- Write a brief summary of the person’s life in at least 20 sentences.
Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau, Austria. On January 3, 1903 Hitler’s father died. Hitler did not have a good relationship with his father and this is one thing that may have helped make him so unfeeling.
In October 1907, Hitler fails the exam to get into the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Many people think this disappointment help turn Hitler into the tyrant he became.
In December 1907, Klara died. Hitler loved his mother and her death had a big impact on him.
In August of 1914, Hitler joined the German army and fought in World War I. On November 10 1918 Germany lost World War I. In September of 1921, Hitler forms the SA; the storm troopers who help him rise to power. In April 1924, Hitler is sent to prison for starting the Beer Hall Putsch. In jail he begins to write Mein Kampf. On September 17, 1931, Geli Raubal, Hitler’s niece the love of his life, shoots herself. In November of 1938, Hitler approves glass to be knocked out of Jewish homes, shops, and Synagogues by rioters. The night becomes to known as Crystal Night because of all the broken glass. In 1939, Hitler invades Poland and starts World War II. Hitler and Stalin sign an agreement to fight together and divide Poland as a reward. In April of 1940 Hitler establishes the death camp Auschwitz. On April 30, 1945 Hitler kills himself, because he realizes he cannot win the war.
- Quote something this person said or wrote that reflects his or her thinking. Explain why you think it reflects the person’s thinking. Your answer must be at least ten sentences long.
”Neither a military man nor a civilian could replace me! I am convinced of the powers of my intellect. No one has ever achieved what I have achieved! I have led the German people to a great height—even if the world does hate us now.
The fate of the Reich depends only on me! I shall act accordingly! I shall shrink from nothing. I shall annihilate everyone who is apposed to me!”
I chose this quote because it shows what a megalomaniac Hitler was. He had delusions of grandeur that later led to his fall. He believed that he was smarter and more powerful then anyone else in the world. This led him to take great chances. He believed he could conquer Russia, even though no one had ever been able to do that. He failed and that was a turning point in the war. This quote also shows that Hitler killed anyone who disagreed with him.
- Name two or three persons who were friends of this person. Explain what they were like. Explain how they might have had an impact on your person. Use between 10 and 25 sentences.
Hitler’s friends were an odd group of outcasts. Captain Ernst Roehm was a tough professional army officer. Hermann Goering was a famous fighter pilot during WWI who was also a drug addict and who had spent time in a mental institution. Dietrich Eckart was a poet who drank a lot. Rudolf Hess was a university student from the University of Munich. Gregor Strasser was a drugest who became the number two man in the Nazi party. All of these people were misfits like Hitler. They had an impact on Hitler because they were all angry about not fitting in and they all supported his beliefs and helped him rise to power.
- State the occupation of the person you chose.
Hitler did not have an occupation. He joined the army and stayed there because he did not want to have to get a job. His only real occupation was Fuehrer and dictator of Germany.
- Fully explain the conflict this person was involved in. Explain America’s role. Use between 25 and 100 sentences.
Hitler was involved in World War II. World War II was caused by Germany, Italy, and Japan’s conquest of neighboring nations. There were two sides in World War II, the Allies and the Axis. Britain, Canada, China, and France were part of the Allies from the beginning of the war in 1939. In 1941, the Soviet Union and the United States joined the Allies. Germany, Italy, and Japan were part of the Axis. The Soviet Union was part of the Axis until 1941 when Hitler went against the pact he had signed with Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union. At that time, the Soviet Union joined the Allies.
Before World War II started, Hitler ordered the annexation of Austria. In 1939, Hitler’s army invaded Poland. This caused France and England to declare war on Germany. Hitler ordered a Blitzkrieg or a lightning war and Germany conquered nation after nation in Western Europe.
In 1941, Hitler ignored a pact he had signed with the Soviet Union and invaded that country. Hitler believed that Germans were the Master race and that Germany should rule the world. The Germans suffered their first big defeats in Moscow and Stalingrad. The rough winters in the Soviet Union played a role in the German defeats.
In December 1941, Japan bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The United States declared war on Japan and entered World War II on the side of the Allies.
World War II lasted for six years. It was fought in Europe, Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Africa. It ended in the total defeat of Germany and Japan. The United States became a world leader and so did the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union and the United States became rivals and got involved in a Cold war that lasted for forty years.
- What was this person’s religious orientation?
Hitler was a Catholic. When he was a choirboy at Benedictine monastery, he dreamed of becoming a Catholic priest.
- How did this person die?
He put a gun barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
- What role did this person play during the conflict he or she was involved in? Explain in five or more sentences.
Hitler played a major role in World War II. He believed that Germany should rule the world. He thought that Jews were Germany’s true enemy. Hitler thought that the only way Germany could stop the Jews from conquering the world was by eliminating them. Hitler wanted to rebuild the German Reich. When he came to power in 1934, he started to work on his plans to take over the world. Anyone who disagreed with his plans was killed.
From 1938 until he killed himself in 1945, Hitler fought to take over nation after nation.
- What do you think this person would detail as the five greatest strengths of the United States of America as a nation in the present day? Explain why you chose each strength.
I think Hitler would pick negative things as strengths, because he was a dictator who did not believe in democracy. He would pick examples that show when democracy is not working.
Hitler would see the fact that the United States is a world leader as strength. He always wanted Germany to be a world leader. He would agree with the way the United States uses its strength to dominate other countries, both politically and economically.
Hitler would also think it was a strength that the United States ignored the United Nations and acted on their own in Iraq. Hitler ignored the Treaty of Versailles and the pact he had signed with Stalin like the United States ignored the United Nations votes not to start war with Iraq.
Hitler would think it was good the way the last presidential election was rigged. He would have done the same thing, because he did not believe in democracy. Hitler was a dictator who did not let others vote against him or voice their opinion, so he would think it was strength whenever that happened in the United States.
Hitler would think the new kind of patriotism in the United States after 9/11 is strength. Many citizens of the United States do not think it is okay to criticize what is happening in our country right now. Hitler would agree.
Hitler would also see the way the press is being controlled in the United States is a good thing. Hitler really knew how to spread propaganda and he knew that he had to control information. Many feel that the press is not covering both sides of the story as well as it should in the United States and I think Hitler would think that is a strength.
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What do you think this person would name as the greatest threat facing America today? Use at least five sentences to explain and justify your answer.
I think that Hitler would see equal rights as the greatest threat facing America. Hitler believed that people of Aryan descent were superior to other races. He felt that if people intermarried, the pure Aryan race would be weakened. Hitler believed that inferiors had to be eliminated. He would view the 14th Amendment as a threat. The fourteenth amendment protects the rights of all American citizens, regardless of race or color. Hitler would probably view this Amendment as the greatest threat facing America.
- What did this person believe in? Write at least five sentences.
Hitler believed that the German’s were superior to other people in the world. He thought that Jews, homosexuals, and gypsies were inferior and that they should be slaves to the Germans. Hitler believed that God had called him to eliminate Jews and establish the German people as the Master race. He believed that Germany was supposed to become the “lord of the earth.” He thought force and power should be used to get whatever the powerful wanted. Hitler also believed that if people said something over and over again, they would start to believe it. That is why he wanted people to say “Heil Hitler” over and over.
- What is the most significant event in American History that this person contributed to? Use between 3 and 10 sentences.
The most significant event in American History that Hitler contributed to was the American involvement in World War II. Hitler was actually responsible for starting World War II. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States got involved in WWII. World War II lasted for six years. By the end of the war, the United States and the Soviet Union became world leaders. The Soviet Union and the United States became rivals and became involved in a Cold War which lasted for forty years.
- State a person who your topic actions contributed to their success or failure and explain how. Use between 5 and 15 sentences.
It seems like everyone Hitler helped bring to power eventually failed because of his or her association with him.
Because of his association with Hitler, Heinrich Himmler became the head of the SS police. He was in charge of the death camps in the East. Himmler committed horrible acts of evil. He was the person who made the plans for the death camps and the killing of six million Jews. After Germany was defeated in World War II, Himmler fled Berlin. When he was captured by the Allies, he committed suicide by taking a cyanide capsule. I think his relationship with Hitler led to great suffering and to Himmler’s ultimate failure.
- Quote a poem written during this time that reflects the feeling of the period. Who wrote it? What is it about? How does it relate to this person?
This poem was written by Robert Conquest. Robert Conquest was born in 1917. He served in World War II for Britain. In this poem, Robert Conquest says he cannot write the poem of war. He talks about how horrible war is and how it casts “a frozen shadow down the streaming future”. He tells all the reasons he cannot write a war poem and how he hopes some other poet who can handle what was happening during WWII can write about it. Robert Conquest offers this poet the wasted five years of “undirected storm” in himself and in Europe as a subject for a war poem.
Poem in 1944
No, I cannot write the poem of war,
Neither the colossal dying nor the local scene,
A platoon asleep and dreaming of girls' warmth
Or by the petrol-cooker scraping out a laughter.
-- Only the images that are not even nightmare:
A globe encrusted with a skin of seaweed,
Or razors at the roots. The heart is no man's prism
To cast a frozen shadow down the streaming future;
At most a cold slipstream of empty sorrow,
The grapes and melody of a dreamed love
Or a vague roar of courage.
No, I am not
The meeting point of event and vision, where the poem
Bursts into flame, and the heart's engine
Takes on the load of these broken years and lifts it.
I am not even the tongue and the hand that write
The dissolving sweetness of a personal view
Like those who now in greater luck and liberty
Are professionally pitiful or heroic. . . .
Into what eye to imagine the vista pouring
Its violent treasures? For I must believe
That somewhere the poet is working who can handle
The flung world and his own heart. To him I say
The little I can. I offer him the debris
Of five years' undirected storm in self and Europe,
And my love. Let him take it for what it's worth
In this poem scarcely made and already forgotten.
- What surprised you most about this person? Use between two and six sentences.
Hitler’s love for Geli Raubal surprised me a great deal. Geli was his first and only true love. Geli was the daughter of Hitler’s half-sister, Frau Raubal. When Frau Raubal came to be Hitler’s housekeeper, she brought her two daughters, Friedl and Geli. Hitler fell in love with Geli and took her everywhere with him. Hitler would not let Geli do anything without his permission, and she finally shot herself because she was so unhappy. Hitler never fully recovered from her death. That he could kill so many people and never get over the death of Geli is very surprising and amazing to me.
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How would this person solve the drug problem in America today? Use between 15 and 50 sentences.
Some sources say that Hitler did not drink alcohol or smoke tobacco. Other sources say he drank moderately. The book, The Hitler Fact Book by Thomas Fuchs, said he sipped wine and beer occasionally and sometimes he added cognac to his tea. This book says that he pretended to be a teetotaler for propaganda reasons. He wanted the German people to think he lived a sparse, ascetic life. This was not true, but that is what he wanted people to believe. Whether he drank or not, I think he would think that people with drug or alcohol problems were weak. I am not sure what he would do to them. Two of the people who helped him to power had drug and alcohol problems. Hermann Goering was a famous fighter pilot during World War I. He was also a drug addict. Dietrich Eckart was a drunken poet who had once been confined in a mental institution. Both Eckart and Goering were part of the Nazi party and both helped Hitler rise to power. Hitler did not kill them for their drug and alcohol problems because they were useful to him. I think that Hitler would ignore people with drug problems as long as they didn’t get in his way. If they got in the way, he would kill them. Hitler was not a very sensitive, compassionate man, so I do not think he would worry much about the drug problem in America today or do anything to solve it.
