Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was born on 20th April 1889 in Austria. His father was a customs official. The family name was originally Schickelgruber. Adolf Hitler grew up with a poor record at school and left, before completing his tuition, with an ambition to become an artist. He went to Vienna to fulfil his dream.

He failed to win a scholarship at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. In 1909 he moved to Vienna hoping to find work but within a year he was living in homeless shelters and eating at charity soup-kitchens. He took occasional menial jobs and sold some of his paintings or advertising posters whenever he could. In Vienna he developed his hatred of foreigners and Jews.

In 1913 Hitler moved to Munich in southern Germany. When war broke out in 1914 he immediately volunteered to join the German army. He fought bravely and was promoted to corporal. He won the both the Iron Cross second class and first class. At the end of the war in 1918 Hitler was in hospital recovering from temporary gas-blindness. He had been wounded by a British gas attack in the Ypres Salient.

Hitler remained in the army after the war and one of his duties was to spy on local political groups. One such group was the German Workers Party. Hitler became interested and soon joined the party. Hitler's skills for publicity and as a speaker saw him transform it into the Nazi Party. In 1923 he led an attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government but this spectacularly failed. He was sentenced to nine months in prison where he dictated his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

After 1925 he rebuilt the Nazi Party, deciding he had to obtain power by democracy rather than by force. The Wall Street Crash in 1929 and the subsequent worldwide depression hit Germany hard. Hitler used to situation to blame Jews and Communists, using them as scapegoats to gain support for himself.

He became Chancellor in 1933 and President in 1934 and used the title Der Führer - leader. During the 1930s he 'Nazified' Germany, removing any potential opposition and establishing his ideas for a greater Germany.

He led Germany to war in 1939 and tried to exterminate the Jews and other groups in Germany. When Germany was defeated in 1945 Hitler married his mistress Eva Braun in his bomb proof bunker in Berlin. He shot himself on 30th April.