User:Howard C. Berkowitz/AH

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the leading figure of National Socialism and dictator of Germany (1933-45), was a dominant world figure before and during World War II. As a leader, he differed from the other great dictator of the time, Joseph Stalin, in that his authority was based on charisma rather than ideology. In other words, Nazi ideology was what Hitler believed. Like Stalin, Hitler deliberately gave overlapping responsibilities to subordinates, keeping them from growing too powerful and making him the ultimate authority. In particular, the same function could be assigned both to the government of the State and the Nazi Party. Complicating this was the rise of the Schutzstaffel, fanatically loyal to Hitler, as a state-within-a-state.

As a youth, he felt he had a destiny, although originally as an artist. After failing to be admitted to art school, he went through a rootless period in Vienna, which probably first contributed to his obsessions about racial enemies; loosely, his ideas of a special Germanic race had developed along with his early love of Wagnerian and other heroic music. By the time he served in the First World War, bravely by many accounts, he had focused his hatred against the Jews. After World War I, his anger was increased by what was considered the "stab in the back" and the Treaty of Versailles. He entered political activity in 1919, quickly discovered his ability as an orator, but did not really focus his political goals until the mid-1920s.

From a base in the Nazi Party, he maneuvered in various German coalitions, until the Nazis, through essentially democratic means, took control in 1933. They quickly moved to cut off democratic challenges, bloodily purge their internal opposition in the Night of the Long Knives, and increasingly emphasize their Nazi race and biological ideology as well as seeking Lebensraum, or room into which the racially pure could expand.

He became the dominant force in Europe and, after generally nonviolent occupations in Austria and Czechoslovakia, invaded Poland in 1939, as a violent example of the Drang nach Osten, the historical German demand for land in the East. Poland started open war on the continent and spilling to Africa and the high seas. As well as foreign wars, he conducted The Holocaust within the areas under his powers, killing millions of Jews, Slavs, and others he considered undesirable. Eventually, an Allied coalition would force him back until he controlled but his bunker, where he committed suicide in 1945.

Historiography
Beginning with Konrad Heiden, biographers, began studying Hitler during his life. His book, published in 1936, ended in the summer of 1934.

After his death, an early and specialized work was Hugh Trevor-Roper's The Last Days of Hitler (1947).

A great many works have tried to explain Hitler, with varying perspectives and conclusions. Perhaps the first major biography was Alan Bullock's 1952 Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. That was among the first to deal with Hitler's sexuality, although there had been a classified wartime study of his psyche, with substantial attention to sexuality, done by psychiatrist William Langer for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. Bullock, to some extent, revised some observations, but not their core, in a 1991 biography Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives.

While a general history of Nazi Germany, William Shirer's 1959 Rise and Fall of the Third Reich provides much information. It discusses both Hitler and his close associates.

Another major work, among the first published in German, was Joachim Fest's 1972 book, Hitler. By the 1970s, there were two main schools of Hitler biography: the functionalists and the internationalists.

Youth
Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria-Hungary to a devout Catholic family of middle class status. Little is known of his ancestry. His father, Alois, was the illegitimate son of a servant girl, Marianne Schickelgruber in Graz. In 1876 Alois legally changed his name to Alois Hitler. He was a minor official of the Imperial Austrian customs service, a prestigious white collar position. Alois was widowed twice. His third wife, Klara Poelzl Hitler--who was 23 years his junior--bore him six children, only two of whom reached maturity: Adolf, and his younger sister Paula, who died in 1960. Hitler did not get along well with his father, who died in 1903; his mother had a pension and sent Adolph to good schools and encouraged his Catholicism. A mediocre student, he dropped out at age 16, as was normal for someone not headed to university.

The music of Richard Wagner influenced him at age 17, both in terms of heroic agendas and antisemitism. He later wrote that "whoever who wants to understand National Socialism must know Wagner."

Vienna
Intending to study fine arts, he moved to Vienna in 1907, but failed the entrance examinations both for the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and the School of Architecture. He returned home for the funeral of his beloved mother in 1908, and spent the next four unhappy years in Vienna.

World War I
While he had formed antisemitic views in Vienna, his beliefs, which would lead to The Holocaust, intensified during the war. Fellow soldiers, in the trenches, would recount how he would constantly complained of the "invisible foes", the Jews and Marxists. They generally regarded him as strange and distant, which would not help him in potential troop command. He was a brave if unconventional soldier, being decorated with the Iron Cross Second and First Class, the latter unusual for a junior enlisted man. It was recommended by his immediate superior, Lieutenant Hugo Gutmann, a Jew. His officers considered him thoroughly reliable in carrying out tasks as a combat messenger, but did not promote him because they did not feel he was capable of command.

In 1916 and 1917, recovering from combat wounds in Munich, he observed "I thought I could no longer recognize the city", and became furious about the "Hebrew corruptors of the people".

Political beginnings
In September 1919 Adolf Hitler joined the DAP. Hitler, who had finished the war in a military hospital after suffering a poison gas attack at the front, had returned to Munich in November 1918. After the war he remained in the army and had joined the intelligence section. In this capacity he was sent to monitor the DAP’s activities. He found the DAP reflected his own views – German nationalism, anti-liberalism, anti-Semitism. He became the party’s 55th member.

He was to meet Houston Stewart Chamberlain in 1923, who influenced much of his thinking.

By 1924, certain elements of Hitler's worldview (Weltanschauung) had fully crystallized, namely his concept of history as a racial struggle and the threat of Marxism. He considered Communism to be a Jewish conspiracy, and often referred to "Jewish-Bolshevik Commissars"; the Commissar Order for the Russian Front was an even more certain death sentence for Communist leaders than for Jews.

The key element in Hitler's success in 1932-33 was the decision of powerful non-Nazi conservative nationalists to support his selection as chancellor, since the Nazis did not have a majority in the Reichstag.

Mein Kampf
Hitler wrote his autobiographical Mein Kampf ("My Struggle") while imprisoned after the Beer Hall Putsch; its two volumes were published in 1925 and 1926. He dictated it to Rudolf Hess

Hitler recounts his personal and intellectual development from childhood to adulthood, including his home life, his student aspirations as an artist, his experience as a soldier on the battlefield, and his evolving political philosophy. Then he lays out the political program of the Nazi movement both theoretically and in terms of German history and the German sociopolitical situation of 1925. Hitler states his goal to realize the German nation's destiny by uniting all Germans geographically and politically into one Reich that is rid of all non-German elements. Geographically he envisions a German homeland stretching out into eastern Europe. For Hitler, the German nation -- the volkisch nation -- comprises only those of pure German blood. The race of Slavs naturally competes with and impinges on the German nation, threatening and constraining its development; Hitler, however, designates the Jews as a singularly vile and cultureless race bent on world destruction through Communism. They will eventually self-destruct, he says.

Development of views
However, the notion of Lebensraum (living space) and the idea of a heroic Führer, underdeveloped in 1924, became fully crystallized by 1928. Hitler offered only "distant goals" not a "blueprint for rule." There is scant evidence to support the notion that he was a conscious modernizer; his goal was to destroy Marxism and re-create the Volksgemeinschaft (folk community) that supposedly existed in the past.

Relationships
Hitler was extremely close to his mother.

He appeared to enjoy the company of attractive women, but was awkward in starting relationships. Of the women to whom he was close, Eva Braun and Geli Rabaul committed suicide, while Unity Mitford and Mimi Reiter. There were also women, some married, who seemed to be strong in dealing with him, such as Leni Riefenstahl.

Women, such as Magda Goebbels, would also fixate on him, and she chose to die with him, killing her children.

Prewar consolidation
Between 1933 and 1939, Hitler gained control of Germany, purging internal opposition and forming alliances, developing a strong propaganda machine, indoctrinating German youth, and increasing the pressure on Jews as a cause of Germany's ills.

Foreign Policy
Hitler's diplomatic strategy was to make seemingly reasonable demands, threatening war if they were not met. When opponents tried to appease him, he accepted the gains that were offered, then went to the next target. That aggressive strategy worked, without overt war, as Germany pulled out of the League of Nations (1933), rejected the Treaty of Versailles and began to re-arm (1935), won back the Saar (1935), remilitarized the Rhineland (1936), formed an alliance ("axis") with Mussolini's Italy (1936) that eventually became the Tripartite Pact, sent massive military aid to Franco in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), seized Austria (1938), took over Czechoslovakia after the British and French appeasement of the Munich Agreement of 1938 and formed a peace pact with Stalin's Russia in  August 1939.

Rearmament
After withdrawing from the League of Nations in 1933, Germany repudiated the Treaty of Versailles and officially began to rearm in 1935, although it had been doing so for some time.

The Black Reichswehr had been training in the Soviet Union. German advisers and technical specialists were heavily involved in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, gaining operational experience.

Agreements with the Soviet Union
The 1936 Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan, not specifically against the Soviet Union but guarding against "international communism", was a source of some tension with the Soviets. Nevertheless, in August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of nonaggression.

Poland
"In 1925 an Arbitration Treaty between Germany and Poland had been made at Locarno, providing for the settlement of all disputes between the two countries. On the 26th January, 1934, a German-Polish declaration of non- aggression was made, signed on behalf of the German Government by the Defendant von Neurath. On 30th January, 1934, and again on the 30th January, 1937 Hitler made speeches in the Reichstag in which he expressed his view that Poland and Germany could work together in harmony and peace. On the 20th February, 1938 Hitler made a third speech in the Reichstag in the course of which he said with regard to Poland: "'And so the way to a friendly understanding has been successfully paved, an understanding which, beginning with Danzig, has today, in spite of the attempts of certain mischief makers, succeeded in finally taking the poison out of the relations between Germany and Poland and transforming them into a sincere, friendly cooperation .. Relying on her friendships, Germany will not leave a stone unturned to save that ideal which provides the foundation for the task which is ahead of us -- peace.'"

Nevertheless, on 23rd May 1939, a meeting was held in Hitler's study in the new Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Hitler announced his decision to attack Poland and gave his reasons, and discussed the effect the decision might have on other countries.

Antisemitism
Hitler steadily increased the pressure on Jews, from informal street actions before the Nazis came to power, to official harassment to push emigration. Large-scale killing, however, would not start until the war, although there was a systematic domestic program of euthanasia and sterilization.

Economics
Overy argues the German economy in 1939 was not a crisis-ridden one dragged out of control by grumbling managers and laborers, but an economy remarkably resurgent after a severe economic crisis in the early 1930s that brought Germany to the brink of bankruptcy and threw German politics into chaos. Overy argues that domestic political peace and a more stable economy were essential preconditions for the period of active expansion undertaken by Hitler and the Nazi Party. The war was not a reaction to domestic crisis, but a response to the disintegration of the established international power structure during the 1930s. Hitler sought, with support from military and administrative circles in Germany, to pursue a strategy that would free Germany from Western economic and political interests and establish German international power.

Hitler was fascinated with high speed expensive automobiles, but he also admired Henry Ford for mass producing the cheap Model T for the masses. Ford had a small plant in Germany. König (2004) shows American mass consumption and mass motorization, particularly Ford's Model T, influenced Nazi planning for the Volkswagen, which was supposed to turn the German car from an investment into a consumer good. However, Nazi policy was unable to create a sound economic basis for the Volkswagen. In the mid 1930s incomes were still low; Hitler refused to raise wages, choosing instead to use productivity gains for rearmament and economic autarky or independence from the British and American economies. He sought to lower prices through efficiency and to have industries that did not seek profits manufacture the "people's products." The Nazis' demands were so high that companies envisioned that they would fail and declined to cooperate. Consequently, German car manufacturers, including American-owned Ford and GM, pulled out of the Volkswagen project. Its transfer to the Deutsche Arbeitsfront did not resolve the issue of production costs and affordability.

Hitler was certain that Germany could emerge as a consumer society without employing Ford's formula of mass production, high wages, and low prices. He did build an autobahn system that was primarily designed as a construction project and as a new transportation system for trucks.

Transformation of the military
Germany has a long military tradition, in which German military forces had much prestige and autonomy. As the Nazis grew, they formed alliances with the military, eventually sacrificing Ernst Roehm and his plans for a "revolutionary army" in which the SA would replace the Reichswehr. Eventually, however, Hitler established his own controls over the orthodox military.

First steps for control
A near-irrevocable step took place when he changed the officer oath from the country to him personally. Beginning on 20 August 1934, military and government officials swore:"I swear I shall be faithful and obedient, to the Fuehrer of the German Reich and the People, Adolf Hitler; I swear to obey the laws and fulfill my duties conscientiously, so help me God."

An even stronger oath was sworn by the SS and his personal security force: I swear to you, Adolf Hitler, as Fuehrer and Chancellor of the German Reich, loyalty and bravery. I vow to you and my superiors designated you obedience unto death. So help me God.

Policy
At a key meeting in November, 1937, with his five top military advisors, Hitler revealed his plan to preserve and extend Aryan supremacy, which included the acquisition of new "Lebensraum" in the east. He spoke of seizing Austria and Czechoslovakia, and going to war with Britain, France or Russia. Hitler expected Germany would reach its peak, relative to the strength of its enemies, in about 1943-45, suggesting that was the target date for a major war. The "Hossbach Memorandum" summarized the plans. When two leaders urged caution Hitler purged them, War Minister Werner von Blomberg and Army Commander Werner von Fritsch, thereby reducing the threat of a military coup. Subsequently, he surrounded himself with compliant, but less competent, military advisors. Some leaders that had questioned his gambles in Czechoslovakia and Austria accepted his success and complied.

This was not enough; his appointments of Army chiefs and war ministers emphasized obedience, although he eventually purged those who he felt he could not control. General Ludwig Beck, in 1938, had indeed been conspiring against the move into Czechoslovakia; his dismissal was not illogical. More complex were the ousters of War Minister Werner von Blomberg and Army Chief of Staff Werner von Fritsch.

Changing military pressures
While the SA had been broken as a threat to the Army, the relationship of the SS was much more complex.

By 1942, battle pressures called for an expansion of the Waffen SS, and continuing emphasis on loyalty to Hitler by all troops.

War Years 1939-45
Hitler exercised control over the German armed forces through the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, a relatively small staff group, under Feldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, which issued orders to the larger service staffs and the field commands. Hitler considered himself a master at all aspects of war, but really understood only the political. He made serious mistakes in strategy, technology, and operational art. Still, his forces did well in 1939 and 1940, until they fought the Battle of Britain, which failed to gain air superiority for the Operation Sealion invasion.

Troubles began in 1941, when Hitler broke with his Russian allies and invaded the Soviet Union, but was stopped at the gates of Moscow. Hitler had a loose pact with Japan, and was unaware of plans for the Pearl Harbor attack, but nevertheless declared war on the U.S. in December, 1941. With the invasion of Russia the systematic roundup and quick murder or "Holocaust" of all Jews began. In early 1943 the Soviet victory at Stalingrad marked the beginning of the end, as Germany was unable to cope with the superior manpower and industrial resources of the Allies. North Africa, Sicily, and southern Italy fell in 1943. Hitler rescued Mussolini, who became a mere puppet. The Russians pushed forward relentlessly in the East, while the Allies in the west launched a major bombing campaign in 1944-45 that burned out the major German cities, ruined transportation, and signaled to Germans how hopeless was their cause.

The Allies invaded France in June 1944 as the Russians launched another attack on the east. Both attacks were successful and by the end of 1944, the end was in sight. Hitler did launch a surprise attack at the Bulge in December, 1944; it was his last major initiative and it failed, as Allied armor rolled into Germany. Disregarding his generals, Hitler rejected withdrawals and retreats, counting more and more on nonexistent armies. He committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin as his last soldiers were overwhelmed by Soviet armies in intensely bloody battles overhead.

Polish campaign
Hitler had the SS create a fake invasion, by Polish troops, of Germany, and used this to justify sending his waiting force into Poland. The army forces were accompanied by Einsatzgruppen that primarily arrested and deported, but were not dedicated to killing.

He split Poland into spheres of influence with Russia.

Dunkirk
The British Expeditionary Force was pushed into a pocket at Dunkirk. Hitler stopped the German armored forces that should have been able to crush it. The reasons for this halt remain unclear. One oft-mentioned reason is that Goering promised the Luftwaffe could stop the evacuation.

Another, however, is that Hitler regarded it as a gesture towards Britain, allowing them, although with greater success than expected, to evacuate their troops. While he would not deal with Winston Churchill, he may still have hoped to form a modus vivendi with Britain, leaving Germany as the continental power and Britain as the ruler of the seas.

Commerce raiding
Hitler had little sense of war at sea. The "pocket battleship" DKM Graf Spee had conducted, in late 1939, effective commerce raiding in the South Atlantic, but was eventually trapped by British ships and forced to scuttle herself after the Battle of the River Plate. Concealed raiders had been more effective for lower cost than the purpose-built warships, and the drive for major warships did not reassure Hitler.

Grand Admiral Erich Raeder ordered DKM Bismarck and DKM Prinz Eugen to sortie as commerce raiders in Operation RHINE of May 1941, following the successful Operation Berlin cruise by DKM Scharnhorst and DKM Gneisenau.

Operation Sea Lion
Operation Sea Lion was the German plan for an amphibious landing in the British Isles. For it to have any chance of success, the Germans needed both local air supremacy, and sufficient air and naval forces to stop Royal Navy ships from interfering. In general, the German Army and Navy were dubious about their capability to carry off the invasion.

Battle of Britain
Before World War II German air campaign against Britain, in 1940 when Germany attempted, and failed, to gain air superiority in advance of their proposed invasion of Britain, Operation Sea Lion.

War with Soviet Union, 1941
Hitler decided to invade Russia (Operation Barbarossa) in early 1941, but was delayed by the need to take control of the Balkans. Hitler was also unaware of the details of the Japanese decision for war in 1941.

Europe was not big enough for both Hitler and Stalin, and Hitler realized the sooner he moved the less risk of American involvement. While planning between Germany and Japan was vague, the Japanese were also under time pressure to invade.

Stalin thought he had a long-term partnership and rejected information coming from all directions that Germany was about to invade in June 1941. As a result, the Russians were poorly prepared and suffered huge losses, being pushed back to Moscow by December before holding the line. Hitler imagined that the Soviet Union was a hollow shell that would easily collapse, like France. He therefore had not prepared for a long war, and did not have sufficient winter clothing and gear for his soldiers.

The invasion was delayed, but analysts believe it could have been won without Hitler's overriding his general staff. In August, the approaches to Moscow and Kiev were both in reach. From the military standpoint, Moscow, the capital, was the center of gravity of the Soviet Union; the staff urged an all-out effort to take it. Hitler, however, believed the center of gravity was the Ukraine and the oil fields in the Caucasus. He decided that by moving the Moscow attack force south, he could deny oil to the Soviets, and then strike north after the oilfields were taken.

He did not, however, plan for the Soviet defense, and, above all, for having to fight in the Russian winter.

Ukrainian territory was vital to the resolution of the problem of German Lebensraum. In accord with Hitler's conception, the Ukraine was to be fully controlled and exploited for the benefit of Germany. Under the Generalplan Ost, Hitler's projections for the Ukraine were well underway by 1942.

War with the U.S.
Lukacs argues that Hitler felt that Roosevelt was behind Churchill and that the Jews were behind Roosevelt. By the end of July 1940, Hitler's moves were often in response to those of Roosevelt. Hitler ordered the navy not to provoke the U.S. in an effort to prevent Roosevelt from getting popular support for entrance into the war; small incidents did happen, and indeed Roosevelt exaggerated them in building up support for his interventionist policies against the opposition of isolationists. Roosevelt gained more and more public support inside the U.S. and American involvement intensified in 1941 as the "Arsenal of Democracy" sent munitions to Britain and Russia. The declaration of war against the U.S. that followed Pearl Harbor helped mobilize German opinion. By 1944 Hitler and the Germans became more fearful of the invading Russians from the East than of the invading Anglo-American forces from the West. Roosevelt's determination to support the British in 1940 led to Hitler's ultimate defeat. An isolationist president, Lukacs concludes, would have made decisions leading to different outcomes for the war.

Wartime Antisemitism
Hitler ordered a move from deportation to killing, with mobile Einsatzgruppen in 1941 and with extermination camps in 1942. These had a high logistical priority and competed with the combat troops.

The Second Front
When the Normandy invasion came in June 1944, its way had been prepared by a large strategic deception operation by the London Controlling Staff. Hitler was convinced that the main attack was not Normandy, but the Pas de Calais, and refused to release the armored counterattack force until it was too late. He also insisted, as in Russia, of never retreating, even for tactical reasons, and allowed large units to be trapped and captured.