Today in History: Adolf Hitler is born
The mastermind behind Germany's rise and fall in the early to mid-20th century, Adolf Hitler, was born today in 1889.
Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary, in 1889 and moved to Germany with his family when he was three. They moved back to Austria when he was five.
Hitler only left Austria again after finishing his schooling, when he moved to Munich in May 1913, after receiving the final part of his father’s estate, which had been left to him after his father’s death in 1903.
Hitler voluntarily enlisted in the Bavarian Army in 1914 for World War I and was awarded the Iron Cross for bravery twice.
After the war, he became the leader of the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party.
As leader, he attacked the Treaty of Versailles, and promoted Pan-Germanism, anti-Semitism and anti-communism.
His charismatic oratory, backed by Nazi propaganda, found a receptive audience in Germany during the Great Depression.
Appointed chancellor in 1933, Hitler quickly consolidated power, appointing himself Führer in 1934. He soon turned Germany into a totalitarian one-party dictatorship.
His first six years in power resulted in rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the removal of restrictions imposed on Germany after World War I and the annexation of territories that were home to millions of ethnic Germans.
Hitler’s aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the primary cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe.
He directed large-scale rearmament and on 1 September, 1939, invaded Poland, resulting in Britain and France declaring war on Germany.
In June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union.
By the end of 1941, German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe and North Africa.
Failure to defeat the Soviet Union and the entry of the United States into the war forced Germany onto the defensive and ultimately brought about its defeat.
With the Red Army closing in, Hitler and his long-time lover, Eva Braun, committed suicide on 30 April, 1945.
When Soviet troops were within a block or two of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Hitler shot himself in the head and Braun bit into a cyanide capsule.
Their bodies were carried outside to the bombed-out garden behind the Reich Chancellery, where they were placed in a bomb crater, doused with petrol and set alight.
Hitler and the Nazi regime were responsible for the killing of an estimated 19,3 million civilians and prisoners of war.
In addition, 29 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European theatre of World War II.
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