Adolf Hitler, The German Leader Essay, Research Paper
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Great leaders throughout history have inspired, enlightened, and validated the
wildest dreams of ruling the world. Few people in the world have the internal strength,
influence, and intelligence to lead the masses into a group fighting for a divine cause. We
fear what is powerful and unknown, we love what is ours and great. True patriots have
the desired to make their countries better and stronger. Adolf Hitler became a powerful
leader of the German Third Reich by his influence over the German people.
Corporal Adolf Hitler received orders from headquarters to find out what was
behind a political organization which was planning to hold a meeting within the next few
days under the name ?German Workers? Party? with Gottfried Feder as the presiding
officer. The government suspected that the ?Workers?? part of the group?s name could
possibly involve Marxist dogmas. Marxism was something Hitler was very much against,
Marxism is a body of social, political, and economic thought derived from the writings of
Karl Marx and his collaborator, Friedrich Engels. Hitler attended and made a report. The
Founder, Drexler, gave Hitler a pamphlet he wrote called ?My Political Awakening.?
Hitler read it and took a liking to the fact that the man thought a lot like himself. Hitler
attended another meeting where he heard a speech called ?By what means is capitalism to
be eliminated.? Hitler liked the club, but it was extremely disorganized. He wanted to
form a club of his own, not some pasted together group of local vigilantes. When Hitler
came to the next meeting, after some debate whether to go or stay in his bunker and watch
the rats eat bread crumbs, he was told that he was the newest inductee, but Hitler had not
joined yet. It took a speech by a man from some university to really get Hitler motivated
and infuriated, he spoke if separating Bavaria from Prussia. Hitler gabbed on for at least
15 minutes about how ludicrous an idea it was and enlightened everybody that could hear
him what was exactly wrong with the nation of Germany, the members were in
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awe over Hitler?s articulation and they knew he was going to be a remarkable addition to
their organization.
The unsuccessful coup, or putsch, launched by Adolf Hitler in a Munich beer hall
on the night of November 8, 1923, was designed to bring the Bavarian government and,
ultimately, the national government of Germany under the control of the National Socialist
party. Munich, the capital of Bavaria, was the cradle of the Nazi movement but was also
beset by other right-wing elements that challenged Hitler for leadership. The Munich
Putsch, also known as the “beer-hall putsch,” was thus aimed at consolidating Hitler’s own
political position as well as overthrowing the Weimar government, which consisted of
Jews and Marxists in Berlin, that he viewed as destroying Germany. On November 8,
Hitler and General Erich Ludendorff announced the “National Revolution,” and Hitler
gave a brief proclamation on top of a makeshift platform where he professed ?A new
German National Army will be formed immediately. The task is to organize the march on
that sinful Babel Berlin, and save the German people! Tomorrow will find either a
national government in Germany or us dead!? (The History Place? NP) The next day they
led a Nazi march on the Bavarian War Ministry. Hitler presumably had led a few Bavarian
leaders to follow his lead, but they betrayed him. Hitler?s regiment was defected so he
retreated to Hanfstaengl?s house, a friend of his, but three days later he was captured and
tried for high treason. Hitler astutely used his public trial to attract nationwide publicity for
the Nazi cause. Hitler gave one of his most invigorating speeches that day but he was
convicted and he actually served nine months of a five-year prison sentence, during which
he wrote Mein Kampf, or in English, My Struggle.
One of the most important political tracts of the 20th century, Mein Kampf, is
considered the bible of Nazism. It was written by Adolf Hitler while he served a sentence
in Landsberg Prison, the book presents Hitler’s major ideas on anti-Semitism,
anti-Communism, superiority of the Aryan race, German nationalism, the state’s
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superiority over the individual, and Hitler’s feelings of hostility for democracy and
miscegenation. The importance of the book, which calls for German domination of
Europe, is derived from the notoriety of its author rather than from his logical presentation
of National Socialist ideas. He defined the enemy as world Jewry, international
communism, effete liberalism, and decadent capitalism. Hitler offered instead pure Aryan
blood and the renewal of German nationalism under a fighting elite. From volume one,
chapter eight of Mein Kampf Hitler wrote, ?What we must fight for is to safeguard the
existence and reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and
the purity of our blood, the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our
people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the
universe.? (Mein Kampf NP) Also from that volume and chapter Hitler wrote, ?With
satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl
whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people.? (Mein Kampf NP)
Germany would once more become the leading power on the Continent and gain its living
space, or in German ?Lebensraum,? in central Europe and Russia.
Hitler was for the German people, and the people knew it. Adolf was once
quoted, ?I must frankly admit that… I should probably lose all interest in life and would
rather not be German at all, but since, thank the Lord, this cannot be done, we have no
need to be surprised that the health, unspoiled people avoid bourgeois mass meetings as
the devil?s holy water.? (Mein Kampf NP) The Weimar Republic, the popular name of the
German republic was established at the end of World War I. Its constitution, adopted on
July 30, 1919, was drawn up in the city of Weimar. It was Germany?s first democracy
that in the 1920s proceed in paying war reparations which, to the German people, was
considered a dissident act. The people confided to Hitler and his seemly answers to their
problems. April of 1921, France and England gave a mandate of 33 billion dollars in
backed payments which the Weimar paid. The depression was now in a state of full
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predominance, in 1929, with inflation at a record high. Adolf got elected chancellor on
January 30, 1933 promising a strong German economy, jobs, and national glory, he
attracted millions of enthusiastic voters. Hitler?s armament drive abolished unemployment
and an ambitious recreational program attracted workers and employers, his foreign policy
successes impressed the nation.
Italy had a fascist, or a person who reacted against the political and social changes
brought about by World War I and the spread of socialism and communism, dictator
known as Benito Mussolini. In 1935, at the Stresa Conference, Mussolini helped create an
anti-Hitler front in order to defend the independence of Austria. Italy was mainly on the
German side in World War I, but towards the end it joined the Allied forces so it was
allowed into the League of Nations with other countries such as France, Britain, Japan,
and the United States of America. In the mid-1930s, Mussolini turned to an aggressive
foreign policy, conquering Ethiopia in 1936 and helped Nationalist General Francisco
Franco in the Spanish Civil War. All of Italy?s acts were protested by the League of
Nations so Italy was condemned and thereafter Italy was abolished from the global
assembly. Germany withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933, the same year the
Weimar republic was vanquished by Hitler?s National Socialists Workers Party. Mussolini
knew that Italy would be devastated in another world war so a rapprochement, in 1936,
with Hitler’s Germany expanded into a military alliance dubbed as ?The Axis Powers?
because of their geologic location in 1939. During the April of 1939 Mussolini rashly
ordered his armies to occupy Albania. However, he kept Italy out of World War II until
June 1940, when the fall of France was imminent and the Germans seemed to be winning
the war. Mussolini never really liked Hitler, or his ways of getting things accomplished but
stuck with him because he had no apparent choice.
The dilemma for Russia was an inheritance from the czarist period, when the
government had two options: be friendly to Germany in the hope that it would expand
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elsewhere, or join with Germany’s enemies in the hope of preventing German expansion of
any kind. The tsarist government had chosen the second option, which led to Russia’s
failure in World War I and the eventual collapse of tsarism itself. The Soviet Union
pursued the course of rapprochement with Germany, since both Germany and Soviet
Russia were regarded almost as pariah in the international system, there was ground for
common interest. The Treaty of Rapallo in April 16, 1922, formalized relations between
the two countries and led to secret military collaboration, but the rise to power of Adolf
Hitler in the early 1930s put an end to any further cooperation. Hitler’s anticommunist and
his open desire for expansion toward the East forced the Soviet Union to return to the
second option of trying to isolate Germany. Under the policy known as “collective
security,” the USSR tried to work conjointly with France and Britain in order to convince
Hitler that expansion would not pay. Whatever chance existed of effective cooperation
between the Soviet Union and the capitalist democracies ended in 1938 and 1939 with the
Munich Conference and Hitler’s takeover of Czechoslovakia. With Hitler’s
encouragement, Stalin rapidly switched course again and in August 1939 he signed a
nonaggression treaty with Germany and he was relieved of the fear of a two-front war,
Hitler promptly attacked western Poland while the Soviets invaded eastern Poland, World
War II had began. But Stalin hoped for a long drawn-out war between Germany and the
Western powers, he was soon disappointed as Hitler quickly dominated the European
continent and turned his sights east. Neither of the two options for dealing with
Germany–separate deal or collective security–seemed to work.
The harsh terms imposed on Germany at the end of World War I by the Versailles
Treaty were deeply resented in that nation. The democratic Weimar Republic, as a
product of German defeat, bore the onus of association with the treaty. The major
democratic powers–the United States, Great Britain, and France–were not prepared to
cope with the challenges to peace posed by the dissatisfied nations. They accepted the
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international order established by the Versailles Treaty but were unwilling to defend it.
Many in the democracies were disillusioned by World War I. The idealistic goals of U.S.
president Woodrow Wilson had not been achieved, and it seemed to some that the war
had been promoted by war profiteers and deceptive propaganda. The Versailles Treaty
was widely regarded as unfair to Germany. Furthermore, the enormous casualties of
World War I had aroused pacifist sentiment. Finally, while the depression spurred
dissatisfied nations toward expansionism, it turned the democracies inward as they became
preoccupied with reviving their economies. Hoping to avert another war, the United
States adopted neutrality laws, the British sought to appease the dictatorial regimes, and
the French tried to secure themselves behind a network of alliances and the defensive
fortress of the Maginot Line. The Western powers could no longer avoid acknowledging
that Hitler’s promises were worthless and that his territorial ambitions were not restricted
to German-speaking areas but might be limitless, desperately, Britain and France began to
prepare military resistance to Nazi expansionism.
In the spring of 1939 Britain and France guaranteed Poland against German
aggression. Stalin had become convinced that Britain and France were conspiring to help
throw the full weight of German strength against the USSR. Therefore, despite their
bitterly antagonistic ideologies, he sought an accommodation with Hitler. To avoid
fighting a two-front war Hitler first tried to make peace with Britain, after that attempt to
clear the western front failed, he launched the Battle of Britain but again failed to put the
British out of action. Nevertheless, full-scale preparations for the invasion of the USSR
began in December 1940, because Hitler did not believe that he was risking a two-front
war. He felt that Britain, having been expelled from the continent, no longer posed an
offensive military threat. Despite his aversion to Communism, Churchill promised Stalin
economic and technical assistance against the Axis, and on July 13, 1941, Moscow signed
a mutual-aid pact with London, offers of help also came from Washington. France broke
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off its diplomatic ties with Moscow and Britain severed relations with Finland, which the
Germans had used as one base for their invasion. Sweden had granted permission for
German troops to cross its territory but announced its determination to remain neutral.
Despite pressure from the USSR and from Britain, with whom it had an alliance, Turkey,
too, proclaimed its neutrality.
By mid-1943, Hitler’s time of trial had begun. The bloody retreat from Russia had
commenced, North Africa was lost, his Italian ally Benito Mussolini had fallen, and
German cities were being demolished by Allied bombing. In June 1944 the Allies landed
on the coast of France, opening the long-awaited second front. Hitler was the victim of an
assassination attempt by a group of his own officers on July 20, 1944, but he miraculously
survived. A physical wreck, he became increasingly bitter and isolated. He said, ?Our
enemies are gathering all their forces for the final assault. We have facing us an
incongruous coalition drawn together by hatred and jealously and cemented by the panic
with which the National Socialist doctrine fills this Jew-ridden motley.? (Adolf Hitler 848)
On April 16, 1945, Zhukov, commander in chief of the Soviet occupation forces, launched
his final attack on Berlin. By the end of the month the Soviets had penetrated to the center
of the city. German soldiers and civilians, fearful of revenge expected from the Soviets,
hastened to surrender to the Americans and the British in the belief that they would
receive better treatment from the Western Allies. On April 25, 1945, Soviet troops, who
now encircled Berlin, met the Americans at Torgau on the Elbe.
In a truly despondent ending, Eva Braun at thirty-three-years old, was the mistress
and later the wife of the German dictator Adolf Hitler. A photographer’s assistant, she
began living with Hitler in about 1936. They were married on April 29, 1945, in an air raid
shelter in Berlin as Soviet troops advanced through the city. ?The Hitlers sat together on
a couch in their suite. Behind them was the large space where the portrait of Frederic had
hung. Eva died first of poison. At about 3:30 P.M. Hitler picked up his 7.65-calibre
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Walther pistol. He held it to his right temple and squeezed the trigger.? (Adolf Hitler 888)
Hitler died knowing that his majestic dreams for the German people were crushed by the
abominable barbarians that surrounded his country. Hitler lost his true love, and his wife.
Adolf Hitler was a strong leader of the German Third Reich by his extreme
influence over the people of Germany. Hitler loved the German race, people, and culture.
He was willing and did fight for his beliefs. Dreams are ruptured, hope is lost, and life
goes on every day. Hitler had a vision, a dream of the perfect world, nirvana even, but
like so many other people, Hitler failed. The quest for a flawless world still goes on
through modern powerful leaders with their dreams and hopes of a world at peace.