
Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889–April 30, 1945) was the ''Führer und Reichskanzler'' (Leader and Imperial Chancellor of Germany) of Germany from 1933 to his death. He was leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), better known as the Nazi Party. At the height of his power, the armies of Nazi Germany and its Axis Powers dominated much of Europe during World War II. The Racial policy of Nazi Germany that Hitler directed culminated in the systematic extermination of over 11 million people, including 6 million Jews, in a genocide now known as the Holocaust. He led Germany from the depths of post-World War I defeat to become one of the world's most powerful nations. Nevertheless, the Allies ultimately defeated Germany. In the final days of the war, Hitler's death by suicide in a Berlin Führerbunker. His intended Third Reich ended shortly thereafter. ==Early life== ===Childhood=== Adolf Hitler was born on April 20 1889 at Braunau am Inn, Austria, a small town 90 km (55 miles) west of Linz in the province of Upper Austria, not far from the German Empire border in what was then Austria-Hungary. He was the fourth of six children of Alois Hitler (1837–1903), a customs official, and Klara Pölzl, Alois' niece and third wife. Of these six children, only Adolf and his younger sister Paula Hitler reached adulthood. Alois Hitler also had a son (Alois Junior) and a daughter (Angela) by his second wife. In ''Mein Kampf'', his autobiography, Adolf Hitler describes his father as an "irascible tyrant"; however, there is little indication that Alois Hitler treated his son more strictly than was usual for that time and place. Alois Hitler was born out of wedlock, and, until he was 40, used his mother's surname, Schicklgruber. In 1876, he began using the name of his stepfather, Johann Georg Hiedler, after visiting a priest responsible for birth registries and declaring that Georg was his father (Alois gave the impression that Georg was still alive, but he was long dead). The spelling was probably changed by a clerk. Later, Adolf was accused by his political enemies of not rightfully being a Hitler, but a Schicklgruber. This was also exploited in Allied propaganda during the Second World War when pamphlets bearing the phrase "Heil Schicklgruber" were airdropped over German cities. He was legally born a Hitler, however, and was ironically closely related to Hiedler through his mother's family, too. Hitler did not know for sure who his paternal grandfather was, but it was probably either Johann Georg Hiedler or his brother Johann von Nepomuk Hiedler. There have been rumours that Hitler was one-quarter Jewish and that his grandmother Maria Schicklgruber had become pregnant after working as a servant in a Jewish household in Graz, Austria. During the 1920s, the implications of this along with his known family history were politically explosive, especially for the proponent of a racism ideology. Opponents tried to prove that Hitler, the leader of the anti-Semitic and jingoism Nazi Party, had Jewish or Czech ancestors. Although these rumours were never confirmed, for Hitler they were reason enough to conceal his origins. Soviet propaganda insisted he was a Jew, though newer research tends to diminish the probability Hitler had Jewish or Czech ancestors. Historians such as Werner Maser and Ian Kershaw argue this was impossible since the Jews had been expelled from Graz in the 15th century and were not allowed to return until well after Maria Schicklgruber's alleged employment. Because of Alois Hitler's profession his family moved frequently, from Braunau to Passau, Lambach, Leonding and next to Linz. Young Adolf was reportedly a good student at the various elementary schools he attended; however, in sixth grade (1900–1901), his first year of high school (''Realschule'') in Linz, he failed completely and had to repeat the grade. His teachers reported that he had "no desire to work." Hitler later explained this as a kind of rebellion against his father Alois, who wanted the boy to follow him in a career as a customs official, although Adolf wanted to become a painter. This is further supported by Hitler's later description of himself as a misunderstood artist. After Hitler's father died on January 3, 1903, at age 65, Adolf Hitler's schoolwork did not improve. At the age of 16, Hitler left school without graduating. ===Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich=== From 1905 onward, Hitler was able to live the life of a Bohemianism on a fatherless child's pension and support from his mother. After he was rejected twice by the Academy of Arts in Vienna (1907–1908) for "lack of talent"—which he resented deeply—he did not try to find a different job or learn a profession. He was told he should become an architect, since he had some flair for painting buildings. On December 21, 1907, his mother Klara died a painful death from breast cancer. He gave his share of the orphans' benefits to his younger sister Paula, but soon after inherited some money from an aunt. He worked as a struggling painter in Vienna, copying scenes from postcards and selling his paintings to merchants and tourists (there is evidence he produced over 2000 paintings and drawings before World War I). It was in Vienna that Hitler began to turn into an active anti-Semite, which was a common stance among Austrians at the time and deeply ingrained in the Roman Catholic culture that Hitler grew up in. Vienna had a large Jewish community, including many Orthodox Jews from Eastern Europe. He was influenced by the pseudoscience and neo-religious writings of the race ideologist and anti-Semite Lanz von Liebenfels and polemics from politicians such as Karl Lueger, the List_of_mayors_of_Vienna, and Georg Ritter von Schönerer, the leader of the pan-Germanistic movement. Hitler acquired a belief in the superiority of the "Aryan race," which formed the basis of his political views. He began to claim the Jews were natural enemies of "Aryans" and were responsible for Germany's economic problems. However, according to August Kubizek, his close friend and roommate at the time, he was more interested in the operas of Richard Wagner than in politics. After the second refusal from the Academy of Arts, Hitler gradually ran out of money. By 1909, he sought refuge in a homeless shelter, and by the beginning of 1910 had settled permanently into a house for poor working men. He made spending money by painting tourist postcards of Vienna scenery. His anti-Semitism during this period has been debated somewhat, since a Jewish resident of the house named Hanisch was helping him sell his postcards— seemingly contrary to statements he later made in ''Mein Kampf''. He was given a small inheritance from his father in May 1913 and moved to Munich. He later wrote in ''Mein Kampf'' that he had always longed to live in a German city. In Munich, he became more interested in architecture and the racist writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Moving to Munich also helped him escape military service in Austria for a time, but the Austrian army later arrested him. After a physical exam (during which his height was measured at 1.73 m, or 5"8') and a contrite plea, he was found unfit for service and allowed to return to Munich. However, when Germany entered World War I in August 1914, he immediately enlisted in the Bavarian army. ===World War I=== Hitler saw active service in France and Belgium as a messenger for the 16th Bavarian reserve infantry regiment, which exposed him to enemy fire. He also drew some cartoons and instructional drawings for the army newspaper. He was twice cited for bravery in action, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in December 1915 and the Iron Cross, First Class in August 1918. (This was an honour rarely given to corporals. The fact that he was not a German citizen at that time, and therefore could not be promoted beyond corporal, might have been significant.) In October 1916, in northern France, Hitler was wounded in the leg. At the beginning of March 1917 he returned to the front. Hitler was considered a "correct" soldier but was reportedly unpopular with his comrades because of an uncritical attitude towards officers. "Respect the superior, don't contradict anybody, obey blindly," he said, describing his attitude while on trial for his Beer Hall Putsch in 1924. One comrade later remarked, "we all grumbled on him and found it intolerable that we had a white raven among us." (Haiden, 1936) On October 15, 1918, shortly before the end of war, Hitler was admitted to a field hospital, temporarily blind following a poison gas attack. Recent research by Bernhard Horstmann however indicates the blindness may have been the result of a hysterical reaction to Germany's military defeat. Hitler was treated by a military physician who specialised in psychiatry. He reportedly diagnosed the corporal as "incompetent to command people" and "dangerously psychotic." His commander at the time said, "I will never promote this hysteric!" (cited from Haiden, 1937). However, historian Sebastian Haffner refers to Hitler's experience at the front as his only education and suggests he did have at least some understanding of the military. During the war, Hitler became a passionate German patriotism, although he did not become a German citizen until 1932. He was shocked by the capitulation of Germany in November 1918 while the German army remained (in popular German belief) undefeated. Like many other German nationalists, Hitler blamed civilian politicians (the "November criminals") for the surrender. The widespread right-wing, conservative explanation for the capitulation was the ''Dolchstosslegende'' ("dagger-stab legend") which purported that behind the backs of the army, liberal politicians had betrayed and "stabbed" Germany's people and its soldiers "in the back." The Treaty of Versailles imposed crippling reparations and declared Germany guilty for the Great War horrors; thus was perceived by most Germans as a humiliation and was an important factor in the social conditions encountered by Hitler and his party in seeking power. ==Weimar Republic== ===Early Nazi Party=== After the war, Hitler remained in the army, which was mainly engaged in suppressing socialist uprisings breaking out across Germany, including Munich, where Hitler returned in 1919. He took part in "national thinking" courses organised by the ''Education and Propaganda Department'' (Dept Ib/P) of the Bavarian ''Reichswehr'' Group, Headquarters 4 under Captain Mayr. A key purpose of this group was to create a scapegoat for the outbreak of the war and Germany's defeat. The scapegoats were found in "international Jewry," communists and politicians across the party spectrum. In July 1919, Hitler was appointed a ''V-Mann'' (''Verbindungsmann'' is the German term for a police spy) of "Aufklärungskommando" ("Intelligence Commando") of the Reichswehr, for the purpose of influencing other soldiers towards similar ideas and was assigned to infiltrate a small nationalist party, the German Workers' Party (DAP). Here Hitler met Dietrich Eckart, one of the early founders of the party. Hitler was discharged from the army in 1920 and (with the army's continued encouragement) began participating full time in the party's activities. He soon became its leader and changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party (''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'', NSDAP), usually known as the Nazi party . Hitler's street-corner oratory, attacking Jews, socialists and liberals, capitalists and Communists, began attracting adherents. Early followers included Rudolf Hess, Hermann Göring, and Ernst Röhm, head of the Nazis' paramilitary organisation, the Sturmabteilung. Another admirer was wartime General Erich Ludendorff. Hitler decided to use Ludendorff as a front in an attempt to seize power in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, in an abortive coup later known as the "Hitler Putsch" or "March to Berlin" of November 8, 1923. The Nazis marched from a beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry, intending to overthrow Bavaria's right-wing separatist government and then march on Berlin. The army quickly dispersed them and Hitler was arrested. To protect his own position, Hitler appointed Alfred Rosenberg as temporary leader of the group. Upon being arrested, Hitler found himself in an environment somewhat receptive to his beliefs. During his trial for high treason in April 1924, sympathetic conservative magistrates left over from pre-Weimar allowed Hitler to turn the debacle into a propaganda stunt. Hitler was allotted unlimited amounts of time to present his arguments to the courts as well as a large body of the German people, and gave his popularity a boost by voicing sentiments shared by the public. For a crime of conspiracy against his nation, Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg prison, where he received favoured treatment from the guards and had much fan mail from admirers. While at Landsberg he dictated his political book ''Mein Kampf'' (''My Struggle'') to his deputy Rudolf Hess. The first volume, called "Abrechnung" (''payback''), was later published and became the platform of the Nazi party (by the late 1930s nearly every household in Germany had a copy of it). Meanwhile, as he was considered relatively harmless, Hitler was given an early amnesty and was released in December 1924. By this time the Nazi party had dwindled and Hitler began a long effort to rebuild it. A key element of Hitler's appeal was his ability to convey a sense of offended national pride caused by the Treaty of Versailles imposed on the defeated Second Reich by the Allies. Germany had lost territory in Europe and its colonies, had had to admit to sole responsibility for the war and pay a huge reparations bill totaling $6,600,000 (32 billion marks). Most Germans bitterly resented these terms, but early attempts to gain support by blaming these humiliations on "international Jewry" were not particularly successful with the electorate. The party learned quickly and soon a more subtle propaganda emerged, combining anti-Semitism with an attack on the failures of the "Weimar system" and the parties supporting it. In 2004, it was discovered that Hitler had spent years evading taxes on income from sales of ''Mein Kampf''. He owed the German government 405,000 Reichmarks (equivalent to $8 million at 2004 exchange rates) by the time he took power and the tax debt was forgiven. ===The road to power=== ''See also the Weimar Timeline.'' The political turning point for Hitler came with the Great Depression which hit Germany in 1930. The democratic regime established in Germany in 1919 (the Weimar Republic) had never been accepted by conservatives and was openly opposed by fascists. The Social Democrats and traditional parties of the centre and right were unable to cope with the shock of the Depression. In the September 1930 elections the Nazis suddenly rose from relative obscurity to win 18,3% of the vote along with 107 seats in the Reichstag (institution), becoming the second largest party in Germany. Hitler appealed to the bulk of German farmers, war veterans and the middle-class, who had been hard-hit by both the inflation of the 1920s and the unemployment of the Depression. The urban working classes generally ignored Hitler's appeals and Berlin and the Ruhr Area towns were particularly hostile. The 1930 election was a disaster for Heinrich Brüning's centre-right government, which was now deprived of a majority in the Reichstag. Meanwhile in December 1931 Hitler's niece Geli Raubal was found dead in her bedroom in his Munich apartment (his half-sister Angela and her daughter Geli had been with him in Munich since 1929), an apparent suicide. Geli was much younger than he was, and she had used his gun, drawing rumours of a relationship between the two. There is still speculation regarding the circumstances of her death, which is generally viewed as an event of lasting turmoil for Hitler. While Brüning's austerity measures were bringing little economic improvement, the government was anxious to avoid a presidential election in 1932 and hoped to secure Nazi agreement to an extension of President Paul von Hindenburg's term. Hitler refused and ultimately competed against Hindenburg in the German presidential election, 1932, coming in second on both rounds of the election. He attained more than 35% of the vote during the second round in April. Hindenburg dismissed the government, appointing a new one under the conservative Franz von Papen, which immediately called for new Reichstag elections. In July 1932 the Nazis had their best election showing yet, winning 230 seats and becoming the largest party in the Reichstag. Since the Nazis and the communists now together controlled a majority of the Reichstag, the formation of a stable government of mainstream parties had become impossible. After a vote of no-confidence in the Papen government, supported by 84% of the delegates, the new Reichstag was dissolved and new elections were called. Papen and the Catholic Centre Party (''Zentrumspartei'') began negotiations to secure Nazi participation in the new government but Hitler set high terms, demanding the Chancellorship along with the President's agreement that he be able to use emergency powers. The offer was rebuffed, and combined with the Nazis' failure to win working class support, some Nazi supporters were alienated. During the November 1932 elections the Nazis lost votes although they remained by far the largest party in the Reichstag. Since Papen had failed to secure a majority, Hindenburg dismissed him and appointed General Kurt von Schleicher, who promised he could secure a majority government by negotiations with both Social Democratic labour unions and the dissident Nazi faction led by Gregor Strasser. Papen and Alfred Hugenberg (Chairman of the German National People's Party, the DNVP, which before the Nazis were Germany's principal right-wing party) conspired to persuade Hindenburg to appoint Hitler Chancellor in a coalition with the DNVP, promising they would be able to control him. When Schleicher was forced to admit failure in his efforts to form a coalition and asked Hindenburg for yet another Reichstag dissolution, Hindenburg fired him and appointed Hitler Chancellor, Papen Vice-Chancellor of Germany and Hugenberg Minister of Economics in a cabinet which included only three Nazis, Hitler, Göring and Wilhelm Frick. On January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler was officially sworn in as Chancellor in the Reichstag chamber with thousands of Nazi supporters looking on and cheering. After Reichstag fire (and the communists were blamed for it), the Reichstag Fire Decree suspended civil liberties. Subsequently, in the March 1933 elections the Nazis received 43.9% of the vote. The party gained control of a majority of seats in the Reichstag through a formal coalition with the DNVP. The Enabling Act, passed by the Reichstag after the Nazis expelled the Communist deputies, gave Hitler dictatorial authority. Under the Enabling Act the Nazi cabinet had the power to pass legislation just as the Reichstag did. The Act further specified that the cabinet could only approve measures submitted by the Chancellor (Hitler) and that it would lapse after four years time or upon the installation of a new government. The Enabling Act was dutifully renewed every four years, even during World War II. A series of decrees followed soon after the passage of the Enabling Act. Other party were suppressed and all opposition was banned. In only a few months Hitler had achieved authoritarian control. President Paul von Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934. Rather than have new presidential elections, Hitler's cabinet passed a law combining the offices of President and Chancellor, with Hitler holding both offices (including the President's decree powers) as "Leader and National Chancellor." This consolidation was claimed by the Nazis to be approved by the electorate in what was actually a show election (the outcome was 90% "approval") in mid-August 1934. Then, in an unprecedented step, Hitler ordered every member of the military to swear a personal oath of allegiance to him. ==The Third Reich== ''See also Nazi Germany'' Having secured supreme political power without an electoral mandate from the majority of Germans, Hitler went on to gain their support and remained overwhelmingly popular until the very end of his regime. He was a master orator and with all of Germany's mass media under the control of his propaganda chief, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, he persuaded most Germans he was their saviour from the Depression, the Communists, the Versailles Treaty and the Jews. ===Economics and culture=== Hitler oversaw one of the greatest expansions of industrial production and civil improvement Germany had ever seen, mostly based on debt flotation and expansion of the military. Nazi policies towards women strongly encouraged them to stay at home to bear children and keep house. The unemployment rate was cut substantially, mostly through arms production and sending women home so that men could take their jobs. Given this, claims that the Economy of Germany achieved near full employment are at least partly artifacts of propaganda from the era. Hitler also oversaw one of the largest infrastructure improvement campaigns in German history, with the construction of dozens of dams, autobahns, railroads and other civil works. Hitler's policies emphasised the importance of family life: Men were the "breadwinners", while women's priorities were to be "church, kitchen and children", in German ''Kirche, Küche und Kinder'' or "Drei K" (three K's). Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale, with Albert Speer becoming famous as the first architect of the Reich. In 1936 Berlin hosted the 1936 Summer Olympics, which were opened by Hitler and choreographed to demonstrate Aryan superiority over all other races. ''Olympia (film)'', the movie about the games and documentary propaganda films for the German Nazi Party were directed by Hitler's personal film-maker Leni Riefenstahl. Although Hitler made plans for a ''Breitspurbahn'' (broad gauge railroad network), they were pre-empted by World War II. Had the railroad been built, its gauge would have been three meters, even wider than the old Great Western Railway of Britain. In 1932 Hitler was instrumental in initiating the design work on the car that later became the Volkswagen Beetle. ===Repression=== [[Image:Hitler-car.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler (below Hitler's arm)]] For the unpersuaded, the Sturmabteilung, Schutzstaffel and ''Gestapo'' (secret state police) were given a free hand. Thousands disappeared into concentration camps. Many thousands more emigrated, including about half of Germany's Jews. By 1934 Ernst Röhm's SA had become unpopular with most of the other influential political and military groups in Germany. Hitler ordered his lieutenant Himmler to murder Röhm and dozens of other real and potential enemies during the night of June 29, 1934, the Night of the Long Knives. Under the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, Jews lost their German citizenship and were expelled from government employment, the professions and most forms of economic activity. They were also subject to a barrage of hate propaganda. Few non-Jewish Germans objected to these steps. Restrictions were further tightened later, particularly after the 1938 anti-Jewish operation known as ''Kristallnacht''. From 1941 Jews were required to wear a yellow star in public. Between November 1938 and September 1939 more than 180,000 Jews fled Germany and the Nazis seized whatever property they left behind. ===Rearmament and new alliances=== [[Image:Adolf_Hitler_und_Benito_Mussolini_in_München_1940.jpg|thumb|right|260px|Adolf Hitler with Benito Mussolini in Munich]] In March 1935 Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles by reintroducing conscription in Germany. He set about building a massive military machine, including a new Navy (the Kriegsmarine) and an Air Force (the Luftwaffe). The enlistment of vast numbers of men and women in the new military seemed to solve unemployment problems but seriously distorted the economy. In March 1936 he again violated the Treaty of Versailles by reoccupying the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland. When Britain and France did nothing, he grew bolder. In July 1936 the Spanish Civil War began when the military, led by General Francisco Franco, rebelled against the elected Popular Front government of Spain. Hitler sent troops to support Franco and Spain served as a testing ground for Germany's new armed forces and their methods, including the bombing of undefended towns such as Guernica, which was destroyed by the Luftwaffe in April 1937, prompting Pablo Picasso's famous eponymous painting (see Guernica (painting)). An Axis was declared between Germany and Italy by Galeazzo Ciano, foreign minister of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini on October 25, 1936. This alliance was later expanded to include Japan, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. They were collectively known as the Axis Powers. Then on November 5, 1937 at the Reich Chancellory, Adolf Hitler held a secret meeting and stated his plans for acquiring "living space" (Lebensraum) for the German people. ===The Holocaust=== [[Image:Himmler_Hitler.jpg|frame|Adolf Hitler with Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Schutzstaffel (charged with rounding up Jews, Gypsies and so-called "enemies of the state")]] ''Main article: Holocaust'' Between 1939 and 1945 the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, systematically killed approximately 11 million people (6 million of whom were Jews) in concentration camps, ghettos and mass executions, or through less systematic methods elsewhere. Besides being gassed to death, many also died of starvation and disease while working as slave labourers. Along with Jews, alleged communists or political opposition, homosexuals, dissenting Roman Catholics and Protestants, Roma (people), the physically handicapped and mentally retarded, Soviet Union Prisoner of war, the Poland intelligentsia, Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust, anti-Nazi clergy, trade union, and psychiatric patients were killed. The industrial-scale genocide of Jews in Europe during this period is referred to as the Holocaust. The massacres that led to the coining of the word "genocide" (the ''Endlösung'' or "Final Solution") were planned and ordered by leading Nazis, with Himmler playing a key role. While no specific order from Hitler authorising the mass killing of the Jews has surfaced, there is documentation he approved the ''Einsatzgruppen'' and the evidence also suggests that sometime in the fall of 1941 Himmler and Hitler agreed in principle on mass murder by gassing. To make for smoother intra-governmental cooperation in the implementation of this "Final Solution" to the "Jewish question", the Wannsee conference was held near Berlin on January 20, 1942 with fifteen senior officials participating, led by Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann. The records of this meeting provide the clearest evidence of central planning for the Holocaust. Days later, on February 22, Hitler was recorded saying to his closest associates "we shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews". ==World War II== ===Opening moves=== On March 12, 1938 Hitler pressured his native Austria into unification with Germany (the Anschluss) and made a triumphal entry into Vienna. Next he intensified a crisis over the German-speaking Sudetenland district of Czechoslovakia. This led to the Munich Agreement of September 1938, which British prime minister Neville Chamberlain hailed as "Peace in our time". At Munich, Britain and France had weakly given way to his demands, averting war but failing to save Czechoslovakia. As a result of the summit Hitler was ''Time Magazine'''s Man of the Year in 1938. Hitler ordered Germany's army to enter Prague on March 10, 1939, claiming territories ceded to Poland under the Treaty of Versailles. Britain had not been able to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union for an alliance against Germany, and, on August 23, 1939, Hitler concluded a secret non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) with Joseph Stalin. On September 1 Germany invaded Poland. Britain and France, who had guaranteed assistance to Poland, declared war on Germany. After conquering Poland by the end of September, Hitler built up his forces much further during what was colloquially called the ''Sitzkrieg'' (sitting war). The ''Sitzkrieg'' ended in March 1940 when he ordered German forces to march into Denmark and Norway. In May 1940, Hitler ordered his forces to attack France, conquering the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium in the process. France surrendered on June 22, 1940. This string of victories convinced his main ally, Benito Mussolini of Italy, to join the war on Hitler's side in May 1940. United Kingdom, whose forces had been driven from France at the coastal town of Dunkirk, continued to fight on alone. After having his overtures for peace systematically rejected by the British Government, now led by Winston Churchill, Hitler ordered bombing raids on the British Isles, leading to the Battle of Britain, which was meant to be the prelude of a German invasion. However, the Royal Air Force defeated the Luftwaffe by the end of October 1940, and Hitler therefore ordered bombing raids to be carried out on British cities, including London and Coventry, mostly at night. This was the so-called ''Blitz'' and it lasted until May 1941. On June 22, 1941 Hitler gave the signal for three million German troops to attack the Soviet Union, breaking the non-aggression pact he had concluded with Stalin less than two years earlier. This invasion, called Operation Barbarossa, seized huge amounts of territory, especially the Baltic states and Ukraine, resulting in the destruction of many Soviet forces. German forces were stopped short of Moscow in December 1941 by a harsh winter and fierce Soviet resistance, however (see Battle of Moscow), and the invasion failed to achieve the quick triumph over the Soviet Union which Hitler had anticipated. ===Path to defeat=== [[Image:Adolf Hitler in Paris.jpg|thumb|right|Adolf Hitler in Paris, 23 June 1940]] Hitler's declaration of war against the United States on December 11, 1941, (which arguably was called for by Germany's treaty with Japan) set him 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 nation (the Soviet Union). In late 1942, German forces under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel were defeated in the battle of El Alamein, thwarting Hitler's plans to seize the Suez Canal and the Middle East. In February of 1943, the months-long Battle of Stalingrad ended with the complete destruction of the German forces there by armies of the Soviet Union. Both defeats were turning points in the war. After these, the quality of Hitler's military judgement became increasingly erratic and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated. His health was deteriorating too. His left hand started shaking uncontrollably. The biographer Ian Kershaw believes he suffered from Parkinson's disease. Other conditions that are suspected by some to have caused some (at least) of his symptoms are methamphetamine addiction and syphilis. Hitler's ally Benito Mussolini was overthrown in 1943 after British and American forces invaded Sicily. Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the eastern front. On June 6, 1944 (D-Day) the Western allied armies landed in northern France. Realists in the German army knew defeat was inevitable and some officers plotted to remove Hitler from power. In July 1944 one of them, Claus von Stauffenberg, planted a bomb at Hitler's military headquarters (the so-called July 20 Plot), but Hitler narrowly escaped death. Savage reprisals followed, resulting in the executions of more than 4,000 people (often by starvation in solitary confinement followed by slow strangulation). The resistance movement was crushed. ===Defeat and death=== [[Image:Hitler_bunker.jpg|thumb|350px|Adolf Hitler shaking hands with Feldmarschall Ferdinand Schörner in the bunker, one of the last known photos of Hitler]] :''Main article: Hitler's death.'' By the end of 1944 the Soviets had driven the last German troops from their territory and began charging into Central Europe. The western armies were advancing into Germany. The Germans had lost the war from a military perspective but Hitler allowed no peace talks with the Allied forces and as a consequence the German military continued to fight. By April 1945 Soviet forces were at the gates of Berlin. Hitler's closest lieutenants urged him to flee to Bavaria or Austria to make a last stand in the mountains but he was determined to die in his capital. The leader of SS Heinrich Himmler tried on his own to inform the Allies with the help of a Swedish diplomat that Germany is prepared to surrender. Hitler heard this on the Swedish radio. As Soviet troops battled their way toward his Reich Chancellory in the centre of the city, Hitler is generally believed to have committed suicide in his Führerbunker on 30 April 1945 in Berlin by means of a self-delivered shot to the head (some disputed accounts add that he simultaneously bit into a cyanide ampoule). Hitler's body and that of Eva Braun, his long-term mistress whom he had married the day before, were partially burned with gasoline and buried shortly thereafter in the Chancellory garden. When Russian forces reached the Chancellory, they exhumed his body and performed an autopsy, using dental records (and German dental assistants who were familiar with them) to confirm the identification. To avoid any possibility of creating a potential shrine, the remains were then secretly buried by SMERSH at their new headquarters in Magdeburg. In April 1970, when the facility was about to be turned over to the East German government, the remains were reportedly exhumed, thoroughly burned and disposed of in the Elbe river. In Moscow there is a skull and a mandible fragment which is said to be Hitler's (having been saved from the dental identification process). DNA samples have been compared to those of known surviving Hitler relatives and the matching results indicate the fragment is most likely genuine. ==Legacy== ''I would have preferred it if he'd followed his original ambition and become an architect.'' - Paula Hitler (his younger sister), during an interview with a US intelligence operative in late 1945. In his will Hitler dismissed other Nazi leaders and appointed Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as ''Reichspräsident'' (President of Germany) and Joseph Goebbels as ''Reichskanzler#Reichskanzler'' (Chancellor of Germany). However, Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide on 1 May 1945. On 8 May 1945 in Reims, France the German armed forces surrendered unconditionally End of World War II in Europe and with the creation of the Allied Control Council on 5 June 1945 the Four Powers assumed "supreme authority with respect to Germany." Hitler's proclaimed ''Thousand Year Reich'' had lasted 12 years. Since the defeat of Germany in World War II, Hitler, the Nazi Party and the Consequences of German Nazism have been regarded in most of the world as synonymous with evil. Historical and Hitler in popular culture in the west are almost uniformly negative, often neglecting to mention the adulation the German people bestowed on Hitler during his lifetime, though the majority of present-day Germans share a negative view of Hitler. The copyright of Hitler's book ''Mein Kampf'' is currently held by the Free State of Bavaria, which does not allow reproductions. The copyright will expire in 2015. The display of swastikas or other Nazi symbols is prohibited and right and left wing extremists are generally under surveillance by the ''Verfassungsschutz'', the federal office for the protection of the constitution. Despite this there have been instances of public figures referring to his legacy in neutral or even favourable terms, particularly in South America, the Islamic World and parts of Asia. Future Egyptian President Anwar Sadat wrote favourably of Hitler in 1953. Bal Thackeray, leader of the right-wing Shiv Sena party in the Indian state of Maharashtra, declared in 1995 that he was an admirer of Hitler. While some Revisionist history note Hitler's attempts to improve the economic and political standing and conditions of his people and claim his tactics were in essence no different from those of many other leaders in history, his methods and legacy, as interpreted by most historians, have caused him to be one of the most despised leaders in history. See also: Consequences of German Nazism and Neo-Nazism. ==Medical health== ''Main article: Adolf Hitler's medical health.'' Hitler's medical health has long been the subject of debate, and he has variously been suggested to have suffered from irritable bowel syndrome, skin lesions, irregular heartbeat, tremors on the left side of his body, syphilis, Parkinson's disease and addiction to methamphetamines. ==Hitler's family== See also: Hitler (disambiguation) *Eva Braun, mistress and then wife *Alois Hitler, father *Klara Hitler, mother *Paula Hitler, sister *Alois Hitler, Jr., half-brother *Bridget Dowling, sister-in-law *William Patrick Hitler, nephew *Angela Hitler, half-sister *Geli Raubal, niece and rumoured mistress *Maria Schicklgruber, grandmother *Johann Georg Hiedler, presumed grandfather *Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, maternal great-grandfather, presumed great uncle and possibly Hitler's true paternal grandfather ===The origin of the name "Hitler"=== There are two theories about the origin of the name "Hitler": *(1) From German language ''Hüttler'' and similar, "one who lives in a hut", "shepherd". *(2) From Slavonic languages ''Hidlar'' and ''Hidlarcek'' and similar. == Trivia == The archives of the Finnish Yleisradio broadcasting company contain an audio tape segment of a Hitler conversation with Finnish Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim and other high military officers which may be the only known recording of Hitler speaking in a conversational tone of voice rather than with the intense delivery he used for official speeches. It was recorded secretly by Finnish military when Hitler surprisingly flew to Finland to congratulate Marshall Mannerheim on his 75th birthday, 4 June 1942. ==Hitler's associates== *Martin Bormann, Adolf Hitler's Private Secretary. *Hans Frank, Hitler's lawyer and later senior Nazi official in occupied Poland. *Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, 25th Chancellor of Germany. *Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo. *Rudolf Hess, one-time Deputy Leader of the Nazi Party, best known for his flight to Scotland to negotiate peace in 1941. *Reinhard Heydrich, considered as a possible successor by Hitler, assassinated by a team of Czech agents on May 27, 1942. *Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, key figure in the Holocaust and the "Final Solution". *Alfred Jodl, military officer, knew Hitler since 1923. *Wilhelm Keitel, military Field Marshal during World War II. *Ernst Röhm, leader of the SA, shot on Hitler's orders in the Night of the Long Knives. *Albert Speer, minister of armament. *Paul Troost, famous architect. ''see also List of Nazi Party leaders and officials'' ==Media== ==Notes== # "[http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa070197.htm 'Heil Schicklgruber!'???]," about.com (accessed June 11, 2005); Cecil Adams, "[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_325b.html Was Hitler part Jewish?]," The Straight Dope (accessed June 11, 2005). # Joachim C. Fest, "[http://ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/festjc/chap2.htm The Drummer]," in ''The Face Of The Third Reich'' (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970; accessed June 11, 2005). # [http://www.hitler.org/artifacts/volkswagen/ Adolf Hitler and Volkswagen], Hitler Historical Museum, 1999 (accessed June 11, 2005). # "[http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/faqs/answers/faq_3.html How many Jews were murdered in the Holocaust? How do we know? Do we have their names?]," from FAQs About The Holocaust, Yad Vashem (accessed June 11, 2005); "[http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/index.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005143 The Holocaust]," ''Holocaust Encyclopedia'', United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (accessed June 11, 2005). # "[http://www2.sptimes.com/Holocaust_museum/11_million.html 11-million perished]," ''St. Petersburg Times'', 1999 (accessed June 11, 2005); Karen Silverstrim, "[http://www.uca.edu/divisions/academic/history/cahr/holocaust.htm Overlooked Millions: Non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust]," University of Central Arkansas (accessed June 11, 2005). ==See also== *Anti-semitism *Cultural representations of Hitler *Esoteric Hitlerism *Hitler's death *Members of Hitler's cabinet *Nero Decree *Widerstand, the resistance movements in Nazi Germany *Hitler and the church *Early Nazi Timeline focuses on the rise of Hitler *Nazi architecture *Nazi_Germany ==References== * ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'', William L. Shirer (1960). Gramercy. (ISBN 0517102943) *Doron Arazi, ''Adolf Hitler: A Bibliography'', Greenwood, 1994, ISBN 0-877-36360-1 *Alan Bullock, ''Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives'', HarperCollins, 1991, ISBN 0679729941 *Alan Bullock, ''Hitler: A Study in Tyranny'', ISBN 0060920203 *Joachim Fest, ''Hitler'', Harvest Books, 2002, ISBN 0156027542 *Brigitte Hamann, Thomas Thornton, ''Hitler's Vienna'', Oxford University Press; New Ed edition, 2000 *Eberhard Jäckel, 1981, ''Hitler's World View: A Blueprint for Power'', Cambridge: Harvard University Press. *#Kershaw_text: Ian Kershaw, ''Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris'', W W Norton, 1999, and ''Hitler 1937-1945: Nemesis'', W W Norton, 2000, ISBN 0393320359 *Lothar Machtan, ''The Hidden Hitler'' (Basic Books, 2001, ISBN 0-465-04308-9; English translation by John Brownjohn) See Northeast Middle School Assistant principal. *Adolf Hitler, 'Mein Kampf' Liberty Bell Publications (February, 2004) ISBN 1593640064 *#Haffner_text: Sebastian Haffner, ''The Meaning of Hitler'' (1978) ISBN 0674557751 (short biographical, non-scholarly study, but according to Ian Kershaw one of the most remarkable studies on the dictator) *#Krockow_text: Christian Graf von Krockow: ''Hitler und seine Deutschen'' (German). List, München 2001 ISBN 3-471-79415-8 *Konrad Heiden: ''Hitler I Das Leben eines Diktators'' (German). Zürich 1936 *Konrad Heiden: ''Hitler II Ein Mann gegen Europa'' (German). Zürich 1937 *Albert Marrin: "Hitler". Penguin Books 1987. ISBN 0-670-81546-2 * Horstmann, Bernhard: ''Hitler in Pasewalk - Die Hypnose und ihre Folgen, Hitlers hysterische Blindheit''. Droste Verlag 2004. ISBN 3-7700-1167-8 == External links == * [http://www.hitler.org The Hitler Historical Museum] * [http://www.planoweb.net/viki/hitler.html Leadership: Hitler and Mussolini] * [http://www.adolfhitler.ws/index.php Extensive site on Adolf Hitler] * [http://www.answers.com/hitler&r=67#Encyclopedia Hitler on Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia] * [http://www.adel-genealogie.de/Hitler/is_toc.htm Hitler's genealogy] * [http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/meinkampf/introduction.htm Mondo Politico Library's presentation of Adolf Hitler's book, ''Mein Kampf'' (full text, formatted for easy on-screen reading)] [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.zip Project Gutenberg of Australia downloadable eBook] * [http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points.htm Hitler's 25 point national socialist program] * *[http://www.third-reich-books.com/x-584-courier-adolf-hitler-1914-1918.htm Excerpt from book about Hitler's WWI military service] * [http://www.hierarchypedia.com/wiki/index.php/Hitler_family Hitler family genealogy] * [http://www.threetwoone.org/diagrams/hitler-family-tree.gif A detailed chart of Hitler's family tree] *[http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa070197.htm Ancestry of Adolf Hitler: Who was Adolf's grandfather?] * [http://samvak.tripod.com/hitler.html Assessment of Adolf Hitler] *[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_325b.html The Straight Dope: Was Hitler part Jewish?] *[http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm Hitler's Christianity] *[http://timelines.ws/countries/GERM1939_1944.HTML Timeline Germany 1939-1944] *[http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/HitlerAdolf/ Hitler's life as a timetable] (German) *[http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library/donovan/hitler 1943 Psychological Profile of Hitler] written by Dr. Henry A. Murray for the wartime Office of Strategic Services [1943 OSS Archives, DD247.H5 M87 1943] *[http://xtramsn.co.nz/news/0,,11965-4312539,00.html Hitler Relied on "Enemy" News] *[http://www.fpp.co.uk/Hitler/house/SouthBend0702.html Hitler's Childhood Home]
Adolf Hitler Austrian emigrants German chancellors Presidents of Germany Nazi leaders Suicides World War II political leaders ang:Adolf Hitler bs:Adolf Hitler fa:آدولف هیتلر ga:Adolf Hitler hi:हिटलर ka:ჰიტლერი, ადოლფ la:Hitler lv:Ādolfs Hitlers li:Adolf Hitler ms:Adolf Hitler simple:Adolf Hitler
''An event in this article is a MediaWiki:January 30 selected anniversaries.'' (may be in HTML comment) ---- ==Archives== *Talk:Adolf Hitler/mentioning the (mis?)spelling Adolph *Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 1 *Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 2 *Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 3 *Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 4 *Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 5 *Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 6 */Archive 7 */Archive 8 == Hitler ordered the Holocaust == Anyone who thinks this needs to go research Führerprinzip, and Wannsee conference (wherin extremely vague discussions on the final solution occured, and Hitler did not attend). Would Hitler have approved of such measures had he known of them? I assume so. But do we have any reason to think he would have been notified of specifics such as that? I seriously doubt it, based on the style of governance they had. Subordinates painted rosy reports for superiors, sparring them the gory details. This telephone game of misinformation increased as it went up the chain of ranks, and Hilter was much less aware of the circumstances of daily operation than most world leaders of today. In any case, much like the death issue, there is far less evidence to cite than debate and conjecture. User:Sam Spade 23:22, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC) To expand a bit more, we know AH wanted and enabled it, we can presume he knew the broad truth of the camps, but we do not know specifically how Himmler received his own authority to conduct industrial scale murder. Whatever documentation there was likely got burned in the closing days of the war. To say Hitler directly ordered the Holocaust is not a documented fact. To say it happened and that AH was responsible for it, however, is wholly documented and reasonable to include in the article. User:Wyss 23:31, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC) "responsible for it" is an opinion. My point is he probably didn't know about it, at least the details. He knew Jews were being sent off, presumably to an unhappy death, or at minimum exile, possibly to work as slave labour. All of those would likely have been on his short "to do list" had he been micromanaging the concentration camps, but he wasn't. He was micromanaging the military, which is well evidenced by their spectacular defeat, despire being arguably the sole, or at least predominant world super power not too long before. User:Sam Spade 23:45, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC) :I will point out as a side note that according to Hitlers own words and Nazi doctrine, he was indeed accountable and responsible for all of what occured during his reign in office. I personally give him less credit than that, as do others, of course. However it should be pretty easy finding a reference, or even a quote from mein kampf suggesting his culpability, if you really think such an insinuation is needed. User:Sam Spade 23:48, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC) In my humble opinion, to assert that the absolute (never mind micro-managing and anti-semetic) dictator of a highly developed, bureaucratic world power like Germany during the 1930s and 40s was unaware of the industrial scale slaughter of 6-11 million human beings in a vast network of railway connected camps managed by the SS is... unhelpful. User:Wyss 00:23, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC) "Nature is cruel; therefore we are also entitled to be cruel. When I send the flower of German youth into the steel hail of the next war without feeling the slightest regret over the precious German blood that is being spilled, should I not also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin?" (Adolf Hitler, cited in Joachim Fest's 1975 "Hitler") "Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews. As soon as I have the power to do so, I will have gallows built in rows - at the Marienplatz in Munich, for example - as many as traffic allows. "Then the Jews will be hanged indiscriminately, and they will remain hanging until they stink; they will hang there as long as the principles of hygiene permit. As soon as they have been untied, the next batch will be strung up, and so on down the line, until the last Jew in Munich has been exterminated. Other cities will follow suit, precisely in this fashion, until all Germany has been completely cleansed of Jews." (Adolf Hitler, 1922) cited in Fleming, Gerald. Hitler and the Final Solution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. p. 17 In Hitler's speech of January 30, 1939, he said: "Today I want to be a prophet once more: If international finance Jewry inside and outside of Europe should succeed once more in plunging nations into another world war, the consequence will not be the Bolshevization of the earth and thereby the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." At a public speech in Munich, November 8, 1942, Hitler told his audience "You will recall the session of the Reichstag during which I declared: If Jewry should imagine that it could bring about an international world war to exterminate the European races, the result will not be the extermination of the European races, but the extermination of Jewry in Europe. People always laughed about me as a prophet. Of those who laughed then, countless numbers no longer laugh today, and those who still laugh now will perhaps no longer laugh a short time from now. This realization will spread beyond Europe throughout the entire world. International Jewry will be recognized in its full demonic peril; we National Socialists will see to that." As unhelpful as attepts at unneeded conjecture in an encyclopedia article? User:Sam Spade 05:46, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC) Look who's talking :) (thanks for letting me needle you, pls don't take it seriously) AH was plainly aware of the camps, although I do agree that such a conjecture for an encyclopedia article is unneeded. For all I care, neither is it at all necessary to say he was responsible. When the facts are laid out not much is left to the imagination. Far more interesting to me is the lack of a paper trail documenting his (presumed) orders to Himmler authorizing the industrial slaughter of millions. I assert it's likely (but not certain) at least some documentation existed but was destroyed by German officers and bureaucrats during the closing days of the war. Funny thing (and this remark, of course, isn't directed at you User:Sam Spade), new information about that era still shows up now and then: In some attic somewhere there could be some verifiable evidence AH directly signed off on the whole thing. My only point in this thread, which is nothing more than table talk, has been to say more or less, "let's wait until something like that shows up before we say AH ordered the Holocaust but on the other hand let's not leave wiggle room for the possibility he didn't enable and encourage it, 'cause one way or another, he did." User:Wyss 11:53, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC) Can Sam show us the written orders signed off by Hitler for the invasion of Poland or the invasion of the USSR? Hitler's MO was not to issue signed orders. The quotations above, however, make clear Hitler's intention towards the Jews and the later quotations make clear he was aware of their externmination. User:AndyL 16:15, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC) :See User_talk:Sam_Spade#AH for a continued discussion of this matter. User:Sam Spade 15:06, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) == His funny little moustache == A trivial topic of course, but is there any indication why he liked his moustache styled that way? Was it popular in Germany and Europe at the time? That style of mustache was fairly common in Germany and elsewhere during the early 20th century... Anglo-Saxons have been conditioned to think it's "funny" a) 'cause it's rarer than hens' teeth these days (who wants to have a "Hitler mustache"?) and b) his mustache was extensively satirized in English language cartoons and movies throughout the late 1930s and 40s. User:Wyss 01:55, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Asian people will sometimes have one, they arn't quite so impressed w Hitler's nefarious legacy as are westerners. User:Sam Spade 15:07, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) :"During the war he had experimented with several types of mustaches and by the end of the war was wearing one that was fairly bushy and ran along the whole of the upper lip almost concealing it. During his training in propaganda and speaking, he thinned out his mustache and wore it close-cropped. Around this time he chose to clip the ends which made it narrower than the width of his lips. This type of mustache was more prominent among the British, but some German officers (like Ernst Rohm) and right wing "intellectuals" (Dietrich Eckart, Gottfried Feder, etc.) to whom Hitler had been exposed in his speaker training period, sprouted such clumps of hair over their upper lip. Hitler was undoubtedly attempting to emulate them". ([http://smoter.com/astarpup.htm]) [http://smoter.com/civilian.htm Some say] it was the "symbolism of Charlie Chaplin". In [http://libreopinion.com/members/leondegrelle/theenigmaofhitler.html The Enigma of Hitler], SS General Léon Degrelle wrote: "The first thing anyone noticed when he came into view was his small mustache. Countless times he had been advised to shave it off, but he always refused: people were used to him the way he was." —User:Morning star 16:18, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) With User:Morning star's contribution thrown in, methinks we've enough here for a helpful wiki article stub called Adolf Hitler's mustache. :) User:Wyss 18:35, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::The reason I have encountered before was because such a clipped mustache was common among veterans of the trenches of WWI as a way of minimizing lice. He kept it from those days. I can't give a source for this off-hand, but it seems possible. User:Ben Bulben 20:02, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC) == Hitlers death == Please read "Hitler's death". There is nothing resembling clear evidence that events transpired as is suggested, indeed the current "concensus" is simply a bargain between the POV's of a number of historians, essentially none of whom buy into the compromise. I must insist that the narrative not claim he died by suicide, but rather that such is the general agreement. I don't want to dispute the neutrality, but I do insist that a thorough reading of hitler's death be made by anyone who thinks the current wording is acceptable. User:Sam Spade 20:24, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) :I have read that article, and I prefere the current wording (without the "said to have"). Yes, there is an ongoing debate over whether he died from cyanide or a gunshot, or both. But we aren't disputing this or saying anything about it not being controversial by not having the "said to have" there. In either way he died of suicide, so the current wording is accurate. User:Shanes 21:02, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) :This is no "bargain of PoVs". Several eyewitnesses (including the two who doused the bodies with petrol and lit them) repeatedly told the story of AH's suicide with Braun. Yes, eyewitness accounts are dodgy, yes, it's unlikely AH used both a pistol shot and cyanide, but these are details one would expect to be blurred and spun in the aftermath of Berlin's fall. The testimony, evidence and scholarly consensus are overwhelming and leave no room for qualifiers like "said to have died" or "believed to have died". The wording should remain as it is, or the article will have a big, docking, "Elvis sighting" gap of credibility. To put it another way, I have never heard of any scholarly, peer reviewed article or publication by any credible source giving any hint of plausibility to the notion that AH didn't die by suicide in the bunker under the chancellory as Red Army tanks rumbled nearby. Sure, I imagine there are loads of conspiracy and crank books around implying otherwise, skimming a bit of money off the still vast popular market for glossy, sensationalistic publications having anything to do with the Third Reich, but there's no evidence, no documentation, no AH post April 1945. User:Wyss 23:07, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) Have you read the article then? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler%27s_death#Autopsy.2C_controversy_and_urban_myth]? Stalin himself never believed the reports, and the soviets (russians) still won't let anyone examine that skull fragment. The article is unacceptable POV as it stands. User:Sam Spade 00:06, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC) As for Stalin, he spread lots of conflicting stories about AH's death/escape after the war. Stalin's historical reputation is even worse than Hitler's, never mind his known preference for disinformation and propaganda, so whatever he had to say about it isn't much of a citation. The documentation regarding AH and EB's suicides, partial cremations, sporadic burials and reburials culminating in their ashes being reburned and scattered into the Elbe by Soviet security personnel in 1970 is rather well-established. More telling, however, there is not a shred of evidence AH or Eva Braun were alive after April 1945. Lastly, the skull fragment is interesting but it's never been of much importance to the scholarly consensus of Hitler's 1945 suicide in Berlin. The Russians have historically been paranoid about a re-emergence of fascist extremism, and going back to Stalin, have been known to withold helpful evidence and spread disinformation regarding AH and his death to keep neo-fascists off balance on the topic and discourage the establishment of any shrines or whatever. User:Wyss 01:07, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::PS, I agree the death article could use some cleaning up, it gives too much weight to the possibility that AH may have survived the war (and the ''oldest man in the world'' bit seems unencyclopedic to me). User:Wyss 01:17, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC) There's something else. I'm somewhat familiar with Magda Goebbels' background along with her longtime relationship with Hitler which overlapped cultish fanatacism and strong personal feelings for him. I find it more or less unthinkable she would have asked an SS orderly shoot her (in suicide), never mind murdered all her children like chickens, unless she knew without question he was dead and saw zero hope. What's more, Eva Braun was a social creature, one way or another. Many members of her immediate family and several close friends survived the war and there is no doubt they were carefully watched for any possible contacts from her. The reason we've heard nothing whatsoever from or about Hitler and Braun since the fall of Berlin in late April 1945 is because they killed themselves, Red army tanks rolling nearly over their heads. I've read blood was found on the sofa in Hitler's sitting room by both Soviet and American investigators. The bodies of other suicides were found in the bunker under the chancellory and even immensely practical Martin Bormann took cyanide after having failed to escape central Berlin on foot (his body was found in 1972 near an old railroad switching area). Himmler took cyanide as well immediately after he was captured. Altogether, the implications are rather plain. There is no hint of a need to qualify Hitler's death in an encyclopedia article based on accepted standards of scholarhsip. User:Wyss 13:58, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Look, if were going to delve into original research here, I find the idea that any of these deaths were suicide unlikely. The reasoning why can be found in bulk at Hitler's death, Odessa, and copious books and [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/deathofhitler.htm sources on the subject]. There is no one I expect less honesty from than one of Stalin's officers. The story is absurd, as any historian will tell you. for One reason or other, no one believes it in full. Admit the confusion, cite the sources, and leave questionable stances out of the narrative. User:Sam Spade 22:03, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC) There is zero confusion on the basic fact of AH's suicide, and it's far from a "questionable stance." The documented evidence is overwhelming that AH killed himself with a pistol shot from his personal Walther PK pistol at around 3:30PM on 30 April 1945. Now... what original research? (This is a talk page, by the way) Further, the Hitler death article in WP clearly states he killed himself. The story of AH crunching a cyanide capsule while blowing his brains out is indeed absurd, but Stalin was behind that (seems Uncle Joe thought telling the world AH crunched cyanide would make him seem like a coward, not an "honourable soldier" or whatever). Witnesses did report smelling the characteristic aroma of cyanide when they entered the sitting room and found the bodies, but somehow nobody ever seems to dispute that Braun killed herself, with cyanide. User:Wyss 00:26, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) Sam, there were also a number of conspiracy theories suggesting that the execution of the Romanovs never happened or that one or more of the royals escaped (particularly the Tsarovich and/or Anastasia). Books were written, documentaries were made, some by serious journalists. Nevertheless the discovery of the Romanov graves put these theories to rest, as did the DNA testing of Anna Anderson's remains. Just because some people believe a conspiracy theory and allow their minds to string together plausible sounding arguments for them, doesn't mean they're true or even anything more than furtive imagining. The strongest evidence that Hitler died in 1945 is the absence of any evidence whatsoever of his presence on this earth following the war. Unless you can show me something that suggests he was in such and such place in 1947 or lived somewhere else in 1953 there's no reason why anyone should pay any mind to the Hitler lives theory unless you want to write a yarn like ''The Boys of Brazil''.User:AndyL 23:06, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) This is all a straw man, I'm not trying to say Hitler is alive, or put a question mark by his date of death, or any such thing. Rather I am presenting evidence that his manner of death is contested. User:Sam Spade 19:49, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC) ===Suicide or Shooting=== There is also an accepted theory that he led a final futile assault against the incoming Russians at his fort, who were under strict orders to capture him alive. As he was part of a small group attempting a sally forth approach, naturally he would have been mowed down. Having to admit to your senior officers that you accidentally killed the man they stipulated you must capture led to the suicide theory and would also explain the attempted desecration by burning (to make unidentifiable) and the hiding of his remains. This is a conclusion that many historians are begining to come to, which are reflected in quite a few books on World War II I have read over the past year or so in my general studies of it. User:Jachin 21:29, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC) His fort? User:Wyss 05:27, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC) == Yleisradio archive's conversation tape == Does anyone know where this recording can be found? A cursory Google search led me to nothing. --TriniTriggs == "Photographs like this were used to promote and humanize Hitler's populist-nationalist image" == Isn't editorializing in the captions a bit POV? --User:Oipolloi 18:52, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) Zero editorial. It's fact, NSDAP propaganda tactics are well-documented, photographs like that one were used to promote his populist image, where's the opinion in that? User:Wyss 18:57, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) [personal attack removed] User:Wyss 23:04, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC) Note: the Bush picture at right was posted by User:Oipolloi who pasted in the caption I used in the AH article. I thought that was unhelpful and removed Hitler's name from the caption of this Bush image. Both Hitler and Bush, in addition to having had their pictures taken with kids for political ends, are known to have traveled in automobiles... do these two points in common equate them morally? (Hint: no) User:Wyss 20:04, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) :There are many other similarities between Bush and Hitler but that is not rlevant to either article. Inclusion of photos with descriptive editorial comment should be NPOV. If it is good enogh for Hitler, it is good enough for Bush. If you feel that your own descriptve editorial captioning is factual, it should be good enough for the Bush article but you sought to delete it there? Why? Take your answer to the Bush Talk page. Thanks. And if you have issues suddenly with my edits to Clown article and are not just engaged in petty vandalism of my edits, use the Clown Talk page to explain your position. --User:Oipolloi 20:12, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) I believe you are baiting, which I consider to be vandalism. User:Wyss 20:38, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) I believe you are reverting legitimate edits without discussion on the Talk page which is vandalism. --User:Oipolloi 21:35, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) I politely suggest you review Wikipedia's policies regarding vandalism and personal attacks. User:Wyss 21:41, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) Oipolloi, this is what Wyss is citing: WP:NPA. This is considered policy, and contains the following line: "If you are personally attacked, you may remove the attacks or may follow the dispute resolution process or both. In extreme cases, the attacker may be blocked, though the proposal to allow this failed and the practice is almost always controversial." (Emphasis mine). So, he has the right to remove personal attacks - whether or not what you said was a personal attack, I may not agree. However, Wyss, I would say let this one slide - it wasn't a blatant personal attack. --User:Golbez 21:58, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC) It made no reference to article content and it sure wasn't a compliment :) As a veteran of the Sollog wars, however, I'd say I'm rather quick to revert personal attacks when I see 'em. User:Wyss 22:05, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) I do think the allegations of "vandalism" on both sides are probably personal attacks, but deleting the conversation here was inappropriate. I think we should focus on discussing the image caption here, and discuss other concerns at WP:RfC, WP:AN, eacho thers talk pages, or whatever. User:Sam Spade 18:19, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC) I disagree but let's stay on topic and discuss the article please. I assert the caption is a well-documented fact. User:Wyss 23:04, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC) :I was uncertain, and taken aback, when I first read it. I didn't feel strongly enough to remove or debate it at that time, but it struck me as odd and inappropriate. I think a rewording is in order. Perhaps User:Wyss could provide an alternate version he would feel comfortable with? User:Sam Spade 12:32, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) I have no doubt that photos like this were a part of the Nazi propaganda campaign. The question is, were they specific enough to Hitler to include them in the general context of this article? This could be the case if he was the only one to use them (obviously not) or the first one to use them (I don't know, but probably not). IMO, this picture is not a good illustration of the section where it appears (taking pictures with children was not the most central or peculiar feature of Nazi propaganda). It should be in Joseph Goebbels, Propagandaministerium or another article about the Nazi propaganda campaign. Another possible candidate would be a detailed section called "Cult of personality" or similar in this article. User:Zocky 13:27, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) Yes, they were. There was even a case of a little girl who had emerged from a crowd of admirers and was subsequently photographed eating strawberries and cream with him (her visits were later curtailed when it was discovered she was part Jewish). Women represented fully fifty percent of the electorate voting for Hitler. Modern readers tend to be given a one-dimensional picture of AH as someone of pure, almost cartoonish evil with no human face. In truth, tens of millions of Germans came to admire this charasmatic leader with a gift for oratory (never mind how coarse and direct it could be), only to realize too late he was a murderous sociopath bent on either ruling a Jew-free world (his take on "saving" it and his country) or dragging Germany into an armageddon. If this article is to educate and inform, then it might do to give readers the tools to recognize the next one who comes along, bouncing kids on his knee (which is also why I object so strongly to the Bush photo having been slapped onto this talk page... that was nothing more than a smearing political jab, never mind that however one feels about Mr Bush, this article isn't about him and any comparison here is unhelpful, to put it mildly). Whatever, readers can't be expected to click into a related article to read in detail how Goebbels masterfully executed this sort of propaganda and image making (like it or not, he pioneered many of the mass media political techniques we still see in use today). Plainly not all Germans, but a majority in the mid and late thirties, were more or less inspired to believe Hitler was their best hope and they didn't arrive at that notion by watching Charlie Chaplin's ''The Great Dictator'' (which Chaplin expressed regret over after the war, for reasons along these very lines). Is it deeply unsettling to see that picture with that caption? For me, yes it is and that's the pith of it. User:Wyss 14:17, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) :By the way, I didn't post the picture. I only changed the original caption from ''Adolf Hitler with a German girl'' to something more informative (and accurate, too). Moreover, it appears in the ''Economics and culture'' section. User:Wyss 14:47, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) I don't see as any historians would disagree with the statement in the caption. And just including the picture with no explanatory text would be worse. (Note, also, that the caption does not say that Hitler didn't actually like small children, which, I think, the evidence suggests that he did). User:John Kenney User_talk:John Kenney 15:03, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) :What I object to is "humanize Hitler's populist-nationalist image". This presents the POV the populism, nationalism, and of course Hitler were arguably inhuman. While Hitler is viewed as largely inhuman today, that simply wasn't the case at the time this photo was made, and particularly not in the voting bloc the image seeks to appeal to. Also, there is no need to "humanize" populism, which by its very nature reaches out to the ordinary citizen, speaking to him in his language, via jingoism, propoganda, rhetoric, or whatever you want to call it. In summary, the caption paints a factually inaccurate (hitler was seen as inhuman at the time the photo was made) and POV (populism and nationalism are inhuman) picture inappropriate for the image in the article. I think the image should stay (or be moved to another article, we do already have 1 picture of hitler w a young girl here...), the gist of the caption should stay, but the wording be changed to reflect these concerns. User:Sam Spade 15:37, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::There is no PoV in the caption. AH consolidated power partly through a populist-nationalist image and electoral base. After he achieved absolute power, his true popularity continued to rise as propaganda was generated to appeal to that same, widening ''volkish'' base. This included ensuring that an attractive "human" face was put on a mass media figure who could truly be quite charming in small social settings (that's well documented, aside from this photo, which happens to exude it) as well as charismatic and hypnotic in ''sportsplasts''. That's why the picture and caption are instructive and maybe a bit unsettling for some: He seduced millions, then he killed millions and for a decade had an impressive public image within the confines of Germany's tightly controlled media (for the most part newspapers, cheap radios and newsreels along with carefully chosen and orchestrated public appearances). Hitler was very human, which may be the most terrifying thing of all and talk about a sore loser. He killed himself in Berlin at around 3:30 in the afternoon on 30 April 1945, having left explicit orders Germany be burned to cinders in his wake. User:Wyss 16:39, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) Readers asserting that a reference to AH's populist-nationalist image is PoV may wish to look at these two Google searches: User:Wyss 17:41, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Adolf+Hitler+populist&btnG=Google+Search&meta= (26,000+ hits) http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Adolf+Hitler+nationalist&btnG=Google+Search&meta= (73,000+ hits) I agree with all of that, with the posible exception of tha last sentance "He killed himself in Berlin at around 3:30 in the afternoon on 30 April 1945, having left explicit orders Germany be burned to cinders in his wake". Personally I find it far more likely that he was killed by russian infantry or officers, who later feared reprisals and covered it up. That would be the simplest answer, and would explain all the weird and unbelievable stories. Anyhow, as far as this image caption... its not the suggestion that he was a nationalist, or a populist, or is today seen as inhumane. What I object to is the insinuation that he was seen as inhuman at the time, and that populism and nationalism are in need of humanizing. A much needed rewording of the caption is in order. I'll wait awhile longer for you (or someone) to take a stab at it, and then I'll reword it myself. User:Sam Spade 18:33, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) We totally disagree on the death thing, I assert that the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that he died on April 30 1945 in Berlin, after which the Sovs found and identified the body. There is zero documented evidence of AH's existence as a living being after that date. However, thank you for clarifying your concerns about the caption. I accept that the word ''humanize'' appears in a way that could be misinterpreted. I'll remove the word. Thanks. User:Wyss 18:42, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) I can't believe this has generated a discussion. The comparison between Bush and Hitler is totally absurd and offensive to the sixty million people who perished during the Second World War and their families. Oipolloi's comments on the talk page deserve no serious response beyond that, and any edits to either the Hitler or Bush article making such a comparison should be reverted on sight as vandalism. If the editor persists, block him. User:172 18:51, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Let us all discuss issues like intelligent people and not call for censorship of others just because we might disagree with them. I questioned Wyss's caption in good faith but did not edit it nor did I ultimately disagree that it is NPOV to caption the photo of Hitler and innocent girl with the phrase "Photographs like this are used to promote and humanize the image of a politician". I thought it was rather arrogant to assert as fact without providing evidence but Wikipedia is populated by all types of editor, some more capable than others. So I let it go. It should be recognized that Bush uses the same image management tactics as Hitler. The White House disseminates photos like this to soften his image among his followers showing him being adulated by rapt audiences and coddling innocent children. The NPOV policy requires that the treatment of Hitler be equivalent to the treatment of Bush. That some users object to this reflects either that Hitler is being vilified in a way that is unacceptable or that followers of Bush are unable to maintain a NPOV approach to editing this encyclopedia. If it is appropriate to caption a photo of Hitler in a way that describes how politicians manipulate the media and public, then it is just as appropriate to show caption similar photos of Bush in the same way. It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree that Bush and Hitler are both bloodthirsty evil fascist monsters who should burn in hell forever and ever. The issue is whether the encyclopedia is NPOV. To be NPOV, both Bush and Hitler should receive the same non-judgemental treatment. I would never suggest that an editor be blocked from editing for diagreeing with me about the content of an article. That any editor would suggest that a fellow Wikipedian should be blocked on the basis of disagreement over content reflects a blatantly fascistic approach because fascism is defined as an intolerance for opposing or dissenting points of view. --User:Oipolloi 02:29, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::Wikipedia is not the place for making these kinds of comparisons. Please see Wikipedia:No original research. User:172 02:38, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) User:Oipolloi, I strongly suggest you take some time to thoroughly re-read Wikipedia policy regarding these issues. User:Wyss 09:42, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) ---- For the record (and I have already mentioned this to User:Wyss), I think the current image caption is excellent, and I applaud him for his high quality compromise. For me at least the issue is resolved. I again suggest that issues not directly related to this page (Discussions of Bush image management tactics, user conduct, wiki policy etc...) be conducted elsewhere. Cheers, User:Sam Spade 18:50, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) I posted as a suggestion "Photographs like this were used to portray Hitler as a kind and loving person". I guess that was the main purpose of such photos, the reality is known and given in the entry. I think that's enough to make the point. User:Str1977 19:30, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) It's true enough the photo promotes "kindness and love" but it contains many other details which act as strong cues for the ''volkish'' style of populism and German nationalism they used as their public image during the 1930s. User:Wyss 19:59, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Yeah, it reminds me of Hitler having walked into a fairy tale. User:Sam Spade 21:11, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::Something tells me someone in the propaganda ministry building back in the 30s thought the same thing. User:Wyss 22:51, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::Sorry guys, but I can't see how this picture promotes "Hitler's populist-nationalist image". ::What other details? The Bavarian dress of the girl, the grain in the background? ::The focus is on Hitler and the girl and IMHO it promotes him being kind, loving, fond of children - all features NS propaganda considered to be essential to the "model of a leader of the German people" - other example his public appearance as being single and only married to Germany. Reality in all these cases of course was quite different. ::This all might be summed up as populist (i.e. pandering proximity to the people), but if one reads the current caption one might ask, what this "populist-nationalist image" actually was. ::Anyway, I'm leaving this thing to you guys. ::User:Str1977 09:14, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) Lots of Germanic Europeans were asking a similar question by 1942. User:Wyss 10:44, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) What question? User:Str1977 21:35, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC) :The "one might ask..." question towards the end of your post. User:Wyss 22:47, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC) == Intro == I think the numbers of the victims shouldn't be here. For example imagine that in the intro of the article about George W Bush the following text would be written "Bush directed the war on Iraq and the War on afghanistan, he led to the death of X Iraqi citizens, Y Afghan citizens and Z American soldiers" --User:Haham hanuka 09:42, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) This article isn't about George Bush. Otherwise, Mr Hitler is notable for lots of stuff, including having precipitated one way or another the deaths of tens of millions. User:Wyss 10:41, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) == Anon edit == An anon changed " In the September 1930 elections the Nazis suddenly rose from relative obscurity to win more than 18% of the vote along with 107 seats in the Reichstag (institution), becoming the second largest party in Germany." to 38%. (emphasis mine) which is correct? --User:Golbez 07:56, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC) :The anon was wrong. Though in July 1932, NSDAP received almost 38% (37.2%), so I guess the anon just got those two elections mixed up, or something. User:Shanes 08:38, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Btw, see National Socialist German_Workers Party#Election_statistics for the election statistics for NSDAP here on wikipedia User:Shanes 08:48, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC) == POV tag == I want to put here this tag because the intro of this article is too negative. Blaming Hitler as the responsible to the death of 11 million people is totally wrong. In addition I think that all the "good" stuff about Hitler and Nazism are not mentioned here (e.g. social policy, welfare, green policy, VW and etc). --User:Haham hanuka 14:27, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Let's have an actual discussion first before you add the totallydisputed tag. User:Linuxbeak | User_talk:Linuxbeak | User:Linuxbeak/Desk 14:32, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC) He has a point, but on the other hand, out of all Special:Statistics articles, this is perhaps the least likely to achieve NPOV ;) User:Sam Spade 14:41, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) : It's still not true to say it's "totally disputed". That implies it's a completely ludicrous opinion that absolutely no-one holds - clearly not the case. User:Ben Bulben 14:45, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) The opening is not "totally disputed", even among WP editors. AH appeared to be doing some good in the 1930s, however, stuff like the autobahn, the VW (the list is long), even the positive elements of ethnic German nationalism weren't created by him from a void but rather taken from pre-existing elements of German technology and culture. His public image was mostly the result of expert, modern propaganda techniques and ruthless tactics by various internal "security" groups controlled by him. One of the most significant characteristics about him (and this can be gleaned even from his own sometimes- but not always- cryptic remarks on the topic during the early 40s) was his obsession with what he called "International Jewry" and his efforts to "save Germany and the world" by exterminating "it" along with other social and racial impurities as he perceived them. This, one way or another, resulted in the deaths of over ten million people through a program of industrial genocide with few precedents as to scale and method in history and is central to his legacy. The evidence (his last conversations, his political will and testament and so on) indicates he would have largely agreed with this and blew his brains out not from shame, but from the realization of a rational although drug and illness impaired individual that the game was up and the remainder of his life was likely to be short and rather brutal in its suffering. IMO the article begins with an apt and accurate summary for all, even those who might support what he did. Readers are also reminded that he left Germany in ruins, with tens of millions dead including a high proportion of German youth, which is to say (only making a point here), even an extreme, racist German nationalist should be aware of the breadth and depth of Adolf Hitler's catastrophic incompetence and failure as a national political leader. User:Wyss 14:57, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) :I think they are well aware of his failings. If you look into the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), they by no means mirror the fuhrerprinzp and leader worship of the NSDAP. Anyhow, I would ask mr. hanuka to make the needed edits emphasising the good deeds of hitler, rather than putting an ugly dispute header up. Lets do whats best for the reader, they want to read an excellent article, not become aware of the extent of our editorial disputes ;) User:Sam Spade 15:02, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) :::The last line of AH's political will and testament essentially exhorts the world to continue exterminating jews. He didn't ''even'' see it as a "negative", so I don't fully grok how User:Haham hanuka, who in the past has promoted edits depicting AH as a one-dimensional characature of evil, has now decided that mentioning genocide in the opening is "too negative" and "totally wrong." ;) User:Wyss 15:35, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::::I was quite taken aback as well; I wondered if his account had been hijacked. User:JayjgUser_talk:Jayjg 16:17, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) ==Alleged abuse by Alois== I reverted an edit likening Alois' discipline of AH and his siblings to that of a concentration camp. Tacitly transferring responsibility for the deaths of millions over to his father is not only rash (gross speculation), but unsupported by the evidence. Paula Hitler, for example, when debriefed by American intelligence agents after the war, made no mention of receiving abuse from her father and while she did say AH was punished frequently for misbehavior such as tardiness she gave no indication it was excessive or unusual for the circumstances in that time and place. User:Wyss 13:18, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC) :I've always heard the abuse was severe, but I believe thats interpretive. Hitler himself suggested he often recieved a beating, but also seemed to feel it was deserved and appropriate. He had a quote to the effect of "I loved my mother, but I ''respected'' my father". User:Sam Spade 17:19, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::That's rather the same sense Paula seems to give in the transcript of one of her OSS debriefings. Lots of biographers have tried to characterize Alois' treatment of young Adolf as harsh physical and psychological abuse but the primary sources don't support it. For example, there is zero evidence these "almost daily thrashings" were pummelings or woundings. The vocabulary must be taken in the context of the time and place (and by the bye I've never read in any scholarly source that Alois ever thought he might have killed the boy, as one editor recently asserted). To make a point, throughout history lots of stern, slapping fathers have created problems for their sons, most of whom didn't go on to choose careers in industrial genocide. User:Wyss 05:05, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC) ==Nazi Economics== from [http://reason.com/9908/bk.mm.nazi.shtml] Nazi Economics By Michael McMenamin Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris, by Ian Kershaw, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 845 pages, $35.00 Adolf Hitler was "wholly ignorant" of economics, Ian Kershaw boldly writes in his excellent new study, Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris. What the dictator did know was politics and how to achieve public support--Hitler was an immensely popular leader with approval ratings even Bill Clinton would envy--and early on, he made it clear that economics would be subordinate to politics. One odd result of Hitler's decision is that few of his biographers have paid much attention to his economic policies prior to the Nazis' first overt military act, the reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936. Indeed, if they pay any attention at all to the subject, '''most merely accept Nazi propaganda claims of Hitler's "economic miracle" in restoring Germany's prosperity. Kershaw's book is a welcome exception to this tendency.''' The general view that Germany's shattered economy surged to life in the first few years of the Nazi regime is typified by Sebastian Haffner, a German writer whose short book The Meaning of Hitler (1979) received extravagant praise in John Lukacs' recent The Hitler of History. As Haffner put it, "Among these positive achievements of Hitler the one outshining all others was his economic miracle....In January 1933, when Hitler became Reich Chancellor, there were six million unemployed in Germany. A mere three years later, in 1936, there was full employment. Crying need and mass hardship had generally turned into modest but comfortable prosperity. "Almost equally important: helplessness and hopelessness had given way to confidence and self-assurance. Even more miraculous was the fact that the transition from depression to economic boom had been accomplished without inflation, at totally stable wages and prices. Not even Ludwig Erhard succeeded in doing that later in post-war Western Germany." Haffner is hardly alone in his glowing evaluation of Hitler's supposed economic miracle. In his highly influential Origins of the Second World War (1961), British historian A.J.P. Taylor similarly gave the Nazis credit for creating widespread prosperity, concluding, "The Nazi secret was not armament production; it was freedom from the then orthodox principles of economics. Government spending provided all the happy effects of mild inflation; while political dictatorship, with its destruction of trade unions and rigorous exchange control, prevented such unfortunate consequences as a rise in wages, or in prices." Kershaw's version of things more accurately reflects what was really happening in Germany from 1933 through 1935. '''Hitler's economic policies were systematically wrecking the German economy and were rapidly painting him into a corner where his only choices were war or a loss of power.''' Hitler, argues Kershaw, was deathly afraid of inflation and a repetition of the early 1920s. Nevertheless, he had to reduce unemployment or he wasn't going to last long enough to begin rearming Germany, a public goal of his since the '20s. Increasing exports was not a possibility since, unless the German government devalued the mark (as Britain had done with the pound and the United States with the dollar), German exports couldn't compete in a way that would add new jobs or bring needed foreign exchange. Hitler nixed devaluation because he thought it was a step on the road to inflation. Tax cuts were also out of the question because he believed they led to less revenue not more growth. Hitler's solution for both the rearmament and unemployment problems was the same: massive deficit spending. In fact, by Kershaw's account, the Nazi government guaranteed some 35 billion ReichMarks to the German armed forces alone over an eight-year period, along with massive road building, subsidies to the auto industry, lots more bureaucrats to enforce all the new controls and regulations, and bribes to women to get married and stop working. Did such policies reduce unemployment from 6 million in 1933 to 1 million three years later? Not exactly. Statistics from Dan Silverman's Hitler's Economy (1998) show that unemployment was reduced in Germany from 34 percent or about 6 million people, in January 1933, to 14 percent, or 2.5 million people, in January 1936. That's a dramatic reduction, to be sure, but hardly full employment. Even the 2.5 million number is extremely unreliable, as Stephen Roberts, an economic historian at Australia's University of Sydney who lived in Germany in the mid-'30s, explained in his 1937 work, The House That Hitler Built. The "official statistics naturally tell only part of the story," wrote Roberts. "They do not take into account the Marxians, Sociali
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889–April 30, 1945) was the ''Führer und Reichskanzler'' (Leader and Imperial Chancellor of Germany) of Germany from 1933 to his death. He was leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), better known as the Nazi Party. At the height of his power, the armies of Nazi Germany and its Axis Powers dominated much of Europe during World War II. The Racial policy of Nazi Germany that Hitler directed culminated in the systematic extermination of over 11 million people, including 6 million Jews, in a genocide now known as the Holocaust. He led Germany from the depths of post-World War I defeat to become one of the world's most powerful nations. Nevertheless, the Allies ultimately defeated Germany. In the final days of the war, Hitler's death by suicide in a Berlin Führerbunker. His intended Third Reich ended shortly thereafter. ==Early life== ===Childhood=== Adolf Hitler was born on April 20 1889 at Braunau am Inn, Austria, a small town 90 km (55 miles) west of Linz in the province of Upper Austria, not far from the German Empire border in what was then Austria-Hungary. He was the fourth of six children of Alois Hitler (1837–1903), a customs official, and Klara Pölzl, Alois' niece and third wife. Of these six children, only Adolf and his younger sister Paula Hitler reached adulthood. Alois Hitler also had a son (Alois Junior) and a daughter (Angela) by his second wife. In ''Mein Kampf'', his autobiography, Adolf Hitler describes his father as an "irascible tyrant"; however, there is little indication that Alois Hitler treated his son more strictly than was usual for that time and place. Alois Hitler was born out of wedlock, and, until he was 40, used his mother's surname, Schicklgruber. In 1876, he began using the name of his stepfather, Johann Georg Hiedler, after visiting a priest responsible for birth registries and declaring that Georg was his father (Alois gave the impression that Georg was still alive, but he was long dead). The spelling was probably changed by a clerk. Later, Adolf was accused by his political enemies of not rightfully being a Hitler, but a Schicklgruber. This was also exploited in Allied propaganda during the Second World War when pamphlets bearing the phrase "Heil Schicklgruber" were airdropped over German cities. He was legally born a Hitler, however, and was ironically closely related to Hiedler through his mother's family, too. Hitler did not know for sure who his paternal grandfather was, but it was probably either Johann Georg Hiedler or his brother Johann von Nepomuk Hiedler. There have been rumours that Hitler was one-quarter Jewish and that his grandmother Maria Schicklgruber had become pregnant after working as a servant in a Jewish household in Graz, Austria. During the 1920s, the implications of this along with his known family history were politically explosive, especially for the proponent of a racism ideology. Opponents tried to prove that Hitler, the leader of the anti-Semitic and jingoism Nazi Party, had Jewish or Czech ancestors. Although these rumours were never confirmed, for Hitler they were reason enough to conceal his origins. Soviet propaganda insisted he was a Jew, though newer research tends to diminish the probability Hitler had Jewish or Czech ancestors. Historians such as Werner Maser and Ian Kershaw argue this was impossible since the Jews had been expelled from Graz in the 15th century and were not allowed to return until well after Maria Schicklgruber's alleged employment. Because of Alois Hitler's profession his family moved frequently, from Braunau to Passau, Lambach, Leonding and next to Linz. Young Adolf was reportedly a good student at the various elementary schools he attended; however, in sixth grade (1900–1901), his first year of high school (''Realschule'') in Linz, he failed completely and had to repeat the grade. His teachers reported that he had "no desire to work." Hitler later explained this as a kind of rebellion against his father Alois, who wanted the boy to follow him in a career as a customs official, although Adolf wanted to become a painter. This is further supported by Hitler's later description of himself as a misunderstood artist. After Hitler's father died on January 3, 1903, at age 65, Adolf Hitler's schoolwork did not improve. At the age of 16, Hitler left school without graduating. ===Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich=== From 1905 onward, Hitler was able to live the life of a Bohemianism on a fatherless child's pension and support from his mother. After he was rejected twice by the Academy of Arts in Vienna (1907–1908) for "lack of talent"—which he resented deeply—he did not try to find a different job or learn a profession. He was told he should become an architect, since he had some flair for painting buildings. On December 21, 1907, his mother Klara died a painful death from breast cancer. He gave his share of the orphans' benefits to his younger sister Paula, but soon after inherited some money from an aunt. He worked as a struggling painter in Vienna, copying scenes from postcards and selling his paintings to merchants and tourists (there is evidence he produced over 2000 paintings and drawings before World War I). It was in Vienna that Hitler began to turn into an active anti-Semite, which was a common stance among Austrians at the time and deeply ingrained in the Roman Catholic culture that Hitler grew up in. Vienna had a large Jewish community, including many Orthodox Jews from Eastern Europe. He was influenced by the pseudoscience and neo-religious writings of the race ideologist and anti-Semite Lanz von Liebenfels and polemics from politicians such as Karl Lueger, the List_of_mayors_of_Vienna, and Georg Ritter von Schönerer, the leader of the pan-Germanistic movement. Hitler acquired a belief in the superiority of the "Aryan race," which formed the basis of his political views. He began to claim the Jews were natural enemies of "Aryans" and were responsible for Germany's economic problems. However, according to August Kubizek, his close friend and roommate at the time, he was more interested in the operas of Richard Wagner than in politics. After the second refusal from the Academy of Arts, Hitler gradually ran out of money. By 1909, he sought refuge in a homeless shelter, and by the beginning of 1910 had settled permanently into a house for poor working men. He made spending money by painting tourist postcards of Vienna scenery. His anti-Semitism during this period has been debated somewhat, since a Jewish resident of the house named Hanisch was helping him sell his postcards— seemingly contrary to statements he later made in ''Mein Kampf''. He was given a small inheritance from his father in May 1913 and moved to Munich. He later wrote in ''Mein Kampf'' that he had always longed to live in a German city. In Munich, he became more interested in architecture and the racist writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Moving to Munich also helped him escape military service in Austria for a time, but the Austrian army later arrested him. After a physical exam (during which his height was measured at 1.73 m, or 5"8') and a contrite plea, he was found unfit for service and allowed to return to Munich. However, when Germany entered World War I in August 1914, he immediately enlisted in the Bavarian army. ===World War I=== Hitler saw active service in France and Belgium as a messenger for the 16th Bavarian reserve infantry regiment, which exposed him to enemy fire. He also drew some cartoons and instructional drawings for the army newspaper. He was twice cited for bravery in action, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in December 1915 and the Iron Cross, First Class in August 1918. (This was an honour rarely given to corporals. The fact that he was not a German citizen at that time, and therefore could not be promoted beyond corporal, might have been significant.) In October 1916, in northern France, Hitler was wounded in the leg. At the beginning of March 1917 he returned to the front. Hitler was considered a "correct" soldier but was reportedly unpopular with his comrades because of an uncritical attitude towards officers. "Respect the superior, don't contradict anybody, obey blindly," he said, describing his attitude while on trial for his Beer Hall Putsch in 1924. One comrade later remarked, "we all grumbled on him and found it intolerable that we had a white raven among us." (Haiden, 1936) On October 15, 1918, shortly before the end of war, Hitler was admitted to a field hospital, temporarily blind following a poison gas attack. Recent research by Bernhard Horstmann however indicates the blindness may have been the result of a hysterical reaction to Germany's military defeat. Hitler was treated by a military physician who specialised in psychiatry. He reportedly diagnosed the corporal as "incompetent to command people" and "dangerously psychotic." His commander at the time said, "I will never promote this hysteric!" (cited from Haiden, 1937). However, historian Sebastian Haffner refers to Hitler's experience at the front as his only education and suggests he did have at least some understanding of the military. During the war, Hitler became a passionate German patriotism, although he did not become a German citizen until 1932. He was shocked by the capitulation of Germany in November 1918 while the German army remained (in popular German belief) undefeated. Like many other German nationalists, Hitler blamed civilian politicians (the "November criminals") for the surrender. The widespread right-wing, conservative explanation for the capitulation was the ''Dolchstosslegende'' ("dagger-stab legend") which purported that behind the backs of the army, liberal politicians had betrayed and "stabbed" Germany's people and its soldiers "in the back." The Treaty of Versailles imposed crippling reparations and declared Germany guilty for the Great War horrors; thus was perceived by most Germans as a humiliation and was an important factor in the social conditions encountered by Hitler and his party in seeking power. ==Weimar Republic== ===Early Nazi Party=== After the war, Hitler remained in the army, which was mainly engaged in suppressing socialist uprisings breaking out across Germany, including Munich, where Hitler returned in 1919. He took part in "national thinking" courses organised by the ''Education and Propaganda Department'' (Dept Ib/P) of the Bavarian ''Reichswehr'' Group, Headquarters 4 under Captain Mayr. A key purpose of this group was to create a scapegoat for the outbreak of the war and Germany's defeat. The scapegoats were found in "international Jewry," communists and politicians across the party spectrum. In July 1919, Hitler was appointed a ''V-Mann'' (''Verbindungsmann'' is the German term for a police spy) of "Aufklärungskommando" ("Intelligence Commando") of the Reichswehr, for the purpose of influencing other soldiers towards similar ideas and was assigned to infiltrate a small nationalist party, the German Workers' Party (DAP). Here Hitler met Dietrich Eckart, one of the early founders of the party. Hitler was discharged from the army in 1920 and (with the army's continued encouragement) began participating full time in the party's activities. He soon became its leader and changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party (''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'', NSDAP), usually known as the Nazi party . Hitler's street-corner oratory, attacking Jews, socialists and liberals, capitalists and Communists, began attracting adherents. Early followers included Rudolf Hess, Hermann Göring, and Ernst Röhm, head of the Nazis' paramilitary organisation, the Sturmabteilung. Another admirer was wartime General Erich Ludendorff. Hitler decided to use Ludendorff as a front in an attempt to seize power in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, in an abortive coup later known as the "Hitler Putsch" or "March to Berlin" of November 8, 1923. The Nazis marched from a beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry, intending to overthrow Bavaria's right-wing separatist government and then march on Berlin. The army quickly dispersed them and Hitler was arrested. To protect his own position, Hitler appointed Alfred Rosenberg as temporary leader of the group. Upon being arrested, Hitler found himself in an environment somewhat receptive to his beliefs. During his trial for high treason in April 1924, sympathetic conservative magistrates left over from pre-Weimar allowed Hitler to turn the debacle into a propaganda stunt. Hitler was allotted unlimited amounts of time to present his arguments to the courts as well as a large body of the German people, and gave his popularity a boost by voicing sentiments shared by the public. For a crime of conspiracy against his nation, Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg prison, where he received favoured treatment from the guards and had much fan mail from admirers. While at Landsberg he dictated his political book ''Mein Kampf'' (''My Struggle'') to his deputy Rudolf Hess. The first volume, called "Abrechnung" (''payback''), was later published and became the platform of the Nazi party (by the late 1930s nearly every household in Germany had a copy of it). Meanwhile, as he was considered relatively harmless, Hitler was given an early amnesty and was released in December 1924. By this time the Nazi party had dwindled and Hitler began a long effort to rebuild it. A key element of Hitler's appeal was his ability to convey a sense of offended national pride caused by the Treaty of Versailles imposed on the defeated Second Reich by the Allies. Germany had lost territory in Europe and its colonies, had had to admit to sole responsibility for the war and pay a huge reparations bill totaling $6,600,000 (32 billion marks). Most Germans bitterly resented these terms, but early attempts to gain support by blaming these humiliations on "international Jewry" were not particularly successful with the electorate. The party learned quickly and soon a more subtle propaganda emerged, combining anti-Semitism with an attack on the failures of the "Weimar system" and the parties supporting it. In 2004, it was discovered that Hitler had spent years evading taxes on income from sales of ''Mein Kampf''. He owed the German government 405,000 Reichmarks (equivalent to $8 million at 2004 exchange rates) by the time he took power and the tax debt was forgiven. ===The road to power=== ''See also the Weimar Timeline.'' The political turning point for Hitler came with the Great Depression which hit Germany in 1930. The democratic regime established in Germany in 1919 (the Weimar Republic) had never been accepted by conservatives and was openly opposed by fascists. The Social Democrats and traditional parties of the centre and right were unable to cope with the shock of the Depression. In the September 1930 elections the Nazis suddenly rose from relative obscurity to win 18,3% of the vote along with 107 seats in the Reichstag (institution), becoming the second largest party in Germany. Hitler appealed to the bulk of German farmers, war veterans and the middle-class, who had been hard-hit by both the inflation of the 1920s and the unemployment of the Depression. The urban working classes generally ignored Hitler's appeals and Berlin and the Ruhr Area towns were particularly hostile. The 1930 election was a disaster for Heinrich Brüning's centre-right government, which was now deprived of a majority in the Reichstag. Meanwhile in December 1931 Hitler's niece Geli Raubal was found dead in her bedroom in his Munich apartment (his half-sister Angela and her daughter Geli had been with him in Munich since 1929), an apparent suicide. Geli was much younger than he was, and she had used his gun, drawing rumours of a relationship between the two. There is still speculation regarding the circumstances of her death, which is generally viewed as an event of lasting turmoil for Hitler. While Brüning's austerity measures were bringing little economic improvement, the government was anxious to avoid a presidential election in 1932 and hoped to secure Nazi agreement to an extension of President Paul von Hindenburg's term. Hitler refused and ultimately competed against Hindenburg in the German presidential election, 1932, coming in second on both rounds of the election. He attained more than 35% of the vote during the second round in April. Hindenburg dismissed the government, appointing a new one under the conservative Franz von Papen, which immediately called for new Reichstag elections. In July 1932 the Nazis had their best election showing yet, winning 230 seats and becoming the largest party in the Reichstag. Since the Nazis and the communists now together controlled a majority of the Reichstag, the formation of a stable government of mainstream parties had become impossible. After a vote of no-confidence in the Papen government, supported by 84% of the delegates, the new Reichstag was dissolved and new elections were called. Papen and the Catholic Centre Party (''Zentrumspartei'') began negotiations to secure Nazi participation in the new government but Hitler set high terms, demanding the Chancellorship along with the President's agreement that he be able to use emergency powers. The offer was rebuffed, and combined with the Nazis' failure to win working class support, some Nazi supporters were alienated. During the November 1932 elections the Nazis lost votes although they remained by far the largest party in the Reichstag. Since Papen had failed to secure a majority, Hindenburg dismissed him and appointed General Kurt von Schleicher, who promised he could secure a majority government by negotiations with both Social Democratic labour unions and the dissident Nazi faction led by Gregor Strasser. Papen and Alfred Hugenberg (Chairman of the German National People's Party, the DNVP, which before the Nazis were Germany's principal right-wing party) conspired to persuade Hindenburg to appoint Hitler Chancellor in a coalition with the DNVP, promising they would be able to control him. When Schleicher was forced to admit failure in his efforts to form a coalition and asked Hindenburg for yet another Reichstag dissolution, Hindenburg fired him and appointed Hitler Chancellor, Papen Vice-Chancellor of Germany and Hugenberg Minister of Economics in a cabinet which included only three Nazis, Hitler, Göring and Wilhelm Frick. On January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler was officially sworn in as Chancellor in the Reichstag chamber with thousands of Nazi supporters looking on and cheering. After Reichstag fire (and the communists were blamed for it), the Reichstag Fire Decree suspended civil liberties. Subsequently, in the March 1933 elections the Nazis received 43.9% of the vote. The party gained control of a majority of seats in the Reichstag through a formal coalition with the DNVP. The Enabling Act, passed by the Reichstag after the Nazis expelled the Communist deputies, gave Hitler dictatorial authority. Under the Enabling Act the Nazi cabinet had the power to pass legislation just as the Reichstag did. The Act further specified that the cabinet could only approve measures submitted by the Chancellor (Hitler) and that it would lapse after four years time or upon the installation of a new government. The Enabling Act was dutifully renewed every four years, even during World War II. A series of decrees followed soon after the passage of the Enabling Act. Other party were suppressed and all opposition was banned. In only a few months Hitler had achieved authoritarian control. President Paul von Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934. Rather than have new presidential elections, Hitler's cabinet passed a law combining the offices of President and Chancellor, with Hitler holding both offices (including the President's decree powers) as "Leader and National Chancellor." This consolidation was claimed by the Nazis to be approved by the electorate in what was actually a show election (the outcome was 90% "approval") in mid-August 1934. Then, in an unprecedented step, Hitler ordered every member of the military to swear a personal oath of allegiance to him. ==The Third Reich== ''See also Nazi Germany'' Having secured supreme political power without an electoral mandate from the majority of Germans, Hitler went on to gain their support and remained overwhelmingly popular until the very end of his regime. He was a master orator and with all of Germany's mass media under the control of his propaganda chief, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, he persuaded most Germans he was their saviour from the Depression, the Communists, the Versailles Treaty and the Jews. ===Economics and culture=== Hitler oversaw one of the greatest expansions of industrial production and civil improvement Germany had ever seen, mostly based on debt flotation and expansion of the military. Nazi policies towards women strongly encouraged them to stay at home to bear children and keep house. The unemployment rate was cut substantially, mostly through arms production and sending women home so that men could take their jobs. Given this, claims that the Economy of Germany achieved near full employment are at least partly artifacts of propaganda from the era. Hitler also oversaw one of the largest infrastructure improvement campaigns in German history, with the construction of dozens of dams, autobahns, railroads and other civil works. Hitler's policies emphasised the importance of family life: Men were the "breadwinners", while women's priorities were to be "church, kitchen and children", in German ''Kirche, Küche und Kinder'' or "Drei K" (three K's). Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale, with Albert Speer becoming famous as the first architect of the Reich. In 1936 Berlin hosted the 1936 Summer Olympics, which were opened by Hitler and choreographed to demonstrate Aryan superiority over all other races. ''Olympia (film)'', the movie about the games and documentary propaganda films for the German Nazi Party were directed by Hitler's personal film-maker Leni Riefenstahl. Although Hitler made plans for a ''Breitspurbahn'' (broad gauge railroad network), they were pre-empted by World War II. Had the railroad been built, its gauge would have been three meters, even wider than the old Great Western Railway of Britain. In 1932 Hitler was instrumental in initiating the design work on the car that later became the Volkswagen Beetle. ===Repression=== [[Image:Hitler-car.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler (below Hitler's arm)]] For the unpersuaded, the Sturmabteilung, Schutzstaffel and ''Gestapo'' (secret state police) were given a free hand. Thousands disappeared into concentration camps. Many thousands more emigrated, including about half of Germany's Jews. By 1934 Ernst Röhm's SA had become unpopular with most of the other influential political and military groups in Germany. Hitler ordered his lieutenant Himmler to murder Röhm and dozens of other real and potential enemies during the night of June 29, 1934, the Night of the Long Knives. Under the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, Jews lost their German citizenship and were expelled from government employment, the professions and most forms of economic activity. They were also subject to a barrage of hate propaganda. Few non-Jewish Germans objected to these steps. Restrictions were further tightened later, particularly after the 1938 anti-Jewish operation known as ''Kristallnacht''. From 1941 Jews were required to wear a yellow star in public. Between November 1938 and September 1939 more than 180,000 Jews fled Germany and the Nazis seized whatever property they left behind. ===Rearmament and new alliances=== [[Image:Adolf_Hitler_und_Benito_Mussolini_in_München_1940.jpg|thumb|right|260px|Adolf Hitler with Benito Mussolini in Munich]] In March 1935 Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles by reintroducing conscription in Germany. He set about building a massive military machine, including a new Navy (the Kriegsmarine) and an Air Force (the Luftwaffe). The enlistment of vast numbers of men and women in the new military seemed to solve unemployment problems but seriously distorted the economy. In March 1936 he again violated the Treaty of Versailles by reoccupying the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland. When Britain and France did nothing, he grew bolder. In July 1936 the Spanish Civil War began when the military, led by General Francisco Franco, rebelled against the elected Popular Front government of Spain. Hitler sent troops to support Franco and Spain served as a testing ground for Germany's new armed forces and their methods, including the bombing of undefended towns such as Guernica, which was destroyed by the Luftwaffe in April 1937, prompting Pablo Picasso's famous eponymous painting (see Guernica (painting)). An Axis was declared between Germany and Italy by Galeazzo Ciano, foreign minister of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini on October 25, 1936. This alliance was later expanded to include Japan, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. They were collectively known as the Axis Powers. Then on November 5, 1937 at the Reich Chancellory, Adolf Hitler held a secret meeting and stated his plans for acquiring "living space" (Lebensraum) for the German people. ===The Holocaust=== [[Image:Himmler_Hitler.jpg|frame|Adolf Hitler with Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Schutzstaffel (charged with rounding up Jews, Gypsies and so-called "enemies of the state")]] ''Main article: Holocaust'' Between 1939 and 1945 the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, systematically killed approximately 11 million people (6 million of whom were Jews) in concentration camps, ghettos and mass executions, or through less systematic methods elsewhere. Besides being gassed to death, many also died of starvation and disease while working as slave labourers. Along with Jews, alleged communists or political opposition, homosexuals, dissenting Roman Catholics and Protestants, Roma (people), the physically handicapped and mentally retarded, Soviet Union Prisoner of war, the Poland intelligentsia, Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust, anti-Nazi clergy, trade union, and psychiatric patients were killed. The industrial-scale genocide of Jews in Europe during this period is referred to as the Holocaust. The massacres that led to the coining of the word "genocide" (the ''Endlösung'' or "Final Solution") were planned and ordered by leading Nazis, with Himmler playing a key role. While no specific order from Hitler authorising the mass killing of the Jews has surfaced, there is documentation he approved the ''Einsatzgruppen'' and the evidence also suggests that sometime in the fall of 1941 Himmler and Hitler agreed in principle on mass murder by gassing. To make for smoother intra-governmental cooperation in the implementation of this "Final Solution" to the "Jewish question", the Wannsee conference was held near Berlin on January 20, 1942 with fifteen senior officials participating, led by Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann. The records of this meeting provide the clearest evidence of central planning for the Holocaust. Days later, on February 22, Hitler was recorded saying to his closest associates "we shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews". ==World War II== ===Opening moves=== On March 12, 1938 Hitler pressured his native Austria into unification with Germany (the Anschluss) and made a triumphal entry into Vienna. Next he intensified a crisis over the German-speaking Sudetenland district of Czechoslovakia. This led to the Munich Agreement of September 1938, which British prime minister Neville Chamberlain hailed as "Peace in our time". At Munich, Britain and France had weakly given way to his demands, averting war but failing to save Czechoslovakia. As a result of the summit Hitler was ''Time Magazine'''s Man of the Year in 1938. Hitler ordered Germany's army to enter Prague on March 10, 1939, claiming territories ceded to Poland under the Treaty of Versailles. Britain had not been able to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union for an alliance against Germany, and, on August 23, 1939, Hitler concluded a secret non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) with Joseph Stalin. On September 1 Germany invaded Poland. Britain and France, who had guaranteed assistance to Poland, declared war on Germany. After conquering Poland by the end of September, Hitler built up his forces much further during what was colloquially called the ''Sitzkrieg'' (sitting war). The ''Sitzkrieg'' ended in March 1940 when he ordered German forces to march into Denmark and Norway. In May 1940, Hitler ordered his forces to attack France, conquering the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium in the process. France surrendered on June 22, 1940. This string of victories convinced his main ally, Benito Mussolini of Italy, to join the war on Hitler's side in May 1940. United Kingdom, whose forces had been driven from France at the coastal town of Dunkirk, continued to fight on alone. After having his overtures for peace systematically rejected by the British Government, now led by Winston Churchill, Hitler ordered bombing raids on the British Isles, leading to the Battle of Britain, which was meant to be the prelude of a German invasion. However, the Royal Air Force defeated the Luftwaffe by the end of October 1940, and Hitler therefore ordered bombing raids to be carried out on British cities, including London and Coventry, mostly at night. This was the so-called ''Blitz'' and it lasted until May 1941. On June 22, 1941 Hitler gave the signal for three million German troops to attack the Soviet Union, breaking the non-aggression pact he had concluded with Stalin less than two years earlier. This invasion, called Operation Barbarossa, seized huge amounts of territory, especially the Baltic states and Ukraine, resulting in the destruction of many Soviet forces. German forces were stopped short of Moscow in December 1941 by a harsh winter and fierce Soviet resistance, however (see Battle of Moscow), and the invasion failed to achieve the quick triumph over the Soviet Union which Hitler had anticipated. ===Path to defeat=== [[Image:Adolf Hitler in Paris.jpg|thumb|right|Adolf Hitler in Paris, 23 June 1940]] Hitler's declaration of war against the United States on December 11, 1941, (which arguably was called for by Germany's treaty with Japan) set him 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 nation (the Soviet Union). In late 1942, German forces under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel were defeated in the battle of El Alamein, thwarting Hitler's plans to seize the Suez Canal and the Middle East. In February of 1943, the months-long Battle of Stalingrad ended with the complete destruction of the German forces there by armies of the Soviet Union. Both defeats were turning points in the war. After these, the quality of Hitler's military judgement became increasingly erratic and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated. His health was deteriorating too. His left hand started shaking uncontrollably. The biographer Ian Kershaw believes he suffered from Parkinson's disease. Other conditions that are suspected by some to have caused some (at least) of his symptoms are methamphetamine addiction and syphilis. Hitler's ally Benito Mussolini was overthrown in 1943 after British and American forces invaded Sicily. Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the eastern front. On June 6, 1944 (D-Day) the Western allied armies landed in northern France. Realists in the German army knew defeat was inevitable and some officers plotted to remove Hitler from power. In July 1944 one of them, Claus von Stauffenberg, planted a bomb at Hitler's military headquarters (the so-called July 20 Plot), but Hitler narrowly escaped death. Savage reprisals followed, resulting in the executions of more than 4,000 people (often by starvation in solitary confinement followed by slow strangulation). The resistance movement was crushed. ===Defeat and death=== [[Image:Hitler_bunker.jpg|thumb|350px|Adolf Hitler shaking hands with Feldmarschall Ferdinand Schörner in the bunker, one of the last known photos of Hitler]] :''Main article: Hitler's death.'' By the end of 1944 the Soviets had driven the last German troops from their territory and began charging into Central Europe. The western armies were advancing into Germany. The Germans had lost the war from a military perspective but Hitler allowed no peace talks with the Allied forces and as a consequence the German military continued to fight. By April 1945 Soviet forces were at the gates of Berlin. Hitler's closest lieutenants urged him to flee to Bavaria or Austria to make a last stand in the mountains but he was determined to die in his capital. The leader of SS Heinrich Himmler tried on his own to inform the Allies with the help of a Swedish diplomat that Germany is prepared to surrender. Hitler heard this on the Swedish radio. As Soviet troops battled their way toward his Reich Chancellory in the centre of the city, Hitler is generally believed to have committed suicide in his Führerbunker on 30 April 1945 in Berlin by means of a self-delivered shot to the head (some disputed accounts add that he simultaneously bit into a cyanide ampoule). Hitler's body and that of Eva Braun, his long-term mistress whom he had married the day before, were partially burned with gasoline and buried shortly thereafter in the Chancellory garden. When Russian forces reached the Chancellory, they exhumed his body and performed an autopsy, using dental records (and German dental assistants who were familiar with them) to confirm the identification. To avoid any possibility of creating a potential shrine, the remains were then secretly buried by SMERSH at their new headquarters in Magdeburg. In April 1970, when the facility was about to be turned over to the East German government, the remains were reportedly exhumed, thoroughly burned and disposed of in the Elbe river. In Moscow there is a skull and a mandible fragment which is said to be Hitler's (having been saved from the dental identification process). DNA samples have been compared to those of known surviving Hitler relatives and the matching results indicate the fragment is most likely genuine. ==Legacy== ''I would have preferred it if he'd followed his original ambition and become an architect.'' - Paula Hitler (his younger sister), during an interview with a US intelligence operative in late 1945. In his will Hitler dismissed other Nazi leaders and appointed Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as ''Reichspräsident'' (President of Germany) and Joseph Goebbels as ''Reichskanzler#Reichskanzler'' (Chancellor of Germany). However, Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide on 1 May 1945. On 8 May 1945 in Reims, France the German armed forces surrendered unconditionally End of World War II in Europe and with the creation of the Allied Control Council on 5 June 1945 the Four Powers assumed "supreme authority with respect to Germany." Hitler's proclaimed ''Thousand Year Reich'' had lasted 12 years. Since the defeat of Germany in World War II, Hitler, the Nazi Party and the Consequences of German Nazism have been regarded in most of the world as synonymous with evil. Historical and Hitler in popular culture in the west are almost uniformly negative, often neglecting to mention the adulation the German people bestowed on Hitler during his lifetime, though the majority of present-day Germans share a negative view of Hitler. The copyright of Hitler's book ''Mein Kampf'' is currently held by the Free State of Bavaria, which does not allow reproductions. The copyright will expire in 2015. The display of swastikas or other Nazi symbols is prohibited and right and left wing extremists are generally under surveillance by the ''Verfassungsschutz'', the federal office for the protection of the constitution. Despite this there have been instances of public figures referring to his legacy in neutral or even favourable terms, particularly in South America, the Islamic World and parts of Asia. Future Egyptian President Anwar Sadat wrote favourably of Hitler in 1953. Bal Thackeray, leader of the right-wing Shiv Sena party in the Indian state of Maharashtra, declared in 1995 that he was an admirer of Hitler. While some Revisionist history note Hitler's attempts to improve the economic and political standing and conditions of his people and claim his tactics were in essence no different from those of many other leaders in history, his methods and legacy, as interpreted by most historians, have caused him to be one of the most despised leaders in history. See also: Consequences of German Nazism and Neo-Nazism. ==Medical health== ''Main article: Adolf Hitler's medical health.'' Hitler's medical health has long been the subject of debate, and he has variously been suggested to have suffered from irritable bowel syndrome, skin lesions, irregular heartbeat, tremors on the left side of his body, syphilis, Parkinson's disease and addiction to methamphetamines. ==Hitler's family== See also: Hitler (disambiguation) *Eva Braun, mistress and then wife *Alois Hitler, father *Klara Hitler, mother *Paula Hitler, sister *Alois Hitler, Jr., half-brother *Bridget Dowling, sister-in-law *William Patrick Hitler, nephew *Angela Hitler, half-sister *Geli Raubal, niece and rumoured mistress *Maria Schicklgruber, grandmother *Johann Georg Hiedler, presumed grandfather *Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, maternal great-grandfather, presumed great uncle and possibly Hitler's true paternal grandfather ===The origin of the name "Hitler"=== There are two theories about the origin of the name "Hitler": *(1) From German language ''Hüttler'' and similar, "one who lives in a hut", "shepherd". *(2) From Slavonic languages ''Hidlar'' and ''Hidlarcek'' and similar. == Trivia == The archives of the Finnish Yleisradio broadcasting company contain an audio tape segment of a Hitler conversation with Finnish Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim and other high military officers which may be the only known recording of Hitler speaking in a conversational tone of voice rather than with the intense delivery he used for official speeches. It was recorded secretly by Finnish military when Hitler surprisingly flew to Finland to congratulate Marshall Mannerheim on his 75th birthday, 4 June 1942. ==Hitler's associates== *Martin Bormann, Adolf Hitler's Private Secretary. *Hans Frank, Hitler's lawyer and later senior Nazi official in occupied Poland. *Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, 25th Chancellor of Germany. *Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo. *Rudolf Hess, one-time Deputy Leader of the Nazi Party, best known for his flight to Scotland to negotiate peace in 1941. *Reinhard Heydrich, considered as a possible successor by Hitler, assassinated by a team of Czech agents on May 27, 1942. *Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, key figure in the Holocaust and the "Final Solution". *Alfred Jodl, military officer, knew Hitler since 1923. *Wilhelm Keitel, military Field Marshal during World War II. *Ernst Röhm, leader of the SA, shot on Hitler's orders in the Night of the Long Knives. *Albert Speer, minister of armament. *Paul Troost, famous architect. ''see also List of Nazi Party leaders and officials'' ==Media== ==Notes== # "[http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa070197.htm 'Heil Schicklgruber!'???]," about.com (accessed June 11, 2005); Cecil Adams, "[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_325b.html Was Hitler part Jewish?]," The Straight Dope (accessed June 11, 2005). # Joachim C. Fest, "[http://ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/festjc/chap2.htm The Drummer]," in ''The Face Of The Third Reich'' (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970; accessed June 11, 2005). # [http://www.hitler.org/artifacts/volkswagen/ Adolf Hitler and Volkswagen], Hitler Historical Museum, 1999 (accessed June 11, 2005). # "[http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/faqs/answers/faq_3.html How many Jews were murdered in the Holocaust? How do we know? Do we have their names?]," from FAQs About The Holocaust, Yad Vashem (accessed June 11, 2005); "[http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/index.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005143 The Holocaust]," ''Holocaust Encyclopedia'', United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (accessed June 11, 2005). # "[http://www2.sptimes.com/Holocaust_museum/11_million.html 11-million perished]," ''St. Petersburg Times'', 1999 (accessed June 11, 2005); Karen Silverstrim, "[http://www.uca.edu/divisions/academic/history/cahr/holocaust.htm Overlooked Millions: Non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust]," University of Central Arkansas (accessed June 11, 2005). ==See also== *Anti-semitism *Cultural representations of Hitler *Esoteric Hitlerism *Hitler's death *Members of Hitler's cabinet *Nero Decree *Widerstand, the resistance movements in Nazi Germany *Hitler and the church *Early Nazi Timeline focuses on the rise of Hitler *Nazi architecture *Nazi_Germany ==References== * ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'', William L. Shirer (1960). Gramercy. (ISBN 0517102943) *Doron Arazi, ''Adolf Hitler: A Bibliography'', Greenwood, 1994, ISBN 0-877-36360-1 *Alan Bullock, ''Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives'', HarperCollins, 1991, ISBN 0679729941 *Alan Bullock, ''Hitler: A Study in Tyranny'', ISBN 0060920203 *Joachim Fest, ''Hitler'', Harvest Books, 2002, ISBN 0156027542 *Brigitte Hamann, Thomas Thornton, ''Hitler's Vienna'', Oxford University Press; New Ed edition, 2000 *Eberhard Jäckel, 1981, ''Hitler's World View: A Blueprint for Power'', Cambridge: Harvard University Press. *#Kershaw_text: Ian Kershaw, ''Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris'', W W Norton, 1999, and ''Hitler 1937-1945: Nemesis'', W W Norton, 2000, ISBN 0393320359 *Lothar Machtan, ''The Hidden Hitler'' (Basic Books, 2001, ISBN 0-465-04308-9; English translation by John Brownjohn) See Northeast Middle School Assistant principal. *Adolf Hitler, 'Mein Kampf' Liberty Bell Publications (February, 2004) ISBN 1593640064 *#Haffner_text: Sebastian Haffner, ''The Meaning of Hitler'' (1978) ISBN 0674557751 (short biographical, non-scholarly study, but according to Ian Kershaw one of the most remarkable studies on the dictator) *#Krockow_text: Christian Graf von Krockow: ''Hitler und seine Deutschen'' (German). List, München 2001 ISBN 3-471-79415-8 *Konrad Heiden: ''Hitler I Das Leben eines Diktators'' (German). Zürich 1936 *Konrad Heiden: ''Hitler II Ein Mann gegen Europa'' (German). Zürich 1937 *Albert Marrin: "Hitler". Penguin Books 1987. ISBN 0-670-81546-2 * Horstmann, Bernhard: ''Hitler in Pasewalk - Die Hypnose und ihre Folgen, Hitlers hysterische Blindheit''. Droste Verlag 2004. ISBN 3-7700-1167-8 == External links == * [http://www.hitler.org The Hitler Historical Museum] * [http://www.planoweb.net/viki/hitler.html Leadership: Hitler and Mussolini] * [http://www.adolfhitler.ws/index.php Extensive site on Adolf Hitler] * [http://www.answers.com/hitler&r=67#Encyclopedia Hitler on Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia] * [http://www.adel-genealogie.de/Hitler/is_toc.htm Hitler's genealogy] * [http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/meinkampf/introduction.htm Mondo Politico Library's presentation of Adolf Hitler's book, ''Mein Kampf'' (full text, formatted for easy on-screen reading)] [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.zip Project Gutenberg of Australia downloadable eBook] * [http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points.htm Hitler's 25 point national socialist program] * *[http://www.third-reich-books.com/x-584-courier-adolf-hitler-1914-1918.htm Excerpt from book about Hitler's WWI military service] * [http://www.hierarchypedia.com/wiki/index.php/Hitler_family Hitler family genealogy] * [http://www.threetwoone.org/diagrams/hitler-family-tree.gif A detailed chart of Hitler's family tree] *[http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa070197.htm Ancestry of Adolf Hitler: Who was Adolf's grandfather?] * [http://samvak.tripod.com/hitler.html Assessment of Adolf Hitler] *[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_325b.html The Straight Dope: Was Hitler part Jewish?] *[http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm Hitler's Christianity] *[http://timelines.ws/countries/GERM1939_1944.HTML Timeline Germany 1939-1944] *[http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/HitlerAdolf/ Hitler's life as a timetable] (German) *[http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library/donovan/hitler 1943 Psychological Profile of Hitler] written by Dr. Henry A. Murray for the wartime Office of Strategic Services [1943 OSS Archives, DD247.H5 M87 1943] *[http://xtramsn.co.nz/news/0,,11965-4312539,00.html Hitler Relied on "Enemy" News] *[http://www.fpp.co.uk/Hitler/house/SouthBend0702.html Hitler's Childhood Home]
Adolf Hitler Austrian emigrants German chancellors Presidents of Germany Nazi leaders Suicides World War II political leaders ang:Adolf Hitler bs:Adolf Hitler fa:آدولف هیتلر ga:Adolf Hitler hi:हिटलर ka:ჰიტლერი, ადოლფ la:Hitler lv:Ādolfs Hitlers li:Adolf Hitler ms:Adolf Hitler simple:Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
''An event in this article is a MediaWiki:January 30 selected anniversaries.'' (may be in HTML comment) ---- ==Archives== *Talk:Adolf Hitler/mentioning the (mis?)spelling Adolph *Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 1 *Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 2 *Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 3 *Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 4 *Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 5 *Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 6 */Archive 7 */Archive 8 == Hitler ordered the Holocaust == Anyone who thinks this needs to go research Führerprinzip, and Wannsee conference (wherin extremely vague discussions on the final solution occured, and Hitler did not attend). Would Hitler have approved of such measures had he known of them? I assume so. But do we have any reason to think he would have been notified of specifics such as that? I seriously doubt it, based on the style of governance they had. Subordinates painted rosy reports for superiors, sparring them the gory details. This telephone game of misinformation increased as it went up the chain of ranks, and Hilter was much less aware of the circumstances of daily operation than most world leaders of today. In any case, much like the death issue, there is far less evidence to cite than debate and conjecture. User:Sam Spade 23:22, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC) To expand a bit more, we know AH wanted and enabled it, we can presume he knew the broad truth of the camps, but we do not know specifically how Himmler received his own authority to conduct industrial scale murder. Whatever documentation there was likely got burned in the closing days of the war. To say Hitler directly ordered the Holocaust is not a documented fact. To say it happened and that AH was responsible for it, however, is wholly documented and reasonable to include in the article. User:Wyss 23:31, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC) "responsible for it" is an opinion. My point is he probably didn't know about it, at least the details. He knew Jews were being sent off, presumably to an unhappy death, or at minimum exile, possibly to work as slave labour. All of those would likely have been on his short "to do list" had he been micromanaging the concentration camps, but he wasn't. He was micromanaging the military, which is well evidenced by their spectacular defeat, despire being arguably the sole, or at least predominant world super power not too long before. User:Sam Spade 23:45, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC) :I will point out as a side note that according to Hitlers own words and Nazi doctrine, he was indeed accountable and responsible for all of what occured during his reign in office. I personally give him less credit than that, as do others, of course. However it should be pretty easy finding a reference, or even a quote from mein kampf suggesting his culpability, if you really think such an insinuation is needed. User:Sam Spade 23:48, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC) In my humble opinion, to assert that the absolute (never mind micro-managing and anti-semetic) dictator of a highly developed, bureaucratic world power like Germany during the 1930s and 40s was unaware of the industrial scale slaughter of 6-11 million human beings in a vast network of railway connected camps managed by the SS is... unhelpful. User:Wyss 00:23, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC) "Nature is cruel; therefore we are also entitled to be cruel. When I send the flower of German youth into the steel hail of the next war without feeling the slightest regret over the precious German blood that is being spilled, should I not also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin?" (Adolf Hitler, cited in Joachim Fest's 1975 "Hitler") "Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews. As soon as I have the power to do so, I will have gallows built in rows - at the Marienplatz in Munich, for example - as many as traffic allows. "Then the Jews will be hanged indiscriminately, and they will remain hanging until they stink; they will hang there as long as the principles of hygiene permit. As soon as they have been untied, the next batch will be strung up, and so on down the line, until the last Jew in Munich has been exterminated. Other cities will follow suit, precisely in this fashion, until all Germany has been completely cleansed of Jews." (Adolf Hitler, 1922) cited in Fleming, Gerald. Hitler and the Final Solution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. p. 17 In Hitler's speech of January 30, 1939, he said: "Today I want to be a prophet once more: If international finance Jewry inside and outside of Europe should succeed once more in plunging nations into another world war, the consequence will not be the Bolshevization of the earth and thereby the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." At a public speech in Munich, November 8, 1942, Hitler told his audience "You will recall the session of the Reichstag during which I declared: If Jewry should imagine that it could bring about an international world war to exterminate the European races, the result will not be the extermination of the European races, but the extermination of Jewry in Europe. People always laughed about me as a prophet. Of those who laughed then, countless numbers no longer laugh today, and those who still laugh now will perhaps no longer laugh a short time from now. This realization will spread beyond Europe throughout the entire world. International Jewry will be recognized in its full demonic peril; we National Socialists will see to that." As unhelpful as attepts at unneeded conjecture in an encyclopedia article? User:Sam Spade 05:46, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC) Look who's talking :) (thanks for letting me needle you, pls don't take it seriously) AH was plainly aware of the camps, although I do agree that such a conjecture for an encyclopedia article is unneeded. For all I care, neither is it at all necessary to say he was responsible. When the facts are laid out not much is left to the imagination. Far more interesting to me is the lack of a paper trail documenting his (presumed) orders to Himmler authorizing the industrial slaughter of millions. I assert it's likely (but not certain) at least some documentation existed but was destroyed by German officers and bureaucrats during the closing days of the war. Funny thing (and this remark, of course, isn't directed at you User:Sam Spade), new information about that era still shows up now and then: In some attic somewhere there could be some verifiable evidence AH directly signed off on the whole thing. My only point in this thread, which is nothing more than table talk, has been to say more or less, "let's wait until something like that shows up before we say AH ordered the Holocaust but on the other hand let's not leave wiggle room for the possibility he didn't enable and encourage it, 'cause one way or another, he did." User:Wyss 11:53, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC) Can Sam show us the written orders signed off by Hitler for the invasion of Poland or the invasion of the USSR? Hitler's MO was not to issue signed orders. The quotations above, however, make clear Hitler's intention towards the Jews and the later quotations make clear he was aware of their externmination. User:AndyL 16:15, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC) :See User_talk:Sam_Spade#AH for a continued discussion of this matter. User:Sam Spade 15:06, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) == His funny little moustache == A trivial topic of course, but is there any indication why he liked his moustache styled that way? Was it popular in Germany and Europe at the time? That style of mustache was fairly common in Germany and elsewhere during the early 20th century... Anglo-Saxons have been conditioned to think it's "funny" a) 'cause it's rarer than hens' teeth these days (who wants to have a "Hitler mustache"?) and b) his mustache was extensively satirized in English language cartoons and movies throughout the late 1930s and 40s. User:Wyss 01:55, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Asian people will sometimes have one, they arn't quite so impressed w Hitler's nefarious legacy as are westerners. User:Sam Spade 15:07, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) :"During the war he had experimented with several types of mustaches and by the end of the war was wearing one that was fairly bushy and ran along the whole of the upper lip almost concealing it. During his training in propaganda and speaking, he thinned out his mustache and wore it close-cropped. Around this time he chose to clip the ends which made it narrower than the width of his lips. This type of mustache was more prominent among the British, but some German officers (like Ernst Rohm) and right wing "intellectuals" (Dietrich Eckart, Gottfried Feder, etc.) to whom Hitler had been exposed in his speaker training period, sprouted such clumps of hair over their upper lip. Hitler was undoubtedly attempting to emulate them". ([http://smoter.com/astarpup.htm]) [http://smoter.com/civilian.htm Some say] it was the "symbolism of Charlie Chaplin". In [http://libreopinion.com/members/leondegrelle/theenigmaofhitler.html The Enigma of Hitler], SS General Léon Degrelle wrote: "The first thing anyone noticed when he came into view was his small mustache. Countless times he had been advised to shave it off, but he always refused: people were used to him the way he was." —User:Morning star 16:18, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) With User:Morning star's contribution thrown in, methinks we've enough here for a helpful wiki article stub called Adolf Hitler's mustache. :) User:Wyss 18:35, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::The reason I have encountered before was because such a clipped mustache was common among veterans of the trenches of WWI as a way of minimizing lice. He kept it from those days. I can't give a source for this off-hand, but it seems possible. User:Ben Bulben 20:02, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC) == Hitlers death == Please read "Hitler's death". There is nothing resembling clear evidence that events transpired as is suggested, indeed the current "concensus" is simply a bargain between the POV's of a number of historians, essentially none of whom buy into the compromise. I must insist that the narrative not claim he died by suicide, but rather that such is the general agreement. I don't want to dispute the neutrality, but I do insist that a thorough reading of hitler's death be made by anyone who thinks the current wording is acceptable. User:Sam Spade 20:24, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) :I have read that article, and I prefere the current wording (without the "said to have"). Yes, there is an ongoing debate over whether he died from cyanide or a gunshot, or both. But we aren't disputing this or saying anything about it not being controversial by not having the "said to have" there. In either way he died of suicide, so the current wording is accurate. User:Shanes 21:02, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) :This is no "bargain of PoVs". Several eyewitnesses (including the two who doused the bodies with petrol and lit them) repeatedly told the story of AH's suicide with Braun. Yes, eyewitness accounts are dodgy, yes, it's unlikely AH used both a pistol shot and cyanide, but these are details one would expect to be blurred and spun in the aftermath of Berlin's fall. The testimony, evidence and scholarly consensus are overwhelming and leave no room for qualifiers like "said to have died" or "believed to have died". The wording should remain as it is, or the article will have a big, docking, "Elvis sighting" gap of credibility. To put it another way, I have never heard of any scholarly, peer reviewed article or publication by any credible source giving any hint of plausibility to the notion that AH didn't die by suicide in the bunker under the chancellory as Red Army tanks rumbled nearby. Sure, I imagine there are loads of conspiracy and crank books around implying otherwise, skimming a bit of money off the still vast popular market for glossy, sensationalistic publications having anything to do with the Third Reich, but there's no evidence, no documentation, no AH post April 1945. User:Wyss 23:07, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) Have you read the article then? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler%27s_death#Autopsy.2C_controversy_and_urban_myth]? Stalin himself never believed the reports, and the soviets (russians) still won't let anyone examine that skull fragment. The article is unacceptable POV as it stands. User:Sam Spade 00:06, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC) As for Stalin, he spread lots of conflicting stories about AH's death/escape after the war. Stalin's historical reputation is even worse than Hitler's, never mind his known preference for disinformation and propaganda, so whatever he had to say about it isn't much of a citation. The documentation regarding AH and EB's suicides, partial cremations, sporadic burials and reburials culminating in their ashes being reburned and scattered into the Elbe by Soviet security personnel in 1970 is rather well-established. More telling, however, there is not a shred of evidence AH or Eva Braun were alive after April 1945. Lastly, the skull fragment is interesting but it's never been of much importance to the scholarly consensus of Hitler's 1945 suicide in Berlin. The Russians have historically been paranoid about a re-emergence of fascist extremism, and going back to Stalin, have been known to withold helpful evidence and spread disinformation regarding AH and his death to keep neo-fascists off balance on the topic and discourage the establishment of any shrines or whatever. User:Wyss 01:07, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::PS, I agree the death article could use some cleaning up, it gives too much weight to the possibility that AH may have survived the war (and the ''oldest man in the world'' bit seems unencyclopedic to me). User:Wyss 01:17, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC) There's something else. I'm somewhat familiar with Magda Goebbels' background along with her longtime relationship with Hitler which overlapped cultish fanatacism and strong personal feelings for him. I find it more or less unthinkable she would have asked an SS orderly shoot her (in suicide), never mind murdered all her children like chickens, unless she knew without question he was dead and saw zero hope. What's more, Eva Braun was a social creature, one way or another. Many members of her immediate family and several close friends survived the war and there is no doubt they were carefully watched for any possible contacts from her. The reason we've heard nothing whatsoever from or about Hitler and Braun since the fall of Berlin in late April 1945 is because they killed themselves, Red army tanks rolling nearly over their heads. I've read blood was found on the sofa in Hitler's sitting room by both Soviet and American investigators. The bodies of other suicides were found in the bunker under the chancellory and even immensely practical Martin Bormann took cyanide after having failed to escape central Berlin on foot (his body was found in 1972 near an old railroad switching area). Himmler took cyanide as well immediately after he was captured. Altogether, the implications are rather plain. There is no hint of a need to qualify Hitler's death in an encyclopedia article based on accepted standards of scholarhsip. User:Wyss 13:58, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Look, if were going to delve into original research here, I find the idea that any of these deaths were suicide unlikely. The reasoning why can be found in bulk at Hitler's death, Odessa, and copious books and [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/deathofhitler.htm sources on the subject]. There is no one I expect less honesty from than one of Stalin's officers. The story is absurd, as any historian will tell you. for One reason or other, no one believes it in full. Admit the confusion, cite the sources, and leave questionable stances out of the narrative. User:Sam Spade 22:03, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC) There is zero confusion on the basic fact of AH's suicide, and it's far from a "questionable stance." The documented evidence is overwhelming that AH killed himself with a pistol shot from his personal Walther PK pistol at around 3:30PM on 30 April 1945. Now... what original research? (This is a talk page, by the way) Further, the Hitler death article in WP clearly states he killed himself. The story of AH crunching a cyanide capsule while blowing his brains out is indeed absurd, but Stalin was behind that (seems Uncle Joe thought telling the world AH crunched cyanide would make him seem like a coward, not an "honourable soldier" or whatever). Witnesses did report smelling the characteristic aroma of cyanide when they entered the sitting room and found the bodies, but somehow nobody ever seems to dispute that Braun killed herself, with cyanide. User:Wyss 00:26, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) Sam, there were also a number of conspiracy theories suggesting that the execution of the Romanovs never happened or that one or more of the royals escaped (particularly the Tsarovich and/or Anastasia). Books were written, documentaries were made, some by serious journalists. Nevertheless the discovery of the Romanov graves put these theories to rest, as did the DNA testing of Anna Anderson's remains. Just because some people believe a conspiracy theory and allow their minds to string together plausible sounding arguments for them, doesn't mean they're true or even anything more than furtive imagining. The strongest evidence that Hitler died in 1945 is the absence of any evidence whatsoever of his presence on this earth following the war. Unless you can show me something that suggests he was in such and such place in 1947 or lived somewhere else in 1953 there's no reason why anyone should pay any mind to the Hitler lives theory unless you want to write a yarn like ''The Boys of Brazil''.User:AndyL 23:06, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) This is all a straw man, I'm not trying to say Hitler is alive, or put a question mark by his date of death, or any such thing. Rather I am presenting evidence that his manner of death is contested. User:Sam Spade 19:49, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC) ===Suicide or Shooting=== There is also an accepted theory that he led a final futile assault against the incoming Russians at his fort, who were under strict orders to capture him alive. As he was part of a small group attempting a sally forth approach, naturally he would have been mowed down. Having to admit to your senior officers that you accidentally killed the man they stipulated you must capture led to the suicide theory and would also explain the attempted desecration by burning (to make unidentifiable) and the hiding of his remains. This is a conclusion that many historians are begining to come to, which are reflected in quite a few books on World War II I have read over the past year or so in my general studies of it. User:Jachin 21:29, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC) His fort? User:Wyss 05:27, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC) == Yleisradio archive's conversation tape == Does anyone know where this recording can be found? A cursory Google search led me to nothing. --TriniTriggs == "Photographs like this were used to promote and humanize Hitler's populist-nationalist image" == Isn't editorializing in the captions a bit POV? --User:Oipolloi 18:52, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) Zero editorial. It's fact, NSDAP propaganda tactics are well-documented, photographs like that one were used to promote his populist image, where's the opinion in that? User:Wyss 18:57, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) [personal attack removed] User:Wyss 23:04, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC) Note: the Bush picture at right was posted by User:Oipolloi who pasted in the caption I used in the AH article. I thought that was unhelpful and removed Hitler's name from the caption of this Bush image. Both Hitler and Bush, in addition to having had their pictures taken with kids for political ends, are known to have traveled in automobiles... do these two points in common equate them morally? (Hint: no) User:Wyss 20:04, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) :There are many other similarities between Bush and Hitler but that is not rlevant to either article. Inclusion of photos with descriptive editorial comment should be NPOV. If it is good enogh for Hitler, it is good enough for Bush. If you feel that your own descriptve editorial captioning is factual, it should be good enough for the Bush article but you sought to delete it there? Why? Take your answer to the Bush Talk page. Thanks. And if you have issues suddenly with my edits to Clown article and are not just engaged in petty vandalism of my edits, use the Clown Talk page to explain your position. --User:Oipolloi 20:12, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) I believe you are baiting, which I consider to be vandalism. User:Wyss 20:38, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) I believe you are reverting legitimate edits without discussion on the Talk page which is vandalism. --User:Oipolloi 21:35, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) I politely suggest you review Wikipedia's policies regarding vandalism and personal attacks. User:Wyss 21:41, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) Oipolloi, this is what Wyss is citing: WP:NPA. This is considered policy, and contains the following line: "If you are personally attacked, you may remove the attacks or may follow the dispute resolution process or both. In extreme cases, the attacker may be blocked, though the proposal to allow this failed and the practice is almost always controversial." (Emphasis mine). So, he has the right to remove personal attacks - whether or not what you said was a personal attack, I may not agree. However, Wyss, I would say let this one slide - it wasn't a blatant personal attack. --User:Golbez 21:58, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC) It made no reference to article content and it sure wasn't a compliment :) As a veteran of the Sollog wars, however, I'd say I'm rather quick to revert personal attacks when I see 'em. User:Wyss 22:05, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) I do think the allegations of "vandalism" on both sides are probably personal attacks, but deleting the conversation here was inappropriate. I think we should focus on discussing the image caption here, and discuss other concerns at WP:RfC, WP:AN, eacho thers talk pages, or whatever. User:Sam Spade 18:19, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC) I disagree but let's stay on topic and discuss the article please. I assert the caption is a well-documented fact. User:Wyss 23:04, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC) :I was uncertain, and taken aback, when I first read it. I didn't feel strongly enough to remove or debate it at that time, but it struck me as odd and inappropriate. I think a rewording is in order. Perhaps User:Wyss could provide an alternate version he would feel comfortable with? User:Sam Spade 12:32, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) I have no doubt that photos like this were a part of the Nazi propaganda campaign. The question is, were they specific enough to Hitler to include them in the general context of this article? This could be the case if he was the only one to use them (obviously not) or the first one to use them (I don't know, but probably not). IMO, this picture is not a good illustration of the section where it appears (taking pictures with children was not the most central or peculiar feature of Nazi propaganda). It should be in Joseph Goebbels, Propagandaministerium or another article about the Nazi propaganda campaign. Another possible candidate would be a detailed section called "Cult of personality" or similar in this article. User:Zocky 13:27, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) Yes, they were. There was even a case of a little girl who had emerged from a crowd of admirers and was subsequently photographed eating strawberries and cream with him (her visits were later curtailed when it was discovered she was part Jewish). Women represented fully fifty percent of the electorate voting for Hitler. Modern readers tend to be given a one-dimensional picture of AH as someone of pure, almost cartoonish evil with no human face. In truth, tens of millions of Germans came to admire this charasmatic leader with a gift for oratory (never mind how coarse and direct it could be), only to realize too late he was a murderous sociopath bent on either ruling a Jew-free world (his take on "saving" it and his country) or dragging Germany into an armageddon. If this article is to educate and inform, then it might do to give readers the tools to recognize the next one who comes along, bouncing kids on his knee (which is also why I object so strongly to the Bush photo having been slapped onto this talk page... that was nothing more than a smearing political jab, never mind that however one feels about Mr Bush, this article isn't about him and any comparison here is unhelpful, to put it mildly). Whatever, readers can't be expected to click into a related article to read in detail how Goebbels masterfully executed this sort of propaganda and image making (like it or not, he pioneered many of the mass media political techniques we still see in use today). Plainly not all Germans, but a majority in the mid and late thirties, were more or less inspired to believe Hitler was their best hope and they didn't arrive at that notion by watching Charlie Chaplin's ''The Great Dictator'' (which Chaplin expressed regret over after the war, for reasons along these very lines). Is it deeply unsettling to see that picture with that caption? For me, yes it is and that's the pith of it. User:Wyss 14:17, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) :By the way, I didn't post the picture. I only changed the original caption from ''Adolf Hitler with a German girl'' to something more informative (and accurate, too). Moreover, it appears in the ''Economics and culture'' section. User:Wyss 14:47, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) I don't see as any historians would disagree with the statement in the caption. And just including the picture with no explanatory text would be worse. (Note, also, that the caption does not say that Hitler didn't actually like small children, which, I think, the evidence suggests that he did). User:John Kenney User_talk:John Kenney 15:03, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) :What I object to is "humanize Hitler's populist-nationalist image". This presents the POV the populism, nationalism, and of course Hitler were arguably inhuman. While Hitler is viewed as largely inhuman today, that simply wasn't the case at the time this photo was made, and particularly not in the voting bloc the image seeks to appeal to. Also, there is no need to "humanize" populism, which by its very nature reaches out to the ordinary citizen, speaking to him in his language, via jingoism, propoganda, rhetoric, or whatever you want to call it. In summary, the caption paints a factually inaccurate (hitler was seen as inhuman at the time the photo was made) and POV (populism and nationalism are inhuman) picture inappropriate for the image in the article. I think the image should stay (or be moved to another article, we do already have 1 picture of hitler w a young girl here...), the gist of the caption should stay, but the wording be changed to reflect these concerns. User:Sam Spade 15:37, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::There is no PoV in the caption. AH consolidated power partly through a populist-nationalist image and electoral base. After he achieved absolute power, his true popularity continued to rise as propaganda was generated to appeal to that same, widening ''volkish'' base. This included ensuring that an attractive "human" face was put on a mass media figure who could truly be quite charming in small social settings (that's well documented, aside from this photo, which happens to exude it) as well as charismatic and hypnotic in ''sportsplasts''. That's why the picture and caption are instructive and maybe a bit unsettling for some: He seduced millions, then he killed millions and for a decade had an impressive public image within the confines of Germany's tightly controlled media (for the most part newspapers, cheap radios and newsreels along with carefully chosen and orchestrated public appearances). Hitler was very human, which may be the most terrifying thing of all and talk about a sore loser. He killed himself in Berlin at around 3:30 in the afternoon on 30 April 1945, having left explicit orders Germany be burned to cinders in his wake. User:Wyss 16:39, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) Readers asserting that a reference to AH's populist-nationalist image is PoV may wish to look at these two Google searches: User:Wyss 17:41, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Adolf+Hitler+populist&btnG=Google+Search&meta= (26,000+ hits) http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Adolf+Hitler+nationalist&btnG=Google+Search&meta= (73,000+ hits) I agree with all of that, with the posible exception of tha last sentance "He killed himself in Berlin at around 3:30 in the afternoon on 30 April 1945, having left explicit orders Germany be burned to cinders in his wake". Personally I find it far more likely that he was killed by russian infantry or officers, who later feared reprisals and covered it up. That would be the simplest answer, and would explain all the weird and unbelievable stories. Anyhow, as far as this image caption... its not the suggestion that he was a nationalist, or a populist, or is today seen as inhumane. What I object to is the insinuation that he was seen as inhuman at the time, and that populism and nationalism are in need of humanizing. A much needed rewording of the caption is in order. I'll wait awhile longer for you (or someone) to take a stab at it, and then I'll reword it myself. User:Sam Spade 18:33, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) We totally disagree on the death thing, I assert that the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that he died on April 30 1945 in Berlin, after which the Sovs found and identified the body. There is zero documented evidence of AH's existence as a living being after that date. However, thank you for clarifying your concerns about the caption. I accept that the word ''humanize'' appears in a way that could be misinterpreted. I'll remove the word. Thanks. User:Wyss 18:42, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) I can't believe this has generated a discussion. The comparison between Bush and Hitler is totally absurd and offensive to the sixty million people who perished during the Second World War and their families. Oipolloi's comments on the talk page deserve no serious response beyond that, and any edits to either the Hitler or Bush article making such a comparison should be reverted on sight as vandalism. If the editor persists, block him. User:172 18:51, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Let us all discuss issues like intelligent people and not call for censorship of others just because we might disagree with them. I questioned Wyss's caption in good faith but did not edit it nor did I ultimately disagree that it is NPOV to caption the photo of Hitler and innocent girl with the phrase "Photographs like this are used to promote and humanize the image of a politician". I thought it was rather arrogant to assert as fact without providing evidence but Wikipedia is populated by all types of editor, some more capable than others. So I let it go. It should be recognized that Bush uses the same image management tactics as Hitler. The White House disseminates photos like this to soften his image among his followers showing him being adulated by rapt audiences and coddling innocent children. The NPOV policy requires that the treatment of Hitler be equivalent to the treatment of Bush. That some users object to this reflects either that Hitler is being vilified in a way that is unacceptable or that followers of Bush are unable to maintain a NPOV approach to editing this encyclopedia. If it is appropriate to caption a photo of Hitler in a way that describes how politicians manipulate the media and public, then it is just as appropriate to show caption similar photos of Bush in the same way. It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree that Bush and Hitler are both bloodthirsty evil fascist monsters who should burn in hell forever and ever. The issue is whether the encyclopedia is NPOV. To be NPOV, both Bush and Hitler should receive the same non-judgemental treatment. I would never suggest that an editor be blocked from editing for diagreeing with me about the content of an article. That any editor would suggest that a fellow Wikipedian should be blocked on the basis of disagreement over content reflects a blatantly fascistic approach because fascism is defined as an intolerance for opposing or dissenting points of view. --User:Oipolloi 02:29, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::Wikipedia is not the place for making these kinds of comparisons. Please see Wikipedia:No original research. User:172 02:38, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) User:Oipolloi, I strongly suggest you take some time to thoroughly re-read Wikipedia policy regarding these issues. User:Wyss 09:42, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) ---- For the record (and I have already mentioned this to User:Wyss), I think the current image caption is excellent, and I applaud him for his high quality compromise. For me at least the issue is resolved. I again suggest that issues not directly related to this page (Discussions of Bush image management tactics, user conduct, wiki policy etc...) be conducted elsewhere. Cheers, User:Sam Spade 18:50, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) I posted as a suggestion "Photographs like this were used to portray Hitler as a kind and loving person". I guess that was the main purpose of such photos, the reality is known and given in the entry. I think that's enough to make the point. User:Str1977 19:30, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) It's true enough the photo promotes "kindness and love" but it contains many other details which act as strong cues for the ''volkish'' style of populism and German nationalism they used as their public image during the 1930s. User:Wyss 19:59, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Yeah, it reminds me of Hitler having walked into a fairy tale. User:Sam Spade 21:11, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::Something tells me someone in the propaganda ministry building back in the 30s thought the same thing. User:Wyss 22:51, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::Sorry guys, but I can't see how this picture promotes "Hitler's populist-nationalist image". ::What other details? The Bavarian dress of the girl, the grain in the background? ::The focus is on Hitler and the girl and IMHO it promotes him being kind, loving, fond of children - all features NS propaganda considered to be essential to the "model of a leader of the German people" - other example his public appearance as being single and only married to Germany. Reality in all these cases of course was quite different. ::This all might be summed up as populist (i.e. pandering proximity to the people), but if one reads the current caption one might ask, what this "populist-nationalist image" actually was. ::Anyway, I'm leaving this thing to you guys. ::User:Str1977 09:14, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) Lots of Germanic Europeans were asking a similar question by 1942. User:Wyss 10:44, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) What question? User:Str1977 21:35, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC) :The "one might ask..." question towards the end of your post. User:Wyss 22:47, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC) == Intro == I think the numbers of the victims shouldn't be here. For example imagine that in the intro of the article about George W Bush the following text would be written "Bush directed the war on Iraq and the War on afghanistan, he led to the death of X Iraqi citizens, Y Afghan citizens and Z American soldiers" --User:Haham hanuka 09:42, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) This article isn't about George Bush. Otherwise, Mr Hitler is notable for lots of stuff, including having precipitated one way or another the deaths of tens of millions. User:Wyss 10:41, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) == Anon edit == An anon changed " In the September 1930 elections the Nazis suddenly rose from relative obscurity to win more than 18% of the vote along with 107 seats in the Reichstag (institution), becoming the second largest party in Germany." to 38%. (emphasis mine) which is correct? --User:Golbez 07:56, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC) :The anon was wrong. Though in July 1932, NSDAP received almost 38% (37.2%), so I guess the anon just got those two elections mixed up, or something. User:Shanes 08:38, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Btw, see National Socialist German_Workers Party#Election_statistics for the election statistics for NSDAP here on wikipedia User:Shanes 08:48, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC) == POV tag == I want to put here this tag because the intro of this article is too negative. Blaming Hitler as the responsible to the death of 11 million people is totally wrong. In addition I think that all the "good" stuff about Hitler and Nazism are not mentioned here (e.g. social policy, welfare, green policy, VW and etc). --User:Haham hanuka 14:27, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Let's have an actual discussion first before you add the totallydisputed tag. User:Linuxbeak | User_talk:Linuxbeak | User:Linuxbeak/Desk 14:32, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC) He has a point, but on the other hand, out of all Special:Statistics articles, this is perhaps the least likely to achieve NPOV ;) User:Sam Spade 14:41, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) : It's still not true to say it's "totally disputed". That implies it's a completely ludicrous opinion that absolutely no-one holds - clearly not the case. User:Ben Bulben 14:45, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) The opening is not "totally disputed", even among WP editors. AH appeared to be doing some good in the 1930s, however, stuff like the autobahn, the VW (the list is long), even the positive elements of ethnic German nationalism weren't created by him from a void but rather taken from pre-existing elements of German technology and culture. His public image was mostly the result of expert, modern propaganda techniques and ruthless tactics by various internal "security" groups controlled by him. One of the most significant characteristics about him (and this can be gleaned even from his own sometimes- but not always- cryptic remarks on the topic during the early 40s) was his obsession with what he called "International Jewry" and his efforts to "save Germany and the world" by exterminating "it" along with other social and racial impurities as he perceived them. This, one way or another, resulted in the deaths of over ten million people through a program of industrial genocide with few precedents as to scale and method in history and is central to his legacy. The evidence (his last conversations, his political will and testament and so on) indicates he would have largely agreed with this and blew his brains out not from shame, but from the realization of a rational although drug and illness impaired individual that the game was up and the remainder of his life was likely to be short and rather brutal in its suffering. IMO the article begins with an apt and accurate summary for all, even those who might support what he did. Readers are also reminded that he left Germany in ruins, with tens of millions dead including a high proportion of German youth, which is to say (only making a point here), even an extreme, racist German nationalist should be aware of the breadth and depth of Adolf Hitler's catastrophic incompetence and failure as a national political leader. User:Wyss 14:57, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) :I think they are well aware of his failings. If you look into the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), they by no means mirror the fuhrerprinzp and leader worship of the NSDAP. Anyhow, I would ask mr. hanuka to make the needed edits emphasising the good deeds of hitler, rather than putting an ugly dispute header up. Lets do whats best for the reader, they want to read an excellent article, not become aware of the extent of our editorial disputes ;) User:Sam Spade 15:02, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) :::The last line of AH's political will and testament essentially exhorts the world to continue exterminating jews. He didn't ''even'' see it as a "negative", so I don't fully grok how User:Haham hanuka, who in the past has promoted edits depicting AH as a one-dimensional characature of evil, has now decided that mentioning genocide in the opening is "too negative" and "totally wrong." ;) User:Wyss 15:35, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::::I was quite taken aback as well; I wondered if his account had been hijacked. User:JayjgUser_talk:Jayjg 16:17, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) ==Alleged abuse by Alois== I reverted an edit likening Alois' discipline of AH and his siblings to that of a concentration camp. Tacitly transferring responsibility for the deaths of millions over to his father is not only rash (gross speculation), but unsupported by the evidence. Paula Hitler, for example, when debriefed by American intelligence agents after the war, made no mention of receiving abuse from her father and while she did say AH was punished frequently for misbehavior such as tardiness she gave no indication it was excessive or unusual for the circumstances in that time and place. User:Wyss 13:18, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC) :I've always heard the abuse was severe, but I believe thats interpretive. Hitler himself suggested he often recieved a beating, but also seemed to feel it was deserved and appropriate. He had a quote to the effect of "I loved my mother, but I ''respected'' my father". User:Sam Spade 17:19, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::That's rather the same sense Paula seems to give in the transcript of one of her OSS debriefings. Lots of biographers have tried to characterize Alois' treatment of young Adolf as harsh physical and psychological abuse but the primary sources don't support it. For example, there is zero evidence these "almost daily thrashings" were pummelings or woundings. The vocabulary must be taken in the context of the time and place (and by the bye I've never read in any scholarly source that Alois ever thought he might have killed the boy, as one editor recently asserted). To make a point, throughout history lots of stern, slapping fathers have created problems for their sons, most of whom didn't go on to choose careers in industrial genocide. User:Wyss 05:05, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC) ==Nazi Economics== from [http://reason.com/9908/bk.mm.nazi.shtml] Nazi Economics By Michael McMenamin Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris, by Ian Kershaw, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 845 pages, $35.00 Adolf Hitler was "wholly ignorant" of economics, Ian Kershaw boldly writes in his excellent new study, Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris. What the dictator did know was politics and how to achieve public support--Hitler was an immensely popular leader with approval ratings even Bill Clinton would envy--and early on, he made it clear that economics would be subordinate to politics. One odd result of Hitler's decision is that few of his biographers have paid much attention to his economic policies prior to the Nazis' first overt military act, the reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936. Indeed, if they pay any attention at all to the subject, '''most merely accept Nazi propaganda claims of Hitler's "economic miracle" in restoring Germany's prosperity. Kershaw's book is a welcome exception to this tendency.''' The general view that Germany's shattered economy surged to life in the first few years of the Nazi regime is typified by Sebastian Haffner, a German writer whose short book The Meaning of Hitler (1979) received extravagant praise in John Lukacs' recent The Hitler of History. As Haffner put it, "Among these positive achievements of Hitler the one outshining all others was his economic miracle....In January 1933, when Hitler became Reich Chancellor, there were six million unemployed in Germany. A mere three years later, in 1936, there was full employment. Crying need and mass hardship had generally turned into modest but comfortable prosperity. "Almost equally important: helplessness and hopelessness had given way to confidence and self-assurance. Even more miraculous was the fact that the transition from depression to economic boom had been accomplished without inflation, at totally stable wages and prices. Not even Ludwig Erhard succeeded in doing that later in post-war Western Germany." Haffner is hardly alone in his glowing evaluation of Hitler's supposed economic miracle. In his highly influential Origins of the Second World War (1961), British historian A.J.P. Taylor similarly gave the Nazis credit for creating widespread prosperity, concluding, "The Nazi secret was not armament production; it was freedom from the then orthodox principles of economics. Government spending provided all the happy effects of mild inflation; while political dictatorship, with its destruction of trade unions and rigorous exchange control, prevented such unfortunate consequences as a rise in wages, or in prices." Kershaw's version of things more accurately reflects what was really happening in Germany from 1933 through 1935. '''Hitler's economic policies were systematically wrecking the German economy and were rapidly painting him into a corner where his only choices were war or a loss of power.''' Hitler, argues Kershaw, was deathly afraid of inflation and a repetition of the early 1920s. Nevertheless, he had to reduce unemployment or he wasn't going to last long enough to begin rearming Germany, a public goal of his since the '20s. Increasing exports was not a possibility since, unless the German government devalued the mark (as Britain had done with the pound and the United States with the dollar), German exports couldn't compete in a way that would add new jobs or bring needed foreign exchange. Hitler nixed devaluation because he thought it was a step on the road to inflation. Tax cuts were also out of the question because he believed they led to less revenue not more growth. Hitler's solution for both the rearmament and unemployment problems was the same: massive deficit spending. In fact, by Kershaw's account, the Nazi government guaranteed some 35 billion ReichMarks to the German armed forces alone over an eight-year period, along with massive road building, subsidies to the auto industry, lots more bureaucrats to enforce all the new controls and regulations, and bribes to women to get married and stop working. Did such policies reduce unemployment from 6 million in 1933 to 1 million three years later? Not exactly. Statistics from Dan Silverman's Hitler's Economy (1998) show that unemployment was reduced in Germany from 34 percent or about 6 million people, in January 1933, to 14 percent, or 2.5 million people, in January 1936. That's a dramatic reduction, to be sure, but hardly full employment. Even the 2.5 million number is extremely unreliable, as Stephen Roberts, an economic historian at Australia's University of Sydney who lived in Germany in the mid-'30s, explained in his 1937 work, The House That Hitler Built. The "official statistics naturally tell only part of the story," wrote Roberts. "They do not take into account the Marxians, Sociali