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Hitler and WWI
He moved to Germany seeking to avoid arrest for evasion of his military service obligation to Habsburg Austria and financed by the last installment of his inheritance from his father. In Munich, he continued to drift, supporting himself on his watercolors and sketches until World War I gave his life direction and a cause to which he could commit himself totally. By all surviving accounts, Hitler was a brave soldier. -
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Lebensraum ('living space')
Between 1921 and 1925 Adolf Hitler developed the belief that Germany required Lebensraum ('living space') in order to survive. The conviction that this living space could be gained only in the east, and specifically from Russia, formed the core of this idea, and shaped his policy after his take-over of power in Germany in 1933. So where did he get this idea from? And why did he envisage his country's future living space lying in the east? -
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Chancellor Heinrich Bruning (Heinrich Brüning, The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica)
German statesman who was chancellor and foreign minister shortly before Adolf Hitler (Nov 26, 1885 - Mar 30, 1970) came to power (1930–32). Unable to solve his country’s economic problems, he hastened the drift toward rightist dictatorship by ignoring the Reichstag and governing by presidential decree. -
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Gleichschaltung [coordination] (The So-Called C..., Richard Breitman)
Hitler's new political order was based on the elimination of the party pluralism and federalism of the Weimar Republic. On February 1933, Nazi leaders sought the so-called coordination(Gleichschaltung) of all public and private authorities under Nazi auspices. This involved the neutralization or integration of competing political organizations. Taking state, city, and municipal governments and administrations was a key step toward centralizing all state authority. -
Reichstag Fire Decree (The Reichstag Fire..., William L. Hosch)
On the night of Feb. 27, 1933 the Reichstag building was set on fire. At the urging of Hitler, Hindenburg responded the next day by issuing an emergency decree “for the Protection of the people and the State.” -
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Dachau Concentration Camp (Dachau, history.com staff)
Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, opened in 1933. Located in southern Germany, Dachau initially housed political prisoners; however, it eventually evolved into a death camp where countless thousands of Jews died from malnutrition, disease and overwork or were executed. Camp’s prisoners also included people Hitler considered unfit for the new Germany, including artists, intellectuals, the physically and mentally handicapped and homosexuals. -
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Joseph Goebbels (Joseph Goebbels, history.com staff)
In 1933 Adolf Hitler, the new chancellor of Germany, named Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), his trusted friend and colleague, to the key post of minister for public enlightenment and propaganda. Goebbels remained in this post and was loyal to Hitler until the end of World War II (1939-45). On May 1, 1945, the day after hitler committed suicide, Goebbels and his wife poisoned their six children and then killed themselves.
