The Dictatorial Leader Adolf Hitler - Essay Example

19 March Adolf Hitler Few of the political leaders of the 20th century have repelled contemporaries more than Adolf Hitler, the dictatorial Leader (Fuhrer) and Reich Chancellor of the so-called ‘Greater German Empire’, or the Third Reich. The actions and policies of his regime led to the atrocities previously unparalleled in human history, and the irrationality of many of his political moves led many to believe that the reason for this must supposedly be sought in the personal dementia of Hitler. However, closer look at the development of his personality and the early years of his political career reveals mediocre but still cunning demagogue, who was far from being mere psychopath. The first years of Hitler’s life were rather unremarkable. He was born in lower-middle class Austrian family, with his father, Alois Hitler, a customs official and his mother, Klara Polzl, a devout and obedient housewife. Despite Hitler’s claims to being born in an impoverished family, his father’s income actually allowed young Adolf to enter Linz Realschule and begin training for commercial career (Bullock 26). Nevertheless, in spite of superficially ‘normal’ life of Hitler family, the psychological relations within it were rather tense. Alois Hitler was always bitter and temperamental man (Fest 17; Kershaw 43). The submissive stance exhibited by his wife, Klara, allowed Alois to have free rein in disciplining his children, so that the relations in the family was dominated by the stern father figure – a fact that undoubtedly had an impact on making of young Hitler (Kershaw 45). In any case, Adolf left Linz Realschule in 1904, the year after his father’s death, due to his record at this school that was far from spectacular (Bullock 26). In 1905, at the age of 16, Hitler ceased his training, and for the next two years he lived comfortably at the expense of his mother, fantasizing about some future great destiny (Kershaw 51). The death of his mother led to major change in the life of previously carefree Adolf. Hitler’s previous plans of excelling as an artist proved a failure after his futile attempt to enter the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in October 1907. After the funeral Hitler returned to Vienna to pursue the life of ‘art student’ (Bullock 31). Vienna of those times was a multicultural city that embodied the internal contradictions of the decadent Austro-Hungarian Empire. The old social structure was progressively decomposing itself, with the subdued nationalities claiming rights of self-government and German artisans and petty traders turning to nationalism and especially to Anti-Semitism as a way of rationalising their hostility to competition by numerous Jewish migrants from the eastern lands of the Dual Monarchy that at that time settled in Vienna (Fest 27). Even though Hitler likely became a follower of ideas of German Nationalism in his school years (Bullock 27), it was in Vienna where he became an enthusiastic partisan of ideas of militant Anti-Semitism then advocated by charismatic Karl Lueger, the leader of Christian Social Party (CS), who was to prove a major influence on the political views of Hitler (Fest 42). According to Fest, despite his less than comfortable life conditions in the men’s houses of Vienna in his destitute years (1908-13), Hitler exhibited nothing but hostility towards revolutionary left-wing movements of his time and paradoxically combined his contempt for bourgeois establishment with a craving to be accepted into it (33). Giblin notes that Hitler had particularly negative opinion of Marxist Social-Democratic Party, believing it to be controlled by the Jews (14). He was especially appalled by the Marxist socio-political doctrine, especially for its denial of organic unity of nation, and by the notion of class struggle (Fest 34). This combination of radical anti-establishment rhetoric with hostility towards political theories that challenged the notion of social hierarchy as such was characteristic of Hitler’s further career. After he managed to obtain a share in his father’s inheritance, in April 1913 Hitler left Vienna for Munich, where in summer 1914 he received the news of the beginning of the WWI. Hitler responded to the war with enthusiasm and, even though he managed to evade service in Austrian armed forces in January 1914 by feigning illness (Giblin 16), he voluntarily enlisted in the German army, embarking for the Western front in October 1914. Hitler’s participation in the war led to the final strengthening of his militarist convictions. Just like many other lower-middle class members of the 1910s, he found in the war a way to escape the dull certainties of his peace-time life and an opportunity to make himself known. It was mainly these social characters that constituted a bulk of far right scene in the post-WWI Europe, and Hitler, with his Anti-Semitic and nationalist views, was actually a typical representative of this milieu. After participating in the war they regarded as successful and glorious (conveniently ignoring the destitution brought about by the war and the strain it put on German economy), many German veterans, as Wolfgang Sauer put it, ‘the military desperadoes’ (405) that shared the mythical ‘unity’ in the trenches of the Great War, now finding themselves without the prospect of stable employment, embraced the legend of ‘stab-in-the-back’ allegedly perpetrated by the treasonous Jews and Social-Democrats (Gonen 8). The conclusion of Versailles Treaty, which was considered a national humiliation by most Germans, and especially so by the militarist Right, led to the further strengthening of anti-republican sentiment; the Kapp Putsch of March 1920 was a first attempt by the military rightist circles to overthrow Weimar Republic established by the November Revolution; its complete failure caused by the absence of effective popular base forced the Right to contemplate other ways to a future success. After the events of spring 1920 Bavaria, ruled by the right-conservative government of Gustav von Kahr, became a safe haven for far right activities, with Bavarian government openly defying the liberal-democratic policies of central government in Berlin (Mitchell 23). At the same time, rampant inflation, exacerbated by the need for paying reparations, led to the drastic fall in living standards that did not augur well for the Weimar Republic. The factor that contributed the most to the renewal of far right offensive was Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in January 1923 that was accompanied by government’s calls for ‘passive resistance’ and the parallel attempts at insurgencies by pro-Communist forces in Saxony and Thuringia, which were viewed with alarm by conservative middle class. It was at that moment when the political career of Adolf Hitler really began. Hitler reacted to the end of WWI and the signing of the Versailles Treaty with fury and indignation. As he claimed later, at that point he made a decision to enter politics (Giblin 25). However, during the tumultuous events of 1918-9 he kept a low profile in Munich, where he returned after the armistice, evading the attention of authorities of brief Bavarian Soviet Republic in spring 1919 (Mitchell 36). After the fall of Munich to government’s troops, mostly composed of Freikorps (the right-wing paramilitaries consisting of WWI veterans), Hitler offered his assistance as an informer to the military commission charged with rooting out left-wing elements among the soldiers, serving at Department of Press and Propaganda, where his oratorical skills were revealed for the first time (Mitchell 37). For some time, Hitler worked as a propagandist in the local unit of German Army, and it was a mission to infiltrate an obscure political group, known as ‘German Workers’ Party’ (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; DAP) in September 1919 that allowed him to begin his full-scale participation in a far-right political activity. At that time the far right movement of Germany, also known as the volkisch, was marked by infighting and the existence of dozens of miniscule rival groupings. Munich was a veritable capital of far right, with such organizations as Thule Society having been founded there. The DAP itself was set up with the assistance of Rudolf von Sebattendorf, a Thule Society member, and Anton Drexler, a nationalistic Munich rail worker (Mitchell 47). However, at the beginning the DAP lacked any coherent political base. On joining the DAP, Hitler swiftly began to push for the establishment of centralised party structure and the beginning of mass propaganda among disaffected elements of lower-middle and working class. In February 1920 his first political speech aimed at mass audience was given in one of the larger beer barns of Munich, prompting the first skirmishes between DAP members and Social Democrats (Mitchell 48). The party’s name was soon changed to ‘National Socialist German Workers’ Party’ (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; NSDAP, or Nazis), and, due to the demagogic propaganda and further aggravation of socio-economic situation, it soon expanded tremendously, increasing its numbers from 190 in January 1920 to 2,000 by December and to 3,300 in August 1921 (Kershaw 146). The oratorical mastery of Hitler played an obvious part in these successes and helped to sideline the other volkisch organizations; his appeals to the emotional images of the former national glory, in contrasting with the current misery caused by the actions of ‘alien’ elements, as well as an idea of ‘national community’ (Volksgemeinschaft) that would supposedly erase class differences, struck a chord with his audience and lacked the aristocratic arrogance of mainstream conservative parties. It was this notion of inherent ‘unity’ of Germans who were supposedly in life-and-death struggle against Jews and Slavs that was a main feature of Hitler’s speeches – no doubt, the legacy of his experience in pre-War Austro-Hungary. In addition, his distinction between ‘national’, industrial capital and ‘rootless’ bank capital allegedly represented by Jews (Kershaw 149) was enthusiastically embraced by small entrepreneurs and was to become a basis for Hitler’s alliance with German industrialists in early 1930s. At the same time, Hitler paid great attention to the process of recruiting nationalistic war veterans, the unemployed and right-wing students in the fledgling NSDAP paramilitary, the elements which were to become the basis for the SA (‘Storm Detachments’; Mitchell 54). The events of the Beer Putsch of 9 November 1923 led to the temporary collapse of the NSDAP and Hitler’s subsequent exclusion from the Bavarian and German politics. The putsch attempt itself was modelled on Mussolini’s ‘March on Rome’, and its failure showed that the German establishment was not ready to allow far right groups to exert influence on the national politics. Hitler and other leaders of the putsch, including war hero General Ludendorff, were tried by sympathetic Bavarian court and, for the most part, found not guilty. Hitler’s sentence was rather light; he was to serve five years in prison but was actually pardoned in December 1924 (Bullock 121). As Kershaw observed, it was the events of the Beer Putsch and the ‘betrayal’ of mainstream Right that cemented Hitler’s belief in his unique ‘mission’ of restoring Germany to greatness (227). When serving his sentence in the prison of Landsberg, Hitler reviewed his previous tactics. The idea of ‘national revolution’ through the action of ‘people’s militia’ built on the basis of the SA was rejected in favour of coming to power through accommodation with the existing conservative establishment, especially the military elite. In the book written during his confinement, Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”), Hitler set forth a distinctively Pan-German project of foreign policy that was distinguished by turn from colonial expansion outside Europe in favour of the conquests in East Europe (Mitchell 81). It was with this project he hoped to turn the generals and the industrialists to his cause in the future. The political climate of the second half of the 1930s seemed unfavourable to Hitlerist movement. The relative stabilization of the economy led to the decline of volkisch movement and the disarray among the Nazis themselves. It was only with the advent of the Great Depression and the new rise in influence of the Left that the plans devised by Hitler in 1924 bore fruit, and the alliance between demagogic plebeian movement of the Nazis with conservative industrialists and military top brass led to the establishment of the regime that proved unequal in its brutality. Works Cited Bullock, Alan. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. 2nd ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. Print. Fest, Joachim C. Hitler. New York: Harcourt Trade Publishers, 1974. Print. Giblin, James C. The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler. New York: Clarion Books, 2002. Print. Gonen, Jay A. The Roots of Nazi Psychology: Hitler's Utopian Barbarism. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2000. Print. Kershaw, Ian. Hitler: A Biography. 2nd ed. London: Penguin Books, 2009. Print. Mitchell, Otis C. Hitler’s Stormtroopers and the Attack on the German Republic, 1919-1933. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2008. Print. Sauer, Wolfgang. “National Socialism: Totalitarianism or Fascism?” American Historical Review 73.2 (1967): 404-24. Print. Read More