"The German dictator and nationalist" #Adolf Hitler

The German dictator Adolf Hitler led the extreme nationalist and racist Nazi party and served as chancellor-president of Germany from 1933 to 1945. 

Arguably one of the most effective and powerful leaders of the twentieth century, his leadership led to the deaths of nearly six million Jews.

Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, to Alois Hitler and Klara Polzl. He was the fourth of the six children born to the couple and was only 3-years-old when the family moved from Austria to Germany.

He was a very bright child and was very popular at school, but often clashed with his father over his interest in fine arts. This led to Hitler’s detachment from his family and he became a reclusive, discontented, resentful child, with an unstable temperament towards his father.

Adolf soon became rebellious and began failing at school. He finally left formal education altogether in 1905 and began his long years of aimless existence, reading, painting, wandering in the woods, and dreaming of becoming a famous artist.

In 1907, when his mother died, he moved to Vienna in an attempt to enroll in the famed Academy of Fine Arts. His failure to gain admission that year and the next led him into a period of deep depression as he drifted away from his friends.

Hitler began to develop the extreme anti-Semitism and racial mythology that were to remain central to his own "ideology" and that of the Nazi party.

#Facts  “Hitler is synonymous with his moustache but few people know that his preferred style was that of handlebar variety. During World War I, he was ordered to trim his moustache so that it would fit underneath gas masks.”

He met Eva Braun, his long-term mistress, in 1929, and married her on April 29, 1945. It is also rumored that he had an affair with his half-niece, Geli Raubal, who committed suicide in her apartment in 1931, under mysterious circumstances.

  

On September 1, 1939, Hitler began World War II with his quest to control Europe. The sudden invasion of Poland was immediately followed by the destroying of Jews and the Polish elite, and the beginnings of German colonization. 

Despite the obvious evils that Nazis inflicted on the world, behind closed doors doctors and scientists were conducting some of the most abhorrent and disturbing experiments on human subjects. 

During World War II, a number of German physicians conducted painful and often deadly experiments on thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent.

#Facts He loved animals and upon coming to power in January 1933, proclaimed that “In the new Reich, no more animal cruelty will be allowed”.

HIS DEATH: Researches and studies have suggested that Hitler suffered from a number of health problems, such as skin lesions, coronary sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, syphilis and irritable bowel syndrome.

He was addicted to amphetamine after 1937 and became a regular user of the drug in the fall of 1942.

As a result of the assassination attempt in 1944, he suffered ruptured eardrums and over 200 wooden splinters had to be removed from his leg.

On April 30, 1945, he committed suicide, shooting his wife and himself in the mouth with a pistol. Their bodies were carried to the gardens of the Reich Chancellery, doused with petrol and burned.

This final, grisly act of self-destruction fittingly symbolized the career of a political leader whose main legacy to Europe was the ruin of its civilization and the futile sacrifice of precious human life for the sake of ‘race’ and power. Berlin fell on May 2, 1945 and so did Hitler’s twelve years of tyrannical, totalitarian rule.

The fall of Hitler’s Germany led to the onset of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States.

#Adolf Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939! However, he withdrew his nomination on February 1, 1939 and his name never appeared in a shortlist.