who was adolf hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German dictator who led Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, started World War II in Europe, and directed the Holocaust, in which millions of Jews and other victims were murdered.

Quick Scoop: Who was Adolf Hitler?

• Born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary, and died by suicide on 30 April 1945 in Berlin, Germany.

• Leader of the Nazi Party and dictator of Germany, holding the combined roles of chancellor and Führer from 1933 until his death.

• Central architect of World War II in Europe after ordering the invasion of Poland in 1939.

• Ideology based on extreme nationalism, racism, antisemitism, and the pursuit of territorial expansion (Lebensraum) in Eastern Europe.

• Directly responsible for the Holocaust, the systematic genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other civilians and prisoners of war.

Early life and rise to power

• Hitler grew up in Austria, later living in Vienna and then moving to Germany in 1913, where he served as a soldier in World War I.

• After the war he joined the German Workers’ Party in 1919, which became the Nazi Party; he quickly rose to party leadership using aggressive propaganda and charismatic speeches.

• In 1923 he attempted a failed coup in Munich (the Beer Hall Putsch), was imprisoned, and there dictated his book Mein Kampf , setting out his political program and racist worldview.

• The economic crisis and political instability of the Weimar Republic allowed him to rebuild the Nazi Party and expand its support in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Dictatorship and World War II

• Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in January 1933 after the Nazi Party became the largest party in parliament, though without a majority.

• He rapidly dismantled democracy, turning Germany into a one-party totalitarian state through emergency decrees, violence against opponents, and the Enabling Act of 1933.

• After President Paul von Hindenburg’s death in 1934, Hitler merged the offices of president and chancellor and declared himself Führer, with the army swearing personal loyalty to him.

• His aggressive foreign policy, including rearmament, tearing up the Versailles restrictions, and territorial expansion, led to the invasion of Poland in 1939 and the outbreak of World War II.

The Holocaust and crimes

• Under Hitler’s leadership, the Nazi state pursued a radical racist project aimed at eliminating Jews from Europe and persecuting many other groups, such as Roma, disabled people, and political opponents.

• The Holocaust killed about six million Jews, alongside millions of other civilians and prisoners of war, making World War II the deadliest conflict in history.

• Nazi policies included ghettos, mass shootings, concentration camps, and extermination camps explicitly designed for industrialized murder.

Defeat and legacy

• As the war turned against Germany after 1941, Hitler’s decisions—such as invading the Soviet Union and declaring war on the United States—contributed to eventual defeat.

• In April 1945, with Allied forces closing in on Berlin, he married his long‑time partner Eva Braun and the couple committed suicide in his bunker shortly afterward; their bodies were burned on his orders.

• Hitler’s rule left tens of millions dead, much of Europe devastated, and a lasting global recognition of Nazi Germany and its leader as a symbol of modern political evil.

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