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Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was the leader of the Na

zi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and Fhrer of Nazi Germany fro
m 1934 to 1945. As effective dictator of Nazi Germany, Hitler was at the centre
of World War II in Europe and the Holocaust.
Hitler was a decorated veteran of World War I. He joined the precursor of the NS
DAP, the German Workers' Party, in 1919 and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921.
In 1923 he attempted a coup in Munich to seize power. The failed coup resulted i
n Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he dictated his autobiography and pol
itical manifesto Mein Kampf . After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular s
upport by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, anti-S
emitism, and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. Hitler
frequently denounced international capitalism and communism as being part of a
Jewish conspiracy.
Hitler's Nazi Party became the largest elected party in the German Reichstag, le
ading to his appointment as chancellor in 1933. Following fresh elections won by
his coalition, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which began the process o
f transforming the Weimar Republic into Nazi Germany, a single-party dictatorshi
p based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of National Socialism. Hitle
r aimed to eliminate Jews from Germany and establish a New Order to counter what
he saw as the injustice of the post-World War I international order dominated b
y Britain and France. His first six years in power resulted in rapid economic re
covery from the Great Depression, the denunciation of restrictions imposed on Ge
rmany after World War I, and the annexation of territories that were home to mil
lions of ethnic Germans actions which gave him significant popular support.
Hitler sought Lebensraum for the German people. His aggressive foreign policy i
s considered to be the primary cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe.
He directed large-scale rearmament and on 1 September 1939 invaded Poland, resul
ting in British and French declarations of war on Germany. In June 1941, Hitler
ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. By the end of 1941 German forces and th
e European Axis powers occupied most of Europe and North Africa. Failure to defe
at the Soviets and the entry of the United States into the war forced Germany on
to the defensive and it suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final da
Under Hitler's leadership and racially motivated ideology, the Nazi regime was r
esponsible for the genocide of at least 5.5 million Jews and millions of other v
ictims whom he and his followers deemed Untermenschen and socially undesirable.
Hitler and the Nazi regime were also responsible for the killing of an estimate
d 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war. In addition, 29 million soldiers
and civilians died as a result of military action in the European Theatre of Wor
ld War II. The number of civilians killed during the Second World War was unprec
edented in warfare, and constitutes the deadliest conflict in human history.
Early years
Hitler's father Alois Hitler, Sr. was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schi
cklgruber. The baptismal register did not show the name of his father, and Alois
initially bore his mother's surname Schicklgruber. In 1842, Johann Georg Hiedle
r married Alois's mother Maria Anna. She died in 1847 and Johann Georg Hiedler d
ied in 1856. Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedler's brother, Johann Nep
omuk Hiedler. In 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed
by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Alois's father . Alois then assu
med the surname Hitler, also spelled as Hiedler, Httler, or Huettler. The Hitler
surname is probably based on "one who lives in a hut" or on "shepherd" ; altern
atively, it might be derived from the Slavic words Hidlar or Hidlarcek .
Nazi official Hans Frank suggested that Alois's mother had been employed as a ho
usekeeper for a Jewish family in Graz, and that the family's 19-year-old son Leo
pold Frankenberger had fathered Alois. No Frankenberger was registered in Graz d
uring that period, and no record has been produced of Leopold Frankenberger's ex
istence, so historians dismiss the claim that Alois's father was Jewish.

Childhood and education

ary, close to the border with the German Empire. He was the fourth of six childr
en to Alois Hitler and Klara Plzl . Hitler's older siblings Gustav, Ida, and Otto die
d in infancy. When Hitler was three, the family moved to Passau, Germany. There
which marked his speech throughout his life. In 1894 the family relocated to Le
onding, and in June 1895, Alois retired to a small landholding at Hafeld, near L
ambach, where he farmed and kept bees. Hitler attended Volksschule in nearby Fi
The move to Hafeld coincided with the onset of intense father-son conflicts caus
ed by Hitler's refusal to conform to the strict discipline of his school. Alois
Hitler's farming efforts at Hafeld ended in failure, and in 1897 the family move
choir, and even considered becoming a priest. In 1898 the family returned perma
nently to Leonding. The death of his younger brother Edmund, who died from measl
es in 1900, deeply affected Hitler. He changed from a confident, outgoing, consc
ientious student to a morose, detached, sullen boy who constantly fought with hi
s father and teachers.
Alois had made a successful career in the customs bureau and wanted his son to f
ollow in his footsteps. Hitler later dramatised an episode from this period when
his father took him to visit a customs office, depicting it as an event that ga
ve rise to an unforgiving antagonism between father and son, who were both stron
g-willed. Ignoring his son's desire to attend a classical high school and become
an artist, Alois sent Hitler to the Realschule in Linz in