Adolf Hitler and Nazism 1919-1945

1. Adolf Hitler and Nazism1919-1945 John Carlos Hough September 22 2010

2. Dates • April 20 1889 – Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria. • 1913 – Hitler moved from Austria to Munich, Germany at age 24. • 1914-1918 – Hitler was a Corporal in the German Army in World War I. • July 1919 – Hitler is told to infiltrate and spy on the German Workers’ Party. • February 1920 – The German Workers’ Party is renamed National Socialist German Workers’ Party. • 1921 – Hitler becomes the leader of the Nazi Party. • November 1923 – Hitler starts a 9 month jail term for trying to seize power through revolution. • September 1930 - The Nazi Party wins 107 seats in the German parliamentary election. • January 30 1933 – Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany’s coalition government. • August 1934 – Hitler becomes dictator of Germany. • 1934 – Hitler creates the Schultzstaffel (“Protection Squad”) … also known as the “SS”. • 1938-1939 – Germany invades Austria and Czechoslovakia. • 1939 – Germany invades Poland and World War II starts. • April 30 1945 – Adolf Hitler commits suicide at age 56 and the Nazi empire is overthrown.

3. Relationship of the person to the concept • National Socialism (Nazism) was the German Fascist movement founded by Adolf Hitler in Munich, Germany in 1919. The movements’ full title was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. It became an ideology that combined elements of fascism, biological racism, and anti-Semitism. • After being democratically elected, Hitler and the Nazi Party promoted a managed economy (a form of Nationalism) that was neither capitalist nor communist (but rather Socialism) to extract Germany from the effects of both their loss in WWI and the Great Depression. • Hitler and the Nazis believed in the supremacy of the Aryan race and that the German people were the purest of the Aryan nations. They also believed that the Jews were the greatest threat to the Aryan race and therefore to Germany. • Nazism died when Hitler blew his brains out. The Nazi Party was banned in Germany and its remaining top leaders were convicted of crimes against humanity.

4. Importance of the person and the concept to world history (How was the world changed?) • Hitler used his talent as a political agitator and public speaking to fool the downtrodden German people into buying into the vision of Nazism that he painted for them and to democratically elect his Nazi Party into power. • Once elected, he used his other talent as a calculating and ruthless politician to eliminate his opposition and seize absolute power. • His fanatical nationalism and his passion for complete power allowed him to steer the Nazi Party past its nationalism and socialism platforms to the more radical platforms of territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing. • The rise and fall of Hitler and Nazism is one of the most horrible episodes in all of human history. All that Nazism left behind was hatred, destruction, and a warning. The story of Hitler and the Nazis shows what happens when a nation gives itself up to the evils of violence and race supremacy.

5. Bibliography of Sources Used • The New World Book of Knowledge. • Eyewitness Books – World War II. • www.history.uk.co