Who Was Hitler?
Adolf Hitler was a German man, born on April 20, 1889. His infamous legacy comes from his rule of Germany and creation of the Nazi party, along with the genocide of millions of Jews and non-Jewish people throughout the 1930s and 40s. From 1933 to 1945, Hitler was the chancellor of Germany and became the dictator of Nazi Germany in 1934 until 1945 when he was removed from power. He was the center of the beginning of World War II, Nazism, and the perpetuator of the Holocaust and all of the events surrounding it.
Adolf Hitler didn’t start out as a killer. He was actually a decorated veteran of the First World War. In 1919, he joined the German Workers' Party, which was the precursor to what many know as the Nazi party. He was imprisoned in 1923 and released in 1924, at which point he began gaining support for his anti-Semitic views. He attacked the Treaty of Versailles, promoted anti-communism and anti-Semitism, and pushed the Nazi agenda. Once appointed to duty as chancellor, he created the Third Reich, which is one of the most famous dictatorships in world history.
The Third Reich was founded based in the autocratic and totalitarian ideals that the Nazi party followed. The goal of Hitler, through the creation of this party and forthcoming agendas, was to create the New Order of hegemony, or racial purity, in Europe. He wanted to seize countries for German power, which started with invading Poland in 1939. This spawned World War II and became the first of many conquests that Hitler would use to grow his power. By 1943, Hitler had started making decisions that led to the defeat of German forces. In 1945, as the Allied Forces invaded Germany, Hitler and his wife committed suicide to avoid capture and certain death at the hand of the Red Army.
During his reign, Hitler's racial agenda resulted in the murder of more than 11 million people throughout Europe, including 6 million Jewish people as a part of his 'racial cleansing' to create his New Order. He was responsible for the creation and use of concentration camps (also known as death camps) such as Auschwitz and although there was never a specific order that authorized the mass killings, he was fully aware of the mass murders occurring at the hands of some of his most prominent men. Today, Hitler is remembered not for his efforts in World War I or his life, but for his role in the largest genocide of the 20th century.