The Meaning Of Hitler Essays - Adolf Hitler, German Re-armament

The Meaning Of Hitler The Meaning of Hitler was written by a German journalist by the name of Sebastian Haffner. In this book, Sebastian Haffner probes the historical, political, and emotional forces that molded Adolf Hitler's character. Sebastian Haffner also examines closely Hitler's rise to power as F?hrer of Germany, as well as his great achievements. Adolf Hitler began by making a mess of his life. He dropped out of school at the age of 14, failed his entrance exam at the Vienna Academy of Arts twice, and spent the time from his eighteenth to his twenty-fifth year in Vienna and then in Munich doing nothing and aspiring to nothing. Then, in 1914 when World War I broke out, Hitler volunteered for the Bavarian army. Hitler was a good soldier and received a couple of awards for bravery but never ranked higher than corporal. In 1918, when Germany finally surrendered, Hitler was very upset. He believed that it was the Jews and the Communists who betrayed the fatherland, and it was at this time that his hatred for the Jews most likely began. In 1919, Hitler joined a small radical Right-wing party, which called itself the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi party, where he soon became the leader. The party was small at first but Hitler's great skill at deliberating speeches attracted more and more listeners, and it soon became a major political party with many followers. Since the country was in chaos after World War I and was faced with the Great Depression, the Germans saw hope in Adolf Hitler. Unemployment was at about 40% and rising and people were starving and poor. In his speeches, Hitler blamed the Jews and Communists for their misfortunes. So why did so many Germans follow Hitler? When he took power, Germany and all of Europe was suffering from the Great Depression and were looking for answers and hope. Hitler was their answer. No factor contributed more to Hitler's success than the economic crisis. He promised to bring economic recover and national unity. Soon, factories started putting out weapons and now had jobs. To the German workers this was a very good sign. In 1933, when Hitler became Reich Chancellor, the Nazi party took control of every aspect of every day life. Hitler's goal was to eliminate the Jewish race from the European continent and to take control of Germany and turn it into a national socialist nation. He created a special police force called the Gestapo to make sure that anyone who opposed him would be eliminated. He took away the Jews' civil rights. Soon, Jews, communists, homosexuals and others who were viewed as ?inferior? according to the Nazi racial theory were thrown into concentration camps for extermination. In those camps, the Nazis killed 6 million Jews and many others. Hitler was unstoppable. World War II began in 1939 when German armies and warplanes attacked Poland. Two days later Britain and France jumped in and declared war on Germany. The Polish army was no match for the German army, and Hitler's armies crushed Poland in four weeks. In the meantime, German armies occupied Denmark and Norway and trapped the British army on the beaches of Dunkirk. France was now taken by the Nazis. Next, Germany attacked Britain by air, but Britain would not back down and eventually Germany backed off. Then, in June 1941 Germany turned and attacked the Soviet Union. However, the Germans completely underestimated the Soviet Union's ability of its government to control and mobilize the country's resources and were defeated in 1943. By June 1944, the war was going very badly for Hitler. A series of losses to the Allies and failure to defeat the Soviets had left Hitler's armies severely weakened. Germany had also changed a great deal. British and American bombers were devastating its indus tries and cities. Underestimating the Americans, Hitler launched his last reserves west into Belgium and Luxembourg in the Battle of the Bulge. He felt that a hard blow would cause popular support for the war in America to collapse, and would lead to the breakup of the coalition arrayed against him. All he accomplished, however, was to draw away troops needed in the east, allowing the Soviet army's