Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Malljaja (talk | contribs) at 20:23, 11 July 2011 (→Ancestry: rm "Rothschild"—its history doesn't seem to bear this out + the name of the alleged sire was "Frankenberger"). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. Consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding subheadings. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. (March 2011)

Adolf Hitler
Hitler in 1937
Führer of Germany
In office 2 August 1934 – 30 April 1945
Chancellor	Himself
Preceded by	Paul von Hindenburg (as President)
Succeeded by	Karl Dönitz (as President)
Chancellor of Germany
In office 30 January 1933 – 30 April 1945
President	Paul von Hindenburg Himself (Führer)
Deputy	Franz von Papen Vacant
Preceded by	Kurt von Schleicher
Succeeded by	Joseph Goebbels
Personal details
Born	(1889-04-20)20 April 1889 Braunau am Inn, Austria–Hungary
Died	30 April 1945(1945-04-30) (aged 56) Berlin, Germany
Cause of death	Suicide
Nationality	Austrian citizen until 7 April 1925 German citizen after 25 February 1932
Political party	National Socialist German Workers' Party (1921–1945)
Other political affiliations	German Workers' Party (1920–1921)
Spouse(s)	Eva Braun (29–30 April 1945)
Occupation	Politician, soldier, artist, writer
Awards	Iron Cross First Class Wound Badge
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	German Empire
Branch/service	Reichsheer
Years of service	1914–1918
Rank	Gefreiter
Unit	16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment
Battles/wars	World War I

Adolf Hitler (pronounced Template:IPA-de; 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Template:Lang-de, abbreviated NSDAP, commonly known as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is most well known for his central leadership role in the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II and the Holocaust.

A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the precursor of the Nazi Party (DAP) in 1919, and became leader of NSDAP in 1921. He attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch at the Bürgerbräukeller beer hall in Munich in 1923. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (in English "My Struggle"). After his release in 1924, he gained support by promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and propaganda. He was appointed chancellor in 1933, and transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism.

Hitler's avowed aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe. His foreign and domestic policies had the goal of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for the Aryan people. This included the rearmament of Germany, resulting in the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht in 1939, leading to the outbreak of World War II in Europe.

Under Hitler's leadership, German forces and their European allies at one point occupied most of Europe and North Africa, reversed in 1944 when the Allied armies freed German-occupied Europe. Hitler's reign resulted in the systematic murder of as many as 17 million civilians, including an estimated six million Jews targeted in the Holocaust and between 500,000 and 1,500,000 Roma.

In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time mistress, Eva Braun. To avoid capture by Soviet forces, the two committed suicide less than two days later on 30 April 1945 and their corpses were burned.

Early years

Ancestry

Hitler's father, Alois Hitler, was an illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. Therefore, the name of Alois' father was not listed on Alois' birth certificate, and he bore his mother's surname. In 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Maria, and in 1876 Alois testified before a notary and three witnesses that Johann was his father. Despite his testimony, the question of Alois' paternity remained unresolved. Hans Frank claimed—after receiving a extortionary letter from Hitler's nephew William Patrick Hitler threatening to reveal embarrassing information about Hitler's family tree—to have uncovered letters revealing that Alois' mother was employed as a housekeeper for a Jewish family in Graz and that the family's 19-year-old son, Leopold Frankenberger, had fathered Alois. However, Frank's claim remained unsupported, and Frank himself did not believe that Hitler had Jewish ancestry, and although claims of Alois' Jewish father were widely believed to be true in the 1950s, these were doubted by historians in the 1990s. Ian Kershaw dismissed the Frankenberger story as a "smear" by Hitler's enemies, noting that all Jews had been expelled from Graz in the 15th century and were not allowed to return until after Alois' birth.

At age 39, Alois assumed the surname Hitler, variously spelled also as Hiedler, Hüttler, or Huettler, and was probably regularized to its final spelling by a clerk. The origin of the name is either "one who lives in a hut" (Standard German Hütte), "shepherd" (Standard German hüten "to guard", English heed), or is from the Slavic word Hidlar and Hidlarcek.

Childhood

Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 at around 6:30 pm at the Gasthof zum Pommer, an inn in Ranshofen, a village annexed to the municipality of Braunau am Inn, Upper Austria in 1938. He was the fourth of six children to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl. All of Adolf's older siblings  – Gustav, Ida, and Otto – died before reaching three years of age.

At the age of three, his family moved to Kapuzinerstrasse 5 in Passau, Germany. There, Hitler would acquire a Bavarian dialect of Austro-Bavarian rather than an Austrian dialect. In 1894, the family relocated to Leonding near Linz, and in June 1895, Alois retired to a small landholding at Hafeld near Lambach, where he tried his hand at farming and beekeeping. During this time, the young Hitler attended school in nearby Fischlham. As a child, he played "Cowboys and Indians" and, by his own account, became fixated on war after finding a picture book about the Franco-Prussian War among his father's belongings.

His father's farming efforts at Hafeld ended in failure, and in 1897 the family moved to Lambach. Hitler attended a Catholic school in an 11th-century Benedictine cloister, the walls of which bore engravings and crests that contained the symbol of the swastika. In Lambach the eight-year-old Hitler also sang in the church choir, took singing lessons, and even entertained thoughts of one day becoming a priest. In 1898, the family returned permanently to Leonding.

On 2 February 1900 Hitler's younger brother, Edmund, died of measles, deeply affecting Hitler, whose character changed from being confident and outgoing and an excellent student, to a morose, detached, and sullen boy who constantly fought his father and his teachers.

Hitler was attached to his mother, but he had a troubled relationship with his father, who frequently beat him, especially in the years after Alois' retirement and failed farming efforts. Alois was a Austrian customs official who wanted his son to follow in his footsteps, which caused much conflict between them. Ignoring his son's wishes to attend a classical high school and become an artist, in September 1900 his father sent Adolf to the Realschule in Linz, a technical high school of about 300 students. Hitler rebelled against this decision, and in Mein Kampf revealed that he failed his first year, hoping that once his father saw "what little progress I was making at the technical school he would let me devote myself to the happiness I dreamed of." Alois was unrelenting, however, and Hitler became even more bitter and rebellious.

German Nationalism became an obsession for Hitler, and a way to rebel against his father, who proudly served the Austrian government. Most residents living along the German-Austrian border considered themselves German-Austrians, whereas Hitler expressed loyalty only to Germany. In defiance of the Austrian monarchy, and his father who continually expressed loyalty to it, Hitler and his friends used the German greeting "Heil", and sang the German anthem "Deutschland Über Alles" instead of the Austrian Imperial anthem.

After Alois' sudden death on 3 January 1903, Hitler's behaviour at the technical school became even more disruptive, and he was asked to leave in 1904. He enrolled at the Realschule in Steyr in September 1904, but upon completing his second year, he and his friends went out for a night of celebration and drinking. While drunk, Hitler tore up his school certificate and used its pieces as toilet paper. The stained certificate was brought to the attention of the school's principal who "... gave him such a dressing-down that the boy was reduced to shivering jelly. It was probably the most painful and humiliating experience of his life." Hitler was expelled, never to return to school again.

Aged 15, Hitler took part in his First Communion on Whitsunday, 22 May 1904, at the Linz Cathedral. His sponsor was Emanuel Lugert, a friend of his late father.

Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich

From 1905, Hitler lived a bohemian life in Vienna with financial support from orphan's benefits and his mother. He was rejected twice by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1907–1908), because of his "unfitness for painting", and was recommended to study architecture. Following this recommendation, he intended to pursue architectural studies, yet he lacked the academic credentials required for architecture school:

In a few days I myself knew that I should some day become an architect. To be sure, it was an incredibly hard road; for the studies I had neglected out of spite at the Realschule were sorely needed. One could not attend the Academy's architectural school without having attended the building school at the Technic, and the latter required a high-school degree. I had none of all this. The fulfillment of my artistic dream seemed physically impossible.

On 21 December 1907, Hitler's mother died of breast cancer at age 47. Ordered by a court in Linz, Hitler gave his share of the orphan's benefits to his sister Paula. At the age of 21, he inherited money from an aunt. He struggled as a painter in Vienna, copying scenes from postcards and selling his paintings to merchants and tourists. After being rejected a second time by the Academy of Arts, Hitler ran out of money. In 1909, he lived in a shelter for the homeless, and by 1910, he had settled into a house for poor working men on Meldemannstraße. Another resident of the shelter, Reinhold Hanisch, sold Hitler's paintings until the two men had a bitter falling-out.

Hitler stated that he first became an antisemite in Vienna, which had a large Jewish community, including Orthodox Jews who had had fled the pogroms in Russia. According to childhood friend August Kubizek, Hitler was a "confirmed antisemite" before he left Linz. However Kubizek’s reliability is questionable, and his statement has not been confirmed by other sources. Brigitte Hamann wrote that “of all those early witnesses who can be taken seriously Kubizek is the only one to portray young Hitler as an anti-Semite and precisely in this respect he is not trustworthy.” Vienna at that time was a hotbed of traditional religious prejudice and 19th century racism. Hitler may have been influenced by the occult writings of the antisemite Lanz von Liebenfels in his magazine Ostara; he probably read the publication, although it is uncertain to what degree he was influenced by von Liebenfels's writings.

There were very few Jews in Linz. In the course of centuries the Jews who lived there had become Europeanised in external appearance and were so much like other human beings that I even looked upon them as Germans. The reason why I did not then perceive the absurdity of such an illusion was that the only external mark which I recognized as distinguishing them from us was the practice of their strange religion. As I thought that they were persecuted on account of their faith my aversion to hearing remarks against them grew almost into a feeling of abhorrence. I did not in the least suspect that there could be such a thing as a systematic antisemitism. Once, when passing through the inner City, I suddenly encountered a phenomenon in a long caftan and wearing black side-locks. My first thought was: Is this a Jew? They certainly did not have this appearance in Linz. I carefully watched the man stealthily and cautiously but the longer I gazed at the strange countenance and examined it feature by feature, the more the question shaped itself in my brain: Is this a German?

However, at the time Hitler apparently did not act on his views. He was a frequent dinner guest in a wealthy Jewish house, and he interacted well with Jewish merchants who tried to sell his paintings.

Martin Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies may have also shaped Hitler's views. In Mein Kampf, he refers to Martin Luther as a great warrior, a true statesman, and a great reformer, alongside Richard Wagner and Frederick the Great. Wilhelm Röpke, writing after the Holocaust, concluded that "without any question, Lutheranism influenced the political, spiritual and social history of Germany in a way that, after careful consideration of everything, can be described only as fateful."

Hitler claimed that Jews were enemies of the so-called Aryan race, and held them responsible for Austria's crisis. He also regarded some socialist and Bolshevist organisations as Jewish movements, thus merging his antisemitism with anti-Marxism. Later, blaming Germany's military defeat in World War I on the 1918 revolutions, he considered Jews the culprits of Imperial Germany's downfall and subsequent economic problems.

Hitler received the final part of his father's estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich. He wrote in Mein Kampf that he had always longed to live in a "real" German city. In Munich, he further pursued his interest in architecture and the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Moving to Munich also helped him avoid military service in Austria, but the Munich police in cooperation with the Austrian authorities eventually arrested him for dodging the draft. After a physical exam and a contrite plea, he was deemed unfit for service and allowed to return to Munich. However, when Germany entered World War I in August 1914, he successfully petitioned King Ludwig III of Bavaria for permission to serve in a Bavarian regiment, and enlisted in the Bavarian army.

World War I

Hitler served as a runner on the Western Front in France and Belgium in the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16. He experienced major combat, including the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras and the Battle of Passchendaele.

Hitler was twice decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in 1914 and Iron Cross, First Class, in 1918. Hitler's First Class Iron Cross was recommended by Hugo Gutmann, and although the latter decoration was rarely awarded to a Gefreiter, it may be explained by Hitler's post at regimental headquarters where he had more frequent interactions with senior officers than other soldiers of similar rank. The regimental staff, however, thought Hitler lacked leadership skills, and he was never promoted.

While serving at regimental headquarters Hitler pursued his artwork, drawing cartoons and instructions for an army newspaper. In 1916, he was wounded either in the groin area or the left thigh during the Battle of the Somme, but returned to the front in March 1917. He received the Wound Badge later that year.

On 15 October 1918, Hitler was temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack, but it has also been suggested that he suffered from conversion disorder, then known as "hysteria". Some scholars, notably Lucy Dawidowicz, argue that Hitler's intention to exterminate Europe's Jews was fully formed at this time.

Hitler described the war as "the greatest of all experiences" and he was praised by his commanding officers for his bravery. The experience made Hitler a passionate German patriot, and he was shocked by Germany's capitulation in November 1918. Like many other German nationalists, Hitler believed in the Dolchstoßlegende (Stab-in-the-back legend), which claimed that the army, "undefeated in the field," had been "stabbed in the back" by civilian leaders and Marxists back on the home front, later dubbed the November Criminals.

The Treaty of Versailles, citing Germany's responsibility for the war, stipulated that Germany relinquish several of its territories, demilitarisation of the Rhineland, and imposed economic sanctions and levied reparations on the country. Many Germans perceived the treaty, especially Article 231 on the German responsibility for the war, as a humiliation, and its economic effects on the social and political conditions in Germany were later exploited by Hitler. He and his political allies used the signing of the treaty by the November Criminals as a reason to build up Germany.

Entry into politics

After World War I, Hitler remained in the army and returned to Munich, where he attended the funeral march for the murdered Bavarian prime minister Kurt Eisner. After the suppression of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, he took part in "national thinking" courses organized by the Education and Propaganda Department of the Bavarian Reichswehr under Captain Karl Mayr.

In July 1919, Hitler was appointed Verbindungsmann (intelligence agent) of an Aufklärungskommando (reconnaissance commando) of the Reichswehr, both to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers' Party (DAP). While he studied the activities of the DAP, Hitler became impressed with founder Anton Drexler's antisemitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist ideas. Drexler favoured a strong active government, a "non-Jewish" version of socialism and solidarity among all members of society. Drexler was impressed with Hitler's oratory skills and invited him to join the DAP, which Hitler accepted on 12 September 1919, becoming its 55th member.

At the DAP, Hitler met Dietrich Eckart, one of its early founders and member of the occult Thule Society. Eckart became Hitler's mentor, exchanging ideas with him, teaching him how to dress and speak, and introducing him to a wide range of people. Hitler thanked Eckart and paid tribute to him in the second volume of Mein Kampf. To increase the party's appeal, the party changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party; NSDAP).

Hitler was discharged from the army in March 1920 and with his former superiors' encouragement began participating full time in the party's activities. By early 1921, Hitler had become highly effective at speaking in front of large crowds. In February, Hitler spoke to a crowd of nearly six thousand in Munich. To publicize the meeting, two truckloads of party supporters drove around waving swastikas and throwing leaflets. Hitler soon gained notoriety for his rowdy, polemic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians, and especially directed against against Marxists and Jews.

The NSDAP was centred in Munich, a hotbed of German nationalists, including Army officers determined to crush Marxism and undermine the Weimar Republic. Gradually they noticed Hitler and his growing movement as a suitable vehicle for their goals.

While Hitler was on a trip to Berlin in the summer of 1921, there was a mutiny among the DAP leadership in Munich, notably within the executive committee whose members considered Hitler to be too overbearing. Hitler rushed back to Munich and as a political move tendered his resignation from the party on 11 July 1921. When they realized that Hitler's resignation would mean the end of the party, Hitler announced he would only return on the condition that he replace Drexler as party chairman. Drexler and other committee members held out at first, and an anonymous advertisement appeared in a Munich newspaper entitled Adolf Hitler: Is he a traitor?, focusing on Hitler's quest for power. Hitler responded to its publication by suing for libel and later won a small settlement.

The NSDAP executive committee eventually backed down, and Hitler's demands were put to a vote in which his received 543 votes in his support with only one nay vote. At the next gathering on 29 July 1921, Hitler was introduced as Führer of the NSDAP, marking the first time this title was publicly used.

Hitler's vitriolic beer hall speeches began attracting regular audiences. Early followers included Rudolf Hess, the former air force pilot Hermann Göring, and the army captain Ernst Röhm. The latter became head of the Nazis' paramilitary organization the Sturmabteilung (SA, "Storm Division"), which protected meetings and frequently attacked political opponents. Hitler also attracted some independent groups, such as the Nuremberg-based Deutsche Werkgemeinschaft, led by Julius Streicher, who became Gauleiter of Franconia. A critical influence on his thinking at this period was the Aufbau Vereinigung, a conspiratorial group formed of White Russian exiles and early National Socialists. The group introduced him to the idea of a Jewish conspiracy, linking international finance with Bolshevism, with funds channelled from wealthy industrialists like Henry Ford. Hitler also attracted the attention of local business interests, was accepted into influential circles of Munich society, and became associated with wartime General Erich Ludendorff during this time.

Beer Hall Putsch

Encouraged by his new support, Hitler recruited Ludendorff for an attempted coup known as the "Beer Hall Putsch" (also known as the "Hitler Putsch" or "Munich Putsch"). The Nazi Party had used Italy's fascists as an example for its appearance and policies, and in 1923, Hitler wanted to emulate Benito Mussolini's "March on Rome" by staging his own "Campaign in Berlin". Hitler and Ludendorff obtained the clandestine support of Gustav von Kahr, Bavaria's de facto ruler, along with leading figures in the Reichswehr and the police. Ludendorff, Hitler and the heads of the Bavarian police and military had the goal of forming a new government.

On 8 November 1923, Hitler and the SA stormed a public meeting headed by Kahr in the Bürgerbräukeller, a large beer hall in Munich. Hitler announced that he had set up a new government with Ludendorff and demanded, at gunpoint, the support of Kahr and the local military establishment for the destruction of the Berlin government. Kahr withdrew his support and fled to join the opposition to Hitler. The next day, Hitler and his followers marched from the beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry to overthrow the Bavarian government on their "March on Berlin", but the police dispersed them. Sixteen NSDAP members were killed in the failed coup.

Hitler fled to the home of Ernst Hanfstaengl where he contemplated suicide, but Hanfstaengl's wife Helene talked him out of it. He was soon arrested for high treason and tried before the special People's Court in Munich, and Alfred Rosenberg became temporary leader of the NSDAP. During his trial, Hitler was given almost unlimited time to speak, and his popularity soared as he voiced nationalistic sentiments in his defence speech. His trial began on 26 February 1924 and on 1 April 1924 Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison. Hitler received friendly treatment from the guards and received a lot of mail from supporters. The Bavarian Supreme Court soon issued a pardon and he was released from jail on 20 December 1924, against the state prosecutor's objections. Including time on remand, Hitler had been imprisoned for just over one year for the attempted coup.

Mein Kampf

While at Landsberg, he dictated most of the first volume of Mein Kampf (My Struggle, originally entitled Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice) to his deputy Rudolf Hess. The book, dedicated to Thule Society member Dietrich Eckart, was an autobiography and an exposition of his ideology. Mein Kampf was influenced by The Passing of the Great Race by Madison Grant, which Hitler called "my Bible." Mein Kampf was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926, selling about 240,000 copies between 1925 and 1934. By the end of the war, about 10 million copies had been sold or distributed. The copyright of Mein Kampf in Europe is claimed by the Free State of Bavaria and will end on 31 December 2015. In Germany, only heavily commented editions of Mein Kampf are available solely for academic studies.

Rebuilding of the NSDAP

At the time of Hitler's release from prison, politics in Germany had become less combative and the economy had improved. This limited Hitler's opportunities for political agitation. As a result of the failed Beer Hall Putsch, the NSDAP and its affiliated organisations were banned in Bavaria. However, Hitler—now claiming to seek political power only through the democratic process—succeeded in persuading Heinrich Held, Prime Minister of Bavaria, to lift the ban. The ban on the NSDAP was lifted on 16 February 1925, but Hitler was barred from public speaking. To be able to advance his political ambitions in spite of the ban, Hitler appointed Gregor Strasser along with his brother Otto and Joseph Goebbels to organize and grow the NSDAP in northern Germany. Strasser, however, steered a more independent political course, emphasizing the socialist element in the party's programme. The Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Gauleiter Nord-West thus became an internal opposition, threatening Hitler's authority, but its influence was strongly curtailed at the Bamberg Conference in 1926.

Hitler went on to establish a more autocratic rule of the NSDAP and asserted the Führerprinzip ("Leader principle"). Offices in the party were not determined by elections, but rather filled by appointment by higher ranks who demanded unquestioning obedience from the lower ranks they had appointed. This reflected Hitler's view that all power and authority devolved from the top down.

A key element of Hitler's appeal was his ability to evoke a sense of violated national pride as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. Many Germans strongly resented the terms of the treaty, especially the economic burden of having to pay large reparations to other countries affected by World War I. Nonetheless, attempts by Hitler to win popular support by blaming the demands and assertions in the treaty on "international Jewry" were largely unsuccessful with the electorate. Therefore, Hitler and his party began employing more subtle propaganda methods, combining antisemitism with an attack on the failures of the "Weimar system" and the parties supporting it.

Having failed in overthrowing the republic and gaining power by a coup, Hitler changed tactics and pursued a strategy of formally adhering to the rules of the Weimar Republic until he had gained political power through regular elections. His vision was to then use the institutions of the Weimar Republic to destroy it and establish himself as autocratic leader. Some party members, especially in the paramilitary SA, opposed this strategy; for example, Röhm and others ridiculed Hitler as "Adolphe Legalité".

Rise to power

Brüning Administration

Hitler's political turning point came with the Great Depression in Germany in 1930. The Weimar Republic had difficulties taking firm roots in German society and faced strong challenges from right- and left-wing extremists. The moderate political parties committed to the democratic, parliamentary republic were increasingly unable to stem the tide of extremism. In early elections in September 1930, the moderates lost their majority, leading to the break-up of a grand coalition and its replacement by a minority cabinet. Its leader, chancellor Heinrich Brüning of the Centre Party, governed through emergency decrees. Tolerated by most parties, governance by decree would become the new norm and paved the way for authoritarian forms of government. Notably the NSDAP rose from relative obscurity to win 18.3% of the vote and 107 parliamentary seats in the 1930 election, rising from the ninth-smallest party in the chamber to the second largest.

The increasing political clout of Hitler was felt at the trial of two Reichswehr officers, Leutnants Richard Scheringer and Hans Ludin, in the autumn of 1930. Both were charged with membership of the NSDAP, which at that time was illegal for Reichswehr personnel. The prosecution argued that the NSDAP was a dangerous extremist party, prompting defence lawyer Hans Frank to call on Hitler to testify at the court. During his testimony on 25 September 1930, Hitler stated that his party was aiming to come to power solely through democratic elections and that the NSDAP was a friend of the Reichswehr. Hitler's testimony won him many supporters in the officer corps.

Brüning's budgetary and financial austerity measures brought little economic improvement and were extremely unpopular. Hitler exploited this weakness by targeting his political messages specifically to the segments of the population that had been hard hit by the inflation of the 1920s and the unemployment of the Depression, such as farmers, war veterans, and the middle class.

Hitler formally renounced his Austrian citizenship on 7 April 1925, but at the time did not acquire German citizenship. For almost seven years Hitler was stateless, so he was unable to run for public office and even faced the risk of deportation. Therefore, on 25 February 1932, the interior minister of Brunswick who was a member of the NSDAP appointed Hitler as administrator for the state's delegation to the Reichsrat in Berlin, making Hitler a citizen of Brunswick, and thus of Germany as well.

In 1932, Hitler ran against the aging President Paul von Hindenburg in the presidential elections. The viability of his candidacy was underscored by a 27 January 1932 speech to the Industry Club in Düsseldorf, which won him support from a broad swath of Germany's most powerful industrialists. However, Hindenburg had broad support of various nationalist, monarchist, Catholic, and republican parties and even some social democrats. Hitler used the campaign slogan "Hitler über Deutschland" (Hitler over Germany), a reference to his political ambitions, and to his campaigning by aircraft. Hitler came in second in both rounds of the election, garnering more than 35% of the vote in the final election. Although he lost to Hindenburg, this election established Hitler as a credible force in German politics.

In September 1931, Hitler's niece Geli Raubal committed suicide with Hitler's gun in his Munich apartment. Geli was believed to be in a romantic relationship with Hitler, and it is believed that her death was a source of deep, lasting pain for him.

Appointment as Chancellor

Because of the difficulties of forming a stable and effective government, Franz von Papen and Alfred Hugenberg, as well as a number of industrialists and businessmen, including Hjalmar Schacht and Fritz Thyssen wrote to Hindenburg, urging him to appoint Hitler as leader of a government "independent from parliamentary parties" which could turn into a movement that would "enrapture millions of people."

President Hindenburg eventually and reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler chancellor of a coalition government formed by the NSDAP and DNVP. The influence of the NSDAP in parliament was initially limited by an alliance of conservative cabinet ministers, most notably by von Papen as Vice-Chancellor and by Hugenberg as Minister of the Economy. The only other NSDAP member besides Hitler, Wilhelm Frick, was given the relatively powerless interior ministry. However, as a concession to the NSDAP, Göring was named minister without portfolio. So, although von Papen intended to install Hitler merely as a figurehead, the NSDAP gained several key positions.

On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor during a brief and simple ceremony in Hindenburg's office. Hitler's first speech as Chancellor took place on 10 February. The Nazis' seizure of power subsequently became known as the Machtergreifung or Machtübernahme.

Reichstag fire and March elections

As chancellor, Hitler worked against attempts by his political opponents to build a majority government. Because of the political stalemate, Hitler asked President Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag again, and elections were scheduled for early March. On 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire, and since a Dutch independent communist was found in the burning building, a communist plot was blamed for the fire. The central government responded with the Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February, which suspended basic rights, including habeas corpus. In particular, activities of the German Communist Party were suppressed, and communist party members were arrested, forced to flee, or murdered.

Besides political campaigning, the NSDAP used paramilitary violence and spread of anti-communist propaganda on the days preceding the election. On election day, 6 March 1933, the NSDAP increased its result to 43.9% of the vote, gaining the largest number of seats in parliament. However, Hitler's party failed to secure an absolute majority, thus again necessitating a coalition with the DNVP.

Day of Potsdam and the Enabling Act

On 21 March 1933, the new Reichstag was constituted with an opening ceremony held at Potsdam's garrison church. This Day of Potsdam was staged to demonstrate reconciliation and unity between the revolutionary Nazi movement and Old Prussia with its elites and perceived virtues. Hitler appeared in a tail coat and humbly greeted the aged President Hindenburg.

In the Nazis' quest for full political control and because they had failed to gain an absolute majority in the previous parliamentary election, Hitler's government brought the Ermächtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act) to a vote in the newly elected Reichstag. The aim of this move was to give Hitler's cabinet full legislative powers for a period of four years. Although such a bill was not unprecedented, this act was different since it allowed for deviations from the constitution. Since the bill required a ⅔ majority in order to pass, the government needed the support of other parties. The position of the Centre Party, the third largest party in the Reichstag, turned out to be decisive: under the leadership of Ludwig Kaas, the party decided to vote for the Enabling Act. It did so in return for the government's oral guarantees of the Church's liberty, the concordats signed by German states and the continued existence of the Centre Party.

On 23 March, the Reichstag assembled in a replacement building under extremely turbulent circumstances. Several SA men served as guards inside, while large groups outside the building shouted slogans and threats toward the arriving members of parliament. Kaas announced that the Centre Party would support the bill with "concerns put aside", while Social Democrat Otto Wels denounced the act in his speech. At the end of the day, all parties except Social Democrats voted in favour of the bill—the Communists, as well as several Social Democrats, were barred from attending the vote. The Enabling Act, along with the Reichstag Fire Decree, transformed Hitler's government into a de facto dictatorship.

Removal of remaining limits

At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense I tell you that the Nazi movement will go on for 1,000 years! ... Don't forget how people laughed at me 15 years ago when I declared that one day I would govern Germany. They laugh now, just as foolishly, when I declare that I shall remain in power!

— Adolf Hitler to a British correspondent in Berlin, June 1934

Having achieved full control over the legislative and executive branches of government, Hitler and his political allies embarked on systematic suppression of the remaining political opposition. After the dissolution of the Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) was also banned and all its assets seized. The Steel Helmets were placed under Hitler's leadership with some autonomy as an auxiliary police force. In May 1933, stormtroopers demolished trade union offices in the country, and all unions vowed allegiance to Hitler. The Catholic Church was forced to support Hitler and its Centre Party dissolved. On 14 July, Hitler's Nazi Party was declared the only legal party in Germany.

In his next move, Hitler used the SA to pressure Hugenberg into resigning, and proceeded to politically isolate Vice-Chancellor von Papen. The demands of the SA for more political and military power caused much anxiety among military and political leaders, prompting Hitler to purge the SA's leadership, including Ernst Röhm, during the Night of the Long Knives. At the same time Gregor Strasser and former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher fell also victim to the politically motivated murders.

On 2 August 1934, President von Hindenburg died. In contravention to the Weimar Constitution— calling for presidential elections—and following a law passed the previous day in anticipation of Hindenburg's imminent death, Hitler's cabinet declared the presidency vacant and transferred the powers of the head of state to Hitler as Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor). This removed the last legal remedy by which Hitler could be dismissed, and nearly all institutional checks and balances on his power. Hitler's move also violated the Enabling Act, which had barred tampering with the office of the presidency.

On 19 August, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was approved by a plebiscite with support from 84.6% of the electorate.

As head of state, Hitler now became Supreme Commander of the armed forces. The traditional loyalty oath of soldiers and sailors was altered to affirm loyalty directly to Hitler rather than to the office of commander-in-chief.

In 1938, in the wake of two scandals Hitler brought the armed forces under his direct control by forcing the resignation of his War Minister (formerly Defence Minister), Werner von Blomberg on evidence that Blomberg's new wife had a criminal past. Hitler and his allies also removed army commander Werner von Fritsch on suspicion of homosexuality. Hitler replaced the Ministry of War with the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces, or OKW), headed by the pliant General Wilhelm Keitel. With Hitler having become Commander-in-Chief coupled with the post of supreme commander holding the powers of the presidential office, German newspapers announced, "Strongest concentration of powers in Führer's hands!"

Third Reich

Having consolidated and concentrated his political powers, Hitler proceeded to suppress or eliminate his opposition by a process termed Gleichschaltung ("bringing into line"). He also tried to gain additional public support by vowing to reverse the effects of the Depression and the Versailles treaty.

Economy and culture

Hitler's rule led to very large expansions of industrial production and to civil improvement in Germany. These increased economic activities were enabled largely by debt flotation (refinancing long term debts into cheaper short term debts) and expansion of the military. For example, Hitler's reconstruction and rearmament were financed with currency manipulations by Hjalmar Schacht, including credits through the Mefo bills.

Nazi policies strongly encouraged women to bear children and stay at home. In a September 1934 speech to the National Socialist Women's Organization, Hitler argued that for the German woman her "world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home." The Cross of Honor of the German Mother was bestowed on women bearing four or more children. The unemployment rate fell substantially, mostly through arms production and women leaving the workforce.

Hitler oversaw one of the largest infrastructure-improvement campaigns in German history, leading to the construction of dams, autobahns, railroads, and other civil works. However, these programmes lowered the overall standard of living for those not previously affected by the chronic unemployment of the later Weimar Republic—wages were slightly reduced in pre–World War II years, while the cost of living was increased by 25%. Labourers and farmers, many of whom supporters of the NSDAP, however, saw an increase in their standard of living.

Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale, with Albert Speer becoming the first architect of the Reich, instrumental in implementing Hitler's classicist reinterpretation of German culture. In 1936, Hitler opened the summer Olympic games in Berlin. Hitler also made some contributions to the design of the Volkswagen Beetle and charged Ferdinand Porsche with its design and construction.

On 20 April 1939, a lavish celebration was held for Hitler's 50th birthday, featuring military parades, visits from foreign dignitaries, thousands of flaming torches and Nazi banners.

One question concerns the aspect of modernization in Hitler's economic policies. Historians such as David Schoenbaum and Henry Ashby Turner argue that Hitler's social and economic policies were modernization that had anti-modern goals. Others, including Rainer Zitelmann, have contended that Hitler had the deliberate strategy of pursuing a revolutionary modernization of German society.

Rearmament and new alliances

On 3 February 1933, in a meeting with German military leaders, Hitler spoke of "conquest for Lebensraum in the East and its ruthless Germanisation" as his ultimate foreign policy objectives. In March 1933, a major statement by the State Secretary at the Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office), Prince Bernhard Wilhelm von Bülow, of German foreign policy aims was issued. It advocated Anschluss with Austria, the restoration of the frontiers of 1914, rejection of Part V of the Treaty of Versailles, the return of the former German colonies in Africa, and a German zone of influence in Eastern Europe. Hitler found the goals in Bülow's memo to be too modest.

In his "peace speeches" in the mid-1930s, Hitler stressed the peaceful goals of his policies and willingness to work within international agreements. At the first meeting of his Cabinet in 1933, however, Hitler prioritised military spending over unemployment relief. In October 1933, Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference, and his Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath stated that the French demand for sécurité was a principal stumbling block.

In March 1935, Hitler rejected Part V of the Versailles treaty by announcing that the German army would be expanded to 600,000 men (six times the number stipulated in the Treaty of Versailles), including development of an Air Force (Luftwaffe) and increasing the size of the Navy (Kriegsmarine). Although Britain, France, Italy and the League of Nations condemned these plans, no country took actions to stop them.

On 18 June 1935, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement (AGNA) was signed, allowing German tonnage to increase to 35% of that of the British navy. Hitler called the signing of the AGNA "the happiest day of his life" as he believed the agreement marked the beginning of the Anglo-German alliance he had predicted in Mein Kampf. France or Italy were not consulted before the signing, directly undermining the League of Nations and putting the Treaty of Versailles on the path towards irrelevance.

On 13 September 1935, Hitler ordered two civil servants, Dr. Bernhard Lösener and Franz Albrecht Medicus of the Interior Ministry to start drafting antisemitic laws for Hitler to bring to the floor of the Reichstag. On 15 September, Hitler presented two laws—known as the Nuremberg Laws—before the Reichstag. The laws banned marriage between non-Jewish and Jewish Germans and the employment of non-Jewish women under the age of 45 in Jewish households. The laws also deprived so-called "non-Aryans" of the benefits of German citizenship.

In March 1936, Hitler reoccupied the demilitarized zone in the Rhineland, thus again violating the Versailles treaty. In addition, Hitler sent troops to Spain to support General Franco after receiving an appeal for help from Franco in July 1936. At the same time, Hitler continued with his efforts to create an Anglo-German alliance.

In August 1936, in response to a growing economic crisis caused by his rearmament efforts, Hitler issued the "Four-Year Plan Memorandum", ordering Hermann Göring to carry out the Four Year Plan to have Germany ready for war within the next four years. Hitler's "Four-Year Plan Memorandum" laid out an imminent all-out struggle between "Judeo-Bolshevism" and German National Socialism, which in Hitler's view required a committed effort of rearmament regardless of the economic costs.

On 25 October 1936, Count Galeazzo Ciano foreign minister of Benito Mussolini's government declared an axis between Germany and Italy, and on 25 November, Germany signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan. Britain, China, Italy and Poland were also invited to join the Anti-Comintern Pact, but only Italy signed in 1937. By late 1937, Hitler had abandoned his dream of an Anglo-German alliance, blaming "inadequate" British leadership.

On 5 November 1937, Hitler held a secret meeting at the Reich Chancellery with his war and foreign ministers and military chiefs. As recorded in the Hossbach Memorandum, Hitler stated his intention of acquiring Lebensraum ("living space") for the German people, and ordered to make preparations for war in the east no later than 1943. Hitler further stated that the conference minutes were to be regarded as his "political testament" in the event of his death. Hitler was also recorded as saying that the crisis of the German economy had reached a point that a severe decline in living standards in Germany could only be stopped by a policy of military aggression and seizing Austria and Czechoslovakia. Moreover, Hitler urged for quick action before Britain and France obtained a permanent lead in the arms race.

In early 1938, Hitler asserted his control of the military-foreign policy apparatus through the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair and the abolition of the War Ministry and its replacement by the OKW. He also dismissed Neurath as Foreign Minister on 4 February 1938, and assumed the role and title of the Oberster Befehlshaber der Wehrmacht (supreme commander of the armed forces). It has been argued that from early 1938 onwards, Hitler was not carrying out a foreign policy that increased the risk of war, but that he was carrying out a foreign policy that had war as its ultimate aim.

The Holocaust

One of Hitler's central and most controversial ideologies was the concept of so-called racial hygiene. It was based on the ideas of Arthur de Gobineau, eugenics, and social Darwinism. Hitler's eugenic policies initially targeted children with physical and developmental disabilities in a programme dubbed Action T4.

Hitler's idea of Lebensraum espoused in Mein Kampf, focused on acquiring new territory for German settlement in Eastern Europe. The Generalplan Ost ("General Plan for the East") provided that the population of occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union was to be partially deported to West Siberia, used as slave labour and eventually murdered; the conquered territories were to be colonized by German or "Germanized" settlers.

Between 1939 and 1945, the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, systematically killed 11–14 million people, including about six million Jews representing two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe. These killings took place, for example, in concentration camps, ghettos, and through mass executions. Many victims of the Holocaust were gassed to death, whereas others died of starvation or disease while working as slave labourers.

Hitler's policies also resulted in the systematic killings of Poles and Soviet prisoners of war, communists and other political opponents, homosexuals, Roma, the physically and mentally disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists, and trade unionists. One of the biggest centres of mass-killing was the extermination camp complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Hitler never appeared to have visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the killings.

The Holocaust (the "Endlösung der jüdischen Frage" or "Final Solution of the Jewish Question") was organised and executed by Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. The records of the Wannsee Conference—held on 20 January 1942 and led by Reinhard Heydrich with fifteen senior Nazi officials (including Adolf Eichmann) participating—provide the clearest evidence of the systematic planning for the Holocaust. On 22 February, Hitler was recorded saying to his associates, "we shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews".

Although no specific order from Hitler authorising the mass killings has surfaced, he approved the Einsatzgruppen, killing squads that followed the German army through Poland and Russia, and he was well informed about their activities. Evidence also suggests that in the fall of 1941, Himmler and Hitler decided to use gassing for the mass killings. During interrogations by Soviet intelligence officers declassified over fifty years later, Hitler's valet, Heinz Linge, and his military aide, Otto Gunsche, had stated that Hitler had a direct interest in the development of gas chambers."

World War II

Early diplomatic successes

Alliance with Japan

In February 1938, upon advice from his newly appointed Foreign Minister, the strongly pro-Japanese Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler ended the Sino-German alliance with the Republic of China to enter instead into an alliance with the more modern and powerful Japan. Hitler announced German recognition of Manchukuo, the Japanese-occupied state in Manchuria, and renounced German claims to the former colonies in the Pacific held by Japan. Hitler also ordered an end to arms shipments to China, and recalled all German officers working with the Chinese Army. In retaliation, Chinese General Chiang Kai-shek cancelled all Sino-German economic agreements, depriving the Germans of Chinese raw materials such as tungsten and limiting the efforts of German rearmament.

Austria and Czechoslovakia

This section may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. Consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding subheadings. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. (April 2010)

On 12 March 1938, Hitler declared unification of Austria with Germany in the Anschluss. Hitler then turned his attention to the ethnic Germans population of Sudetenland districts of Czechoslovakia.

On 28–29 March 1938, Hitler held a series of secret meetings in Berlin with Konrad Henlein of the Sudeten Heimfront (Home Front), the largest of the ethnic German parties of the Sudetenland. Both men agreed that Henlein would demand increased autonomy for Sudeten Germans from the Czechoslovakian government, thus providing a pretext for German military action against Czechoslovakia. In April 1938, Henlein told the foreign minister of Hungary that "whatever the Czech government might offer, he would always raise still higher demands ... he wanted to sabotage an understanding by all means because this was the only method to blow up Czechoslovakia quickly". In private, Hitler considered the Sudeten issue unimportant; his real intention was a war of conquest against Czechoslovakia.

In April 1938, Hitler ordered the OKW to prepare for Fall Grün (Case Green), the codename for an invasion of Czechoslovakia. As a result of intense French and British diplomatic pressure, Czechoslovakian President Edvard Beneš unveiled on 5 September 1938, the "Fourth Plan" for constitutional reorganization of his country, which agreed to most of Henlein's demands for Sudeten autonomy. Henlein's Heimfront responded to Beneš' offer with a series of violent clashes with the Czechoslovakian police that led to the declaration of martial law in certain Sudeten districts.

In light of Germany's dependence on imported oil, and that a confrontation with Britain over the Czechoslovakian dispute could curtail Germany's oil supplies, Hitler called off Fall Grün, originally planned for 1 October 1938. On 29 September 1938, a one-day conference was held in Munich attended by Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini that led to the Munich Agreement, which gave in to Hitler's ostensible demands by handing over the Sudetenland districts to Germany.

Chamberlain was satisfied with the Munich conference, calling the outcome "peace for our time", while Hitler was angered about his missed opportunity for war in 1938. Hitler expressed his disappointment over the Munich Agreement in a speech on 9 October 1938 in Saarbrücken. In Hitler's view, the British-brokered peace, although favourable to ostensible German demands, was a diplomatic defeat for him, which spurred Hitler's intent of limiting British power to pave the way for the eastern expansion of Germany. However, as a result of the summit, Hitler was selected TIME magazine's Man of the Year for 1938.

In late 1938 and early 1939, the continuing economic crisis caused by the rearmament efforts forced Hitler to make major defence cuts. On 30 January 1939, Hitler made an "Export or die" speech, calling for a German economic offensive, to increase German foreign exchange holdings to pay for raw materials such as high-grade iron needed for military weapons.

"One thing I should like to say on this day which may be memorable for others as well for us Germans: In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and I have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance the Jewish race which only received my prophecies with laughter when I said I would one day take over the leadership of the State, and that of the whole nation, and that I would then among many other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of the face. Today I will be once more the prophet. If the international Jewish financiers outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the bolshevisation of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"

On 15 March 1939, in violation of the Munich accord and possibly as a result of the deepening economic crisis requiring additional assets, Hitler eventually ordered the Wehrmacht to invade Prague, and from Prague Castle proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.

Start of World War II

As part of the anti-British course, it was deemed necessary by Hitler to have Poland either a satellite state or otherwise neutralized. Hitler believed this necessary both on strategic grounds as a way of securing the Reich's eastern flank and on economic grounds as a way of evading the effects of a British blockade. Initially, the German hope was to transform Poland into a satellite state, but by March 1939 the German demands had been rejected by the Poles three times, which led Hitler to decide upon the destruction of Poland as the main German foreign policy goal of 1939. On 3 April 1939, Hitler ordered the military to start preparing for Fall Weiss (Case White), the plan for a German invasion to be executed on 25 August 1939. In August 1939, Hitler spoke to his generals that his original plan for 1939 had to "... establish an acceptable relationship with Poland in order to fight against the West" but since the Poles would not co-operate in setting up an "acceptable relationship" (i.e. becoming a German satellite), he believed he had no choice other than wiping Poland off the map. The historian Gerhard Weinberg has argued since Hitler's audience comprised men who were all for the destruction of Poland (anti-Polish feelings were traditionally very strong in the German Army), but rather less happy about the prospect of war with Britain and France, if that was the price Germany had to pay for the destruction of Poland, it is quite likely that Hitler was speaking the truth on this occasion. In his private discussions with his officials in 1939, Hitler always described Britain as the main enemy that had to be defeated, and in his view, Poland's obliteration was the necessary prelude to that goal by securing the eastern flank and helpfully adding to Germany's Lebensraum. Hitler was much offended by the British "guarantee" of Polish independence issued on 31 March 1939, and told his associates that "I shall brew them a devil's drink". In a speech in Wilhelmshaven for the launch of the battleship Tirpitz on 1 April 1939, Hitler threatened to denounce the Anglo-German Naval Agreement if the British persisted with their "encirclement" policy as represented by the "guarantee" of Polish independence. As part of the new course, in a speech before the Reichstag on 28 April 1939, Adolf Hitler, complaining of British "encirclement" of Germany, renounced both the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact.

As a pretext for aggression against Poland, Hitler claimed the Free City of Danzig and the right for "extra-territorial" roads across the Polish Corridor which Germany had unwillingly ceded under the Versailles treaty. For Hitler, Danzig was just a pretext for aggression as the Sudetenland had been intended to be in 1938, and throughout 1939, while highlighting the Danzig issue as a grievance, the Germans always refused to engage in talks about the matter. A notable contradiction existed in Hitler's plans between the long-term anti-British course, whose major instruments such as a vastly expanded Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe would take several years to complete, and Hitler's immediate foreign policy in 1939, which was likely to provoke a general war by engaging in such actions as attacking Poland. Hitler's dilemma between his short-term and long-term goals was resolved by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, who told Hitler that neither Britain nor France would honour their commitments to Poland, and any German–Polish war would accordingly be a limited regional war. Ribbentrop based his appraisal partly on an alleged statement made to him by the French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet in December 1938 that France now recognized Eastern Europe as Germany's exclusive sphere of influence. In addition, Ribbentrop's status as the former Ambassador to London made him in Hitler's eyes the leading Nazi British expert, and as a result, Ribbentrop's advice that Britain would not honour her commitments to Poland carried much weight with Hitler. Ribbentrop only showed Hitler diplomatic cables that supported his analysis. In addition, the German Ambassador in London, Herbert von Dirksen, tended to send reports that supported Ribbentrop's analysis such as a dispatch in August 1939 that reported British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain knew "the social structure of Britain, even the conception of the British Empire, would not survive the chaos of even a victorious war", and so would back down. The extent that Hitler was influenced by Ribbentrop's advice can be seen in Hitler's orders to the German military on 21 August 1939 for a limited mobilization against Poland alone. Hitler chose late August as his date for Fall Weiss in order to limit disruption to German agricultural production caused by mobilization. The problems caused by the need to begin a campaign in Poland in late August or early September in order to have the campaign finished before the October rains arrived, and the need to have sufficient time to concentrate German troops on the Polish border left Hitler in a self-imposed situation in August 1939 where Soviet co-operation was absolutely crucial if he were to have a war that year.

The Munich agreement appeared to be sufficient to dispel most of the remaining hold which the "collective security" idea may have had in Soviet circles, and, on 23 August 1939, Joseph Stalin accepted Hitler's proposal to conclude a non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), whose secret protocols contained an agreement to partition Poland. A major historical debate about the reasons for Hitler's foreign policy choices in 1939 concerns whether a structural economic crisis drove Hitler into a "flight into war" as claimed by the Marxist historian Timothy Mason or whether Hitler's actions were more influenced by non-economic factors as claimed by the economic historian Richard Overy. Historians such as William Carr, Gerhard Weinberg and Ian Kershaw have argued that a non-economic reason for Hitler's rush to war was Hitler's morbid and obsessive fear of an early death, and hence his feeling that he did not have long to accomplish his work. In the last days of peace, Hitler oscillated between the determination to fight the Western powers if he had to, and various schemes intended to keep Britain out of the war, but in any case, Hitler was not to be deterred from his aim of invading Poland. Only very briefly, when news of the Anglo-Polish alliance being signed on 25 August 1939 in response to the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (instead of the severing of ties between London and Warsaw predicted by Ribbentrop) together with news from Italy that Mussolini would not honour the Pact of Steel, caused Hitler to postpone the attack on Poland from 25 August to 1 September. Hitler chose to spend the last days of peace either trying to manoeuvre the British into neutrality through his offer of 25 August 1939 to "guarantee" the British Empire, or having Ribbentrop present a last-minute peace plan to Henderson with an impossibly short time limit for its acceptance as part of an effort to blame the war on the British and Poles. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded western Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September but did not immediately act. Hitler was most unpleasantly surprised at receiving the British declaration of war on 3 September 1939, and turning to Ribbentrop angrily asked "Now what?" Ribbentrop had nothing to say other than that Robert Coulondre, the French Ambassador, would probably be by later that day to present the French declaration of war. Not long after this, on 17 September, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland.

Poland never will rise again in the form of the Versailles treaty. That is guaranteed not only by Germany, but also ... Russia.

– Adolf Hitler in a public speech in Danzig at the end of September 1939.

After the fall of Poland came a period journalists called the "Phoney War," or Sitzkrieg ("sitting war"). In part of north-western Poland annexed to Germany, Hitler instructed the two Gauleiters in charge of the area, namely Albert Forster and Arthur Greiser, to "Germanize" the area, and promised them "There would be no questions asked" about how this "Germanization" was to be accomplished. Hitler's orders were interpreted in very different ways by Forster and Greiser. Forster followed a policy of simply having the local Poles sign forms stating they had German blood with no documentation required, whereas Greiser carried out a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign of expelling the entire Polish population into the Government-General of Poland. When Greiser, seconded by Himmler, complained to Hitler that Forster was allowing thousands of Poles to be accepted as "racial" Germans and thus "contaminating" German "racial purity", and asked Hitler to order Forster to stop, Hitler merely told Himmler and Greiser to take up their difficulties with Forster, and not to involve him. Hitler's handling of the Forster–Greiser dispute has often been advanced as an example of Ian Kershaw's theory of "Working Towards the Führer", namely that Hitler issued vague instructions, and allowed his subordinates to work out policy on their own.

After the conquest of Poland, another major dispute broke out between different factions with one centring around Reichsfüherer SS Heinrich Himmler and Arthur Greiser championing and carrying out ethnic cleansing schemes for Poland, and another centring around Hermann Göring and Hans Frank calling for turning Poland into the "granary" of the Reich. At a conference held at Göring's Karinhall estate on 12 February 1940, the dispute was settled in favour of the Göring-Frank view of economic exploitation, and ending mass expulsions as economically disruptive. On 15 May 1940, Himmler showed Hitler a memo entitled "Some Thoughts on the Treatment of Alien Population in the East", which called for expelling the entire Jewish population of Europe into Africa and reducing the remainder of the Polish population to a "leaderless labouring class". Hitler called Himmler's memo "good and correct". Hitler's remark had the effect of scuttling the so-called Karinhall argreement, and led to the Himmler–Greiser viewpoint triumphing as German policy for Poland.

During this period, Hitler built up his forces on Germany's western frontier. In April 1940, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway. In May 1940, Hitler's forces attacked France, conquering Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium in the process. These victories persuaded Benito Mussolini of Italy to join the war on Hitler's side on 10 June 1940. France surrendered on 22 June 1940.

Britain, whose forces evacuated France by sea from Dunkirk, continued to fight alongside other British dominions in the Battle of the Atlantic. After having his overtures for peace rejected by the British, now led by Winston Churchill, Hitler ordered bombing raids on the United Kingdom. The Battle of Britain was Hitler's prelude to a planned invasion. The attacks began by pounding Royal Air Force airbases and radar stations protecting South-East England. However, the Luftwaffe failed to defeat the Royal Air Force. On 27 September 1940, the Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin by Saburō Kurusu of Imperial Japan, Hitler, and Ciano. The purpose of the pact, which was directed against an unnamed power that was clearly meant to be the United States, was to deter the Americans from supporting the British. It was later expanded to include Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. They were collectively known as the Axis powers. By the end of October 1940, air superiority for the invasion Operation Sea Lion could not be assured, and Hitler ordered the bombing of British cities, including London, Plymouth, and Coventry, mostly at night.

In the Spring of 1941, Hitler was distracted from his plans for the East by various activities in North Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In February, German forces arrived in Libya to bolster the Italian forces there. In April, he launched the invasion of Yugoslavia which was followed quickly by the invasion of Greece. In May, German forces were sent to support Iraqi rebel forces fighting against the British and to invade Crete. On 23 May, Hitler released Führer Directive No. 30.

Path to defeat

On 22 June 1941, three million German troops attacked the Soviet Union, breaking the non-aggression pact Hitler had concluded with Stalin two years earlier. This invasion seized huge amounts of territory, including the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine. It also encircled and destroyed many Soviet forces, which Stalin had ordered not to retreat. However, the Germans were stopped barely short of Moscow in December 1941 by the Russian Winter and fierce Soviet resistance. The invasion failed to achieve the quick triumph Hitler wanted.

A major historical dispute concerns Hitler's reasons for Operation Barbarossa. Some historians such as Andreas Hillgruber have argued that Barbarossa was merely one "stage" of Hitler's Stufenplan (stage by stage plan) for world conquest, which Hillgruber believed that Hitler had formulated in the 1920s. Other historians such as John Lukacs have contended that Hitler never had a stufenplan, and that the invasion of the Soviet Union was an ad hoc move on the part of Hitler due to Britain's refusal to surrender. Lukacs has argued that the reason Hitler gave in private for Barbarossa, namely that Winston Churchill held out the hope that the Soviet Union might enter the war on the Allied side, and that the only way of forcing a British surrender was to eliminate that hope, was indeed Hitler's real reason for Barbarossa. In Lukacs's perspective, Barbarossa was thus primarily an anti-British move on the part of Hitler intended to force Britain to sue for peace by destroying her only hope of victory rather than an anti-Soviet move. Klaus Hildebrand has maintained that Stalin and Hitler were independently planning to attack each other in 1941. Hildebrand has claimed that the news in the spring of 1941 of Soviet troop concentrations on the border led to Hitler engaging in a flucht nach vorn ("flight forward" – i.e. responding to a danger by charging on rather than retreating.) A third faction comprising a diverse group such as Viktor Suvorov, Ernst Topitsch, Joachim Hoffmann, Ernst Nolte, and David Irving have argued that the official reason given by the Germans for Barbarossa in 1941 was the real reason, namely that Barbarossa was a "preventive war" forced on Hitler to avert an impeding Soviet attack scheduled for July 1941. This theory has been widely attacked as erroneous; the American historian Gerhard Weinberg once compared the advocates of the preventive war theory to believers in "fairy tales"

The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union reached its apex on 2 December 1941 as part of the 258th Infantry Division advanced to within 15 miles (24 km) of Moscow, close enough to see the spires of the Kremlin, but they were not prepared for the harsh conditions brought on by the first blizzards of winter and in the days that followed, Soviet forces drove them back over 320 kilometres (200 miles).

On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and four days later, Hitler's formal declaration of war against the United States officially engaged him in war against a coalition that included the world's largest empire (the British Empire), the world's greatest industrial and financial power (the United States), and the world's largest army (the Soviet Union).

On 18 December 1941, the appointment book of the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler shows he met with Hitler, and in response to Himmler's question "What to do with the Jews of Russia?", Hitler's response was recorded as "als Partisanen auszurotten" ("exterminate them as partisans"). The Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer has commented that the remark is probably as close as historians will ever get to a definitive order from Hitler for the genocide carried out during the Holocaust.

In late 1942, German forces were defeated in the second battle of El Alamein, thwarting Hitler's plans to seize the Suez Canal and the Middle East. In February 1943, the Battle of Stalingrad ended with the destruction of the German 6th Army. Thereafter came the Battle of Kursk. Hitler's military judgment became increasingly erratic, and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated along with Hitler's health, as indicated by his left hand's severe trembling. Hitler's biographer Ian Kershaw and others believe that he may have suffered from Parkinson's disease. Syphilis has also been suspected as a cause of at least some of his symptoms, although the evidence is slight.

Following the allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky) in 1943, Mussolini was deposed by Pietro Badoglio, who surrendered to the Allies. Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the Eastern Front. On 6 June 1944, the Western Allied armies landed in northern France in what was one of the largest amphibious operations in history, Operation Overlord. Realists in the German army knew defeat was inevitable, and some plotted to remove Hitler from power.

Attempted assassination

There were numerous attempts or ideas by private individuals, organisations or states wishing to assassinate Hitler. Some of the plans proceeded to significant degrees. While some attempts occurred before World War II, the most famous attempt came from within Germany. The plan was at least partly driven by the prospect of the increasingly imminent defeat of Germany in the war.

In July 1944, as part of Operation Valkyrie in what became known as the 20 July plot, Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in Hitler's headquarters, the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) at Rastenburg. Hitler narrowly escaped death due to random chance, as someone unknowingly moved the briefcase that contained a bomb by pushing it behind a leg of the heavy conference table. When the bomb exploded, the table subsequently deflected much of the blast away from Hitler. Later, Hitler ordered savage reprisals, resulting in the executions of more than 4,900 people, sometimes by starvation in solitary confinement followed by slow strangulation. The main resistance movement was destroyed, although smaller isolated groups continued to operate.

Defeat and death

By late 1944, the Red Army had driven the Germans back into Central Europe and the Western Allies were advancing into Germany. After watching the twin defeats in his Ardennes Offensive from his Adlerhorst command complex – Operation Wacht am Rhein and Operation Nordwind – Hitler realized that Germany had lost the war, but allowed no retreats. He hoped to negotiate a separate peace with America and Britain, a hope buoyed by the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April 1945. Hitler's stubbornness and defiance of military realities allowed the Holocaust to continue. He ordered the complete destruction of all German industrial infrastructure before it could fall into Allied hands, saying that Germany's failure to win the war forfeited its right to survive. Rather, Hitler decided that the entire nation should go down with him. Execution of this scorched earth plan was entrusted to arms minister Albert Speer, who quietly disobeyed the order.

On 20 April, Hitler celebrated his 56th birthday in the Führerbunker ("Führer's shelter") below the Reichskanzlei (Reich Chancellery). Elsewhere, the garrison commander of the besieged Festung Breslau ("fortress Breslau"), General Hermann Niehoff, had chocolates distributed to his troops in honour of Hitler's birthday.

By 21 April, Georgi Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front had broken through the last defences of German General Gotthard Heinrici's Army Group Vistula during the Battle of the Seelow Heights. Facing little resistance, the Soviets advanced headlong into the outskirts of Berlin. Ignoring the facts, Hitler saw salvation in the ragtag units commanded by Waffen SS General Felix Steiner. Steiner's command became known as Armeeabteilung Steiner ("Army Detachment Steiner"). But "Army Detachment Steiner" existed primarily on paper. It was more than a corps but less than an army. Hitler ordered Steiner to attack the northern flank of the huge salient created by the breakthrough of Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front. Meanwhile, the German Ninth Army, which had been pushed south of the salient, was ordered to attack north in a pincer attack.

Late on 21 April, Heinrici called Hans Krebs, chief of the Oberkommando des Heeres (Supreme Command of the Army or OKH), and told him that Hitler's plan could not be implemented. Heinrici asked to speak to Hitler but was told by Krebs that Hitler was too busy to take his call.

On 22 April, during the military conference, Hitler interrupted the report to ask what had happened to Steiner's offensive. There was a long silence. Then Hitler was told that the attack had never been launched and the Russians had broken through into Berlin. Hitler asked everyone except Wilhelm Keitel, Hans Krebs, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Burgdorf, and Martin Bormann to leave the room, and launched into a tirade against the treachery and incompetence of his commanders. This culminated with Hitler openly declaring for the first time the war was lost. Hitler announced he would stay in Berlin, head up the defence of the city and then shoot himself.

Before the day ended, Hitler again found salvation in a new plan that included General Walther Wenck's Twelfth Army. This new plan had Wenck turn his army – currently facing the Americans to the west – and attack towards the east to relieve Berlin. Twelfth Army was to link up with Ninth Army and break through to the city. Wenck did attack and, in the confusion, made temporary contact with the Potsdam garrison. But the link with the Ninth Army, like the plan in general, was ultimately unsuccessful.

On 23 April, Joseph Goebbels made the following proclamation to the people of Berlin:

I call on you to fight for your city. Fight with everything you have got, for the sake of your wives and your children, your mothers and your parents. Your arms are defending everything we have ever held dear, and all the generations that will come after us. Be proud and courageous! Be inventive and cunning! Your Gauleiter is amongst you. He and his colleagues will remain in your midst. His wife and children are here as well. He, who once captured the city with 200 men, will now use every means to galvanize the defence of the capital. The Battle for Berlin must become the signal for the whole nation to rise up in battle ...

The same day, Göring sent a telegram from Berchtesgaden in Bavaria. Göring argued that, since Hitler was cut off in Berlin, he should assume leadership of Germany as Hitler's designated successor. Göring mentioned a time limit after which he would consider Hitler incapacitated. Hitler responded, in anger, by having Göring arrested. Later when Hitler wrote his will on 29 April, Göring was removed from all his positions in the government. Further on 23 April, Hitler appointed General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling as the commander of the Berlin Defense Area. Weidling replaced Lieutenant General (Generalleutnant) Helmuth Reymann and Colonel (Oberst) Ernst Kaether. Hitler also appointed Waffen-SS Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke the (Kommandant) Battle Commander for the defence of the government district (Zitadelle sector) that included the Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker.

By the end of the day on 27 April, Berlin was completely cut off from the rest of Germany. As the Soviet forces closed in, Hitler's followers urged him to flee to the mountains of Bavaria to make a last stand in the National Redoubt. However, Hitler was determined to either live or die in the capital.

On 28 April, Hitler discovered that Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler was trying to discuss surrender terms with the Western Allies (through the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte). Hitler ordered Himmler's arrest and had Hermann Fegelein (Himmler's SS representative at Hitler's HQ in Berlin) shot.

During the night of 28 April, Wenck reported that his Twelfth Army had been forced back along the entire front. He noted that no further attacks towards Berlin were possible. General Alfred Jodl (Supreme Army Command) did not provide this information to Hans Krebs in Berlin until early in the morning of 30 April.

After midnight on 29 April, Hitler married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony in a map room within the Führerbunker. Antony Beevor stated that after Hitler hosted a modest wedding breakfast with his new wife, he then took secretary Traudl Junge to another room and dictated his last will and testament. Hitler signed these documents at 4:00 am. The event was witnessed and documents signed by Hans Krebs, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann. Hitler then retired to bed. That afternoon, Hitler was informed of the assassination of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, which is presumed to have increased his determination to avoid capture.

On 30 April 1945, after intense street-to-street combat, when Soviet troops were within a block or two of the Reich Chancellery, Hitler and Braun committed suicide; Eva by biting into a cyanide capsule and Hitler by shooting himself with his Walther PPK 7.65 mm pistol. Hitler had at various times in the past contemplated suicide, and the Walther was the same pistol that his niece, Geli Raubal had used in her suicide. The lifeless bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun were carried up the stairs and through the bunker's emergency exit to the bombed-out garden behind the Reich Chancellery where they were placed in a bomb crater and doused with petrol. The corpses were set on fire as the Red Army advanced and the shelling continued.

On 2 May, Berlin surrendered. In the postwar years there were conflicting reports about what happened to Hitler's remains. After the fall of the Soviet Union, records found in the Soviet archives revealed that the remains of Hitler, Eva Braun, Joseph and Magda Goebbels, the six Goebbels children, General Hans Krebs and Hitler's dogs, were collected, moved and secretly buried in graves near Rathenow in Brandenburg. In 1970, the remains were disinterred, cremated and scattered in the Elbe River by the Soviets. According to the Russian Federal Security Service, a fragment of human skull stored in its archives and displayed to the public in a 2000 exhibition came from the remains of Hitler's body. The authenticity of the skull has been challenged by historians and researchers. DNA analysis conducted in 2009 showed the skull fragment to be that of a woman, and analysis of the sutures between the skull plates indicated an age between 20 and 40 years old at the time of death.

Legacy

Hitler caused the deaths of approximately 40 million people, including about 27 million in the Soviet Union. The actions of Hitler, the Nazi Party and the results of Nazism are typically regarded as gravely immoral. Historians, philosophers, and politicians have often applied the word evil. Historical and cultural portrayals of Hitler in the west are overwhelmingly condemnatory. Holocaust denial, along with the display of Nazi symbols such as swastikas, is prohibited in Germany and Austria.

Outside of Hitler's birthplace in Braunau am Inn, Austria, the Memorial Stone Against War and Fascism is engraved with the following message:

FÜR FRIEDEN FREIHEIT
UND DEMOKRATIE
NIE WIEDER FASCHISMUS
MILLIONEN TOTE MAHNEN

Loosely translated it reads: "For peace, freedom // and democracy // never again fascism // millions of dead warn "

After WWII the toothbrush moustache fell from favor in the West due to its strong association with Hitler, earning it the nickname "Hitler moustache". Use of the name "Adolf" also declined.

Some people have referred to Hitler's legacy in neutral or favourable terms. Former Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat spoke of his 'admiration' of Hitler in 1953, when he was a young man, though it is possible he was speaking in the context of a rebellion against the British Empire. Louis Farrakhan has referred to him as a "very great man". Bal Thackeray, leader of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena party in the Indian state of the Maharashtra, declared in 1995 that he was an admirer of Hitler. Friedrich Meinecke, the German historian, said of Hitler's life that "it is one of the great examples of the singular and incalculable power of personality in historical life".

Religious views

Hitler was raised by Roman Catholic parents, but after he left home, he never attended Mass or received the sacraments. Hitler favoured aspects of Protestantism, if they were more suitable to his own objectives. At the same time, he adopted some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organization, liturgy and phraseology in his politics. After he had moved to Germany, where the Catholic and the Protestant church are largely financed through a church tax collected by the state, Hitler never "actually left his church or refused to pay church taxes. In a nominal sense therefore," the historian Richard Steigmann-Gall states, Hitler "can be classified as Catholic." Yet, as Steigmann-Gall has also pointed out in the debate about religion in Nazi Germany: "Nominal church membership is a very unreliable gauge of actual piety in this context."

In public, Hitler often praised Christian heritage, German Christian culture, and professed a belief in an Aryan Jesus Christ, a Jesus who fought against the Jews. In his speeches and publications, Hitler spoke of his interpretation of Christianity as a central motivation for his antisemitism, stating that "As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice." His private statements, as reported by his intimates, show Hitler as critical of traditional Christianity, considering it a religion fit only for slaves; he admired the power of Rome but had severe hostility towards its teaching. Here, Hitler's attack on Catholicism "resonated Streicher's contention that the Catholic establishment was allying itself with the Jews." In light of these private statements, for John S. Conway and many other historians, it is beyond doubt that Hitler held a "fundamental antagonism" towards the Christian churches. The various accounts of Hitler's private statements vary strongly in their reliability; most importantly, Hermann Rauschning's Hitler speaks is considered by most historians to be an invention.

In the political relations with the churches in Germany, however, Hitler readily adopted a strategy "that suited his immediate political purposes". Hitler had a general plan, even before the rise of the Nazis to power, to destroy Christianity within the Reich. The leader of the Hitler Youth stated "the destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose of the National Socialist movement" from the start, but "considerations of expedience made it impossible" publicly to express this extreme position. His intention was to wait until the war was over to destroy the influence of Christianity.

Hitler, for a time, advocated for Germans a form of the Christian faith he called "Positive Christianity", a belief system purged of what he objected to in orthodox Christianity, and featuring added racist elements. By 1940, however, it was public knowledge that Hitler had abandoned advocating for Germans even the syncretist idea of a positive Christianity. Hitler maintained that the "terrorism in religion is, to put it briefly, of a Jewish dogma, which Christianity has universalized and whose effect is to sow trouble and confusion in men's minds."

Hitler once stated, "We do not want any other god than Germany itself. It is essential to have fanatical faith and hope and love in and for Germany."

Attitude to occultism

Some writers believe that, in contrast to some Nazi ideologues, Hitler did not adhere to esoteric ideas, occultism, or Ariosophy. Hitler ridiculed such beliefs in Mein Kampf. Nevertheless, other writers believe the young Hitler was strongly influenced, particularly in his racial views, by an abundance of occult works on the mystical superiority of the Germans, such as the occult and antisemitic magazine Ostara, and give credence to the claim of its publisher Lanz von Liebenfels that Hitler visited Liebenfels in 1909 and praised his work. The historians are still divided on the question of the reliability of von Liebenfels' claim of a contact with Hitler. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke considers his account reliable, Brigitte Hamann leaves the question open and Ian Kershaw, although questioning to what degree he was influenced by it, notes that, "Most likely, Hitler did read Ostara, along with other racist pulp which was prominent on Vienna newspaper stands." Kershaw notes that it is usually taken for granted that Hitler did so, and was to some extent influenced by the occult publication, pointing to Hitler's account of conversion to antisemitism after reading some unnamed antisemitic pamphlets.

Health

Hitler's health has long been the subject of debate. He has variously been said to have had irritable bowel syndrome, skin lesions, irregular heartbeat, Parkinson's disease, syphilis, tinnitus, and Asperger syndrome. He had problems with his teeth and his personal dentist Hugo Blaschke stated that he fitted a large dental bridge to his upper jaw in 1933 and that on 10 November 1944 he carried out surgery to cut off part of the left rear section of the bridge that was causing an infection of his gums. He was also suffering from a sinus infection.

After the early 1930s, Hitler generally followed a vegetarian diet, although he ate meat on occasion. There are reports of him disgusting his guests by giving them graphic accounts of the slaughter of animals in an effort to make them shun meat. A fear of cancer (from which his mother died) is the most widely cited reason, though it is also asserted that Hitler, an antivivisectionist, had a profound concern for animals. Martin Bormann had a greenhouse constructed for him near the Berghof (near Berchtesgaden) to ensure a steady supply of fresh fruit and vegetables for Hitler throughout the war.

Hitler was a non-smoker and promoted aggressive anti-smoking campaigns throughout Germany. (See Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany.) Hitler "despised" alcohol.

Syphilis

Hitler's tremors and irregular heartbeat during the last years of his life could have been symptoms of tertiary (late stage) syphilis, which would mean he had had a syphilis infection for many years. Along with another doctor, Theodor Morell diagnosed the symptoms as such by early 1945 in a joint report to SS head Heinrich Himmler. Some historians have cited Hitler's preoccupation with syphilis across 14 pages of Mein Kampf, where he called it a "Jewish disease", leading to speculation he may have had the disease himself. His possible discovery in 1908 that he had the disease may have been responsible for his demeanor; while his life course may have been influenced by his anger at being a syphilitic, as well as his belief that he had acquired the disease from undesirable societal elements which he intended to eliminate. In several chapters of Mein Kampf, he wrote about the temptation of prostitution and the spreading of syphilis, specifically volume 1, chapter 10, "Causes of the Collapse". Historians have speculated he may have caught the affliction from a German prostitute at a time when the disease was not yet treatable by modern antibiotics, which would also explain his avoidance of normal sexual relations with women. However, syphilis had become curable in 1910 with Dr. Paul Ehrlich's introduction of the drug Salvarsan.

Since the 1870s, however, it was a common rhetorical practice on the völkisch right to associate Jews with diseases such as syphilis. Historian Robert Waite claims Hitler tested negative on a Wassermann test as late as 1939, which does not prove that he did not have the disease, because the Wassermann test was prone to false-negative results. Regardless of whether he actually had syphilis or not, Hitler lived in constant fear of the disease, and took treatment for it no matter what his doctors told him.

In his biography of Doctor Felix Kersten called The Man with the Miraculous Hands, journalist and Académie française member Joseph Kessel wrote that in the winter of 1942, Kersten heard of Hitler's medical condition. Consulted by his patient, Himmler, as to whether he could "assist a man who suffers from severe headaches, dizziness and insomnia," Kersten was shown a top-secret 26-page report. It detailed how Hitler had contracted syphilis in his youth and was treated for it at a hospital in Pasewalk, Germany. However, in 1937, symptoms re-appeared, showing that the disease was still active, and by the start of 1942, signs were evident that progressive syphilitic paralysis (Tabes dorsalis) was occurring. Himmler advised Kersten that Morell (who in the 1930s claimed to be a specialist venereologist) was in charge of Hitler's treatment, and that it was a state secret. The book also relates how Kersten learned from Himmler's secretary, Rudolf Brandt, that at that time, probably the only other people privy to the report's information were Nazi Party chairman Martin Bormann and Hermann Göring, the head of the Luftwaffe.

Monorchism

It has been alleged that Hitler had monorchism, the medical condition of having only one testicle. Hitler's personal doctor, Johan Jambor, supposedly described the dictator's condition to a priest who later wrote down what he had been told in a document which was uncovered in 2008, 23 years after the doctor's death.

Soviet intelligence officer and translator, Lev Bezymensky, allegedly involved in the Soviet autopsy, stated in a 1967 book that Hitler's left testicle was missing. Bezymensky later admitted that the claim was falsified. Hitler was routinely examined by many doctors throughout his childhood, military service and later political career, and no clinical mention of any such condition has ever been discovered. Records do show he was wounded in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme, and some sources do describe his injury as a wound to the groin.

Parkinson's disease

It has also been speculated Hitler had Parkinson's disease. Newsreels of Hitler show he had tremors in his hand and a shuffling walk (also a symptom of tertiary syphilis, see above) which began before the war and continued to worsen until the end of his life. Morell treated Hitler with a drug agent that was commonly used in 1945, although Morell is viewed as an unreliable doctor by most historians and any diagnoses he may have made are subject to doubt.

A more reliable doctor, Ernst-Günther Schenck, who worked at an emergency casualty station in the Reich Chancellery during April 1945, also claimed Hitler might have Parkinson's disease. However, Schenck only saw Hitler briefly on two occasions and, by his own admission, was extremely exhausted and dazed during these meetings (at the time, he had been in surgery for numerous days without much sleep). Also, some of Schenck's opinions were based on hearsay from Dr. Haase.

Other complaints

From the 1930s, he suffered from stomach pains. In 1936, a non-cancerous polyp was removed from his throat and he developed eczema on his legs. He suffered ruptured eardrums as a result of the 20 July plot bomb blast in 1944, and two hundred wood splinters had to be removed from his legs. Hitler's otologist observed that Hitler had developed tinnitus after the Röhm-Putsch, and considered it psychogenic in origin. Hitler treated the condition with the prescription-free lipid lecithin.

Addiction to amphetamine

Hitler began using amphetamine occasionally after 1937 and became addicted after the late summer of 1942. Albert Speer stated he thought this was the most likely cause of the later rigidity of Hitler’s decision making (never allowing military retreats).

Historians' views

In a 1980 article, the German historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler dismissed theories that sought to explain Nazi Germany as due to some defect, medical or otherwise in Hitler. In his opinion, besides the problem that such theories about Hitler's medical condition were extremely difficult to prove, they had the effect of personalizing the phenomena of Nazi Germany by attributing everything that happened in the Third Reich to one flawed individual. The British historian Sir Ian Kershaw agreed that it was better to take a broader view of German history by seeking to examine what social forces led to the Third Reich and its policies, as opposed to the "personalized" explanations for the Holocaust and World War II.

Sexuality

Hitler presented himself publicly as a man without a domestic life, dedicated entirely to his political mission. However, he had a fiancée in the 1920s, Mimi Reiter, and later had a mistress, Eva Braun. He had a close bond with his half-niece Geli Raubal, which some commentators have claimed was sexual, though there is no evidence that proves this. All three women attempted suicide (two succeeded), a fact that has led to speculation that Hitler may have had perverse sexual fetishes that drove them to their suicides. Other fetishes of Hitler's, such as urolagnia (aroused by urine or urination), were claimed by Otto Strasser, a political opponent of Hitler. Reiter, the only one to survive the Nazi regime, denied this. Some theorists have claimed that Hitler had a relationship with British fascist Unity Mitford.

Family

Paula Hitler, the last living member of Adolf Hitler's immediate family, died in 1960.

The most prominent and longest-living direct descendant of Adolf Hitler's father, Alois, was Adolf's nephew William Patrick Hitler. With his wife Phyllis, he eventually moved to Long Island, New York, changed his last name, and had four sons. None of William Hitler's children have had any children of their own.

Over the years, various investigative reporters have attempted to track down other distant relatives of the Führer. Many are now alleged to be living inconspicuous lives and have long since changed their last name.

• Klara Hitler, mother
• Alois Hitler, father
• Alois Hitler, Jr., half-brother
• Angela Hitler Raubal, half-sister
• Bridget Dowling, sister-in-law
• Eva Braun, mistress and then wife
• Geli Raubal, niece
• Gretl Braun, sister-in-law through Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun
• Heinz Hitler, nephew
• Hermann Fegelein, brother-in-law through Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun
• Ilse Braun, sister-in-law through Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun
• Johann Georg Hiedler, presumed grandfather
• Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, maternal great-grandfather, presumed great uncle and possibly Hitler's true paternal grandfather
• Leo Raubal Jr, nephew
• Maria Schicklgruber, grandmother
• Paula Hitler, sister
• William Patrick Hitler, nephew

Hitler in media

Oratory and rallies

Hitler honed his skills by giving speeches to soldiers during 1919 and 1920. He became adept at telling people what they wanted to hear (the stab-in-the-back, the Jewish-Marxist plot to conquer the world, and the betrayal of Germany in the Versailles treaty) and identifying a scapegoat for their plight. He was allegedly coached by Erik-Jan Hanussen, a self-styled clairvoyant who focused on hand and arm gestures and who, ironically, had Jewish heritage. Munitions minister and architect Albert Speer said that Hitler was above all else an actor.

Massive Nazi rallies staged by Speer were designed to spark a process of self-persuasion for the participants. By participating in the rallies, by marching, by shouting heil, and by making the stiff armed salute, the participants strengthened their commitment to the Nazi movement. This process can be appreciated by watching Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, which presents the 1934 Nuremberg Rally. The camera shoots Hitler from on high and from below, but only twice head-on. These camera angles give Hitler a Christ-like aura. Some of the people in the film are paid actors, but most of the participants are not. Whether the film itself recruited new Nazis out of theatre audiences is unknown. The process of self-persuasion may have affected Hitler. He gave the same speech (though it got smoother and smoother with repetition) hundreds of times first to soldiers and then to audiences in beer halls.

Recorded in private conversation

Hitler visited Finnish Field Marshal Mannerheim on 4 June 1942. During the visit an engineer of the Finnish broadcasting company YLE, Thor Damen, recorded Hitler and Mannerheim in conversation, something which had to be done secretly since Hitler never allowed recordings of him off-guard. Today the recording is the only known recording of Hitler not speaking in an official tone. The recording captures 11½ minutes of the two leaders in private conversation. Hitler speaks in a slightly excited, but still intellectually detached manner during this talk (the speech has been compared to that of the working class). The majority of the recording is a monologue by Hitler. In the recording, Hitler admits to underestimating the Soviet Union's ability to conduct war.

Documentaries during the Third Reich

Hitler appeared in and was involved to varying degrees with a series of films by the pioneering filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl via Universum Film AG (UFA):

• Der Sieg des Glaubens (Victory of Faith, 1933).
• Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1934), co-produced by Hitler.
• Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht (Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces, 1935).
• Olympia (1938).

Hitler was the central figure of the first three films; they focused on the party rallies of the respective years and are considered propaganda films. Hitler also featured prominently in the Olympia film. Whether the latter is a propaganda film or a true documentary is still a subject of controversy, but it nonetheless perpetuated and spread the propagandistic message of the 1936 Olympic Games depicting Nazi Germany as a prosperous and peaceful country. As a prominent politician, Hitler was featured in many newsreels.

Television

Hitler's attendance at various public functions, including the 1936 Olympic Games and Nuremberg Rallies, appeared on television broadcasts made between 1935 and 1939. These events, along with other programming highlighting activity by public officials, were often repeated in public viewing rooms. Samples from a number of surviving television films from Nazi Germany were included in the 1999 documentary Das Fernsehen unter dem Hakenkreuz (Television Under the Swastika).

Documentaries post Third Reich

• The World at War (1974): a Thames Television series which contains much information about Hitler and Nazi Germany, including an interview with his secretary, Traudl Junge.
• Adolf Hitler's Last Days: from the BBC series "Secrets of World War II" tells the story about Hitler's last days during World War II.
• The Nazis: A Warning From History (1997): six-part BBC TV series on how the cultured and educated Germans accepted Hitler and the Nazis up to its downfall. Historical consultant is Ian Kershaw.
• Cold War (1998): a CNN series about the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The series begins with World War II footage, including Hitler, and how the Cold War began in earnest after Germany surrendered.
• Im toten Winkel – Hitlers Sekretärin (Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary) (2002): an exclusive 90 minute interview with Traudl Junge, Hitler's secretary. Made by Austrian Jewish director André Heller shortly before Junge's death from lung cancer, Junge recalls the last days in the Berlin bunker. Clips of the interview were used in Downfall (film).
• Undergångens arkitektur (The Architecture of Doom) (1989): documentary about the National Socialist aesthetic as envisioned by Hitler.
• Das Fernsehen unter dem Hakenkreuz (Television Under the Swastika) (1999): documentary by Michael Kloft about the domestic use of television in Nazi Germany for propaganda purposes from 1935 to 1944.
• Ruins of the Reich (2007): four-part series of the Rise and Fall of Hitler's Reich and its effects, created by Third Reich historian R.J. Adams

Films and series

• East German actor Fritz Diez depicted Hitler in Ernst Thälmann – Führer seiner Klasse (East Germany, 1955), Frozen Flashes (East Germany, 1967), I, Justice (Czechoslovakia, 1967), Liberation (1970–1, Soviet Union), 17 Moments of Spring (1973, TV production, Soviet Union), Take Aim (1974, Soviet Union) and Soldiers of Freedom (1977, Soviet Union).
• The Death of Adolf Hitler, a British (7 January 1973) made-for-television production, starring Frank Finlay. The movie depicts the last days of Hitler.
• Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973): movie depicting the days leading up to Adolf Hitler's death, starring Sir Alec Guinness.
• Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's Hitler – Ein Film aus Deutschland (Hitler: A Film from Germany) (1977): a seven-hour work in four parts. The director uses documentary clips, photographic backgrounds, puppets, theatrical stages, and other elements.
• The Bunker (1981): a U.S. made-for-television movie describing the last days in the Führerbunker covering 17 January 1945 to 2 May 1945. The film stars Sir Anthony Hopkins.
• Europa, Europa (1990): based on the true story of a German Jew who joined the Hitler Youth in order to avoid capture. Hitler is portrayed by Ryszard Pietruski.
• Fatherland (1994): a hypothetical view of Germany in 1964, had Hitler won World War II, adapted from the novel by former journalist Robert Harris.
• The Empty Mirror (1996): a psychodrama which speculates on the events following Hitler (portrayed by Norman Rodway) surviving the fall of Nazi Germany.
• Moloch (1999): Hitler portrayed by Leonid Mozgovoy in a fictional drama set at his Berghof Retreat in the Bavarian Alps.
• Max (2002): fictional drama depicting a friendship between Jewish art dealer Max Rothman (John Cusack) and a young Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor) as a failed painter in Vienna.
• Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003): two-part TV series about the early years of Adolf Hitler and his rise to power (up to 1933), starring Robert Carlyle.
• Der Untergang (Downfall) (2004): German movie about the last days of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, starring Bruno Ganz. This film is partly based on the autobiography of Traudl Junge, a favourite secretary of Hitler's. In 2002, Junge said she felt great guilt for "... liking the greatest criminal ever to have lived."
• Valkyrie (2008): Hitler, played by David Bamber, is portrayed as a target of the famous assassination plot by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg.

Plays

• Dr Freud Will See You Now Mr Hitler (2008): radio drama by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran presenting an imagined scenario in which Sigmund Freud treats the young Hitler. Toby Jones played Hitler.

See also

• Führermuseum
• Mein Kampf (online versions)
• Poison Kitchen
• Vorbunker

Footnotes

1. "Hitler ersucht um Entlassung aus der österreichischen Staatsangehörigkeit", 7 April 1925 Template:De icon. Translation: "Hitler's official application to end his Austrian citizenship". NS-Archiv. Retrieved on 19 August 2008.
2. Keegan 1989, p. 141
3. Niewyk, Donald L. (2000), The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, Columbia University Press, p. 45, ISBN 0231112009 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
4. Hancock, Ian (2004), "Romanies and the Holocaust: A Reevaluation and an Overview", in Stone, Dan (ed.), The Historiography of the Holocaust, New York; Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 383–396, ISBN 978-0333997451, retrieved 7 June 2011
5. Linge 2009, pp. 199–200
6. Shirer, W. L. (1960), The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, New York: Simon and Schuster
7. ^ Rosenbaum, R. (1999). Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil. Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-06-095339-X
8. Shirer (15 November 1990), The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 7, ISBN 9780671728687
9. Dieter Schenk, Frank: Hitlers Kronjurist und General-Gouverneur, 2006, p.65. ISBN 978-3-10-073562-1: "Dass Adolf Hitler bestimmt kein Judenblut in den Adern hatte, scheint mir aus seiner ganzen Art dermaßen eklatant bewiesen, dass es keines weiteren Wortes bedarf," (p.330 of Frank's memoirs published in 1953 as Im Angesicht des Galgens. Deutung Hitlers und seiner Zeit aufgrund eigener Erlebnisse und Erkenntnisse)
10. Toland 1991, pp. 246–47
11. ^ Kershaw 1999, pp. 8–9
12. "Holocaust-Referenz : Hatte Hitler jüdische Vorfahren?". H-ref.de. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
13. Jetzinger 1976, p. 32
14. "Adolf Hitler's Austrian hometown revokes honour title". BBC News. 8 July 2011. Retrieved 8 July 2011.
15. Anna Elisabeth Rosmus, Out of Passau: Leaving a City Hitler Called Home, p. 41
16. John Toland, Adolf Hitler, 1976 ISBN 0-385-42053-6
17. ^ Payne 1990
18. Rosmus, op cit, p. 35
19. Shirer, p.27
20. Payne 1990, p. 22
21. "Adolf Hitler Video—". History.com. Retrieved 28 April 2010.
22. Payne 1990, p. 41
23. Toland 1991, p. 18
24. Jetzinger 1976, p. 74
25. Bullock 1962, pp. 30–31
26. ^ Hitler 1998, §2 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHitler1998 (help)
27. Lehrer, Steven (2002), Hitler Sites: A City-by-city Guidebook (Austria, Germany, France, United States), McFarland, p. 224, ISBN 0786410450
28. Hamann 1999, p. 176
29. ^ Kershaw 1999, pp. 50–51
30. Hamann 1999
31. Hitler 1998, §7 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHitler1998 (help)
32. Röpke1946, p. 117
33. Waite 1993, p. 251
34. Shirer 1961 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFShirer1961 (help)
35. Shirer 1990, p. 53 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFShirer1990 (help)
36. Bullock 1962, p. 52
37. Jamieson, Alastair (19 November 2008). "Nazi leader Hitler really did have only one ball". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 27 May 2011.
38. Rosenbaum, Ron (28 November 2008). "Everything You Need To Know About Hitler's "Missing" Testicle". Slate. Retrieved 27 May 2011.
39. Lewis 2003
40. Dawidowicz 1986
41. Keegan 1987, pp. 238–240
42. Bullock 1962, p. 60
43. 1919 Picture of Hitler, Historisches Lexikon Bayerns, retrieved 22 May 2008
44. Stackelberg, Roderick (2007), The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany, New York, NY: Routledge, p. 9, ISBN 0-415-30860-7
45. Samuel W. Mitcham, Why Hitler?: the genesis of the Nazi Reich. Praeger, 1996, p.67
46. Fest 1970, p. 21
47. The Russian Roots of Nazism White Émigrés and the Making of National Socialism, 1917–1945 * Michael Kellogg, Cambridge 2005
48. Kellogg p203
49. Shirer 1961, pp. 104–106 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFShirer1961 (help)
50. Shirer 1961, p. 109 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFShirer1961 (help)
51. Shirer 1961, pp. 111–113 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFShirer1961 (help)
52. Der Hitler-Prozeß vor dem Volksgericht in München. 1924. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
53. Fulda, Bernhard (2009). Press and politics in the Weimar Republic. Oxford University Press. pp. 68–69. ISBN 9780199547784.
54. Kershaw 1999, p. 239
55. ^ Bullock 1962, p. 121
56. Jonathan Peter Spiro (31 December 2008), Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of Madison Grant, Univ. of Vermont Press, ISBN 9781584657156, retrieved 25 January 2010
57. See Verbotzeit for details.
58. Halperin 1965, p. 403 et. seq.
59. Halperin 1965, pp. 434–446 et. seq.
60. Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 218
61. Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 216
62. Wheeler-Bennett 1967, pp. 218–219
63. Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 222
64. Halperin 1965, p. 449 et. seq.
65. Halperin 1965, pp. 434–436, 471
66. Shirer, p. 185
67. "Des Führers Pass, Hitlers Einbürgerung", Der Spiegel, retrieved 22 May 2008
68. Halperin 1965, p. 476
69. Halperin 1965, pp. 468–471
70. ^ Bullock 1962, p. 201
71. Halperin 1965, pp. 477–479
72. Bullock 1962, pp. 393–394
73. Eingabe der Industriellen an Hindenburg vom November 1932, Glasnost, retrieved 22 May 2008
74. "accessed 20 March 2010". Fox News. 17 October 2003. Retrieved 20 April 2010.
75. Bullock 1962, p. 262
76. Bullock 1962, p. 265
77. ^ "1933 – Day of Potsdam". City of Potsdam. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
78. Paul, Gregory S. (2003), "The Great Scandal: Christianity's Role in the Rise of the Nazis", Free Inquiry, 23 (4), retrieved 13 June 2011. {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
79. "Otto Wels". Biographies. German Resistance Memorial Center. 2011. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
80. GERMANY: Second Revolution?, TIME Magazine, 2 July 1934
81. Richard J. Evans, The Coming of The Third Reich, Penguin Group, 2003. ISBN 0-14-303469-3 (pbk.), p. 350–374.
82. Bullock 1962, p. 305
83. Fest 1974, p. 476
84. Birchall, Frederick T. (20 August 1932). "Hitler Endorsed by 9 to 1 in Poll on His Dictatorship, But Opposition is Doubled: Absolute Power is Won". New York Times.
85. Bullock 1962, p. 309
86. Toland, John (1992), Adolf Hitler, Garden City: Anchor Books, ISBN 0385420536
87. Template:Http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub document.cfm?document id=1557
88. Template:Http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERwomen.htm
89. Shirer 1990 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFShirer1990 (help)
90. Wistrich, Robert S. (2002), Who's Who in Nazi Germany, New York: Routledge, p. 193, ISBN 0415127238
91. Holland, James (18 April 2009). "How Hitler's 50th birthday party sparked World War II". Daily Mail. UK. Retrieved 23 January 2010. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
92. Kershaw 2000a, pp. 166–168
93. Kershaw 2000a, pp. 244–245
94. Weinberg 1970, pp. 26–27
95. Kershaw 1999, pp. 490–491
96. Kershaw 1999, pp. 492, 555–556, 586–587
97. Carr 1972, p. 23
98. Kershaw 2000a, pp. 145–147
99. Messerschmidt 1990, pp. 601–602
100. Hildebrand 1973, p. 39
101. Roberts, Martin (1975), The New Barbarism – A Portrait of Europe 1900–1973, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0199132259
102. ^ Kershaw 1999, pp. 567–568
103. Messerschmidt 1990, pp. 630–631
104. ^ Overy, Richard (1999), "Misjudging Hitler", in Martel, Gordon (ed.), The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered, London: Routledge, pp. 93–115, ISBN 978-0415163248
105. Carr 1972, pp. 56–57
106. Messerschmidt 1990, p. 642
107. Aigner, Dietrich "Hitler's Ultimate Aims" from Aspects of the Third Reich edited by H.W. Koch, London: Macmillan, 1985 p. 264.
108. ^ Messerschmidt 1990, pp. 636–637
109. Carr 1972, pp. 73–78
110. Messerschmidt 1990, p. 638
111. Overy 2005, p. 252
112. Robert Gellately. Reviewed work(s): Vom Generalplan Ost zum Generalsiedlungsplan by Czeslaw Madajczyk. Der "Generalplan Ost." Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Planungs- und Vernichtungspolitik by Mechtild Rössler ; Sabine Schleiermacher. Central European History, Vol. 29, No. 2 (1996), pp. 270–274
113. Jonathan Steinberg. The Third Reich Reflected: German Civil Administration in the Occupied Soviet Union, 1941-4. The English Historical Review, Vol. 110, No. 437 (Jun., 1995), pp. 620–651
114. How many Jews were murdered in the Holocaust? How do we know? Do we have their names?, Yad Vashem, archived from the original on 19 May 2008, retrieved 22 May 2008
115. The Holocaust, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, retrieved 22 May 2008
116. Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners (p. 290) – "2.8 million young, healthy Soviet POWs" killed by the Germans, "mainly by starvation ... in less than eight months" of 1941–42, before "the decimation of Soviet POWs ... was stopped" and the Germans "began to use them as laborers".
117. Downing, David (2005), The Nazi Death Camps, World Almanac Library of the Holocaust, Gareth Stevens, p. 33, ISBN 0836859472
118. Norman M. Naimark (2002). Fires of hatred: ethnic cleansing in twentieth-century Europe. Harvard University Press. p.81. ISBN 0674009940
119. Geoffrey P. Megargee (2007). "War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941". Rowman & Littlefield. p.144. ISBN 0742544826
120. Yad Vashem studies, Volume 34. Yad Vashem Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, 2006. p.38.
121. ^ Bloch 1992, pp. 178–179
122. Butler & Young 1989, p. 159
123. Bullock 1962, p. 434
124. Overy 2005, p. 425
125. Weinberg 1980, pp. 334–335
126. Weinberg 1980, pp. 338–340
127. Weinberg 1980, p. 366
128. Weinberg 1980, pp. 418–419
129. Kee 1988, pp. 149–150
130. Weinberg 1980, p. 419
131. Murray 1984, pp. 256–260
132. Bullock 1962, p. 469
133. Overy, Richard "Germany and the Munich Crisis: A Mutilated Victory?" from The Munich Crisis, London: Frank Cass, 1999 p. 207.
134. Kee 1988, pp. 202–203
135. Weinberg 1980, pp. 462–463
136. Messerschmidt 1990, p. 672
137. Messerschmidt 1990, pp. 671, 682–683
138. Rothwell, Victor (2001), The Origins of the Second World War, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 90–91, ISBN 978-0719059575
139. "Man of the Year", Time, Time (magazine), 2 January 1939, retrieved 22 May 2008
140. ^ Murray 1984, p. 268
141. Marrus 2000, p. 37
142. Murray 1984, pp. 268–269
143. ^ Messerschmidt 1990, pp. 688–690
144. ^ Weinberg 1980, pp. 537–539, 557–560
145. ^ Weinberg 1980, p. 558
146. Weinberg 1980, pp. 579–581
147. ^ Maiolo, Joseph The Royal Navy and Nazi Germany Macmillan Press: London, 1998 p. 178
148. Weinberg 1980, pp. 561–562, 583–584
149. Roberston, E.M. "Hitler Planning for War and the Response of the Great Powers" from Aspects of the Third Reich edited by H.W. Koch, London: Macmillan 1985 p. 212
150. Bloch 1992, p. 228
151. ^ Overy 1989, p. 56
152. ^ Bloch 1992, pp. 210, 228
153. Craig, Gordon "The German Foreign Office from Neurath to Ribbentrop" from The Diplomats 1919–39 edited by Gordon A. Craig and Felix Gilbert pp. 435–436
154. Overy, Richard "Economy Germany, 'Domestic Crisis' and War in 1939" from The Third Reich: The Essential Readings edited by Christian Leitz, Blackwell: Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, 1999 p. 125
155. ^ Robertson 1963, pp. 178–180
156. MAX BELOFF, The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, vol. II, I936–4I. Issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Oxford University Press, 1949
157. Mason, Tim and Overy, R.J. "Debate: Germany, 'domestic crisis' and the war in 1939" from The Origins of The Second World War edited by Patrick Finney Edward Arnold: London, United Kingdom, 1997 pp. 91–98
158. Carr 1972, pp. 76–77
159. Kershaw 2000b, pp. 36–37, 92
160. Weinberg, Gerhard "Hitler's Private Testament of 2 May 1938" pp. 415–419 from The Journal of Modern History, Volume 27, Issue # 4, December 1955
161. Messerschmidt 1990, p. 714
162. Bloch 1992, pp. 252–253
163. Weinberg, Gerhard "Hitler and England, 1933–1945: Pretense and Reality" pp. 85–94 from Germany, Hitler and World War II Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, 1995 pp. 89–90
164. Bloch 1992, pp. 255–257
165. ^ Bloch, Michael Ribbentrop, Crown Publishers Inc: New York, United States of America, 1992 p. 260
166. Hakim 1995
167. (2 October 1939). Seven Years War?, TIME Magazine. Retrieved on 30 August 2008
168. ^ Rees 1997, pp. 141–145
169. ^ Rees 1997, pp. 148–149
170. Kurowski 2005, pp. 141–142
171. Hillgruber, Andreas Germany and the Two World Wars, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981 pp. 53–55 and 81–82
172. Lukacs, John The Hitler of History New York: Vintage Books, 1997, 1998 p. 133
173. Lukacs, John The Hitler of History New York: Vintage Books, 1997, 1998 pp. 149–151
174. ^ Evans, Richard In Hitler's Shadow, New York, NY: Pantheon, 1989 p. 43
175. Weinberg, Gerhard Review of Stalin's War: A Radical New Theory of the Origins of the Second World War by Ernst Topitsch pp. 800–801 from The American Historical Review, Volume 94, Issue # 3, June 1989 p. 800
176. Shirer, William (1964), The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Pan, p. 1032, ISBN 0671728687
177. ^ Bauer, Yehuda Rethinking the Holocaust Yale University Press, 2000, p. 5
178. ^ Parkinson's part in Hitler's downfall, BBC, 29 July 1999, retrieved 13 June 2011
179. ^ Bullock 1962, p. 717
180. Shirer 1990, §29 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFShirer1990 (help)
181. Bullock 1962, p. 753
182. Bullock 1962, p. 763
183. Bullock 1962, p. 778
184. Bullock 1962, pp. 780–781
185. ^ Bullock 1962, pp. 774–775
186. Dollinger 1995, p. 112
187. Beevor (2002) pp. 255–256
188. ^ Dollinger 1995, p. 231
189. Beevor (2002) p. 275
190. Bullock 1962, pp. 783–784
191. ^ Bullock 1962, p. 784
192. Bullock 1962, p. 790
193. ^ Bullock 1962, p. 787
194. ^ Bullock 1962, p. 795
195. Butler 1989, pp. 227–228 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFButler1989 (help)
196. Fischer 2008, pp. 42–43
197. Bullock 1962, p. 791
198. Bullock 1962, p. 792
199. Beevor (2002) p. 343
200. Hitler's last days: "Hitler's will and marriage" on the website of MI5, using the sources available to Trevor Roper (a WWII MI5 agent and historian/author of The Last Days of Hitler), records the marriage as taking place after Hitler had dictated his last will and testament.
201. Kershaw 2008, p. 950
202. Bullock 1962, p. 798
203. Linge 2009, p. 199
204. Fischer 2008, p. 47 "...Günsche stated he entered the study to inspect the bodies, and observed Hitler ...sat...sunken over, with blood dripping out of his right temple. He had shot himself with his own pistol, a PPK 7.65."
205. Kershaw 2008, p. 955 "...Blood dripped from a bullet hole in his right temple..."
206. There have been different accounts citing the cause of his death with an alternative being that Hitler died by a self-inflicted gunshot, while biting down on a cyanide capsule of poison. O'Donnell (1978, 2001) pp. 322–323 "... we have a fair answer...to the version of ...Russian author Lev Bezymenski...Hitler did shoot himself and did bite into the cyanide capsule, just as Professor Haase had clearly and repeatedly instructed..."
207. Joachimsthaler 1999, pp. 160–180
208. Nelken, Michael (1997), "Hitler Unmasked: The Romance of Racism and Suicide", (Darkside Press, Glastonbury, CT), 276 pp.,
209. Trevor-Roper, H. (1947, 1992), The Last Days of Hitler, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 8497597257 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
210. Kershaw 2000b, pp. 829–831
211. Linge 2009, p. 200
212. Bullock 1962, pp. 799–800
213. V.K. Vinogradov and others, Hitler's Death: Russia's Last Great Secret from the Files of the KGB, Chaucer Press 2005, 111. This work reproduces a Soviet map showing that the remains were buried in a field near the village of Neu Friedrichsdorf, approximately one kilometre east of Rathenow.
214. Hans Meissner, Magda Goebbels, First Lady of the Third Reich, 260–277
215. Maxim Tkachenko (11 December 2009), Official: KGB chief ordered Hitler's remains destroyed, CNN, retrieved 11 December 2009
216. Russia displays 'Hitler skull fragment', BBC, 26 April 2000, retrieved 22 May 2008
217. Hitlers skull really woman's, London: UK Daily Mail, 28 September 2009, retrieved 28 September 2009
218. David W. Del Testa, Florence Lemoine, John Strickland (2003). Government leaders, military rulers, and political activists. Greenwood Publishing Group. p.83. ISBN 1573561533
219. Ian Dear, Michael Richard Daniell Foot (2001). The Oxford companion to World War II. Oxford University Press. p.341. ISBN 0198604467
220. Kershaw 2000a, pp. 1–6
221. Welch, David (2001), Hitler: profile of a dictator, Routledge, p. 2, ISBN 9780415250757
222. "Becoming Adolf", Vanity Fair, November 2007. Reprinted in The Best American Essays 2008.
223. Mike Campbell. "Meaning, Origin and History of the Name Adolph". Behind the Name. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
224. Finklestone, Joseph (1996), Anwar Sadat: Visionary Who Dared, Routledge, ISBN 0714634875
225. Bierbauer, Charles (17 October 1995), Million Man March: Its Goal More Widely Accepted than Its Leader, CNN
226. "Portrait of a Demagogue", Asiaweek, 22 September 1995, archived from the original on 9 July 2001, retrieved 22 May 2008
227. Shirer, p 21
228. Rißmann 2001, pp. 94–96
229. Rissmann 2001, p. 96 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFRissmann2001 (help)
230. Bullock 1962, p. 219
231. Steigmann-Gall 2003: XV
232. Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2007), "Christianity and the Nazi Movement: A Response", Journal of Contemporary History, 42 (2): 185–211, doi:10.1177/0022009407075560. {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
233. Steigmann-Gall 2003
234. Hitler 1942
235. Hitler 1973
236. ^ Bullock 1962, pp. 219, 389
237. Steigmann-Gall 2003: 65; He is referring to: Otto Wagener, Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant, Henry Ashby Turner, ed. (New Haven, 1985), p. 65
238. ^ Conway 1968: 3
239. Rißmann 2001, p. 22
240. Steigmann-Gall 2003, pp. 28–29
241. ^ Sharkey, Joe (13 January 2002). "Word for Word/The Case Against the Nazis; How Hitler's Forces Planned To Destroy German Christianity". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 June 2011.
242. Bonney, Richard (Winter 2001), "The Nazi Master Plan, Annex 4: The Persecution of the Christian Churches" (PDF), Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, retrieved 7 June 2011.
243. "The Religious Affiliation of Adolf Hitler". Adherents.com. 12 August 2007. Retrieved 7 June 2011.
244. ^ Steigmann-Gall 2003, p. passim
245. Overy 2005, p. 278
246. Poewe, Karla (2006), New Religions and the Nazis, London: Taylor & Francis Books Ltd, p. 30, ISBN 978-0415290258
247. Hitler, Adolf (1953), "Christianity: 4 April 1942", Hitler's Table Talk, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
248. Heiden, Konrad (1935), A History of National Socialism, New York: A.A. Knopf, p. 100
249. Overy 2005, p. 282
250. Rosenbaum, Ron p. xxxvii, p. 282 (citing Yehuda Bauer's belief that Hitler's racism is rooted in occult groups like Ostara), p. 333, 1998 Random House
251. Rißmann 2001: 122
252. Rißmann 2001: 249 (Footnote 539)
253. ^ Redlich, Fritz R. (2000), Hitler: diagnosis of a destructive prophet, Oxford University Press, pp. 129–190, ISBN 0195136314 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
254. Fitzgerald, Mich (7 January 2004), Autism and Creativity: Is There a Link between Autism in Men and Exceptional Ability?, Routledge, ISBN 1583912134
255. Fries, Andreas (22 April 2009), "Did Adolf Hitler suffer of Asperger syndrome?" (PDF), Läkartidningen, 106 (17): 1201–1204, ISSN 0023-7205, retrieved 3 August 2009
256. Joachimsthaler 1999, pp. 229–230
257. Wilson, Bee (9 October 1998), "Mein Diat – Adolf Hitler's diet", New Statesman, UK: FindArticles, archived from the original on 21 March 2005, retrieved 22 May 2008
258. Otto Dietrich, The Hitler I Knew. Memoirs of the Third Reich's Press Chief, Skyhorse Publishing (2010), p. 172, ISBN 978-1-60239-972-3
259. Toland 1991, p. 741
260. Dietrich, p. 171
261. ^ "Hitler syphilis theory revived". BBC News. 12 March 2003. Retrieved 23 April 2010.
262. Hitler 1971, pp. Volume 1, Chapter 10
263. Kessel, Joseph. The Man With the Miraculous Hands: The Fantastic Story of Felix Kersten, Himmler's Private Doctor. Classics of War Series. Springfield, NJ: Burford Books, 2004. ISBN 1-58080-122-6.
264. Adams, Cecil (20 February 1987). "Did Hitler have only one testicle?". The Straight Dope. Retrieved 6 June 2011.
265. Peake, Alex (19 November 2008). "Hitler HAD only got one ball | The Sun |News". London: The Sun. Retrieved 30 June 2010.
266. Bezymenski, Lev (1968), The Death of Adolf Hitler: Unknown Documents from Soviet Archives, London: Michael Joseph, ISBN 0-7181-0634-2
267. Bezymenski, Lev A. (1995), Operaciâ "mif", Ili Skol'ko Raz Horonili Gitlera, Moscow: Meždunarodnye otnošeniâ, ISBN 978-5713308391
268. Kershaw 2000b, p. 36
269. Linge 2009, p. 156
270. Heston, Leonard L. (1980) , "Hitler, Medicine and History", The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler: His Illnesses, Doctors, and Drugs, New York: Stein and Day, pp. 125–142, ISBN 978-0812827187 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
271. Heston, Leonard L. (1980) , "Introduction by Albert Speer", The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler: His Illnesses, Doctors, and Drugs, New York: Stein and Day, pp. 11–20, ISBN 978-0812827187 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
272. Kershaw 2000a, p. 72
273. Rosenbaum 1998, pp. 99–117
274. Porter, Jack Nusan (10 October 1998). "Genocide of Homosexuals in the Holocaust". Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. University of Minnesota. Retrieved 7 June 2011.
275. Rosenbaum 1998, p. 116
276. "Unity Mitford and 'Hitler's baby'", New Statesman, UK, retrieved 22 May 2008
277. Frauenfeld, A. E., The Power of Speech, Calvin College, retrieved 22 May 2008
278. Goebbels, Joseph, The Führer as a Speaker, Calvin College, retrieved 22 May 2008
279. Moring, Kirsikka (21 September 2004), "Conversation secretly recorded in Finland helped German actor prepare for Hitler role", Helsingin Sanomat, Helsingin Sanomat, retrieved 22 May 2008
280. Hitlerin salaa tallennettu keskustelu Suomessa (in Finnish), YLE, retrieved 22 May 2008
281. IMDb: Adolf Hitler, IMDB, retrieved 22 May 2008
282. Hitler – A Film from Germany (Hitler – Ein Film aus Deutschland), German Films, retrieved 22 May 2008

References

• Beevor, Antony (2002), Berlin: The Downfall 1945, London: Viking-Penguin Books, ISBN 0-670-88695-5
• Bloch, Michael (1992), Ribbentrop, New York: Crown Publishing, ISBN 0517593106
• Bullock, Alan (1962) , Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, London: Penguin Books, ISBN 0140135642
• Butler, Ewan; Young, Gordon (1989), The Life and Death of Hermann Göring, Newton Abbot, Devon: David & Charles, ISBN 071539455X
• Carr, William (1972), Arms, Autarky and Aggression, London: Edward Arnold, ISBN 9780713156683
• Conway, John S. (1968), The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-45, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 0297763156
• Cornish, Kimberley (1998), The Jew of Linz: Wittgenstein, Hitler, and Their Secret Battle for the Mind, London: Century, ISBN 0712679359
• Crozier, Andrew J. (1988), Appeasement and Germany's Last Bid for Colonies, London: Macmillan Press, ISBN 0312015461
• Dawidowicz, Lucy (1976), A Holocaust Reader, New York: Behrman House, ISBN 0874412196
• Dawidowicz, Lucy (1986) , The War Against the Jews, Bantam Books, ISBN 055334532X
• Doerr, Paul W. (1998), British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939, Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, ISBN 978-0719046711
• Dollinger, Hans (1995) , The Decline and Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan: A Pictorial History of the Final Days of World War II, New York: Gramercy, ISBN 0517123991
• Fest, Joachim C. (1970), The Face of the Third Reich, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 0297179497
• Fest, Joachim C. (1974), Hitler, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, ISBN 978-0156027540
• Fischer, Thomas (2008), Soldiers of the Leibstandarte: SS-Brigadefuhrer Wilhelm Mohnke and 62 Soldiers of Hitler's Elite Division, Winnipeg: J.J. Fedorowicz Pub, ISBN 978-0921991915
• Haffner, Sebastian (1979), The Meaning of Hitler, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, ISBN 067455776X
• Hakim, Joy (1995), War, Peace, and All That Jazz, A History of US, vol. 9, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-509514-6
• Halperin, Samuel William (1965) , Germany Tried Democracy: A Political History of the Reich from 1918 to 1933, New York: W.W. Norton, ISBN 0-393-00280-2
• Hamann, Brigitte (1999), Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship, Trans. Thomas Thornton, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195125371
• Hildebrand, Klaus (1973), The Foreign Policy of the Third Reich, London: Batsford, ISBN 978-0713411263
• Hitler, Adolf (1971) , Mein Kampf, Trans. Ralph Manheim, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ISBN 978-0395078013
• Hitler, Adolf (1973) , Roussy de Sales, Raoul de (ed.), My New Order, New York: Octagon Books, ISBN 0-374-93918-7
• Hitler, Adolf (1942), Baynes, Norman H. (ed.), The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922 – August 1939, London: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0865274938
• Jetzinger, Franz (1976) , Hitler's Youth, Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, ISBN 083718617X
• Joachimsthaler, Anton (1999) , The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, the Evidence, the Truth, Trans. Helmut Bögler, London: Brockhampton Press, ISBN 1-86019-902-X
• Kee, Robert (1988), Munich: The Eleventh Hour, London: Hamish Hamilton, ISBN 0241125375
• Keegan, John (1987), The Mask of Command: A Study of Generalship, London: Pimlico, ISBN 0712665269
• Keegan, John (1989), The Second World War, London: Hutchinson, ISBN 978-0091740115
• Kershaw, Ian (1999) , Hitler: 1889–1936: Hubris, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 0393046710
• Kershaw, Ian (2000a) , The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (4th ed.), London: Arnold, ISBN 0340760281
• Kershaw, Ian (2000b), Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis, New York; London: W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 0393322521
• Kershaw, Ian (2008), Hitler: A Biography, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 0-393-06757-2
• Kurowski, Franz (2005), The Brandenburger Commandos: Germany's Elite Warrior Spies in World War II, Stackpole Military history series, Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, ISBN 978-0811732505
• Langer, Walter C. (1972), The Mind of Adolf Hitler, New York: Basic Books, ISBN 0465046207
• Lewis, David (2003), The Man Who Invented Hitler, London: Headline Publishing Group, ISBN 0-7553-1148-5
• Linge, Heinz (2009) , With Hitler to the End: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler's Valet, Intro. Roger Moorhouse, New York: Skyhorse Publishing, ISBN 1-602-39804-6
• Machtan, Lothar (2001), The Hidden Hitler, New York: Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-04308-9
• Marrus, Michael (2000), The Holocaust in History, Toronto: Key Porter, ISBN 0299234045
• Messerschmidt, Manfred (1990), "Foreign Policy and Preparation for War", in Deist, Wilhelm (ed.), Germany and the Second World War, vol. 1, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ISBN 019822866X
• Murray, Williamson (1984), The Change in the European Balance of Power, Princeton: Princeton University Press, ISBN 0691054134
• O'Donnell, James (1978, 2001), The Bunker, New York: Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80958-3 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Overy, Richard (1989), The Road To War, London: Macmillan, ISBN 0-14-028530-X {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Overy, Richard (2005), The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, Penguin Books, ISBN 0393020304
• Payne, Robert (1990), The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, New York, New York: Hippocrene Books, ISBN 0880294027
• Rees, Laurence (1997), The Nazis: A Warning From History, New York: New Press, ISBN 0563387041
• Rißmann, Michael (2001), Hitlers Gott. Vorsehungsglaube und Sendungsbewußtsein des deutschen Diktators (in German), Zürich München: Pendo, ISBN 3-85842-421-8
• Roberts, Andrew (1991), The Holy Fox, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 0297811339
• Robertson, E.M. (1963), Hitler's Pre-War Policy and Military Plans, London: Longmans
• Röpke, Wilhelm (1946), The Solution to the German Problem, G. P. Putnam's Sons
• Rosenbaum, R. (1998), Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of his Evil, Macmillan Publishers, ISBN 006095339X
• Shirer, William L. (1990 reprint), The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-671-72868-7 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Speer, Albert (2003), Inside the Third Reich, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 1-842-127357
• Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2003), The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945, Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, doi:10.2277/0521823714, ISBN 0521823714
• Strobl, Gerwin (2000), The Germanic Isle, Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521782651
• Toland, John (1991 reprint), Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography, Doubleday, ISBN 0385420536 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Tooze, Adam (2006), The Wages of Destruction, New York: Viking Press, ISBN 0670038261
• Waite, Robert G. L. (1993), The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler, Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80514-6
• Weinberg, Gerhard (1970), The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany Diplomatic Revolution in Europe 1933–1936, Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0226885097
• Weinberg, Gerhard (1980), The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany Starting World War II, Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0226885119
• Wheeler-Bennett, John (1967), The Nemesis of Power, London: Macmillan, ISBN 1403918120

Further reading

External links

• Template:Worldcat id

Images and videos

• "Adolf Hitler". The Vault. FBI Records.
• Adolf Hitler at IMDb – real life footage in documentaries
• Template:IMDb character – as portrayed in film and TV
• Color Footage of Hitler during WWII
• "All About Adolf Hitler". LIFE magazine.
• OSS document alleging sexual deviancy
• "Adolf Hitler". Topics. The History Channel.

Speeches and publications

• A speech from 1932 (text and audiofile), German Museum of History Berlin
• Adolf Hitler's Private Will, Marriage Certificate and Political Testament, April 1945 (34 pages)
• "The Discovery of Hitler's Wills" Office of Strategic Services report on how the testament was found
• The Testament of Adolf Hitler the Bormann-Hitler documents (transcripts of conversations in February–2 April 1945)

Links to related articles

v t e Adolf Hitler Politics Führer Führerprinzip Political views Political directives List Speeches Prophecy Mein Kampf in Arabic in English Zweites Buch Last will and testament Books Nazism Events Military career Rise to power Hitler cabinet Nazi Germany World War II The Holocaust Assassination attempts Death conspiracy theories Places of residence Führer Headquarters Berghof (Kehlsteinhaus) Reich Chancellery (Führerbunker / Vorbunker) Adlerhorst Anlage Süd Felsennest Tannenberg Werwolf Wolf's Lair Wolfsschlucht I Wolfsschlucht II Special train (Führersonderzug) Civilian residences Braunau am Inn Linz Vienna (Meldemannstraße dormitory) Munich (16 Prinzregentenplatz) Obersalzberg (Kampfhäusl) Personal life Health possible monorchism Wealth and income Religious views Sexuality Vegetarianism Staff Bodyguard August Kubizek Stefanie Rabatsch Reinhold Hanisch Psychopathography Hitler's Table Talk Paintings 50th birthday German naturalization Personal belongings Hitler's Globe Private library Perceptions Books Cult of personality In popular culture Killing baby Hitler The Victory of Faith Triumph of the Will Hitler: The Last Ten Days The Meaning of Hitler Hitler Diaries Moloch Hitler: The Rise of Evil Downfall Shigeru Mizuki's Hitler Apocalypse: Hitler Family Eva Braun (wife) Alois Hitler (father) Klara Hitler (mother) Johann Georg Hiedler (grandfather) Maria Schicklgruber (grandmother) Angela Hitler (half-sister) Paula Hitler (sister) Leo Rudolf Raubal Jr. (half-nephew) Geli Raubal (half-niece) William Stuart-Houston (half-nephew) Heinz Hitler (half-nephew) Jean-Marie Loret (possible illegitimate son) Blondi (dog) Other Streets named after Hitler Mannerheim recording Category v t e Chancellors of Germany (since 1867) North German Confederation Bundeskanzler (1867–1871) Otto von Bismarck German Empire Reichskanzler (1871–1918) Otto von Bismarck Leo von Caprivi Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst Bernhard von Bülow Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg Georg Michaelis Georg von Hertling Prince Maximilian of Baden Weimar Republic Reichskanzler (1919–1933) Friedrich Ebert Philipp Scheidemann (as Ministerpräsident) Gustav Bauer (as Ministerpräsident, later Chancellor) Hermann Müller Constantin Fehrenbach Joseph Wirth Wilhelm Cuno Gustav Stresemann Wilhelm Marx Hans Luther Wilhelm Marx Hermann Müller Heinrich Brüning Franz von Papen Kurt von Schleicher Adolf Hitler Nazi Germany Reichskanzler (1933–1945) Adolf Hitler Joseph Goebbels Count Schwerin von Krosigk (as Leading Minister) Federal Republic Bundeskanzler (1949–present) Konrad Adenauer (CDU, 1949–1963) Ludwig Erhard (CDU, 1963–1966) Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU, 1966–1969) Willy Brandt (SPD, 1969–1974) Helmut Schmidt (SPD, 1974–1982) Helmut Kohl (CDU, 1982–1998) Gerhard Schröder (SPD, 1998–2005) Angela Merkel (CDU, 2005–2021) Olaf Scholz (SPD, 2021–present) List of chancellors v t e Heads of state of Germany (since 1871) German Reich (1871–1945) Emperors: Wilhelm I • Frederick III • Wilhelm II Presidents: Friedrich Ebert • Paul von Hindenburg • Adolf Hitler (Führer and Reichskanzler) • Karl Dönitz Federal Republic of Germany (since 1949) Theodor Heuss Heinrich Lübke Gustav Heinemann Walter Scheel Karl Carstens Richard von Weizsäcker Roman Herzog Johannes Rau Horst Köhler Christian Wulff Joachim Gauck Frank-Walter Steinmeier East Germany (1949–1990) Wilhelm Pieck Walter Ulbricht Willi Stoph Erich Honecker Egon Krenz Manfred Gerlach Sabine Bergmann-Pohl Italics indicates acting holder v t e Members of the Hitler Cabinet Chancellor: Adolf Hitler Vice-Chancellor: Franz von Papen Deputy Führer: Rudolf Hess President of the Reichstag: Hermann Göring Armaments Fritz Todt Albert Speer Aviation Hermann Göring Church Affairs Hanns Kerrl Hermann Muhs (acting) Eastern Territories Alfred Rosenberg Economics Alfred Hugenberg Kurt Schmitt Hjalmar Schacht Hermann Göring Walther Funk Education Bernhard Rust Finance Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk Food and Agriculture Alfred Hugenberg Richard Walther Darré Herbert Backe Foreign Affairs Konstantin von Neurath Joachim von Ribbentrop Interior Wilhelm Frick Heinrich Himmler Justice Franz Gürtner Franz Schlegelberger (acting) Otto Georg Thierack Labour Franz Seldte Postal Affairs Paul Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach Wilhelm Ohnesorge Propaganda Joseph Goebbels Reichswehr Werner von Blomberg Transport Paul Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach Julius Dorpmüller Reichsministers without portfolio Hans Frank Wilhelm Frick Hermann Göring Rudolf Hess Konstantin Hierl Hanns Kerrl Hans Lammers Konstantin von Neurath Ernst Röhm Hjalmar Schacht Arthur Seyss-Inquart Members granted rank & authority equivalent to a Reichsminister Martin Bormann Walther von Brauchitsch Karl Dönitz Karl Hermann Frank Werner von Fritsch Wilhelm Keitel Otto Meissner Erich Raeder Reichsführer SS: Heinrich Himmler Stabschef SA: Ernst Röhm v t e Final occupants of the Führerbunker by date of departure (1945) 20 April Hermann Göring Heinrich Himmler 21 April Robert Ley Karl-Jesko von Puttkamer 22 April Hugo Blaschke Karl Gebhardt Christa Schroeder Johanna Wolf Eckhard Christian 23 April Albert Bormann Theodor Morell Joachim von Ribbentrop Albert Speer Julius Schaub 24 April Walter Frentz 28 April Robert Ritter von Greim Hanna Reitsch 29 April Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven Gerhard Boldt Rudolf Weiss Wilhelm Zander Heinz Lorenz Willy Johannmeyer Walter Wagner 30 April Nicolaus von Below 1 May Wilhelm Mohnke Traudl Junge Gerda Christian Constanze Manziarly Else Krüger Otto Günsche Walther Hewel Ernst-Günther Schenck Hans-Erich Voss Johann Rattenhuber Peter Högl Werner Naumann Martin Bormann Hans Baur Ludwig Stumpfegger Artur Axmann Georg Betz Heinz Linge Erich Kempka Heinrich Doose Günther Schwägermann Ewald Lindloff Hans Reisser Armin D. Lehmann Josef Ochs Heinz Krüger Werner Schwiedel Gerhard Schach Hans Fritzsche Käthe Heusermann 2 May Helmuth Weidling Hans Refior Theodor von Dufving Siegfried Knappe Rochus Misch Still present on 2 May Werner Haase Erna Flegel Helmut Kunz Fritz Tornow Liselotte Chervinska Johanna Ruf Johannes Hentschel Committed suicide Ernst-Robert Grawitz (24 April) Adolf Hitler (30 April) Eva Hitler (née Braun, 30 April) Joseph Goebbels (1 May) Magda Goebbels (1 May) Alwin-Broder Albrecht (1 May) Wilhelm Burgdorf (2 May) Hans Krebs (2 May) Franz Schädle (2 May) Killed Hermann Fegelein (executed for desertion, 28 April) Blondi (Hitler's dog, poisoned 29 April) Goebbels children (poisoned 1 May) Unknown Heinrich Müller v t e Time Persons of the Year 1927–1950 Charles Lindbergh (1927) Walter Chrysler (1928) Owen D. Young (1929) Mohandas Gandhi (1930) Pierre Laval (1931) Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932) Hugh S. Johnson (1933) Franklin D. Roosevelt (1934) Haile Selassie (1935) Wallis Simpson (1936) Chiang Kai-shek / Soong Mei-ling (1937) Adolf Hitler (1938) Joseph Stalin (1939) Winston Churchill (1940) Franklin D. Roosevelt (1941) Joseph Stalin (1942) George Marshall (1943) Dwight D. Eisenhower (1944) Harry S. Truman (1945) James F. Byrnes (1946) George Marshall (1947) Harry S. Truman (1948) Winston Churchill (1949) The American Fighting-Man (1950) 1951–1975 Mohammed Mosaddeq (1951) Elizabeth II (1952) Konrad Adenauer (1953) John Foster Dulles (1954) Harlow Curtice (1955) Hungarian Freedom Fighters (1956) Nikita Khrushchev (1957) Charles de Gaulle (1958) Dwight D. Eisenhower (1959) U.S. Scientists: George Beadle / Charles Draper / John Enders / Donald A. Glaser / Joshua Lederberg / Willard Libby / Linus Pauling / Edward Purcell / Isidor Rabi / Emilio Segrè / William Shockley / Edward Teller / Charles Townes / James Van Allen / Robert Woodward (1960) John F. Kennedy (1961) Pope John XXIII (1962) Martin Luther King Jr. (1963) Lyndon B. Johnson (1964) William Westmoreland (1965) The Generation Twenty-Five and Under (1966) Lyndon B. Johnson (1967) The Apollo 8 Astronauts: William Anders / Frank Borman / Jim Lovell (1968) The Middle Americans (1969) Willy Brandt (1970) Richard Nixon (1971) Henry Kissinger / Richard Nixon (1972) John Sirica (1973) King Faisal (1974) American Women: Susan Brownmiller / Kathleen Byerly / Alison Cheek / Jill Conway / Betty Ford / Ella Grasso / Carla Hills / Barbara Jordan / Billie Jean King / Susie Sharp / Carol Sutton / Addie Wyatt (1975) 1976–2000 Jimmy Carter (1976) Anwar Sadat (1977) Deng Xiaoping (1978) Ayatollah Khomeini (1979) Ronald Reagan (1980) Lech Wałęsa (1981) The Computer (1982) Ronald Reagan / Yuri Andropov (1983) Peter Ueberroth (1984) Deng Xiaoping (1985) Corazon Aquino (1986) Mikhail Gorbachev (1987) The Endangered Earth (1988) Mikhail Gorbachev (1989) George H. W. Bush (1990) Ted Turner (1991) Bill Clinton (1992) The Peacemakers: Yasser Arafat / F. W. de Klerk / Nelson Mandela / Yitzhak Rabin (1993) Pope John Paul II (1994) Newt Gingrich (1995) David Ho (1996) Andrew Grove (1997) Bill Clinton / Ken Starr (1998) Jeff Bezos (1999) George W. Bush (2000) 2001–present Rudolph Giuliani (2001) The Whistleblowers: Cynthia Cooper / Coleen Rowley / Sherron Watkins (2002) The American Soldier (2003) George W. Bush (2004) The Good Samaritans: Bono / Bill Gates / Melinda Gates (2005) You (2006) Vladimir Putin (2007) Barack Obama (2008) Ben Bernanke (2009) Mark Zuckerberg (2010) The Protester (2011) Barack Obama (2012) Pope Francis (2013) Ebola Fighters: Dr. Jerry Brown / Dr. Kent Brantly / Ella Watson-Stryker / Foday Gollah / Salome Karwah (2014) Angela Merkel (2015) Donald Trump (2016) The Silence Breakers (2017) The Guardians: Jamal Khashoggi / Maria Ressa / Wa Lone / Kyaw Soe Oo / Staff of The Capital (2018) Greta Thunberg (2019) Joe Biden / Kamala Harris (2020) Elon Musk (2021) Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Spirit of Ukraine (2022) Taylor Swift (2023) Donald Trump (2024) v t e Fascism Themes Core tenets Actual idealism Aestheticization of politics Anti-communism Anti-intellectualism Anti-materialism Anti-pacifism Authoritarianism Chauvinism Class collaboration Conspiracism Corporatism Cult of personality Dictatorship Direct action Dirigisme Economic interventionism Eugenics Heroic capitalism Heroic realism Heroism Imperialism Indoctrination Irrationalism Machismo Masculinity Militarism National syndicalism Nationalism Integral Palingenetic Ultra New Man One-party state Perpetual war Populism Proletarian nation Propaganda Racism Reactionary modernism Social Darwinism Social interventionism Social order State capitalism Statolatry Supercapitalism Syncretism Third Position Totalitarianism Topics Definitions Economics Fascism and ideology Fascism worldwide Symbolism Variants Arab Argentine Nacionalismo Orthodox Peronism Austrian Banderism Brazilian British Christian Christian Identity Mexican synarchism Clerical Confucian Crypto Eco Falangism French Doriotism Pétainism Neo-Pétainism Jeune Nation L'Œuvre Française Valoisism Hindu Hungarism Hutu Irish Islamic Ziaism Italian Intransigent Japanese Reform bureaucratism Statism Restoration Jewish Kahanism Revisionist Maximalism Korean Ilminism Nyulaiteu LaRoucheism Latvian Mystical Nazism Austrian Esoteric Hitlerism Neo-Nazism Russian Strasserism Swedish Neo Finnish NRx Pan-Turkic Rexism Romanian Legionarism Neo-Legionarism Romanianism/Stelism Russian Neo-Eurasianism Syndicalist Syrian Social Nationalism Techno Third Positionism National-anarchism National Bolshevism Nazi-Maoism Uruguayan Marzism Revisionism Sosism Ustašism Movements Africa Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging Greyshirts Muslim Association of the Lictor Ossewabrandwag Young Egypt Party (1933) Asia Abhinav Bharat Al-Muthanna Club Aria Party Azerbaijan National Democrat Party Azure Party Black Dragon Society Brit HaBirionim Concordia Association Grey Wolves Golden Square Hindu Mahasabha Iran-e-No Party Jewish National Front Kach Kataeb Party Kenkokukai Kokumin Dōmei Korea Nationalist Party Korean National Youth Association Lehi Liberal Party (South Korea) Nasyonal Aktivite ve Zinde İnkişaf National Socialism Association National Socialist Japanese Workers' Party Nationalist Movement Party Nationalist Task Party National Will Party Nation Party of Iran Otzma Yehudit Pan-Iranist Party Palestine Arab Party Patrol 36 Progress Party (Iran) Philippine Falange Rastakhiz Party Rastriya Prajatantra Party Reform bureaucrats Religious Zionist Party Sakurakai Sangh Parivar Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad Bharatiya Gau Raksha Dal Bharatiya Janata Party Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha Bharatiya Jana Sangh Bharatiya Kisan Sangh Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh Bharat Vikas Parishad Ekal Vidyalaya Hindu Makkal Katchi Hindu Munnani Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh Jammu Praja Parishad Muslim Rashtriya Manch Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas Rashtra Sevika Samiti Rashtriya Sikh Sangat Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana Seva Bharati Vidya Bharati Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram Vishva Hindu Parishad Bajrang Dal Durga Vahini SUMKA Syrian Social Nationalist Party Tōhōkai Tsagaan Khas Turkish Union Party Wang Jingwei Kuomintang Northern / Northwestern Europe Academic Karelia Society Ailtirí na hAiséirghe Autonome Nationalisten Bases Autónomas Black Front (Netherlands) Blood & Honour Blueshirts Breton Social-National Workers' Movement British Democratic Party British Fascists Britain First British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women British Movement British National Party (1960) British National Party British People's Party (1939) British People's Party (2005) British Union of Fascists The Britons La Cagoule Casuals United Centre Party '86 Clerical People's Party Dutch Fascist Union English Defence League English National Association European Liberation Front Le Faisceau Fédération d'action nationale et européenne Finnish National Socialist Labor Organisation Finnish People's Organisation Finnish-Socialist Workers' Party Flemish National Union French National-Collectivist Party French Nationalist Party French Popular Party General Dutch Fascist League Greater Britain Movement Groupe Collaboration Heathen Front Imperial Fascist League International Third Position Jeune Nation Lalli Alliance of Finland Lapua Movement League of Saint George Les Identitaires Mouvement d'Action Civique Mouvement Franciste Nasjonal Samling National Action (UK) National Alliance (Sweden) National Corporate Party National Fascisti National Front (UK) National League of Sweden Nationalist Party National Popular Rally National Rally National Socialist Bloc National Socialist Dutch Workers Party National Socialist Front National Socialist League National Socialist Movement (UK, 1962) National Socialist Movement (United Kingdom) National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands National Socialist Movement of Norway National Socialist Union of Finland National Socialist Workers' Party (Sweden) National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark National Socialists of Finland National Syndicalists National Union (Netherlands) National Union (Portugal) New Party Nipsters Nordic League The Nordic Realm Party Nordic Resistance Movement Northern League Norwegian Defence League Nouvelle Droite GRECE L'Œuvre Française Official National Front Order of Flemish Militants Order of Nine Angles Organisation of National Socialists Parti Communautaire National-Européen Party of Finnish Labor Party of the Swedes Patriotic Alternative Patriotic People's Movement Patriotic People's Movement (1993) Pērkonkrusts Phalange Française Rexist Party Rising Finland Scottish Democratic Fascist Party Scottish Protestant League Stormers Terre et Peuple Third Way (France) Third Way (UK) Union Movement Verdinaso Vigrid White Aryan Resistance World Union of National Socialists Central Europe Action Front of National Socialists/National Activists Arrow Cross Party Artgemeinschaft Austrian Nazism Black Front (Germany) Bund Deutscher Osten Christian National Socialist Front Deutsche Reichspartei Eidgenössische Sammlung Free German Workers' Party German Faith Movement German National Movement in Liechtenstein German National Socialist Workers' Party (Czechoslovakia) German Social Union Hungarian National Front Hungarian National Socialist Agricultural Labourers' and Workers' Party Hungarian National Socialist Party Kampfbund Deutscher Sozialisten Liechtenstein Homeland Service National Democratic Party (Austria) National Democratic Party of Germany National Front (Hungary) National Front (Switzerland) National Movement of Switzerland National Radical Camp National Radical Camp (1993) National Revival of Poland National Union (Switzerland) Nationalist Front (Germany) Nazi Party Greater German People's Community Nazi Germany National Socialist Freedom Movement National Socialist Working Association New Order Nipsters Positive Christianity German Christians The Right (Germany) Socialist Reich Party Sudeten German Party The Third Path United Hungarian National Socialist Party Volksdeutsche Bewegung Volkssozialistische Bewegung Deutschlands/Partei der Arbeit Wiking-Jugend Southern Europe ADÑ–Spanish Identity Albanian Fascist Party Balli Kombëtar Brothers of Italy CEDADE Democratic Fascist Party European Nation State Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria Fasci Italiani di Combattimento Fascio d'Azione Rivoluzionaria Falange Sección Femenina La Falange (1999) Falange Auténtica Falange Española Falange Española Auténtica Falange Española de las JONS Falange Española de las JONS (1976) Falange Española Independiente Falangist Movement of Spain Freethinkers' Party Imperium Europa Italian fascism National Fascist Party (Italy) Italian Social Republic Republican Fascist Party Italian Social Movement Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista Juntas Españolas National Alliance (Spain) National Alliance July 18 National Democracy (Italy) National Democracy (Spain) National Front (Spain, 1986) National Front (Spain, 2006) National Union (Italy, 1923) National Union (Spain) New Force (Italy) New Force (Spain) Republican Social Movement The Right (Italy) Sammarinese Fascist Party Spanish Military Union Struggle of the People Student Action Terza Posizione Tricolour Flame Unidad Falangista Montañesa Youth Front Eastern and Southeastern Europe Autochthonous Croatian Party of Rights Bosnian Movement of National Pride Bulgarian National Socialist Workers Party Croatian Liberation Movement Croatian National Resistance Croatian Party of Rights Crusade of Romanianism Ethnic National Union Eurasia Movement Eurasia Party Falanga Format18 For the Native Language! Front of National Revolutionary Action German Party German People's Party Golden Dawn Greek National Socialist Party Hosank Iron Guard LEPEN Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Lithuanian Nationalist Union National Agrarian Party National Bolshevik Front National Bolshevik Party National-Christian Defense League National Christian Party National Fascist Community National Fascist Movement National Italo-Romanian Cultural and Economic Movement National Party – Greeks National Socialist Patriotic Organisation National Socialist Society National Social Movement National Radical Camp National Romanian Fascio National Renaissance Front National Salvation Front National Socialism / White Power Occupy Pedophilia Order of Nine Angles Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists The Other Russia of E. V. Limonov Pamyat Patriotic Alliance People's Party Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine Ratniks (Bulgaria) Romanian Front Russian Imperial Movement Russian Fascist Party Russian National Unity Russian Women's Fascist Movement Serbian Action Serbian Radical Party Slovak People's Party Steel Shield Svoboda Union of Bulgarian National Legions Ustaše Ustaše in Australia Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood Vlajka Yugoslav Radical Union ZBOR North America Fascism in Canada Aryan Guard Aryan Nations Canadian Association for Free Expression Canadian Union of Fascists Citizens for Foreign Aid Reform Heritage Front Parti national social chrétien Fascism in the United States American Front American Nazi Party Creativity Fascist League of North America German American Bund Goyim Defense League Hammerskins Identity Evropa LaRouche movement League of the South National Alliance (United States) National Renaissance Party Nationalist Social Club-131 National Socialist Legion National Socialist Liberation Front National Socialist Movement National States' Rights Party National Vanguard Nationalist Front (United States) The Order Patriot Front Proud Boys Rise Above Movement Silver Legion of America Christian Party (United States, 1930s) Third Klan Traditionalist Worker Party Vanguard America Volksfront White Aryan Resistance Wotansvolk Revolutionary Mexicanist Action Mexican Democratic Party Mexican Fascist Party National Pro Patria Party National Synarchist Union Nationalist Front of Mexico Order of Nine Angles Oceania Action Zealandia Antipodean Resistance Australia First Movement Australia First Party Australian Defence League Australian National Socialist Party Centre Party Lads Society National Action (Australia) National Socialist Network National Socialist Party of Australia Progressive Nationalist Party Reclaim Australia True Blue Crew United Patriots Front South America Agrarian Labor Party Argentine Anticommunist Alliance Argentine Fascist Party Argentine Nationalist Action Argentine Patriotic League Bolivian Socialist Falange Brazilian Integralism Brazilian Integralist Action Brazilian Integralist Front Falangism in Latin America Female Peronist Party Iron Guard (Argentina) Nacionalismo National Fascist Party (Argentina) National Fascist Union Nationalist Liberation Alliance National Liberation Movement National Socialist Movement of Chile National Universitary Concentration New Triumph Party Patriot Front (Argentina) Popular Dignity Popular Freedom Alliance Popular Representation Party Popular Socialist Vanguard Republican League La Resistencia Dios, Patria y Familia Revolutionary Union Tacuara Nationalist Movement People Australia Campbell (Eric) Campbell (Graeme) Cottrell Groot Mills Saleam Austria Dollfuss Miklas Pfrimer Planetta Schuschnigg Seyss-Inquart Starhemberg Belgium Daye Declercq Degrelle Denis Elias Eriksson Hermans Lagrou Poulet Severen Streel van de Wiele Croatia Boban Francetić Kraljević Kvaternik Luburić Pavelić Pavičić Rover Servatzy Finland Helanen Isotalo Kalsta Konkka Kosola Orko Simojoki Somersalo Törni Varjonen France Augier Bardèche Benoist-Méchin Béraud Brasillach Bucard Châteaubriant Déat Déroulède Dior Doriot La Rochelle Lagardelle Laval Pétain Rebatet Myatt Valois Vial Germany Abetz Andrae Baeumler Berchtold Berger Best Brunner Bühler Darré Falkenhausen Hocke Feder Forster Frank Franz V Gesche Goebbels Göring Graf Greiser Günther Hanke Heiden Hess Heydrich Himmler Hitler Klintzsch Kuhn Kühnen Ludendorff Maurice Müller Niekisch Ploetz Rahn Reitsch Remer Renthe-Fink Ribbentrop Rieger Rosenberg Schmitt Schreck Skorzeny Strasser (Gregor) Strasser (Otto) Streicher Terboven Thadden Krosigk Zündel Greece Dragoumis Kasidiaris Koryzis Lagos Michaloliakos Papadopoulos India Advani Bose Godse Golwalkar Hedgewar Modi Mukherjee Savarkar Vajpayee Iran Forouhar Kashani Monshizadeh Pezeshkpour Teymourtash Israel Ahimeir Ben-Ari Ben-Gvir Eldad Eliyahu Goldstein Gopstein Greenberg Ha'ivri Heruti Kahane Marzel Natan-Zada Stern Yeivin Italy Acerbo Alfieri Ambris D'Annunzio Azara Badoglio Balbo Torrente Ballester Bastianini Bianchi Boni Bono Boselli Bottai Ciano (Costanzo) Ciano (Galeazzo) Cogni Corradini Evola Freda Gentile Giuriati Gozi Grandi Graziani Guidi Malaparte Marinetti Michels Morgagni Mussolini Olivetti Panunzio Papini Pavolini Rauti Ricci Ridruejo Rocco Rossoni Sarfatti Soffici Spirito Volpi Japan Akao Araki Chō Hashimoto Honjō Kita Kodama Matsuoka Nonaka Ōkawa Sasakawa Romania Antonescu Bacaloglu Codreanu Crainic Cuza Gigurtu Goga Manoilescu Moța Ogoranu Sima Russia Ayo Astroŭski Barkashov Borovikov Dugin Dugina Ilyin Kaminski Kuryokhin Letov Limonov Martsinkevich Milchakov Oktan Prilepin Prokhanov Rodzaevsky Stojadinović Zhirinovsky Spain Arrese Bau Nolla Bilbao Eguía Carrero Blanco Fernández-Cuesta Franco Franco y Polo Giménez Caballero Primo de Rivera Ramos Sánchez Mazas Serrano Suñer Ukraine Bandera Biletsky Dontsov Gubarev Klyachkivsky Lebed Rebet Samchuk Shukhevych Stetsko Tyahnybok Vitrenko United Kingdom Beckett Chamberlain Chesterton Griffin Jordan Leese Mosley (Diana) Mosley (Oswald) Pankhurst Pearson Ramsay Southgate Tyndall Wellesley United States Abascal Anglin Auernheimer Biggs Black Butler Carto Collins Dilling Duke Enoch Frankhouser Fuentes Garza Graves Heimbach Hall Invictus Jones Joyce Kessler Lane LaRouche Lindbergh MacDonald Mason Metzger Miller Mills Minadeo Mullins Nordean Patsalos Pelley Pierce Pound Rockwell Rubin Smith Spencer Strom Tarrio Thomson Trump Vonsyatsky Yockey Other Arana Osorio Arcand D'Aubuisson Bahçeli Blythe Bushati Caetano Carrasco Castillo Armas Celmiņš Cerro Clausen Coughlin Devi O'Duffy Ďurčanský Frashëri al-Gaylani Genoud Gömbös Gustloff Hácha Hamidov Hamsun Hlinka al-Husayni al-Husseini Lee Linderman Ljotić Lugones Lukov Mach Madero Martínez Merlika-Kruja Noreika Piasecki Perón Phibunsongkhram Preto Puyi Quisling Ramírez Rhee Riva-Agüero y Osma Rupnik Saadeh Salgado Sayigh Šešelj Szálasi Terre'Blanche Tiso Tsankov Vikernes Wang Weinstein Works Literature 1776 Returns La Conquista del Estado The Culture of Critique Defiance Did Six Million Really Die? The Doctrine of Fascism Fascist Manifesto For My Legionaries The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia The Fourth Political Theory Hitlers Zweites Buch Hunter Impeachment of Man Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus Kokutairon and Pure Socialism The Last Will of a Russian Fascist Manifesto of Race Manifesto of the Fascist Intellectuals Mein Kampf My Autobiography My Life The Myth of the Twentieth Century OPROP! Our Race Will Rule Undisputed Over The World Protestantische Rompilger A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century Siege The Turner Diaries Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews A Warning to the Hindus Who Are the Mind Benders? Periodicals Action Ajan Suunta L'Alba El Alcázar The American Review Der Angriff Arriba The Blackshirt La Conquista del Estado The Daily Stormer Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung Das Deutsche Mädel La Difesa della Razza Eleftheros Kosmos The European Fashist Fashizmi La France au travail Fritt Folk Fronten Gândirea Gioventù Fascista Golden Dawn Hamaas Hrvatski Domobran Je suis partout Kangura Kansallissosialisti Limonka Masada2000 Münchener Beobachter Nash Put' Nástup Nation Europa Neue Anthropologie Neues Volk Het Nieuwe Volk Norsk-Tysk Tidsskrift Novopress Norsk-Tysk Tidsskrift Organiser Panchjanya Panzerbär Parole der Woche Le Pays Réel Der Pimpf Il Popolo d'Italia Das Reich Revue d'histoire du fascisme Das Schwarze Korps Sfarmă-Piatră Signal Siniristi Spearhead Der Stürmer Türkische Post Der Umbruch Vairas Vlajka Volk en Staat Völkischer Beobachter Die Wehrmacht Wochenspruch der NSDAP Film L'Armata Azzurra Bengasi Condottieri The Daughter of the Samurai Erbkrank Europa: The Last Battle The Great Appeal The Old Guard Raza Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal Der Sieg des Glaubens The Siege of the Alcazar Lo squadrone bianco Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht Triumph of the Will Other Allach Ethnic Cleansing Related topics Art of the Third Reich Fascist architecture Heroic realism Hindutva pop Nazi architecture Nazism and cinema Organizations Institutional Ahnenerbe Chamber of Fasces and Corporations Grand Council of Fascism Imperial Way Faction Italian Nationalist Association National Socialist League of the Reich for Physical Exercise Quadrumvirs Activist Adelaide Institute Agrarian Trade Union Federation The Britons Casuals United DeVlag European Social Movement Finnish Realm Union Francisco Franco National Foundation Friends of New Germany German American Bund GRECE The Link Mladorossi National Party of Europe National Policy Institute National Popular Consciousness People's Party Our Slovakia Popular Force Party Republic (Slovakia) Resistance Records Right Club Russian Fascist Organization Youth Adler und Falke Albanian Lictor Youth Arab Lictor Youth Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha Blue-and-Blacks Ethiopian Lictor Youth Fascist Union of Youth Frente de Juventudes Al-Futuwwa Gioventù Italiana del Littorio Great Japan Youth Party Hitler Youth Faith and Beauty Society Deutsches Jungvolk Jungmädelbund League of German Girls Jeunesse Populaire Française Juventudes de Acción Popular Korean National Youth Association Levente Mocidade Portuguesa Nationale Jeugdstorm National League of Sweden National Socialist Liberation Front National Youth (Sweden) National Youth (Italy) National Youth Alliance National Youth Organisation (Greece) Opera Nazionale Balilla Österreichisches Jungvolk Patriotic/Eureka Youth League Union of Fascist Little Ones Union of Young Fascists – Vanguard (boys) Union of Young Fascists – Vanguard (girls) Ustaše Youth Wiking-Jugend Youth Front Paramilitary and terrorist Abhinav Bharat Albanian Fascist Militia Atomwaffen Division Azov Brigade Bajrang Dal The Base Battle Organization of Russian Nationalists Black Brigades Black Legion Blackshirts Blueshirts (Canada) Blueshirts (Ireland) Column 88 Combat Terrorist Organization Confederation of the Nation Corpul Muncitoresc Legionar Croatian Defence Forces Croatian National Resistance Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood Bugojno group Einsatzgruppen Fasci di Azione Rivoluzionaria Falange Armata Falange Militia FEAR Flemish Guard Flemish Legion Frontbann Gold Shirts Hilfspolizei Hitler Youth Greenshirts (Romania) Greyshirts Heimwehr Hirden Hlinka Guard Hungarian National Defence Association Interbrigades Iron Wolf Jewish Defense League Jewish Defense Organization Kataeb Regulatory Forces Lăncieri Legion Wasa Lehava Lehi Levente Makapili Mano Blanca National Republican Guard National Socialism / White Power New Guard The Order Ostmärkische Sturmscharen Rodobrana Russian Imperial Movement Russian National Unity (2000) S14 Schutzstaffel Serbian Volunteer Corps Sicarii Sich Battalion Silver Shirts Sturmabteilung Sudetendeutsches Freikorps Terror Against Terror Third Klan Ukrainian Insurgent Army Ukrainian People's Militsiya Ustaše Militia Volkssport Walloon Guard Walloon Legion Waffen-SS Wagner Group Rusich Group Weerbaarheidsafdeling Werwolf Westland New Post Yokusan Sonendan Youth Front Student Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad Avanguardia Giovanile Fascista Frente de Estudiantes Sindicalistas German Student Union National Socialist German Students' League Sindicato Español Universitario Student Action International Axis powers NSDAP/AO ODESSA History 1900s Herero and Nama genocide and the Holocaust 1910s Arditi Fascio Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria Armenian genocide and the Holocaust 1920s March on Rome Corfu incident Acerbo Law Beer Hall Putsch Aventine Secession Italian economic battles Le Faisceau 28 May 1926 coup d'état Libyan genocide 1930s March of the Iron Will November 1932 German federal election March 1933 German federal election Enabling Act Austrian Civil War July Putsch 1934 Montreux Fascist conference Romani Holocaust 4th of August Regime Anti-Comintern Pact Spanish Civil War 1940s World War II Nazi crimes against the Polish nation The Holocaust Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia End in Italy Nuremberg Trials Tokyo Trials Lists Anti-fascists Books about Hitler British fascist parties Fascist movements by country (A-F G-M N-T U-Z) Nazi ideologues Nazi leaders Secretaries of Italian fascist parties Speeches by Hitler SS personnel Related topics Authoritarian conservatism Chiangism Francoism Khomeinism Maurrassisme Pinochetism Putinism Ziaism Alt-right Alt-lite Alt-right pipeline Alt-tech Identitarian movement Anti-fascism Berlusconism Conservative Revolution Criticism of fascism Europe a Nation Fascist (epithet) Fascist mysticism Feudal fascism F-scale (personality test) Garveyism Germanisation of Poles during the Partitions Italianization of South Tyrol Japanization Morenazi Neosocialism Para/semi-fascism Post-fascism Proto-fascism Red fascism Red–green–brown alliance Roman salute Sansepolcrismo Scientific racism Aryanism Nordicism Social fascism Sorelianism Synarchism Szeged Idea Trumpism Donald Trump and fascism Völkisch movement Women in Nazi Germany Category v t e Nazism Organisation Ahnenerbe Artaman League Geheime Staatspolizei Deutscher Fichte-Bund Deutsches Jungvolk Franz Eher Nachfolger Hitler Youth League of German Girls Organisation Todt NSDÄB NSDStB NSRL NSFK NSKK NSF Nazi media organizations Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte Neues Volk NS-Frauen-Warte Das Reich Das Schwarze Korps Nazi Party Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Sturmabteilung (SA) Schutzstaffel (SS) SS Gefolge Waffen-SS History Early timeline National Socialist Program Hitler's rise to power Machtergreifung Gleichschaltung German rearmament Nazi Germany Kirchenkampf Adolf Hitler's cult of personality Enabling Act of 1933 Night of the Long Knives Nuremberg rallies Nuremberg Laws Anti-Comintern Pact Kristallnacht Anschluss World War II The Holocaust 1938–1939 German expedition to Tibet Tripartite Pact Denazification Nuremberg trials Final solution Concentration camps Deportations Doctors' Trial Extermination camps Genocide Ghettos Human experimentation Labour camps Pogroms Racial segregation Ideology Aestheticization of politics Anti-communism Anti-intellectualism Anti-liberalism Anti-pacifism Blood and soil Chauvinism Class collaboration Conspiracism Dolchstoßlegende "International Jewry" Judeo-Bolshevism Corporatism Cult of personality Dictatorship Führerprinzip Direct action Economic interventionism Eugenics Geopolitik Heimat Imperialism Greater Germanic Reich Heim ins Reich Lebensraum Pan-Germanism Militarism Nationalism Ethno Racial Palingenetic Revolutionary Ultra New Man New Order One-party state Populism Propaganda Prussianism Racism Antisemitism Anti-Slavic sentiment Aryan race Aryanism Master race Nordicism Nordic Indo-Germanic people Renordification Rassenschande Untermenschen Völkisch equality Völkisch movement Reactionary modernism Romanticism Social Darwinism Social interventionism Social order State capitalism Syncretism Totalitarianism Volksgemeinschaft Volk ohne Raum Volkskörper Politicians Bierbaumer Bloem Bormann Daluege Dönitz Drexler Eichmann Esser Fischer Frank Frick Hess Heydrich Himmler Hitler Goebbels Göring Keller Lammers Lutze Mitford von Neurath Quisling von Ribbentrop Röhm Schacht von Schirach Scholtz-Klink Seldte Seyss-Inquart Speer Strasser (Gregor) Strasser (Otto) Streicher Ideologues Pre-Machtergreifung Arndt Burnouf Chamberlain Drumont Eckart Fritsch de Gobineau Grant von Liebenfels von List Löns Lueger Marr Nietzsche (Contentious) Ratzel Riehl Ruskin Wagner Post-Machtergreifung Anacker Baeumler Bergmann Berndt Darré Eggers Eichrodt Feder Ford Grimm Günther Hauer Haushofer Heidegger (Contentious) Hentschel Hoche al-Husseini Jung Krannhals Kriek Lindbergh Müller Plenge Rahn Rosenberg Saadeh Schäfer Schmalenbach Schmitt (Contentious) von Sebottendorf Schwarz Stapel Wirsing Zimmermann Atrocities and war crimes Action T4 Nazi concentration camps Extermination camp Final Solution Human experimentation Romani genocide Outside Germany Americas Brazil Chile Europe Greece Sweden Parties American Nazi Party Arrow Cross Party (Hungary) German American Bund German National Movement in Liechtenstein Nasjonal Samling (Norway) National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands National Socialist Movement of Chile National Socialist Movement (United States) National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark Nordic Resistance Movement Ossewabrandwag (South Africa) SUMKA (Iran) Syrian Social Nationalist Party Tsagaan Khas (Mongolia) World Union of National Socialists Lists Bibliography of Adolf Hitler Nazi ideologues NSDAP leaders and officials Nazi Party members Last surviving war crime suspects Party ideologues Speeches given by Adolf Hitler SS personnel Role and impact in German society The Wehrmacht Economy Nobility Related topics Anti-Bolshevist League Art Architecture Cinema Atsızism "Beefsteak Nazi" Economy Denordification Renordification Glossary Drang nach Osten Generalplan Ost German American Bund Horst-Wessel-Lied Political views of Adolf Hitler Nazi propaganda and the United Kingdom Racial theories Sorelianism Strasserism Women Category v t e The Holocaust By territory Albania Austria Belgium Bulgaria Czechoslovakia Bohemia and Moravia Slovakia Sudetenland Denmark Estonia France Germany Greece Bulgarian-occupied Greece Hungary Italy and colonies Libya Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Romania Soviet Union Belarus Russia Ukraine Yugoslavia Croatia North Macedonia Serbia Overview Evidence and documentation Contemporary knowledge Hidden children Timeline Response International response Japan Philippines Portugal Spain Sweden Turkey United States Vatican Rescue of Jews by Catholics by Poles Righteous Among the Nations Camps and ghettos Concentration Auschwitz Bergen-Belsen Buchenwald Dachau Flossenbürg Gross-Rosen Herzogenbusch Hinzert Kaiserwald Kauen Kraków-Płaszów Majdanek Mauthausen and Gusen Mittelbau-Dora Natzweiler-Struthof Neuengamme Ravensbrück Sachsenhausen Stutthof Vaivara Warsaw Extermination Auschwitz II-Birkenau Belzec Chełmno Majdanek Sobibor Treblinka Transit be Breendonk Mechelen fr Gurs Drancy it Bolzano Risiera di San Sabba nl Amersfoort Schoorl Westerbork sk Sereď Methods Einsatzgruppen Gas van Gas chamber Extermination through labour Human experimentation Death marches Nazi units SS-Totenkopfverbände Concentration Camps Inspectorate Politische Abteilung Sanitätswesen Ghettos (list) Poland Białystok Kraków Łódź Lublin Lwów Radom Warsaw Elsewhere Budapest Kovno Minsk Riga Theresienstadt Vilna Judenrat Jewish Ghetto Police Reich Association of Jews in Germany Ústredňa Židov Victims Jews Roundups Izieu Marseille Vel' d'Hiv Pogroms Kristallnacht Bucharest Dorohoi Iași 1941 pogroms in eastern Poland Jedwabne Lviv in Lithuania Kaunas "Final Solution" Wannsee Conference Operation Reinhard Holocaust trains Mass executions Einsatzgruppen Babi Yar Harvest Festival Kamianets-Podilskyi Maly Trostenets Ninth Fort Odesa Piaśnica Ponary Rumbula Resistance Jewish partisans Bielski partisans Ghetto uprisings Warsaw Białystok Częstochowa Rescue Aid and Rescue Committee Attack on the twentieth convoy Kastner train Le Chambon-sur-Lignon Danish underground Working Group Żegota Others Soviet POWs Soviet urban residents Civilians targeted during anti-partisan warfare People with disabilities Romani people Polish leaders and intellectuals Homosexuals Jehovah's Witnesses Responsibility List of major perpetrators of the Holocaust Organizations Nazi Party Schutzstaffel (SS) Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) Referat IV B4 Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Ordnungspolizei (Orpo) Waffen-SS Wehrmacht Units Einsatzgruppen Police Regiments Order Police battalions Collaborators Arajs Kommando Lithuanian Security Police Nederlandsche SS Rollkommando Hamann Special Brigades Topf and Sons Trawnikis Ukrainian Auxiliary Police Ypatingasis būrys Early elements Aftermath Remembrance Early elements Nazi racial policy Nazi eugenics Nuremberg Laws Haavara Agreement Hitler's prophecy Jewish war conspiracy theory Jewish emigration Kindertransport Madagascar Plan Nisko Plan Forced euthanasia (Action T4) Aftermath Depopulated shtetls Holocaust survivors Sh'erit ha-Pletah Bricha List Postwar violence Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law Nuremberg trials Eichmann trial Holocaust restitution Reparations Agreement Holocaust denial trivialization History and memory Academia Books and other resources Days of remembrance Education Films Lessons Memorials and museums Uniqueness Armenian genocide and the Holocaust Humor Righteous Among the Nations Yad Vashem Yizkor books "Never again"