Adolf Hitler
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria - April 30, 1945 in Berlin) was the leader of Germany who started World War II. He was a Nazi, which means that he thought that the government should be very powerful and should control how other people live. Nazis also thought that the German people were better than other groups of people, and Hitler went to war with many other countries so that he could be more powerful. Hitler also created The Holocaust, where he took all the Jewish people in Germany and some other countries and tried to kill them.
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Adolf's Life story
Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 at Braunau am Inn, a small town near Linz in the province of Upper Austria, close to the German border, in what was then Austria-Hungary.
Hitler failed high school admission tests in Linz twice. He became interested in the anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish), Pan-German teachings of Professor Leopold Poetsch.
In 1913, Hitler was 24 years old. At that time, all young Austrian men had to join the army. Hitler did not like the Austrian army, so he left Austria for Germany. He lived in a German city, Munich.
In 1914, Hitler joined the German army. He fought for Germany in the First World War. He was wounded in the war. The government gave him the Iron Cross as a reward for fighting hard in the war.
In 1919, Hitler joined a small political party called the German Workers Party. He soon won the support of the party members. Two years later, he became the leader of the party. He renamed the party the National Socialist German Workers Party. It became known as the Nazi Party.
In 1923, Hitler tried to overthrow the Weimar Republic government (1918-36) in the Beer Hall Putsch. The putsch failed. The government killed 16 of his men (the 16 dead men were later declared saints in Nazi ideology). They also put Hitler in the Landsberg Prison. They said that he would stay in prison for 5 years, but they let him leave after 9 months. While he was in prison, he wrote a book with the help of his friend Rudolf Hess. At first, Hitler wanted to call the book Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice. In the end, he called the book Mein Kampf or My Struggle. The book said that Germany would take land from Poland and Russia. It also had many anti-semitic comments, and called for the murder and expulsion of Jews from Germany.
In 1933 Hitler was elected into the German government. He ended freedom of speech, and put his enemies in jail or killed them. He did not allow any other party except the Nazi party. Hitler and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, spread extreme nationalism within Germany. All media had to praise the Nazis. Also, more people were born because Hitler wanted more people of the "master race" (by that he meant Aryan, or those with blue eyes and blond hair). He made Germany a totalitarian Nazi state. Aryanism was a myth, but Hitler and his friends believed it. They thought that people like the Jews and Slavs were inferior (less valuable) and should be killed.
World War II
Hitler started World War II by ordering the German Army to invade Poland. His army conquered most of Europe including Poland, France, and a large part of the Soviet Union. During the war he ordered the Nazis to kill many people, including women and children. The Nazis killed 6 million Jews, in an event called The Holocaust. Other people that the Nazis killed were Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, Slavs such as Russians and Poles, and his political opponents.
Finally the other countries in the world worked together to defeat Germany. Hitler lost all of the land that he had taken, and millions of Germans were killed. At the end of World War II, Hitler wanted everyone to die, including himself. He committed suicide (killed himself) in Berlin in 1945.
See also
- Nazism
- Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
- Fascism
- World War II
- History of Austria
- History of Germany
- Mein Kampf
References and further reading
- Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, HarperCollins, 1991, ISBN 0679729941
- Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, ISBN 0060920203
- Michael FitzGerald, 'Adolf Hitler: A Portrait,' Spellmount, 2006, ISBN 1862273227
- Joachim Fest, Hitler, Harvest Books, 2002, ISBN 0156027542
- Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris, W W Norton, 1999, and Hitler 1937-1945: Nemesis, W W Norton, 2000, ISBN 0393320359
- Lothar Machtan, The Hidden Hitler (Basic Books, 2001, ISBN 0-465-04308-9; English translation by John Brownjohn)
Other websites
- Quotes by Hitler from Wikiquote
- Mondo Politico Library's presentation of Adolf Hitler's book, Mein Kampf (full text, formatted for easy on-screen reading)
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.svg/22px-Flag_of_Germany_(2-3).svg.png){kind=small} Weimar Republic (1919–1933) |
Friedrich Ebert · Kanzler Hans Luther(acting) · Judge Walter Simons (acting) · Paul von Hindenburg |
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 Nazi Germany (1933–1945) |
Paul von Hindenburg · Adolf Hitler (as Führer and Reichskanzler) · Karl Dönitz | |
 Germany (since 1949) |
Bundesratspräsident Karl Arnold (acting) · Theodor Heuss1 · Heinrich Lubke · Gustav Heinemann · Walter Scheel · Karl Carstens · Richard von Weizsäcker2 · Roman Herzog · Johannes Rau · Horst Köhler | |
| 1 President at the time of unification with the Saar 2 President at the time of unification with East Germany | ||
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 German Empire (1871–1918) |
Otto von Bismarck · Leo von Caprivi · Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst · Bernhard von Bülow · Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg · Georg Michaelis · Georg von Hertling · Prince Maximilian of Baden |
| Revolutionary period (1918–1919) | Friedrich Ebert |
| Weimar Republic (1919–1933) |
Philipp Scheidemann · Gustav Bauer · Hermann Müller · Konstantin Fehrenbach · Joseph Wirth · Wilhelm Cuno · Gustav Stresemann · Wilhelm Marx · Hans Luther · Wilhelm Marx · Hermann Müller · Heinrich Brüning · Franz von Papen · Kurt von Schleicher |
| Nazi Germany (1933–1945) |
Adolf Hitler · Joseph Goebbels · Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk |
| Germany (since 1949) |
Konrad Adenauer · Ludwig Erhard · Kurt Georg Kiesinger · Willy Brandt ·Walter Scheel acting · Helmut Schmidt · Helmut Kohl · Gerhard Schröder · Angela Merkel |
