Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party,[c] becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934.[d] His invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 marks the start of the Second World War. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust: the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims.
Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary and was raised near Linz. He lived in Vienna later in the first decade of the 1900s before moving to Germany in 1913. He was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I, receiving the Iron Cross. In 1919, he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the Nazi Party, and in 1921 was appointed leader of the Nazi Party. In 1923, he attempted to seize governmental power in a failed coup in Munich and was sentenced to five years in prison, serving just over a year of his sentence. While there, he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"). After his early release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting pan-Germanism, antisemitism and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. He frequently denounced communism as being part of an international Jewish conspiracy.
By November 1932, the Nazi Party held the most seats in the Reichstag but did not have a majority. No political parties were able to form a majority coalition in support of a candidate for chancellor. Former chancellor Franz von Papen and other conservative leaders convinced President Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor on 30 January 1933. Shortly thereafter, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act of 1933 which began the process of transforming the Weimar Republic into Nazi Germany, a one-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. Upon Hindenburg's death on 2 August 1934, Hitler succeeded him, becoming simultaneously the head of state and government with absolute power. 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 World War I, and the annexation of territories inhabited by millions of ethnic Germans, which initially gave him significant popular support.
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. He directed large-scale rearmament and, on 1 September 1939, invaded Poland, resulting in Britain and France declaring war on Germany. In June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. In December 1941, he declared war on the United States. 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, and in 1945 the Allied armies defeated the German army. On 29 April 1945, he married his long-time partner, Eva Braun, in the Führerbunker in Berlin. The couple committed suicide the following day to avoid capture by the Soviet Red Army. In accordance with Hitler's wishes, their corpses were burned.
The historian and biographer Ian Kershaw describes Hitler as "the embodiment of modern political evil".[3] 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 (subhumans) or socially undesirable. Hitler and the Nazi regime 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. The number of civilians killed during World War II was unprecedented in warfare, and the casualties constitute the deadliest conflict in history.
Ancestry
See also: Hitler family
Hitler's father, Alois Hitler (1837–1903), was the illegitimate child of Maria Schicklgruber.[4] The baptismal register did not show the name of his father, and Alois initially bore his mother's surname, "Schicklgruber". In 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Alois's mother. Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedler's brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler.[5] In 1876, Alois was made legitimate and his baptismal record annotated by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Alois's father (recorded as "Georg Hitler").[6][7] Alois then assumed the surname "Hitler",[7] also spelled "Hiedler", "Hüttler", or "Huettler". The name is probably based on the German word Hütte (lit. 'hut'), and probably has the meaning "one who lives in a hut".[8]
Nazi official Hans Frank suggested that Alois's mother had been employed as a housekeeper by a Jewish family in Graz, and that the family's 19-year-old son Leopold Frankenberger had fathered Alois, a claim that came to be known as the Frankenberger thesis.[9] No Frankenberger was registered in Graz during that period, no record has been produced of Leopold Frankenberger's existence,[10] so historians dismiss the claim that Alois's father was Jewish.[11][12]
Early years
Childhood and education
Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary (present-day Austria), close to the border with the German Empire.[13][14] He was the fourth of six children born to Alois Hitler and his third wife, Klara Pölzl. Three of Hitler's siblings—Gustav, Ida, and Otto—died in infancy.[15] Also living in the household were Alois's children from his second marriage: Alois Jr. (born 1882) and Angela (born 1883).[16] When Hitler was three, the family moved to Passau, Germany.[17] There he acquired the distinctive lower Bavarian dialect, rather than Austrian German, which marked his speech throughout his life.[18][19][20] The family returned to Austria and settled in Leonding in 1894, and in June 1895 Alois retired to Hafeld, near Lambach, where he farmed and kept bees. Hitler attended Volksschule (a state-funded primary school) in nearby Fischlham.[21][22]
Hitler as an infant (c. 1889–90)
The move to Hafeld coincided with the onset of intense father-son conflicts caused by Hitler's refusal to conform to the strict discipline of his school.[23] His father beat him, although his mother tried to protect him.[24]
Alois Hitler's farming efforts at Hafeld ended in failure, and in 1897 the family moved to Lambach. The eight-year-old Hitler took singing lessons, sang in the church choir, and even considered becoming a priest.[25] In 1898, the family returned permanently to Leonding. Hitler was deeply affected by the death of his younger brother Edmund in 1900 from measles. Hitler changed from a confident, outgoing, conscientious student to a morose, detached boy who constantly fought with his father and teachers.[26] Paula Hitler recalled how Adolf was a teenage bully who would often slap her.[24]
Alois had made a successful career in the customs bureau and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.[27] Hitler later dramatised an episode from this period when his father took him to visit a customs office, depicting it as an event that gave rise to an unforgiving antagonism between father and son, who were both strong-willed.[28][29][30] Ignoring his son's desire to attend a classical high school and become an artist, Alois sent Hitler to the Realschule in Linz in September 1900.[e][31] Hitler rebelled against this decision, and in Mein Kampf states that he intentionally performed poorly in school, hoping that once his father saw "what little progress I was making at the technical school he would let me devote myself to my dream".[32]
Hitler's father, Alois, c. 1900
Hitler's mother, Klara, 1870s
Like many Austrian Germans, Hitler began to develop German nationalist ideas from a young age.[33] He expressed loyalty only to Germany, despising the declining Habsburg monarchy and its rule over an ethnically diverse empire.[34][35] Hitler and his friends used the greeting "Heil", and sang the "Deutschlandlied" instead of the Austrian Imperial anthem.[36] After Alois's sudden death on 3 January 1903, Hitler's performance at school deteriorated and his mother allowed him to leave.[37] He enrolled at the Realschule in Steyr in September 1904, where his behaviour and performance improved.[38] In 1905, after passing a repeat of the final exam, Hitler left the school without any ambitions for further education or clear plans for a career.[39]
Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich
See also: Paintings by Adolf Hitler
The house in Leonding, Austria where Hitler spent his early adolescence
The Alter Hof in Munich, a watercolour painting by Hitler in 1914
In 1907, Hitler left Linz to live and study fine art in Vienna, financed by orphan's benefits and support from his mother. He applied for admission to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna but was rejected twice.[40][41] The director suggested Hitler should apply to the School of Architecture, but he lacked the necessary academic credentials because he had not finished secondary school.[42]
On 21 December 1907, his mother died of breast cancer at the age of 47; Hitler was 18 at the time. In 1909, Hitler ran out of money and was forced to live a bohemian life in homeless shelters and a men's dormitory.[43][44] He earned money as a casual labourer and by painting and selling watercolours of Vienna's sights.[40] During his time in Vienna, he pursued a growing passion for architecture and music, attending ten performances of Lohengrin, his favourite Wagner opera.[45]
In Vienna, Hitler was first exposed to racist rhetoric.[46] Populists such as mayor Karl Lueger exploited the city's prevalent anti-Semitic sentiment, occasionally also espousing German nationalist notions for political benefit. German nationalism was even more widespread in the Mariahilf district, where Hitler then lived.[47] Georg Ritter von Schönerer became a major influence on Hitler,[48] and he developed an admiration for Martin Luther.[49] Hitler read local newspapers that promoted prejudice and utilised Christian fears of being swamped by an influx of Eastern European Jews[50] as well as pamphlets that published the thoughts of philosophers and theoreticians such as Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gustave Le Bon, and Arthur Schopenhauer.[51] During his life in Vienna, Hitler also developed fervent anti-Slavic sentiments.[52][53]
The origin and development of Hitler's anti-Semitism remains a matter of debate.[54] His friend August Kubizek claimed that Hitler was a "confirmed anti-Semite" before he left Linz.[55] However, historian Brigitte Hamann describes Kubizek's claim as "problematical".[56] While Hitler states in Mein Kampf that he first became an anti-Semite in Vienna,[57] Reinhold Hanisch, who helped him sell his paintings, disagrees. Hitler had dealings with Jews while living in Vienna.[58][59][60] Historian Richard J. Evans states that "historians now generally agree that his notorious, murderous anti-Semitism emerged well after Germany's defeat [in World War I], as a product of the paranoid "stab-in-the-back" explanation for the catastrophe".[61]
Hitler received the final part of his father's estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich, Germany.[62] When he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army,[63] he journeyed to Salzburg on 5 February 1914 for medical assessment. After he was deemed unfit for service, he returned to Munich.[64] Hitler later claimed that he did not wish to serve the Habsburg Empire because of the mixture of races in its army and his belief that the collapse of Austria-Hungary was imminent.[65]
World War I
Main article: Military career of Adolf Hitler
Hitler (far right, seated) with Bavarian Army comrades from the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (c. 1914–18)
In August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Hitler was living in Munich and voluntarily enlisted in the Bavarian Army.[66] According to a 1924 report by the Bavarian authorities, allowing Hitler to serve was most likely an administrative error, because as an Austrian citizen, he should have been returned to Austria.[66] Posted to the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (1st Company of the List Regiment),[66][67] he served as a dispatch runner on the Western Front in France and Belgium,[68] spending nearly half his time at the regimental headquarters in Fournes-en-Weppes, well behind the front lines.[69][70] In 1914, he was present at the First Battle of Ypres[71] and in that year was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class.[71]
During his service at headquarters, Hitler pursued his artwork, drawing cartoons and instructions for an army newspaper. During the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, he was wounded in the left thigh when a shell exploded in the dispatch runners' dugout.[71][72] Hitler spent almost two months recovering in hospital at Beelitz, returning to his regiment on 5 March 1917.[73] He was present at the Battle of Arras of 1917 and the Battle of Passchendaele.[71] He received the Black Wound Badge on 18 May 1918.[74] Three months later, in August 1918, on a recommendation by Lieutenant Hugo Gutmann, his Jewish superior, Hitler received the Iron Cross, First Class, a decoration rarely awarded at Hitler's Gefreiter rank.[75][76] On 15 October 1918, he was temporarily blinded in a mustard gas attack and was hospitalised in Pasewalk.[77] While there, Hitler learned of Germany's defeat, and, by his own account, suffered a second bout of blindness after receiving this news.[78]
Hitler described his role in World War I as "the greatest of all experiences", and was praised by his commanding officers for his bravery.[79] His wartime experience reinforced his German patriotism, and he was shocked by Germany's capitulation in November 1918.[80] His displeasure with the collapse of the war effort began to shape his ideology.[81] Like other German nationalists, he believed the Dolchstoßlegende (stab-in-the-back myth), which claimed that the German army, "undefeated in the field", had been "stabbed in the back" on the home front by civilian leaders, Jews, Marxists, and those who signed the armistice that ended the fighting—later dubbed the "November criminals".[82]
The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany had to relinquish several of its territories and demilitarise the Rhineland. The treaty imposed economic sanctions and levied heavy reparations on the country. Many Germans saw the treaty as an unjust humiliation. They especially objected to Article 231, which they interpreted as declaring Germany responsible for the war.[83] The Versailles Treaty and the economic, social, and political conditions in Germany after the war were later exploited by Hitler for political gain.[84]
Entry into politics
Main article: Political views of Adolf Hitler
Hitler's German Workers' Party (DAP) membership card
After World War I, Hitler returned to Munich.[85] Without formal education or career prospects, he remained in the Army.[86] In July 1919, he was appointed Verbindungsmann (intelligence agent) of an Aufklärungskommando (reconnaissance unit) of the Reichswehr, assigned to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers' Party (DAP). At a DAP meeting on 12 September 1919, Party Chairman Anton Drexler was impressed by Hitler's oratorical skills. He gave him a copy of his pamphlet My Political Awakening, which contained anti-Semitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist, and anti-Marxist ideas.[87] On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party,[88] and within a week was accepted as party member 555 (the party began counting membership at 500 to give the impression they were a much larger party).[89][90]
Hitler made his earliest known written statement about the Jewish question in a 16 September 1919 letter to Adolf Gemlich (now known as the Gemlich letter). In the letter, Hitler argues that the aim of the government "must unshakably be the removal of the Jews altogether".[91] At the DAP, Hitler met Dietrich Eckart, one of the party's founders and a member of the occult Thule Society.[92] Eckart became Hitler's mentor, exchanging ideas with him and introducing him to a wide range of Munich society.[93] To increase its appeal, the DAP changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), now known as the "Nazi Party").[94] Hitler designed the party's banner of a swastika in a white circle on a red background.[95]
Hitler was discharged from the Army on 31 March 1920 and began working full-time for the party.[96] The party headquarters was in Munich, a centre for anti-government German nationalists determined to eliminate Marxism and undermine the Weimar Republic.[97] In February 1921—already highly effective at crowd manipulation—he spoke to a crowd of over 6,000.[98] To publicise the meeting, two truckloads of party supporters drove around Munich waving swastika flags and distributing leaflets. Hitler soon gained notoriety for his rowdy polemic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians, and especially against Marxists and Jews.[99]
Hitler poses for the camera in September 1930
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).[100] 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.[101] 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.[102] 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.[102][f] In the following days, Hitler spoke to several large audiences and defended himself and Esser, to thunderous applause. His strategy proved successful, and at a special party congress on 29 July, he was granted absolute power as party chairman, succeeding Drexler, by a vote of 533 to 1.[103]
Hitler's vitriolic beer hall speeches began attracting regular audiences. A demagogue,[104] he became adept at using populist themes, including the use of scapegoats, who were blamed for his listeners' economic hardships.[105][106][107] Hitler used personal magnetism and an understanding of crowd psychology to his advantage while engaged in public speaking.[108][109] Historians have noted the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups.[110] Alfons Heck, a former member of the Hitler Youth, recalled:
We erupted into a frenzy of nationalistic pride that bordered on hysteria. For minutes on end, we shouted at the top of our lungs, with tears streaming down our faces: Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil! From that moment on, I belonged to Adolf Hitler body and soul.[111]
Early followers included Rudolf Hess, former air force ace Hermann Göring, and army captain Ernst Röhm. Röhm became head of the Nazis' paramilitary organisation, the Sturmabteilung (SA, "Stormtroopers"), which protected meetings and att
On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded western Poland under the pretext of having been denied claims to the Free City of Danzig and the right to extraterritorial roads across the Polish Corridor, which Germany had ceded under the Versailles Treaty.[260] In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September, surprising Hitler and prompting him to angrily ask Ribbentrop, "Now what?"[261] France and Britain did not act on their declarations immediately, and on 17 September, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland.[262]
Hitler reviews troops on the march during the campaign against Poland (September 1939).
The fall of Poland was followed by what contemporary journalists dubbed the "Phoney War" or Sitzkrieg ("sitting war"). Hitler instructed the two newly appointed Gauleiters of north-western Poland, Albert Forster of Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia and Arthur Greiser of Reichsgau Wartheland, to Germanise their areas, with "no questions asked" about how this was accomplished.[263] In Forster's area, ethnic Poles merely had to sign forms stating that they had German blood.[264] In contrast, Greiser agreed with Himmler and carried out an ethnic cleansing campaign towards Poles. Greiser soon complained that Forster was allowing thousands of Poles to be accepted as "racial" Germans and thus endangered German "racial purity".[263] Hitler refrained from getting involved. This inaction has been advanced as an example of the theory of "working towards the Führer", in which Hitler issued vague instructions and expected his subordinates to work out policies on their own.[263][265]
Another dispute pitched one side represented by Heinrich Himmler and Greiser, who championed ethnic cleansing in Poland, against another represented by Göring and Hans Frank (governor-general of occupied Poland), who called for turning Poland into the "granary" of the Reich. On 12 February 1940, the dispute was initially settled in favour of the Göring–Frank view, which ended the economically disruptive mass expulsions. On 15 May 1940, Himmler issued a memo entitled "Some Thoughts on the Treatment of Alien Population in the East", calling for the expulsion of the entire Jewish population of Europe into Africa and the reduction of the Polish population to a "leaderless class of labourers". Hitler called Himmler's memo "good and correct", and, ignoring Göring and Frank, implemented the Himmler–Greiser policy in Poland.[266]
Hitler visits Paris with architect Albert Speer (left) and sculptor Arno Breker (right), 23 June 1940.
On 9 April, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway. On the same day Hitler proclaimed the birth of the Greater Germanic Reich, his vision of a united empire of Germanic nations of Europe in which the Dutch, Flemish, and Scandinavians were joined into a "racially pure" polity under German leadership.[267] In May 1940, Germany attacked France, and conquered Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium. These victories prompted Mussolini to have Italy join forces with Hitler on 10 June. France and Germany signed an armistice on 22 June.[268] Kershaw notes that Hitler's popularity within Germany—and German support for the war—reached its peak when he returned to Berlin on 6 July from his tour of Paris.[269] Following the unexpected swift victory, Hitler promoted twelve generals to the rank of field marshal during the 1940 Field Marshal Ceremony.[270][271]
Britain, whose troops were forced to evacuate France by sea from Dunkirk,[272] continued to fight alongside other British dominions in the Battle of the Atlantic. Hitler made peace overtures to the new British leader, Winston Churchill, and upon their rejection he ordered a series of aerial attacks on Royal Air Force airbases and radar stations in southeast England. On 7 September the systematic nightly bombing of London began. The German Luftwaffe failed to defeat the Royal Air Force in what became known as the Battle of Britain.[273] By the end of September, Hitler realised that air superiority for the invasion of Britain (in Operation Sea Lion) could not be achieved, and ordered the operation postponed. The nightly air raids on British cities intensified and continued for months, including London, Plymouth, and Coventry.[274]
On 27 September 1940, the Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin by Saburō Kurusu of Imperial Japan, Hitler, and Italian foreign minister Ciano,[275] and later expanded to include Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, thus yielding the Axis powers. Hitler's attempt to integrate the Soviet Union into the anti-British bloc failed after inconclusive talks between Hitler and Molotov in Berlin in November, and he ordered preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union.[276]
In early 1941, German forces were deployed to North Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In February, German forces arrived in Libya to bolster the Italian presence. In April, Hitler launched the invasion of Yugoslavia, quickly followed by the invasion of Greece.[277] In May, German forces were sent to support Iraqi forces fighting against the British and to invade Crete.[278]
Path to defeat
Hitler announcing the declaration of war against the United States to the Reichstag on 11 December 1941
Adolf Hitler and Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim in Finland on June 1942
On 22 June 1941, contravening the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, over three million Axis troops attacked the Soviet Union.[279] This offensive (codenamed Operation Barbarossa) was intended to destroy the Soviet Union and seize its natural resources for subsequent aggression against the Western powers.[280][281] The action was also part of the overall plan to obtain more living space for German people; and Hitler thought a successful invasion would force Britain to negotiate a surrender.[282] The invasion conquered a huge area, including the Baltic republics, Belarus, and West Ukraine. By early August, Axis troops had advanced 500 km (310 mi) and won the Battle of Smolensk. Hitler ordered Army Group Centre to temporarily halt its advance to Moscow and divert its Panzer groups to aid in the encirclement of Leningrad and Kiev.[283] His generals disagreed with this change, having advanced within 400 km (250 mi) of Moscow, and his decision caused a crisis among the military leadership.[284][285] The pause provided the Red Army with an opportunity to mobilise fresh reserves; historian Russel Stolfi considers it to be one of the major factors that caused the failure of the Moscow offensive, which was resumed in October 1941 and ended disastrously in December.[283] During this crisis, Hitler appointed himself as head of the Oberkommando des Heeres.[286]
On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked the American fleet based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Four days later, Hitler declared war against the United States.[287] On 18 December 1941, Himmler asked Hitler, "What to do with the Jews of Russia?", to which Hitler replied, "als Partisanen auszurotten" ("exterminate them as partisans").[288] Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer has commented that the remark is probably as close as historians will ever get to a definitive order from Hitler for the genocide carried out during the Holocaust.[288]
In late 1942, German forces were defeated in the second battle of El Alamein,[289] thwarting Hitler's plans to seize the Suez Canal and the Middle East. Overconfident in his own military expertise following the earlier victories in 1940, Hitler became distrustful of his Army High Command and began to interfere in military and tactical planning, with damaging consequences.[290] In December 1942 and January 1943, Hitler's repeated refusal to allow their withdrawal at the Battle of Stalingrad led to the almost total destruction of the 6th Army. Over 200,000 Axis soldiers were killed and 235,000 were taken prisoner.[291] Thereafter came a decisive strategic defeat at the Battle of Kursk.[292] Hitler's military judgement became increasingly erratic, and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated, as did Hitler's health.[293]
The destroyed map room at the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's eastern command post, after the 20 July plot
Following the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, Mussolini was removed from power by King Victor Emmanuel III after a vote of no confidence of the Grand Council of Fascism. Marshal Pietro Badoglio, placed in charge of the government, soon surrendered to the Allies.[294] Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the Eastern Front. On 6 June 1944, the Western Allied armies landed in northern France in one of the largest amphibious operations in history, Operation Overlord.[295] Many German officers concluded that defeat was inevitable and that continuing under Hitler's leadership would result in the complete destruction of the country.[296]
Between 1939 and 1945, there were numerous plans to assassinate Hitler, some of which proceeded to significant degrees.[297] The most well-known and significant, the 20 July plot of 1944, came from within Germany and was at least partly driven by the increasing prospect of a German defeat in the war.[298] Part of Operation Valkyrie, the plot involved Claus von Stauffenberg planting a bomb in one of Hitler's headquarters, the Wolf's Lair at Rastenburg. Hitler narrowly survived because staff officer Heinz Brandt moved the briefcase containing the bomb behind a leg of the heavy conference table, which deflected much of the blast. Later, Hitler ordered savage reprisals resulting in the execution of more than 4,900 people.[299] According to British academic Dan Plesch, Hitler was put on the United Nations War Crimes Commission's first list of war criminals in December 1944, after determining that Hitler could be held criminally responsible for the acts of the Nazis in occupied countries. By March 1945, at least seven indictments had been filed against him.[300]
Defeat and death
Main article: Death of Adolf Hitler
Hitler in his last filmed appearance, honouring Hitler Youth members of the Volkssturm in the Reich Chancellery garden
Front page of the US Armed Forces newspaper, Stars and Stripes, 2 May 1945, announcing Hitler's death. It erroneously states that Hitler died on 1 May; he died on 30 April.
By late 1944, both the Red Army and the Western Allies were advancing into Germany. Recognising the strength and determination of the Red Army, Hitler decided to use his remaining mobile reserves against the American and British armies, which he perceived as far weaker.[301] On 16 December, he launched the Ardennes Offensive to incite disunity among the Western Allies and perhaps convince them to join his fight against the Soviets.[302] After some temporary successes, the offensive failed.[303] With much of Germany in ruins in January 1945, Hitler spoke on the radio: "However grave as the crisis may be at this moment, it will, despite everything, be mastered by our unalterable will."[304] Acting on his view that Germany's military failures meant it had forfeited its right to survive as a nation, Hitler ordered the destruction of all German industrial infrastructure before it could fall into Allied hands.[305] Minister for Armaments Albert Speer was entrusted with executing this scorched earth policy, but he secretly disobeyed the order.[305][306] Hitler's hope to negotiate peace with the United States and Britain was encouraged by the death of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April 1945, but contrary to his expectations, this caused no rift among the Allies.[302][307]
On 20 April, his 56th and final birthday, Hitler made his last trip from the Führerbunker to the surface. In the ruined garden of the Reich Chancellery, he awarded Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth, who were now fighting the Red Army at the front near Berlin.[308] By 21 April, Georgy Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front had broken through the defences of General Gotthard Heinrici's Army Group Vistula during the Battle of the Seelow Heights and advanced to the outskirts of Berlin.[309] In denial about the dire situation, Hitler placed his hopes on the undermanned and under-equipped Armeeabteilung Steiner (Army Detachment Steiner), commanded by Felix Steiner. Hitler ordered Steiner to attack the northern flank of the salient, while the German Ninth Army was ordered to attack northward in a pincer attack.[310]
During a military conference on 22 April, Hitler inquired about Steiner's offensive. He was informed that the attack had not been launched and that the Soviets had entered Berlin. Hitler ordered everyone but Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, Hans Krebs, and Wilhelm Burgdorf to leave the room,[311] then launched into a tirade against the perceived treachery and incompetence of his generals, culminating in his declaration—for the first time—that "everything is lost".[312] He announced that he would stay in Berlin until the end and then shoot himself.[313]
By 23 April, the Red Army had surrounded Berlin,[314] and Goebbels made a proclamation urging its citizens to defend the city.[311] That same day, Göring sent a telegram from Berchtesgaden, arguing that as Hitler was isolated in Berlin, Göring should assume leadership of Germany. Göring set a deadline, after which he would consider Hitler incapacitated.[315] Hitler responded by having Göring arrested, and in his last will and testament of 29 April, he removed Göring from all government positions.[316][317] On 28 April, Hitler discovered that Himmler, who had left Berlin on 20 April, was attempting to negotiate a surrender to the Western Allies.[318][319] He considered this treason and ordered Himmler's arrest. He also ordered the execution of Hermann Fegelein, Himmler's SS representative at Hitler's headquarters in Berlin, for desertion.[320]
After midnight on the night of 28–29 April, Hitler married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony in the Führerbunker.[321][g] Later that afternoon, Hitler was informed that Mussolini had been executed by the Italian resistance movement on the previous day; this is believed to have increased his determination to avoid capture.[322] On 30 April, Soviet troops were within five hundred metres of the Reich Chancellery when Hitler shot himself in the head and Braun bit into a cyanide capsule.[323][324] In accordance with Hitler's wishes, their corpses were carried outside to the garden behind the Reich Chancellery, where they were placed in a bomb crater, doused with petrol, and set on fire as the Red Army shelling continued.[325][326][327] Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz and Goebbels assumed Hitler's roles as head of state and chancellor respectively.[328] On the evening of 1 May, Goebbels and his wife, Magda, committed suicide in the Reich Chancellery garden, after having poisoned their six children with cyanide.[329]
Berlin surrendered on 2 May. The remains of the Goebbels family, General Hans Krebs (who had committed suicide that day), and Hitler's dog Blondi were repeatedly buried and exhumed by the Soviets.[330] Hitler's and Braun's remains were alleged to have been moved as well, but this is most likely Soviet disinformation. There is no evidence that any identifiable remains of Hitler or Braun—with the exception of dental bridges—were ever found by them.[331][332][333] While news of Hitler's death spread quickly, a death certificate was not issued until 1956, after a lengthy investigation to collect testimony from 42 witnesses. Hitler's death was entered as an assumption of death based on this testimony.[334]
The Holocaust
Main articles: The Holocaust and Final Solution
If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevisation of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe![335]
— Adolf Hitler, 30 January 1939 Reichstag speech
A wagon piled high with corpses outside the crematorium in the liberated Buchenwald concentration camp (April 1945)
The Holocaust and Germany's war in the East were based on Hitler's long-standing view that the Jews were the enemy of the German people, and that Lebensraum was needed for Germany's expansion. He focused on Eastern Europe for this expansion, aiming to defeat Poland and the Soviet Union and then removing or killing the Jews and Slavs.[336] The Generalplan Ost (General Plan East) called for deporting the population of occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to West Siberia, for use as slave labour or to be murdered;[337] the conquered territories were to be colonised by German or "Germanised" settlers.[338] The goal was to implement this plan after the conquest of the Soviet Union, but when this failed, Hitler moved the plans forward.[337][339] By January 1942, he had decided that the Jews, Slavs, and other deportees considered undesirable should be killed.[340][h]
Hitler's order for Aktion T4, dated 1 September 1939
The genocide was organised and executed by Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. The records of the Wannsee Conference, held on 20 January 1942 and led by Heydrich, with fifteen senior Nazi officials participating, provide the clearest evidence of systematic planning for the Holocaust. On 22 February, Hitler was recorded saying, "we shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews".[341] Similarly, at a meeting in July 1941 with leading functionaries of the Eastern territories, Hitler said that the easiest way to quickly pacify the areas would be best achieved by "shooting everyone who even looks odd".[342] Although no direct order from Hitler authorising the mass killings has surfaced,[343] his public speeches, orders to his generals, and the diaries of Nazi officials demonstrate that he conceived and authorised the extermination of European Jewry.[344][345] During the war, Hitler repeatedly stated his prophecy of 1939 was being fulfilled, namely, that a world war would bring about the annihilation of the Jewish race.[346] Hitler approved the Einsatzgruppen—killing squads that followed the German army through Poland, the Baltic, and the Soviet Union[347]—and was well informed about their activities.[344][348] By summer 1942, Auschwitz concentration camp was expanded to accommodate large numbers of deportees for murder or enslavement.[349] Scores of other concentration camps and satellite camps were set up throughout Europe, with several camps devoted exclusively to extermination.[350]
Between 1939 and 1945, the Schutzstaffel (SS), assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, were responsible for the deaths of at least eleven million non-combatants,[351][337] including the murders of about 6 million Jews (representing two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe),[352][i] and between 200,000 and 1,500,000 Romani people.[354][352] The victims were killed in concentration and extermination camps and in ghettos, and through mass shootings.[355][356] Many victims of the Holocaust were murdered in gas chambers or shot, while others died of starvation or disease or while working as slave labourers.[355][356] In addition to eliminating Jews, the Nazis planned to reduce the population of the conquered territories by 30 million people through starvation in an action called the Hunger Plan. Food supplies would be diverted to the German army and German civilians. Cities would be razed, and the land allowed to return to forest or resettled by German colonists.[357] Together, the Hunger Plan and Generalplan Ost would have led to the starvation of 80 million people in the Soviet Union.[358] These partially fulfilled plans resulted in additional deaths, bringing the total number of civilians and prisoners of war who died in the democide to an estimated 19.3 million people.[359]
Hitler's policies resulted in the killing of nearly two million non-Jewish Polish civilians,[360] over three million Soviet prisoners of war,[361] communists and other