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Adolf Hitler

2007-05-02T17:57:50Z

Sigs: /* Holocaust */

[[Image:Hitler6-thumb.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Hitler with his dog, Blondie]]
'''Adolf Hitler''' was born April 20, 1889 in Branau Am Inn, [[Austria]]. He died April 30, 1945. His dictatorial rule of [[Germany]], which led to the deaths of millions before and during [[World War II]], upon his direct orders, has placed him among history's most hated villains.

"Adolf Hitler or the incarnation of absolute evil; this is how future generations will remember the all-powerful Fuehrer of the criminal Third Reich. Compared with him, his peers [[Mussolini]] and [[Franco]] were novices. Under his hypnotic gaze, humanity crossed a threshold from which one could see the abyss. "Before Hitler, we thought we had sounded the depths of human nature," argues Ron Rosenbaum, author of "Explaining Hitler." "He showed how much lower we could go, and that's what was so horrifying. It gets us wondering not just at the depths he showed us but whether there is worse to come. The power of Hitler was to confound the modernist notion that judgments about good and evil were little more than matters of taste, reflections of social class and power and status. Although some modern scholars drive past the notion of evil and instead explain Hitler's conduct as a reflection of his childhood and self-esteem issues, for most survivors of the 20th century he is confirmation of our instinctive sense that evil does exist. It moves among us; it leads us astray and deploys powerful, subtle weapons against even the sturdiest souls."
[http://ronrosenbaum.pajamasmedia.com/2006/08/23/about_this_blogger.php]

[[Elie Wiesel]] wrote famously, and most eloquently about Hitler in 1998: <blockquote>
"At the same time that he terrorized his adversaries, he knew how to please, impress and charm the very interlocutors from whom he wanted support. Diplomats and journalists insist as much on his charm as they do on his temper tantrums. The savior admired by his own as he dragged them into his madness, the Satan and exterminating angel feared and hated by all others, Hitler led his people to a shameful defeat without precedent. That his political and strategic ambitions have created a dividing line in the history of this turbulent and tormented century is undeniable: there is a before and an after. By the breadth of his crimes, which have attained a quasi-ontological dimension, he surpasses all his predecessors: as a result of Hitler, man is defined by what makes him inhuman. With Hitler at the head of a gigantic laboratory, life itself seems to have changed.

How did this Austrian without title or position manage to get himself elected head of a German nation renowned for its civilizing mission? How to explain the success of his cheap demagogy in the heart of a people so proud of having inherited the genius of a Wolfgang von Goethe and an Immanuel Kant?

Was there no resistance to his disastrous projects? There was. But it was too feeble, too weak and too late to succeed. German society had rallied behind him: the judicial, the educational, the industrial and the economic establishments gave him their support. Few politicians of this century have aroused, in their lifetime, such love and so much hate; few have inspired so much historical and psychological research after their death. Even today, works on his enigmatic personality and his cursed career are best sellers everywhere. Some are good, others are less good, but all seem to respond to an authentic curiosity on the part of a public haunted by memory and the desire to understand.

We think we know everything about the nefarious forces that shaped his destiny: his unhappy childhood, his frustrated adolescence; his artistic disappointments; his wound received on the front during World War I; his taste for spectacle, his constant disdain for social and military aristocracies; his relationship with [[Eva Braun]], who adored him; the cult of the very death he feared; his lack of scruples with regard to his former comrades of the SA, whom he had assassinated in 1934; his endless hatred of [[Jews]], whose survival enraged him — each and every phase of his official and private life has found its chroniclers, its biographers.

And yet. There are, in all these givens, elements that escape us. How did this unstable paranoid find it within himself to impose gigantic hope as an immutable ideal that motivated his nation almost until the end? Would he have come to power if Germany were not going through endless economic crises, or if the winners in 1918 had not imposed on it conditions that represented a national humiliation against which the German patriotic fiber could only revolt? ''We would be wrong to forget: Hitler came to power in January 1933 by the most legitimate means. His Nationalist Socialist Party won a majority in the parliamentary elections.'' The aging [[Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg]] had no choice but to allow him, at age 43, to form the new government, marking the end of the Weimar Republic. And the beginning of the Third Reich, which, according to Hitler, would last 1,000 years.

From that moment on, events cascaded. The burning of the [[Reichstag]] came only a little before the openings of the first concentration camps, established for members of the opposition. Fear descended on the country and squeezed it in a vise. Great writers, musicians and painters went into exile to France and the U.S. Jews with foresight emigrated toward Palestine. The air of Hitler's Germany was becoming more and more suffocating. Those who preferred to wait, thinking that the Nazi regime would not last, could not last, would regret it later, when it was too late.

The fact is that Hitler was beloved by his people — not the military, at least not in the beginning, but by the average Germans who pledged to him an affection, a tenderness and a fidelity that bordered on the irrational. It was idolatry on a national scale. One had to see the crowds who acclaimed him. And the women who were attracted to him. And the young who in his presence went into ecstasy. Did they not see the hateful mask that covered his face? Did they not divine the catastrophe he bore within himself?"[http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/hitler.html]
</blockquote>

==Birth and pre political life==

He was born in 1889 in [[Austria]]. His mother was his father's niece, and the incestuous relationship may have impacted development of Hitler's psychopathic nature. Later on Hitler became involved with his own niece, and this appears to have been a pattern in Hitler's family extending back several generations and explains Hitler's attitudes about intermarriage. <ref>Gunther, John, ''Inside Europe'', New York: Harper, 1939.</ref>

After leaving home he worked as an artisan painter. Hitler did not do particularly well in school, leaving formal education in 1905. Unable to settle to a regular job, he drifted. He wished to become an artist but was rejected from the Academy in Vienna. He immigrated to [[Germany]] and served as an enlisted soldier in the Imperial Bavarian Army in [[World War I]], and gained the rank of corporal. He won several awards for bravery, including the Iron Cross First Class.

==The Beginning Of His Political Life==

After the war ended, Hitler's future seemed uncertain. There was much discontent among demobilized veterans because of the lack of employment. The German military had felt it had not been defeated, indeed the German Army stood on foreign soil when the Armistice was signed November 11, 1918 and not a square inch of German soil had been occupied. The Army felt they had done their job, and the nation had been "stabbed in the back" by a gang of traitors who sought to lay hands on the Fatherland. The "myth" that Germany had been defeated was the "big lie" Hitler spoke of as repeating often enough people will begin to believe it.

Many returning Army units remained intact, despite no longer directly under command of the German Army because of limitations set upon it by the Treaty of Versailles. The situation was highly politicized, and it appears Hitler was sent to spy originally upon a small splinter group called National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi) were he found only a shell of an organization, but a willing audience to hear him talk. By 1921 he became leader of the group. With terrible economic conditions and rapid inflation, support for Hitler’s party grew. By 1923, the Nazi’s had 56,000 members and many more supporters.

==Beer Hall Putsch==

Germany in 1923 was marked by social and political unrest caused by hyperinflation. In this time Hitler was able convince [[Erich Ludendorff]], an accomplished general and leader of the German forces in the first World War, to join him in a coup d'etat (''Putsch'' in German). When Hitler learned that the nationalist Prime Minister of Bavaria was giving a speech to 3000 officials in one of Munich's biggest beer halls, he ordered his paramilitaries to surround the building. Hitler went into building and took the prime minister hostage, in an attempt to convince him to join Hitler's coup against Berlin, and to become member in his new administration. The Bavarian prime minister agreed under pressure, but informed later that night the nation via radio, that he did not support Hitler.

The next morning, 9 November 1923, Hitler and Ludendorff were marching with approximately 2000 partly armed supporters through Munich in a show of strength. They were stopped by Bavarian armed and police forces. In the ensuing fight at least 14 Nazi supporters, three police men, were killed, and hundreds wounded. Ludendorff handed himself over to the authorities, while Hitler fled soon after the fighting began. Hitler was arrested a few days later at a friends house, were had been in hiding since the failed coup. Ludendorff was acquitted from all charges, while Hitler was sentenced to 5 years in prison. In Landsberg prison Hitler wrote his book ''[[Mein Kampf]]''. He was already released in 1924, after one year of prison.<ref>http://history1900s.about.com/cs/thirdreich/a/beerhallputsch_2.htm</ref><ref>http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/putsch2.htm</ref>

==Path to Power==

In the early 1930 Germany was in a permanent political and constitutional crisis. This was caused by rising unemployment during the great depression, combined with frustration about the perceived injustice imposed on Germany by the Versailles treaty, street violence between various extreme groups, and an inability of centrist democratic parties to cooperate. This resulted in a polarization of extremes, [[Comintern]] activists on one side and [[Nazi| national socialist]] on the other. The national socialist were also simply known as ''Hitler movement''.

In the first election of 1932 communists and national socialist together won the majority of seats in the Reichstag. This means that the anti-democratic forces outnumbered the democratic forces. In a second election that year, the national socialists lost ground, but the democratic forces were still unable to form a functioning government. After a series of minority cabinets former Chancellor van Papen convinced President Hindenburg to appoint Hitler to Chancellor in a coalition government with the national conservative party. Van Papen expected the nation would recognize Hitler to be a fraud within a few months in government. The national socialist celebrated the ''Machtergreifung'' (''seizure of power'' in German) on January 30, 1933, with massive marches through Berlin. Two days later new elections for parliament were announced for March.[http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/named.htm]

== Consolidation of Power ==

In the lead up to the 1933 election oppression and harassment of political opponents increased. On February 27, 1933, six day before the Reichstag election, the Dutch National and communist Marinus van der Lubbe was caught setting the Reichstag on fire. While the exact events surrounding this event are still contended, it was blamed on a [[Comintern]] conspiracy. President Hindenburg signed the Reichstag Fire decree the next day, which increased Hitlers powers and gave him the opportunity to arrest political opponents, among them elected members of parliament.[http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/burns.htm] [http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/nazi/innenpolitik/reichstagsbrand/index.html]

In the election the national socialist failed to win a majority, but the newly formed Reichstag voted in favor of an Enabling Act with a majority of 69% (67% being the necessary quota), giving the national socialist government the power to enact new laws without interference from parliament or constitution. Only the members of the Social Democrats (SPD) and Communists (KPD) voted against the act. Hitler and the NSDAP had sucessfully tricked the members of the Bayerische Volkspartei and the Zentrum into supporting the act. In the summer of 1933 the Nazi government declared first the communist and social democratic party illegal, briefly afterwards all other parties. At the end of the year the Reichstag cast officially into law that Germany was a one-party-state.

After all political opponents had been neutralised and in order to gain support from the German military, Hitler turned his attention to a key group which had catapulted the Nazi's into power--the stormtroopers (SA) under Ernst Roehm. The German military viewed an armed and trained paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party as a challenge to their power. It was a well known within the Nazi establishment that Roehm was gay, and it was now used against him to discredit him. Heinrich Himmler of the SS, Hitler's personal body guards at the time, was tasked with reigning the SA in. In the so-called ''Night of Long Knives'' the entire top of the SA was executed. This marked the eclipse of the SA as within the [[Nazi Party]], and the rise of the SS as the dominant force. Although hestitant at first, Hitler agreed to have Ernst Roehm executed, a friend and associate since their time in Landsberg prison.[http://www.adolfhitler.ws/lib/nsdap/Rohm.html] [http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/nazi/innenpolitik/roehm/index.html]

After President Hindenburgs death in 1934, Hitler received also all presidential powers and was declared ''Führer und Reichskanzler'' (leader and chancellor). This was approved in August 1934 by 84% of the votes in a nationwide plebiscite.

==[[Holocaust]]==

'''The Night of Broken Glass:'''

The Final Solution to the Jewish Question in Europe was implemented by a government of a modern Western state to exterminate people of Jewish ancestry throughout Germany and all its occupied territories. Approximately six million people of all ages--men, women and children, were systematically murdered under a policy directed by Adolf Hitler. Other groups of "undesirables" and "asocials" were also targeted and killed.[http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/burns.htm]

November 9, 1938, an event occurred which revealed the true nature of Hitler's regime to the world and also marked the beginning of deadly radicalization of Nazi policy concerning the Jews. For some months so-called moderate anti-Semites within the Nazi hierarchy had been losing ground to those favoring extreme measures such as the immediate removal of Jews from Germany. The removal of the first big group of Jews in late October 1938 sparked a chain of events resulting in the ''Night of Broken Glass'', a massive, coordinated attack on Jews throughout Greater Germany.

On October 27, about 17,000 [[Jew]]s of Polish origin, including over 2,000 children, were abruptly expelled from Germany on orders of Reinhard Heydrich, second-in-command of the SS. The Grynszpan family from the city of Hanover were among the Jews forcibly transported in railroad cars then dumped at the Polish border as unwanted persons. Polish border authorities at first denied them permission to enter. The Jews thus ended up in a kind of no-man's-land between the German and Polish borders. The Grynszpan mention is not important on the face, but their 17-year-old son Herschel does. He had gone to Paris for safekeeping at the age of 15 to stay with his uncle who worked there as a tailor. Up hearing about his families plight, he became increasingly depressed and enraged. Driven half-mad with sorrow and anger over all that was happening, Herschel decided to commit a radical act of violence to draw the world's attention to the plight of the Jews. On Monday morning, November 7, he walked into a Paris gun shop and purchased a 6.35-caliber revolver along with a box of 25 bullets. When the shop owner asked why he wanted the gun, Herschel answered that he sometimes carried large amounts of money for his father and needed the protection.

All in all, Hitler was a good christian and despite his [[fascism|fascist]] agendas had grasped the central biblical teachings about compassion and forgiving.

==1944 Assassination Attempt==

On July 20, 1944, officers of the German Wehrmacht succeeded in planting a bomb in Hitler's secret headquarters in East Prussia which exploded, killing three and injuring Hitler.

In the aftermath and up until the final days of the War approximately 5,000 people, mostly German officers, were executed for treason, disloyalty, or suspected of not offering fanatical resistance to fight to the end.

==Marriage==

He married [[Eva Braun]], on 29 April 1945 in Berlin.

==Death==

Hitler committed suicide in the Führerbunker next to the Chancellery in [[Berlin]] on April 30, 1945, after the Allied forces had invaded Germany, and as the Red Army was fighting its way into the heart of Berlin. [http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/adolfhitler.html] He appointed [[Grossadmiral Karl Dönitz]] to succeed him as President in his last will, to continue the war against the Red Army. A few days later, Dönitz instructed the military to sign an unconditional surrender, and the war ended officially on May 8, 1945, the date that became known as [[V-E Day]].

==References==
<references/>

==Sources==
*[http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/profile-index.htmlA Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler, His Life and Legend], Walter C. Langer, Office of Strategic Services, Washington, D.C.

[[Category:Political people]]
[[Category:Fascists]]

Square root

2007-05-02T17:53:57Z

Sigs:

The '''square root''' of a number ''x'' is a number that, multiplied by itself, results in ''x''. In geometry, the positive square root is the length of one side of a square. Multiply the length by itself, and the product is the area of the square.

For example, 5 × 5 = 25 so 5 is a square root of 25. Also, -5 × -5 = 25 so -5 is the other square root. <ref>"Note that any positive real number has two square roots, one positive and one negative. For example, the square roots of 9 are -3 and +3, since (-3)<sup>2</sup> = (+3)<sup>2</sup> = 9." [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SquareRoot.html Wolfram Research] - Eric Weisstein </ref>

The usual symbol for the square root of ''x'' is <math>\sqrt{x}</math>. If you need both roots, use
<math>\pm \sqrt{x}</math>

When speaking of "''the'' square root of ''x''", people usually refer to the positive square root. For example:
:<math>\sqrt{9} = 3</math>

When both square roots are to be considered, in mathematics the convention is to use a sign, pronounced "plus or minus" to signify them:
:<math>\pm \sqrt{9} = \pm 3</math>

This has important implications when solving equations, in that, if the square root of both sides is taken, one must be careful to allow for both the positive and negative square root. A well known example is [[completing the square]] to solve a [[quadratic equation]].

==Irrational numbers as square roots of whole numbers==
Some square roots are relatively simple [[whole number]]s, for example, [[pi]] the square root of 9. Others are less amenable to expression, such as the square root of 2 (=1.414...), which has been proven to be an [[irrational number]].

==Square roots of negative numbers==
Negative numbers have square roots that lie outside the [[real number]]s: Multiplying a real number by itself always results in a positive number. The square roots of negative numbers involve what are called [[imaginary number]]s:
:<math>\sqrt{-1} = i</math> which for example leads to <math>\sqrt{-9} = 3i</math>

The statements in [[#Two square roots for each number|"Two square roots for each number"]] also apply to negative numbers.

==Alternate expressions and notations==
Many computer languages and spreadsheet programs use "''sqr(x)''" or "''sqrt(x)''" to describe (or calculate) the square root of ''x''. This is also the common notation used when mathematical symbols are not conveniently available.

The square root of a number can also be denoted as <math>x^{\frac{1}{2}}</math>. This can readily be seen by the rule of adding powers when multiplying:
:<math>x^{\frac{1}{2}} \cdot x^{\frac{1}{2}} = x^{\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{2}} = x^{1} = x</math>
If superscript is not available, the common way of writing this is '''x^(1/2)'''.

==Notes==
<references/>

[[category:mathematics]]

Netherlands

2007-05-02T17:52:16Z

Sigs:

[[Image:Netherlands_map.gif|right]]

The '''Netherlands''' is a country in [[Europe]]. It is bordered by [[Belgium]] and [[Germany]], and has a total population of approximately 16 million (2007). The country is often referred to as "Holland", but this incorrect, as Holland is actually just one region of the Netherlands.

As its name implies, it is a very low-lying country. About a quarter of the land area, containing more than half of the population, is actually below sea level, and would flood if the sea were not held back by a system of dikes.

A major breach of the dikes occurred in 1953, killing 1800 people.

[[Amsterdam]], named for the Amstel river, is the largest city, and officially the capital (although the seat of government is actually in The Hague). It is ringed by an extensive system of concentric canals.

[[Eindhoven]] is the location of the giant electronics corporation, Philips (full name: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.), with annual revenue equivalent to about $40 billion. (The U.S. corporation [[General Electric]] has revenues of about $150 billion, but much of it is from non-electronics businesses).

The Netherlands has long been famous for its production of flowers, and also for a related economic event, the "tulip mania" of 1636-1637. A classic example of a "bubble," [[tulip]]s were traded on stock exchanges, and bid up to fantastic prices by people who understood that the prices were crazy but hoped to sell at a profit to even crazier investors. As with all bubbles, when bidding began to lag, people tried to sell and the bubble burst.

The Netherlands is also famous for its low-crime rate and [[liberal]] legislation. Examples are organized prostitution in designated areas of major cities, such as Amsterdam's Red Light District, the legal [[soft drugs]] sold in the country's many coffee shops, wide [[abortion]] rights, [[same-sex marriage]]s and [[euthanasia]]. Drug abuse is not a major problem in Netherlands, since people are not made to feel so guilty about using cannabis. The only problem is that many people come from abroad, who don't understand the liberal idea but only want to get high. Many also think hard drugs were legal, which is not true. It's all a matter of defining where the border between good and bad drugs goes. One should remember that every day many people are given opiates and heroin-replacements as medical treatment of various diseases of old age.

==Queen's Day==
April 30th is known as Queen's day - the national holiday to mark the official birthday of the late queen-mom Juliana and its keep on thad date for the nise weather. This is the one day of the year when ordinary Netherlanders are permitted to sell goods on the streets without a licence. Consequently the whole country is turned into a gigantic flea market (garage sale). The primary effect of this is that people buy goods they do not want or need, solely in order to sell them the following year. In an act of patriotism most of the populace wear orange colored clothing (the national color) to identify with the Royal House Of '''Orange'''-Nasau.

Those not involved with selling their surplus belongings celebrate the national holiday at outdoors party’s in the city’s ore with fine weather bicycling throw the country and spend the free day on a terrace of a pub.

[[Category:European Countries]]
[[Category:NATO members]]
[[Category:EU Members]]

Pascal

2007-05-02T17:48:13Z

Sigs:

The Pascal is the unit of pressure named after [[Blaise Pascal]]. It represents [[newton (unit)|newton]]s per square meter.

Pascal is also a programming language.

== See Also ==
* [[International System of Units]]

[[Category:Unit of measure]]
[[Category:Science]]