Mein Kampf Hitler A Hero Essay

Hitler was such a powerful leader, however, it was not always that way. He went through many struggles and problems to get to where he was. Not many agreed with how he ran Germany, but he still went and led the way he thought Germany would best benefit. Hitler’s idols, childhood, beliefs, failed accomplishments and determination is what got him to the top.

To begin with, Hitler’s childhood and idols influenced him enough to get him to become the man he was. Hitler was born April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn, and was baptized a Catholic. Ironically, Hitler’s grandfather was of Jewish descent; however, there hasn’t been such evidence to support this. Hitler’s family moved to Linz, Austria in 1898, where he sought out a career in visual arts. His father did not support his career choices, so they argued a lot over what career he would

pursue. His father wanted him to go into the Habsburg civil service; after he passed away, he persuaded his mother to let him pursue his dream of being an artist. He ended up taking his entrance exam to the Vienna Academy of Arts, but didn’t get accepted. In 1908, Hitler moved to Vienna after his mother died of breast cancer. He hoped he would be able to get accepted into the Academy of Arts by taking a second test. He had grown up in a middle class family, and stayed living in Vienna between February 1908 and May 1913. He had to live in homeless shelters after he rejected any inheritance left by his parents, and rejected all arguments of being in the civil services. In late 1909, Hitler was faced with poverty as his income started decreasing; fortunately, the last gift he received from his aunt helped a lot. She bought him watercolors, which helped him financially because he began painting and selling his pieces. He made enough money to live off of before he moved to Munich, Bavaria in 1913. Hitler was influenced ideologically, strategically, and tactically by two men: Georg von Schonerer and Karl Lueger. Schonerer was a politician and Lueger was the Mayor of Vienna. Lueger reinforced anti-Jewish stereotypes and cast Jews as the enemy while Schonerer was comfortable with the elitist nationalism. Schonerer influenced Hitler ideologically, and Lueger influenced him strategically and tactically (“Adolf Hitler…”).
Consequently, Hitler’s beliefs and failed accomplishments led him to become a powerful leader. Hitler first sought out to be an artist; since he was rejected from Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts twice he gave up on that dream. When Hitler believed that the loss of WWI was caused by traitors, he became even more determined to rise above. In 1918, he joined the German Workers’ Party, which was basically a restart of the Nazis because it brought all the men who were strong nationalists together. He eventually became high in ranks for that party, but later left so he could take charge of propaganda. By late 1921, he was already leading the Nazi Party. A lot of the men were former army officers; they became known by the “Strong Arm” squads (SA). He used them as protection every time there was a Nazi Party meeting (History.com Staff).
The outcome of The Beer Hall sewed everything together for Hitler. Hitler was convicted of treason for trying to overthrow the government at The Beer Hall. He was sentenced to prison for five years, but instead of being in prison, he was held at the old Landsberg castle. He wasn’t treated poorly there either. In fact, he was actually allowed to have guests and receive gifts. While being there he was treated like a “cult hero”, and he only got to serve for only nine months before being released. He had lots of time while at Landsberg, so he put that time to use. He had begun reciting his unpublished novel to Rudolph Hess, a National German Socialist (“Mein Kampf…”).
Hitler acted on the Germans losing their savings due to overtaxing to pay for their currency. The government had let the currency slip in value, so he acted on it. If he hadn’t, he would’ve risked losing his leadership for all Nazi Parties. In 1923, it took 4,000,000,000 marks to keep a dollar; this caused there to also be bad pay and hunger riots. Hitler was forced to act on this so he came up with a plan to kidnap the leaders of the Bavarian government. He would then have them at gunpoint to accept him as a leader. He knew that by doing this he could take over the German Army and even proclaim a national revolt to bring down their democratic government system. He put this into action when he heard there would be businessmen and the Bavarians at The Beer Hall. Nazi troops surrounded the place while Hitler and his storm troopers barged into the place, causing everyone to panic (The History Place…). Once Hitler was in, he fired off his gun, putting the whole crowd in shock. State Commissioner Gustav von Kahr was making a speech when Hitler and his troops came in. He gave up the podium to Hitler, so he can announce that their National Revolution had begun. At gunpoint, he made three government officials go to the back of the stage. He told them to give up their positions and join him in making a new government. He lied to everyone in The Hall by saying officers and the army men were already on his side. The three men still refused, so Hitler went back on stage and deceived the crowd for a second time by saying that the Government of November Criminals and the Reich President had resigned (The History Place…). Many thought that Hitler’s political career and the movement for the Nazi’s came to a “crashing end”. When he told the crowd that the three officials resigned, everyone cheered. Everyone in the crowd thought they were a part of the Nazi Revolution. General Lundendorff got there and Hitler automatically knew he could convince the three officials to actually agree to be removed. Ludendorff got them to resign, but Hitler messed up by leaving The Beer Hall. He left the Beer Hall to personally resolve a problem with the German soldiers, but while he was doing that the three men came out from back stage. They told the crowd what really happened backstage. Consequently, Hitler’s whole plan to revolt was then ruined. He thought he would be leading all of Germany by the next day, but when he went back inside he found that everyone had already unraveled his plan. The next morning, one of the three men made a public speech, announcing that Hitler ruling was voided due to the fact that he held them at gunpoint. Hitler was desperate to lead, so he took any idea that was thrown at him. Ludendorff gave him the idea to have a Nazi march because no one would shoot at him since he was a war hero according to Ludendorff. This wasn’t the case for Hitler and his three thousand Nazi troops. A hundred armed officers demanded Hitler and his troops to surrender, but they didn’t. Instead of surrendering, shots were fired and men from both sides were killed. Ludendorff was arrested, and Hitler fled after his bodyguard took several bullets to protect him. He spent two nights with his friends at their home. On the third night, officers showed up to the Hanfstaengls house and arrested Hitler. Hitler was informed that he was getting a public trial (The History Place…).
Mein Kampf tells Hitler’s problems and how he tried solving them for the rest of Germany.

On July 18, 1925, Volume One of “Mein Kampf” was published. He wrote this book when he was in prison for treason; however, he was still able to do almost anything he wanted. During the first year, the book sold only 9,473 copies. The first part of the book “A Reckoning” is about the problems Germany was constantly threatened by. The first part alone was over 400 pages long. It talked about problems such as, the French, the lack of Lebensraum, the need to expand into Russia, and the influence of “Mongrel” races. For Hitler, the state had a variety of ethnicities, but he wanted racial purity so he could revitalize Germany. Hitler also talked about leadership and his Third Reich. His Third Reich mimics the Prussian ideal of complete authoritarian rule. Volume Two mainly focused on National Socialism, which was published in 1927, the book sales weren’t high. When he became the ruler of Germany, the book sales went up to one million. The popularity of the books were so high that giving the book to a newly wedded couple became a ritual (“Mein

Kamp…”).
Hitler’s determination gave him full power over Germany. Hitler was so determined to gain political power that he even built up his Nazi support among German conservatives. He ran for president in 1932, and received 36.8% of the votes. Hitler eventually gained complete power in Germany, which was due to division and inactivity among the people who were against Nazism. The Reichstag passed on The Enabling Act on March 23, 1933. This act gave full power to Hitler. Two months later the government passed a law stating that the Nazi Party should be the only political party in Germany. Unfortunately, all other parties no longer existed, and Hitler now had total control (History.com Staff). Still, Hitler continued to expand on the nationalistic, anti-Semitic views of the Volk (German people). He made plans for Germany, which he said would take place when he became a supreme leader. In Hitler’s eyes, he believed the Volk would find its truest incarnation in a Fuhrer (one supreme leader). He started working on reorganizing and reshaping the Nazi Party. He had the idea to create the Schutzstaffel (SS) which was a more reliable version of the SA (History.com Staff).
In addition, Hitler even got kids to be a part of his Nazi Youth Party (The Nazi Youth Arm). In 1937, the Boy Scouts were one of the many youth organizations on the Nazis’ verboten list. Boy Scouts and many other organizations were banned, so now every non-Jewish boy was required to be in the Nazi Youth Arm. At 17 years old, Max Ebel refused to join, so as a way to try getting him into the Nazi Youth they would harass him. In fact, a group of Nazi Youth surrounded him, and one of the boys even stabbed him in the hand. Ebel grabbed the knife and cut the other boy’s face. Fortunately for him, he ended up escaping Germany to become a U.S. citizen. The Nazi Youth group was designed to teach kids Hitler’s ideology, then send them off to war (Blakemore).
After Hitler gained his power, he focused himself towards the rest of Europe. Germany was “diplomatically isolated”, and had a weak military. This was a problem because they had unfriendly neighbors (France and Poland). Hitler gave a speech in May of that same year. He claimed that Germany supported disarmament and peace, but the domination and expansion of the Germans were still Hitler’s number one focus. Hitler had plans to conquer lands, so he withdrew Germany from the League of Nations. He then started to militarize the nation. June 29th of the following year, Hitler had Rohm, Kurt von Schleicher and many other problematic members of his own party (The Strong Arms) murdered. This night was known as the notorious Night of the Long Knives. Rohm and Kurt von Schleicher were two of the officials he held at gunpoint at The Beer Hall. When former President Paul von Hindenburg died in August, military leaders decided to combine presidency and chancellorship into one position. As a result, Hitler was then in command of all armed forces of the Reich (History.com Staff).
To summarize, Hitler struggled to become a leader, and with many failed attempts at trying to become one, he ended up ruling all of Germany. His childhood, failed accomplishments, struggles, beliefs, and dreams were what gave him such determination to rule. He wanted to be greater than everyone in power, and well he got just that.