Adolf Hitler is the man responsible for some of the most horrible crimes ever committed in the history of humanity. The mention of his name is associated with such darkness and evil that some find it hard to believe that someone like this once existed in the world.
Childhood and early years
Adolf Hitler was born in April 1889 in Austria-Hungary. His family traveled and lived in Germany for a while before moving back to Austria. His childhood was very unhappy, as he witnessed the deaths of both of his parents and multiple siblings.
This resulted in him doing very bad in school to the point where he was expelled from two schools. He then decided to leave Braunau am Inn, the city where he was born in Austria, and move to Vienna to pursue his dream of becoming an artist.
Soon after moving to Vienna, he realized he was not an artist and had no talent whatsoever. He became very poor which drove him to move again, this time to Germany to pursue another career as an architect.
Hitler grows to love war!
Adolf Hitler participated in World War I as a soldier in the German army. It was in this war that he found his passion; it was war itself! He won Germany’s Iron Cross for bravery twice for his performance during World War I. This led him to become a very devoted German patriot.
Adolf Hitler rises to power
Due to his new devotion to Germany, he became very angry with the consequences of losing World War I and the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. He wanted revenge and wanted to restore Germany’s pride, but most importantly, he wanted to control all of Europe!
The German people shared the same frustrations regarding the economic situation and the Treaty of Versailles. As a result, they stood behind Hitler until he rose to power and became the leader of the Nazi Party.
Hitler finally discovered that his talent was to give compelling speeches that people would buy into. Thanks to this talent, more and more people believed in him and he was elected to be the Chancellor of Germany in 1933. This was the final step for Hitler to become the dictator of Germany.
Adolf Hitler starts World War II
The Nazi dictator started putting his plans to action right away. He took over his homeland, Austria-Hungary, and invaded and occupied parts of Czechoslovakia. The rest of Europe was trying to avoid going to another war at all costs. Most countries decided to try and please the mad dictator as much as possible. They told him to keep the parts he took from Czechoslovakia on the condition that he would stop invading more countries. Hitler saw this as an invitation to go on and invade Poland.
For Great Britain and France, this was the last straw. They declared war on Germany in 1939. Germany, Italy, and Japan formed the Axis Powers and Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union were the Allied Powers.
The Holocaust
At the beginning of World War II, Hitler was winning and managed to invade France, the Netherlands, and multiple other European countries via a tactic called “Blitzkrieg”. A Blitzkrieg is when a country, Germany in this case, attacks quickly to take over a country. He had crazy ideas on ethnicities and wanted to murder all Jews, Catholics, Polish people, and Serbs. For years during World War II, his forces managed to capture, torture, and kill several million innocent people just because of their religious beliefs or their ethnicity.
World War II and Hitler’s end
In 1944, forces of the Allied Powers successfully took over France and liberated it through the invasion of Normandy. In 1945, the Allied Powers officially defeated the Axis Powers and World War II was over. One month after losing the war, Hitler killed himself.
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