cancer at the age of 47. Alois Hitlers death affected Adolf very little. After all, Adolf hated his father with a burning fury; his mother was the only parent who loved him. When news arrived from the family doctor that Klara had a week to live, Hitler was awestruck. He was used to death by this time in his life (being 17 years old), but to even comprehend the idea of his mother dying was impossible. He contemplated suicide, and stood by her side for weeks before her death. Klara had always reminded Hitler how special he was, how he was destined to do amazing things with his life. (Hit-Org) From Hitlers viewpoint, if he had been one of only two children from his parents to live, it must have been for a purpose. Hitler often viewed himself as a leader, drawing pictures of himself in elementary school leading armies and sitting at a desk dictating orders. Adolf dropped out of high school, not because of his inability to do the work, but because he spent so much time daydreaming about being the leader of a country, in particular, Germany. So after Klaras death in 1907, Hitler decided to pursue his dreams, and become a painter. He moved to Vienna because of this dream, and tried to join The Academy of the Arts in Vienna. The Academy rejected him twice because he had not finished high school or received any other degrees of art in a college setting. Because the Academy was mostly Jewish professors, this is believed to be one of the first accounts of Hitlers Anti-Semitic views towards the Jewish people. (Langer 54-69) At this time he began reading books and articles supporting Anti-Semitism, for reasons mostly unknown. Hitler had Jewish ancestors, but for some reason began to dislike and criticize the Jewish during this time. In Mein Kampf, Hitler describes his transition from opposing Anti-Semitism to supporting it, after seeing an Orthodox Jew:
There were very few Jews in Linz. In the course of centuries the Jews who lived there had become Europeanized in external appearance and were so much like other human beings that I even looked upon them as Germans. The reason why I did not then perceive the absurdity of such an illusion was that the only external mark which I recognized as distinguishing them from us was the practice of their strange religion. As I thought that they were persecuted on account of their faith my aversion to hearing remarks against them grew almost into a feeling of abhorrence. I did not in the least suspect that there could be such a thing as a systematic anti-Semitism.
Once, when passing through the inner City, I suddenly encountered a phenomenon in a long caftan and wearing black side-locks. My first thought was: Is this a Jew? They certainly did not have this appearance in Linz. I carefully watched the man stealthily and cautiously but the longer I gazed at the strange countenance and examined it feature by feature, the more the question shaped itself in my brain: Is this a German? (Hitler 49-95)
After the incident in Vienna, Hitler ran out of money, and began living in a homeless shelter in 1909. In 1910, he had settled into a house for poor working men. Hitler stayed in various homeless shelters and similar areas until 1913 when he joined the Belgian Reserve Regiment. He was a runner, the most dangerous job on the Western Front, and was often exposed to enemy fire. The survival rate for such a job in the military was very low, and Hitler claims later in Mein Kampf that many decisions he made seemed to have come from a higher power. (Hitler 78-92) In one instance in the war, Hitler and his regiment were sitting in a trench eating their dinner. For no particular reason at all, Hitler moved during the dinner to sit with a different group of people, and less than a minute later, the area in which he was sitting was hit by a mortar, and his entire regiment died instantly. It is clear that during and after WWI, Hitler began to feel as if he was alive for a very specific reason. He believed that all of his near death experiences and most importantly that the 15th of October in 1918 had some important significance. (History-Place) On the 15th, Hitler was admitted to a field hospital during the war, being temporary blinded by a mustard gas attack. During this sort of attack, people often experience hysteria and hallucinations. Hitler claims in Mein Kampf that during this time he became convinced that the purpose of his life was to save Germany. (Hitler 49-95) Some scholars, notably Lucy Dawidowicz, argue that an intention to exterminate Europes Jews was fully formed in Hitlers mind at this time, though he probably had not thought through how it could be done. (McDonough 1-19) It is historically known that the mastermind behind the genocide of the European Jews was mostly that of Heinrich Himmler, and not Hitler himself. Hitler remained in the Belgian army after WWI until 1920, but it became clear to him that his destiny was to be the savior of Germany. (Abel 22-59)
In July of 1919, Hitler joined the DAP (German Workers Party) and started to learn more and more about politics. He was particularly interested in how to talk to large crowds and raise morale. Hitler met Dietrich Eckart, an early founder of the party, and Eckart became Hitlers mentor on the issue. Dietrich taught him how to dress and speak, and introduced Hitler to a wide range of people. (Sparticus) Hitler thanked Eckart by paying tribute to him in Mein Kampf. (Hitler Credits) Although Hitler did not become a German citizen until 1932, he lived in Munich and attended plenty of political debates in Beer Hall Putsch, which was the meeting place for Nazi revolutionists in Munich. During a 3 year time period, Hitler and his revolutionists had transformed DAP into the NPP (Nazi Political Party). They were even publishing a weekly paper across Munich and Berlin, and their ideas for governing Germany and bringing it out of a great depression were well received by the German people. (Hit-Org) Its important to remember that after WWI, Germany was forced to pay so much money for what they had done, that the country was on the verge of being completely bankrupt. The Nazi Political Party had ideas for changing Germany and making the country a proud wonderful country again. On the 8th of November in 1923, Hitler and the NPP stormed a public meeting headed by Kahr in the Burgerbraukeller, and requested support of the NPPs new government ideas and the destruction of the Berlin government. The big meeting brought a lot of media attention, Hitler was arrested a day later for the arousal, and sentenced to 4 years in prison for high treason and the attempt to overthrow the government or convince the people that the current government was wrong. Alfred Rosenberg became temporary leader of the NPP, in order to continue to get the Nazi message across to the German people. (Langer 59-101)
Hitler served his prison term from April 1, 1924 to December of that year. He was released because of his immense popularity with the people of Germany. (McDonough 37-91) Today it would be the equivalent of putting a famous star in prison, and during the time he was incarcerated Hitler wrote the immensely popular autobiographical novel Mein Kampf (My struggle, originally entitled Four Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice). Mein Kampf at the end of the war was the bestselling book in Germany, because the Fuhrer wanted to make his ideals and messages available to everyone. A copy was given free of charge to every new solider of the German Reich and every newlywed. Hitler strengthened his ideals on the Jewish monster, and ideas of an Aryan race, and everything he had previously supported. It is well known that everything written about in Mein Kampf can be directly related back to his early childhood. (Abel 22-59)
After he was released from prison, everything else became history. The new German political party continued to gain support for its ideas, and was viewed by the people as being the most important thing to ever happen to the country. And, on January 30th of 1933, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany during what some observers later described as a brief and simple ceremony. (McDonough 1-19) He was not known to the German people as a until 1934, when the Nazi party declared that Hitler would be the supreme dictator of the country. Most citizens of the country did not realize that the term would mean absolute leader. Fuhrer in German merely means . After gaining control, Hitler slowly began his plans to turn his country into a super power, and eventually lay in his plans to conquer Europe. (Sparticus)
Adolf Hitler was a very complex individual. He has become known in our society as an entity of evil, when in fact he considered himself to be the new savior of the world. Hitlers decisions during the rest of his career as leader of Germany were believed to be influenced by earlier encounters and things he had come to learn and believe. A large portion of his personality was molded in his childhood and early teenage years, and it can easily be argued to be the primary reason he turned out the person he became. Adolf Hitler can be argued as being among the most influential people in history, because his war alone caused the deaths of more people than almost all other wars combined. A man of extreme intelligence led an entire nation to believe his ideals were correct, and his stage presence often left those listening wailing in tears. A human anomaly, he will be discussed and debated about forever, not only for what he did, but for the person he became and the things he set into action. Adolf Hitler committed suicide in Berlin on April 30th 1945 in a bunker with Eva Braun just days prior to the Red Armys capture of the city.

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