Hitler's Early Life and Rise of Nazi Party

Hitler's Early Life and Ideology

• Adolf Hitler was born in Austria in 1889
• He failed in school and traveled to Vienna to become an artist but was rejected by the academy
• He developed his basic political ideas in Vienna, with racism and anti-Semitism at the core
• He was an extreme nationalist who believed in the effective use of propaganda and terror

Rise of the Nazi Party

• Hitler joined the German Workers' Party in 1919, which was later renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) or Nazi
• By 1921, he had taken total control of the party
• The party had 55,000 members and 15,000 in the party militia, known as the SA, Storm Troops, or Brownshirts, by 1923
• Hitler staged an armed uprising against the government in Munich in November 1923, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, but was quickly crushed and sentenced to prison
• In prison, he wrote Mein Kampf, which linked extreme German nationalism, anti-Semitism, and anticommunism with a Social Darwinian theory of struggle

Mein Kampf and Nazi Ideology

• Mein Kampf emphasized the right of "superior" nations to Lebensraum ("living space") through expansion
• It also upheld the right of "superior" individuals to gain authoritarian leadership over the masses

Rise of Nazism

• Hitler realized that the Nazis would have to attain power legally, not by violent overthrow, after his failed uprising
• By 1929, the Nazi Party had a national party organization and had become the largest party in the Reichstag by 1932
• Germany's economic difficulties, including rising unemployment, contributed to the Nazi rise to power
• Hitler promised a new Germany that appealed to nationalism and militarism

The Nazis Take Control

• After 1930, the German government ruled by decree with the support of President Hindenburg
• The right-wing elites of Germany looked to Hitler for leadership, and he became chancellor in 1933
• The Enabling Act of 1933 gave the government the power to ignore the constitution for four years, effectively making Hitler a dictator
• The Nazis quickly brought all institutions under their control, purged the civil service of democratic elements and Jews, and set up concentration camps for opponents
• By the end of the summer of 1933, Hitler had established the basis for a totalitarian state