The Rise of Hitler
October 17, 2022
Many people raise the question of why Hitler was such a horrible person. Many people are horrible. He was just put in charge. How did he get where he was though?
Hitler was born on April 20th, 1889, in Austria. His dream was to become a professional artist because he didn’t want to follow his father’s steps as a ‘civil servant’. He applied to Vienna’s Academy of Art twice and was rejected both times. Once in 1907, then in 1908. Although he was rejected, he still pursued art up until he became chancellor. From 1908 to 1913, he created postcards. Hitler moved to Munich, Germany, and enlisted.
Hitler was deployed to the Great War in 1914. He brought thin canvases and pencils and created the scenes he saw while deployed. He won multiple awards for bravery and he was wounded twice. He got hit in the leg and was also “temporarily blinded” by British gas attacks.
After the war, Hitler returned to Munich in 1918, where he joined a small ‘German Worker’s party’, which is also more known as the Nazi party. He had a certain charismatic nature, which made him soon lead this group. In 1923, he proclaimed a “national revolution” with a gun and staged a revolt at a beer hall during a right-winged conference. Because of this, he was sentenced to 5 years in prison, but only served 9 months. This event caused many people to identify him as a “national figure.”
Hitler was “obsessed with purity and race.” This was white-skinned, blue-eyed people, in other words, the ‘Aryan Race’. He thought he should be the supreme leader of the people of Germany and eventually the world. After he got out of prison, he worked on the down-low to restore and reshape the Nazi party over the next few years, to make his obsession a reality.
His real power began in 1933 when Hitler was named chancellor, giving him the power he wanted and needed for his cause. He gained “absolute power,” and began is reign. As the years went on, Hitler only got worse. In 1935, on September 30th, he declared the Nuremberg Laws. These laws were slowly “legally” structuring the Holocaust. They made it so Jews couldn’t Marry anyone of German descent, they couldn’t be employed, and many more ways of segregating and separating them from society. All of this soon led to the Holocaust.
After the war, Hitler killed himself along with his wife, Eva, on April 30th, 1945. He took cyanide pills and shot himself in the head “for good measure.” His body was recovered by the Russians, who took him back to Russia. His remains were said to have been burned in 1970 and thrown into the Biederitz river. He chose “Death over dishonor” instead of having to be publicly executed. Few historians still have the idea that he fled to South America to live out the rest of his life with his wife and children, but this was not proven and was next to impossible to have happened. In the end, it was good riddance.