Adolf Hitler, born in 1889 in Austria, was the fourth child of his parents’ six. Throughout his childhood, …show more content…
Hitler’s speeches, filled with disdain for the Treaty of Versailles and anti-Jew rhetoric, energized his followers. Subsequently, in 1921, Hitler became the leader of the German Worker’s Party, newly named the Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Party also known as the Nazi Party. Throughout the 1920’s Hitler’s speeches explored his beliefs that unemployment, starvation, and economic uncertainty would continue unless there was a German revolution. Hitler’s solution for a German revolution was the removal of communists and Jews.
In 1923, Hilter and the Nazi Party staged a failed coup in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. Hitler hoped the coup would be the catalyst for a larger revolution against the government. Unfortunately, Hitler was arrested and charged with treason. He was sentenced to five years in prison but served less than a year. During his prison stay, he penned his infamous autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle). “In Mein Kampf, Hitler claimed that Germans were a ‘master race’ that needed to defend its ‘pure blood’ from groups he labeled ‘racial degenerates,’ including Jews, Slavs, and others” (McKay J., 2015, p. …show more content…
There were Nazi’s in every top position in the government and military. They also implemented policies that forced institutions to conform to the National Socialist Ideology. Hitler’s regime became increasingly dangerous with their anti-Semitic laws and policies, subsequently leading to the killing of millions of Jews. Hitler’s reign of terror continued partly because of a silent German majority who benefited from Nazi ideology. Consequently, Germans were complicit in the murders of millions of Jews, Slavs, and other minority groups.
Hitler’s ability to ascend to power in an educated and cultured country like Germany only supports the tales of his charisma and ability to utilize fear to gain and maintain power. The fear he preyed on, based inaccurately on the idea of a master race, attracted disenfranchised Germans to the Nazi Party. Germans were unemployed and pushed into poverty after the Great Depression and Hitler spoke directly to those people. Through his rhetoric about a master race and German Nationalism he created an environment prime for a hate-filled