essay for hitler

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Adolf Hitler

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 29, 2023 | Original: October 29, 2009

Adolf Hitler, the leader of Germany’s Nazi Party , was one of the most powerful and notorious dictators of the 20th century. After serving with the German military in World War I , Hitler capitalized on economic woes, popular discontent and political infighting during the Weimar Republic to rise through the ranks of the Nazi Party.

In a series of ruthless and violent actions—including the Reichstag Fire and the Night of Long Knives—Hitler took absolute power in Germany by 1933. Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 led to the outbreak of World War II , and by 1941, Nazi forces had used “blitzkrieg” military tactics to occupy much of Europe. Hitler’s virulent anti-Semitism and obsessive pursuit of Aryan supremacy fueled the murder of some 6 million Jews, along with other victims of the Holocaust . After the tide of war turned against him, Hitler committed suicide in a Berlin bunker in April 1945.

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, a small Austrian town near the Austro-German frontier. After his father, Alois, retired as a state customs official, young Adolf spent most of his childhood in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria.

Not wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps as a civil servant, he began struggling in secondary school and eventually dropped out. Alois died in 1903, and Adolf pursued his dream of being an artist, though he was rejected from Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts.

After his mother, Klara, died in 1908, Hitler moved to Vienna, where he pieced together a living painting scenery and monuments and selling the images. Lonely, isolated and a voracious reader, Hitler became interested in politics during his years in Vienna, and developed many of the ideas that would shape Nazi ideology.

Military Career of Adolf Hitler

In 1913, Hitler moved to Munich, in the German state of Bavaria. When World War I broke out the following summer, he successfully petitioned the Bavarian king to be allowed to volunteer in a reserve infantry regiment.

Deployed in October 1914 to Belgium, Hitler served throughout the Great War and won two decorations for bravery, including the rare Iron Cross First Class, which he wore to the end of his life.

Hitler was wounded twice during the conflict: He was hit in the leg during the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and temporarily blinded by a British gas attack near Ypres in 1918. A month later, he was recuperating in a hospital at Pasewalk, northeast of Berlin, when news arrived of the armistice and Germany’s defeat in World War I .

Like many Germans, Hitler came to believe the country’s devastating defeat could be attributed not to the Allies, but to insufficiently patriotic “traitors” at home—a myth that would undermine the post-war Weimar Republic and set the stage for Hitler’s rise.

After Hitler returned to Munich in late 1918, he joined the small German Workers’ Party, which aimed to unite the interests of the working class with a strong German nationalism. His skilled oratory and charismatic energy helped propel him in the party’s ranks, and in 1920 he left the army and took charge of its propaganda efforts.

In one of Hitler’s strokes of propaganda genius, the newly renamed National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazi Party , adopted a version of the swastika—an ancient sacred symbol of Hinduism , Jainism and Buddhism —as its emblem. Printed in a white circle on a red background, Hitler’s swastika would take on terrifying symbolic power in the years to come.

By the end of 1921, Hitler led the growing Nazi Party, capitalizing on widespread discontent with the Weimar Republic and the punishing terms of the Versailles Treaty . Many dissatisfied former army officers in Munich would join the Nazis, notably Ernst Röhm, who recruited the “strong arm” squads—known as the Sturmabteilung (SA)—which Hitler used to protect party meetings and attack opponents.

Beer Hall Putsch 

On the evening of November 8, 1923, members of the SA and others forced their way into a large beer hall where another right-wing leader was addressing the crowd. Wielding a revolver, Hitler proclaimed the beginning of a national revolution and led marchers to the center of Munich, where they got into a gun battle with police.

Hitler fled quickly, but he and other rebel leaders were later arrested. Even though it failed spectacularly, the Beer Hall Putsch established Hitler as a national figure, and (in the eyes of many) a hero of right-wing nationalism.

'Mein Kampf' 

Tried for treason, Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison, but would serve only nine months in the relative comfort of Landsberg Castle. During this period, he began to dictate the book that would become " Mein Kampf " (“My Struggle”), the first volume of which was published in 1925.

In it, Hitler expanded on the nationalistic, anti-Semitic views he had begun to develop in Vienna in his early twenties, and laid out plans for the Germany—and the world—he sought to create when he came to power.

Hitler would finish the second volume of "Mein Kampf" after his release, while relaxing in the mountain village of Berchtesgaden. It sold modestly at first, but with Hitler’s rise it became Germany’s best-selling book after the Bible. By 1940, it had sold some 6 million copies there.

Hitler’s second book, “The Zweites Buch,” was written in 1928 and contained his thoughts on foreign policy. It was not published in his lifetime due to the poor initial sales of “Mein Kampf.” The first English translations of “The Zweites Buch” did not appear until 1962 and was published under the title “Hitler's Secret Book.” 

Obsessed with race and the idea of ethnic “purity,” Hitler saw a natural order that placed the so-called “Aryan race” at the top.

For him, the unity of the Volk (the German people) would find its truest incarnation not in democratic or parliamentary government, but in one supreme leader, or Führer.

" Mein Kampf " also addressed the need for Lebensraum (or living space): In order to fulfill its destiny, Germany should take over lands to the east that were now occupied by “inferior” Slavic peoples—including Austria, the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia), Poland and Russia.

The Schutzstaffel (SS) 

By the time Hitler left prison, economic recovery had restored some popular support for the Weimar Republic, and support for right-wing causes like Nazism appeared to be waning.

Over the next few years, Hitler laid low and worked on reorganizing and reshaping the Nazi Party. He established the Hitler Youth  to organize youngsters, and created the Schutzstaffel (SS) as a more reliable alternative to the SA.

Members of the SS wore black uniforms and swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler. (After 1929, under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler , the SS would develop from a group of some 200 men into a force that would dominate Germany and terrorize the rest of occupied Europe during World War II .)

Hitler spent much of his time at Berchtesgaden during these years, and his half-sister, Angela Raubal, and her two daughters often joined him. After Hitler became infatuated with his beautiful blonde niece, Geli Raubal, his possessive jealousy apparently led her to commit suicide in 1931.

Devastated by the loss, Hitler would consider Geli the only true love affair of his life. He soon began a long relationship with Eva Braun , a shop assistant from Munich, but refused to marry her.

The worldwide Great Depression that began in 1929 again threatened the stability of the Weimar Republic. Determined to achieve political power in order to affect his revolution, Hitler built up Nazi support among German conservatives, including army, business and industrial leaders.

The Third Reich

In 1932, Hitler ran against the war hero Paul von Hindenburg for president, and received 36.8 percent of the vote. With the government in chaos, three successive chancellors failed to maintain control, and in late January 1933 Hindenburg named the 43-year-old Hitler as chancellor, capping the stunning rise of an unlikely leader.

January 30, 1933 marked the birth of the Third Reich, or as the Nazis called it, the “Thousand-Year Reich” (after Hitler’s boast that it would endure for a millennium).

HISTORY Vault: Third Reich: The Rise

Rare and never-before-seen amateur films offer a unique perspective on the rise of Nazi Germany from Germans who experienced it. How were millions of people so vulnerable to fascism?

Reichstag Fire 

Though the Nazis never attained more than 37 percent of the vote at the height of their popularity in 1932, Hitler was able to grab absolute power in Germany largely due to divisions and inaction among the majority who opposed Nazism.

After a devastating fire at Germany’s parliament building, the Reichstag, in February 1933—possibly the work of a Dutch communist, though later evidence suggested Nazis set the  Reichstag fire  themselves—Hitler had an excuse to step up the political oppression and violence against his opponents.

On March 23, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, giving full powers to Hitler and celebrating the union of National Socialism with the old German establishment (i.e., Hindenburg ).

That July, the government passed a law stating that the Nazi Party “constitutes the only political party in Germany,” and within months all non-Nazi parties, trade unions and other organizations had ceased to exist.

His autocratic power now secure within Germany, Hitler turned his eyes toward the rest of Europe.

In 1933, Germany was diplomatically isolated, with a weak military and hostile neighbors (France and Poland). In a famous speech in May 1933, Hitler struck a surprisingly conciliatory tone, claiming Germany supported disarmament and peace.

But behind this appeasement strategy, the domination and expansion of the Volk remained Hitler’s overriding aim.

By early the following year, he had withdrawn Germany from the League of Nations and begun to militarize the nation in anticipation of his plans for territorial conquest.

Night of the Long Knives

On June 29, 1934, the infamous Night of the Long Knives , Hitler had Röhm, former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and hundreds of other problematic members of his own party murdered, in particular troublesome members of the SA.

When the 86-year-old Hindenburg died on August 2, military leaders agreed to combine the presidency and chancellorship into one position, meaning Hitler would command all the armed forces of the Reich.

Persecution of Jews

On September 15, 1935, passage of the Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of German citizenship, and barred them from marrying or having relations with persons of “German or related blood.”

Though the Nazis attempted to downplay its persecution of Jews in order to placate the international community during the 1936 Berlin Olympics (in which German-Jewish athletes were not allowed to compete), additional decrees over the next few years disenfranchised Jews and took away their political and civil rights.

In addition to its pervasive anti-Semitism, Hitler’s government also sought to establish the cultural dominance of Nazism by burning books, forcing newspapers out of business, using radio and movies for propaganda purposes and forcing teachers throughout Germany’s educational system to join the party.

Much of the Nazi persecution of Jews and other targets occurred at the hands of the Geheime Staatspolizei (GESTAPO), or Secret State Police, an arm of the SS that expanded during this period.

Outbreak of World War II

In March 1936, against the advice of his generals, Hitler ordered German troops to reoccupy the demilitarized left bank of the Rhine.

Over the next two years, Germany concluded alliances with Italy and Japan, annexed Austria and moved against Czechoslovakia—all essentially without resistance from Great Britain, France or the rest of the international community.

Once he confirmed the alliance with Italy in the so-called “Pact of Steel” in May 1939, Hitler then signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union . On September 1, 1939, Nazi troops invaded Poland, finally prompting Britain and France to declare war on Germany.

Blitzkrieg 

After ordering the occupation of Norway and Denmark in April 1940, Hitler adopted a plan proposed by one of his generals to attack France through the Ardennes Forest. The blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) attack began on May 10; Holland quickly surrendered, followed by Belgium.

German troops made it all the way to the English Channel, forcing British and French forces to evacuate en masse from Dunkirk in late May. On June 22, France was forced to sign an armistice with Germany.

Hitler had hoped to force Britain to seek peace as well, but when that failed he went ahead with his attacks on that country, followed by an invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor that December, the United States declared war on Japan, and Germany’s alliance with Japan demanded that Hitler declare war on the United States as well.

At that point in the conflict, Hitler shifted his central strategy to focus on breaking the alliance of his main opponents (Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union) by forcing one of them to make peace with him.

Concentration Camps

Beginning in 1933, the SS had operated a network of concentration camps, including a notorious camp at Dachau , near Munich, to hold Jews and other targets of the Nazi regime.

After war broke out, the Nazis shifted from expelling Jews from German-controlled territories to exterminating them. Einsatzgruppen, or mobile death squads, executed entire Jewish communities during the Soviet invasion, while the existing concentration-camp network expanded to include death camps like Auschwitz -Birkenau in occupied Poland.

In addition to forced labor and mass execution, certain Jews at Auschwitz were targeted as the subjects of horrific medical experiments carried out by eugenicist Josef Mengele, known as the “Angel of Death.” Mengele’s experiments focused on twins and exposed 3,000 child prisoners to disease, disfigurement and torture under the guise of medical research.

Though the Nazis also imprisoned and killed Catholics, homosexuals, political dissidents, Roma (gypsies) and the disabled, above all they targeted Jews—some 6 million of whom were killed in German-occupied Europe by war’s end.

End of World War II

With defeats at El-Alamein and Stalingrad , as well as the landing of U.S. troops in North Africa by the end of 1942, the tide of the war turned against Germany.

As the conflict continued, Hitler became increasingly unwell, isolated and dependent on medications administered by his personal physician.

Several attempts were made on his life, including one that came close to succeeding in July 1944, when Col. Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb that exploded during a conference at Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia.

Within a few months of the successful Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the Allies had begun liberating cities across Europe. That December, Hitler attempted to direct another offensive through the Ardennes, trying to split British and American forces.

But after January 1945, he holed up in a bunker beneath the Chancellery in Berlin. With Soviet forces closing in, Hitler made plans for a last-ditch resistance before finally abandoning that plan.

How Did Adolf Hitler Die?

At midnight on the night of April 28-29, Hitler married Eva Braun in the Berlin bunker. After dictating his political testament,  Hitler shot himself  in his suite on April 30; Braun took poison. Their bodies were burned according to Hitler’s instructions.

With Soviet troops occupying Berlin, Germany surrendered unconditionally on all fronts on May 7, 1945, bringing the war in Europe to a close.

In the end, Hitler’s planned “Thousand-Year Reich” lasted just over 12 years, but wreaked unfathomable destruction and devastation during that time, forever transforming the history of Germany, Europe and the world.

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich iWonder – Adolf Hitler: Man and Monster, BBC . The Holocaust : A Learning Site for Students, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum .

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The Rise of Hitler to Power Essay

Introduction, the weimar republic, anti-semitism, reference list.

Adolf Hitler rose to power as the chancellor of Germany in 1933 through a legal election and formed a coalition government of the NSDAO-DNVP Party. Many issues in Hitler’s life and manipulations behind the curtains preceded this event.

Hitler and the Nazi party rose to power propelled by various factors that were in play in Germany since the end of World War I. The weak Weimar Republic and Hitler’s anti-Semitism campaigns and obsession were some of the factors that favored Hitler’s rise to power and generally the Nazi beliefs (Bloxham and Kushner 2005: 54).

Every public endorsement that Hitler received was an approval for his hidden Nazi ideals of dictatorship and Semitism regardless of whether the Germans were aware or not.

Hitler’s pathway to power was rather long and coupled with challenges but he was not ready to let go; he held on to accomplish his deeply rooted obsessions and beliefs; actually, vote for Hitler was a vote for the Holocaust.

Hitler joined the German Worker’s Party in the year 1919 as its fifth member. His oratory talent and anti-Semitism values quickly popularized him and by 1920, he was already the head of propaganda.

The party later changed its name to Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartel (NSDPA) and formed paramilitary groups in the name of security men or gymnastics and sports division.

It was this paramilitary formed by Hitler that would cause unrest later to tarnish the name of the communists leading to distrust of communism by the Germans and on the other hand rise of popularity of the Nazi (Burleigh 1997: 78).

A turning point of Hitler took place when he led the Beer Hall Putsch, in a failed coup de tat and the government later imprisoned him on accusations of treason. The resulting trial earned him a lot of publicity, he used the occasion to attack the Weimar republic, and later while in prison, he rethought his approach to get into power.

The military defeat and German revolution in November 1918 after the First World War saw the formation of Weimar republic.The military government handed over power to the civilian government and later on revolutions in form of mutinies, violent uprisings and declaration of independence occurred until early 1919.

Then there was formation of constituent assembly and promulgated of new constitution, which included the infamous article 48. None of the many political parties could gain a majority vote to form government and therefore many small parties formed a coalition government.

What followed were a short period of political stability mainly because of the coalition government in place and the later the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. Many factors caused the rise of the Nazi party to power.

The most notable factor was his ability to take advantage of Germany’s poor leadership, economical and political instability.

The Weimar’s Republic collapse under pressure due to hyperinflation and civil unrest was the result of Hitler’s ability to manipulate the German media and public while at the same time taking advantage of the country’s poor leadership (Schleunes 1990: 295).

The period between 1921 and 1922, Germany was struggling with economic instability due to high inflation and hyperinflation rates prior to the absolute collapse of the German currency. The German mark became almost useless resulting into instability-fuelled unrest in many sectors of the economy. To counter the effects, the government printed huge amounts of paper money.

Germany had to sign the unforgiving treaty of Versailles, which the Weimar Republic was responsible for and was later to become the ‘noose around Germany’s neck’, a situation that caused “feelings of distrust, fear, resentment, and insecurity towards the Weimar Republic” (Bartov 2000: 54).

Hitler built on these volatile emotions and offered the option of a secure and promising leadership of the extremist Nazi party as opposed to the weak and unstable coalition government of the Weimar republic. Dippel notes, “Hitler’s ability to build upon people’s disappointed view of the hatred of the treaty of Versailles was one of the major reason for the Nazi party’s and Hitler’s rise to power” (1996: 220).

The Treaty of Versailles introduced the German population to a period of economic insatiability and caused an escalation of hard economic standards. The opportunistic appearance of an extremist group that promised better options than the prevailing situation presented a temptation to the vulnerable Germans to accept it (Dippel 1996: 219).

During the period of hyperinflation, unemployment rose sharply and children were largely malnourished. The value of people’s savings spiraled downwards leading to low living standards and reduction in people buying power.

People became desperate and started a frantic search for a better alternative to the Weimar Government. Germany in a state of disillusionment became a prey to the convincing promises of Hitler. Hitler promised full employment and security in form of a strong central government.

The Weimar republic also faced political challenges from both left-wingers and right-wingers. The communists wanted radical changes like those one implemented in Russia while the conservatives thought that the Weimar government was too weak and liberal.

The Germans longed for a leader with the leadership qualities of Bismark especially with the disillusionment of the Weimar republic. They blamed the government for the hated Versailles treaty and they all came out to look for a scapegoat to their overwhelming challenges (Thalmann and Feinermann 1990: 133).

In their bid to look for scapegoats, many Germans led by Hitler and Nazi party blamed the German Jews for their economic and political problems.

Hitler made a failed attempt to seize power through a coup de tat that led to his arrest and imprisonment. In prison, he wrote a book that was later to become the guide to Nazism known as Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

The book reflected Hitler’s obsessions to nationalism, racism, and anti-Semitism and he insisted that Germans belonged to a superior race of Aryans meaning light-skinned Europeans. According to Hitler, the greatest enemies of the Aryans were the Jews and therefore the Germans should eliminate them at all costs since they were the genesis of all their misfortunes.

These views on Semitism could trace its genesis in history from which it Historians suspect that Hitler’s ideas were rooted. In this view, Christians persecuted Jews mainly because of their difference in beliefs.

Nationalism in the 19 th century caused the society to view Jews as ethnic outsiders while Hitler viewed Jews not as members of a religion but as a unique race (Longerich 2006: 105). Consequently, he blamed the German’s defeat on a conspiracy of Marxists, Jews, corruption of politicians and businesspersons.

Hitler urged the Germans on the need to unite into a great nation so that the slaves and other inferior races could bow to their needs (Bergen 2003: 30). He further advocated for removal and elimination of the Jews from the face of the earth to create enough space for ‘great nation’.

He spread propaganda that for Germany to unite into one great nation it required a strong leader one he believed to be destined to become.

These Semitism views contributed to the sudden change of fortunes for the Nazi party and Hitler because the conditions were appropriate. The Germans were desperate for some hope in the midst of frustrating times due to the failure of the Weimar republic and rising communism (Stone 2004: 17).

They involuntarily yielded to the more appealing Nazism values especially with the promises of destroying communism and improved living standards.

However, in accepting the Nazi party and Hitler, the Germans were giving in to Semitism, which was deeply rooted in the core values of Nazism, and Hitler had clearly outlined them in the Mein Kampf, which laid out his ideas and future policies.

Hitler’s well timed and precise way of “introducing the secure option of Nazism at an appropriate time and taking advantage of a disjointed Weimar republic that faced unprecedented challenges” (Cohn-Sherbok 1999: 12) was one of the many reasons that underscored Hitler’s fame.

He promised a strong and united German nation very timely when the German nation had suffered a dent to their pride and union due to the defeat in the First World War. Hitler’s promise of a strong and powerful nation began to look very appealing causing a large proportion of Germans, who were in disillusionment, to divert their support the Nazi Party (Gordon 1987: 67).

Hitler’s opportunistic approach and perfectly timed cunning speeches as well as his manipulation of certain circumstance were significant reasons for the rise of Nazism and Hitler in Germany.

During the Great depression and release from prison, Hitler introduced large-scale propaganda and at the same time manipulated the media with his ideas. This led to the Nazi supporter’s increase of detests against their opposition and many Germans believed in the cunning lies of Hitler (Kaplan 1999: 45).

He managed to spread lies against the communist society and a case in point is when a communist supporter set the Reichstag building ablaze in one of the civil unrests in Germany, supposedly.

This event caused the communism society to loose popularity and allowed Hitler to activate the enabling act when he came to power. The act marked a turning point in the success of Hitler’s dictatorship and Historians accredit it as the foundation of the Nazi rule.

The communists later realized that the Nazis were responsible for the act at Reichstag building and the act meant to provoke hatred between the communists and Nazi supporters.

Hitler had a very charming personality that made him very easy to get along with people. His likable character and oratory skills enabled him to put forward the strong sense of authority that the Weimar Republic lacked.

This, in combination with other factors, made him very appealing to the desperate Germans, making them believe in the Nazi ideals like Semitism and supporting the Nazi party while concurrently fueling hatred of the ruling Weimar Republic.

Hitler’s ability to manipulate circumstances and situation in the favor of himself and his Nazi Party was reason for their success to rise to power. Hitler waited patiently to take hold of the realms of power before unleashing his full force of dictatorship and hatred for the Jews, which led to the holocaust. It is therefore just to state that every Hitler’s vote was a vote for the holocaust.

Bartov, O., ed., The Holocaust: origins, implementation, aftermath , Routledge, London/New York, 2000.

Bergen, D. L., War & Genocide: a concise history of the Holocaust , 2 nd ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.

Bloxham, D. & T. Kushner, The Holocaust. Critical historical approaches , Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2005.

Burleigh, M., Ethics and Extermination. Reflections on Nazi Genocide, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997.

Cohn-Sherbok, D., Understanding the Holocaust , Cassell. London/New York, 1999.

Dippel, J. H., Bound upon a Wheel of Fire. Why so many German Jews made the tragic decision to remain in Nazi Germany , Basic Books, New York, 1996.

Gordon, A. S., Hitler, Germans and the ‘Jewish Question’ , Blackwell, Oxford, 1987.

Kaplan, M., Between dignity and despair: Jewish life in Nazi Germany , New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Longerich, P., The Unwritten Order. Hitler’s Role in the Final Solution, Tempus, The Mill, GLS, 2006.

Schleunes, K. A., The Twisted Road to Auschwitz. Nazi Policy towards German Jews, 1933-9, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1990.

Stone, D., Histories of the Holocaust , Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2004.

Thalmann, R. & E. Feinermann, Crystal night, 9-10 November 1938 , Thames and Hudson, London, 1990.

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Why did women vote for Hitler? Long-forgotten essays hold some answers

Ph.D. student, Florida State University

Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida State University

Dorothy and Jonathan Rintels Professor of Holocaust Studies, Florida State University

Disclosure statement

Sarah R. Warren received funding for a portion of this work from the Florida State University Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement.

Daniel Maier-Katkin receives funding from National Science Fondation, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of State

Nathan Stoltzfus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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The rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party in the 1930s came on the back of votes from millions of ordinary Germans – both men and women.

But aside from a few high-profile figures, such as concentration camp guard Irma Grese and “concentration camp murderess” Ilse Koch , little is known about the everyday women who embraced the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, known more commonly as the Nazi Party. What little data we do have on ordinary Nazi women has been largely underused, forgotten or ignored. It has left us with a half-formed understanding of the rise of the Nazi movement, one that is almost exclusively focused on male party members.

And yet more than 30 essays on the subject “Why I became a Nazi” written by German women in 1934 have been lying fallow in the archives of the Hoover Institution in Palo Alto for decades. These essays were only unearthed three years ago when three Florida State University professors arranged to have them transcribed and translated. They have since been made available digitally , but have not received widespread attention.

Not all Cabaret

As scholars of Holocaust studies , crimes against humanity and political behavior , we believe the accounts of these women give an insight into the role of women in the rise of the Nazi party. They also point to the extent to which women’s attitudes on feminism differed after the Great War – a time when women were making gains in independence, education, economic opportunity and sexual freedom.

The German women’s movement had been among the most powerful and significant in the world for half a century before the Nazis came to power in 1933. Top-quality high schools for girls had existed since the 1870s, and German universities were opened to women at the beginning of the 20th century. Many German women became teachers, lawyers, doctors, journalists and novelists. In 1919, German women got the vote . By 1933, women, of whom there were millions more than men – Berlin had 1,116 women for every 1,000 men – voted in roughly the same percentages as men for Hitler and National Socialist candidates.

‘Everyone was everyone’s enemy’

The essays unearthed at the Hoover Institution give an insight as to why some of them did.

Dissatisfaction with the attitudes of the Weimar era, the period between the end of World War I and Hitler’s rise to power, is clear in the women’s writing. Most of the essay writers express distaste with some aspect of the political system. One calls women’s voting rights “a disadvantage for Germany,” while another describes the political climate as “haywire,” and “everyone was everyone’s enemy.” Margarethe Schrimpff, a 54-year-old woman living just outside of Berlin, describes her experience:

“I attended the meetings of all … parties, from the communists to the nationalists; at one of the democratic meetings in Friedenau [Berlin], where the former Colonial Minister, a Jew by the name of Dernburg, was speaking, I experienced the following: this Jew had the audacity to say, among other things: ‘What are the Germans actually capable of; maybe breeding rabbits.’ "Dear readers, do not think that the heavily represented stronger sex jumped up and told this Jew where to go. Far from it. Not one man made a sound, they stayed dead quiet. However, a miserable, frail little woman from the so-called ‘weaker sex’ raised her hand and forcefully rejected the Jew’s brazen remarks; he had in the meantime allegedly disappeared to attend another meeting.”

These essays were originally collected by an assistant professor at Columbia University, Theodore Abel, who organized an essay contest with generous prizes with the cooperation of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry. Of nearly 650 essays, roughly 30 were written by women, and Abel set them aside, explaining in a footnote that he intended to examine them separately. But he never did. The men’s essays formed the basis for his book, “ Why Hitler Came To Power ,” published in 1938, which remains an important source in the global discourse about the Nazi rise to power.

Summarizing Abel’s findings, historian Ian Kershaw wrote in his book on Hitler’s rise to power that they showed that the “appeal of Hitler and his movement was not based on any distinctive doctrine.” He concluded that almost a third of the men were attracted by the indivisible “national community” – Volksgemeinschaft – ideology of the Nazis, and a similar proportion were swayed by nationalist, super-patriotic and German-romantic notions. In only about an eighth of the cases was anti-Semitism the prime ideological concern, although two-thirds of the essays revealed some form of dislike of Jews. Almost a fifth were motivated by the Hitler cult alone, attracted by the man himself, but the essays reveal differences between men and women in the reason for the enthrallment with the Nazi leader.

The cult of Hitler

For men, the cult of personality appears to center around Hitler as a strong leader charging toward a Germany which defined itself by those it excluded. It’s not surprising that women, on the cusp of exclusion themselves, were less captivated by this component of Nazism. Rather, the women’s essays tend to refer to religious imagery and sentiment conflating piety with the Hitler cult. The women appear to be moved more by Nazism’s proposed solutions to problems such as poverty rather than the supposed grandeur of Nazi ideology in the abstract.

In her essay, Helene Radtke, a 38-year-old wife of a German soldier, describes her “divine duty to forget about all my household chores and to perform my service to my homeland.”

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Agnes Molster-Surm, a housewife and private tutor, calls Hitler her “God-given Führer and savior, Adolf Hitler, for Germany’s honor, Germany’s fortune and Germany’s freedom!”

Another woman replaced the star on her Christmas tree with a photograph of Hitler surrounded by a halo of candles. These men and women shared the message of National Socialism as if it was gospel and refer to new party members as “converts.” One such woman describes early efforts to “convert” her family to Nazism as falling “on stony soil and not even the slightest little green sapling of understanding sprouted.” She was later “converted” through conversations with her mailman.

The essays do not only serve as historical curios, but as a warning as to how ordinary people can be attracted to extremist ideology at a time of social distress. Similar language has been used to describe the current political climate in the United States and other countries. Perhaps, as some do today , these women believed all their society’s ills could be solved by the restoration of their nation to a perceived state of former glory, no matter the cost.

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Essay on Hitler

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100 Words Essay on Hitler

Introduction.

Adolf Hitler, born in Austria in 1889, was a significant figure in world history. He is known as the leader of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945.

Rise to Power

Hitler’s rise to power began in the early 1930s. He became the Chancellor of Germany in 1933, and later the dictator in 1934.

World War II

Under Hitler’s leadership, Germany started World War II in 1939. He aimed to establish a new order based on absolute Nazi German hegemony.

End of Hitler

Hitler’s aggressive policies and expansionist ideology are often seen as the causes of the start of World War II. He died by suicide in his bunker in Berlin on 30 April 1945.

250 Words Essay on Hitler

Early life and rise to power.

Adolf Hitler, born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, in 1889, was a controversial figure who rose to power as Germany’s dictator in 1933. Hitler’s early life was marked by struggle and failure, which shaped his extremist ideologies and charismatic leadership style. His political career began post World War I, when he joined the German Workers’ Party, later rebranded as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party).

Hitler’s Ideology and the Holocaust

Hitler’s ideology was a toxic blend of anti-Semitism, Aryan racial superiority, and totalitarianism. His extremist views led to the Holocaust, the genocide of six million Jews, which stands as a stark reminder of the destructive potential of hate and bigotry. Hitler’s Mein Kampf, a manifesto outlining his political ideology and plans for Germany, became a cornerstone of the Nazi regime.

World War II and Hitler’s Downfall

Hitler’s aggressive foreign policies and expansionist ideology were significant causes of World War II. His invasion of Poland in 1939 triggered the war, and his militaristic tactics resulted in the occupation of several European countries. However, the tide turned against Hitler after the failed invasion of the Soviet Union and the entry of the United States into the war. In 1945, with Allied forces closing in, Hitler died by suicide in his bunker in Berlin.

This brief overview of Hitler’s life and impact underscores the dangers of unchecked power, extremist ideologies, and the manipulation of public sentiment, lessons that remain pertinent today.

500 Words Essay on Hitler

Adolf Hitler, a name synonymous with tyranny and destruction, was the Führer and Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945. His policies precipitated World War II and the Holocaust, leading to the genocide of six million Jews. Hitler’s actions and ideology, steeped in anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and Aryan supremacy, have left an indelible scar on human history.

Early Life and Political Inception

Born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, Austria, Hitler’s early life was marked by conflict and hardship. His father, a stern and volatile man, was often at odds with Hitler’s artistic aspirations. Hitler moved to Munich in 1913, and his life took a decisive turn with the outbreak of World War I, where he served with distinction. Post-war Germany, laden with the punitive Treaty of Versailles, was fertile ground for Hitler’s extremist views. He joined the German Workers’ Party in 1919, which later evolved into the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party), and he became its leader in 1921.

Hitler’s charisma, coupled with his fervent nationalism and anti-Semitic rhetoric, resonated with the economically distressed and politically disillusioned Germans. His failed coup attempt in 1923, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, led to his imprisonment, during which he wrote ‘Mein Kampf’, outlining his political ideology and future plans for Germany. Released in 1924, Hitler methodically rebuilt the Nazi Party and by 1933, he was appointed Chancellor of Germany.

Hitler’s Regime

Once in power, Hitler swiftly dismantled Germany’s democratic institutions, establishing a totalitarian regime. The Reichstag fire in 1933 provided him the pretext to enact the Enabling Act, granting him dictatorial powers. Hitler pursued aggressive foreign policies, defying the Treaty of Versailles, and initiated World War II with the invasion of Poland in 1939.

The Holocaust

Hitler’s most abhorrent act was the systematic genocide of six million Jews during the Holocaust. His virulent anti-Semitism, articulated in ‘Mein Kampf’, became state policy with the implementation of the “Final Solution” – the extermination of the Jewish people.

Downfall and Legacy

Hitler’s downfall began with the disastrous decision to invade the Soviet Union in 1941. By 1945, Allied forces had overrun Germany. Facing imminent defeat, Hitler died by suicide in his bunker in Berlin on April 30, 1945. His legacy, a testament to the destructive potential of totalitarian regimes and extremist ideologies, serves as a stark reminder of humanity’s darkest hour.

Adolf Hitler, a man whose name evokes images of horror and devastation, changed the course of the 20th century. His reign of terror serves as a grim reminder of the catastrophic consequences of unchecked power, racial hatred, and ideological extremism. As we reflect on Hitler’s life and actions, it is incumbent upon us to ensure that the lessons of history are not forgotten, and such atrocities are never repeated.

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Adolf Hitler, Essay Example

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Adolf Hitler is a name, which instills terror into human beings now, 65 years after Fuehrer’s mysterious death. As defined by BBC Historic Figures, Hitler, “ military and political leader of Germany 1933 – 1945, launched World War Two and bears responsibility for the deaths of millions, including six million Jewish people in the Nazi genocide.” Born to become an artist, this man eventually turned into the curse of the 20 st century. These days, looking back at the deeds of German Nazi Party leader, one can only wonder how one man could bring so much evil and terror into being. Whether he was a madman, a fanatic, a genius or a living embodiment of devil is still to ask. It is obvious, however, that his triumph was not due to who he was solely, but rather to how the circumstances were, since, as Conrad Adenauer once said, “history is the sum total of the things that could have been avoided.”

Adolf Hitler was born in Austria in 1889, in the family of a customs official. Having failed to succeed as an artist in Vienna, young man moved to Munich in 1913. As the World War I broke out, he enlisted in the German army, where he was injured and consequently decorated. He became the leader of the Nazi Party in 1921. Hitler’s interest number one had always been an establishment of a pure race of German people through a policy of nationalism, anti-Semitism, anti-capitalism and anti-communism.

“Against a background of economic depression and political turmoil, the Nazis grew stronger and in the 1932 elections became the largest party in the German parliament.” (BBC Histroy) In 1933, Hitler was elected as a chancellor of a coalition government. He took his chance immediately, established himself as a dictator and started off with instituting the anti-Jewish laws. The course of action he took implied the process of German militarization and territorial expansion that eventually resulted into World War Two, started in 1939 by Hitler’s commanding his armies to enter Poland. He eventually committed suicide in 1945, just before Germany lost the war, in order to avoid capture by Soviet forces.

“The world has come to know Adolph Hitler for his insatiable greed for power, his ruthlessness, cruelty and utter lack of feeling, his contempt for established institutions and his lack of moral restraints.” (Langer) The question is not, however, whether he was a madman or not, but rather is what influenced his psychological development to make him what he was. Hitler’s early life, when his basic mentality and mindset were obviously formed, is believed to have the most profound impact on his adult character.

“Freud’s earliest and greatest contribution to psychiatry in particular and to an understanding of human conduct in general was his discovery of the importance of the first years of a child’s life in shaping his future character.” (Langer) It is, however, questionable whether Freud’s theory of psychosexual development can be applied when discussing Hitler’s case. Attempting to relate Hitler’s behavior to a diversity of unproven sexual oddities attributed to future dictator seems far-fetched.

It is true, nevertheless, that during early years, when a child’s view of life is still immature, there is a serious threat of misinterpreting the nature of the world around him. The intellect of a child is not enough adequate to comprehend the complex requirements of society he is supposed to meet, as well as a perplexing experience to which he is constantly exposed. As a result, the child’s personality may turn out to be composed of wrong ideas about the world he lives in.

Close analyses of Hitler’s personal statements and the available information about his background, family in particular, allows for an assumption that Hitler’s ill nature was indeed formed at very young age. His view of reality was deeply affected by family issues. Even though he claims himself to be growing up in a normal middle class family, with “father a faithful civil servant, the mother devoting herself to the cares of the household and looking after her children with eternally the same loving care”, the actual state of affairs appears to be somewhat different (Hitler, 1925). Hitler seems to conceal very carefully his true family environment. Nowhere else in the whole book any of his family members are mentioned. Never did he as well refer to any of his brothers or sisters to his associate, with the only exception of his half-sister, Angela. His mentions of own beloved mother are met not quite more often.

Why would he be so secretive about own family if, as he claimed in statement quoted above, living in a perfectly friendly and peaceful environment? The explanation is provided by third person descriptions of the low class family life, he declares to be witnessing personally for many times in his life, that are included in ‘Mein Kampf’.  For instance, he writes: “Among the five children there is a boy, let us say, of three… When the parents fight almost daily, their brutality leaves nothing to the imagination; then the results of such visual education must slowly but inevitably become apparent to the little one. Those who are not familiar with such conditions can hardly imagine the results, especially when the mutual differences express themselves in the form of brutal attacks on the part of the father towards the mother or to assaults due to drunkenness. The poor little boy at the age of six, senses things which would make even a grown-up person shudder…” (Mein Kampf) Many more references to hard family conditions are present in his writings. And even though he rejects to be a full participant of those scenes, one may assume Hitler is in fact describing his personal experience, which aroused revulsion and resentment in his early childhood.

Relationship with his father turned him into a rebellious young man. Instead of providing an image of a reliable, balanced, socially-adjusted and outstanding individual, which the little boy could perceive as a guiding model, Hitler’s father proved to be full of inconsistency. “As a child Hitler must have felt this lack very keenly for throughout his later life we find him searching for a strong masculine figure whom he can respect and emulate.” (Langer) In contrast, Hitler’s mother is believed to be an extremely respectable woman. There are numerous evidences that show there was an exceptional attachment between herself and Adolph, which is no surprise, since she obviously supplied her little son with all the love and care she had to give.

The great amount of love provided to him by his mother and the unattractive character of his father contributed to dynamic development of Hitler’s complexes. Naturally, he became more and more needy for the warmth his mother gave him and more and more aggressive towards his useless father.  The later was viewed by Hitler as intruder and could possible provoke Adolf’s ultimate desire for “pure race”. It is also quite possible that all the affection and love he had once felt for his mother became instinctively relocated to Germany after her untimely death.

Naturally, Hitler was no less influenced by social forces as a young man, than he was by family issues as being a child. For young Hitler, German Nationalism became an obsession as an alternative way to rebel against his father. The later served the Austrian government, greatly respected his position and the society he lived in, and tended to require that all others, including his own son, were doing same way.  The majority of people who lived alongside the German-Austrian border regarded themselves as German-Austrian citizens, but Hitler, in contrast, declared devotion only to Germany. Provoked by desire to disobey own father, Hitler refused to comply with the Austrian Monarchy.

The development of anti-Semitism is ascribed to his Vienna period. Historians still argue about the reasons that provoked such a fatal hatred to the entire race. Hitler was probably influenced by anti-Semitism moods widespread in Vienna. The extensive propaganda against Jews, popularized among Austrian citizens, turned possibly indifferent or even sympathetic Adolf into a hawkish racist. Hitler described Jews as disgraceful and corrupt human beings accountable for most of society’s problems. Whether he truly supported general believes, or simply adjusted own attitudes to be better accepted among peers, is an open question.

He led a passive, pathetic, beggarly life at Vienna, “in which activity was held at the lowest level consistent with survival. He seemed to enjoy being dirty and even filthy in his appearance and personal cleanliness.”(Stein) After all, he finally found his proper place in German army during World War I.  Hitler’s political and religious extremism at last began to fully absorb him while his short military service. He proved himself to be a courageous soldier, and also learned strategy and warfare tactics firsthand. Outraged by Germany’s surrender and the political outcomes of war, Hitler decided to become active in politics, and that is when the world was changed for good.

Apparently, Hitler’s awkward manner, nervous temperament and antisocial behavior were provoked by environment he was growing up in. His views of life and people were maturing under brutal guidance of his father. His emotional instability, aggressiveness and violence as a child and teenager, however, appear to be the innate characteristics of his personality, rather than acquired traits that were produced under the influence of given circumstances. His unhappy childhood eventually shaped an unstable human being who lived in a world of pure fancy.  However, if not for his inborn cruelty and for the way the history had played out, Hitler would probably have just been a one more miserable teenager from a dysfunctional family.

It is clear now that some exceptional traits of Hitler’s personality were formed during his childhood years. In what exact way did they however influence him? If applying Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development to Adolf Hitler, one can observe where he failed as a personality and what were the psychological development gaps that eventually caused him to become the man he was. Hitler who had a troublesome childhood failed on the very first stages of psychological growth.  According to Erikson, on each stage of development people go through a conflict that serves as a turning point in personality formation. “These conflicts are centered on either developing a psychological quality or failing to develop that quality. During these times, the potential for personal growth is high, but so is the potential for failure.” (About.com). Thus, Hitler obviously failed on first and second stages (Trust vs. Mistrust and Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt correspondingly), which provoked fear and developed in him a belief that the world is unpredictable and changeable, as well as a sense of inadequacy and self-doubt. Hitler seems to be failing on almost all of the following stages, since one failure negatively affects the success when facing the subsequent conflict. Hitler however appeared to be having a strong identity and sense of self, which contradicts the theory. Fuehrer’s triumph over this or that conflict probably depended on the current stage of his political career development and social interaction he was going through.

Social Learning Theory explains how a personality is formed through the observation of society. Albert Bandura stated: “Most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.” (About.com) It can, therefore, be assumed that Hitler’s cruelty was provoked by the observation of his father’s brutality. The fact that Hitler failed to alter his behavior through the observation of his mother as well fits the theory, since it specifies that learning does not automatically cause a change in behavior. The theory does not, however, clarify why a person chooses to change or not to change own behavior, and what knowledge leads to transformation.

Therefore, Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development seems to be the most suitable when talking about Adolf Hitler. Being based on person’s ability to resolve various psychological conflicts, it provides more sufficient explanation for the complexity and contradictoriness of Hitler’s nature. His failure on first stages resulted into increasing number of complexes, growing into feeling of superiority.

Hitler’s personality is, however, too extraordinary to be fully explained by one single theory; some of his behaviors seem to contradict all theories at once. Despite being a bad-tempered, violent, anti-social person, he eventually developed into a charismatic, outstanding leader and brilliant strategist. Tragically, “it was not only Hitler, the madman, who created German madness, but German madness which created Hitler. Having created him as its spokesman and leader, it has been carried along by his momentum, perhaps far beyond the point where it was originally prepared to go.” (Langer) It is always important to remember that Hitler, in spite of the chaos that he was responsible for, failed monumentally in all his major intentions, leaving, however, such a profound track in the history of 20 st century that his personality is to be studied for centuries to come.

Works Cited

About.com. Psychology Theories. Retrieved April 10, 2010, from http://psychology.about.com/od/psychology101/u/psychology-theories.htm

BBC. Historic Figures: Adolf Hitler . Retrieved April 10, 2010, from  http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/hitler_adolf.shtml

Hitler, A. (1925). Mein Kampf .

Langer, Walter C. A Psychological Profile of Adolph Hitler. His Life and Legend.   Retrieved April 10, 2010, from http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/documents/osstitle.htm

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Adolf Hitler - Essay Examples And Topic Ideas For Free

Adolf Hitler was a dictatorial leader of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, known for his aggressive foreign policies and the orchestration of the Holocaust. Essays on Hitler could explore his early life, his rise to power, his ideological beliefs, and his impact on Germany, Europe, and the world. His leadership during World War II and the lasting implications of his regime could also be examined. A vast selection of complimentary essay illustrations pertaining to Adolf Hitler you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

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About Adolf Hitler

Born: April 20, 1889, Braunau am Inn

Died: April 30, 1945

Cause of death: Suicide

Spouse: Eva Braun

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Essays on Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler essay explores the life of a politician in Germany, Fuhrer, and Chancellor of the Third Reich. Hitler came from a peasant Austrian family. Not many Adolf Hitler essays reveal that Hitler’s younger years were influenced by his aggressive alcoholic father. Hitler’s mother was a quiet woman who wanted Adolf to become a priest. She died from cancer. Some essays on Adolf Hitler explore his failure as an artist – Hitler spent 5 years in Vienna as an amateur painter, but was unsuccessful. Being a soldier during World War I, he progressively achieved political success and became the world's most hated tyrant – which many samples of essays portray him as. Working towards the prosperity of the German nation, he unleashed World War II, putting European civilization on the chopping block and committing genocide. Review the Adolf Hitler essay samples below for further information to benefit your essay.

During the 1936 Olympics, Hitler’s propaganda was at its finest, and it denoted to be an engine in propelling international influence for the Nazi regime. The International Olympic Committee in 1931 agreed that Berlin would host the Summer Olympics in 1936. Thus, the choice signified the reunite of Germany to...

Words: 1892

Peter Fritzsche and the Rise of Nazism in Germany Peter Fritzsche lived at a period when Nazism began to emerge in Germany. Peter evidently kept track of events, particularly between 1914 and 1933. The author above claims that the devastating Second World War forced Germans to accept Nazism within their own...

Words: 1732

Adolf Hitler and Napoleon Bonaparte Adolf Hitler was a German Nazi leader born in the year 1889 and died in April 1945, whereas Napoleon Bonaparte was a French ruler and military leader born in the year 1769 and died in 1821. The two leaders were comparable in many ways, but they...

Rudolf's Experiences as the Director of Concentration Camps Rudolf recorded his experiences as the director of concentration camps run by the German government to kill Jews at the behest of his superiors. Rudolf's Recounts of Gruesome Tales Rudolf recounts gruesome tales about the camp's inmates in his book. He explains the different ways...

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Braun am Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary that is located on the border with Bavaria, is where Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889. When his family was three years old, they relocated to Passau, where he grew familiar with the Bavarian accent, which eventually became a defining characteristic...

Words: 2888

Mein Kampf is Hitler's novel, in which he outlines his political agenda in detail. Mein Kampf was considered the Bible of National Socialism in Nazi Germany and achieved popularity well before its publication, and many Germans assumed that the Nazi leader was capable of bringing all of the ideas laid...

The Second World War is mostly remembered as the moment when countries united against the tyranny of Hitler, the most famous tyrant in Germany. Germany will attempt to occupy and dominate neighboring countries under his rule in the hope of becoming the greatest nation of all times. Around the same...

Words: 2057

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Illinois Nazi or Peoria prankster? The mysterious case of a short-lived radio station

• In May 1941, a federal grand jury indicted a former Bradley student
• He claimed his radio transmissions were all "in fun."
• The FCC "could not overlook the seriousness of the effects of his broadcasts."

Ask Dean  is a Journal Star column focusing on all things Peoria: its history, mysteries, quirks and culture. Send your questions to [email protected] .

Question: I received a link from my cousin, and wonder if it's a true story. The video is about 8 minutes long. Peoria is featured about halfway through as the location of a "Hitler" radio station broadcasting from a house on Sheridan Road. — Norman Ricca

Answer: Remarkably, deep dives into archives confirm the video account is accurate, if incomplete — as are contemporary, nationwide newspaper articles.

Befitting a tale of alleged attempted espionage, reports of the case are convoluted. Furthermore, the suspected Illinois Nazi — a "brilliant" former Bradley college student — may have been merely a prankster, or pre-internet troll. He claimed his transmissions were all "in fun."

World War II: Illinois native who braved flaming waters at Pearl Harbor to save his fellow sailors has died

The video in question is titled "How The FCC Hunted The Mystery 'Hitler' Station."

The video was posted on the Ringway Manchester YouTube channel. It credits the original story to one Tom Kneitel, who wrote an article in Popular Communications magazine in 1983 whose headline began "The Amazing 17-Day Career Of The 'Heil Hitler' Radio Station." A story illustration depicted a young man with an Adolf Hitler mustache and a swastika armband at a transmitter.

Popular Communications was a radio-centric magazine published from 1982 to 2013. It catered to hobbyists, and among its topics were pirate radio and military transmissions.

From the magazine

The 1983 story recounted how, in April 1941, as World War II raged in Europe and with the United States "on the brink of war with the Germans," a "mysterious communications station took to the airwaves."

Identifying himself only as "Fritz," the story said, the operator would punctuate his transmissions with shouts of "Heil Hitler!" He also "liked to play recordings of German military music" and Hitler speeches. Fritz claimed to be a member of an advance unit of a "German Army of Occupation" and was "attempting to solicit military information" from stations in the U.S. Army networks.

With "rumors of German espionage agents and saboteurs rampant," federal agents went on a "frantic chase" to discover the station's location and identify its operator. By April 21, "the government's direction finding efforts had pinpointed the general area of Peoria, Illinois." FCC mobile direction-finding units soon were cruising the streets of Peoria, the story said. On April 23, "they drove up North Sheridan Road and stopped near the home of Charles W. Johnson." The FCC units "stood by as the FBI checked out what Mr. Johnson was all about."

On April 30, the story said, "a task force of federal agents and local police broke in on Johnson while he was engaged in communications with an Army station." Johnson tried but failed to destroy the transmitter. "He described himself as a senior student in electrical engineering at an area institute." Arrested and held on $2,000 bond, Johnson was brought before a grand jury, where he was indicted for allegedly violating the Communications Act. "Thus ended the strange existence of Fritz and the 'Heil Hitler Station.'"

Frustratingly, thus also ended the Popular Communications account of the charges brought against Johnson. The story provided no resolution to the case.

Is the magazine account trustworthy?

From the archives

Newspapers across the nation published brief wire reports on the developing story. Illinois papers provided additional confirmation, and more detail.

The fullest account appears to have been from the Peoria Journal-Transcript. A front-page centerpiece story on May 1, 1941, was headlined, "U. S. Officers Charge Peorian Operated Unlicensed Radio Set To Contact Federal Stations And Pose As Nazi Foreign Agent." The locally written story confirmed much of the Popular Communications story.

The Journal-Transcript story said Charles W. Johnson, 21, was a former Bradley college student residing at 2306 N. Sheridan Road in Peoria. His arrest culminated three weeks of sleuthing by FCC "radio detectives" in search of a "Nazi agent in quest of military secrets."

The FCC, the story said, was "inclined to believe young Johnson's references to himself as a Nazi agent were in the nature of jokes," but "could not overlook the seriousness of the effects of his broadcasts."

The story said Johnson admitted operating the transmitter and receiver and even praised the federal agents on their successful detective work, saying, "You fellows certainly worked fast."

Johnson reportedly told an FCC supervisor, "I was just having fun." He was reported to have completed three years of study in electrical engineering at Bradley and to have been said by professors to be "brilliant."

Also on May 1, 1941, a front-page Associated Press wire story in the Illinois State Register said Johnson "was free today on $2,000 bond pending grand jury action."

"Charged with violating the federal communications act, Charles W. Johnson, 21, waived preliminary hearing when arraigned yesterday. ... His father, Charles O. Johnson, an insurance executive, furnished the bond."

The story confirmed that "Fritz" often signed off with a "Heil Hitler" and "claimed on the air to be a cryptographer for a signal unit in a German army of occupation."

"His general procedure was to broadcast that he was a foreign agent and to attempt to engage in communications between United States government stations. In so doing, he declared that he was relaying information from foreign agents," the article said.

The story said Johnson "would be prosecuted vigorously as an example in view of the alleged interference with government radio operators and the expense involved in tracking down the transmitter," but added that "authorities viewed his activities as those of a practical joker rather than as a German agent."

Indeed, on May 3, 1941, the Illinois State Journal published a front-page standalone photo of the presumable prankster. The overline read, "WRONG NUMBER." The caption read: "Charles W. Johnson, 21, (above), honor senior in a Peoria school, picked wrong wave length for his 'fun.' Youth, an unlicensed radio operator, broke in on government frequencies posing as Nazi agent. He is being held by federal authorities and faces $10,000 fine and two years in jail." The picture was credited to Acme Telephoto.

One week later, the Illinois State Register ran a one-paragraph brief from the AP. Headlined "ARRAIGNMENT POSTPONED," the item read: "PEORIA, Ill., May 10.—(AP)— The scheduled arraignment in federal court of Charles W. Johnson, 21, electrical engineering student, on charges of operating a broadcasting station without a license and operating an unlicensed transmitter, was continued to May 26. Johnson, who on May 1 was indicted by a federal grand jury, was arrested by federal communications commission agents last month. They said he represented himself in unscheduled broadcasts as a nazi agent named 'Fritz.' He said it was 'all in fun.' Johnson is at liberty on $2,000 bond."

This report updated the Popular Communications magazine story, which ended with Johnson's indictment. Frustratingly, it also ended archival newspaper accounts of the case.

The mystery remains

The YouTube video post drew over 500 comments, many seeking additional information. None was provided.

The fate of Charles W. Johnson of North Sheridan Road in Peoria remains unclear. No record could be found of the resolution of the case of the alleged Illinois Nazi, Hitler radio broadcaster, German agent or precocious prankster.

Whether it's a person, place or product, send your "Whatever happened to ...?" and "Wasn't there a ...?" questions, comments and suggestions to [email protected]. Please put ASK DEAN in the subject line.

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Dissent, Diplomacy and Drama at the Venice Biennale

A look at pivotal years at the art festival, including when Mussolini brought Hitler to the show.

By Nina Siegal

Reporting from Amsterdam

The Venice Biennale, now in its 60th edition, is officially the longest-running international art exhibition in the world, spanning 129 years. It came into being in 1895, long before the internet and decades before commercial airplane travel. The year it opened coincided with the first projected celluloid film.

In all that time, the Biennale has weathered seismic social shifts: the rise and fall of European fascism, the beginning and end of the Cold War, and countless other conflicts, as well as the advent of Futurism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art.

During those moments of change, the Venice Biennale itself became a world stage for political upheaval. Here are some of its defining moments:

After two years of planning by Mayor Riccardo Selvatico of Venice, the city celebrated the silver wedding anniversary of King Umberto and Queen Margherita with the 1st International Art Exhibition of the City of Venice, opened on April 30, 1895. It made use of the city’s public garden, the Giardini di Castello, created by Napoleon. Conceived as a showcase of new and recent international artists, it attracted more than 200,000 visitors, according to the Venice Biennale archives.

Until 1907, a single central pavilion displayed art from various European countries. Belgium built the first independent national pavilion, to showcase its country’s work. After that, the British, Hungarian and Bavarian Pavilion, for Germany, were built in 1909; the French and Dutch in 1912; and the Russian in 1914. Other pavilions would come later.

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, author of the 1909 Futurist Manifesto, and a group of like-minded artists, dropped manifestoes from the top of the Campanile into the Piazza San Marco. The leaflet denounced the city’s old ways, proposed burning all the gondolas and destroying the crumbling palaces. This was the artists’ way of calling for an embrace of modernity and a radical avant-garde.

The action took place just before the exhibition of Futurist artworks in the Biennale, explained Debora Rossi, head of the organization’s archives, and was designed to generate publicity for a show by Umberto Boccioni. “Part of the idea of the movement was to provoke,” she said. “It was a performance.” Seen that way, it was the first work of political performance art ever to show at the Biennale.

While Benito Mussolini served as Italy’s prime minister, the Venice Biennale became a “political tool for the fascist government” and “a propaganda instrument,” said Cecilia Alemani, artistic director of the 59th Venice Biennale and a co-curator of a 2020 exhibition of the event’s history.

Alemani explained that, under orders from the fascist government, the exhibition halls were filled with approved classical art and, finally, in 1942, with art explicitly “about military might.” About a year after becoming German chancellor, Hitler met Mussolini for the first time in June 1934, before visiting the 1934 Venice Biennale. They traveled together to the Giardini on the Grand Canal by boat, cheered by crowds on the bridges and banks. Hitler was photographed with other Italian leaders in the hall of the German Pavilion.

After the Art Biennale was canceled from 1943 on because of the war, the first major postwar exhibition emphasized freedom of expression for artists. Pablo Picasso showed his work at the Biennale for the first time. The American art collector Peggy Guggenheim was invited to use the Greek pavilion (closed while the country was in a civil war) to show her collection of Cubism, Futurism, abstraction and Surrealism — forms of art that had been labeled “degenerate” by the Nazis, discarded or burned, while artists were persecuted.

Guggenheim also debuted a new form of art coming from the New York scene, including Robert Motherwell, Alexander Calder and early Jackson Pollock. “It was the beginning of the shift of the needle toward America,” Alemani said.

Before 1964, the American pavilion was not run by the U.S. government, but by an artist cooperative, and then by New York’s Museum of Modern Art. At the height of the Cold War, State Department officials began to regard the Biennale in a new way, and the United States Information Agency, a government diplomatic agency, took control. Amei Wallach, the director of “Taking Venice,” a new documentary film about that 32nd Biennale, explained that officials saw the event as a potential platform on which to wage a “cultural Cold War” with the Soviet Union.

A delegation of American Pop artists, including Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, took the Biennale by storm, with the support of a team led by the Washington insider Alice Denney, the curator Alan Solomon and the art dealer Leo Castelli. Finding the American pavilion too small for its show, the team converted the disused U.S. Consulate in Venice into a gallery.

Rauschenberg won the grand prize for painting for his “combines” incorporating silk-screens featuring symbols of 1960s Americana — the first time an American had ever taken the prize. For many, it signaled not only the triumph of Pop Art, but also an idea that the center of the art world had shifted from Paris to New York, Wallach said.

As student protests spread across Europe, the Biennale became a symbol of political and cultural struggle. Young Italians poured into Venice, marching in the streets and storming the gates of the Giardini. Opening day ended with a police crackdown against a demonstration on Piazza San Marco. Carrying signs that read, “The Biennale is Dead,” the protesters managed to occupy some national pavilions and turn the art to face the wall. Some artists withdrew their works to support the protests. The clash forced institutional reforms, including a 1973 revision of the Biennale’s underlying statutes, which had remained unchanged since Mussolini’s reign, Rossi said.

The new president of the Biennale, Carlo Ripa di Meana, a socialist, opened the so-called “New Biennale,” designed to emphasize democratic politics and social change. In 1974, he kept the pavilions shuttered and devoted the show’s platform in public spaces to a single “antifascist” exhibition in response to the military coup by Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Entitled “Libertà al Cile” (“Freedom for Chile”), it included concerts, theatrical performances and street murals painted on-site. Ripa di Meana wrote that it was “an act of dutiful solidarity and democratic faith” with the Chilean people.

The “Biennale of Dissent” highlighted artists from the Soviet Union and other Communist bloc countries, such as Czechoslovakia, showcasing Soviet art, theater and film made by dissidents at home and abroad.

The art exhibition, “New Art From the Soviet Union. an Unofficial Perspective,” featured some 300 works by 70 Soviet artists who were not sanctioned by the state, angering Soviet authorities, which pulled out of the Biennale for a few years.

After the Cold War ended, the Biennale reflected a changed world. The German conceptual artist Hans Haacke created the installation piece “Failed Hope” by smashing the stone floor of his country’s pavilion, where Hitler had once stood, and leaving it in fragments. Alexander Alberro, a professor of art history at Barnard College and Columbia University, explained that the installation was one of several works that year that “dealt with the new world order in a number of ways. You could call it the first Biennale in a truly global context.”

In the midst of wars in Yugoslavia, the Serbian artist Marina Abramovic presented “Balkan Baroque,” an installation in which she sat in a pile of animal bones in a white dress, crying and singing Balkan folk songs while trying to scrub the bones clean, as blood stained her dress. Since it was summer in Venice, the piece had a powerful stench, leaving a lasting impression on visitors.

The Covid-19 pandemic postponed the 2020 Architectural Biennale for a year. While all national pavilions in the Giardini were closed in 2020, the central pavilion was devoted to one exhibition: “Le muses inquiete (The Disquieted Muses). When La Biennale di Venezia Meets History,” co-curated by Alemani, which used archival documents and art.

The 2021 edition of the Art Biennale was also postponed and took place in 2022. Alemani, its first Italian woman artistic director, curated the exhibition “The Milk of Dreams.” More than 80 percent of the works were by women and nonbinary artists. That event also marked another kind of opening up. Cameroon, Namibia, Nepal, Oman and Uganda participated for the first time.

Because of the war in Ukraine, the Russian pavilion remains empty this year for a second time, while the Ukrainian pavilion is devoted to a collaborative artwork called “Net Making.”

In response to the Israel-Hamas war, an activist organization collected more than 23,000 signatures on a petition to ban Israel from this year’s edition. In a statement in February, Italy’s culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, called the petition shameful and confirmed Israel’s participation in the event. On Tuesday, however, when the pavilions opened for a media preview, Israel’s remained locked. The artist and curators representing Israel said they would not open the show until “a cease-fire and hostage release agreement is reached.”

Inside the Venice Biennale

The 2024 venice biennale features work by more than 330 participating artists from some 90 countries scattered throughout the city..

Photos:  Our photographer is on the ground covering the spectacle that makes the Biennale  one of the premier events in the art world’s global calendar.

Critiquing and Representing the U.S.:  Jeffrey Gibson’s history-making turn at the Biennale  brings the gay and Native American artist center stage with works of struggle and freedom.

Protests Go On:  Israel’s exhibition was already closed after its artist refused to display her work  until there was a cease-fire and hostage deal in Gaza. But that didn’t calm the discontent .

Can Adriano Pedrosa Save the Biennale?:  Balancing diplomacy and geopolitics is hardly new for the first Biennale curator from Latin America. He isn’t scared to make a strong statement  on contemporary art.

A Match Made in Venice:  An American institution is sponsoring an exhibition by a Chinese artist in collaboration with a Japanese architect at a centuries-old Venetian building. Here’s how Tadao Ando and Zeng Fanzhi came together .

Criticism Meets Optimism:  The group show “Nigeria Imaginary” will be one of the most ambitious African presentations  ever at the Biennale.

4 Germans caught marking Hitler’s birthday outside Nazi dictator’s birthplace in Austria

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Four Germans were caught laying white roses in memory of Adolf Hitler at the house where the Nazi dictator was born in western Austria on the anniversary of his birth, and one gave a Hitler salute as they posed for photos, police said Monday.

Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn. After lengthy wrangling over the future of the house where he was born, work started last year on turning it into a police station — a project meant to make it unattractive as a pilgrimage site for people who glorify Hitler.

Police in Upper Austria province said the four Germans — two sisters and their partners, in their 20s and early 30s — went to the building on Saturday to lay white roses in its window recesses. They posed in front of the house for photos and one of the women gave the stiff-armed Hitler salute.

Patrolling officers noticed the group and took them to a police station for questioning. The woman said that she hadn’t meant the salute seriously, but officers said they found a chat with the others on her cellphone in which they shared Nazi-themed messages and pictures.

Police said they were reporting all four to prosecutors on suspicion of violating the Austrian law that bans the symbols of Nazism.

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The plot to assassinate Hitler - the subject of the 2008 Tom Cruise movie, "Valkyrie" - has a Tallahassee connection.

Actually, there were more than a dozen plots to kill Hitler during World War II. And the movie opens with the second most-nearly successful: an attempt to detonate a bomb aboard Hitler's plane. Though not mentioned in the movie, one of the co-conspirators of that plot was Hungarian attorney Hans von Dohnanyi.

Von Dohnanyi (DOCK-non-ye) was the son of world-famous Hungarian pianist and composer Ernst von Dohnanyi - and that's the Tallahassee connection.

Ernst von Dohnanyi spent the last 11 years of his life in Tallahassee and is buried at Roselawn Cemetery. He taught at Florida State University from 1949 until his death in 1960 and helped kick-start the reputation of FSU's internationally famous music school.

FSU's main recital hall is named for Dohnanyi, as he is simply known. In 2002, FSU held a symposium in his memory that drew musicians from around the world.

And his fame continues to grow. More than a dozen biographies have been written about him, including a recent one in Germany about Ernst, Hans and Hans' two sons, Christoph and Klaus. Christoph is the conductor emeritus of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra; Klaus was the mayor of Hamburg, Germany. Both have visited Tallahassee several times.

And Dohnanyi's music is still wildly popular: A foot-high stack of CDs of his compositions performed by modern artists sits on a counter at Dohnanyi's former home at 568 Beverly Court. The home belongs to Sean McGlynn, a local water quality researcher, who is Dohnanyi's grandson by his third wife.

"He was a great composer, and he's being re-discovered," McGlynn said. "His music is very lyrical but also difficult to play. He was a musician's musician, and (modern musicians) are challenged by his work."

McGlynn, who is married and has four children, has lived in the house since 1980 and owned it since his grandmother died in 1986. It remains an informal Dohnanyi museum. Closets are filled with photos and scrapbooks. Cabinets are filled with Dohnanyi's notes and compositions. His books, clocks, art objects and furniture dot the house.

The composer's piano is the centerpiece of the front room - and a shrine to visitors.

"We hosted a reception during the (2002) symposium," McGlynn said. "And all the pianists had to play it."

McGlynn has donated many of his grandfather's letters, notes, compositions plus 150 tapes Dohnanyi recorded at home to FSU. He has donated hundreds of papers to museums in Hungary and England. He has provided photos for a half-dozen recent books. He hopes eventually to donate all his grandfather's memorabilia to museums.

"I feel very lucky to have all this heritage," McGlynn said. "(But) it's the kind of stuff scholars drool over."

McGlynn was a favorite of his grandfather, who wanted him named Ernst (it became McGlynn's middle name) and affectionately called the toddler, "my little Irish terrorist."

Though only 5 when his grandfather died, McGlynn has memories of playing in the backyard with his grandfather and listening to him play the piano. McGlynn plays the piano, the French horn and the bagpipes - but can't match his grandfather's musicianship.

"I grew up with all these stories and around all this talent. I hoped I had it, too," McGlynn said. "It has been frustrating to learn these gifts don't come along that often."

Dohnanyi, born in 1877, was a prodigy. As a teenager visiting Vienna, he met the famous composer Johannes Brahms, who played a composition Dohnanyi wrote - and immediately pronounced, "You are going to be a great composer."

Dohnanyi composed two symphonies and thousands of musical pieces. He was conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra and gave concerts around the world. He mentored famous musicians, including his eventual colleague at FSU, the late Edward Kilenyi. Dohnanyi had a prodigious talent and photographic memory.

"He could look at the sheet music for five minutes, then conduct an entire symphony," McGlynn said. "One of his concert tricks was to ask someone to call out a Beethoven sonata, and he'd play it from memory."

As a member of the Hungarian parliament, Dohnanyi opposed the Russian Communist takeover after World War II. The Russians tried to label him a war criminal and Nazi collaborator, so he sought refuge in other countries. After stints in Austria and Argentina, he wound up in the U.S., and eventually at FSU.

He was revered at FSU, where he conducted orchestras, gave concerts and continued to compose. One of his favorite students was Joanne Byrd, who rented one of two basement apartments at the Dohnanyi home - and was already engaged to her future husband: Fred Rogers, who went on to become TV's beloved Mister Rogers.

"We were not even aware of all (the political intrigue) that had gone on in his life. We just knew Dr. Dohnanyi was a great, great person," said Hilda Starbuck, a retired Leon County music teacher who graduated from FSU in 1952. "From time to time, he would give a little talk about his childhood. Whenever he told us the story (about meeting Brahms), I would get goosebumps."

A favorite son

Hans von Dohnanyi was arrested and executed for his role in the plot to kill Hitler. Time vindicated him, and in 2002 Germany issued a stamp in his honor.

But his father would have cried watching "Valkyrie." Dohnanyi was married three times and had seven children. But Hans was his first-born from his first wife.

"Hans was his favorite child; their marriage never recovered," McGlynn said. "His death was devastating to my grandfather."

Gerald Ensley was a reporter and columnist for the Tallahassee Democrat from 1980 until his retirement in 2015. He died in 2018 following a stroke. The Tallahassee Democrat is publishing columns capturing Tallahassee’s history from Ensley’s vast archives each Sunday through 2024 in the Opinion section   as part of the TLH 200: Gerald Ensley Memorial Bicentennial Project.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Novel — Analysis of “Making Bombs for Hitler”

Analysis of "Making Bombs for Hitler"

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

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