Hitler - his own sketch

Adolf Hitler, murderer of millions, master of destruction and organized insanity, was very secretive about his background. Only the dimmest outline of his parents emerges from the biographical chapters of Mein Kampf. He falsified his father's occupation, changing him from a customs official to a postal official. He repulsed relatives who tried to approach him.

One of the first things he did after taking over Austria was to have a survey carried out of the little farming village of Dollerscheim where his father's birth had been recorded. As soon as it could be arranged the inhabitants were evacuated and the entire village was demolished by heavy artillery. Even the graves in the cemetery where his grandmother had been buried were rendered unrecognizable.

Hitler right

In 1920, Hitler joined the National Socialist German Workers Party known as the Nazis. He soon became leader of the party and built up membership quickly, mostly because of his powerful speaking ability.

In July 1932, the Nazis received about 40% of the vote and became the strongest party in Germany. On January 30, 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor of Germany. Once in this position, Hitler moved quickly toward attaining a dictatorship. When von Hindenburg died in 1934, Hitler already had control of Germany.

Adolf Hitler had always been straightforward about his plans for the Jews. His dream of a racially "pure" empire would tolerate no Jews. He announced at different occasions the "annihilation of the Jews" living in the territory under his control but he avoided giving a clear written order to exterminate Jewish civilians. He avoided speaking openly about killing in his entourage.

However, there is clear evidence that he was deeply involved in the anti-Jewish policy during the war, particularly when it reached a murderous stage. Hitler was fully responsible for the order for the mass executions in Poland in 1939 and 1940. In 1941 he ordered the extermination of the Jewish-Bolshevist intelligentsia and the elimination of every potential enemy in the occupied Eastern territories. He was fully aware of mass executions of Jewish civilians in these territories.

In mid September 1941 Hitler ordered the beginning of mass deportations from Germany to ghettos in Eastern Europe. During Autumn 1941 and the following Winter, when preparation for the Final Solution in Europe were in full swing, Hitler spoke at various occasions openly about the annihilation of the Jews in Europe. It can be ruled out that the massive preparations for the systematic murder of European Jews in extermination camps in Poland, undertaken in spring and summer of 1942, were taken without his consent or his knowledge.

Private diaries of Nazi propaganda maestro Joseph Goebbels and Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler unearthed from the secret Soviet archives show that Hitler personally ordered the mass extermination of Jews on December 12, 1941 during a meeting of Nazi German regional governors in the chancellery. Goebbels told his diary: "With regards to the Jewish question, the Fuhrer decided to make a clean sweep."

And from a number of letters and speeches of Himmler it becomes clear, that the Reichsführer SS referred to the Holocaust as a task he had to carry out on the behalf of the highest authority in the Third Reich - Adolf Hitler.

In the final hours of his life, Hitler hastily dictated a Political Testament that he left for the German people. The document was little different from many speeches and articles he had written before. After causing the destruction of huge areas of Europe, demanding the sacrifice of millions of lives in pursuit of his political ambitions, and ordering the murder of millions of others, Hitler showed no remorse. Instead, he blamed the Jews for the war he himself had started.

With Germany lying in ruins after six devastating years of war, and with defeat imminent, the Nazi dictator decided to take his own life. But before doing so, he wanted to thank the one who'd remained completely loyal to him until the very end. Early on the morning on April 29, 1945, in a civil ceremony in his bunker, Hitler married his mistress of many years, Eva Braun.

The next day a little after 3:30 p.m., they bit into thin glass vials of cyanide. As he did so, Hitler also shot himself in the head with a 7.65 mm Walther pistol.

Adolf Hitler had founded the Third Reich 12 years and three months before. His goals - the mass murder of the Jews, the establishment of a German Empire based on the conquest of the Soviet Union, the murder of the original inhabitants or their reduction to slaves of the Third Reich. His Nazi Regime led to the annihilation of more than six million Jews in Europe. The Third Reich would survive him for one week - the nightmare he had unleashed was over ...

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