Changes

Adolf Hitler

3,288 bytes added, February 23
/* Sources */
| name =Adolf Hitler
| birth =April 20, 1889<br/>Braunau am Inn, Austria–Hungary
| parents =[[Alois Hitler]] (Schicklgruber)<br/>[[Klara PölzlHitler]]
| religion =Roman Catholic (rejected), [[Pantheism]],<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=lxphjwEACAAJ&dq=hitler%27s+religion&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6kcCK0M7QAhVMJiYKHa5EDWQQ6AEIJDAA Hitler's Religion: The Twisted Beliefs That Drove the Third Reich]</ref> [[Atheism]],<ref name="Today's atheists">[https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/03/20/todays-atheists-are-bullies-and-are-doing-their-best-to-intimidate-rest-us-into-silence.html Today's atheists are bullies -- and they are doing their best to intimidate the rest of us into silence] at Fox News</ref> [[Evolutionism]]
| spouse =[[Eva Braun]] (m. 1945, d. 1945)
| children =none
| death =April 30, 1945 (aged 56) <br/>Berlin, Germany
}}
'''Adolf Hitler''' (April 20, 1889 &ndash; April 30, 1945) was the Austrian-born Chancellor of [[Nazi Germany|Germany]] from January 30, 1933, and the ''[[Der Fuhrer|Führer]]'' of Germany from August 2, 1934 , until his death on April 30, 1945. He was also the leader of the [[Nazi Party|National Socialist German Workers' Party]] (''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei''; NSDAP or Nazi Party) which gained political power through threat, intimidation, and outright violence throughout Germany in the aftermath of the [[First World War]]. He was born and baptized as a Roman Catholic, but he never took religion seriously beyond initially rebelling against his Catholic father by showing preferences for Lutheran Protestantism in predominantly Catholic Austria, as well as using quasi-religious rhetoric in his book, ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' and in speeches in order to not lose potential religious supporters and voting blocs. He was far more interested in [[Social Darwinism]]. After having minor wounds from an assassination bombing attempt in 1944, Hitler abused drugs originally intended to help with his injuries long after he had recovered from his injuries.
Hitler in his youth was a financially-irresponsible [[Bohemia]]n (a German word of the time roughly the same as the English term "[[Hippy]]") who became broke after spending his father's inheritance wandering around Austria as a watercolour artist, practicing [[vegetarianism]], and rarely attempting to seek serious employment. Hitler worked with a Jewish art dealer and after being rejected entry into Vienna's leading art school due to his unoriginal art, Hitler was a complete failure and broke. Rather than accept responsibility for his Bohemian lifestyle, Hitler in denial and increasing signs of the mental illness of [[psychosis]], followed the political current in Europe at the time of blaming Jews for exploiting him. Hitler used the teachings of [[Martin Luther]] to promote his anti-Semitic views, similar to the other ways used by the Nazi Party in their effort to reshape and present to the public a much modified version of [[Christianity]]. One which promoted racial purity and Nazi ideology under the false banner known as "positive Christianity." The anti-Semites in Germany refused to acknowledge that Luther, prior to his seeing the Jew's refusal of his outreach to accept the Gospel, was highly sympathetic towards the Jews. It was adopted by a number of misguided Protestants and others who accepted the culture when it did not conform to biblical teachings.
==Early life==
[[File:Hitler Roses.jpg|thumb|Roses by Adolf Hitler.]]
Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, [[Austria]]. Hitler's father, Alois (born 1837), was a customs official who was himself born out of wedlock, carrying for a time his mother's name, Schicklgruber. Evidence uncovered by Hans Frank, Hitler's lawyer, indicates that Alois's father, and by extension, Adolf's grandfather from this affair was a Jewish man named Frankenberger.<ref>https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Study-suggests-Adolf-Hitler-was-a-quarter-Jewish-597966</ref> By 1876 he had his baptismal entry corrected in his church records, establishing his father as Johan Heidler, which was altered slightly to Hitler. Growing up in the ethnically diverse [[Austro-Hungarian Empire]], Hitler held [[Russophobic]] and anti-[[Pan Slavic]]<ref>Stergar, Rok: Panslavism , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2017-07-12. DOI: 10.15463/ie1418.11123. [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/panslavism]</ref><ref>''[http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CP%5CA%5CPan6Slavism.htm Encyclopedia of Ukraine]'', vol. 3 (1993).</ref> attitudes well before his antisemitism, which came later in his adult life. In ''Mein Kampf'' Hitler wrote:{{quotebox-float|"When the [[Russo-Japanese War]] came I was older and better able to judge for myself. For national reasons I then took the side of the Japanese in our discussions. I looked upon the defeat of the Russians as a blow to Austrian Slavism."<ref>''Mein Kampf'', Chapter V, World War.</ref>}}
When his father retired, the family moved to Linz, Austria, where it remained a favorite for young Adolf for the rest of his life, and where he gave his wish to be buried. When Alois died in 1903 he left enough of a pension to support his wife and children; Adolf would take his and live off of it in Vienna after leaving school, dreaming of becoming an artist. Although somewhat competent as a painter of landscapes and architecture, his renderings of humans were considered “lifeless” and “crude” by the standards of the Academy of Fine Arts, and his application was rejected twice. Remaining in [[Vienna]], he moved from one cheap flop house to another, painting postcards and advertisements to earn a meager living after his allowance had dried up. By then he had developed traits which characterized his life as a whole: secretiveness, loneliness, a Spartan mode of everyday life, and a hatred of the cosmopolitan, multinational character that was the makeup of Vienna. ''He never sought a proper job or regular employment. Instead he immersed himself in the works of [[Hegel]], [[Nietzsche]], and the anti-Semitic writings of the Englishman [[Houston Stewart Chamberlain]]. He loved the operas of Wagner, and the stories of the Nordic Gods... In early 1910, he entered a shelter for the homeless, populated in the main by poor Jews, on Meldemenstrasse, and was eating at soup kitchens. By this time he had pawned all his belongings.''<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20111015014300/http://socyberty.com/history/young-adolf-the-adolescent-hitler-and-beyond/ Young Adolf: The Adolescent Hitler and Beyond.]</ref>
<blockquote>''"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."''</blockquote>
[[File:Hitler Siegestor Munich Victory Gate.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Watercolor of the Arch of Triumph in Munich by Hitler.]]
<blockquote>''"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 [[class warfare|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."''</blockquote>
In Hitler's ''Table Talk'', which were published in 1953, it was revealed that Hitler, at some point, embraced [[atheism]] while rejecting Christianity as an invention of Judaism, which he held similar animosity toward:
 
{{cquote|And while many atheists make the preposterous claim that Adolf Hitler was a Christian, his private diaries, first published in 1953 by Farrar, Straus and Young, reveal clearly that the Führer was a rabid atheist: "The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity," Hitler stated, "was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew… Our epoch will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity."<ref name="Today's atheists"/>}}
=== Hitler, Nazism and socialism ===
[[Image:Hitler.jpg|thumb|250px|right|One of the best known political parties of the 20th century was the [[socialism|socialistic]] "[[Nazi Party|National Socialist German Workers' Party]]" (Nazi Party), headed by the [[Evolutionary racism|evolutionary racist]] Adolf Hitler.<ref name="mises.org">http://mises.org/daily/1937</ref><ref name="hourofthetime.com"/><ref>https://creation.com/darwinism-and-the-nazi-race-holocaust</ref> ]]
''For more information please see:'' [[Nazism and socialism]]
The [[Ludwig von Mises Institute]] declares:
[[Image:Hitler.jpg|thumb|250px|right|One of the best known political parties of the 20th century was the [[socialism|socialistic]] "[[Nazi Party|National Socialist German Workers' Party]]" (Nazi Party), headed by the [[Evolutionary racism|evolutionary racist]] Adolf Hitler.<ref name="mises.org">http://mises.org/daily/1937</ref><ref name="hourofthetime.com"/><ref>https://creation.com/darwinism-and-the-nazi-race-holocaust</ref> ]]
{{cquote|The identification of [[Third Reich|Nazi Germany]] as a socialist state was one of the many great contributions of [[Ludwig von Mises]]...
Dr. Robert E.D. Clark wrote in his work ''Darwin, Before and After'' the following regarding Hitler and the theory of evolution: “Adolf Hitler’s mind was captivated by evolutionary teaching — probably since the time he was a boy. Evolutionary ideas — quite undisguised — lie at the basis of all that is worst in ''Mein Kampf'' — and in his public speeches”.<ref name="courier">http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/read/the_holocaust_why_did_it_happen</ref>
Richard Hickman in his work ''Biocreation'' concurs and wrote the following: [[File:Richard Dawkins in Australia.jpg|alt=Richard Dawkins|right|thumbnail|200px|The [[New Atheism|new atheist]] [[Richard Dawkins]] is a prominent [[evolution]]ist. [[Richard Dawkins]] stated in an interview: “What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question."<ref name="byfaithonline.com">http://byfaithonline.com/page/in-the-world/richard-dawkins-the-atheist-evangelist</ref> ]]
{{cquote|It is perhaps no coincidence that Adolf Hitler was a firm believer in and preacher of evolutionism. Whatever the deeper, profound, complexities of his [[psychosis]], it is certain that [the concept of struggle was important for]. . . his book, ''Mein Kampf'' clearly set forth a number of evolutionary ideas, particularly those emphasizing struggle, survival of the fittest and extermination of the weak to produce a better society.<ref>http://www.creationism.org/csshs/v08n3p24.htm</ref>}}
[[Pulitzer Prize]]-winning author Marilynne Robinson wrote the following regarding Hitler's racism in the November 2006 issue of ''Harper’s'' magazine:
[[File:Richard Dawkins in Australia.jpg|alt=Richard Dawkins|right|thumbnail|200px|The [[New Atheism|new atheist]] [[Richard Dawkins]] is a prominent [[evolution]]ist. [[Richard Dawkins]] stated in an interview: “What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question."<ref name="byfaithonline.com">http://byfaithonline.com/page/in-the-world/richard-dawkins-the-atheist-evangelist</ref> ]]
{{cquote|While it is true that persecution of the Jews has a very long history in [[Europe]], it is also true that science in the twentieth century revived and absolutized persecution by giving it a fresh rationale — Jewishness was not religious or cultural, but genetic. Therefore no appeal could be made against the brute fact of a Jewish grandparent.
===Other beliefs===
Hitler supported [[Animal rights|animal "rights"]]<ref>[ https://books.google.com/books?id=e7FME0btkH0C&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62&dq=hitler+animal+rights&source=bl&ots=PIxjDRDBj1&sig=tbJisPm39hMcxj1g6xL0Kh0sn7g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3qZP7xOPTAhVr4oMKHeTMA_c4FBDoAQhKMAc#v=onepage&q=hitler%20animal%20rights&f=false Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions], pg. 62.</ref><ref>Harrison, David; Paterson, Tony (September 22, 2002). [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1407954/Thanks-to-Hitler-hunting-with-hounds-is-still-verboten.html Thanks to Hitler, hunting with hounds is still verboten]. ''The Telegraph''. Retrieved May 9, 2017.</ref><ref name="EllisWash."/> and [[environmentalism]],<ref name="EllisWash.">Washington, Ellis (March 26, 2011). [https://www.wnd.com/2011/03/279449/ The Nazi Cult of the Organic']. ''WND''. Retrieved May 9, 2017.</ref><ref>[http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/ecology/nazi_ecology.htm Nazi "Ecology"], Frank Furedi, ''columbia.edu''. Retrieved May 9, 2017.</ref><ref>Musser, Mark (February 6, 2016). [https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/yale_professor_on_nazi_environmentalism_so_close_yet_so_far.html Yale Professor on Nazi Environmentalism: So Close, yet So Far]. ''American Thinker''. Retrieved May 9, 2017.</ref> and that support was reflected in the laws created during the Third Reich. Hitler also enacted [[gun control]] laws.<ref>Wolverton, II, J.D., Joe (January 30, 2017). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/item/14367-nazi-gun-control-laws-a-familiar-road-to-citizen-disarmament Nazi Gun Control Laws: a Familiar Road to Citizen Disarmament?] ''The New American''. Retrieved May 9, 2017.</ref><ref>Stupp, Herbert W. (July 13, 2015). [https://spectator.org/63424_hitler-and-gun-control/ Hitler and Gun Control]. ''The American Spectator''. Retrieved May 9, 2017.</ref>
== Similarities between Communism, Nazism and liberalism ==
==War==
[[Image:Hitler munich1914.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Hitler in the crowd in Munich, 1914, reacting to the news of Germany's entry in the First World War.]]
By 1913 Hitler was in Munich, Germany, with war clouds on the horizon. Hitler wrote of his reaction to hearing the news of the assassination of [[Archduke Franz Ferdinand]]:{{quotebox-float|"At first I feared that the shots may have been fired by some German-Austrian students who had been aroused to a state of furious indignation by the persistent pro-[[Slav]] activities of the Heir to the Habsburg Throne and therefore wished to liberate the German population from this internal enemy. It was quite easy to imagine what the result of such a mistake would have been. It would have brought on a new wave of persecution, the motives of which would have been 'justified' before the whole world. But soon afterwards I heard the names of the presumed assassins and also that they were known to be [[Serb]]s. I felt somewhat dumbfounded in face of the inexorable vengeance which Destiny had wrought. The greatest friend of the Slavs had fallen a victim to the bullets of Slav patriots.<ref>''Mein Kampf'', Chapter V, World War.</ref>}} Classified as unfit for service in the Austrian army (possibly by faking, as he did not like the thought of serving Austria) in 1914, he volunteered for the German Army, joining the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment, greeting the war with enthusiasm, and finding the military discipline and comradeship satisfying. He served during the entire [[First World War]] as a messenger carrying dispatches between units, and often at the front lines under fire; he was wounded in 1916, and gassed in 1918. His bravery during this time earned him the [[Iron Cross]], 2nd Class, in December, 1914, and in August 1918 he was awarded the Iron Cross, 1st Class – a rare decoration for a corporal. But the gassing would take him out of the war and into a hospital, where he would be told the heart-wrenching news of Germany's defeat the following November.
==Path to power==
==Rebuilding the Nazi Party==
[[Image:Hitler-3.jpg‎|rightleft|200px|thumb|Hitler in car, saluting passing S.A. at one of many parades.]]
Internal dissension within the party caused it to languish while Hitler was in prison. When released in December 1924, he saw difficulties in the country that had not existed before the Putsch, namely currency reform that brought economic stability, and the scaling back of the war reparations as a result of the Dawes Plan. Hitler was also forbidden to speak in public, and remained so until 1928; nonetheless he worked to rebuild the party and re-establish his own position within it as leader, despite Gregor Strasser's opposition in northern Germany. By 1927 the number of Nazis was in the hundreds of thousands.
[[File:Nazi Communist picket 1932.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The [[Berlin transport strike]] (seen here with the Nazi NSBO and Communist RGO jointly picketing) cost Social Democrats their majority, facilitating Hitler's ascension.]]
A new period of political and economic instability began with the onset of the Great Depression which threw millions out of work in Europe and North America. To campaign against the [[Young Plan]] (a second renegotiation of war reparations payments) Hitler made an alliance with one of Germany's leading nationalists, [[Alfred Hugenberg]], whose newspapers enabled Hitler to reach a national audience for the first time. The alliance also had another advantage: it enabled him to seek support from many in business and industry who controlled funds going into politics, and who themselves were desirous of seeing Germany under the control of a strong anti-Soviet and anti-Communist regime. The subsidies Hitler received placed the Nazi Party on a strong financial footing, enabling him to make his emotional appeal to the lower middle class and the unemployed in his faith that Germany would recover from its suffering and be a great nation once more. The alliance with the industrialists also demonstrated another aspect of Hitler, a skill of effectively using those that would use him, which many would discover when it was too late.
===Night of the Long Knives===
[[Image:HitlerRohm1933.JPG|right|200px|thumb|Hitler with the notorious [[homosexual]] Nazi leader Ernst Röhm in 1933]]
[[File:Diego Rivera, Hitler, Panel of Mural for the New Workers School, New York City, 1933..jpg|thumb|left|200px|Hitler by [[Diego Rivera]], 1933.]]
Hitler, however, did not wish to start an immediate revolution. In order to implement his ideas he still needed the support of the army. But he did have one growing problem that was a thorn in the army's side, the three million-plus men of the [[SA]] and their leader, [[Ernst Röhm]], who wanted nothing less than to merge the SA into the much smaller army, with himself in overall command. At first, Hitler tried getting Röhm's support by persuasion, but Hitler's inner circle was for removing him by any means possible. On June 29, 1934, Hitler ordered a purge, flew towards a resort near Munich where a number of SA leaders were vacationing, and had them all arrested; many would be shot without trial. Refusing to shoot himself when offered, Röhm was killed in his cell at Dachau, his last words, ironically, “Mein Führer, mein Führer!” <ref>http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/roehm.htm</ref><ref>http://www.adolfhitler.ws/lib/nsdap/Rohm.html {{dead link}}</ref><ref>http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/nazi/innenpolitik/roehm/index.html</ref> The purge took place between June 30 and July 2, 1934.
Hitler also used this event to settle his account with other opponents, such as Georg Strasser, who stood for a more socialist and less racist national socialism, and the former Bavarian prime minister who foiled the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. Satisfied that the SA leadership was thoroughly broken up (thousands of SA members were either arrested or killed that night), the army approved of Hitler's actions. Hindenburg died a few days later on August 2, and Hitler merged the office of president with the chancellorship, and with it the supreme command of the German armed forces. During this time the world was slowly recovering economically from the Depression, but it quickened in Germany, coincidently with Hitler's rise to power. Taking credit for the recovery made him very popular, bringing him a 90 percent approval rating in a voter plebiscite that year.
[[Image:Hitler6-thumb.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Hitler with his dog, Blondi.]]
===Beginnings of expansion===
[[Image:Hitler6-thumb.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Hitler with his dog, Blondi.]]
In matters of state, the running of domestic affairs was left to subordinates, which was something Hitler had little attention for. Foreign policy always peaked his interest, in so much as to the advantages of a “Greater Germany”, which was his chief ambition. The first part of realizing this, according to ''Mein Kampf'', was to be a reunion of the German peoples within Europe; the second would be an expansion of Germany to the east (lebensraum). Expanding would mean a renewed conflict with the Slavic peoples, whom Hitler intended to serve as slaves to the “New German Order.” To follow through on his ambitions, he would have to remove Poland and the Soviet Union as countries; France also would have to be stabilized in the west, as she was Germany's enemy for more than a century. He counted as possible allies Italy, with its fascist government under [[Benito Mussolini]], and Britain, whom he regarded as having a similar, Teutonic heritage.
[[Image:Mufti And Hitler.jpg|left|200px|thumb|Adolf Hitler talking with Grand Mufti [[Mohammed Amin Al-Husseini|Haj Amin al-Husseini]]]]
While this was going on, Germany was steadily building up the armed forces. Rigorous training using wooden guns and trucks marked as “tanks” got needed battlefield training for officers. Potential fighter pilots began their training in gliders at public demonstrations – Germany, under terms of the treaty, was not allowed an air force – and later they would fly in new civilian stunt planes and transports, which on the drawing board were designed to be rapidly turned into fighters and bombers. Conscription was introduced in January, 1935, and in June of that year Hitler successfully signed a naval treaty with Britain, giving him rights to a respectable navy; but even while the ink was drying, Germany was secretly building a large U-boat fleet.
[[File:Hitler and Mussolini.jpg|thumb|200px|Hitler and [[Benito Mussolini]] in 1936]]
The matter of reuniting the German peoples came into being in July, 1934, and here Hitler overreached. German organizations were covertly aiding Austrian Nazis in the overthrow of their government, culminating in an attempted revolt as well as murdering Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. When the attempt clearly failed, Hitler denied involvement. In January, 1935, a plebiscite was introduced in the Saarland; more than 90 percent voted to return the territory to Germany. Then in March, 1936, came his greatest slap to the Versailles Treaty: against the advice of his generals, and in open defiance of France and Britain, he ordered troops into the demilitarized Rhineland. Germany was once again becoming the leading power in continental Europe. By October, 1936, Germany had signed an alliance with Italy, proclaiming a “Rome-Berlin axis,” followed by the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan. All three countries would sign a single, mutual alliance pact, the following year.
[[File:Hitler and Mussolini.jpg|thumb|200px|Hitler and [[Benito Mussolini]] in 1936]]
==Anschluss and the Munich Agreement==
{{See also|Munich Pact}}
Removed from their offices in January 1938 were Hjalmar Schacht (economic ministry); Werner von Fritsch (soldiers’ representative); and Konstantin von Neurath (foreign office); the reason being was they were not fully accepting of Nazism. Beginning his plans of German conquest, he started with Austria. Kurt von Schuschnigg, the Austrian chancellor, was invited to Berchtesgaden in February, where he was browbeaten and forced to sign an agreement placing Austrian Nazis in the government. When Schuschnigg resisted and announced a plebiscite for Austrian voters concerning independence, Hitler ordered German troops into Austria, completely taking over the country within days. His return to Vienna was in triumph; enthusiastic crowds greeted him by the tens of thousands, in sharp contrast to the scenes of privation he had gone through there in his youth. Austria was annexed (Anschluss) to the Reich a short time later.
==Barbarossa==
[[File:Nazi diversity.jpg|right|300px|thumb|[[Diversity]] and inclusion: [[Muslim]] members of the Waffen SS 13th division at prayer during their training at Neuhammer, Germany, in November 1943.]]
{{See also|Operation Barbarossa}}
The attack on Soviet Russia began June 22, 1941. Rapid in its advancement, the German army captured a large swath of territory between the Baltic and Black seas, and captured close to 3,000,000 prisoners. But Hitler, already micromanaging military operations, became overbearing to his generals; he preferred to go after many targets, while his generals argued for a single objective. A few miles in front of Moscow, the German army was halted by a Russian offensive in December, as well as something he had absolutely no control over: the severe Russian winter.
In the lands already occupied by German forces, S.S. chief Heinrich Himmler was preparing the ground for Hitler's new German order. Expelling the Jews from Germany was the first step, and this was carried out by laws and decrees beginning in 1933; the Germans would switch to outright force in 1939, as Jews were first deported en-masse to Poland, then walled into ghettos after the occupation began. By 1941, a policy crafted under S.S. general Reinhard Heydrich had changed expulsion for extermination in what was called "a final solution to the Jewish question" (''die Endlösung der Judenfrage''). The system of concentration camps was supplemented by the creation of specialized killing centers in the occupied countries, especially in Poland, where camps such as Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzac “processed” thousands of victims daily. Some six million Jews died during what was called the [[Holocaust]], as well as an additional five million Slavs, Gypsies, the handicapped, the aged, and many others that the Nazis considered “subhuman” in accordance with German racial policies.<ref>http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/burns.htm</ref>
===Mass killing begins===
Hitler's genocidal plans were already uttered, such as speaking in 1922 (with Josef Hell) of: "cleansed of the last Jew!" on November 24, 1938 (Himmler's Das Schwarze Korps) [[SS]] Newspaper: wrote of "complete annihilation," and Hitler on 30 January 1939 (Reichstag): "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." The actual mass killing began right with Op. Barbarossa. Soon after the invasion, mobile killing units (''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'') began the mass murder of Soviet Jews.<ref>https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-the-soviet-union-june-1941</ref> (All that before the 1942 Wannsee conference of course,<ref>[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/wannsee-conference-and-the-final-solution Wannsee conference], ''ushmm.org''</ref> to discuss and coordinate the implementation).
==Beginning of the end==
===Assassination attempt===
[[Image:NWT Hitler dead.jpg|left|200px|thumb|Hitler's death as covered by the ''New York Times'', May 2, 1945.]]
Seeing Germany's chances of surviving the war were desperate, a group of officers plotted to assassinate Hitler, planning several attempts in 1943–44, but nearly successful on July 20, 1944, when a bomb hidden in a briefcase by Colonel [[Claus von Stauffenberg]] went off under a table that Hitler and others were leaning over; four were killed outright, several suffered injuries, but Hitler escaped relatively unharmed (the bomb itself was set down away from Hitler behind a solid oak table leg, saving him). The conspirators were quickly rounded up; Stauffenberg was shot. The remainder were put on show trials and condemned to hang on meat hooks with piano wire. It was said that Hitler enjoyed watching film of their executions. As a result of the bomb, Nazi members were employed at key positions within the army, removing any trace of the army's independence.
[[Elie Wiesel]] wrote the following in [[Time Magazine]] regarding Hitler:
{{cquote|Adolf Hitler or the incarnation of absolute evil; this is how future generations will remember the all-powerful Führer 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 [[psychoanalysis|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." <ref name="time" />}}
[[Image:NWT Hitler dead.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Hitler's death as covered by the ''New York Times'', May 2, 1945.]]
All in all, Hitler survived over forty assassination attempts. The Stauffenburg attempt was the closest anyone ever came to killing Hitler. George Elser, a communist, came very close in 1938, having planted a bomb in a beam that Hitler stood in front of while giving a speech. Luck saved Hitler, as he left the hall early and twelve minutes later the bomb exploded.
== External links ==
[[File:Hitler Siegestor Munich Victory Gate.jpg|thumb|Watercolor of the Arch of Triumph in Munich by Hitler.]]
*[http://www.eucontest.org/go.php?pdf=www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%201994.pdf Extracts From ''Mein Kampf'' by Hitler]
*[http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/ ''Mein Kampf'' by Adolf Hitler.] Full text.
==Sources==
<small>*[httphttps://www.nizkorarchive.org/hwebdetails/peopleAPsychologicalAnalysisofAdolfHitler/hpage/hitler-adolfn195/oss-papersmode/text/profile-index.htmlA 2up A Psychological Analysis of Adolf Hitler, His Life and Legend], Walter C. Langer, Office of Strategic Services, Washington, D.C.</small>
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hitler, Adolf}}
[[Category:German History]]
[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:Evolutionary Racists]][[Category:Russophobia]][[Category:War Criminals]]
[[Category:Socialists]]
[[Category:Liberal Authors]]
[[Category:Perpetrators of Cancel Culture]]
[[Category:Gun Control proponents]]
[[Category:Abortion Advocates]]
[[Category:Conspiracy Theorists]]
Block, Siteadmin, SkipCaptcha, Upload, delete, edit, move, nsTeam2RO, nsTeam2RW, nsTeam2_talkRO, nsTeam2_talkRW, protect, rollback, Administrator, template
227,020
edits