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The Rise of Adolph Hitler
The drifter
Before embarking on a political career in September 1919 at the age of thirty, Adolf
Hitler had been a nonentity. With no formal qualifications, he had become an aimless
drifter and failed artist before joining the army on the outbreak of war in August
1914. There he was not considered worthy of promotion because of 'a lack of
leadership qualities', although his award of the Iron Cross First Class showed that he
did not lack courage.
Yet during the next 26 years he succeeded in gaining and exercising supreme power
in Germany and, in the process, arguably had more impact on the history of the
world in the 20th century than any other political figure. The explanation for this
remarkable transformation lies partly in Hitler himself, in his particular personal
qualities and gifts, and partly in the situation in which he found himself, with a nation
in deep crisis.
Hitler's political career began in Munich when he joined the German Workers' Party
(DAP), a tiny group of extreme nationalists and anti-Semites who saw their role as
trying to win over German workers from the internationalist Social Democratic Party
and, in the aftermath of defeat and revolution, to persuade people that Jews were
primarily responsible for Germany's plight.
In July 1921, he took over the leadership of the party, by then renamed the National
Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), and, less than 12 years later, it had
become the largest party in Germany and Hitler was Reich Chancellor. Why then did
Hitler choose to join the NSDAP and effectively adopt politics as a career, and what
personal qualities, abilities and political opinions did he bring with him from his
previous life, which may help to explain his choice and his subsequent career?
1. Why was Hitler considered a “nonentity” before the war? How
do you think this impacted his view of the world around him?
2. Why was Germany in a “deep crisis”?
3. What is DAP? Who did they blame for the war?
4. What is NSDAP?
The early years
Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn on the Austro-German border on 20th April 1889.
His family background has given rise to much psychological speculation. His father, a
customs official who died when Hitler was 13, was cold and strict, while his mother
was gentle and loving and pampered her son, who adored her. Hitler was clearly
intelligent but bored by much of his formal education, except for history, which was
taught with a strong German nationalist bias.
Hitler's school career ended in failure, but the death of his father had removed the
pressure on him to get a job. By now he had developed the self-image of an artist, a
superior being above mundane employment, who would one day create great works
of art or architecture. He spent his time in his home town, Linz, reading, drawing,
attending the theatre or opera; he had developed a particular passion for Wagner.
Invariably polite and well turned out, his behavior was marked by a combination of
arrogance and insecurity not unusual in adolescence, but in his case extreme. He
was particularly awkward in his relations with girls; indeed, his only relationship
during this period was a fantasy one.
Drifting in Vienna
Having moved to Vienna in 1907, his failure to get into Art school came as a major
blow. His money from an orphan's pension and borrowed from relatives eventually
ran out, and he was forced to take refuge in men's hostels where he lived from 1909
to 1913.
There he eked out a precarious existence selling his reproductions of famous sights
on postcards, selling them on the streets of Vienna.
Despite his poverty, Hitler engaged actively with his political and intellectual
environment, devouring newspapers and pamphlets, attending the Imperial
parliament and witnessing the violent confrontations between the rival ethnic and
political groups which paralyzed it, rendering it an object of contempt to much of the
population, including Hitler himself.
His experiences in Vienna sharpened the Pan German nationalism that he had
absorbed in his school days, increasing his contempt for the Habsburg Empire. He
also developed a strong hostility towards the Socialist movement, fuelled partly by
its internationalism, but also by his unwillingness to identify with the working class
and his determination to retain his self-image as a superior being despite his actual
inferior social position.
Although Hitler absorbed the racist and anti-Semitic discourses that so shaped the
Viennese political and intellectual climate and was to reproduce their arguments and
clichés years later, at the time he does not appear to have been hostile to Jews, at
any rate on a personal level, since many of his closest associates in the men's hostel,
who helped him sell his pictures, were in fact Jews.
5. Describe Hitler’s overall beliefs about himself and others
around him? Who did he dislike?
6. Who helped Hitler sell his postcards in Vienna? Does this fact
contradict his beliefs? Why?
A purpose in life
Hitler standing among the crowd in the Odeonsplatz, Munich, as war
is declared in 1914 ©
In 1913, Hitler's desire to avoid military service for the hated Habsburg Empire
prompted him to move to Munich, the German city of his dreams, a move facilitated
by coming into a small legacy from his father's estate. Here he continued a life
similar to that in Vienna until, with the outbreak of war in 1914, he enthusiastically
volunteered to serve in a Bavarian regiment. Service in the Army at last provided
Hitler with a purpose in life, a major project with which he could wholly identify. All
the greater, therefore, was the shock of defeat and the victory of the hated Socialists
in the revolution of November 1918.
Employed by the Bavarian army to preach German nationalism and anti-Socialism to
the troops, he proved a great success. He was also sent to report on the DAP, where
he drew attention to himself at a meeting by his effective performance in the
discussion and was invited to join. The participation in the DAP offered him, as a
nonentity, the only available opportunity to win support for the beliefs that he was
now burning to express.
For it was at this point that anti-Semitism emerged as the core of Hitler's 'world
view'. Defeat, revolution, and the humiliating Treaty of Versailles (1919) had
challenged Hitler's whole sense of worth and personal identity.
Like many Germans, but even more so since he had effectively chosen German
identity, Hitler needed to find an explanation for this catastrophe. And the
explanation being vigorously canvassed by the extreme Right in Munich, and one
that was generating a strongly positive popular response, was that the Jews were to
blame.
This explanation chimed with the anti-Semitic theories which Hitler had absorbed in
Vienna but which, in the light of his day-to-day positive experiences with actual Jews
had not made much impact. Now, in very different circumstances and reinforced by
the arguments of right-wing intellectuals in Munich which Hitler now encountered,
these theories began to make sense, indeed to provide the total explanation which
he was seeking.
7. Why was joining the army so important to Hitler? How did
joining the army impact his philosophy of leadership?
8. How did the Treaty of Versailles affect Hitler? Whom did Hitler
blame for the German defeat?
Demagogic gifts
Hitler (right) as a soldier during World War One ©
Initially, Hitler saw himself as a political evangelist seeking to convert the German
people to his 'world view' rather than as a political leader. He was conscious of his
demagogic gifts but also of the limits imposed by his lack of formal qualifications
and social status. He assumed that some established figure of the extreme Right,
such as the war hero, General Ludendorff, would take over power. Between 1919
and 1921, he rejected the offer of the leadership of the NSDAP and only took over
when he was forced to do so by the fact that the leaders were pursuing a course
which threatened his position.
His emergence as unchallenged 'Führer' of the NSDAP and his determination to
become dictator of Germany only occurred during the period 1921-23 as a result of
his growing self confidence, which was in turn partly the result of the increasing hero
worship of his supporters.
It was also the result of his growing contempt for the Bavarian right wing
establishment. This culminated in his experience of their cowardly behavior during
his Munich beer hall 'putsch' of 8-9 November 1923, when, as he saw it, they
stabbed him in the back. It was only at this point that Hitler became convinced of his
destiny to lead Germany, a conviction from which he then never wavered.
*Demagogic refers to having the characteristic of a demagogue. This is the kind of
a leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and
prejudices of the populace.
9. In your opinion, what is the difference between Political
Evangelist and Political Leader? Which did Hitler think he was?
Why?
10.
How did Hitler rise to power in the NSDAP? When did this
occur?
“The Jewish doctrine of Marxism rejects the aristocratic principle of Nature
and replaces the eternal privilege of power and strength by the mass of
numbers and their dead weight. Thus it denies the value of personality in
man, contests the significance of nationality and race, and thereby
withdraws from humanity the premise of its existence and its culture. As a
foundation of the universe, this doctrine would bring about the end of any
order intellectually conceivable to man. And as, in this greatest of all
recognizable organisms, the result of an application of such a law could
only be chaos, on earth it could only be destruction for the inhabitants of
this planet. If, with the help of his Marxist creed, the Jew is victorious over
the other peoples of the world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of
humanity and this planet will, as it did thousands of years ago, move
through the ether devoid of men. Eternal Nature inexorably avenges the
infringement of her commands. Hence today I believe that I am acting in
accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself
against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord”
Analyze this Excerpt from “Mein Kampf.” In a 5 sentence paragraph, explain
Hitler’s overall beliefs about Jews and Marxists (Communists) and his main
motivations behind these beliefs.