Adolf Hitler

                                      ADOLF HITLER

 Adolf Hitler 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the Nazi Party. He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. Hitler was at the centre of Nazi Germany, World War II in Europe, and the Holocaust.

Hitler was a decorated veteran of World War I. He joined 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.

Early years,

Ancestry:

Hitler's father, Alois Hitler, Sr. (1837–1903), was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. Because the baptismal register did not show the name of his father, Alois initially bore his mother's surname, Schicklgruber. In 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Alois's mother, Maria Anna. After she died in 1847 and Johann Georg Hiedler in 1856, Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedler's brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler. In 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Alois's father (recorded as Georg Hitler). Alois then assumed the surname Hitler, also spelled as Hiedler,Hüttler, or Huettler. The Hitler surname is probably based on "one who lives in a hut"  or on "shepherd" alternatively, it might be derived from the Slavic words Hidlar or Hidlarcek.

                                

Childhood and education:

Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary (in present day Austria), close to the border with the German Empire. He was the fourth of six children to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl (1860–1907). Hitler's older siblings—Gustav, Ida, and Otto—died in infancy. When Hitler was three, the family moved to Passau, Germany. There he acquired the distinctive lower Bavarian dialect, rather thanAustrian German, which marked his speech throughout his life. In 1894 the family relocated to Leonding (near Linz), and in June 1895, Alois retired to a small landholding at Hafeld, near Lambach, where he farmed and kept bees. Hitler attended Volksschule in nearby Fischlham.

         

Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich:

The house in Leonding where Hitler spent his early adolescence (photo taken c. 1984)

From 1905, Hitler lived a bohemian life in Vienna, financed by orphan's benefits and support from his mother. He worked as a casual labourer and eventually as a painter, selling watercolours of Vienna's sights. Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts rejected him in 1907 and again 1908, citing "unfitness for painting". The director recommended that Hitler study architecture, which was also an interest, but he lacked academic credentials. On 21 December 1907, his mother died of breast cancer at the age of 47. After the academy's second rejection, Hitler ran out of money and was forced to live in homeless shelters and men's hostels.

 Military career of Adolf Hitler:

World War I:

At the outbreak of World War I, Hitler was living in Munich and volunteered to serve in the Bavarian Army as an Austrian citizen.Posted to the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 he served as a dispatch runner on the Western Front in France and Belgium, spending nearly half his time well behind the front lines. He was present at the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, and the Battle of Passchendaele, and was wounded at the Somme.He was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in 1914.On a recommendation by Lieutenant Hugo Gutmann, Hitler's Jewish superior, he received the Iron Cross First Class on 4 August 1918, a decoration rarely awarded to one of Hitler's Gefreiter rank.  He received the Black Wound Badge on 18 May 1918.