Rise of Adolph Hitler
Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Austria.
After the death of his father Alois in 1903 and of his mother Klara in 1907, Hitler moved to Vienna in 1908 to study art and architecture, but failed to be admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts, earned a meagre living painting postcards.
In 1913, Hitler moved to Munich, and when the war began volunteered in a Bavarian regiment, earning the rank of Corporal and awarded the Iron Cross.
After the war, Hitler was a member of the Freikorps, and in 1919 joined the German Workers' party that would become the NSDAP or Nazi party.
In 1923, Hitler with Ernst Roehm who had formed the paramilitary SA brown shirts in the Nazi Party. sought to take over the Bavaria government in the Beer Hall Putsch of Nov. 8-9, but failed and Hitler served 9 months in prison where he wrote Mein Kampf ("My Struggle" dictated to Rudolph Hess) that emphasized anti-Semitism and the expansion of German living space.
In 1925, Hitler seized leadership of a reorganized and newly legalized National Socialist German Workers' Party.
In 1929, Hitler led a political campaign against the Young Plan of reparations payments.
In the May 5 elections of 1932, Hindenburg defeated Hitler 53% to 37% for the presidency. But, there was no majority in the Reichstag for any party; in the July31 elections the Nazis won 230 seats with 37% of the vote and became the largest German party, but dropped to 33% in the Nov. 6 elections; Dec. 1, Kurt von Schleicher replaced Franz von Papen as Chancellor but instability increased.
Hitler made Chancellor Jan. 30, 1933, with the help of von Papen, and sought revision of Versailles system by immediately beginning a rearmament program with the support of industrialists such as Alfred Hugenberg and Gustav Krupp (who by April agreed to remove Jewish workers from his factories). and a public works program announced at the Feb. 11 International Automobile and Motor-Cycle Exhibition in Berlin, to build autobahns with 600,000 workers and make a Volksauto for less than 1000 marks.
In the March 5, 1933 elections, the National Socialist German Workers' Party won 43.9% and 288 of 647 seats in the Reichstag.
The Malicious Practices Act of March 21, 1933, began the mass arrests of communists and socialists, the Dauchau concentration camp was set up March 22 in a former powder milk plant, the Enabling Act March 23 made Hitler dictator and eliminated other parties such as the pro-Catholic Zentrum, radical books were burned May 10.
On Sept. 27, 1933, the Nazis blamed communists for the Reichstag fire.
