Adolf Hitler

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Adolf Hitler Born in the Austrian town of Braunau on April 20, 1889, Adolf was the fourth child of Alois Schickelgruber and Klara Hitler. By 1900, young Adolf's talents as an artist surfaced. He did well enough in school to be eligible for either the university preparatory school or the technical/scientific Realschule. Because the technical/scientific Realschule had a course in drawing, Adolf enrolled in there. Adolf suffered from frequent lung infections, and he quit school at the age of 16, partially the result of ill health, but mainly the result of poor schoolwork. In 1906, Adolf traveled Vienna to seek his fortune, but he wasn't able to get admission to any prestigious art school. Hitler spent six years there, living on a small amount of money left for him from his father supplemented with an orphan's pension. On the verge of becoming penniless by 1909, he wandered Vienna as a transient, sleeping in bars, flophouses, and shelters for the homeless, including, ironically, those financed by Jewish philanthropists. It was during this period that he developed his prejudices about Jews, his interest in politics, and the sharpening his debating skills. Vienna was a center of anti-Semitism, and the media's portrayal of Jews as scapegoats with stereotyped attributes did not escape Hitler's fascination. In May 1913, Hitler, trying to avoid military service, left Vienna for Munich, the capital of Bavaria. In January, the police came to his door bearing a draft notice from the Austrian government. The document threatened him a year in prison and also a fine if he was found guilty of leaving his country and trying to avoid military service. Hitler was arrested on the spot and taken to the Austrian Consulate. He was ... ... middle of paper ... ...cupied Europe at Normandy on the French coast. Then Italy, Germany's major ally under the leadership of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, had fallen. Several attempts were made on Hitler's life during the war, but none was successful. In 1945, as the war appeared to be inevitably lost, Hitler retreated to his underground bunker in Berlin where he ultimately killed himself on April 30, 1945. His long-term mistress and new bride, Eva Braun, joined him in suicide. By that time, one of his chief objectives was achieved with the annihilation of two-thirds of European Jewry. This man rose to power promising to restore Germany as a world power and establish the German people as the "master race". He was not German. His political views and anti-Semitism now seem very troubled. His legacy of death and destruction on a global scale effects the world even today.

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