World of Criminal Justice on Adolf Hitler

Adolph Hitler was the most infamous political ruler of the twentieth century. Hitler rose from obscurity to become the leader of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, triggering World War II because of his expansionist foreign policy. Moreover, as the philosophical and political leader of the s National Socialist (Nazi) Party, Hitler implemented government policies based on anti-Semitism and racism. These policies became more severe over time and lead to the mass extermination of Jews, racial minorities and other groups. Though Hitler committed suicide in the last days of the war, many of his aides were convicted at the Nuremberg Trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Hitler was born in Braunauam Inn, Austria on April 20, 1889. Hitler dropped out of high school and moved to Vienna, but he found that his dream of becoming a painter was impossible to realize. At this time Vienna was a hot bed of ideas that centered on German nationalism and a virulent strain of anti-Semitism. Hitler soaked up these ideas, including the proposed merger of Austria and Germany. In 1913 he moved to Munich, Germany and firmly established his support of this nation by renouncing his Austrian citizenship. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Hitler had another opportunity to support his new motherland. He served as a corporal in an infantry regiment and was decorated after being wounded in 1917. When Germany surrendered in 1918, Hitler looked for ulterior reasons to explain the defeat. He, like many other Germans, concluded that the disloyalty of Jews and the political subversion of Communists had caused the defeat. Seen in this light, the only way to prevent this from happening in the future was to eliminate these groups from society.

In 1919 Hitler made a decisive change by becoming politically active for the first time in his life. He joined the German Worker's Party and within a year he had taken over its leadership. Renamed the National Socialist German Worker's Party (Nazi), Hitler's platform was simple: create a new nation that included all German people and rebuild the German military forces. Under the Treaty of Versailles, which the victors had required Germany to sign after World War I, Germany's armed forces were reduced to a shell of their former selves In addition, Germany was forced to pay billions of dollars to the Allies as war reparations. These provisions effectively consigned Germany to second-rate status and crippled its economy.

In 1923 Hitler led an unsuccessful takeover of German government. The so-called Beer Hal Putsch was an embarrassing failure for Hitler and the Nazis, as Munich police quickly subdued the insurrection lead by Nazi storm troopers. Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison for treason but political pressure led the government to release him after only serving nine months. During his imprisonment he wrote his political testament and blueprint for a Nazi regime, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). For the first time, Hitler expounded on his racial views, declaring that Germans were part of an Aryan race that was superior to all others. He also railed against the Jews and other "impure" groups. As for politics, Hitler advocated a dictatorship that would totally control German society and impose severe restrictions on groups hostile to his belief.

Hitler and the Nazi Party were regarded as a fringe group during the 1920s and were not taken seriously as a national force. This perception changed in the early 1930s as the world economic depression took hold in Germany. Political and economic instability led the public to listen more closely to Hitler's calls for the rebuilding of Germany and the repudiation of the Treaty of Versailles. The popularity of the Nazis skyrocketed and by 1933 Hitler had taken office as chancellor of Germany. Despite his extreme views, the economic and political leadership still did not take him seriously. They soon found out that Hitler's actions matched his extreme beliefs. Through a series of phony events, Hitler engineered the shift from democracy to dictatorship. He abolished all other political parties as well as all labor unions.

In addition, he named himself Fuhrer, the leader of Germany. He was the first modern leader to understand the importance of the mass media, creating a propaganda ministry that controlled the press. In addition, he established large secret police force that used terror as its weapon to maintain Nazi dominance. Finally, Hitler imposed racial laws that effectively removed Jews from civil society. However, he soon went beyond discrimination to persecution, locking up Jews and political enemies in concentration camps.

Hitler followed through with his plan and repudiated the Treaty of Versailles. At first he tried to keep Germany's rearmament a secret but by 1935 he proudly displayed Germany's new army, navy and air force. European nations did nothing to enforce the treaty, leading Hitler to conclude that he could begin to create his vision of a new German nation. In1936 he reclaimed the Rhineland from France and in 1938 he annexed Austria to Germany. France and Great Britain agreed at a meeting in Munich to the annexation on the understanding that Hitler would make no more territorial demands. The Munich agreement only made Hitler more convinced that he could continue his expansion. Within months German troops had marched into German-populated areas of Czechoslovakia and in 1939 Hitler annexed all of that country. Britain and France finally reacted when Hitler's armies invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. War was declared, leading to the Second World War that would last until 1945.

Hitler and his generals destroyed the French Army in 1940 and soon occupied Poland, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and Norway. Hitler sought to invade Great Britain but a vicious air war eventually discouraged an invasion. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States and Great Britain became allies. Hitler's great blunder came in June 1941, when he ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union. The two countries had been allies to that point and had divided Polish territory. Though the German army drove deep into Russia, a harsh winter stopped it in it tracks. Within a year the army was in full retreat. The Allies made steady progress and in June of 1944 they invaded France. Soon these forces had broken out and began a drive to Germany itself. By early 1945 the Soviet armies on the east and the U.S. and British forces on the west were pushing deeper into Germany. Hitler, who had taken over control of the German military, threw old men and young boys into the cause but it was hopeless. As the war moved to a close, the extermination of Jews and other peoples accelerated at the death camps.

As Soviet troops entered Berlin, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. Many of his top aides were tried and executed for the crimes that Hitler ordered during his twelve year rule.

Recent Updates

October 2003: Hitler's Second Book, a continuation of Mein Kampf, is published by Enigma Books in October, 2003. The rare manuscript, newly translated by Krista Smith, is edited by Gerhard L. Weinberg, who also writes an introduction to the book and verifies its authenticity. The book was first published in German in 1961, and a previous English translation, long out of print, was published by Grove Press. Source: New York Times, , June 17, 2003.

February 24, 2005: Authorities in Bavaria, Germany, who hold the rights to Hitler's Mein Kampf sought legal action to prevent publication of the book in Poland.
March 11, 2005: The Czech Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Michal Zitko, who had published a translation of Hitler's Mein Kampf. The court acknowledged that publishing the work was not the same as endorsing its philosophy.

March 21, 2005: The Hitler Book, based on documents recently discovered in a Moscow archive by historians Mattias Uhl and Henrik Eberle, was published in Germany. The book is comprised of interviews with Hitler's aides Heinz Linge and Otto Gunsche, who were captured by the Russians and interrogated for years at the behest of Josef Stalin. The book contains previously unknown information about Hitler's final days in a Berlin bunker. Source: Guardian, March 21, 2005.