during assaults by  American and French troops. During this battle,   the understrength regiment lost hundreds  of soldiers killed and wounded, including   most of the company runners. Regimental  HQ sent Hitler as a replacement runner   to carry messages for the front-line units. Though Hitler’s actions that day were no more   spectacular than anyone else but because he worked  for regimental headquarters and had facetime with   more senior officers, he was recognized for  his actions that day. Ironically, it was a   Jewish man, the regimental adjutant, who wrote the  recommendation for Hitler's award. Decades later,   he was persecuted by Hitler's regime and was  able to survive only because of the help he   received from fellow veterans in Hitler’s unit. After being awarded the Iron Cross First Class,   Hitler continued serving until being wounded in a  gas attack in October 1918. A month later, he was   still recovering from his wounds in hospital when  he received word that Germany had surrendered.   According to him, he suffered a second bout of  blindness upon hearing the news, though this,   too, is surely exaggerated. However, this moment,  lying in a hospital bed in a shattered empire,   was the moment that Hitler decided to enter  politics. It was a decision that would eventually   alter the course of human history. Birth of the Nazi Party  The world that Hitler found himself in at the  end of World War One in Germany was chaotic.   The economy was in shambles, people were starving,  thousands were still dying from Spanish influenza,   and the weak Weimar Republic was in  negotiations with the Entente on the   Versailles peace agreement. Among all of  this chaos, the country was ripped apart   by extreme political violence from 1918 to 1923. During this time, numerous socialist and communist   revolutions broke out. These revolts were  violently stamped out by the new German army,   the Reichswehr, and the numerous right-wing  paramilitary organizations that sprung up with   the tacit approval of the German army. These  groups carried out a tit-for-tat campaign of   assassinations, rebellions, and full-scale wars  both inside and outside of German borders. But   where did Hitler fall into all of this? After recovering from his gas injuries,   Hitler returned to duty at the end of  November 1918. Not wanting to demobilize   to try and fight for a job that probably did  not exist, not that he wanted to work anyway,   Hitler decided to stay in the army. During the  first few months after World War One, he spent   guarding soon-to-be repatriated prisoners of war,  and he returned to Munich in the spring of 1919.  During this time, socialist and communist  revolutionaries had been staging revolts across   Germany, including Munich. Once government troops  had retaken Munich from the revolutionaries,   Hitler's unit was posted to the area. Unlike  before, when the German army was very apolitical,   in this new landscape the country found itself  in, the Reichswehr was extremely politically   motivated. One of the main functions of the army  at that time was to root out insurrectionists   before they could become a problem, as well  as indoctrinate soldiers and civilians alike   in right-wing politics. It was here that  Hitler found his first public audience.  During one of the political lectures  German soldiers had to attend,   he caught the ire of his instructor with  his ardent nationalist remarks and virulent   anti-Semitism. Many German soldiers believed in  the stabbed-in-the-back theory, where socialist,   Jewish, and communist elements had sold out  the country while the German army was still   holding the line against Germany's  enemies. While this was fake news,   as the German army had been resoundingly  defeated on the battlefield, many soldiers   refused to acknowledge this fact and wanted to  blame others. Hitler fit this bill perfectly.  Because of his ardent belief in the cause, Hitler  was assigned to work as a political officer for   his unit. His primary duties consisted of  visiting small units of soldiers to give   speeches and lectures that were favorable  to the government to prevent revolutionary   ideas from infecting the army. Hitler loved  this job and was doing so well at it that he   was selected for another, more important task. Apparently, there were grumblings of another   socialist revolution in Munich. Hitler’s  commanding officer sent him to spy on these   revolutionaries and report back his findings. His  first mission was allegedly so successful that his   full-time employment then became investigating  budding political groups in Munich and reporting   back his findings. It was this task that set in  motion his first meeting with the German Workers'   Party on a balmy evening in September 1919. Prior to this night, neither Hitler nor his   superiors had ever heard of the German Workers'  Party. However, many left-wing groups were   centered around workers' rights and had communist  leanings, so when Hitler's superiors learned of   the group's existence, they sent him to attend  one of their meetings to learn more about them.  Upon entering that dimly lit beer hall, Hitler  found a small group of men arguing about their   grievances. According to Hitler, these small  start-up political parties were quite common,   and most would eventually fade away with  time. He was going to leave when one member   suggested that Bavaria break away from Germany  and form an independent republic with Austria.   This comment caused Hitler to become irate. Hitler had always believed in uniting all   the German peoples under one banner, not creating  breakaway states that more powerful enemies could   easily gobble up. After chastising the man, the  room went silent. The founder of the small party,   Anton Drexler, was so moved by Hitler’s argument  with the man that he pressed a small pamphlet into   his hand and told Hitler to consider joining them. Hitler rejected him and went back to his barracks   room. Later the next morning, according to  Hitler, he read the pamphlet Drexler had given   him and was moved by it. The German masses  would lead the party that Drexler imagined,   but instead of being communist, it would have  a strong nationalist undertone that supported   a strong, central government. Later that day,  Hitler received a postcard asking him to join   the party formally. He then spent the next two  days contemplating whether or not to join. Hitler   called it the most difficult decision of his life. Hitler said it was so difficult because he   had always wanted to form his own political  party and not be subject to others. However,   being virtually nameless, penniless, and  unknown in a harsh, new world, Hitler took   a leap of faith and joined this burgeoning new  party. He figured that with it being so new,   he could easily intimidate the other members and  eventually gain control of it. Hitler returned   to the beer cellar and formally accepted the  invitation to the party. He became party member   number seven and was instantly well-received  by two of the party’s earliest members.  The first of these was Ernst Roehm. Roehm had  been a career army officer and continued his   service in the Reichswehr after the war. At the  time, he was just a Captain, but he had friends   in many places throughout the army who were  sympathetic to right-wing paramilitary groups   and political parties. Having Roehm’s support  was crucial because he was able to ensure army   support for his activities so his speeches  and rallies would not be seen as a threat.  The other important individual was Dietrich  Eckart. Eckart was about twenty years older   than Hitler and had lived a similar vagabond  lifestyle, except he had been in Berlin. Eckart   similarly had been struggling to achieve his  dreams, except instead of painting, Eckart had   always wanted to be a great playwright. Though  the plays he wrote often only saw the inside   of several jails and asylums he spent time in, he  nonetheless was a much more masterful writer than   Hitler. As a result, Eckart took Hitler under  his wing to improve his spoken and written   German and taught him what he knew about theater. But why would these two men back Hitler? According   to a friend of Eckart, he would later testify that  the German Workers’ Party needed a particular type   of leader. Whoever led the party needed to, in  their words, stand the sound of a machine gun,   a soldier who was not an officer, someone who  came from a working-class or lower middle-class   background, a person who could speak, and,  lastly, a bachelor. This part was important   so women could think he was available and swoon  over him. When Eckart and Roehm looked at Hitler,   he checked all the boxes they were looking for. Now, with the backing of these two early party   figures behind him, Hitler began to  pursue party politics with a passion.   After mailing out a bunch of fliers, he was  discouraged when the next meeting they had   numbered still just seven people. Not to be  discouraged, Hitler made better fliers, took   out several ads in local newspapers, and waited. At the next meeting, one hundred and eleven people   showed up. Hitler was not supposed to speak  during that meeting, but when the regularly   scheduled speaker was met with silence, party  members decided to give Hitler a try. According   to him, the audience was "electrified," and in  just 30 minutes, he had turned an uninterested and   uninteresting crowd into a ruckus of support that  ended up donating 300 marks towards party coffers.  Soon after this first public meeting,  the party began planning the next,   larger meeting. This time, the capacity could  fit 2,000 people. Hitler made a big deal in Mein   Kampf about how he was the one who set everything  up. Of course, this is another one of Hitler's   boasts and half-truths, but what is true is that  he once again stole the show. Part of the reason   why he stole the show was because of the 25-point  plan that he, Drexler, and several others wrote.  The 25-point plan became the basis of Nazism's  strategy from this point forward. The plan was   a mixture of ultra-nationalist and socialist  points meant to entice working-class people   who were fed up with being taken advantage  of by people with more money. For example,   the first point of the plan called for the  reunification of all German peoples under one   Greater Germany. In the aftermath of World War  One, the German Empire had been carved up with   different pieces going to Poland, Czechoslovakia,  France, Denmark, and several other countries. This   infuriated people like Hitler since people during  his grandfather’s era had seen the reunification   of Germany only to see it split apart again. The second point of the plan called for the   repudiation of the Versailles peace treaty. Many  Germans blamed the peace treaty for causing much   of their woes due to the huge indemnities  the country had to pay the allied powers,   as well as the war guilt clause that stated  Germany was responsible for all the destruction   that occurred. The German people hated the weak  Weimar Government for accepting these terms, and   many saw the government as having just laid down  and taken these terms without negotiating. These   feelings partly stirred the wave of political  violence that gripped Germany at the time.  Besides these nationalistic goals, there were  several socialist ones that Hitler became   embarrassed of later during his rise to power.  Point 11 called for banning income earned from any   source besides a person’s labor. Point 14 called  for profit sharing amongst workers of German   companies. Point 16 demanded that large department  stores and warehouses lease space at dirt-cheap   prices to small businesses to have storefronts. Early party members like Drexler added these   points and others. However, Hitler would pick  and choose what points he wanted later in his   political career. Reunification of the German  people? Definitely carried out. Banning all   non-labor income? Definitely not. After creating the 25-point plan,   the next big step came when Hitler wanted to  change the name. The party's name before was the   German Workers' Party, but he had now changed it  to the National Socialist German Workers' Party.   The reason for the change was to have a name  that fit the 25-point plan. On the same day he   changed the party's name, Hitler resigned from the  army to work on his political career full-time.  The next item on his list was he started  reimagining the party symbols, insignia,   flags, and other memorabilia. During his  time in Vienna, Hitler loved reading history   books. Among these books, he loved  to read about mythology, symbolism,   and racist theories about Aryanism. During  his readings, he stumbled upon the swastika.  The swastika before Hitler had actually been  a popular motif throughout Asian, African,   European, and North American cultures. Spanning  thousands of years of history, the symbol had   various political, social, ethnic, and religious  meanings. However, Hitler found that Aryan groups   in Europe had already been associating the  swastika with Templar groups and other white   supremacist organizations. He decided to use  the same colors as the old imperial German flag,   red, white, and black, to make a new flag. And it appears that Hitler's work on creating   propaganda paid off. Over the next year, the  Nazi party began to grow and grow among its   little corner of Germany in Bavaria. Hitler  continued to do public speaking engagements,   bringing in tons of new donors and making  the party flush with cash. Perhaps one   of the things that really accelerated their  message of hate was the purchase of a failing   local newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter. Where Hitler obtained the funds is still exactly   unclear to this day, but modern research has shown  that Roehm’s connection with high-ranking German   army officers allowed him access to military funds  that were used to purchase the newspaper for the   Nazi party. After obtaining the paper, the party  changed it from a twice-a-week publication to a   daily publication. Now, armed with a newspaper,  cash, and a reputation in southern Germany,   Hitler began negotiations with other  political parties across Germany to try   and absorb them into his National Socialist  movement. But there was just one problem.  In the summer of 1921, Hitler had left Bavaria for  northern Germany for meetings with other political   parties. During Hitler’s absence, the party  committee staged a coup. In a pamphlet published   in the newspaper, the committee members charged  Hitler with being a demagogue who wanted nothing   more than power for himself. They charged him  with cutting out committee members from important   decisions, and Hitler instead used patronage  for a group of shadowy backers to get what he   wanted. Ironically enough, the charges were all  true, but when Hitler found out, he was furious.  Hitler immediately rushed back to Munich  and told the committee that he would quit   the party and go somewhere else if they  did not agree to his terms. By this time,   Hitler had become the face and voice of the party.  He was the one bringing in all the donations,   and without him, the Nazi party was nothing.  Faced with the prospect of the party breaking   up over Hitler's resignation, the committee  agreed to his demands. It would be another   fateful decision in the course of human history. Hitler demanded that the party rules be rewritten   and the committee be abolished. He alone would  control the party as the leader, or Fuhrer,   who would have absolute control over all  party decisions. Seeing no other option,   the committee agreed to his terms and  voluntarily handed over all power to   Hitler. The office of the Fuhrer was now born. No longer worrying about who controlled the party,   Hitler set about continuing his speaking  tour. Throughout the next two years,   he became the dominant political force in  Bavaria. As his party grew, he realized he   needed some muscle on the ground to help protect  the party. As Hitler absorbed former left-wing   members attracted to the socialist overtones  of his party, he used these men and others as   thugs to silence hecklers at his rallies, shut  down rival political parties, and intimidate   dissenters on the streets of Munich. Hitler called these men stormtroopers,   and their iconic brown uniforms were an early  sign of party strength. As the numbers continued   to grow, he assigned Roehm to lead this group  of thugs that later became known as the S.A.  By the time the S.A. had been formed, virtually  all the people who would rise to high offices of   power within the Third Reich were party members.  Herman Goering, Rudolf Hess, Heinrich Himmler,   and other famous Nazis were all there at  this time. Because Hitler valued loyalty   above competency, these early figures were the  people he entrusted to help run his empire.  But those days were still about two decades in  the future. At this time, Hitler was a political   powerhouse in Bavaria but still struggled to reach  a national audience. That would all change with   the infamous Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923. Beer Hall Putsch  By 1923, the German economy was in ruins.  The Kaiser had refused to fund the war with   taxation dollars and had instead borrowed money  up to his eyeballs and then some. These debts,   combined with crushing reparations payments  and the refusal of the Allies to accept   payments in German Marks, meant that  the stage was set for economic disaster.  As the German government tried its best to make  reparations payments in foreign currency like   pounds and dollars, the value of the German mark  continued to plummet. The mark's decreasing value   was only exacerbated by the fact that valuable  raw materials like timber, coal, and iron were   being sent to France and Belgium as payment in  kind since Germany did not have enough cash to   make its payments. With Germany's creditors all  demanding payment at once, the bottom soon fell   out of the economy, and the German mark became  worth less than the paper it was printed on.  As Germany's hyperinflation skyrocketed to new  levels, the economy came to a standstill. Savings   accounts were wiped out, loans and mortgages could  not be repaid, prices at grocery stores were going   up every hour, and the German economy was rapidly  declining into disaster. Despite all of this,   the French and Belgian governments refused to  give Germany a break. They were both banking   on receiving large sums of cash and goods to  repair their own war-torn economies. However,   as Germany continued to default on payments,  the two countries took an unprecedented step and   reoccupied part of Germany to force them to pay. The area that the joint French-Belgian army   occupied in Germany was the Ruhr. The Ruhr is  one of the most industrialized parts of Germany   and was responsible for most of its economic  output. The military figured that if Germany   was not going to pay voluntarily, France  and Belgium would collect payment at the   end of the bayonet at the expense of German  workers. However, that is not what happened.  Immediately after occupying the Ruhr, the  German population united in disgust. In fact,   the Reichswehr even considered armed resistance  against the move but feared they could not   hold out if attacked from the east. Though  Germany did not provide armed resistance,   the German workers stopped showing up to their  jobs. In a move of solidarity with the Ruhr,   the Weimar government helped fund the salaries  of the region, which further increased inflation.  After about seven months of doing this,  Germany caved in to international pressure,   stopped the passive resistance, and resumed  reparations payments. Many parts of German   society would have nothing of it. As a result  of this apparent betrayal once again by the   Weimar Republic, scores of extreme right and  extreme left rebellions broke out across the   country. The most serious of these included  an attack on Berlin by far-right extremists,   one of the many so-called Frei Korps  groups that tried to take over the capitol.  The Weimar government declared a state of  emergency in September 1923, sensing it was   losing control. With the government now controlled  by the military, the Reichswehr began trying to   reel in both the Communists and the various  Frei Korps legions that threatened Germany's   sovereignty. But some in Germany refused to listen  to Berlin. Among those people was Gustav von Kahr.  During this period of upheaval, Kahr used his  influence in Bavaria to remain defiant of the   emergency military government in Berlin. He wanted  to create his own Bavarian republic that might one   day unite with Austria, a popular belief in the  area. Kahr refused orders from Berlin to arrest   Nazi officials, shut down Hitler’s newspaper,  and quell the open-air rebellion in Bavaria.  However, despite Kahr’s defiance of Berlin and  his desire for a new government, he envisioned   a new Germany without Hitler in it. Of course, he  would use Hitler as a tool to get what he wanted,   but this was in direct contradiction to what  Hitler had in mind for his emerging Nazi party.   In Hitler’s mind, it was Kahr and his cronies  that would be the stepping stones to power. With   such differing views on the future of Germany,  there was bound to be conflict. And that conflict   boiled over on the evening of November 8, 1923. That night, Kahr was giving a speech to several   thousand supporters at one of Munich's largest  beer halls. At that time, just as when Hitler   first joined the German Workers Party, beer  halls continued to remain a political venue,   and tonight was no different. Except this was the  night Hitler decided to enact his own uprising.  As thousands of thirsty men drank beer in the  hall, Hitler entered it with several hundred   of his armed followers. At first, they could not  get the attention of the crowd. At this moment,   Hitler himself leaped onto a table and shot a  round from his revolver into the ceiling. He   announced that the revolution had begun and that  the Bavarian government had been dissolved. Hitler   and his cronies took Kahr and his two henchmen by  force into a private room to “negotiate” for their   cooperation. But it did not pan out that way. Once inside the room, Hitler demanded the   support of Kahr, along with the  military and police. However,   the men would not budge and instead goaded Hitler  to shoot them. Sensing he was getting nowhere,   he went back into the beer hall and proclaimed  that Khar and his people had sided with the Nazis.   Munich was now under Nazi control, and they would  continue the revolution. Only, that was not true.  On the other side of Munich, Roehm and his  stormtroopers seized the War Ministry and the   army barracks. However, the military and police  had not sided with them as they thought. Instead,   Roehm was now barricaded inside with his  men, and a tense standoff ensued. Hitler   became worried about Roehm and left the beer  hall to organize resistance throughout the   city. During the confusion, Kahr and his  subordinates escaped. They immediately made   public statements renouncing Hitler and made pleas  with Berlin to send as many troops and police as   possible. The putsch was beginning to fall apart. Sensing that the revolution was going nowhere,   Hitler became frantic. He had banked on the  military and police coming to his side in droves.   Though there were some defections, these two  organizations as a whole defied Hitler and wanted   to enforce the rule of law. Unsure what to do next  by the morning of November 9th, Hitler took the   lead from General Ludendorff when he proclaimed,  “We will march!” to the growing mass of Nazis.  The plan that Ludendorff created was simple.  The Nazi mob was to march to the War Ministry   to relieve the siege of Roehm and his men.  The retired general banked on his World War   fame that no soldier or policeman would dare  fire on him. Hitler agreed to this since he   had been using Ludendorff to lend an air of  credibility to the paramilitary organization,   and with that, the now 2,000-strong mob  started walking to the War Ministry.  Along the way, the Nazis encountered their  first barricade of police officers. Herman   Goering came to the front and threatened that  they would shoot hostages they had taken if   the Nazis were not allowed through. This  was a lie, but not wanting bloodshed,   the police agreed and let the crowd through.  Emboldened by this passive resistance, the group   encountered a second roadblock by several hundred  policemen. But this time, it was different.  The Nazis tried to push their way through again,  but the police did not budge. There remains debate   about who exactly fired the first shot, but  what is known is that gunfire erupted between   the two groups. In about 60 seconds, the fight was  over. Sixteen Nazis, four police officers, and a   bystander all lay dead. For his part, witnesses  later recounted that in the initial volley of   bullets, Hitler was the first person to run away  from the group who had been holding the Nazi flag   in front of the mob. This flag, henceforth known  as the Blutfahne or Blood Flag, would become an   iconic symbol in Nazi mythology since the blood  of several wounded party members stained it.  With the mob now scattered, Roehm  surrendered without firing a shot,   and Kahr arrested most of the Nazi leadership.  They found Hitler hiding at a safe house two days   later. Though the Beer Hall Putsch had itself been  a failure, the subsequent trial did what Hitler   had been trying to do for the past four years. During the trial, Hitler and his fellow Nazis were   charged with various crimes, including treason,  murder, destruction of property, and other related   charges. Despite the seriousness of the charges,  Hitler was quite lucky in that the courts in   Munich were filled with judges and staff that were  Nazi sympathizers. As a result, Hitler was allowed   long-winded diatribes to profess his hate speech. The show trial allowed Hitler an international   audience, something that had eluded him for  the past several years. Though Hitler and his   compatriots were ultimately convicted of a slew  of crimes, they all got off easy. For Hitler,   he was sentenced to just five years in a  notoriously cushy prison. Now with everyone   in Germany at least speaking the name Hitler on  their lips, he set about crafting a new strategy   for the Nazi empire that would eventually  make him dictator of the dying republic.   Road to Power During Hitler’s time in Landsberg prison, he   utilized his time to begin writing his magnum opus  of hate. Despite the Nazi party now being banned,   Hitler decided that he should write his rambling  theories and virulent hate speech into a book that   could be sold to the masses and take advantage  of the wave of support following his show trial.  With the help of Rudolf Hess and other imprisoned  Nazi inmates, Hitler began dictating what became   one of the most famous books of the 20th century,  Mein Kampf or My Struggle. After spending just   nine months in prison, Hitler was released as  part of an amnesty deal. Now out of prison,   Hitler decided that from now on, he would  attempt to seize power legally and not resort   to violence anymore. But the Nazi party that  he left before his sentence was in shambles.  With only around 27,000 dues-paying members,  the party was still tiny. Additionally,   he had to petition the Bavarian government to  allow the Nazis to assemble freely in public   after he promised them they would behave. In a bit  of irony, during Hitler’s first speech after the   Bavarian government allowed Nazis to speak again,  he espoused rhetoric about overthrowing Bavaria   once more. Not too keen on this behavior,  Bavaria banned Hitler from public speaking.  But Hitler was not through yet. He still organized  Nazi party rallies and speeches. From 1925   to 1929, these were very lean years for the  Nazis. Growing to around 100,000 members by   1929, the Nazis were still one of the  smallest political parties in Germany.  During this time, Hitler also became increasingly  paranoid. Shortly after his release, he renounced   his Austrian citizenship to prevent him from  being deported there. Now a man without a state,   he chose to live on the extreme southern  border of Bavaria with Austria. That way,   if German authorities ever came  to arrest him, he could climb up   a hill outside his home to slip into Austria. But even with the constant threat of arrest   looming over his head, Hitler continued to build  his party one member at a time. By the time the   1928 elections came around, the Nazis won nearly  a million votes and secured twelve seats in the   Reichstag, a German equivalent similar to the US  House of Representatives. But these numbers were   not good enough and only placed them as the ninth  place political party in the Reichstag. But world   events would soon see them catapult to the top. When the US stock market crashed in 1929,   it triggered economic collapse not just in  the United States but worldwide. Perhaps no   other country felt this more than Germany,  which had just begun to claw its way out   of the hyperinflation it had suffered just  six years before. The coalition government   likewise fell apart as the bottom dropped out of  the German economy. With the Reichstag unable to   pass emergency measures to keep the German  economy afloat, the Chancellor at the time,   Heinrich Bruening, was forced to call new federal  elections to break the stalemate in the Reichstag.  During those emergency elections in the fall of  1930, the Nazis took advantage of a desperate   population. They promised every man a job. They  stated they would stop reparations payments   immediately and use that money to reinvest into  the economy. They also said they would rearm   Germany to its former glory. These claims appealed  across German society among the working class,   business leaders, and army officials. And  the numbers clearly showed at the polls.  The election results for the 1930 elections had  the Nazis go from 12 seats and the smallest party   in the Reichstag to become the second largest  party in power. With almost 6.5 million votes won,   the 1930 elections were a landmark year for the  Nazi party. Hitler built upon this tidal wave   of support and ran in 1932 for President  of Germany against the incumbent war hero   Paul von Hindenburg. But there was a problem. Hitler was not yet a German citizen. However,   a sympathetic Nazi official in the  state of Brunswick appointed Hitler,   the current leader of the Nazi party, as an  administrative assistant to the Brunswick   delegation in the Reichsrat, the upper house of  Germany's parliament. This appointment carried   with it automatic German citizenship. Now  a citizen of Germany, he could run against   Hindenburg and, as President, appoint a Chancellor  and cabinet officials to help the Nazis control   Germany. But there was yet another problem. Over half the German population still did not   agree with the Nazis. Though the Nazis won about  13 million votes that came out to 37 percent of   the population, Hindenburg still won the election  with a fifty-three percent majority. Frustrated   that they had not won the Presidency,  the Nazis would continue to campaign for   the federal election of 1932. During this election cycle,   the Nazis won 230 seats in the Reichstag,  making them the number one party in Germany,   but they still did not have a simple  majority. Without a majority in the Reichstag,   the Nazis would either have to create a coalition  government that would water down their proposals   or continue to deadlock proceedings to force the  Chancellor to call for further elections. Hitler,   sensing that the Nazi party would never be in  a better position, decided to do some back-door   political dealings to ensure the Nazis could  take control of the government once and for all.  Final Days of the Weimar Republic In the aftermath of the November 1932 German   federal elections, the Nazi party again failed to  obtain a majority in the Reichstag. Securing only   about 40 percent of the body, with a slight  decrease from the previous election results,   Hitler knew that the likelihood of the Nazis  winning a majority in a democratic election   was low. But what was he supposed to do? Around this time, there were more than a   dozen political parties, but they could be divided  into four main camps. The Nazis, the Communists,   those who wanted to restore the German monarchy,  and those who wanted to continue as a legitimate   democratic republic. Both the Nazis and those who  wanted a German monarchy despised the Communists   and Democrats. With neither side unable to obtain  a victory at the polls, it was time for a deal.  After the November elections, the  current Chancellor of Germany,   Franz von Papen, was forced to resign by an  army-favored candidate, Kurt von Schleicher.   President Hindenburg, who needed some semblance of  order in the government, effectively let the army   force Papen to resign since he had been unable  to create a majority coalition in the Reichstag.   Von Papen was infuriated with this development.  Hitler now saw the opportunity he was looking for.  Hitler approached Papen with this proposal: If  he supported his candidacy as the Chancellor,   Papen would serve as Hitler's Vice-Chancellor. In  exchange, Von Papen could stack the Presidential   cabinet with pro-Army candidates.  Papen liked the idea, and they brought   their proposal to President Hindenburg. At first, Hindenburg was apprehensive. He   did not trust the Nazis as much as anyone else in  government. In December, he had requested Papen’s   resignation when he had requested emergency  powers to help create a military dictatorship   to regain control over Germany. With Schleicher  also unable to form a working government,   he considered this as the only way to have a  functioning government without calling an election   every few months. But he had to try one last time. When Schleicher approached Hindenburg about   granting him emergency powers, he reminded the new  Chancellor that this had been the very reason for   Papen's dismissal less than two months before. He  ordered Schleicher to form a coalition government,   but with the Reichstag in such a gridlock, he knew  it was impossible. With that, Schleicher tendered   his resignation on January 28, 1933. But who would  President Hindenburg pick as the new Chancellor?  The next 48 hours were the most crucial moments  of the Nazi party ever since the Beer Hall putsch.   President Hindenburg did not want the Nazis  in control. Still, with the proposed balance   in the deal with the devil Papen had made, he  assumed this would finally be what was needed   to maintain a functioning government. After  many more closed-door conversations, history   was made on the morning of January 30, 1933. As his entourage watched from across the street   with binoculars, looking for any sign of how the  meeting was going, they finally saw Hitler emerge.   As he walked out of the Reich Chancellery, they  could see tears of joy streaming down his face.   After 12 long years of struggle, Adolf Hitler was  now the second most powerful man in Germany. But   his power was still not yet secure. Hitler would  have a few loose ends to tie up to ensure his hold   as Chancellor remained forever. Nazification of Germany  Though Hitler was now Chancellor of Germany, the  Nazis were no closer to obtaining a majority in   the Reichstag. Hitler knew that the Communists  were the main enemy and would have the support   of the army if he decided to take them out.  Despite his gangs of SA thugs brutally beating   and terrorizing Communists in the streets, Hitler  knew that he had to ban their parties to ensure   victory in the next bogus election. His cronies  soon found their solution in a low-level Communist   sympathizer named Marinus van der Lubbe. Van der Lubbe was a Dutch communist with a   history of setting fires. By February 1933, he  had relocated to Germany to further communism   there. Van der Lubbe had a history of boasting  about things he had not done, such as leading   labor strikes or some of the fires he claimed to  set. One evening in a Berlin bar, he was overheard   by several SA men that he would set fire to the  Reichstag next. Van der Lubbe was soon arrested,   and the secret police were informed. For  Hitler and his cronies, this was a godsend.  While the historical debate about what happened  next is still a mystery, the basic facts   are known as follows. On the evening of February  27, 1933, the Reichstag, the heart of the German   government, went up in flames. Within a matter  of minutes, the building went from its quiet,   stoic look to being fully engulfed in a raging  inferno. Firefighters, police, and Nazi officials   were soon on the scene decrying the communist  conspiracy to take over the government. With that,   Hitler soon began setting into motion his  plan to take out all his political opponents.  Though the real truth will never likely  be known, it is argued by most that the   Nazis set the Reichstag on fire with a party of  stormtroopers who used an underground passage.   The physical evidence shows that it is doubtful  one man could have set as large a fire as what   consumed the Reichstag that night by himself with  only a spare t-shirt that van der Lubbe had on him   when arrested. Despite the full truth not being  known, it was the final thing Hitler needed to   begin his transition to full control over Germany. The very next day, Hitler approached President   Hindenburg with a decree granting the  Chancellorship numerous emergency powers   and suspending seven sections of the German  constitution, including freedom of the press,   speech, assembly, and other basic  human rights. Hindenburg signed it,   and Hitler soon quashed his political rivals  before the upcoming March 5th federal elections.  Despite the waves of mass arrests, intimidation,  murder, and suppression against Communists,   Catholics, Social Democrats, and anyone else  who opposed him, it was still not enough to   win a majority in the March elections. Overall,  the Nazis won 44% of the seats in the Reichstag.   Combined with the 8% won by the army-focused  Nationalists, the pair had a slim majority of   52% in the Reichstag. However, this was  not the 66% Hitler needed as an absolute   majority to rubber stamp the legislation he  wanted to pass. He would have to fix that.  Over the coming weeks, Hitler arrested or  banned over 100 representatives. These included   Communists, Catholics, Social Democrats, and  others who would not agree to follow the party   line. On March 23, 1933, he summoned the Reichstag  to a temporary meeting place at the Kroll Opera   House. Here, Hitler presented a five-paragraph  piece of legislation known as the Enabling Act.  The Enabling Act gave Hitler and his cabinet  the authority to make all laws, deviate from the   Constitution, and enter into treaties with foreign  governments. By voting this law into existence,   the Reichstag effectively voted for its own  abolishment. Under the threat of punishment,   arrest, banishment, or outright murder,  the Reichstag voted in favor of the law.  Armed with his emergency powers and the Enabling  Act, Adolf Hitler had finally achieved the object   of his dreams for the past twelve years. The  Reichstag now existed merely as a ceremonial body.   He no longer needed the President to do anything  he wanted. His cronies comprised the cabinet. He   banned all political opposition and abolished  state governments. By the summer of 1933,   Hitler was now the uncontested Lord of Germany. Of course, there were still a few obstacles left   that he had to overcome to solidify his hold on  power. The July 1934 mass assassination known   as the Knight of Long Knives allowed Hitler to  silence all his remaining enemies in the SA and   pro-army Nationalists. When President Hindenburg  died in August 1934, he quickly had the Reichstag   pass a law abolishing the office of the President  and combining it with the office of Chancellor.  Because of these actions, Hitler’s grip on power  was ensured by the end of 1934. With that, he   began implementing his 25-point plan in earnest,  free of all political or legal obstacles. But with   a regime so evil and so committed to its radical  ideals of a new world order led by the so-called   master race, it was doomed to fail eventually.  So, when did the fall of Hitler really start?  The Plot to Kill Hitler Over the next decade, there were   a number of critical missteps that Hitler made  that would eventually lead to the downfall of the   Third Reich. These miscalculations, defeats, and  political woes then and today are debated amongst   historians and commentators as to what exactly  caused the downfall of Hitler’s Germany. However,   much like the fall of the Roman Empire,  there was not one incident in particular.  Some argue that the virulent antisemitism used  as justification for murdering the Jewish people   of Europe was one major cause of his downfall.  Because of his heavy-handedness of the "Jewish   question," as he called it, there was a brain  drain of top academics, scientists, engineers,   and other professionals in Germany and Austria in  the years leading up to the war. It is speculated   what could have become of the German war machine  if that brainpower had been put to the test,   creating Hitler's inventory of wonder weapons. Another "what if" is if Hitler had stopped his   bloodless campaigns to regain German territory  after his successful bids to annex Austria and   Czechoslovakia. These two sovereign countries  had been created in the aftermath of the   Versailles Treaty, and Hitler's legions were  able to publicly, and without repercussions,   violate their sovereignty. Of course, Hitler  was too greedy and had promised to annex all   former German empire lands, which included much  of modern-day Poland plus parts of eastern France.  Once World War Two started, two more scenarios  could have definitely changed the course of   the war. The first of these was the Wehrmacht's  inability to destroy the British Expeditionary   Forces on the beaches of Dunkirk. During the French campaign of 1940,   the German military famously bypassed the Maginot  Line by steamrolling Panzers through the thick   Ardennes Forest of Northern France and southern  Belgium. As a result, a massive pocket of British   and French troops were trapped with their backs to  the sea. Many historians speculate that if Hitler   had directed his army to focus their effort on  obliterating the B.E.F., as the Expeditionary   Force was known, this would have significantly  hurt Britain's ability to raise new armies as   the veterans of the B.E.F were instrumental  in leading and training a new generation   of soldiers in the fight against Nazism. Another great failure that kept Britain in   the war was the German Luftwaffe's failure to  destroy the British Royal Air Force. Once the   B.E.F. had been evacuated in the miracle at  Dunkirk, the British government was focused   on raising a new army to take the fight  to Germany. However, Hitler was planning   the invasion of Britain, known as Operation  Sea Lion. But there was just one problem.  Hitler needed to destroy the vaunted Royal Air  Force first even to make an opposed landing on   the British Isles possible. Goering assured Hitler  the Luftwaffe could defeat the British. Instead,   the German Luftwaffe was bled dry over the next  several months. The Luftwaffe lost thousands of   aircraft, but, more importantly, thousands  of experienced and highly trained pilots and   aircrew there were irreplaceable. As such,  the Luftwaffe suffered not only a severe   shortage of aircraft going into the Russian  campaign the following year but also a brain   drain on experienced pilots that put Hitler's  air arm in a tight spot for the coming months.  In addition to making these military blunders  against the UK that could have knocked the   country out of the war, Germany also picked a  fight with America that it could not finish.   In the immediate aftermath of the attack on  Pearl Harbor, the German government actually   declared war on the US first. However, Hitler  was not required to do so. The Tripartite Pact   between Germany, Japan, and Italy required  a military response only if attacked first.  However, for whatever reason, Hitler believed  the US was going to declare war first,   and he wanted to beat Roosevelt to it. However,  Roosevelt was never planning on declaring war on   Germany before Hitler did it, and the reasons that  Hitler cited, namely US Navy operations protecting   neutral shipping in the North Atlantic, had  not caused serious damage to Germany's war   effort. Hitler's naivety that the US was a  weak country infiltrated by Jewish people,   African-Americans, and Slavic immigrants, in  his words, was a foolish move on his part.  Of course, a discussion about Hitler's downfall  cannot be complete without mentioning his   ill-fated campaign against Russia. But what  is little known is that it was not doomed   before the Russian winter arrived. But how? During the planning stages of Operation   Barbarossa, the German High Command knew the  Russian winter would be a problem and wanted   to avoid it at all costs. Because of this, the  original start date of the invasion was planned   for the beginning of May 1941. However, Hitler’s  attempts to win pro-Fascist allies in eastern and   southern Europe had won with every country except  Yugoslavia. Despite Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria,   and Slovakia all falling under the Nazi banner,  Yugoslavia remained elusive. In March 1941,   when a pro-German government was on the verge of  signing an agreement with the German dictator,   anti-Nazi government forces staged a coup and  retook control of the country. Not needing a   thorn in his side as he carried out his  campaign in the east, Hitler ordered an   immediate invasion of Yugoslavia. Though the  campaign itself lasted just a few weeks, it   delayed preparations for the invasion of Russia. Additionally, on the same day Hitler invaded   Yugoslavia, he decided to come to the aid of  his failing ally, Italy, as Greek forces were   pushing them back into Albania. Though the war  in Greece had been a purely Italian affair up   until this point, with hundreds of thousands  of soldiers nearby and in position to help,   Hitler decided to quash the Greek resistance once  and for all. Over the two months, his armies,   along with Hungarian and Bulgarian allies,  defeated Greek and British forces on the mainland.  In another major folly, Hitler continued the  campaign to secure Greece by conducting the   largest airborne invasion in history at that time,  the invasion of the Greek island of Crete. Though   victorious, this destroyed the German paratrooper  arm as an effective fighting force, and they would   never again be able to conduct large, coordinated  airborne operations for the rest of the war.  These ancillary military campaigns, at least in  Hitler's eyes, had not cost the German military   much damage except for German paratroopers on  Crete. However, it did cost them something they   did not have: time. By the time German forces  had secured the Balkans for the Third Reich,   it was the beginning of June 1941. With the  additional time lost regrouping and reequipping   his troops for the invasion, Hitler's  timetable for invading Russia had been   thrown off by six weeks. Would this have been  enough time to make up the distance to Moscow   that fateful winter will never be known. But it  was yet another nail in the coffin for Hitler.  Another fateful error Hitler made regarding  Russia was thinking that the Russians would   capitulate like France did. Though Germany had  inflicted horrible casualties on the French,   about half of French territory remained free  by the time of the armistice, which eventually   became Vichy France. Hitler assumed if he did  the same thing in the Soviet Union, the whole   country would collapse with enough casualties.  But he wildly underestimated Russian resolve.  Though Hitler inflicted millions of casualties on  the Red Army in the first six months of the war,   he did not break it. In fact, the Soviet  people’s resilience and fanatical resistance   not only halted the German advance on Moscow  but helped throw them back during their first   counter-offensive that winter of 1941. Of  course, numerous other factors like stretched   supply lines, poor winter clothing, and not enough  people also hurt the German cause. But Hitler's   insistence that so-called inferior peoples would  bend to his will was certainly misguided at best.  Even after Hitler failed to capture Moscow  in 1941, he still tried to win a propaganda   victory by capturing Stalin's namesake city,  Stalingrad. By capturing this city on the Volga,   Hitler hoped not only to have unfettered access  to Russian oil fields in the Caucasus but also to   deal the Soviet Union a political death blow  by capturing Stalin’s namesake city. During   the bloodiest military campaign in modern  history, Hitler made a variety of errors.  The first of these errors was wanting to take the  city more than the Russians wanted to hold it.   At first, Russian resistance was swept aside  in the suburbs outside Stalingrad while they   prepared to fight for the city. However,  after Black September and Red October,   the Soviets realized that the Germans wanted the  city at any cost and were throwing caution to the   wind at Hitler's behest. Because of this, they  just needed to hold on to the city while they   built up forces for a counter-offensive. During those crucial winter months,   the Soviets at one point held just several  hundred yards of Stalingrad from the banks of   the Volga. Hitler placed his unreliable allies,  namely the Hungarians, Romanians, and Italians,   on his flanks. Since these troops had been forced  to be there, Hitler relegated protecting his   flanks to these countries’ formations. Without  adequate clothing, food, weapons, leadership,   or desire to fight in a foreign war, when the  Soviet Union launched its counter-offensive,   the German Sixth Army soon became trapped  inside the city with nowhere to go.  The resulting loss at Stalingrad for the  German military was a turning point in the war.   Notwithstanding the massive losses in soldiers  and material, the will of the German military and   those of its allies was given a serious gut check.  By this time, many in the German military who were   much more experienced and savvy at leading armies  than Hitler saw the writing was on the wall. At   this point, the war was not winnable on the  battlefield, at least not in its current state.  Though Hitler had survived dozens of assassination  plots during the past ten years as dictator   of Germany, several groups of officers  began seriously plotting his demise in   the aftermath of the Stalingrad disaster. These officers, of whom several groups of   plotters knew or assisted each other to varying  degrees, were mainly the aristocratic class   that Hitler detested but had made a deal with  back in 1932 to seize power. The assassination   plotters held many of the same beliefs in  what they viewed as a Germany without Hitler.  In their mind, killing Hitler was the only  way to save Germany from being defeated   in this disastrous war. Though their plan for a  post-Hitler Germany was not entirely thought out,   the general idea was that once Hitler was dead, a  new military aristocracy would be installed, there   would be a peace settlement with the West, and  the war would continue against the Soviet Union   to preserve German territorial gains in the East. How likely this scenario would have played out   this way if Hitler had been killed is quite  low. The Allies had made it clear that only the   unconditional surrender of Germany and the return  of all occupied territories would end the war.   This was still unacceptable even to these  ardent anti-Hitler conspirators who wanted   to keep the so-called Germanic  lands and restore a German Empire.  Nevertheless, this is what motivated a group  of several dozen active conspirators, along   with hundreds of active and passive supporters, in  their plot to kill Hitler. But unknown to Hitler,   there were several assassination plots  well before the infamous July 20th attempt.  Though records and eyewitness testimony are  sparse, considering most of the witnesses and   documents were killed or destroyed following  the July 20th plot, there is credible evidence   that Hitler’s life was endangered numerous  times before the infamous bombing attack.  The first serious attempts on Hitler’s life  came in March 1943, just one month after the   fall of Stalingrad. In late March, Hitler was  going to make an unusual visit to the front to   observe how things were going after the Stalingrad  debacle. A group of conspirators decided it was a   good opportunity to take Hitler out with a bomb. The plan was to put explosives inside two bottles   of wine and give them to one of Hitler’s aides  as a gift for another officer back in Germany.   The plotters hoped the bomb would go off in the  cargo hold of his plane and end the Fuhrer’s life.   Only that is not what happened. Once Hitler's plane took off,   though the bombs were in the cargo hold, the  frigid temperatures caused the detonators to   fail. When the conspirators realized what had  happened, they flew to Germany to intercept   the package before anyone became the wiser.  They were successful, and Hitler was none   the wiser. Little did he know that less than a  week later, his life would be in jeopardy again.  Because the bomb had failed to explode, the  conspirators realized they needed to get up   close and personal with Hitler. One of them  volunteered to sacrifice himself by placing   two bombs inside his coat while Hitler came to  tour a museum full of captured Soviet equipment.   During Hitler's tour, the conspirator would  set off the bombs with ten-minute time-delay   fuses and embrace the mad dictator as they  went off. But that is not what happened.  Hitler had been scheduled to tour the museum  for about an hour, but he raced through it in   less than ten minutes. With his target now gone,  the bomber had to rush to the bathroom and defuse   the bombs before they went off. He succeeded in  doing so and carried on his duties undetected.  Realizing that bombing Hitler was still the best  option, the next serious plot came in November   1943. During this time, one of the conspirators'  ringleaders, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg,   convinced an army Major that he should be the next  suicide bomber. The Major was over six feet tall,   blonde, and blue-eyed. His physical  characteristics were what the Nazis   believed the "perfect" man should look like.  As such, he was chosen to model a new winter   uniform for the German army for Hitler. Only,  that was not the only thing he would do.  Inside the haversack that was part of the uniform  would be a command-detonated mine. The Major   would have the detonator in his pocket, and when  Hitler would come close to inspect the uniform,   he would hug him in a death embrace  and explode. But as luck would have it,   the uniform inspection never happened because  an Allied air attack in Berlin destroyed the   train carrying the new winter uniforms. After the uniform inspection plot failed,   the conspirators tried the same plan several  months later but failed because Hitler had   canceled the inspection. The conspirators later  tried to shoot Hitler in the face at his vacation   home in the Berghoff, but, against standard  protocol, Hitler's SS guards did not permit   aides into the conference room where Hitler  was meeting with high-level army officers.  By July 1944, it was now or never for  the conspirators. On the battlefield,   the Red Army was utterly pummeling the German  military. On June 22, 1944, three years to the   day of Operation Barbarossa, the Soviets launched  Operation Bagration. In the ensuing weeks,   the German army in the east completely collapsed.  Over 80% of Army Group Center was destroyed,   hundreds of thousands of German troops were  cut off in the Baltics, and the German army   suffered its worst defeat in its entire history.  The rest of Europe wasn’t going well either.  In France, allied forces had penetrated Hitler's  Atlantic Wall at Normandy. A breakout any day was   inevitable, with the American and Commonwealth  forces soon converging on Paris. In Italy,   German forces controlled just half the country.  At the same time, the remnants of Mussolini's   military were just a fraction of the former Royal  Italian Army he had commanded just the year prior.  The Gestapo was also closing in on the  conspirators as the Eastern, Western, and   Italian Fronts were collapsing around the German  military. With the German army's and their own   days seemingly numbered, Colonel Stauffenberg and  his co-conspirators decided it was now or never   for one final attempt to kill Hitler. The  plan was supposed to go something like this.  On July 20, 1944, Hitler was to receive his midday  military status briefing at his headquarters in   East Prussia, known as the Wolf's Lair. At noon  on that day, Hitler would begin the briefing by   receiving a status update on the Eastern Front.  About 45 minutes later, Colonel Stauffenberg would   give his remarks on the status of new replacement  divisions to plug the giant holes Soviet forces   had made in German lines that summer. Only,  he was never supposed to give that briefing.  Instead, Stauffenberg was to bring a briefcase  into the meeting full of documents about the new   replacement divisions wrapped around a bomb.  This bomb, the exact same model used in the   earlier attempt at blowing up Hitler’s plane,  was perfectly silent. Using a glass capsule   containing acid, Stauffenberg would break right  beforehand; the bomb would have approximately   ten minutes before going off, allowing  Stauffenberg time to escape back to Berlin.  Once in Berlin, Stauffenberg and his  co-conspirators would put into motion   a German contingency plan known as Operation  Valkyrie. This plan had initially been intended   to put down a massive rebellion of slave laborers  inside Germany, except this time, the conspirators   would use these training and replacement divisions  to install a new government. With Hitler dead,   the new government could then make peace with  the West while continuing its war against the   Bolsheviks. But that is not how it happened. On the morning of July 20th, Stauffenberg   flew out of Berlin with his briefcase bomb as  intended. After arriving at the Wolf's Lair,   he snuck away for a few minutes, ostensibly to  use the restroom before the meeting. Instead,   once inside the bathroom, Stauffenberg broke  the glass capsule on the first bomb with a pair   of sugar tongs. Due to losing his right hand,  left eye, and several fingers on his left hand   in Africa, this task was slow and cumbersome.  Because it took so long, a guard began banging   on the bathroom door, telling him that he  needed to finish since he was briefing next.  Without enough time to arm the second bomb,  Stauffenberg hurried out of the bathroom and   into the conference room. Once inside the room,  Hitler greeted the Colonel with a curt response,   only stating that once he had finished receiving  his status report on the Russian front, he would   get his briefing on the status of his new armies.  While everyone was listening to the Russian front   briefing, Stauffenberg placed the briefcase beside  a sturdy oak table leg just six feet from Hitler.   He then excused himself to make a phone call. After several minutes, with no sight of   Stauffenberg, his superior general  became frustrated since he was up next   to speak to Hitler. However, unknown  to him and everyone else in the room,   Staufenberg had already left the Wolf's Lair and  was watching the conference room from outside.  At precisely 12:42 p.m., exactly ten minutes after  arming the bomb, it exploded. Stauffenberg later   told another co-conspirator that it looked as if  a 155mm artillery shell had gone off in the room.   Stauffenberg was sure Hitler and everyone else  in the room was either dead or close to it. With   that, he took off back to Berlin to begin the next  stage of the coups. But there was a small problem.  Hitler was not dead. In fact, besides some minor  cuts, burns, a perforated eardrum, and some pink   eye from all the dirt and dust caused by the  explosion, Hitler was alive and well. In fact,   just four hours after the assassination attempt,  he received Mussolini at his headquarters for a   previously scheduled visit. News of Hitler's  miraculous survival stunned the conspirators.  The conspirators had planned a simultaneous revolt  in Berlin and Paris. Initially, the plan had gone   perfectly during those first few hours of chaos.  However, once word got out that Hitler was still   alive, many of the conspirators began turning on  each other to try and save their own skin. Hitler,   for his part, was furious. When one of his  confidants mentioned how this plot was similar to   the 1934 plot that precipitated the Knight of Long  Knives, Hitler flew into one of the worst rages   of his life. With foam at his mouth and veins  bulging in his temples, he promised that what he   did to the conspirators in 1934 would be nothing  to what he would do to them now. And he was right.  Within days, thousands of conspirators, their  supporters, and other political enemies Hitler   wanted to settle accounts with were rounded up.  Many were shot on sight, while others were put in   front of kangaroo courts to be sentenced to death  and immediately shot. All told, in the coming   weeks and months, over 7,000 people were arrested,  with thousands executed. Hitler never forgave   anyone who dared try to take his life, and up  until the final weeks of the war, Hitler was still   ordering executions of those deemed complicit. While the plot to kill Hitler ultimately failed,   it did have a profound impact on him going  forward. From then on, Hitler became distrustful   of even more people and increasingly limited  his social circle to an ever-decreasing number   of people. This isolation caused Hitler  to become more delusional, irrational,   and angry as the war continued dragging on. Because Hitler, who had always valued loyalty over   competency, now threw caution to the wind, only  those handful of people who had undying loyalty to   him were allowed to get close to him. As a result,  Hitler, who was already out of touch with reality   both at the front and at home, accelerated  his own delusions as he isolated himself.  But unfortunately, though the end  was near, it was not over yet.  The Final Days of the Fuhrer After Hitler survived his assassination   attempt, things went from bad to worse for  the warlord of Europe. By the end of 1944,   Soviet armies had steamrolled through Eastern  Europe and were knocking at his doorstep in   Poland. In the West, the Anglo-American forces  had retaken France and made their first steps   into Germany. Allied armies were slowly advancing  in the south, and a major breakthrough in Italy   was inevitable. Not to mention that American  and British bombers were pounding Germany back   into the Stone Age twenty-four hours  a day in an immense bombing campaign.  With mounting pressure all around him, Hitler  began to make a series of moves that began to   alienate even his most die-hard supporters from  him. The first of these decisions was the creation   of the Volkssturm. Translated into English as  the "People's Storm," this ragtag militia force   was envisioned by Hitler to be the savior of the  German military. But it was anything but that.  The Volkssturm militia mandated the conscription  of every male aged 16 to 60 who was not already   in the military. At this point in the war,  it did not matter if a person was too young,   too old, disabled, or had an important job in  the war effort; the only thing that mattered   to Hitler was having enough warm bodies  on the front to absorb Allied bullets.  Though some Volkssturm did perform well,  most notably several battalions of World   War One veterans in the battle for Berlin, most  performed terribly due to shortages of clothing,   food, ammunition, weapons, and training. In  fact, by the end of 1944, it was quite common   for civilians to receive just two weeks of  training before being sent to the front.  The actions of Hitler and his cronies regarding  the Volkssturm greatly hurt the resolve and   support of anyone inside Germany who still had  any sympathies for the mad dictator. As the Nazis   conscripted everyone they could get their hands  on, the German population became even more bitter   and disillusioned with the war. The writing  was on the wall for the armed forces, too.  As 1945 approached, German troops began  surrendering en masse. With casualties and   captured soldiers draining the Reich of manpower,  this made Hitler even more devoted to conscripting   more and more people into the war effort. However,  this just made the average German even more   cynical, wanting nothing more than for the  war to end. But Hitler would not let them.  In March 1945, against the advice of his inner  circle, Hitler mandated that whenever the army   retreated, anything that the enemy could use  had to be destroyed. Whether it was roads,   bridges, factories, vehicles, food, or gasoline,  anything that could be used against them was to   be obliterated. Hitler's close confidants,  such as Albert Speer, minister of armaments,   had told Hitler that even in the current  state, the German economy could only support   the war effort for another four to eight weeks  before total collapse. Hitler did not care.  As the final days of the Third Reich approached, Hitler seemed more focused on punishing the German people than winning the war. In his eyes, the Aryans, whom he had called the "master race," had failed because they weren't strong or determined enough. As a result, Hitler believed they deserved destruction rather than surrender. Many Germans no longer thought victory was possible, but they still hoped for peace with the Western Allies while continuing the fight against the Soviets in the East. The war dragged on until the Western Allies reached the Elbe River, and the Soviets began surrounding Berlin. By mid-April 1945, Hitler’s last line of defense was at the Seelow Heights. He believed his exhausted and poorly equipped army—made up of the elderly, the young, and the disabled—could somehow stop millions of Soviet troops who had far more supplies. Within a week, the Soviets broke through, cut off the German Ninth Army, and began advancing on Berlin. Hitler promised that the Battle of Berlin would be like Stalingrad, but this was impossible. The Soviets outnumbered the Germans nearly 20 to 1 in soldiers, and even more so in tanks, planes, and artillery. The battle was over before it began, but Hitler, in his delusion, thought the war could still be won. Despite heavy losses, the Soviets steadily gained ground in Berlin. By April 22, they were closing in on the city, threatening to fully surround it. Meanwhile, Hitler rarely left his bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery. As he looked at maps of his collapsing fronts, he believed there was still hope for a last counterattack. Hitler ordered SS General Felix Steiner to lead a counteroffensive. In Hitler's mind, Steiner's army had been resting and was ready for action. However, the reality was that Steiner had almost no functioning vehicles, few supplies, and his soldiers were exhausted. Rather than launch an attack, Steiner helped many Germans escape westward. When Hitler learned Steiner had not followed his orders, he had one of his worst outbursts. On the afternoon of April 22, Hitler finally admitted that the war was lost and claimed that everyone around him had lied to him. Later that evening, Hitler became furious again after hearing that Hermann Göring had left Berlin on his birthday. Göring had sent Hitler a message stating that if Hitler didn’t respond, he would assume control of the government in southern Germany. Hitler was enraged, stripped Göring of all titles, and ordered his arrest for suspected surrender talks, although this wasn’t true. However, Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, had been secretly negotiating with the Allies. Although these talks were unsuccessful and Himmler had no authority to make deals, Hitler was furious. He ordered Himmler's arrest, and within a day, his entire inner circle began falling apart. By April 29, as the Soviets closed in on his bunker, Hitler made his final decisions. In the early hours of the day, he ordered a civil marriage to Eva Braun. A councilor was found to perform the brief ceremony, and Hitler and Braun became husband and wife. After the wedding, the group in the bunker celebrated with champagne, and Hitler spent the morning reminiscing about happier times. After the odd celebration, Hitler dictated his last will and testament, continuing to blame the Jews and the German people for his defeat. Later that evening, Hitler learned that Mussolini and his mistress had been executed and publicly displayed. Not wanting the same fate, Hitler decided to end his life. Early on April 30, he bid farewell to his inner circle with watery eyes and a limp handshake. At noon, Hitler received his final military briefing, learning that Soviet forces had completely surrounded the Chancellery. The war was over. That afternoon, Hitler and Eva Braun retreated to their private study. A short time later, a gunshot was heard. When others entered the room, they found Hitler had shot himself, while Eva had taken cyanide. Their bodies were burned outside the bunker in a shallow crater.