Adolf Hitler: From Aspiring Artist to Dictator - An Examination of His Educational Background and Rise to Power

Adolf Hitler, a name synonymous with evil, was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. His life, a subject of numerous myths and legends, is a stark reminder of how a person can rise from humble beginnings to perpetrate unimaginable atrocities. Understanding his early life, including his educational background and the influences that shaped his ideology, is crucial to comprehending the rise of Nazism and the horrors of World War II.

Hitler's Origins and Family Background

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, a small town in Austria-Hungary (now Austria), near the German border. He was the fourth of six children born to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl. Three of his siblings died in infancy.

His father, Alois Hitler, was a mid-level customs official. Alois was born out of wedlock to Maria Anna Schicklgruber, and his baptismal record did not include his father’s name. In 1876, Alois was made legitimate, and his baptismal record was annotated to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Alois's father, recorded as "Georg Hitler." Alois then assumed the surname "Hitler."

The family moved several times during Adolf's childhood, eventually settling in a village on the outskirts of Linz, Austria, in 1898.

Early Education and Aspirations

Little Adolf, along with every other German child of the era, attended primary and secondary school, as required by the government. The schools he attended were state-funded, but the quality of education received there would have been much more akin to America’s private classical schools of today.

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At school in Linz, Hitler was exposed to German nationalist ideas, popular at the time. This was probably where he was introduced to the ethnic German nationalism of Georg Ritter von Schönerer, who argued that all ethnic Germans should be united in one country and opposed the multinational Austro-Hungarian empire.

Young Adolf Hitler wanted to be an artist. According to Hitler, he fought bitterly with his father, who wanted him to enter the Austro-Hungarian civil service. Despite having a very capable mind, Adolf Hitler was, by all accounts, not a good student: family troubles, particularly a bad relationship with his father, resulted in him despising his studies and authority figures and, so, doing very poorly. Just as significant was his belief - as expressed later in Mein Kampf - that if he did poorly in school, his father would finally allow him to quit and study art, as he had always wanted.

After his father's death in 1903, Hitler persuaded his mother to allow him to pursue his dream of becoming an artist. In the autumn of 1907, Hitler took the entrance exam to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

Vienna and the Development of Ideology

In early 1908, some weeks after his mother Klara's death, Hitler moved to Vienna. Unlike Linz, where the population was overwhelmingly German, Vienna was multiethnic, multinational, and multireligious. The Viennese population included sizable Jewish and Czech populations.

Throughout 1907, Hitler helped care for his mother, who was dying of breast cancer. Her physician, Dr. Eduard Bloch, was Jewish. Hitler and Dr. Bloch developed a good relationship. Hitler expressed his gratitude for Bloch’s help and care. Klara died in December 1907. Years later, when the Nazis took over Austria, Hitler saw to it that Dr.

In 1908-1909, he failed a second time to gain acceptance to the Academy of Fine Arts. He lost touch with his family. By the end of 1909, Hitler’s inheritance dried up, and he fell into poverty. He was forced to live temporarily in a homeless shelter and then in a men’s home.

For the first two years that Hitler was in Vienna, antisemitic politician Karl Lueger was the city’s mayor. Lueger was a co-founder of the Austrian Christian Social Party (Christlichsoziale Partei). Hitler later claimed that his antisemitic political ideology was formed in Vienna. He said Lueger and the city’s antisemitic newspapers partly inspired it. However, evidence from Hitler’s life indicates that this is probably not entirely true. In Vienna, Hitler had Jewish acquaintances and business associates. Based on existing evidence, Hitler did not adopt a comprehensive antisemitic ideology until after he had left Vienna.

In Vienna, Hitler was first exposed to racist rhetoric. Populists such as mayor Karl Lueger exploited the city's prevalent antisemitic sentiment, occasionally also espousing German nationalist notions for political benefit. The origin and development of Hitler's antisemitism remain a matter of debate. His friend August Kubizek claimed that Hitler was a "confirmed antisemite" before he left Linz. While Hitler states in Mein Kampf that he first became an antisemite in Vienna, Reinhold Hanisch, who helped him to sell his paintings, disagrees. Hitler had dealings with Jews while living in Vienna.

Munich and World War I

In May 1913, Hitler left Vienna and moved to Munich, the capital of the German state of Bavaria, to avoid punishment for evading his military service obligation to Austria-Hungary. Hitler financed his move with the last of his inheritance. In Munich, Hitler continued to drift.

Adolf Hitler enthusiastically welcomed the outbreak of World War I in summer 1914. On August 2-as the war began-the 25-year-old Hitler attended a patriotic event in Munich on the central square, the Odeonsplatz.

Despite being a foreign citizen, Hitler joined the Bavarian army in August 1914. During World War I, the Bavarian army was part of the German army. Hitler served in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment. After limited, accelerated military training, the unit deployed to Belgium in fall 1914. Hitler and his unit fought at the First Battle of Ypres (October-November 1914). In November 1914, Hitler was promoted to Gefreiter, the second promotion rank for an enlisted soldier. This was roughly the equivalent of Private First Class in the US Army. He was never promoted again. Hitler’s rank is often mistakenly translated into English as Lance Corporal.

In November 1914, Hitler became a dispatch runner. His job was to take messages to and from regimental headquarters. He was no longer a frontline soldier. For the next four years, Hitler’s regiment fought in a number of battles in Belgium and France on the western front. During these battles, Hitler was often several kilometers behind the front lines.

After he was wounded in October 1916, he stayed in an army hospital near Berlin for about two months. In both Munich and Berlin, Hitler witnessed the widespread hunger among German civilians in the winter of 1916-1917 caused by a poor harvest and wartime food blockades. A year and a half later, while on leave in September 1918, Hitler observed the complete collapse of morale on the German home front. In October 1918, Hitler was wounded in a mustard gas attack and sent to the Pasewalk military hospital. News of the November 11, 1918 armistice, the overthrow of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the German revolution reached him while he was recovering.

Hitler saw considerable action during World War I; he served in France and Belgium and received several military distinctions, including the Iron Cross Second Class and the Iron Cross First Class. Although described as a somewhat sloppy soldier, Hitler displayed fearlessness in battle, often volunteering for dangerous missions and eventually receiving the Wound Badge (equivalent to an American Purple Heart) for injuries sustained in October of 1916. Two years later, in October, 1918, Hitler was admitted to a military field hospital for temporary blindness brought on by a poisonous gas attack. Historians now believe that Hitler’s blindness may in fact have been the result of a hysterical reaction to Germany’s defeat. Military physicians and a psychiatric specialist who examined Hitler found him unfit to command subordinates and suggested that he was dangerously psychotic.

Even though most World War I soldiers quickly demobilized, Hitler chose to remain in the Bavarian military after the war ended. Without family, friends, a place to live, or job prospects, he had nowhere else to go. Hitler stayed in the peacetime Bavarian military from fall 1918 until the end of March 1920.

Hitler’s experiences in World War I greatly influenced him and served as the catalyst for his belief that he was Germany’s savior. Although not a German citizen until 1932, he had become a fanatical German patriot during the war and was appalled by the surrender and subsequent conditions of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. Most Germans, Hitler in particular, perceived the harsh stipulations of the treaty as imposing humiliation and degradation on the German people and nation. Germany’s discontent with the terms of Versailles proved an important factor in the sociopolitical conditions under which Hitler began to operate during the 1920’s.

Post-War Munich and the Rise of Nazism

When Hitler returned to Munich in late November 1918, Munich was in the midst of political changes. On November 7-8, revolutionaries in Bavaria had overthrown Bavarian King Ludwig III and established a democratic republican government. From November 1918 to February 1919, the leader of the new Bavarian government was socialist Kurt Eisner, who was Jewish. Eisner was assassinated in February 1919. His successor Johannes Hoffman was eventually driven out of the city in an attempted Communist takeover. In April-May 1919, the Bavarian Soviet Republic (Bayerische Räterepublik, literally “Bavarian councils republic”), a Communist government, took over the city. With the help of neighboring states and militias, Hoffman’s government suppressed the Bavarian Soviet Republic. Throughout all these political changes, Hitler continued to serve in the Bavarian military. He chose to do so despite having the option to be decommissioned.

During and after World War I, antisemitism was on the rise throughout Germany. Hitler experienced this moment of heightened antisemitism in postwar Munich. Munich had become a hotbed of anti-Jewish sentiments. In Munich, antisemitism escalated in the summer and fall of 1919 in response to world events. First, many people in Munich and beyond scapegoated Jews for the actions of the communist Bavarian Soviet Republic. People expressed anger at the German government for signing the Treaty of Versailles. This anger took on an antisemitic tone. In 1919, an antisemitic conspiracy theory publication, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, appeared in German translation. In these circumstances, new, radical right-wing antisemitic movements grew in Munich.

In summer 1919, Hitler joined the Information Office of the Bavarian Military Administration. This military office gathered intelligence on political parties in Munich and provided anti-Communist “political education” for the troops. In July, Hitler attended an anti-Communist propaganda training course. There, he heard lectures on history and politics that likely influenced some of his thinking. That summer, Hitler realized he was a gifted public speaker and began to hone his talent. Impressed with Hitler’s skills as a communicator, his supervisor entrusted him with responding in writing to a query from a student about the so-called “Jewish Question.” In a letter of September 16, 1919, Hitler identified Jews as a race (“Rasse”). He repeated lies about Jews rooted in economic, nationalist, and racial antisemitism.

Related to his job in the Information Office, Hitler attended a meeting of the small German Workers’ Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or DAP) on September 12, 1919. According to Hitler, at the meeting, he gave an impromptu speech, which so impressed the party’s leadership that they encouraged him to join. Within a month, Hitler had joined the DAP with member number 555. Hitler gave his first official speech for the DAP on October 16, 1919, at a beer hall. Due to his speaking abilities, Hitler quickly rose into the DAP leadership ranks. He helped DAP leaders write the party’s political program. This program was announced by Hitler at a large public meeting on February 24, 1920, at the Munich Hofbräuhaus. Shortly afterwards, the DAP changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or NSDAP). At the end of March 1920, Hitler left the Bavarian military. He moved into a small rented room, near the city center. From this point forward, he devoted himself fully to politics. His sources of income included payment for his political speeches. By mid-1921, Hitler established himself as the leader of the Nazi Party.

During 1919, Hitler became involved with the small nationalist political organization, the German Workers’ Party (DAP), which espoused anti-Marxist and anti-Semitic philosophies. He quickly rose through the ranks of the DAP to become the party’s spokesperson and leading propagandist. In July of 1921, after an attempted ousting by the DAP’s original members, Hitler’s demands for dictatorial power were met: He was anointed führer (leader) of the party, the name of which Hitler changed from DAP to the Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazi Party.

In February 1921, already highly effective at crowd manipulation, Hitler spoke to a crowd of over 6,000. To publicise the meeting, two truckloads of party supporters drove around Munich waving swastika flags and distributing leaflets. In June 1921, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin, a mutiny broke out within the Nazi Party in Munich. Members of its executive committee wanted to merge with the Nuremberg-based German Socialist Party (DSP). Hitler returned to Munich on 11 July and angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised that the resignation of their leading public figure and speaker would mean the end of the party. Hitler announced he would rejoin on the condition that he would replace Drexler as party chairman, and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich. The committee agreed, and he rejoined the party on 26 July as member 3,680. Hitler continued to face some opposition within the Nazi Party. Opponents of Hitler in the leadership had Hermann Esser expelled from the party, and they printed 3,000 copies of a pamphlet attacking Hitler as a traitor to the party. In the following days, Hitler spoke to several large audiences and defended himself and Esser, to thunderous applause.

Hitler's vitriolic beer hall speeches began attracting regular audiences. Early followers included Rudolf Hess, the former air force ace Hermann Göring, and the army captain Ernst Röhm. Röhm became head of the Nazis' paramilitary organisation, the Sturmabteilung (SA, "Stormtroopers"), which protected meetings and attacked political opponents. A critical influence on Hitler's thinking during this period was the Aufbau Vereinigung, a conspiratorial group of White Russian exiles and early Nazis.

The programme of the Nazi Party was laid out in their 25-point programme on 24 February 1920. This did not represent a coherent ideology, but was a conglomeration of received ideas which had currency in the völkisch pan-Germanic movement, such as ultranationalism, opposition to the Treaty of Versailles, distrust of capitalism, as well as some socialist ideas. For Hitler, the most important aspect of it was its strong antisemitic stance.

The Beer Hall Putsch and Mein Kampf

In 1923, Hitler enlisted the help of World War I General Erich Ludendorff for an attempted coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch. The Nazi Party used Italian Fascism as a model for their appearance and policies. Hitler wanted to emulate Benito Mussolini's March on Rome in 1922 by staging his own coup in Bavaria, to be followed by a challenge to the government in Berlin. Hitler and Ludendorff sought the support of Staatskommissar (State Commissioner) Gustav Ritter von Kahr, Bavaria's de facto ruler.

On 8 November 1923, Hitler and the SA stormed a public meeting of 3,000 people organised by Kahr in the Bürgerbräukeller, a beer hall in Munich. Interrupting Kahr's speech, he announced that the national revolution had begun and declared the formation of a new government with Ludendorff. Retiring to a back room, Hitler, with his pistol drawn, demanded and subsequently received the support of Kahr, Seisser, and Lossow. Hitler's forces initially succeeded in occupying the local Reichswehr and police headquarters, but Kahr and his cohorts quickly withdrew their support. Hitler fled to the home of Ernst Hanfstaengl and by some accounts contemplated suicide. He was depressed but calm when arrested on 11 November 1923 for high treason. His trial before the special People's Court in Munich began in February 1924, and Alfred Rosenberg became temporary leader of the Nazi Party.

In 1923, inspired by fascist Italian leader Benito Mussolini’s March on Rome, Hitler attempted a coup, known now as the Beer Hall Putsch; it failed and resulted in his arrest and conviction for conspiracy to commit treason, a crime for which he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

While at Landsberg, Hitler dictated most of the first volume of Mein Kampf (lit. 'My Struggle'; originally titled Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice) at first to his chauffeur, Emil Maurice, and then to his deputy, Rudolf Hess. The book, dedicated to Thule Society member Dietrich Eckart, was an autobiography and exposition of his ideology. The book laid out Hitler's plans for territorial expansion as well as transforming German society into a dictatorship based on race. Throughout the book, Jews are equated with "germs" and presented as the "international poisoners" of society. According to Hitler's ideology, the only solution was their extermination.

When Hitler was released early from prison in December of 1924, he faced a dwindling Nazi Party in desperate need of rebuilding. Hitler attempted to incorporate nationalistic sentiments with accusations against “international Jewry” in order to garner electoral support. However, he was largely unsuccessful. The party soon learned to utilize subtler propaganda techniques, blaming Germany’s problems on the failures of the Weimar Republic. These messages and their subtext resonated better with the populace. While rebuilding his party, Hitler also introduced a new method of party organization that included unquestioning obedience to superiors and devolution of power and authority from the top down.

Published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926, Mein Kampf sold 228,000 copies between 1925 and 1932. At the time of Hitler's release from prison, politics in Germany had become less combative, and the economy had improved, limiting Hitler's opportunities for political agitation. As a result of the failed Beer Hall Putsch, the Nazi Party and its affiliated organisations were banned in Bavaria. In a meeting with the Prime Minister of Bavaria, Heinrich Held, on 4 January 1925, Hitler agreed to respect the state's authority and promised that he would seek political power only through the democratic process. However, after an inflammatory speech he gave on 27 February, Hitler was barred from public speaking by the Bavarian authorities, a ban that remained in place until 1927. To advance his political ambitions in spite of the ban, Hitler appointed Gregor Strasser, Otto Strasser, and Joseph Goebbels to organise and enlarge the Nazi Party in northern Germany.

The Path to Dictatorship

The stock market in the United States crashed on 24 October 1929. The impact in Germany was dire: millions became unemployed, and several major banks collapsed. Hitler and the Nazi Party prepared to take advantage of the emergency to…

With Hitler at the helm, the Nazi Party found itself in politically advantageous circumstances when the Great Depression hit Europe. The Nazis rose from relative obscurity to win 107 seats in the Reichstag in September, 1930, becoming the second largest party in Germany. Not quite three years later, on January 30, 1933, Germany’s president, Paul von Hindenburg, appointed Hitler as chancellor. Following Hindenburg’s death on August 2, 1934, Hitler seized absolute power, refusing to hold new presidential elections and instead passing a law that combined the offices of president and chancellor. Shortly thereafter, Hitler ordered every member of the military to swear an oath of personal allegiance to him.

By November 1932, the Nazi Party held the most seats in the Reichstag, but not a majority. Former chancellor Franz von Papen and other conservative politicians convinced President Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor on 30 January 1933. Upon Hindenburg's death on 2 August 1934, Hitler replaced him as head of state and thereafter transformed Germany into a totalitarian dictatorship.

Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out in the Reichstag building in Berlin, and authorities arrested a young Dutch communist who confessed to starting it. Hitler used this episode to convince President Hindenburg to declare an emergency decree suspending many civil liberties throughout Germany, including freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and the right to hold public assemblies. The police were authorized to detain citizens without cause, and the authority usually exercised by regional governments became subject to control by Hitler’s national regime.

Almost immediately, Hitler began dismantling Germany’s democratic institutions and imprisoning or murdering his chief opponents. When Hindenburg died the following year, Hitler took the titles of führer, chancellor, and commander in chief of the army. He expanded the army tremendously, reintroduced conscription, and began developing a new air force-all violations of the Treaty of Versailles.

Policies and World War II

Domestically, Hitler implemented numerous racist policies and sought to deport or kill German Jews. His first six years in power resulted in rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the abrogation of restrictions imposed on Germany after the First World War, and the annexation of territories inhabited by millions of ethnic Germans, which initially gave him significant popular support.

Hitler’s government pushed through sweeping reforms during the first several years of his reign, which buttressed the campaign for absolute control. Nazi Germany also instituted policies, to be enforced by Hitler’s Gestapo (secret state police), that targeted Jews, communists, and habitual criminals. During the early to mid-1930’s, several pieces of legislation were passed restricting the civil rights of Jews and limiting their economic opportunity. These policies fueled the emigration of thousands of Germany’s Jews and led to increasingly violent tactics, such as Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) in November, 1938, when Jewish businesses and synagogues were destroyed.

One of Hitler's key goals was Lebensraum (lit. 'living space') for the German people in Eastern Europe, and his aggressive, expansionist foreign policy is considered the primary cause of World War II in Europe. On 1 September 1939, Hitler oversaw the German invasion of Poland, thereby causing Britain and France to declare war on Germany. After ordering an invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, he declared war on the United States in December of the same year. By the end of 1941, German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe and North Africa. These gains were gradually reversed after 1941 until the Allied forces defeated the German military in 1945.

Hitler’s vision of world domination became increasingly apparent after he reoccupied the Rhineland and invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, effectively starting World War II.

Death

On 29 April 1945, Hitler married his longtime partner, Eva Braun, in the Führerbunker in Berlin. On 30 April 1945, Hitler died by suicide in his Berlin bunker with his mistress Eva Braun. Allied victory in the European theater was declared one week later.

Legacy

The historian and biographer Ian Kershaw described Hitler as "the embodiment of modern political evil." Under Hitler's leadership and racist ideology, the Nazi regime was responsible for the genocide of an estimated six million Jews and millions of other victims, whom he and his followers deemed Untermenschen (lit. 'subhumans') or socially undesirable. Hitler and the Nazis were also responsible for the deliberate killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war. In addition, 28.7 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European theatre.

There is perhaps no other individual whose name is more synonymous with evil than that of Adolf Hitler. Hitler’s legacy is one of racism, hatred, and destruction, and he remains vilified across time and space. The effects of World War II and the Holocaust are almost incalculable and the level of destruction wrought on the world by Hitler’s vision almost incomprehensible. On a global level, Hitler’s world war set the stage for what would come to define the remainder of the twentieth century-the battle for military and economic supremacy between the newly created superpowers, the United States and Soviet Union. The events of World War II opened a political vacuum on the European continent that was filled by the Soviets, consequently triggering a reaction formation from the United States, which manifested itself across a range of issues and events, from the space race to the proposal of a Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) in the early 1980’s, to ongoing troubles in Korea and Vietnam. Had Europe been less susceptible to foreign meddling in the years immediately following World War II, the Cold War may not have unfolded in such a manner. European weakness was ultimately traceable to the actions engaged by Hitler.

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