Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20,1889. He was born in a village on the Bavarian frontier of Austria. All members of the Hitler family were peasants working the land of upper Austria near the border of Bohemia. As a civil servant of the Austrian Empire, Alois Hitler, Adolf’s father, was entitled to wear a uniform and exert high minor authority. Alois was the first within the family to improve his social status. Adolf and his father did not get along, as one would expect. They were not a good combination. Adolf wanted to study art to become and artist while his father wanted him to become a civil servant for the Austrian Empire as he did. Hitler’s father died in 1903, when Adolf was only 14 years old. With the death of his father, his problems would be solved. Clara Hitler, Adolf’s mother, supported her son. She permitted him to attend school in Linz and take art lessons. Adolf’s goal was to enter the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. He then applied but then later found out he was refused. The Academy had written that his work was unsatisfactory and did not meet the standards. Soon afterwards he was also refused at the Technical Building School. In 1908, Clara Hitler died. Hitler was left without financial security or family. After his mother’s death, Hitler made his way back to Vienna where he stayed until 1913. He made a living by painting postcards of the mountains of the city and political opinions. The numberless ethnic groups that composed the old Austro-Hungarian Empire inhabited Vienna. It was also full of political controversy. Socialists, racialists, and nationalities of all kinds held constant conferences and published pamphlets. Hitler was desperately poor. He would live in a furnished room only when he managed to sell a few of his paintings. If he didn’t manage to sell, he often slept in flophouses maintained by the city or charitable institutions for the down-and-out. He hardly had enough to eat, he wore shabby clothes, and when his income was desperately low, he would take whatever job was available in constructive industry. In his autobiography Mein Kampf, which means “My Struggle”, Hitler maintains his basic political attitudes that were formed in Vienna. In Mein Kampf, Hitler writes of his pride of being a German. For Hitler, all men were not brothers: and of all peoples to whom Hitler refused as a brother were the Jews. The Jews were responsible for everything he disliked in art, politics, and social life. Hitler grew to hate the city of Vienna as well as the Austrian state. And in 1913, he moved to Munich, Germany. In 1914, World War One began and Adolf Hitler enlisted in the German Army. After serving for four years, Hitler made his way back to Munich, Germany. When he arrived, Munich was different. He saw and heard Communists, Nationalists, Bavarian Separatists, and Socialists all making use of the newly granted freedoms of speech and press. In 1919, Hitler got a job in the army as a political training official. Here he came in contact with the general in command in Bavaria, Major General Ritter von Epp, later to become Hitler’s regent in Bavaria; and with Captain Ernst Röhm, one of the most important figures of the Nazi days. In September of 1919, Hitler was told to join and report on a meeting of a new group called The German Workers Party. Hitler arose on his first meeting and delivered himself on the theme of German Unity. The leaders of the group were impressed with his speech and invited him to every meeting. Soon afterward, Hitler quit his job at the army and devoted himself to the party full time. In 1920 the party was renamed the Nationalist Socialist German Worker's Party (Nazi) issued its twenty-five point program. The Nazi Party was successful because of millions of new members and supporters. The Nazi Party in Germany was not the only National Socialist organization in Europe. The Austro-Germans and the Sudeten-Germans had similar organizations. The Nazi Party however had more fame and strength. Hitler was then the leader of the Party by 1922. The other members felt they couldn't be without him and that is why the hall was full when the Nazi Party held a rally. Even after Hitler became dictator, he felt his power was not secure. Hitler decided that it was necessary to purge the SA, along with other political opponents and rivals. The process began on June 30, 1934.