Hitler, Adolf
Hitler, Adolf (1889–1945), German leader, Führer (leader) of the Nazi empire.Born in Austria, Hitler fought in the German Army as a corporal in World War I. Self‐styled Führer (leader) of the Nazi Party (NSDAP, or National Socialist German Workers' Party) after 1921, he was briefly imprisoned by the Weimar Republic following a failed coup d’état in Munich in 1923, during which time he wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle, 1924). The book sketched out Hitler's belief that the noble “Aryan” or Germanic race was engaged in a life‐and‐death battle with other inferior races, of which the Jews were the most insidious and dangerous. It called for the creation of a racially pure Reich (empire), ruled by a dictatorship, which would impose the German “master race” over the rest of “subhumanity.” In the wake of the Great Depression, the NSDAP became the largest party in Germany in 1932. Appointed Reich chancellor in 1933,...
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