FREE ESSAY ON THE RISE AND FALL OF HITLER

THE RISE AND FALL OF HITLER

The Rise and Fall of Hitler
Adolf Hitler did not come to power in the traditional revolutionary manner. He attempted
to take control by force one time and failed. This landed him in prison. The second time
Hitler was ready and by manipulation and lies he got himself elected to political office.
By March 23, 1933 Hitler was dictator. The rise and sudden fall of Hitler had a
sensational effect on people and nations around the world.
Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau, Austria. His mother was Klara Hitler
and father was Alois Hitler. Alois worked as a customs officer on the border crossing.
Hitler's ancestors were peasants, small independent farmers or village craftsmen. His
father was the first to break away. Contrary to the impression Hitler conveyed in Mein
Kampf, he was neither poor nor harshly treated. His father advanced steadily in the
service, and ended the highest rank open to a civil servant of his education. He had a
secure income as well as the social standing of an imperial official and when he died he
left his widow and children well provided for. His mom was twenty-two years younger than
his father. Hitler was a choirboy, in the Benedictine Monastery of Lambach. Hitler did
not do well in school. One of the teacher in his high school classified young Hitler as
notorious and willful. Adolf saw no real reason to stay in high school. He left school at
age sixteen without a leaving certificate. In September 1907, Hitler left home taking
with him all the money left to him by his father, who had died a few years earlier. The
money would be enough for tuition and board at the art school in Vienna. Hitler applied
for entrance to the school two times and was rejected both times. His artist career was
over. Hitler then abandoned any thought of further education.
In 1913, Hitler moved to Munich, life for him was not great there until the First World
War started in 1914. While many people were frightened and sad at the thought of a world
war, Hitler was delighted. He held the rank of corporal, an d in forty-seven battles he
served on the Western Front as a dispatch runner, delivering messages back and forth
between the front lines and the officers in the rear. Hitler was disappointed when he
heard the news of Germany's surrender. After the war Hitler was given a job guarding a
post. He was later given an undercover agent job.
As part of Hitler's job, he investigated a party called "the German Workers' party." He
was disgusted how the group had no organization, although he was in favor of many of the
party's ideas. To follow up with his job, he joined the group to make sure they were no
threat to the government. The group was severely hurting by their lack of attendance;
this was mainly due to the lack of communication with the group. Hitler took hold, and
made a drastic change in the publicity the group got. Hitler first succeeded in
attracting over a hundred people to a meeting at which he delivered his first speech to a
large audience. This meeting was a great success and subsequently in February 1920 he
organized a much larger event for a crowd of nearly two thousand in the Munich
Hofbrauhaus. Hitler presented a twenty-five-point program of ideas, which were to be the
basis of the party. The name of the party itself was changed to the National Socialist
German Workers Party or Nazi for short on April 1, 1920. By 1921 Adolf Hitler had
virtually secured total control of the Nazi party.
Up to November 1923 Hitler continued to build up the strength of the Nazi Party. During
this time he also plotted to overthrow the German Weimar Republic by force. On November
8, 1923 Hitler led an attempt to take over the local Bavarian Government in Munich in an
action that became known as the "Beer Hall Putsch." Despite initially kidnapping the
Bavarian officials in the beer hall in Munich and proclaiming a new regime using their
names, the coup was not successful. The officials were allowed to escape and regain
control of the police and the armed forces. The coup was ended on the morning of November
9th, when armed police halted a column of three thousand SA men headed by Hitler and
General Ludendorff on their way to the center of Munich. Hitler fled the scene and was
later arrested and charged with treason. After his trial for treason he was sentenced to
five years in Landsberg prison. During his term in prison Hitler began dictating his
thoughts and philosophies to Rudolf Hess, which became the book Mein Kampf. 
In Mein Kampf, Hitler divides humans into categories based on physical appearance,
establishing higher and lower orders, or types of humans. At the top, according to
Hitler, is the Germanic man with his fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes. Hitler refers
to this type of person as an Aryan. He asserts that the Aryan is the supreme form of
human or master race. In Hitler's thinking, if there is a supreme form of human, then
there must be others less than supreme or racially inferior. Hitler assigns this position
to Jews and the Slavic peoples, notably the Czechs, Poles, and Russians. Hitler stated
that the Aryan is culturally superior. Hitler describes the struggle for world domination
as an ongoing racial, cultural, and political battle between Aryans and Jews. He outlines
his thoughts in detail, accusing the Jews of conducting an international conspiracy to
control world finances, controlling the press, inventing liberal democracy as well as
Marxism, promoting prostitution and vice, and using culture to spread disharmony.
Throughout Mein Kampf, Hitler refers to Jews as parasites, liars, dirty, crafty, sly,
wily, clever, without any true culture, a sponger, a middleman, a maggot, eternal
bloodsuckers, repulsive, unscrupulous, and the mortal enemy of Aryan humanity. This
conspiracy idea and the notion of competition for world domination between Jews and
Aryans would become widespread beliefs in Nazi Germany and would even be taught to school
children. This, combined with Hitler's racial attitude toward the Jews, would be shares
to varying degrees by millions of Germans and people from occupied countries, so that
they either remained silent or actively participated in the Nazi effort to exterminate
the entire Jewish population of Europe. Hitler would later express regret that he
produced Mein Kampf, considering the extent of its revelations. Those revelations
concerning the nature of his character and his blueprint of Germany's future served as a
warning to the world. A warning that was mostly ignored. 
Hitler was released from Landsberg prison in December 1924 after serving only six months
of his sentence. At that time the government banned the Nazi Party and its associated
newspapers and Hitler himself was forbidden from making public speeches. The support for
National Socialism was waning throughout Germany; their voting figures in elections fell
from almost two million in 1924 to 810,000 by 1928. At the same time, Hitler succeeded in
increasing the party membership and developed the organization of the party throughout
Germany with the help of Gregor Strasser who was responsible for the organization of the
Nazi Party in northern Germany. 
The collapse of the Wall St. stock exchange in 1929 led to a worldwide recession, which
hit Germany especially hard. All loans to Germany from foreign countries dried up, German
industrial production slumped and millions were made unemployed. The Great Depression
began and German families were cast into poverty and deep misery, and they began looking
for a solution, any solution. These conditions were beneficial to Hitler and his Nazi
campaigning. By July of the following year Chancellor Bruening, without a parliamentary
majority in the Reichstag, was unable to pass a new finance bill and was forced to ask
President Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and call for new elections for the coming
September. Hitler and the Nazis sprang into action. Hitler campaigned hard for the Nazi
candidates, promising the public a way out of their hardship. When the results of the
election were announced, the Nazi Party had won 6.4 million votes. Overnight the Nazi
party went from he smallest to the second largest party in Germany. 
After the elections of March 5, 1933, the Nazis began a systematic takeover of the state
governments throughout Germany, ending a centuries old tradition of local political
independence. Armed SA and SS men barged into local government offices using the state of
emergency decree as a pretext to throw out legitimate office holders and replace them
with Nazi Reich commissioners. Political enemies were arrested by the thousands and put
in hastily constructed holding pens. Old army barracks and abandoned factories were used
as prisons. Once inside, prisoners were subjected to military style drills and harsh
discipline. They were often beaten and sometimes even tortured to death. This was the
very beginning of the Nazi concentration camp system. Adolf Hitler's goal of a legally
established dictatorship was now within reach. He needed to get and Enabling Act passed
by the Reichstag. On March 23, the newly elected Reichstag met in the Kroll Opera House
in Berlin to vote on the Enabling Act. The vote was taken, 441 for and only 84 against.
Democracy was ended in Germany, and Hitler became dictator legally. 
For the first time, Adolf Hitler turned his attention to the driving force, which had
propelled him into politics in the first place, his hatred of the Jews. Hitler said,
"What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and
our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood, the freedom and
independence of the fatherland, so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the
mission allotted it by the creator of the universe"(Hitler 214). He wanted to make sure
that Jewish people and really anyone other than Aryans would be wiped out. This began
with a boycott on April 1, 1933, and would end years later in the greatest tragedy in all
of human history.
During the years after Hitler took control he set about the "Nazification" of Germany and
its release from the armament restrictions of the Versailles Treaty. Censorship covered
all aspects of life including the press, films, radio, books, and art. The churches were
persecuted and ministers who preached non-Nazi doctrine were frequently arrested and
carted off to concentration camps. The Jewish population was increasingly persecuted and
ostracized form society. Under the Nuremberg Laws of September 1935 Jews were no longer
considered to be German Citizens and therefore no longer had any legal rights. Jews were
no longer allowed to hold public office, not allowed to work in the civil service, the
media, farming, teaching, the stock exchange and eventually barred from practicing law or
medicine. Hitler geared the German economy towards war. 
Hitler ordered the army to be tripled in size, from the 100,000 man Versailles Treaty
limit, to 300,000 men by October of 1934. This was initially ordered to be carried out
under the utmost secrecy. The chief of the navy was given orders to begin the
construction of large warships, way above the maximum size decreed by the Versailles
Treaty. The construction of submarines, also forbidden by the Treaty, had already begun
secretly by building parts in foreign dockyards ready for assembly. Hitler was increasing
the strength of the armed forces, and at the same time said he was going to follow the
clauses of the Versailles Treaty.
This was not going to last. Hitler began to lose World War II. The truth about him was
coming out. Feeling that all was lost, Hitler shot himself on April 30, 1945. By orders
formally given by him before his death, SS officers immersed Hitler's body in gasoline
and burned it in the garden of the Chancellery. Soon after the suicide of Hitler, the
German forces surrendered. The war was officially over; however the world was only
beginning to realize the extent of its horror. Hitler caused the unnecessary death of so
many, leaving people and nations around the world to pick up the pieces and deal with the
effects.
The Rise and Fall of Hitler
Adolf Hitler did not come to power in the traditional revolutionary manner. He attempted
to take control by force one time and failed. This landed him in prison. The second time
Hitler was ready and by manipulation and lies he got himself elected to political office.
By March 23, 1933 Hitler was dictator. The rise and sudden fall of Hitler had a
sensational effect on people and nations around the world.
Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau, Austria. His mother was Klara Hitler
and father was Alois Hitler. Alois worked as a customs officer on the border crossing.
Hitler's ancestors were peasants, small independent farmers or village craftsmen. His
father was the first to break away. Contrary to the impression Hitler conveyed in Mein
Kampf, he was neither poor nor harshly treated. His father advanced steadily in the
service, and ended the highest rank open to a civil servant of his education. He had a
secure income as well as the social standing of an imperial official and when he died he
left his widow and children well provided for. His mom was twenty-two years younger than
his father. Hitler was a choirboy, in the Benedictine Monastery of Lambach. Hitler did
not do well in school. One of the teacher in his high school classified young Hitler as
notorious and willful. Adolf saw no real reason to stay in high school. He left school at
age sixteen without a leaving certificate. In September 1907, Hitler left home taking
with him all the money left to him by his father, who had died a few years earlier. The
money would be enough for tuition and board at the art school in Vienna. Hitler applied
for entrance to the school two times and was rejected both times. His artist career was
over. Hitler then abandoned any thought of further education.
In 1913, Hitler moved to Munich, life for him was not great there until the First World
War started in 1914. While many people were frightened and sad at the thought of a world
war, Hitler was delighted. He held the rank of corporal, an d in forty-seven battles he
served on the Western Front as a dispatch runner, delivering messages back and forth
between the front lines and the officers in the rear. Hitler was disappointed when he
heard the news of Germany's surrender. After the war Hitler was given a job guarding a
post. He was later given an undercover agent job.
As part of Hitler's job, he investigated a party called "the German Workers' party." He
was disgusted how the group had no organization, although he was in favor of many of the
party's ideas. To follow up with his job, he joined the group to make sure they were no
threat to the government. The group was severely hurting by their lack of attendance;
this was mainly due to the lack of communication with the group. Hitler took hold, and
made a drastic change in the publicity the group got. Hitler first succeeded in
attracting over a hundred people to a meeting at which he delivered his first speech to a
large audience. This meeting was a great success and subsequently in February 1920 he
organized a much larger event for a crowd of nearly two thousand in the Munich
Hofbrauhaus. Hitler presented a twenty-five-point program of ideas, which were to be the
basis of the party. The name of the party itself was changed to the National Socialist
German Workers Party or Nazi for short on April 1, 1920. By 1921 Adolf Hitler had
virtually secured total control of the Nazi party.
Up to November 1923 Hitler continued to build up the strength of the Nazi Party. During
this time he also plotted to overthrow the German Weimar Republic by force. On November
8, 1923 Hitler led an attempt to take over the local Bavarian Government in Munich in an
action that became known as the "Beer Hall Putsch." Despite initially kidnapping the
Bavarian officials in the beer hall in Munich and proclaiming a new regime using their
names, the coup was not successful. The officials were allowed to escape and regain
control of the police and the armed forces. The coup was ended on the morning of November
9th, when armed police halted a column of three thousand SA men headed by Hitler and
General Ludendorff on their way to the center of Munich. Hitler fled the scene and was
later arrested and charged with treason. After his trial for treason he was sentenced to
five years in Landsberg prison. During his term in prison Hitler began dictating his
thoughts and philosophies to Rudolf Hess, which became the book Mein Kampf. 
In Mein Kampf, Hitler divides humans into categories based on physical appearance,
establishing higher and lower orders, or types of humans. At the top, according to
Hitler, is the Germanic man with his fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes. Hitler refers
to this type of person as an Aryan. He asserts that the Aryan is the supreme form of
human or master race. In Hitler's thinking, if there is a supreme form of human, then
there must be others less than supreme or racially inferior. Hitler assigns this position
to Jews and the Slavic peoples, notably the Czechs, Poles, and Russians. Hitler stated
that the Aryan is culturally superior. Hitler describes the struggle for world domination
as an ongoing racial, cultural, and political battle between Aryans and Jews. He outlines
his thoughts in detail, accusing the Jews of conducting an international conspiracy to
control world finances, controlling the press, inventing liberal democracy as well as
Marxism, promoting prostitution and vice, and using culture to spread disharmony.
Throughout Mein Kampf, Hitler refers to Jews as parasites, liars, dirty, crafty, sly,
wily, clever, without any true culture, a sponger, a middleman, a maggot, eternal
bloodsuckers, repulsive, unscrupulous, and the mortal enemy of Aryan humanity. This
conspiracy idea and the notion of competition for world domination between Jews and
Aryans would become widespread beliefs in Nazi Germany and would even be taught to school
children. This, combined with Hitler's racial attitude toward the Jews, would be shares
to varying degrees by millions of Germans and people from occupied countries, so that
they either remained silent or actively participated in the Nazi effort to exterminate
the entire Jewish population of Europe. Hitler would later express regret that he
produced Mein Kampf, considering the extent of its revelations. Those revelations
concerning the nature of his character and his blueprint of Germany's future served as a
warning to the world. A warning that was mostly ignored. 
Hitler was released from Landsberg prison in December 1924 after serving only six months
of his sentence. At that time the government banned the Nazi Party and its associated
newspapers and Hitler himself was forbidden from making public speeches. The support for
National Socialism was waning throughout Germany; their voting figures in elections fell
from almost two million in 1924 to 810,000 by 1928. At the same time, Hitler succeeded in
increasing the party membership and developed the organization of the party throughout
Germany with the help of Gregor Strasser who was responsible for the organization of the
Nazi Party in northern Germany. 
The collapse of the Wall St. stock exchange in 1929 led to a worldwide recession, which
hit Germany especially hard. All loans to Germany from foreign countries dried up, German
industrial production slumped and millions were made unemployed. The Great Depression
began and German families were cast into poverty and deep misery, and they began looking
for a solution, any solution. These conditions were beneficial to Hitler and his Nazi
campaigning. By July of the following year Chancellor Bruening, without a parliamentary
majority in the Reichstag, was unable to pass a new finance bill and was forced to ask
President Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and call for new elections for the coming
September. Hitler and the Nazis sprang into action. Hitler campaigned hard for the Nazi
candidates, promising the public a way out of their hardship. When the results of the
election were announced, the Nazi Party had won 6.4 million votes. Overnight the Nazi
party went from he smallest to the second largest party in Germany. 
After the elections of March 5, 1933, the Nazis began a systematic takeover of the state
governments throughout Germany, ending a centuries old tradition of local political
independence. Armed SA and SS men barged into local government offices using the state of
emergency decree as a pretext to throw out legitimate office holders and replace them
with Nazi Reich commissioners. Political enemies were arrested by the thousands and put
in hastily constructed holding pens. Old army barracks and abandoned factories were used
as prisons. Once inside, prisoners were subjected to military style drills and harsh
discipline. They were often beaten and sometimes even tortured to death. This was the
very beginning of the Nazi concentration camp system. Adolf Hitler's goal of a legally
established dictatorship was now within reach. He needed to get and Enabling Act passed
by the Reichstag. On March 23, the newly elected Reichstag met in the Kroll Opera House
in Berlin to vote on the Enabling Act. The vote was taken, 441 for and only 84 against.
Democracy was ended in Germany, and Hitler became dictator legally. 
For the first time, Adolf Hitler turned his attention to the driving force, which had
propelled him into politics in the first place, his hatred of the Jews. Hitler said,
"What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and
our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood, the freedom and
independence of the fatherland, so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the
mission allotted it by the creator of the universe"(Hitler 214). He wanted to make sure
that Jewish people and really anyone other than Aryans would be wiped out. This began
with a boycott on April 1, 1933, and would end years later in the greatest tragedy in all
of human history.
During the years after Hitler took control he set about the "Nazification" of Germany and
its release from the armament restrictions of the Versailles Treaty. Censorship covered
all aspects of life including the press, films, radio, books, and art. The churches were
persecuted and ministers who preached non-Nazi doctrine were frequently arrested and
carted off to concentration camps. The Jewish population was increasingly persecuted and
ostracized form society. Under the Nuremberg Laws of September 1935 Jews were no longer
considered to be German Citizens and therefore no longer had any legal rights. Jews were
no longer allowed to hold public office, not allowed to work in the civil service, the
media, farming, teaching, the stock exchange and eventually barred from practicing law or
medicine. Hitler geared the German economy towards war. 
Hitler ordered the army to be tripled in size, from the 100,000 man Versailles Treaty
limit, to 300,000 men by October of 1934. This was initially ordered to be carried out
under the utmost secrecy. The chief of the navy was given orders to begin the
construction of large warships, way above the maximum size decreed by the Versailles
Treaty. The construction of submarines, also forbidden by the Treaty, had already begun
secretly by building parts in foreign dockyards ready for assembly. Hitler was increasing
the strength of the armed forces, and at the same time said he was going to follow the
clauses of the Versailles Treaty.
This was not going to last. Hitler began to lose World War II. The truth about him was
coming out. Feeling that all was lost, Hitler shot himself on April 30, 1945. By orders
formally given by him before his death, SS officers immersed Hitler's body in gasoline
and burned it in the garden of the Chancellery. Soon after the suicide of Hitler, the
German forces surrendered. The war was officially over; however the world was only
beginning to realize the extent of its horror. Hitler caused the unnecessary death of so
many, leaving people and nations around the world to pick up the pieces and deal with the
effects.