Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler, wearing his Iron Cross 1st Class, his Golden Party Badge and his Wound Badge in Black

Adolf Hitler (b. 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary; d. 30 April 1945 in Berlin, German Reich) was a Austrian-German artist, soldier and politician, who became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, and Reichspräsident (unofficially the Führer) from 1934 to 1945. He led the National Socialist German Workers Party and National Socialist Germany.

In the mid-1950s, nearly half of all Germans polled said ‘yes’ to the proposition that ‘were it not for the war, Hitler would have been one of the greatest statesmen of the 20th century.’

Name

Hitler as a baby

Hitler as a child.

The name "Adolf", short for Adalwulf/Adelwolf comes from Old High German for "Noble Wolf", hence, a nickname of Hitler was "Wolf". The names of some of his headquarters (Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, Wolfsschlucht in France, Werwolf in Ukraine, etc.) reflect this. As a child, Hitler was known as "Adi", the typical short form for Adolf/Adolph.

Outline of Hitler's life

As an alternative to the politically correct view on Hitler, this section will largely cite the 1938 authorized biography Adolf Hitler: A Short Sketch of His Life.

Early life

Hitler's mother, Klara, née Pölzl (1860-1907)

Defendants in the Munich Putsch trial (German: Hitler-Ludendorff-Prozeß) on 1 April 1924 from left to right: Heinz Pernet, Friedrich Weber, Wilhelm Frick, Hermann Kriebel, Erich Ludendorff, Adolf Hitler, Wilhelm Brückner, Ernst Röhm and Robert Wagner.

Left: Adolf Hitler looks out the window of his cell at the Landsberg prison; right: Adolf Hitler looks out the window of his former cell at the Landsberg prison in June 1934 during a visit ten years after his release.

Hitler on his release from Landsberg Prison in December 1924

Adolf Hitler with his guest of honour Benito Mussolini (Roman salute) on 1 September 1937 in München.

In March 1941, Hitler awarded Flight Captain (Flugkapitän) Hanna Reitsch the Iron Cross, 2nd Class, and congratulates with a handshake. Watching are from right: Generalmajor Karl-Heinrich Bodenschatz (liaison officer between the Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe and the Führerhauptquartier), Hermann Göring and adjutant Major von Below (with Adjutantenschnur).

Adolf Hitler and his later wife Eva Braun with their dogs vacationing at the Berghof on 14 June 1942

Adolf Hitler (Berghof)

"ADOLF HITLER was born on April 20, 1889, at Braunau in Upper Austria, close to the Bavarian frontier. Because it is situated on the frontier that divided two branches of the German people, Hitler has spoken of Braunau as representing for him "The Symbol of a Great Task", namely that of uniting all Germans in one State. His father, who was the son of poor peasants from the forest district, had worked himself upwards through his own study and perseverance until he became a civil servant. At the time that Adolf was born his father was Customs Officer at Braunau. Being proud of his own achievement and the status he had reached, his dearest desire was that his son should also enter the civil service; but the son was entirely opposed to this idea. He would be an artist.

When he was thirteen years old Hitler lost his father and four years later his mother died. So that he found himself alone in the world at the age of seventeen. He had attended the primary school and subsequently the grammar school at Linz; but poverty forced him to give up his studies and earn his bread. He went to Vienna, with the intention of studying to be an architect but he had to work for his livelihood as manual labourer at the building trade, where he mixed the mortar and served the carpenters and bricklayers. Later on he earned a daily pittance as an architectural draughtsman. Having to depend entirely on himself, he experienced in his own person from his earliest years what poverty and hunger and privation meant, And so he shared the daily fate of the workers, the "proletariat" in the building trade, and felt where the shoe pinched. Thus it came about that he began to think in terms of social reform during his early years. He busied himself with the political questions of the day."

"Though the years spent in Vienna meant a hard and bitter struggle with life, the experience gained in this school was of inestimable value afterwards. Hitler was now yearning to live as a German in Germany itself, free from the oppression under which the German element had to suffer in that potpourri of nations which made up the Habsburg Empire. So he left Vienna and came to live in Munich. That was on April 24, 1912."

"In those days Munich was the chief centre of artistic and cultural life in Germany. Still hoping to make a name for himself as an architect, Adolf Hitler now devoted as much time and energy as possible to the study of architecture, while at the same time he had to earn his daily bread by designing and colouring placards. Recently he had been doing a good deal of reading for purposes of self-education. He continued this during his artistic studies and work in Munich, making history his speciality, which had been his favourite subject at school. But he went further than this, for he literally denied himself food in order to save the money for visits to the theatre and hearing Grand Opera, especially the music dramas of Richard Wagner, whom he revered as a German artist and reformer in the grand style. It was especially during those years that Hitler laid the foundations of that all round knowledge which surprises everybody with whom he discusses general questions today."

An often unexplored side of Adolf Hitler was his artistic side.

World War I

In 1914, World War I started and Hitler volunteered for the German Army. Less than two months after he had first entered the trenches, he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class for bravery. He was given one of the most dangerous jobs in the Königlich Bayerisches Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 16 of the Bavarian Army, that of dispatch-runner (Melder), requiring courage without being foolhardy. In 1916, he was wounded in the thigh by a shrapnel splinter and had to be sent to one of the home hospitals for treatment. Within a few months, he had recovered and immediately volunteered to return to the front. In 1918, while carrying dispatches, he succeeded in ambushing a French officer and about fifteen men and brought them back prisoners. For this feat he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class. Later in 1918, he was temporarily blinded by a gas attack and was recovering in a hospital when he heard the news that the war had ended.

The Weimar Republic

After the war, Hitler returned to Munich. He was nearly arrested in 1919 by the short-lived and communist Bavarian Soviet Republic for "anti-revolutionary activity". Hitler later worked for the army as an instruction officer, after his great ability at public speech was noticed. He was also ordered to investigate the recently created nationalist German Workers' Party. Hitler made a speech at a meeting, which made a marked impression, and he was asked to join the party. He accepted.

The party gave Hitler control over the propaganda department. Support for the party expanded in part due to Hitler's ability as a speaker. In 1920, the 25 points program was published and the party changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). His authorized biography states that Hitler was already in reality the leader of the party, but that some members took part in an intrigue to get rid of him. The consequence was that at a general meeting of all the members of the Party in 1921, Hitler became the absolute party leader.

From early on, party meetings were attacked by communists. In 1921, the Sturmabteilung or the SA ("Storm Section") was created to guard meetings. Later the Schutzstaffel or the SS ("Protective Squadron") was created.

In 1923, Hitler attempted the coup later known as the Munich Putsch. While in prison for nine months, he started creating the partly autobiographical and partly ideological book Mein Kampf, which was published in 1925-26.

After his release on 20 December 1924, Hitler rebuilt the party, which gained increasing support, despite official attempts to suppress it, such as by bans on public speeches.

The Great Depression had harsh effects on Germany. Social and political unrest increased sharply and support for parties offering radical solutions (nationalists and communists) increased greatly. The NSDAP became the single largest party, but did not gain a majority of the votes. Fear of the communists and difficulty in forming a government without the NSDAP contributed to Hitler being made Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Initially the NSDAP formed a coalition with the national conservative DNVP party.

The confrontations with the communists were by the National Socialists described as being close to a civil war, with up to this time 206 NDSAP party members murdered and 25,000 wounded in attacks. Many feared a communist revolution and rule of terror.

The Reichstag fire on 27 February 1933 caused the passing the next day of the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended many civil liberties and that was used suppress the communists. On 23 March 1933, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which gave wide-ranging powers to the cabinet. In the following months, the NSDAP became the only legal party.

National Socialist Germany

Opinions on National Socialist Germany vary enormously. The politically correct view is a dysutopian totalitarian secret police dictatorship, persecuting Jews and other groups, ruthlessly purging internal dissidents such as Ernst Röhm during the "Night of the Long Knives", rearming and planning to start WWII in order to gain Lebensraum, and especially in fictional descriptions with Hitler as an irrational, frenzied, ranting, erratic, and increasingly mad dictator. See the section "Less politically correct views on Hitler" below as well as the National Socialist Germany article and the "External links" section there regarding other views.

Regarding foreign policy before WWII, both sides may likely agree on some aspects, such as Hitler stating a desire to reverse the argued unfair conditions of the Versailles Treaty. Germany reintroduced conscription and rearmed. The demilitarized zone in the Rhineland was abolished. Germany also united the ethnically German Austria and Sudetenland with Germany. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War started. It developed into a conflict between an increasingly communist dominated side (most notably supported by the Soviet Union) and nationalists (most notably supported by Germany and Italy). The nationalist side won the war in 1939. Various (often anti-communist) alliances were formed with the states constituting the Axis Powers

Badenweiler Marsch

After the death of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg in 1934, the march was used as a personal "Führer-Marsch" for Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler, alongside his possession of a personalised standard, to signal his arrival and therefore personal presence at public events.

World War II

Regarding the causes of World War II (1939-45), see the articles Revisionist views on the causes of the World Wars and Causes of World War II. General WWII topics will not be discussed in this article.

After the landings of Allied forces in Normandy in June 1944, the 20 July plot involved an attempt to take power in a coup and to assassinate Hitler. Hitler survived the bomb with only minor injuries.

Death

The last known photo of Adolf Hitler taken on 29 April 1945 before his death.

In April 1945, Soviet forces were attacking the outskirts of Berlin. Hitler's followers had urged him to flee to the mountains of Bavaria to make a last stand, but had Hitler decided to stay in the German capital. Hitler was informed of the death of Benito Mussolini on 28 April. On 29 April, Hitler dictated his testament.

On 30 April 1945, Soviet troops were within a block or two of the Reich Chancellery and the Führerbunker. Soviet forces, under the influence by anti-German propaganda by propagandists such as Ilya Ehrenburg, committed large scale atrocities against Germans, such as mass rapes of women. Hitler and his new wife Eva, née Braun committed suicide. Their bodies were burned and buried.

On 2 May 1945, Berlin surrendered to the Soviets. When Soviet forces reached the Chancellery, they found Hitler's body and an autopsy was performed using dental records to confirm the identification.

Health

Little is known about Hitler's early medical history. In his younger years, his tonsils must have been removed; scarred areas at least indicate this, although he himself could not remember the operation. Furthermore, as a result of the First World War, he had a scar "about the middle of the left side of the thigh," as Theo Morell noted. Dr. Giesing also mentioned in November 1945: "An old, dull, oval scar about the size of a double pea, deeply indented (longitudinally from bottom to top) was located across the middle of the outside from a World War wound in 1917. Hitler could not tell me whether there was still a bullet fragment in it." But otherwise there were no signs of serious illness. It seems that he had always been a perfectly healthy man and only began to become ill shortly before he met Morell. When Morell once suggested that he have his medical history recorded, Hitler refused. On 31 March 1945, the personal physician wrote the answer in his diary: "I was never ill. There is nothing to note about it." However, Morell did not let himself be deterred from his plan and reminded Hitler of the injury to his left collarbone and upper arm that he had sustained in November 1923 during the so-called Hitler Putsch in the shooting in front of the Feldherrnhalle in Munich. Hitler admitted that his left arm had been paralyzed for a long time, but that strenuous self-exercise had made it fully usable again (Hitler had fallen in the general commotion in front of the Munich Feldherrnhalle and broken his left shoulder blade. When asked in 1945, Morell said that as a result of this fall, the degree of abduction and rotation of his left upper arm had been limited in the following years). In any case, Hitler said, there was nothing to say about it, since he had fully recovered. Hitler considered himself to be basically a perfectly healthy person. When a severe bout of dysentery forced him to stay in bed in the summer of 1941, he apologized to Morell. "Führer said," the doctor noted on 8 August 1941, "that he had never spent a single day in bed since his gas injury in the World War." Further entries, however, paint a somewhat different picture. On 1 December 1944, Morell wrote, after injecting his daily cocktail of glucose, Vitamultin and liver extract: "Very large spasms after tremendous emotional excitement [...] Added to this was dysbacteriosis, probably caused by the spasms. In 1943, before the meeting with Duce, and already with the premonition or knowledge of the impending betrayal of the Italian army: emptiness. In 1944, after the assassination attempt." The spasms that occurred in 1924 could not have been of a serious nature, however, believed Morell.

Less politically correct views on Hitler

General topics

Various less politically correct views involving Hitler can be found in articles such as The Holocaust, Lebensraum, and Revisionist views on the causes of the World Wars.

Hitler as a replacement for the Devil

Hitler has been seen as having an almost religious significance in today's secular Western societies and as having replaced some aspects of the Devil. See the Holocaustianity article.

Alleged statements by Hitler on the Holocaust

Holocaust revisionists obviously criticize important aspects of the politically correct view on Hitler. However, many are critical of various other aspects of National Socialist Germany.

David Irving is a special case, who has disagreed with some aspects of the politically correct version of the Holocaust and has proposed the theory that Hitler personally was not aware of the Holocaust, which was instead implemented in some form by underlings.

Regarding specific statements by Hitler on the Holocaust, since no documents signed by Hitler ordering the Holocaust have been found, non-revisionists have instead often quoted speeches by Hitler. Holocaust revisionists have disputed the politically correct interpretation and/or the authenticity of these statements. See Alleged statements by Hitler on the Holocaust.

Werner Maser

Werner Maser (not a Holocaust revisionist) was considered one of the foremost experts on Hitler and possibly the foremost. After his retirement, he in 2004 published a less politically correct book criticizing and rejecting many politically correct, speculative, and negative views on Hitler. Germar Rudolf wrote in a review of the book that "Hitler had no Jewish ancestors; he had nothing to do with the suicide of his niece; he was an active heterosexual person all through his life; he was a fairly gifted painter and composer (!); since his early childhood, he was known as a very courageous and strong-willed individual; even though he had no academic education, he was very well read; he was a virtuous orator, a gifted diplomatic negotiator, a good listener, a talented military strategist, and on top of it all perfectly healthy both mentally as well as physically, aside from a few minor health issues in his later years due to his age and the stress of his life during the war."

Maser also rejected a number of other claims regarding Hitler and National Socialist Germany:

• The fire of the Reichstag building shortly after Hitler rose to power was set by the Nazis; the communist Marius van der Lubbe was only the scapegoat.
  • Marius van der Lubbe was indeed the sole perpetrator.
• The massacre after the so-called Röhm Putsch was initiated by Hitler.
  • Röhm had indeed planned a putsch and was thus the initiator of the massacre, of which he became a victim because Hitler intervened personally.
• Concentration camps were an invention of the Third Reich.
  • Earlier the first president of the Weimar Republic, Friedrich Ebert, put left-wing extremists into concentration camps, and the USA relocated Japanese residing on U.S. soil into concentration camps.
• The secret protocol to the Hitler-Stalin-Pact stated that the Baltic countries and other eastern Europeans areas could be annexed by the USSR.
  • The definition of “spheres of interest” was not considered to be equal to the right to invade and annex other countries, as a German protest note declared on Nov. 3, 1940.
• Hitler is responsible for the escalation of the air warfare.
  • The British air force started the air warfare, and Hitler reluctantly reacted to these provocations.
• Hitler made a wild dance after Paris surrendered.
  • This is a forged film footage.
• Hitler attacked the peace-loving Soviet Union without provocation.
  • The German Wehrmacht waged a preventive war against the Red Army, which made preparations to overrun entire continental Europe.
• Three million soviet soldiers were deliberately left to die of starvation in German POW camps.
  • 1.784 million Soviet soldiers who were taken prisoners by the Germans did not return home, mainly because of Stalin's politics of “scorched earth,” which made it impossible to deliver sufficient supplies to both the German troops and all the prisoners they had taken.

Ernst Nolte

Mark Weber in a review of a 1993 book by the German historian Ernst Nolte wrote that "As he makes repeatedly clear in this book, the Berlin professor is certainly no Nazi or “apologist for Hitler.” (Nolte might best be characterized as a skeptical traditionalist.) At the same time, though, he attempts, throughout this book, to come to grips with the meaning of Hitler, presenting a complex view of the German leader that contrasts sharply with the popular media image." Weber stated that:

• "Contrary to the widespread view of Hitler as a person of no real education or deep understanding, the transcripts of the German leader’s freewheeling “table talk” remarks to colleagues alone show him to have been a man of extraordinary intelligence, perception and wide-ranging knowledge. Hitler understood English and French, and some Italian. He read widely, and had an astonishing knowledge in many fields. A reading of the transcripts of his conversations with minister Albert Speer, for example, shows that Hitler had a specialist’s understanding of armaments".
• "Compelling evidence" has been argued to show that Hitler was a "remarkably more far-sighted, subtle, intelligent and “modern” leader than historians have understood or acknowledged." This including areas such as the military field and predicting the postwar world.
• Hitler is argued to have successfully won the support of the great majority of Germans.
• "Hitler’s success in bringing Germany out of the worldwide Great Depression, and in creating an “economic miracle” with full employment and prosperity with stable prices."
• "An “incredible achievement” was Hitler’s success, within just five years, of transforming a forcibly demilitarized nation into Europe’s strongest military power."
• Rather than being centralized, totalitarian state, power in National Socialist Germany is argued to have been widely diffused between a number of state and party agencies competing with one another. Furthermore, entire ministries and the German armed forces remained almost or largely free of NSDAP influence. This contributed to an argued surprising degree of "plurality" in cultural and intellectual life.
• The book took note of "the Third Reich’s innovative large-scale urban planning and environmental policies, its promotion of modern housing for the general population, education of gifted children from poor families in progressive but elite schools, a strong democratization process within the German armed forces, the character of the National Socialist party as a broad-based, non-sectarian “peoples party,” and the elimination of mass unemployment and job creation through programs that can be called "Keynesian"."
• "Even Dr. Goebbels’ much-maligned propaganda machinery might more accurately be described (pp. 150 f.) as a "modern instrument of government on an American model, through which the democracies seek to continue their rule in the post-bourgeois society and to perpetuate their technocratic system.""
• "historians have too readily accepted the Soviet regime’s propaganda image of itself. Far too many western historians have failed to appreciate the bloody reality of Soviet Communism, or the very real threat it posed to Europe. [...] For millions of Europeans in the 1920s and 1930s, the Red Star and the Swastika represented the only realistic alternatives for the future of Germany, and indeed, of the entire West. Hitler was by no means the only European leader who took seriously the Soviet danger to European order, culture and civilization. Without the reality of this threat, the “fascist” response of Germany (and other European nations) is hardly imaginable. Hitler, in Nolte’s view, was an anti-Communist of “Communist” decisiveness and spiritual energy. Alone among his contemporaries, he fought Communism with radical, “non-bourgeois” ruthlessness. (pp. 349–367). Nolte writes (pp. 366 f.): Twentieth century world history is only understandable when one is willing to acknowledge the connection made by the enemies of Bolshevism between a fear of annihilation and an intention of annihilation, and to recognize the simple truth that the statements of anti-Communists about the misdeeds of Bolshevism were, in fact, well grounded. Since 1990, at the latest, these are facts that no longer be seriously disputed, and that even the propagandistic exaggerations [of anti-Communists] reflected a rational core [...] One day the question of the hierarchy of motives of Hitler and National Socialism will become a matter of dispute in the scholarly literature, and the thesis of the primacy of anti-Communism is likely to be a main point."

Lawrence Birken

Mark Weber in a review of a 1996 book by Lawrence Birken stated that "In spite of decades of vehement vilification, says author Lawrence Birken, Hitler’s views have enduring and dangerous appeal – not because they are bizarre and alien, but precisely because they are rational and well grounded in Western thought. In particular, Birken stresses, Hitlerism is firmly rooted in the rationalist and scientific outlook of the 18th-century European Enlightenment."

"Scholars and others have made a major mistake in failing to take Hitler seriously as a thinker, argues Birken, who believes that the German political leader “must be regarded as a genuine intellectual” [...] As he notes, as early as 1953, British historian Hugh R. Trevor-Roper “evoked the image of Hitler as a kind of synthesis of Spengler and Napoleon, noting that of all world conquerors the German leader had been the most ‘philosophical’...” More recently, German historian Rainer Zitelmann established in a study of impressive scholarship that Hitler’s outlook was rational, self-consistent and “modern.”"

"As Birken explains, Hitler believed that “all growth could be traced to individual effort – but only at the service of the common good. He thus tempered what might be taken as a ‘libertarian’ definition of inventiveness with a somber collectivism.” Believing that socially useful creativity was “the product of individual geniuses of high personality value,” Hitler supported equal social opportunity for all, and opposed legal and social barriers to individual economic achievement and success. Governmental and social policies, he believed, should encourage merit-based social mobility. Hitler was critical of both capitalism and Marxism – the first because it was “insufficiently democratic,” and the latter because it was “too democratic” or “leveling.” While supporting economic growth across national boundaries, “Hitler also took what he considered to be a conservative stand against the coming hyper-commercialism of an emerging global economy.”"

"Although he is endlessly castigated as “the most notorious racist of the twentieth century,” Hitler’s racial views were actually quite in harmony with mainstream 19th- and early 20th-century European thinking [...] Far from being aberrant or bizarre, his views on race were consistent with those of most prominent Westerners in the decades before the Second World War. [...] Contrary to popular belief, Hitler never supported notions of breeding a homogenous blond “hyper-Aryan” race. Accepting the reality that the German population consisted of several distinct sub-racial groups, he stressed the German people’s national and social unity. A certain degree of racial variety was desirable, he thought, and too much racial blending or homogeneity could be harmful because it would homogenize and thus eliminate superior as well as inferior genetic traits. Hitler believed that “both conservative prudery and radical eroticism” harmed society, and he opposed birth control because it tended to lower the genetic quality of the society that practices it."

"Hitler’s attitude toward the United States was mixed. He saw much to admire in 18th- and 19th-century America, and as Birken notes, he praised this country’s pre-1940s pro-White racial policies, its restrictions on non-White immigration, and its pioneering adoption of eugenics measures. But Hitler also saw ominous trends during the 1920s and 1930s. Echoing the views of American industrialist Henry Ford, he was dismayed by the spectacular growth of Jewish power and cultural influence, and regarded Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” administration as a virtual revolution in American life, through which Jews largely usurped the country’s traditional ruling class."

"The defeat of Germany in 1945, Birken rightly notes, “clearly marked a watershed” in world history, and especially for the West: In a real sense, Hitler’s defeat implicitly became the defeat of the European nation-state and the Enlightenment values that underpinned it."

Russel H.S. Stolfi

Russel Stolfi -- not a Holocaust revisionist -- in his work Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny presents an image of Hitler as a world-historical personality, and messiah to the German people, who, since his defeat, has been treated by victors' history as simply an evil, deranged, unremarkable "unperson" who nevertheless somehow managed to make the world "hold its breath."

"After half a century, no biographer or historian has put together an adequate interpretation of Adolf Hitler. Since Hitler can be acknowledged to have been the most significant figure of the twentieth century, how is such a situation possible? The answer may be that the hunt for Hitler has been for the wrong man in the wrong historical background. The hunt has been for a political animal in the guise of a wicked man who engaged in evil deeds. But the intellectual expeditions both great and small to capture Hitler have been seeking the wrong quarry in the wrong landscape. Hitler was neither a politician nor engaged in politics. And he cannot be considered to have believed that he was a wicked man perpetrating evil deeds.

Hitler had the intense psychological makeup of a prophetically styled messiah—one whose office he believed was to reveal a message of salvation to the Germans and to become the savior-hero himself. The landscape through which he moved was that of a Germany defeated in war and a European continent dominated by France. To think of Hitler as a German politician engaged in national politics would be like thinking of the quintessential Prophet Muhammad as an Arab politician engaged in similar political endeavors. Both must be comprehended as intense visionaries with their feet planted firmly several feet above the ground, in their own worlds of self-inspired revelation. Both achieved astonishing political results, but neither can be understood as a political ideologue."

"Hitler brought more to the great messianic dance of the interwar period than the conventional wisdom has seen fit to accept. Underestimated by competitor and enemy contemporaneously and by biographers and historians since, he possessed traits unlike those of any other significant political figure of the era. Along with the intensity, seriousness, and earnestness that underpinned him as a self-professed messiah, he brought artistic qualities of brilliance in architecture, competence in painting, and the interest of a cognoscente in classical music. Based partly on this artistic makeup, he was characterized by extraordinary imagination and a lack of sense of proportion that would not allow him to embrace half-solutions to challenges. Thrown into this unlikely mix of traits and talents was a kind of lazy indolence that has confounded his biographers and baffled his contemporaries. In photographs that exist from World War I, he appears as dreamy visionary and fanatic adversary, pale and wrapped within an emaciated frame. Perhaps most interesting is that, in some of his photographs, his right eye seems to stare at something out of the picture and in another universe."

"Writers throughout the world have put together a vast body of literature on Hitler and have used an even larger body of primary source material to buttress it. Against such a background, this book uses the following structure to extract a fresh interpretation of Hitler the person. First, because it is unlikely that any significant new primary source material will be found, this book does not search for it. Second, because another descriptive biography of Hitler would be an exercise in dullness, this book concentrates on interpretation. Overlying the literature on Hitler, there exists the great biographies that pull together most things on him that, because of their quality, comprehensiveness, and availability, dominate the worldview. The great biographers include, at least, Alan Bullock (1953), Werner Maser (1973), Joachim Fest (1974), John Toland (1976), and Ian Kershaw (1998), and their works hold the conventional wisdom on Hitler. Because I have weighed the great biographies on the scales of historical reality and found them wanting, the book that follows will present a counterbalancing portrait of Hitler and a contrasting view of his times."

"Virtually every literary piece written about Adolf Hitler in the more than half century since 1945 has been based on antipathy. In a seemingly boundless corpus of writing, every work from the mighty to the insignificant is fundamentally similar in its common revulsion for the man and his national movement. In the most recent great biography, Professor Ian Kershaw begins and ends with detestation. His work is skilled and often brilliant, but he fails to inform the reader of certain characteristics indispensable for true comprehension of the man, and he underestimates the importance of the postwar conditions inflicted by the Allies on Germany, which contributed to Hitler's rise. Bullock, Fest, and Kershaw ascribe criminal features to Hitler's foreign policy from 1933 through 1939, but they fail to correlate it realistically with the Allied imposition of the Versailles Treaty—the ultimate manifestation of German defeat and Allied victory following World War I. The biographers then create, during the period 1939 through 1945, an interpretation of the course of World War II and Hitler's conduct of it that fails to correspond with the German leader's actual intentions and the realistic possibilities for German victory."

"In the present situation, the reading public has been served only half a portrait of the great tyrant of the twentieth century The situation is an extraordinary one in which Hitler, as an object of biography, is portrayed as base and depraved, and the chain of foreign policy events of the 1930s leading into World War II is presented as largely the result of the machinations of this evil man. With Hitler, the perceived danger is that biography demands, or at least suggests, some empathy with its subject and a resulting understanding—and even admiration. The writers on the subject of Hitler have taken the view that rehabilitation is unthinkable, and in such a situation, they have presented verbal portraits that are either half empty or but lightly sketched-in. In the former case, we glimpse the antipathetic half of the verbal canvas with the remaining half empty. In the latter, we observe the entire face but see an image with half the clarifying lines missing."

"Just what do we have, therefore, with half a biographical portrait and, more specifically, the damning half? Kershaw suggests that there is no other half and that Hitler as an individual human being was base and wicked, and that most acts attributed to him were grounded in evil. A middle ground would be that half a portrait of Hitler is better than none at all, with the sense that the remaining half would little change the picture. One thesis of this book, however, is that half a portrait of Hitler tells us little about the man as a human being and presents a distorted and incredible interpretation of his actions as creator of National Socialism and leader of Germany "

Additionally, in another work titled Hitler's Panzers East: World War Two Reinterpreted, he echoes the sentiment of his invasion of the Soviet Union having been primarily a preemptive attack against an increasingly overwhelmingly powerful ideologically-opposed enemy set to conquer and destroy Europe.

"Hitler seems barely to have beaten Stalin to the punch ... Recently, published evidence and particularly effective arguments show that Stalin began a massive deployment of Soviet forces to the western frontier early in June 1941. The evidence supports a view that Stalin intended to use the forces concentrated in the west as quickly as possible – probably about mid-July 1941 – for a Soviet Barbarossa. Statements of Soviet prisoners also support a view that the Soviets intended an attack on Germany in 1941. The extraordinary deployment of the Soviet forces on the western frontier is best explained as an offensive deployment for an attack without full mobilization by extremely powerful forces massed there for that purpose." (p. 204)

"The decision to attack the Soviet Union was the correct decision for Germany in July 1940, for whether or not Britain was defeated in the autumn of 1940, Russia would have to be attacked in the campaign season of 1941 ... Hitler made the correct decision at the right time to attack the Soviet Union as early as practicable in 1941. It was the most significant move in his political career. Making that decision in July 1940, he gave Germany a clear chance to win the Second World War in Europe." (p.206)

In such a view of history, Hitler the supposed crazed war-mongerer, can then be seen as the savior of European civilization. For without the sacrifice of the Germans on his behest, the Red Army would have almost surely possessed the means to conquer and enslave the entire continent.

John Mosier

Joseph Bishop wrote in a review of a 2010 book by the historian John Mosier that "Instead of a mad dictator greedy to conquer the world and making endless blunders, Hitler is presented as a sane and rational man making sensible and very smart decisions, understanding strategy and global politics far better than his generals."

"A common tendency of German generals after the war was to go along with many of these assumptions. They sought to distance themselves from Hitler and National Socialism, presenting him as a sort of pied piper who misled and then forced them into the war. According to this self-serving version, all the things that went wrong were due to Hitler's crazy decisions and meddlings, while all that went right were as a result of the genius of the generals themselves. The objective was firstly to protect their own reputations, secondly to protect the image of the German General Staff, and thirdly to simply survive in post-war Germany and shore up their relationship with the conquerors, particularly the USA, which occupied—and arguably continues to occupy—defeated Germany. Mosier points out that in nearly all cases, Hitler was right in his decisions while his generals were wrong. The German officer caste was trained to seize major cities and especially capitals, but Hitler understood that modern wars were more economic in nature—conflicts to seize resources both to deny the enemy the ability to wage war while at the same time increasing one's own ability to do so."

"What is revealed is that the casualties on both sides reflected a ratio of about 5:1 favoring the German forces. With a USSR population of about 170 million at that time and a German population of close to 100 million, the Russians could not long sustain a ratio of greater than 2:1. In other words, the attrition rate was bleeding Russia dry in manpower. Hitler understood this and wisely strove to continue the process. Hence his 'stand fast' orders in 1941 and later, causing further attritive combats resulting in tremendous disparities in losses, again favoring Germany."

"So how could the Soviets have won the war then? Mosier shows how, firstly, the USSR received tremendous amounts of lend-lease and other forms of aid from the USA and Britain. Trucks, aircraft, American tanks, fuel oils, food, all was amply, even hugely provided to the Soviets and indeed saved them from destruction at the hands of the Germans—all contrary to the Stalinist myth that said aid was insignificant and played little or no role in the Red Army's defeat of the Wehrmacht. Secondly, in spite of Stalin's repeated demands for an Allied 'second front' to take the pressure off Russia, in point of fact several such fronts were already draining Germany's resources—a second front in the air over Germany itself, a third front in the Battle of the Atlantic, a fourth front in the war in North Africa and then Sicily and Italy—all before the fifth front D-Day invasion of France in June 1944."

"An interesting and unique conclusion drawn by the author is that the Soviet Union's gigantic manpower losses and physical destruction suffered during the war, ultimately led to the collapse of communism in that country several decades later. If this is so, then Adolf Hitler is the man or agent to be credited with that seminal event."

Joseph Stalin in 1937, during the Great Purge.

Viktor Suvorov

Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War? is a 1987 less politically correct book by the former Soviet military intelligence officer Viktor Suvorov. The book, and several subsequent ones by Suvorov and others (such as The Chief Culprit: Stalin's Grand Design to Start World War II), argue that Stalin, as demanded by the Marxist-Leninist theory of a world communist revolution, had always intended to start a world war of conquest for communism.

Preparations for this is argued to have started already in the 1920s. This included preparations for in the future inciting a devastating war similar to World War I between Germany and other capitalist countries. This would cause the capitalist countries to be greatly weakened, ripe with internal unrest, and then easily conquered by later communist invasions and internal communist uprisings. Therefore, already in the 1920s and long before Hitler became ruler, Stalin started to provide Germany with various forms of covert support and enabled Germany to covertly start to rearm by allowing secret German weapons testing and production to begin in the Soviet Union. Stalin even directly helped National Socialism (viewed as an "icebreaker" for communism) to come to power by measures such as by ordering the German Communist Party to not cooperate with the German Social Democrats against the National Socialists.

Hitler, however, foiled Stalin's plans and almost won the war by quickly conquering most of Europe and making a preemptive attack on the Soviet Union. After devastating losses, the Soviet Union survived and even expanded, but Stalin is argued to have seen the outcome of World War II as a (long-term) defeat.

A review of the book The Last Republic by Suvorov wrote that "Stalin revealed his disappointment over the war’s outcome in several ways. First, he had Marshal Georgi Zhukov, not himself, the supreme commander, lead the victory parade in 1945. Second, no official May 9 victory parade was even authorized until after Stalin’s death. Third, Stalin never wore any of the medals he was awarded after the end of the Second World War. Fourth, once, in a depressed mood, he expressed to members of his close circle his desire to retire now that the war was over. Fifth, and perhaps most telling, Stalin abandoned work on the long-planned Palace of Soviets. The enormous Palace of Soviets, approved by the Soviet government in the early 1930s, was to be 1,250 feet tall, surmounted with a statue of Lenin 300 feet in height – taller than New York’s Empire State Building. [...] All the world’s "socialist republics," including the "last republic," would ultimately be represented in the Palace. The main hall of this secular shrine was to be inscribed with the oath that Stalin had delivered in quasi-religious cadences at Lenin’s burial. It included the words: "When he left us, Comrade Lenin bequeathed to us the responsibility to strengthen and expand the Union of Socialist Republics. We vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that we shall honorably carry out this, your sacred commandment.""

See also Soviet offensive plans controversy.

"Fourteen Days that Saved the World"

Some have gone beyond arguing that the invasion of the Soviet Union was a defensive war and argued that it prevented "the Soviet conquest of Europe scheduled to begin early in the morning of Sunday 6 July 1941. Suvorov’s revelations about the massive expansion of the NKVD (the blood-soaked forerunner of the KGB) are particularly chilling: these killers would have moved behind the assault troops to liquidate “class enemies.” The Bolshevik torture chambers and death pits which claimed millions of victims in the enslaved nations of the East would have spread throughout the West as well. With Germany and France under the Soviet jackboot, Italy and Spain would quickly have fallen too. And Stalin’s one million paratroopers would have made short work of seizing the airfields of southern England to clear the way for a full-scale invasion. Lenin and his pupil Stalin never made any secret of their desire for a Second World War to establish a Communist Europe. For the fact that this monstrous plan failed, the pseudo-democrats, simpering priests and court historians have no-one to thank but Adolf Hitler. If it had not been for the man they love to hate, they would have been the first against the wall."

"Adolf Hitler: The Greatest Story Never Told"

Adolf Hitler: The Greatest Story Never Told is a revisionist documentary film by Dennis Wise about Adolf Hitler, the Second World War, and its aftermath.

Quotes

• “He had boundless ambition for his country which rendered him a menace to the peace of the world, but he had a mystery about him in the way he lived and in the manner of his death that will live and grow after him. He had in him the stuff of which legends are made.” – John F. Kennedy about Hitler in his diary as a Hearst newspaper war correspondent

Awards, decorations and honors (small excerpt)

• Iron Cross (1914), 2nd and 1st Class
  • 2nd Class on 2 December 1914
  • 1st Class on 4 August 1918
• Military Merit Cross (Bavaria), 3rd Class with Swords (BMVK3⚔/BM5c⚔) on 17 September 1917
• Regiment diploma for outstanding bravery in the face of the enemy on 9 May 1918
• Wound Badge (1918) in Black on 18 May 1918 (twice wounded)
• Service award, 3rd Class on 25 August 1918
• Blood Order, 1933
• Golden Party Badge, 1933
• Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918 with sowrds on 4. September 1934
• Bach-Plakette of the New Bach Society (Neue Bach-Gesellschaft) on 21 June 1935
• Grand Imperial Order of the Red Arrows, Grand Collar on 1 October 1937

Honorary citizenships

Hitler was also honorary citizen of numerous cities around the world. In Germany some of the first were Rothenburg ob der Tauber (27 March 1933), Siegen (31 March 1933), Regensburg (1933), Kelheim (October 1933), Bitz (30 January 1935) and Amstetten in Austria (1938). During the 1936 Summer Olympics (German: Olympische Sommerspiele 1936) c. 5,000 letters of honorary citizenship arrived from cities around the globe. Hundreds of streets, marketplaces, town squares, even bridges and trees were named after him.

Gallery

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  Adolf Hitler, Emil Maurice, Hermann Kriebel, Rudolf Hess and Friedrich Weber in Landsberg Prison, 1924

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  Hitler on his release from Landsberg Prison in December 1924

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  Adolf Hitler shaking hands with a young boy, circa 1932

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  Adolf Hitler as German Chancellor.

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  Adolf Hitler greeting crowds near the Berghof

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  Adolf Hitler, Paul von Hindenburg, and Hermann Göring, Prime Minister of Prussia at Tannenberg Memorial, East Prussia, 1933

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  Adolf Hitler at the Siemens Dynamo factory in Berlin in November 1933

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  The Führer commemorates the fallen of the Munich Putsch, behind him Jakob Grimminger with the Blutfahne, to the right Hermann Göring, Erich Raeder and Alfred Rosenberg among others.

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  Hitler greets ecstatic crowds, October 1935

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  Hitler with a young girl in front of the Berghof, 1936

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  Hitler would often pick out a birthday child from the many visitors for a short personal tour, which was considered a great honour.

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  American lady tries to kiss Hitler at Olympic Games events

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  Adolf Hitler in September, 1937 at the Nuremberg rally

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  Adolf Hitler greets an Reichsautobahn worker on Reichsparteitag, 1937. Dr. Robert Ley stands beside Hitler.

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  Adolf Hitler congratulates Leni Riefenstahl for the premiere of the Olympia film, 1938

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  Hitler hosting a charity concert

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  Hitler opening the new Volkswagon factory

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  Hitler is welcomed at the station in Innsbruck, Austria, 1938

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  Adolf Hitler inside the New Chancellery, Berlin, 1939

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  Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, circa 1939

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  Hitler inspecting the Westwall (Gau Saarpfalz) in May 1939, among others he is accompanied by Wilhelm Keitel, Heinrich Himmler, Fritz Todt, Martin Bormann and Erhard Milch.

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  At front: Albert Speer, Adolf Hitler and Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, 1942

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  Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun during WW2

See also

• Weimar Republic
• Adolf Hitler Quotes
• Volksgemeinschaft
• Anschluss
• Campaign in Poland
• August Kubizek
• Causes of World War II

Further reading

• Mein Kampf (1925) by Adolf Hitler
• The Young Hitler I Knew (1955) by August Kubizek
• Adolf Hitler: A Short Sketch of His Life (1938) by Philipp Bouhler
• Hitler's Revolution (2013) by Richard Tedor

External links

• Collection of Videos of Hitler Speeches with English subtitles - Internet Archive
• Adolf Hitler in WW I (chronology in German)

Online biographies and reviews of biographies

• Adolf Hitler: A Short Sketch of His Life (Authorized short biography 1938) – Internet Archive
• A Prominent German Historian Tackles Taboos of Third Reich History, Prof. Nolte’s Controversial New Book
• Hitler as 'Enlightenment Intellectual': The Enduring Allure of Hitlerism, Book Review
• The Courage of a Secure Retiree, A Review
• The Enigma of Hitler
• Was Hitler Really a Dictator?

Films

• Adolf Hitler: The Greatest Story Never Told - IMDb
• Adolf Hitler: A Last Appeal to Reason - IMDb

Article archives

• Codoh: Hitler, Adolf
• David Irving: Documents of the Life and Time of Adolf Hitler