Adolf Hitler - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Adolf Hitler , born on April 20th, 1889 with Braunau amndt In, in Austria, deceased on April 30th, 1945 with Berlin, is a German politician which founds the dictatorship of the Third Reich. It is chancellor Reich, then is elected president (title which it forsook for that of Führer ). Carried by the party which it took again in 1921, NSDAP ( Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ), at the head of the Third Reich, it was at the origin of the Second world war.

Convinced, as he will write it in Mein Kampf , to be indicated by the Destin, he engages in policy. End 1919, it adheres to the DAP, future NSDAP (or Nazi party). Shining Speaker and propagandist except par, it mobilizes many partisans quickly. Being based on the German claims at the conclusion of the First World War (by denouncing the treated of Versailles), then on the consequences of the economic crisis of the the Thirties, it reaches the chancellery of Reich the January 30th 1933.

In a few months, from January to July 1933, the Weimar Republic rocks in the Dictature and terror. At the same time Reichspräsident and Reichskanzler (president and chancellor of Reich) after the plebiscite of the August 19th 1934, it becomes Führer (guide). He violates the Traité of Versailles by rearming the Germany, while occupying and by annexing territories, benefitting from the passivity of the European powers which fear a new war. September 1st 1939, the attack deliberated on the Poland will cause the Second world war.

Parallel to its policy of nationalist aggression, it implements one of largest the Génocide S of the History. It thus orders the elimination of the handicapped people, the Tzigane S, the homosexual , the Franc-maçon S, the communist , the resistant , the Témoins of Jéhovah, “asocial”, and, in accordance with what it lets foresee in Mein Kampf , the systematic extermination of the Juif S. Principal instigator of the “Final solution”, he responsible for died for approximately 6 million human beings in the Concentration camps and the Death camps, as at the time of slaughters of mass on the face of the East by Einsatzgruppen .

Encircled by the Red Army , it commits suicide in its bunker with Berlin the April 30th 1945. In full military rout, the Third Reich survives to him only a few days. The principal persons in charge of the mode will be judged at the time of the Procès of Nuremberg.

Youths

Adolf Hitler is born the April 20th 1889 in the inn Gasthof zum Pommer , Vorstadt NR. 219 , with Braunau amndt In, a small town of High-Austria close to the border austro - German. It is the fourth of the six children of Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl. The majority of the children die in low age; only his/her younger sister Paula († 1960) will survive to him.

Qualities Hitler, the father of Adolf, is customs officer. Born except marriage the June 7th 1837, Alois bears initially the family name of his/her mother, Maria Anna Schicklgruber, but the June 6th 1876, it is legitimated and obtains one year later the right to bear the name “Hitler”. Adolf will never use other patronym, and “Schicklgruber” will re-appear only later at its political opponents.

The Family tree of Adolf Hitler however lets plane strong suspicions of consanguinity. Uncertainty relative to its origins is not without consequence. Thus after the Anschluss in 1938, it will make destroy Döllersheim, the native village of his/her father, by transforming it into field of fire.

The childhood of Adolf occurs under the strict discipline from an old father, civil servant reprocessed as of 1895. The January 3rd 1903, his/her father dies, followed the December 21st 1907 by his/her mother who succumbs to a breast cancer.

Poor pupil starting from his entry in Realschule of Linz (college), Hitler refuses to follow the paternal way. Become orphan, alive of a small purse, it fails by twice the examination of entry of the Academy of the Art schools of Vienna in 1907 and the October 8th 1908. Autodidact, large reader and admiror of the music of Richard Wagner, just like his friend August Kubizek, it develops a major interest for the Architecture. He connects the odd jobs, alive in a constant misery during five years. Later, in Mein Kampf , he will write:

Adolf Hitler attends the meetings of the Austrian Parliament, he will write later his contempt for the Démocratie and the Parlementarisme. He studies the theses pangermanists and observes the influence of the policy on the masses.

In spring 1913, to enrôlement prevent its enrôlement in the army of the Empire Austro-Hungarian, multiethnic State that he exècre, he flees with Munich and lives by selling his paintings of landscapes. Its attempt to escape the conscription is noticed, but, after being refused during an medical examination on its return in Austria (for “too weak” constitution), it turns over to Munich.

The First World War

In 1914, exalté by the entry in war of the Germany, Hitler engages like volunteer. It fights on the western face in the 16th regiment of Bavarian infantry. Enthusiastic soldier, it is appreciated of his pars and superiors, who refuse however an advance to him, judging that it does not have qualities of a chief. He fulfills throughout almost all the war the mission of Estafette between the officers. At the end of September 1916, its division leaves for the Bataille the Sum. Hitler is wounded first once at the thigh, on October 7th. It returns to be made look after in Germany, at the hospital of Beelitz, close to Berlin. After an assignment with Munich, it reconsiders the face of Flandres. In the night from October 13rd to 14th 1918, on a hill of the south of Werwick, close to Ypres (Belgium), its unit undergoes a British bombardment with the Mustard gas. Touched with the eyes, it is evacuated towards the hospital of Pasewalk, in Poméranie. Hitler is decorated with the Croix of iron 1st class (distinction seldom granted to a committed soldier but easily granted a Estafette, because of its contacts with the officers) to have achieved the dangerous transport of a dispatch. Ironically, this decoration is given to him on recommendation of a Jewish officer.

Whereas Germany is about to capitulate, the revolution gains Berlin and Kaiserliche Marine mutine. The Kaiser Guillaume II abdicates and leaves for the Netherlands with its family. The Socialist Philipp Scheidemann proclaims the République. Two days later, the new capacity signs the Armistice of 1918. Of its bed of hospital, Hitler is destroyed by this advertisement. Il affirms in Mein Kampf to have had a patriotic vision there. To its exit of hospital in November 1918, it turns over in its regiment of Munich. Later, he will write that the war had been “the most unforgettable time and most sublime”.

The political combat

The Bavaria is then between the hands of a revolutionary government, the Räterepublik (" Republic of the councils ") ; its barracks is directed by a Soviet (" council "). Disgusted, Hitler leaves Munich for Traunstein. However, in 1919, whereas the capacity is hesitant between Communists of the KPD and social democrats of SPD, Hitler are made elect deputy of its barracks, first once when the capacity in Bavaria east with the hands of the SPD, then one second time as a deputy assistant under the transitory Communist regime (April-May 1919), right before the takeover of Munich by the troops. Hitler therefore did not adhere to these parties, and it is probable that the soldiers knew its nationalist political opinions.

In Mein Kampf , Hitler gives this episode a rather elliptic account, but rather clearly as for its vision of the world:

“In March 1919, we were of return to Munich. The situation was intolerable and pushed with the continuation of the revolution. The death of Eisner did nothing but accelerate the evolution and led finally to the dictatorship of the Soviet S, for better saying, with a momentary sovereignty Jews, which had been originally the goal of the promoters of the revolution and the ideal which they rocked.

During this new revolution of Soviets, I uncovered myself for the first time in such way that I attracted myself the evil eye of the Soviet central.
The April 27th 1919, I was to be stopped, but the three strapping men did not have courage necessary in the presence of the rifle directed on them and were turned over from there as they were venus.
A few days after the delivery of Munich, I was designated to belong to the Charged commission of the investigation into the revolutionary events in the 2nd regiment of infanterie.
It was my first active function with political character. ”

Hitler remains in the army until the March 31st 1921 and is charged to supervise a political bunch, the Parti working German ( Deutsche Arbeiterpartei , DAP).

Noticed at the time of the one of its interventions, it ends up adhering to it, and transforms it into NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (“Left national Socialist the German workers”). In April 1921, he becomes the chief of the party. Because of its talents of speaker and political agitator, the party gains quickly in popularity.

In January 1922, Hitler is condemned to three months of prison (including two with deferment) for “disorders with the law and order”. It will purge this sorrow between June and July 1922 with Munich. Hitler is threatened to be expelled of Bavaria.

The 8 and November 9th 1923, it lead the Coup d'etat fallen through known like the Putsch of the brewery. NSDAP is prohibited at once. Decree, Hitler is shown of conspiracy against the State and is condemned on April 1st 1924 to five years of imprisonment for “high treason”, which it purges with the prison of Landsberg amndt Lech. During its detention, he writes Mein Kampf ( My combat ), autobiography and political proclamation. After only 13 month of detention and in spite of the given opposition of the Prosecutor Stenglein, it benefit of an early release the December 20th 1924. Fearing to be expelled towards the Austria, Hitler gives up the Austrian Nationalité the April 30th 1925. Become Stateless person, and although it is interdict of word in public until the March 5th 1927, it rebuilds its party and finds a certain popularity. It is of this time that date the appearance on stage of Joseph Goebbels, one of its more faithful supports. In 1928, NSDAP however seems to mark time and pains to go up the slope: only 2,6% of the voters grant to him their confidence with the legislative elections of the May 28th.

But political instability (death of Gustav Stresemann, falls of the chancellor Hermann Müller, replaced by the conservative government and authoritative of Heinrich Brüning of the Zentrum) and especially the catastrophic consequences of the Crise of 1929 on the German economy very dependant on the the United States, bring to a striking down and unforeseen NSDAP success to the elections of the September 14th 1930: with 18,3% of the voices and 107 seats, the Nazi party becomes the second of the Reichstag).

The Septennate of the president Hindenburg finishing the May 5th 1932, the line and the Zentrum, in order to avoid new elections, propose to renew the presidential mandate tacitly. The agreement of the Nazis being necessary, Hitler requires the resignation of the chancellor Heinrich Brüning and new parliamentary elections. Hindenburg refuses. The February 22nd 1932, Joseph Goebbels announces the candidature of Adolf Hitler for the Presidency of the Republic. The February 26th, Hitler is opportunely named Regierungsrat , civil servant of State, which confers German nationality automatically to him.

After an electoral campaign without precedent in the field of the Propaganda, Hitler obtains 30,1% of the voices to the first turn the March 13rd 1932 and 36,8% with the second turn in April. Hindenburg is re-elected. At the time of the regional polls which follow the presidential election the NSDAP reinforces its positions.

In 1932, the situation is degraded from the points of view economic and social (more than 6 million unemployed to the end of the year). Agitation and the political insecurity are with their roof. The government is unable to join together a majority. Engaged in an arm wrestling with Hitler, the president Hindenburg always refuses to name it Chancelier. All the attempts at conciliations fail. Even the fall of popularity of NSDAP to the elections of November does not start of anything its determination.

The accession with the capacity

The diplomacy hitlérienne

The diplomacy of the Third Reich is primarily conceived and directed by Hitler in person. Its successive Foreign Ministers (Konstantin von Neurath then Joachim von Ribbentrop) relay its directives without showing personal initiatives. The diplomacy hitlérienne, by its set of alliances, audacities, threats and deceptions, is an essential wheel of the strategic ends which the Führer works towards.

Opposition to the Treaty of Versailles

October 14th 1933, Hitler withdraws Germany of the Société of the Nations and the Conférence of Geneva on the Désarmement, while making pacifist speeches. The January 13rd 1935, the the Saar plebiscite massively (90,8% of Yes ) its fastening in Germany.

The March 16th 1935, Hitler announces the re-establishment of the obligatory military service and decides to carry manpower of the Wehrmacht of: 100000 with: 500000 men, by the creation of 36 additional divisions. It is about the first obvious violation of the Traité of Versailles.

In June of the same year, London and Berlin sign a naval agreement, which authorizes Reich with becoming a maritime power. Hitler launches a program of massive rearmament then, in particular creating naval forces ( Kriegsmarine ) and air ( Luftwaffe ).

“Let us see! Reflect! Appointment counts what is logical! ”

The Winter Olympics of 1936 of Garmisch-Partenkirchen constituted a formidable window for propaganda but especially to make forget its policy of the accomplished fact and put at the foot of the wall the the United Kingdom and France in what Hitler projected to do. In January 1936, Bertrand de Jouvenel, young journalist being with the plays of winter took the initiative to contact Otto Abetz, which is an itinerant representative of Reich, to ask for an interview of Hitler to him. Abetz will see a good communication appropriateness there to thwart the ratification of the Franco-Soviétique pact by a vote of the House of Commons having to take place the February 27th. The day before publication, the owner of Paris-Evening, Jean Prouvost prohibits the diffusion of the article, which in fact will be required by the president of the council Albert Sarraut. Finally, the article will be published, the shortly after the vote in the newspaper Paris-Midday of Friday February 28th. Which was the goal of the Germans? To make delay the publication for then saying that the good intentions of Hitler had been hidden with the French and thus adopting counter-measurements. For this time Ci, it will be about the violation of the Traité of Versailles (1919) and of the Accords of Locarno by the remilitarization of the Rhineland the March 7th 1936.
Here what Hitler in its interview in Paris-Midday will say, gauged for the French public: … You known as: " Is Hitler makes us peaceful statements, but in good faith? Is it sincere? " Isn't this a puerile point of view only yours? Wouldn't you instead of you to deliver to psychological riddles, make better reason while using of this famous logic to which the French declare themselves attached so? Isn't it obviously with the advantage of our two countries of maintaining positive ratios? Wouldn't it be ruinous for them between-to be shocked on new battle fields? Isn't it logical that I want what is most advantageous with my country, and, which is most advantageous, is not this obviously peace?
… It is quite strange which you consider still possible a German aggression! Don't you read our press? Don't you see that she abstains from systematically any attack against France, that she speaks about France only with sympathy?
… Jamais a German leader did not make you such openings if repeated. And do these offers emanate from which thus? Of a pacifist charlatan who had a speciality of the international relations? Not, but of the largest nationalist than Germany ever had at its head! Me, I bring to you what no one other could never have brought to you: an agreement which will be approved by 90% of the German nation, the 90% which follow me! Please take guard with this:
Il has there in the life of the people of the decisive occasions. Today France can, if she wants it, put an end forever to this " danger allemand" that your children from generation to generation, learn how to fear. You can raise the frightening mortgage which weighs on the French history. The chance is given to you to you. If you do not seize it, think of your responsibility with respect to your children! You have in front of you Germany whose nine tenth trust full their chief, and this chief says to you: " Let us be friendly! ". The reactions to this interview are all convergent through Europe, from London to Rome while passing by Berlin. All the commentators greet the words of peace of Hitler and each one sees the beginning of a bringing together there with four. However, owing to the fact that this interview intervenes after the ratification of the Franco-Soviet pact, certain German commentators will have hard words with regard to Edouard Herriot, of Albert Sarraut and Flandrin, reproaching them for having signed with Soviet.

As of the March 7th 1936, Hitler reconsiders its words of peace in remilitarizing the Rhineland, violating once again a clause of the Traité of Versailles as well as the Accords of Locarno. It is a blow of bluff: Hitler gave like instructions to its troops to be withdrawn in the event of response of the French Army. However, although the German army, at this time is much weaker than its adversaries, neither the French, nor the English consider it useful to oppose remilitarization. Success is bright for Hitler.

Alliances

In July 1936, Hitler gives its support for the nationalist insurrectionists of the general Franco at the time of the Guerre of Spain. It forwards of the transport aircraft to make it possible the colonial troops of Spanish Morocco to cross the Straits of Gibraltar at the time of the first crucial days of the insurrection. Just like Mussolini, it sends then military material as well as a task force, the Légion Condor, which will make it possible to test the warlike novel methods, in particular the air raids on the civil populations with Guernica in 1937.

The Nazi Germany and the fascistic Italy (initially hostile on a subject as the Anschluss) approach, a relation described by Benito Mussolini like the Axe Rome-Berlin, during the signature of the treaty of friendship of October 1936. This bringing together was accelerated by the ousting of Italy of the Société of the Nations, following its aggression against Ethiopia. In May 1939, the two countries sign a military treaty of alliance, the Pacte of Steel.

In November 1936, Germany and the Japan sign the Pacte anti-Comintern, treated mutual assistance against a possible aggression of the USSR, to which joint Italy in 1937. This same Hitler year meets with Nuremberg the prince Yasuhito Chichibu, younger brother of the emperor Hirohito, in order to harden the bonds between the two states. In September 1940, the signature of the tripartite Pact between Third Reich, Italy and the Empire of Japan, formalizes the co-operation between the powers of the Axis to establish a “new order”. This pact will oblige Germany to declare the war in the United States after the attacks Japanese on Pearl Harbor.

Anschluss

The crisis of Sudètes

The aggression of Poland and the Pact germano-Soviet

After the Austria and the Czechoslovakia, it tower comes from the Poland. Wedged between two hostile nations, Poland of Józef Piłsudski signed with Reich a treaty of non-aggression in January 1934, thus thinking of guarding against the Soviet Union. The influence of France, traditional ally of Poland, in Central Europe decreased thus considerably, tendency which was confirmed then with the dismemberment of the Czechoslovakia and the disintegration of the Little Entente (Prague, Bucharest, Belgrade), alliance placed under the patronage of Paris.

In spring 1939, Hitler asserts the annexation of the free Ville of Dantzig. In March, Germany already annexed the town of Memel, possession of the Lithuania. Then, Hitler directly asserts the Corridor of Dantzig, Polish territory lost by Germany with the Traité of Versailles in 1919. This area gives to the Poland an access to the the Baltic and separates the Eastern Prussia from the remainder of Reich.

The August 23rd 1939, Ribbentrop and Molotov, Foreign Ministers of Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact. This pact is a new reverse for the French Diplomatie. In May 1935, the government of Pierre Laval had signed with the USSR a treated mutual assistance, which resulted in to cool the relations of France with Poland, but also with the Tories with the capacity in London. With the non-aggression pact germano-Soviet, France cannot count any more on the USSR to threaten expansionist Germany. Moreover, Poland is taken out of clipper. Germany and the USSR were appropriate of a division of their zones of influence: Western Poland for the first, Eastern Poland (Polésie, Volhynie, Galicie Eastern) and Baltic States for the second.

August 30th 1939, Hitler launches an ultimatum for the restitution of the Corridor of Dantzig. Poland refuses. This time, France and the United Kingdom are decided to support the attacked country. It is the beginning of the Second world war.

The diplomacy hitlérienne during the war

Once France overcome in 1940, Hitler puts into orbit the Central European countries: Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria. Hitler obtains the accession of Hungary and Bulgaria, old overcome First World War, in their respectively offering half of the Transylvania and the Dobroudja, yielded by Romania, where the general pro-hitlérien Ion Antonescu seizes the power in September 1940. As from June 1941, Hitler involves Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania in the war against the USSR, as well as the Finland, which sees an occasion there to repair the wrongs of the Russo-Finnish Guerre.

However, Hitler fails with regard to the pro-Franco Spain . Cash on the recognition of the Caudillo which gained the Spanish Civil war mainly thanks to its support, it meets it with Hendaye on October 23rd 1940. Hitler in particular hopes to be able to obtain the authorization of Franco to conquer Gibraltar and to cut the English transportation routes to the Mediterranean. The counterparts required by Free (in particular of the territorial compensations in French North Africa), whose country is in addition ruined, are unrealizable for Hitler, which wishes to somewhat spare the Régime of Vichy to bring it on the way of the Collaboration. This one will be officialized besides the following day by Pétain at the time of its interview with the Führer with Montoire.

In November 1941, the Large Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin Al-Husseini, meets Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, wishing to lead them to support the Arab nationalist cause. It obtains from Hitler the promise “which once the war against Russia and England will be gained, Germany will be able to concentrate on the objective to destroy the Jewish element remaining in the Arab sphere under British protection”. Amin Al-Husseini relays propaganda Nazi in Palestine and in the Arab Monde and takes part in the recruitment of Moslem combatants, concretized by the creation of divisions of Waffen-SS Handschar, Kama and Skanderberg, mainly made of Moslems of Balkans.

This support of the Nazis for the Large Mufti of Jerusalem is contradictory with the policy anti-semite in the years 1930, which has as a consequence the emigration of most of the German Jews towards the Palestine. As for the Large Mufti, his strategy is guided by the principle according to which the enemy of its enemies (in fact English and Jews) must be his ally. From the hitlérien point of view, it is primarily a question of shaking the positions of the British empire in the Middle East in front of the projection of the Afrikakorps and of allowing the recruitment of auxiliaries, in particular to fight against the partisans, whereas the hemorrhage of the German army becomes problematic.

Adolf Hitler in visit in Paris

The June 18th 1940, Hitler visits Paris for the first time, but in a fast way. It reviews the troops of the detachments of the Wehrmacht which ravel in front of Von Brauchitsch and the general Fedor von Bock, commander-in-chief of the group of armies B. the evening, it returns to Munich to meet Benito Mussolini and to examine the request for suspension of hostilities addressed by Philippe Pétain.

Sunday June 23rd, he visits second once the capital, always in a short and discrete way. As of 6 hours of the morning, it enters to the Opéra, which it visits thoroughly. It takes the Boulevard of the Madeleine and the Royal Rue to go to the Invalides and meditates lengthily in front of the tomb of Napoleon. Hitler poses for the photographers on the esplanade of the Trocadéro, back turned to the Eiffel Tower. Then, he visits the Jardin of Luxembourg. To finish, it descends the Boulevard Saint-Michel to foot, its two remote bodyguards. With the Place Saint-Michel, it goes up in the car. It will return never again to Paris.

The Second world war

Successes and domination of Europe

Hitler had “brilliant” intuitions, at the time of the first phase of the Second world war. The Wehrmacht applies the Blitzkrieg (lightning war, implying a large-scale use and concentrate of the bombers and armoured tanks), which enables him to occupy successively the Poland (September 1939), the Denmark (April 1940), the Norway (April May 1940), the Netherlands, the Luxembourg and the Belgium (May 1940), the France (May June 1940), the Yugoslavia (April 1941) and the Greece (April May 1941). Six of these countries (Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, Yugoslavia), neutrals, are attacked by surprise. Hitler often expressed with its collaborator close relations his feeling according to which the diplomatic treaties or of non-aggression which it signed in the name of Germany was not, for him, which papers without real value, only intended to deaden unfavourable mistrust.

Autodidact as regards military culture, Hitler judges that the generals of the old school dominating the Wehrmacht, often resulting from the Prussian aristocracy (generally scorned by the Nazis which is considered revolutionary), are exceeded by the designs of the modern war ( Blitzkrieg , psychological warfare) and are of a too careful temperament. Military successes are before all those of young talented generals such as Heinz Guderian or Erwin Rommel, which can show of audacity, initiatives and has a design of the war more innovative than their adversaries. However, Hitler itself shows a certain skill and strategic audacity. It is thus persuaded that France will not move while Poland is invaded, avoiding in Germany fighting on two faces, which is indeed the scenario of the Drôle of war. It is also mainly at the origin of the plan known as “von Manstein”, which allows, by invading Belgium and Holland, to trap the Franco-British forces projected too ahead and to take them with reverse by an opening in the the dismantled Ardennes, to isolate the best from the unfavourable troops driven back in Dunkirk in May - June 1940. However, Hitler orders with its troops to mark a stop in front of the port from where re-embark the English troops, order qualified later “miracle of Dunkirk”.

The invasion of France in June 1940 is a true triumph for Hitler which is acclaimed by a massive crowd on her return to Berlin. Before the invasion of Russia one year later, Germany hitlérienne dominates Europe, occupying the Bohemia-Moravie, the Poland, the Denmark, the Norway, the Netherlands, the Belgium, the Luxembourg, the France, the Yugoslavia and the Greece. With its military successes and the disappearance of the French influence in Central Europe, the Slovakia, the Hungary, the Romania (of which the oil fields are a continual obsession for Hitler during the war) and the Bulgaria, while adhering to the tripartite Pacte during the year 1940, fall into the orbit from Germany, placing at its disposal of the bases for future actions.

Between June 1940 and June 1941, the only adversary of the Nazi Germany is the the United Kingdom supported by the the Commonwealth. Hitler, rather inclined with cordial relations with the English, hopes that the British government will end up negotiating peace and not to intervene more on the continent. Hitler counts on the action of the Luftwaffe, then the attacks of the submarines against the convoys of goods (battles of the Atlantic), to make fold the United Kingdom. But on this point, the determination of Winston Churchill, which contrasts with the excuses of its predecessors, opposes the plans of the Führer . In addition, the underwater war with excess brings the United Kingdom closer to the United States, concerned of the freedom of trade and navigation.

Errors and failures

Hitler proves also and especially to be an unmethodical and unforeseeable commander-in-chief, scornful of the opinion of its staff. It can count on the very great servility of this one, and initially of the chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, high command of the armed forces), Wilhelm Keitel. At Hitler, a frequent lack of realism often doubles the odd strategic ones. Its first large error undoubtedly was to open a second face, by invading immense the Soviet Union without to have finished the war against the the United Kingdom. Persuaded to have a monumental task that it will have of the evil to carry out in only one life, it wishes to attack the USSR, principal and doctrinal adversary, within a short time. Moreover, the Führer is unconscious of many problems of the face. Accommodating very badly the bad news and all that does not correspond to its plans, its subordinates hesitate to transmit certain information to him.

With the launching of the Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union in June 1941, Hitler, considering that the Red Army will collapse quickly, plan to reach before the end of the year a line Arkhangelsk - Astrakhan. It divides its army into three groups: the Northern Group of army (GAN) having for objective Leningrad, the Group of army Centers (GAC) having for objective Moscow, and the Group of Southern army (GAS) having for objective the Ukraine. To this device are added the Finnish allies to North, Hungarian, Rumanian and Italian with the South, the latter being regarded as not very reliable by Hitler and its staff. In August 1941, Hitler gives the priority to the conquest of the Ukraine, economic objective with its cereal grounds and its mines, by the GAS. By doing this, it obliges the GAC to stop, whereas it had arrived to 300 kilometers of Moscow and that it had already traversed more of the double in one month. The offensive on this sector takes again in October, but this hitch utilizes a frightening adversary: the Russian winter. Hitler neglected this factor as much as it underestimated, because of its hatred of Slavic and of Communism, the quality of the Soviet troops. The arrival of fresh troops of Siberia enables them to release Moscow and to make move back Germans badly prepareds with the hard climatic conditions. The Wehrmacht then lost: 700000 men (killed, wounded, captive), is a quarter of its manpower on this face.

In December 1941, after the failure of the Germans in front of Moscow, Hitler directly takes the command of the Wehrmacht on the Russian face, évinçant the general von Brauchitsch. During the offensive of summer in Russia of the South in 1942, it repeats the error of the previous year by dividing a group of army into two, making it thus more vulnerable. The group has moves towards the the Caucasus and its fields of Pétrole, the group B moves towards Stalingrad.

Until the rout of 1945, Hitler orders continuously with its troops, on some face that it is, not to move back, in spite of the power struggles largely in favor of the Soviets or the Allies, or the conditions of the ground, that it never notes on the spot. This attitude is particularly obvious at the time of the Bataille of Stalingrad, when he refuses with the army encircled of Friedrich Paulus the permission to operate a retirement. Again, he refuses to evacuate North Africa, taken out of clipper by the Americans and the English, in spite of the councils of Erwin Rommel at the time of the Campagne of Tunisia in February - May 1943. These two refusal of retirement cost each time approximately: 250000 killed or prisoners with the German army.

At the time of the Battle of Normandy, Hitler delays the sending of Panzerdivision in to reject the allied forces, thinking that the Opération Overlord is a diversion and that the true unloading must take place in the Pas-de-Calais, which was besides the objective of the Opération Fortitude, intoxication of the allied secret services. In August 1944, it orders to the general von Kluge to carry out a counter-attack with Mortain to divide the opening of the American troops with Avranches. However, the German troops committed in this operation cannot advance until their objectives because of the massive allied bombardments, and they are taken in a bow net closed again by George Patton and Montgomery, in the Poche of Cliff where: 50000 Germans are made prisoners. Paris is released a few days later, intact, although the Führer had ordered its destruction (see Dietrich von Choltitz). The capital of Poland does not have the same chance, because after the Insurrection of Warsaw, in August - September 1944, more of the third of the city is shaven on personal order of Hitler.

The attack of July 20th, 1944

Hitler has escaped with several attempted murders. The 8 November 1939, at the time of the annual commemoration of sound putsh missed to the brewery Bürgerbräukeller, Hitler escapes an attack orchestrated by Johann Georg Elser. The bomb explodes 20 minutes after the departure of Hitler which had had to curtail its speech because of the bad climatic conditions obliging it to take the train rather than the plane. As the exit of the war was specified in the direction of a defeat, several graded military plotted with civilians to eliminate Hitler. Although the Allies expressed the choice of a unconditional surrender at the time of the Conférence of Anfa, in January 1943, entreated hope to reverse the mode in order to negotiate a political payment of the conflict. Among them, the admiral Wilhelm Canaries, chief of the Abwehr (secret services), Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, the former mayor of Leipzig, or the general Ludwig Beck. This last, after the demolished of Stalingrad, starts the plot under the name of Opération Flash, but the bomb placed the 13 March 1943 on the aircraft of Hitler, in visit on the face of the East, does not explode.

The July 20th 1944, with the Wolfsschanze , Hitler is wounded in a attack at the time of an attempt at Coup d'etat officers organized by Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, which is repressed hard. Compromises, the marshals Erwin Rommel and Günther von Kluge are obliged Suicide R, while the admiral Canaris is sent in a Concentration camp.

The final defeat and death

The orders of Hitler to its troops become increasingly unrealistic taking into account crushing the superiority of the Red Army and the Alliés. The meetings between Hitler and its chief of staff (since July 1944) Heinz Guderian are increasingly surging and this last ends up being returned on March 28th. In front of its close relations, Hitler declares that the “weapons miracles” (whose V1, V2 and the first jet fighters Messerschmitt Me 262) will reverse the situation, or which the Allies will stop fighting the Third Reich to attack the Soviet Union.

In the last months of the conflict, Hitler, whose health declines quickly, does not appear any more in public and remains most of the time in Berlin. It is Joseph Goebbels, the chief of the Propagande, in addition police chief with the defense of Berlin and person in charge of the Volksturm , which is given the responsability to exhort the troops and crowd.

Convinced that Germany will not be able to survive a defeat become inescapable, Hitler orders the March 19th 1945 the destruction of industries, the military installations, the stores and the means of transport and communications. This order will not be respected. Albert Speer, Minister for the armament and architect of Reich, claimed in front of the court of Nuremberg which it had taken the necessary measures so that the directives of Hitler are not achieved by the Gauleiter S.

The April 30th 1945, whereas the Red Army encircles Berlin, Adolf Hitler Suicide in company of Eva Braun which it had just married, in the Führerbunker . It is generally supposed that the poison used by Eva Braun was Cyanure of Potassium, but the historian Ian Kershaw supports that the poison provided to all the occupants of the bunker was Prussic acid . With regard to Hitler, one found the body with his weapon of service. One often finds the assertion according to which it would have bitten the capsule right before or almost at the same time as it drew a ball in the temple, but Kershaw affirms that it is impossible to draw just after having bitten such a poison, and concluded with died by ball alone; many other theses circulate, implying sometimes that another drew the ball, but they are classified like whimsical. In its political legacy, it draws aside Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, which it shows of treason. First is shown to have tried to reverse it and the second to have negotiated in secrecy with the Allies. For Himmler however, recent research brings to think that it would have negotiated with the allies on order of Hitler itself. It designates the admiral Karl Dönitz like successor. Its body is incinerated by its driver Erich Kempka and its aide-de-camp Otto Günsche, in a crater of bomb close to the bunker.

Racial doctrines

Racial theories

Hitler had presented its racial theses and anti-semites in his book Mein Kampf ( My combat ), written in 1924, during its imprisonment in the fortress of Landsberg, after its putsch missed by Munich. If its success were modest initially, it drawn with more than ten million specimens and was translated into sixteen languages until in 1945; it constitutes the reference of orthodoxy Nazi of the Third Reich.

In this book, Hitler exposes its racist theories, implying an inequality and a hierarchy of the races, and its particular aversion for the Slaves, the Tzigane S, and especially the Juif S. Présentés like lower races, they are described as Untermensch in (“submen”). According to Hitler, the Jews are a race of “parasites” or “vermin” of which it is necessary to disencumber Germany. It makes them responsible for the events of the November 9th 1918 (abdication of the emperor and proclamation of the Weimar Republic, preludes to the transitory revolution Spartakiste). Persons in charge, therefore, according to him, of the German defeat, as of what he considers the cultural decline, physical and social of alleged Aryan civilization. Mein Kampf recycles the Théorie of the Jewish plot already developed in the Protocoles of Wise of Sion . Hitler nourishes its Antisémitisme and its racial theories while referring to Idéologie S sails about it in its time. With Vienna, during its youth, the Jews, integrated well in the elite, are often shown decomposition of the empire of Austria-Hungary. The hatred of the Jews is exacerbated by the defeat of the First World War. As for its ideas on the human races, Hitler primarily holds them of Die Grundlagen of the neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (“Genesis of the nineteenth century”, 1899) of the British of German expression Houston Stewart Chamberlain, whose theses took again themselves those of the Essai on the inequality of the human races (1853) of the racialist French Gobineau; it is also inspired by the social Darwinisme of Herbert Spencer such as the Deutsche Monistbund preached it (“League German monist”) founded by Ernst Haeckel.

Hitler also includes in Mein Kampf the old doctrines pangermanists of creation of a “vital space” German ( Lebensraum ) in Eastern Europe. According to these doctrines, the territories inhabited by Germans must be unified. They must then be widened, because considered to be too narrow taking into consideration material need for their populations and in an uncomfortable strategic position between hostile powers in the west and the east. Hitler also targets two fundamental adversaries: communist and France, considered as dégénérescente (because directed by the Jews and creating a multiethnic colonial Empire), and against which Germany must be avenged for humiliating Traité for Versailles.

Adolf Hitler is obsessed by the idea of purity of an alleged Aryan race, the “higher race” whose Germans are supposed being the worthy representatives, as well as the other Scandinavian people (Norwegian, Danish, Swedish). With an aim of sitting this concept of Aryan race scientifically, pseudo-anthropological research is undertaken and of the exempted courses of university. (Himmler creates a scientific institute, the Ahnenerbe ). In fact, the Aryens were a group of wandering tribes living in Central Asia with and without bonds with the Germans. Always it is that the concept of “Aryan” becomes with Hitler a whole of phantasmagoric values that the scientists Nazis tried to justify by alleged objective data. The “Aryan race” is comparable with the esthetic guns of the Germanic man: large, fair and athletic, such as Arno Breker represents it, the favorite sculptor of Hitler. In parallel, Hitler develops an private interest for the Paganisme Scandinavian pre-Christian, in conformity with his racial theories than a too humanistic Christianisme. The religion of the gods Wotan and Thor had in particular been glorifiée by the operas of Richard Wagner, whose Hitler was an enthusiastic admiror. Heinrich Himmler was faithful the hitlérien which pushed this passion further, and one finds this mythological symbolism in the uniform and the ritual ones of the S, “knights black” of the Third Reich.

Repression anti-semite

In Germany Nazi, the Juif S were excluded from the community of the German people ( Volksgemeinschaft ). April 1st 1933, the Jewish doctors, lawyers and tradesmen are the object of a vast campaign of boycott, implemented in particular by SA. These militia created by Hitler had already perpetrated, as of the beginning of the Années 1920, of the acts of violence against the Jews. The April 7th, two months after the arrival of Hitler to the capacity, the Law “for the re-establishment of a professional public office” excludes the Jews from any employment in the governments (except the war veterans and those which had been in service for more than ten years).

September 15th 1935, Hitler, officializing a Anti-semitism State hitherto a41dernier $c-b1, e,10 $c-b26 ce $c-b16 $c-b43, bn,84 moderated, proclaims the Lois of Nuremberg, including/understanding the laws “for protection of blood and the German honor” and “on the citizenship of Reich”. Those prohibit to the Jews the access to the uses of the public office and the stations in the universities, enrôlement in the army or the practice of liberal professions. They cannot have driving license any more. The Jews are deposed of their German nationality and the mixed marriages or the sexual relationships between Jews and Germans are also prohibited. The objective is the complete segregation between the German people and the Jews, which is valid also for the schools, housing or public transport. In 1937, a “law of aryanisation” aims at dispossessing the Jews of the companies which they have. Heavily struck by these discriminatory measurements, the German Jews emigrate massively: approximately: 400000 departures in 1933 - 1939 by counting the Austrians (on approximately: 660000), towards Americas, the Palestine or Western Europe.

In the night from November 9th to 10th 1938, it is true a Pogrom, the Nuit of crystal, which Joseph Goebbels at the request of Hitler organizes, the pretext being the assassination in Paris of a diplomat of Reich by a German Jew. The Jewish stores are ransacked and the majority of the Synagog S are burnt. Close to: 30000 Jews are interned in concentration camps (Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen). Following these events, the Jewish community, held for person in charge of violences, is summoned to pay a fine of one (1) billion mark S. the goods of the Jews are massively despoiled.

To note that among the Germans entered in resistance, very little did it because of these anti-semites measurements. The German population, embrigadée in that by the propaganda of Goebbels or Streicher, was convinced of the existence of a “Jewish question”. This conditioning will support the participation of many between-them in the extermination of the Jews.

The final solution

Allusion to the physical extermination of the Jews in Mein Kampf is the subject still of a debate of historians. For part of between-them, this project was not explicitly described in this book, while the other part estimates that the anti-semitism which is expressed there is not only alarming, but is based on a terminology ( Ausrotung ) significant. The project of total extermination of the Jews could germinate in the spirit of Hitler and its devoted henchmen rather early, but it does not seem that it established of precise plan or methodology to pass to the act before the war. Nothing seems to state, that initially, it was envisaged by the leaders Nazis what was to be the finality of the first anti-semites measurements. However, according to the words of the American public prosecutor Robert Jackson at the time of the Lawsuit of Nuremberg, “the determination to destroy the Jews was a force which, at each time, cemented the elements of the conspiracy (Nazi)”. In fact, the declarations of Adolf Hitler on the Jews show that, as of the beginning, it nourished the physical project of destruction of the Jews and that the war was for him the occasion to announce this destruction, then to comment on the implementation of it.

The leaders Nazis considered a long time, among other “solutions” like the creation of zones of relegation, to expel the whole of the German Jewish community without exterminating it, but no phase of concrete realization was engaged. Projects of installation of the Jews in Africa (Plane Madagascar) were in particular considered. The release of the war radicalizes persecutions anti-semites within Third Reich. The prolongation of the war against the the United Kingdom does not make it possible any more to consider these deportations, just as the idea of a displacement of the Jews of Europe in Siberia is abandoned. The occupation of the Poland in September 1939 placed under German control more: 3000000 of Jews. Those are quickly parked in Ghetto S, in the Polish main cities. The attack against the Soviet Union, starting from June 21st 1941, place on the same plan the conquest of the Lebensraum and eradication of the “judéo- Bolchevism”. Units of the S, the Einsatzgruppen , often assisted by units of the Wehrmacht, on the face of the East.

The January 20th 1942, at the time of the Conference of Wannsee, fifteen persons in charge of Third Reich, under the presidency of the chief of RSHA Reinhard Heydrich, work out the “final solution with the Jewish problem” ( Endlösung der Judenfrage ), that is to say the total extermination of the Jews in Europe. Hitler forever formally written an order, but these decisions respected the general orientation of its objectives. Himmler, Heydrich and Göring took the most significant part in the administrative installation of the Shoah at the top of the State. On the ground, the extermination of the Jews was often the fact of local initiatives, officers of the S. Two collaborator close relations of Hitler, Hans Frank, general governor of the Poland, and Alfred Rosenberg, Minister for the Territories of the East, also took an active share there. At the time of the summer 1942, Himmler retains the process of massive execution by the gas chambers tested with Auschwitz. On the whole, close to: 1700000 Jews, especially of Central and Eastern Europe, were gauzes with Sobibor, Treblinka, Belzec, Chelmno and Maïdanek. In the Concentration camp and extermination of Auschwitz-Birkenau: 1000000 of Jews perished.

Tziganes

The genocide of the Tzigane S or Porajmos is another consequence of the racial theories Nazis. Third Reich set up the central Office for the fight against the danger Tzigane. Regarded at the same time as “asocial” and racialement inferiors, the Tziganes of Europe were off-set towards and the extermination concentration camps of Poland. Only the tribe of the Sinti escaped this fate, being supposed not to be “not debased” (paradoxically, the Tziganes are originating in the north of the India, cradle of the race Aryen for the Nazis). During the Second world war: 240000 Tziganes (on: 700000) were exterminated in Europe (primarily in the East and in the Balkans), mainly with the assistance of the Collaborateur S of the occupied territories.

Slavic “submen”

The extension of the German Lebensraum was to be fatally carried out at the expense of the populations Slaves pushed back towards the East. For Hitler, the Poland, the Baltic States, the Bielorussia and the Ukraine were to be treated like colonies. On this subject, Hitler would have said, according to Hermann Rauschning, in 1934: “Thus is binding on us the duty to depopulate, as we have that to cultivate the increase in the German population methodically. You will ask me what “depopulation means”, and if I intend to remove whole nations? Eh well, yes, it is about that. Nature is cruel, we thus have the right to be it also”.

The nonGermanic populations are expelled of the territories annexed by Third Reich after the defeat of Warsaw in 1939, and are directed towards the general Gouvernement of Poland, entity completely vassalized. As of October 1939, the central Office of safety of Reich (RSHA), program the “physical liquidation of all the Polish elements which occupied any responsibility in Poland (or) which will be able to take the head of a Polish resistance”. Are aimed at the priests, the teachers, the doctors, the officers, the civils servant and the tradesmen important, the land great landowners, the writers, the journalists, and in a general way, any person having carried out higher learning. Commandos S are in charge of this work. This extremely hard treatment will have caused the death of almost: 2200000 Poles. By counting them: 3000000 of Jewish S Polish, it is approximately 15% of the Polish civil population which disappeared during the Second world war.

With the invasion of the USSR, repression against the Slavic ones takes a more massive turning, although certain populations, in particular the Ukrainian nationalists were initially laid out to collaborate against the Stalinist mode . Soviet the prisoner salary captured by the Germans was particularly inhuman: : 3700000 of them on: 5500000 die of hunger, exhaustion or disease. The political police chiefs are systematically killed. The actions of the partisans are the occasion of pitiless reprisals, as well in the USSR as in Yugoslavia. Approximately: 11500000 Soviet civilians die thus during the Second world war.

Victims of the euthanasia

The racial doctrines Nazis also implied “to improve German blood”. Massive sterilization S, applied with the assistance of the doctors, were thus undertaken as of 1934, bearing on close to: 400000 “asocial” and sick hereditary. In addition: 5000 trisomic children , hydrocéphales or motor disabilities disappear.

With the war, a vast program of Euthanasie of the mentally ills is launched under the name of code “Action T4”, under the direct responsibility of the chancellery of Reich and for Karl Brandt, personal doctor of Hitler. Hitler ensures in 1939 impunity the doctors selecting the people sent to death, thus releasing from the places in the hospitals for the war wounded. As for the Jews, the victims are gazées in false shower-rooms. In spite of the secrecy surrounding these operations, the euthanasia is condemned publicly by the bishop of Münster in August 1941. It ceases officially but continuous in the concentration camps. Approximately: 200000 schizophrenic , epileptics, senile, paralytic were thus carried out.

Hitler, economy and the German company

Hitler and socialism

Hitler rejected into the same contempt Capitalisme and Marxisme. Its racist Nationalisme transcended capital/social traditional cleavage: he dreamed of people linked by a Race and a common Culture. The Propagande hitlérienne is primarily guided by considerations of political opportunity, but comprises points of fixing: the Nationalism and anti-Marxism, follow-ups of near by an obsession of the racial “purity”.

He is clearly worried by the problem of national cohesion and speaks about “vital space” for the development of the Germans in general. Having endured itself of the deprivations at the time where it roved to Vienna in its youth, it bitterly notes then with rage the impéritie of a Démocratie weakened and méprisable.

During the Years 1920, it had to waver between the tendencies “droitists” (of the army and the traditional line, of the employers which financed its party) and “gauchists” (of some of its partisans, like Ernst Röhm or Gregor Strasser which required a social revolution as much as nationalist). After the lamentable failure of the putsch of 1923, its problem consists to collect and preserve a maximum of voice in order to conquer the capacity electorally.

The brutal Pragmatisme economic of Hitler is implemented thanks to the dictatorial capacity which he assumed by the dissolution in fact of the Weimar Republic in 1933 - 1934. In a few years, the German economy is given on foot inter alia thanks to public jobs created by the State national-Socialist (Autoroute S, works of general interest, etc). Rearmament will intervene only later, after revival of the economy.

According to William L. Shirer, in its book on the Third Reich, it also decreases by 5% all the Salaire S in the country, making it possible to release from the resources to start again the economy. What seems to confirm, always according to Shirer, nature interventionist, even keynésienne of its directives.

After the purging of Röhm and the Liquidation of SA, Hitler refuses the idea of a social revolution. It makes a point of keeping positive ratios with those which enabled him to seize the power, i.e. the large industrialists, unquestionable financial and the Armée. There one sees also his hatred of any idea Marxiste. Thus, one of its first measurements to its come to power will be the suppression of all the Syndicat S.

The Austrian liberal economist Ludwig von Mises observed into 1944 that the Nazism had applied the majority of the measures recommended by Proclamation of the Communist party of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Eights of the ten points (of Proclamation of the Communist party of Marx and Engels) were carried out by the Nazis. Only two points yet were not completely adopted by the Nazis, namely expropriation of the land and buildings and the assignment of the ground rent to the national expenditure (not n°1 of Proclamation) and the abolition of the heritage (not n°3). However, their methods of taxation, their agricultural planning and their policy concerning the limitation of the tenant farming go each day in the direction of the Marxism.

The industrial relations policy and economic hitlérienne

As of May 1933, Hitler makes dissolve the Syndicat S, to leave the place to the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF), German Front of work, unit organization Nazi E, directed by Robert Ley. The DAF made it possible to the owners to require more their employees, while guaranteeing to those a job security and a Social security. Officially voluntary, adhesion in the DAF is in fact obligatory for any German wishing to work in the Industrie and the Commerce. Several under-organizations depended on the DAF, of which Kraft durch Freude (the Force by the joy), in charge of the leisures of the workers.

In 1934 is open close to Berlin a new factory of the Dehomag, in the presence of a celebrity of the party Nazi, Arthur Görlitzer, member of the administration Sturmabteilung. This factory will get new means with German industry thanks to the Technologie of the Mécanographie and the Perforated cards.

Between 1934 and 1937, the Minister for the saving in Hitler, Hjalmar Schacht, former director of Reichsbank, has the role of supporting the intense effort of rearmament of the Third Reich. To achieve this goal, it sets up hazardous financial montages, digging the deficit of the State. In addition a policy of great work, relating in particular to Highway S (already planned by the preceding governments), is continued, thus developing a policy keynésienne of Investissement S of the State.

The Chômage drops clearly, passing from 3,5 million unemployed in 1930 with: 200000 in 1938. However, Schacht considers that the Investissement S in military industry threaten the German economy in the long term and wishes to modify this policy. In front of the refusal of Hitler which regards rearmament as an absolute priority, Schacht leaves its station.

Dreams of architect

One of obsessions of Hitler was the complete transformation of Berlin. As of its accession with the capacity, he works on town-plannings with his architect Albert Speer. He was thus envisaged a series of great monumental work, of neo-classic inspiration , in order to carry out “new Berlin” or Welthauptstadt Germania. The war will oppose these projects, and only the new chancellery, inaugurated in 1939, was completed. The Architecture was probably the greatest passion of Hitler.

Historical legacy

Anecdotes and rumors

Adolf Hitler would be at the origins of Volkswagen (“the car of the German people”) and in particular of the Coccinelle. Adolf Hitler would have met Ferdinand Porsche on this subject and would have spoken to him about a popular car being able to transport 5 people, to reach a cruising speed of 100 km/h, to consume approximately 7 liters for 100 km and not costing more: 1000 Reich Marks with an aim that each one can offer a car. The prototype was called KdF-Wagen ( Kraft durch Freude ).

allied propaganda spread the assertion that Hitler would have had one Testicule. On this subject, the Alliés sang “ Hitler has only one ball ” (“Hitler has only one testicle”), on the air of the Marche of the Colonel Bogey .

a recurring rumor claims that Hitler was only house painter; a wild caricature of Sennep perhaps contributed to anchor the legend. It has in fact left of the watercolours, estimated with the number of: 2000, certainly without particular genius, but which testifies, at least, owing to the fact that it was able to paint some and that it in any case had very good bases in this technique. On the other hand, during its years of galère, after having failed the examination of entry in the Art schools, Hitler occupied an use of operation, as it mentioned in Mein Kampf .

Fifty forgeries Carnets of Hitler were published in Germany by the magazine Stern in 1983, whereas they had been carried out by a forger named Konrad Kujau. Paris Match bought at ransom price exclusiveness for France…

Rumors postmortem

Many rumors circulated on the possibility that Hitler would have survived the end of the war. FBI carried out surveys until 1956 into hundreds of more or less serious tracks. But as of the fall of Berlin, the Soviet secret services had recovered most of the body.

In June 1946, the witnesses, captive of NKVD directed by Lavrenti Beria, are transported to Berlin, in the park of the bunker. They indicate the place where they ignited, then buried the body of Hitler and that of its wife.

The site corresponds to the exhumation carried out by SMERSH one year earlier. One benefits from it to proceed to new excavations and one unearths four cranium fragments. Largest is transpierced by a ball.

The autopsy carried out at the end of 1945 is partly confirmed: the doctors indeed noted there the absence of a showpiece of cranium, that which precisely makes it possible to conclude that Hitler committed suicide by firearm. The puzzle is from now on complete.

These elements however are not diffused by Beria. Stalin itself is not held by it informed, which perhaps explains why he suspected the Westerners of having collected the deposed dictator. As for the remainders of the Hitler husbands, they are moderately forgotten. 1970 should be waited until, and the era Brejnev, so that the chief of the KGB Youri Andropov makes them destroy by fire.

But the cranium and the teeth of Hitler, preserved in the files, escape the cremation. One does not learn the existence from it that after the fall from the USSR. In 2000, the upper part of cranium of the dictator becomes even one of curiosities of a Muscovite exposure organized by the Federal service of the Russian files to mark the fifty-fifth birthday of the end of the war.

Enigmatic aspects of the character

It is established that Hitler gave specific orders so that Johann Georg Elser, the author of the attack of Munich which could have killed it neither was carried out, nor even put in a situation where its days would be in danger. Why? Perhaps to organize a great lawsuit at the end of the war. Elser was all the same interned in a camp and was assassinated little before the German defeat.

It also gave orders so that a certain number of Germans of Jewish origin being distinguished during the First World War did not worry. This point was in the beginning a request for Hindenburg. This point of view is to be brought closer to the sentence of Göring, I am that which decides which is Juif and which is not it.

Hitler took as symbol for its movement the Svastika (Croix-gammée), already symbol of various racist organizations (in German, “Volkisch”) like the Company of Thullé. The swatiska is at the base Indian, and is signs of life. The nationalist symbol used as of the end of the 19th century took it again with identical, but in opposite direction, as to also turn over the significance of it (the “Viva the muerte” of the Spanish phalange S was not far) ; it will be also noticed that safety that Mussolini, taken again thereafter by Hitler starting from 1926, required its troops was exactly that of the legionaries of the Roman Empire greeting the Emperor, but also Gladiateur S which carried out it before dying (the famous rite of Ave Caesar, morituri salutant you ).

Point that some judge neglected by the majority of the historians: mystical doctrines from which Hitler and other persons in charge of the Nazism would have drawn their inspiration for the development of the policy national-Socialist, and the reports/ratios which Führer would have maintained with the universe the occult sciences (source: Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, the Morning of the Magicians , introduction to the fantastic Realism, Folio, 1960).

It is often refers to the fact that Hitler was Végétarien. That would be due to a medical regulation of order (which it did not respect with the letter). Albert Speer and Robert Payne, two of the most important biographers of Hitler show in their books than Hitler was not vegetarian. If it were it would not have made banish the organizations vegetarians of Germany when it arrived at the capacity. It stopped their persons in charge and put an end to the publication of the principal review vegetarian published in Frankfurt. Persecution Nazi forced the German vegetarians either to leave the country, or with living in clandestinity. Dione Lucas, which worked with the hotel Hamburg before the war remembers how it was to prepare for Hitler its favorite dish: I would not like to cut you the appetite for the roast pigeon , she in her book of kitchen writes, but you will be interested of knowing that it was the favorite dish of Mr Hitler, who very often dined with the hotel .

Adolf Hitler chose on June 22nd, 1941 to begin the Opération Barbarossa, the day which follows the summer solstice, where the Sun is with its apogee. Set on astrology, having adopted the Swatiska to represent its ideology, (which symbolizes in the Scandinavian Mythologie the hammer of Thor whirling in the sky as being the Sun); difficult to find a simple coincidence there, when it is known that even during the last days Adolf Hitler read astrological forecasts with Eva Braun in the Führerbunker .

Hitler and right of the animals

“In new Reich, there will not have any more to be of place for cruelty towards the animals. ” (Extracted from a speech of Adolf Hitler, these remarks inspiring the law of November 24th, 1933 on the protection of the animals: “Tierschutzgesetz”). According to its authors, Giese and Kahler, this law wants to be in rupture with the theses anthropocentrists of Christian civilization: the animal is now protected as being natural, for what it is, and not compared to the men. A whole humanistic tradition, even humanitarist, defended the idea that was needed, certainly, to prohibit cruelty towards the animals, but more because it translated a bad provision of the human nature, even because it was likely to encourage the human beings with violence, that because it carried damage to the animals as such. This law of animal protection has been for a few years in the center of a debate of historians: paternity Nazi of major ecology has evil to achieve the unanimity, although IIIe Reich promulgated the most important legislations which are at the time touching protection of nature and of the animals. The will propagandist of this legislation is not however any doubt, the Nazi regime wishing to look after its image at already powerful associations German ecologists and according to Elisabeth Hardoin-Fugier, who wrote the test " the legislative protection of the animal under the nazisme" , this one was not really followed in practice and was used only with ends as propaganda.

Glances of the contemporaries

Benito Mussolini declared with Ostie, in August 1934 during a discussion with the press and of the Austrian friends:

“Hitler dreadful is degenerated sexual and insane dangerous. National-socialisme in Germany represents the wild Barbarie and it would be the end of our European Civilization if this country of assassins and pederasts were to submerge the continent. However, I then to be always the only one to go on Brenner”.

Erwin Rommel in October 1938 after having accompanied and having ensured the safety of Führer during the annexation of the Sudètes:

“Hitler has a magnetic capacity on crowd; who rises from the faith in a mission which would have been entrusted to him by God. He starts to speaking on the ton about prophecy. It acts on the impulse and seldom under the empire of the reason. It with astonishing faculty to gather the essential points of a discussion and to give him a solution. A strong intuition enables him to guess the thought of the others. It can handle with skill the flattery. Its infallible memory struck me much. He by heart knows books which he read. Whole pages and chapters are photographed in its spirit. Its taste of the statistics is surprisingly developed: it can align very precise figures on the troops of the enemy, the various reserves of ammunition, with a real masterliness which impresses the staff of the Army. ”

Leon Degrelle interviewed in 1981, described Hitler which it met at the summer 1933:

“Hitler was a man like the others, he did not resemble of nothing to the politicians whom I had had the occasion to meet up to that point. It was an extremely simple man, vêtu simply, speaking simply, very calm, contrary to all that one could tell. It was full with humor and very funny in its conversation. On all the questions, policies, economic, social or cultural, it was carrying absolutely new sights, which it expressed with a clearness and a conviction which involved the adhesion of its listeners. It could conquer the individuals and crowd by the strange radiation of its personality. ”

Cultural descriptions and representation

Psychoanalytical interpretation

Person in charge of the European part of the second world war having made between forty and sixty million deaths, the character of Hitler crystallized such an animosity that it is advisable to consider interpretations of his behavior with much of retreat.

In its book of 1983 Am Anfang war Erziehung (translated into French under the title It is for your good ), Alice Miller analyzes the bonds between its education " répressive" and the continuation of its biography and advances the explanation which the behaviors violent one of Hitler would find their origin in his infantile traumatisms.

His/her mother had married a man older than it 23 years, and than it called “uncle Aloïs”; his/her three children died in a few years around the birth of Adolf, leading this last to be surprotégé. It regularly would have been beaten and ridiculed by his father; after an attempt at running away, it would have been almost beaten with death. Adolf hates his/her father during all his life and one reported that it about it made nightmares at the end of his existence. When the Nazi Germany annexed the Austria, Hitler made destroy the village where his/her father had grown.

With the cinema

Triumph of Willens ( Triumph of the will ), film dating from the time Nazi (1935), turned by Leni Riefenstahl. Film with character propagandist, without narration, filmed to give the best possible image of Hitler to the congress of Nuremberg, from August 30th to September 3rd, 1933. One sees scenes there where Hitler is filmed of very low bathing in the light, giving him a majestic air. For the time of the innovations were introduced there like the circular dollies at the time of the speeches, and very great plans at the time of parades. It gains a price of honor in France like better documentary of the year. This film preceded the laws by Nuremberg and the beginning of the racial policy of IIIe Reich, which explains its success partly abroad.
Among the many representations with the Cinema, Charlie Chaplin ridiculed Hitler in its film of 1940 the Dictator ( The Great Dictator ): the dictator in question indeed has as a double a small Jewish hairdresser who will take his place and will finish film on a humanistic speech moving. For the little story, Hitler made prohibit film in Germany, but a copy got some which it was made twice project into private. To the United States, following pressures of the United Artists, this film could leave only six months after the end its turning.
last ten days of Hitler , a film of 1973, where the dictator is incarnated by Alec Guinness.
In 1999, the Russian realizer Alexandre Sokourov Hitler place at the beginning of its trilogy on the capacity in the film Moloch , one weekend the impressionist account to the Eyrie of the couple Hitler- Eva Braun.
Mrs Meitlemeihr , short film of 2002 with Udo Kier in which Hitler survived the war and hides in London disguised as a woman.
In 2003, Hitler - the birth of the evil (Canada/the United States), gives a lighting on the youth of Hitler and its rise to the capacity (until 1934). This film, towards which the historians will undoubtedly be critical, has the merit to show the genesis of the dictator, and the Germany such as it knew it at the time when it sets up his “combat”, whereas he is yet only one “candidate” in policy. To note that the film was censured by TF1 (approximately forty minutes of cut scenes) which acquired the rights for France.
In 2003 max , realized by Menno Meyjes, tells the history between Adolf Hitler (played by Noah Taylor), at the time young artist, and max, Jewish artist amputee of the right-hand man. Max encourages Hitler to exorcize on the fabric its angers, its hatreds and its fears. Gradually, Hitler becomes heinous towards the Jews what will lead to the horror that one knows.
In 2005 leaves the Fall ( Der Untergang ), realized by Oliver Hirschbiegel, with in the role of Hitler, the Swiss actor Bruno Ganz. This film tells the last days of Führer in its bunker.
Lors of its exit, this film poked the polemic. One in particular reproached him for showing a too human face of the dictator of Germany.
Currently, the film " Mein fuhrer" unchain passions in Germany owing to the fact that it presents Hitler like a comic subject. The history will judge.

Various and uchronic creations

Hitler was often used as character in works of fiction. An early example of it is encrypted description in the part written in 1941 by Bertolt Brecht, the Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui , in which Hitler is transposed in the person of a racketeer mafioso on the market of cauliflowers to Chicago.
In the collection of news of Dino Buzzati K , the named news Pauvre little boy contains a rather unexpected fall…
Roald Dahl also wrote a small news on Adolf Hitler in KIS KIS , collection of news to black humor, it is entitled a true story .
One of strangest late works of Salvador Dali was '' Hitler masturbating '', the representative in the center of a sorry landscape.
In its novel Undertaking , Jean Genet proposes a vision homoerotized of Führer, as well as a poetic glance on the reports/ratios which violence Nazi and sexual attraction maintain.
Dream of iron (The Iron Dream, 1972) a Uchronie of Norman Spinrad: certain Adolf Hitler, not managing to found a political movement, emigrates with the United States, writing of the novels of heroic fantasy, including one, the Lord of the Swatiska , account enchased in the book of Spinrad with its foreword and postface explaining a world not having known the Nazi regime.
These boys who came from Brazil , Franklin J. Schaffner (1976), tells an attempt at cloning of the late dictator by the disaster Doctor Mengele.
Fatherland , of Robert Harris is a Uchronie which puts in scene a thriller in Europe where Third Reich triumphed over Alliés in 1944.
the Share of the other , of Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, is a novel uchronic which shows us what could have become the world if, at this precise moment of October 8th, 1908, the jury of the School of the Art schools of Vienna had pronounced “Adolf Hitler: admitted”. He writes in parallel the life of Hitler with that which he would have had if he had been allowed.

Chancellors of Germany

See too

Shoah
Conference of Wannsee
NSDAP
the night of crystal
the night of the long knives
Paintings of Hitler

Random links:

The Mask and the Feather | Nicolas de Tavernost | University of Bolton | Jun' ichi Kakizaki | Veselinovac