1889-1945. German Nazi dictator, born in
Austria. Fuhrer (leader) of the Nazi party
from 1921, author of Mein Kampf/My Struggle
1925-27. Chancellor of Germany from 1933 and
head of state from 1934, he created a
dictatorship by playing party and state
institutions against each other, and
continually creating new offices and
appointments. His position was not seriously
challenged until the `Bomb Plot' 20 July 1944
to assassinate him. In foreign affairs, he
reoccupied the Rhineland and formed an
alliance with the Italian fascist Mussolini
1936, annexed Austria 1938, and occupied
Sudetenland under the Munich Agreement. The
rest of Czechoslovakia was annexed Mar 1939.
The Hitler-Stalin pact was followed in Sept
by the invasion of Poland and the declaration
of war by Britain and France (see World War
II). He committed suicide as Berlin fell.
Born at Braunau-am-Inn, the son of a customs
official, he spent his early years in poverty
in Vienna and Munich. After serving as a
volunteer in the German army during World War
I, he was employed as a spy by the military
authorities in Munich, and in 1919 joined, in
this capacity, the German Workers' Party. By
1921 he had assumed its leadership, renamed
it the National Socialist German Workers'
Party, and provided it with a programme that
mixed nationalism with anti-Semitism. Having
led an unsuccessful rising in Munich 1923, he
was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment
during which he wrote his political
testament, Mein Kampf. The party did not
achieve national importance until the
elections of 1930; by 1932, although Field
Marshal Hindenburg defeated Hitler in the
presidential elections, it formed the largest
group in the Reichstag (parliament). As the
result of an intrigue directed by the
chancellor von Papen, Hitler became
chancellor in a Nazi-Nationalist coalition 30
Jan 1933. The opposition was rapidly
suppressed, the Nationalists removed from the
government, and the Nazis declared the only
legal party. In 1934 Hitler succeeded
Hindenburg as head of state. Meanwhile, the
drive to war began; Germany left the League
of Nations, conscription was reintroduced,
and in 1936 the Rhineland was reoccupied.
Hitler and Mussolini, who were already both
involved in Spain, formed an alliance 1936.
Hitler narrowly escaped death 1944 from a
bomb explosion prepared by high-ranking
officers. On 29 Apr 1945, when Berlin was
largely in Soviet hands, he married his
mistress Eva Braun in his bunker under the
chancellory building, and on the following
day committed suicide with her, both bodies
afterwards being burned.