National Socialism (common English short form Nazism, German: ''Nationalsozialismus'') was the ideology practiced by the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany. It is a unique variety of fascism that incorporates biological racism and antisemitism. Nazism was founded out of elements of the far-right racist ''völkisch'' German nationalist movement and the violent anti-communist ''Freikorps'' paramilitary culture that fought against the uprisings of communist revolutionaries in post-World War I Germany. The ideology was developed as a means to draw workers away from communism and into ''völkisch'' nationalism. Nazis' paramilitary organization, the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) engaged in violent attacks upon the movement's opponents, particularly communists, Jews, and social democrats. The Nazis promoted German territorial expansionism to be ''Lebensraum'' ("living space") for German settlers.

Nazism advocated the supremacy of the claimed Aryan master race over all other races. It claimed that Jews are the greatest threat to the Aryan race. The Nazis claimed that Jews are a parasitic race that attached itself to various movements and systems to maintain its self-preservation, such as capitalism, the Enlightenment, industrialisation, liberalism, liberal democracy, Marxism, and trade unionism. To maintain the purity and strength of the Aryan race, the Nazis sought to exterminate Jews, Romani, and the physically and mentally disabled. Other groups deemed "degenerate" and "asocial" who were not targeted for immediate extermination, but received exclusionary treatment by the Nazi state, included: homosexuals, blacks, Jehovah's Witnesses and political opponents.

Nazism promoted an economic system that supported a stratified economy with classes based on merit and talent while rejecting universal egalitarianism, retaining private property, freedom of contract, and promoted the creation of national solidarity that would transcend class distinction. Hitler claimed that unconditional equality of opportunity for all able racially-sound Aryan German males in Germany was the essence of the socialism of German National Socialism. Initially Nazi political strategy focused on anti-big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric, though such aspects were later downplayed in the 1930s to gain the support from industrial owners for the Nazis; the focus shifting to anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist themes. The Nazis criminalized strikes by employees and lockouts by employers for being contrary to national unity and the state took over the approval process of setting wage and salary levels.

The Nazis were presented by Hitler and other proponents and viewed by some scholars as being neither left-wing nor right-wing but politically syncretic. Hitler in ''Mein Kampf'' directly attacked both left-wing and right-wing politics in Germany, he accused the political left of committing treason against Germany when left-wing politicians signed the Treaty of Versailles, he accused the political right as deserving equal reproach as the left, for being cowards in allowing the disarmament of Germany as stipulated by Versailles. However major elements of Nazism have been deemed as clearly far-right, such as its goals of the right of claimed superior people to dominate while purging society of claimed inferior elements.

Etymology[link]

The full title of Adolf Hitler's party was ''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (National Socialist German Workers' Party). The term ''Nazi'' was an "acronym formed from the first syllable of ''NAtional'' and the second syllable of ''SoZIalist''. Such terms, usually formed from the initial letters or syllables of successive parts of compound names, were popular in the Third Reich. Another typical example was Gestapo for ''Geheime Staatspolizei'' (Secret State Police)."

Position in the political spectrum[link]

A majority of scholars identify Nazism in practice as a form of far-right politics. Far right themes in Nazism include the argument that superior people have a right to dominate over others and purge society of supposed inferior elements. Adolf Hitler and other proponents, however, officially portrayed Nazism as being neither left- nor right-wing, but syncretic. Hitler in ''Mein Kampf'' directly attacked both left-wing and right-wing politics in Germany, saying:

Today our left-wing politicians in particular are constantly insisting that their craven-hearted and obsequious foreign policy necessarily results from the disarmament of Germany, whereas the truth is that this is the policy of traitors [...] But the politicians of the Right deserve exactly the same reproach. It was through their miserable cowardice that those ruffians of Jews who came into power in 1918 were able to rob the nation of its arms.

The Nazis were strongly influenced by the post-World War I far-right in Germany, which held common beliefs such as anti-Marxism, anti-liberalism, and anti-Semitism, along with a chauvinist nationalism, contempt towards the Treaty of Versailles, and condemnnation of the Weimar Republic for signing the armistice in November 1918 that later led to their signing of the Treaty of Versailles. A major inspiration for the Nazis were the far-right nationalist ''Freikorps'', paramilitary organizations that engaged in political violence immediately after World War I. Initially, the post-World War I German far right was dominated by monarchists, but the far right's younger generation, who were associated with ''völkisch'' nationalism, were more radical than the older generation and did not express any emphasis on a restoration of the German monarchy. This younger generation desired to dismantle the Weimar Republic and create a new radical and strong state based upon a martial ruling ethic that could revive the "Spirit of 1914" that was associated with German national unity (volksgemeinschaft).

The Nazis, the far-right monarchist and reactionary German National People's Party (DNVP), and others, such as monarchist officers of the German army and several prominent industrialists, who shared a common opposition to the Weimar Republic, formed an alliance on 11 October 1931 in Bad Harzburg, officially known as the "National Front", but commonly referred to as the Harzburg Front. The Nazis stated that the alliance was purely tactical and that there remained substantial differences between them and the DNVP. The Nazis described the DNVP as a bourgeois party and called themselves an anti-bourgeois party. The alliance with the DNVP broke in 1932 after the election in which DNVP lost many of its seats in the Reichstag, with the Nazis denouncing them as "an insignificant heap of reactionaries". The denouncements by the Nazis upon the DNVP for its reactionary stances were responded by the DNVP denouncing the Nazis for their socialism, their street violence, and the "economic experiments" that would take place if the Nazis rose to power.

There were factions in the Nazi Party, both conservative and radical.

The conservative Nazi Hermann Göring urged Hitler to conciliate with capitalists and reactionaries. Other prominent conservative Nazis included Heinrich Himmler, who was more conservative than Göring; and Reinhard Heydrich.

The radical Nazi Joseph Goebbels, hated capitalism, viewing it as having Jews at its core, and he stressed the need for the party to emphasize both a proletarian and national character. Those views were shared by Otto Strasser, who later left the Nazi Party in the belief that Hitler had betrayed the party's supposed socialist goals by allegedly endorsing capitalism. Large segments of the Nazi Party staunchly supported its official socialist, revolutionary, and anti-capitalist positions and expected both a social and economic revolution upon the party gaining power in Germany in 1933. Of the million members of the Sturmabteilung (SA), many were committed to the party's official socialist program. The leader of the SA, Ernst Röhm, supported a "second revolution" (the "first revolution" being the Nazis' seizure of power) that would entrench the party's official socialist program, and he demanded the replacement of the nonpolitical German army with a Nazi-led army.

Prior to becoming an anti-Semite and a Nazi, Hitler had served the Bavarian Soviet Republic from 1918 to 1919, where he was elected Deputy Battalion Representative of his communist-led battalion, and he attended the funeral of communist Kurt Eisner (a German Jew), where Hitler wore a black mourning armband on one arm and a red communist armband on the other. Hitler's political beliefs had not yet solidified by then, and at that time he supported the idea of a classless society and was an anti-monarchist. In ''Mein Kampf'', Hitler never mentioned his service with the Bavarian Soviet Republic, and he claimed that he became an anti-Semite in 1913 in Vienna, when in fact he was not an anti-Semite at that time. Hitler massively altered his political views in response to the Treaty of Versailles of June 1919, and it was then that he became an anti-Semitic German nationalist. As a Nazi, Hitler both in public and in private, had expressed opposition to capitalism; he regarded capitalism as having Jewish origins, and accused capitalism of holding nations ransom in the interests of a parasitic cosmopolitan rentier class.

Hitler took a pragmatic position between the conservative and radical factions of the Nazi Party, in that he accepted private property and allowed capitalist private enterprises to exist as long as they obeyed the goals of the Nazi state, but if a capitalist private enterprise resisted Nazi goals, he sought to destroy it. Upon the Nazis achieving power, Röhm's SA began attacks against individuals deemed to be associated with conservative reaction, without Hitler's authorization to do so. This resulted in Hitler purging Röhm and other radical members of the SA.

Alhough he opposed communist ideology, Hitler on numerous occasions publicly praised the Soviet Union's leader Joseph Stalin and Stalinism. Hitler commended Stalin for seeking to purify the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of Jewish influences, noting Stalin's purging of Jewish communists such as Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Karl Radek. While Hitler always intended to eventually bring Germany into territorial expansionist conflict against the Soviet Union to gain ''Lebensraum'' ("living space"), Hitler supported a temporary strategic alliance between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to form a common anti-liberal front to crush liberal democracies, particularly France.

Origins[link]

On 5 January 1919, the locksmith Anton Drexler, and five other men, founded the ''Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP — German Workers' Party), the predecessor of the ''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (NSDAP — National Socialist German Workers' Party). In July 1919, the ''Reichswehr'' intelligence department despatched Corporal Adolf Hitler, as a ''Verbindungsmann'' (police spy) to infiltrate and report on the DAP. His oratory so impressed the DAP members, they asked him to join the party, and, in September 1919, the police spy Hitler became the party's propagandist. On 24 February 1920, the DAP was renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party, against Hitler's preferred "Social Revolutionary Party" name. Later, in consolidating his control of the NSDAP, Hitler ousted Drexler from the party and assumed leadership on 29 July 1921.

The post-war crises of Weimar Germany (1919–33) consolidated Nazism as an ideology: military defeat in the World War I (1914–18), capitulation with the Treaty of Versailles, economic depression, and the consequent societal instability. In exploiting, and excusing, the military defeat, Nazism proffered the political ''Dolchstosslegende'' ("Legend of the Dagger-stab in the Back") claiming that the Imperial German war effort was internally sabotaged, by Jews, socialists, and Bolsheviks. Proposing that, because the ''Reichwehr'''s defeat did not occur in Germany, the sabotage included a lack of patriotism among their political antagonists, specifically the Social Democrats and the Ebert Government, whom the Nazis accused of treason.

Nationalism, antisemitism and racism[link]

The seminal ideas of Nazism originated in the German cultural past of the ''Völkisch'' (folk) movement and the superstitions of Ariosophy, an occultism that proposed the Germanic peoples as the purest examples of the Aryan race, whose cultures feature runic symbols and the swastika. From among the Ariosophs, only the ''Thule-Gesellschaft'' (Thule Society) in Munich, features in the origin of Nazism; they sponsored the DAP.

Phillip Wayne Powell writes that "in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, a powerful surge of German patriotism was stimulated by the disdain of Italians for German cultural inferiority and barbarism, which led to a counter-attempt, by German humanists, to laud German qualities." M.W. Fodor wrote in ''The Nation'' in 1936, "No race has suffered so much from an inferiority complex as has the German. National Socialism was a kind of Coué method of converting the inferiority complex, at least temporarily, into a feeling of superiority".

One of the most significant ideological influences on the Nazis came from the German nationalist Johann Gottlieb Fichte, whose works Hitler read, and who was recognized by other Nazi members including Dietrich Eckart and Arnold Fanck. In ''Speeches to the German Nation'' (1808), written amid Napoleonic France's occupation of Berlin, Fichte called for a German national revolution against the French occupiers, making passionate public speeches, arming his students for battle against the French, and stressing the need of action by the German nation to free itself. Fichte's nationalism was populist and opposed to traditional elites, and spoke of the need of a "People's War" (''Volkskrieg''), putting forward concepts much like those the Nazis adopted. Fichte promoted German exceptionalism and stressed the need for the German nation to be purified. This priority included purging the German language of French words, a policy that the Nazis undertook upon rising to power.

''Völkisch'' nationalism denounced soulless materialism, individualism, and secularized urban industrial society, while advocating a "superior" society based on ethnic German "folk" culture and way of life, based upon German "blood". It also denounced foreigners, foreign ideas and declared that Jews, national minorities, Catholics, and Freemasons were "traitors to the nation" and unworthy of inclusion in the German ''Volk''. ''Völkisch'' nationalism saw the world in terms of natural law and romanticism, viewed societies as organic, it extolled the virtues of rural life, condemned the neglect of tradition and decay of morals, denounced the destruction of the natural environment, and condemned "cosmopolitan" cultures such as Jews and Romani.

During the era of Imperial Germany, ''völkisch'' nationalism was overshadowed by both Prussian patriotism and the federalist tradition of various states within Imperial Germany. The events of World War I including the end of the Prussian monarchy in Germany, resulted in a surge of revolutionary ''völkisch'' nationalism. The Nazis supported such revolutionary ''völkisch'' nationalist policies. The Nazis claimed that their ideology was influenced by the leadership and policies of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the founder of the German Empire. The Nazis declared that they were dedicated to continuing the process of creating a unified German nation state that Bismarck had begun and desired to achieve. While Hitler was supportive of Bismarck's creation of the German Empire, he was critical of Bismarck's moderate domestic policies. On the issue of Bismarck's support of a ''Kleindeutschland'' ("Lesser Germany", excluding Austria) versus the pan-German ''Großdeutschland'' ("Greater Germany") of the Nazis, Hitler claimed that Bismarck's attainment of ''Kleindeutschland'' was the "highest achievement" that Bismarck could have achieved "within the limits possible of that time". In ''Mein Kampf'' (''My Struggle''), Hitler presented himself as a "second Bismarck".

The concept of the Aryan race that the Nazis used stems from racial theories asserting that Europeans are the descendants of Indo-Iranian settlers, people of ancient India and ancient Persia. Proponents of this theory based their assertion on the similarity of European words and their meaning to those of Indo-Iranian languages. Johann Gottfried Herder argued that the Germanic peoples held close racial connections with the ancient Indians and ancient Persians, who he claimed were advanced peoples possessing a great capacity for wisdom, nobility, restraint, and science. Contemporaries of Herder utilized the concept of the Aryan race to draw a distinction between what they deemed "high and noble" Aryan culture versus that of "parasitic" Semitic culture.

Notions of white supremacy and Aryan racial superiority combined in the nineteenth century, with white supremacists maintaining that white people were members of an Aryan "master race" that is superior to all other races, and particularly superior to the Semitic race, which they associated with "cultural sterility". Arthur de Gobineau, a French racial theorist and aristocrat, blamed the fall of the ''ancien régime'' in France on racial degeneracy caused by racial intermixing, which he argued destroyed the purity of the Aryan race. Gobineau's theories, which attracted a strong following in Germany, emphasized the existence of an irreconcilable polarity between Aryan and Jewish cultures.

Aryan mysticism claimed that Christianity originated in Aryan religious tradition and that Jews had usurped the legend from Aryans. Houston Stewart Chamberlain, an English proponent of racial theory, supported notions of Germanic supremacy and anti-Semitism in Germany. Chamberlain's work, ''Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'' (1899) praised Germanic peoples for their creativity and idealism while asserting that the Germanic spirit was threatened by a "Jewish" spirit of selfishness and materialism. Chamberlain used his thesis to promote monarchical conservatism while denouncing democracy, liberalism, and socialism. The book became popular, especially in Germany. Chamberlain stressed the need of a nation to maintain racial purity in order to prevent degeneration, and argued that racial intermingling with Jews should never be permitted. In 1923, Chamberlain met Hitler, whom he admired as a leader of the rebirth of the free spirit.

Beginning in the 1870s, German ''völkisch'' nationalism began to adopt anti-Semitic and racist themes and was adopted by a number of radical right political movements.

''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' (1912) was an anti-Semitic forgery created by police of the Russian Empire. Anti-Semites believed it was real and the Protocol surged in popularity after World War I. ''The Protocols'' claimed that there was a secret international Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. Hitler had been introduced to ''The Protocols'' by Alfred Rosenberg, and from 1920 onward Hitler focused his attacks on claiming that Judaism and Marxism were directly connected and that Jews and Bolsheviks were one and the same and that Marxism was a Jewish ideology. Hitler believed that ''The Protocols'' were authentic.

Radical anti-Semitism was promoted by prominant advocates of ''völkisch'' nationalism including Eugen Diederichs, Paul de Lagarde, and Julius Langbehn. De Lagarde called the Jews a "bacillus, the carrier of decay...who pollute every national culture...and destroy all faith with their materialistic liberalism" and he called for the extermination of the Jews. Langbehn called for a war of annihilation of the Jews and Langbehn's genocidal policies were published by the Nazis and given to soldiers on the front during World War II.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte accused Jews in Germany of having been, and inevitably continuing to be a "state within a state" in Germany that was a threat to German national unity. Fichte promoted two options to address this: the first was the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine to impel the Jews to leave Europe. The other option was violence against Jews, saying that the goal would be "To cut off all their heads in one night, and set new ones on their shoulders, which should not contain a single Jewish idea".

The Nazis claimed that Bismarck was unable to complete German national unification because of Jewish infiltration of the German parliament, and that their abolition of parliament ended the obstacle to unification. Using the "stab in the back" legend, the Nazis accused German Jews, and other populaces it considered non-German, of possessing extra-national loyalties, thereby exacerbating German anti-semitism about the ''Judenfrage'' (the Jewish Question), the perennial far right political canard popular when the ethnic Völkisch movement and their politics of Romantic nationalism for establishing a ''Großdeutschland'' were strong.

Nazism's racial policy positions were also developed from the views of important biologists of the 19th century, including French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and the father of genetics, German botanist Gregor Mendel. Lamarckism was an important influence on Nazism. In particular the variant developed by Ernst Haeckel, was utilized by the Nazis. Unlike Darwinian theory, Lamarckian theory officially ranked races in a hierarchy of evolution from apes while Darwinian theory did not grade races in a hierarchy of higher or lower evolution from apes, simply categorizing humans as a whole of all as having progressed in evolution from apes. Many Lamarckians viewed "lower" races as having been exposed to debilitating conditions for too long for any significant "improvement" of their condition in the near future. Haeckel utilized Lamarckian theory to describe the existence of interracial struggle and put races on a hierarchy of evolution, ranging from being wholly human to subhuman.

Mendelism was supported by the Nazis and also mainstream eugenics proponents at the time were Mendelian. Mendelian theory of inheritance declared that genetic traits and attributes were passed from one generation to another. Proponents of eugenics used Mendelian inheritance theory to demonstrate the transfer of biological illness and impairments from parents to children, including mental disability; others also utilized Mendelian theory to demonstrate the inheritance of social traits, with racialists claiming a racial nature of certain general traits such as inventiveness or criminal behaviour.

Fascism and National Socialism[link]

During World War I, sociologist Johann Plenge spoke of the rise of a "National Socialism" in Germany within what he termed the "ideas of 1914" that were a declaration of war against the "ideas of 1789" (the French Revolution). According to Plenge, the "ideas of 1789" that included rights of man, democracy, individualism and liberalism were being rejected in favour of "the ideas of 1914" that included "German values" of duty, discipline, law, and order. Plenge believed that ethnic solidarity (''volksgemeinschaft'') would replace class division and that "racial comrades" would unite to create a socialist society in the struggle of "proletarian" Germany against "capitalist" Britain. He believed that the "Spirit of 1914" manifested itself in the concept of the "People's League of National Socialism". This National Socialism was a form of state socialism that rejected the "idea of boundless freedom" and promoted an economy that would serve the whole of Germany under the leadership of the state. This National Socialism was opposed to capitalism due to the components that were against "the national interest" of Germany, but insisted that National Socialism would strive for greater efficiency in the economy. Plenge advocated an authoritarian rational ruling elite to develop National Socialism through a hierarchical technocratic state.

Plenge's arguments at the time were recognized by a diverse group of people as an important argument in favour of social justice promoted within a strong state, including: right-wing Social Democrats Konrad Haenisch, Heinrich Cunow, Paul Lench and Kurt Schumacher; Conservative Revolutionaries including Arthur Moeller van den Bruck and Max Hildebert Boehm; and Nazis including Ernst Krieck, Gottfried Feder and Eduard Stadtler. Plenge's ideas formed the basis of Nazism.

Oswald Spengler, a German cultural philosopher, was a major influence on Nazism, although after 1933 Spengler became alienated from Nazism and was later condemned by the Nazis for criticizing Adolf Hitler. Spengler's conception of nationali socialism and a number of his political views were shared by the Nazis as well as the Conservative Revolutionary movement. Spengler's views were also popular amongst Italian Fascists, including Benito Mussolini.

Spengler's book ''The Decline of the West'' (1918) written during the final months of World War I, addressed the claim of decadence of modern European civilization, whicht he claimed was caused by atomizing and irreligious individualization and cosmopolitanism. In ''Decline of the West'', Spengler's major thesis was that a law of historical development of cultures existed involving a cycle of birth, maturity, aging, and death when it reaches its final form of civilization. Upon reaching the point of civilization, a culture will lose its creative capacity and succumb to decadence until the emergence of "barbarians" create a new epoch. Spengler considered the Western world as having succumbed to decadence of intellect, money, cosmopolitan urban life, irreligious life, atomized individualization, and the end of biological fertility as well as "spiritual" fertility. He believed that the "young" German nation as an imperial power would inherit the legacy of Ancient Rome and lead a restoration of value in "blood" and instinct, while the ideals of rationalism would be revealed as absurd.

In ''Preussentum und Sozialismus'' ("Prussiandom and Socialism", 1919), Spengler described "socialism" outside of a class conflict perspective, saying: "The meaning of socialism is that life is controlled not by the opposition between rich and poor, but by the rank that achievement and talent bestow. That is ''our'' freedom, freedom from the economic despotism of the individual." Spengler utilized the anti-English ideas addressed by Plenge and Sombart during World War I that condemned English liberalism and English parliamentarianism while advocating a national socialism that was free from Marxism that would connect the individual to the state through corporatist organization. Spengler claimed that socialistic Prussian characteristics existed across Germany, including creativity, discipline, concern for the greater good, productivity, and self-sacrifice.

Spengler's definition of socialism did not advocate a change to property relations. He denounced Marxism for seeking to train the proletariat to "expropriate the expropriator", the capitalist, and then to let them live a life of leisure on this expropriation. He claimed that "Marxism is the capitalism of the working class" and not true socialism. True socialism, according to Spengler, would be in the form of corporatism, stating that "local corporate bodies organized according to the importance of each occupation to the people as a whole; higher representation in stages up to a supreme council of the state; mandates revocable at any time; no organized parties, no professional politicians, no periodic elections."

In ''Preussentum und Sozialismus'' Spengler prescribed war as a necessity, saying "War is the eternal form of higher human existence and states exist for war: they are the expression of the will to war."

Fascism was a major influence on Nazism. The seizure of power by Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini in the March on Rome in 1922 drew admiration by Hitler who less than a month after the March had begun to model himself and the Nazi Party upon Mussolini and the Fascists. After the March on Rome, Hitler presented the Nazis as a German fascism. The Nazis attempted a "March on Berlin" modelled upon the March on Rome that resulted in the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in November 1923. Although Hitler strongly admired Mussolini and fascism, other Nazis — especially more radical Nazis such as Gregor Strasser, Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler — rejected Italian Fascism, accusing it of being too conservative or capitalist. Alfred Rosenberg condemned Italian Fascism for being racially confused and having influences from philo-Semitism. Strasser criticized the policy of ''Führerprinzip'' as being created by Mussolini, and considered its presence in Nazism as a foreign import. Throughout the relationship between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, a number of lower-ranking Nazis scornfully viewed fascism as a conservative movement that lacked a full revolutionary potential.

Ideology[link]

The Nazis advocated a strong, central government under the Führer, for defending Germany and the German nation, the ''Volk'', against communism and Jewish subversion. To the end of establishing ''Großdeutschland'' (Greater Germany), the German peoples must acquire ''Lebensraum'' (living space) from Russia.

From 1920 to 1923, Hitler formulated his ideology, then published it in 1925–26, as ''Mein Kampf'', a two-volume, biography and political manifesto.

Though Hitler for "tactical" reasons had rhetorically declared a 1920 party platform with socialist platitudes "unshakable," actually "many paragraphs of the party program were obviously merely a demagogic appeal to the mood of the lower classes at a time when they were in bad straits and were sympathetic to radical and even socialist slogans...Point 11, for example...Point 12...nationalization...Point 16...communalization.... put in at the insistence of Drexler and Feder, who apparently really believed in the 'socialism' of National Socialism." In actual practice, such points were mere slogans, "most of them forgotten by the time the party came to power.... the Nazi leader himself was later to be embarrassed when reminded of some of them." Historian Conan Fischer argues that the Nazis were sincere in their use of the adjective ''socialist'', which the saw as inseparable from the adjective ''national'', and meant it as a socialism of the master race, rather than the socialism of the "underprivileged and oppressed seeking justice and equal rights."

Social class[link]

In 1922, Adolf Hitler discredited other nationalist and racialist political parties as disconnected from the mass populace, especially lower- and working-class young people:

Despite many working-class supporters and members, the appeal of the Nazi Party to the working class was neither true nor effective, because its politics mostly appealed to the middle class, as a stabilizing, pro-business political party, not a revolutionary workers' party. In 1936, Himmler established the "Reichszentrale zur Bekämpfung der Homosexualität und Abtreibung" ("Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion"). The Nazi régime incarcerated some 100,000 homosexuals during the 1930s. As concentration camp prisoners, homosexual men were forced to wear pink triangle badges.

Racial policy[link]

Hitler viewed race as being in a hierarchy, and spoke of the "aristocratic idea of nature" in which there existed an inequality of races where the superior and higher values of the Aryan race was the basis of all civilization. Through struggle and proper "breeding", the "strong" would subdue the "weak" and rise to dominance. Nazi policy since 1920 emphasized that only people of "German blood" could be considered German citizens while no one of Jewish descent could be a German citizen. To maintain the purity and strength of the Aryan race, the Nazis sought to exterminate Jews, Romani, and the physically and mentally disabled. Other groups deemed "degenerate" and "asocial" who were not targeted for extermination, but received exclusionary treatment by the Nazi state, included: homosexuals, blacks, Jehovah's Witnesses and political opponents. The number of German blacks was low, but there were some instances of them being enlisted within Nazi organisations like the Hitler Youth and later the Wehrmacht.

The racist subject of Nazism is ''Das Volk'', the German people living under continual cultural attack by Judeo-Bolshevism, who must unite under Nazi Party leadership, and, per the spartan nationalist tenets of Nazism: be stoic, self-disciplined and self-sacrificing until victory.

The Jewish–Bolshevism conspiracy theory derives from anti-Semitism and anti-communism; Adolf Hitler claimed to have first developed his worldview from living and observing Viennese life from 1907 to 1913, concluding that the Austro–Hungarian Empire comprised racial, religious, and cultural hierarchies; per his interpretations, atop were the "Aryans", the ultimate, white master race, whilst Jews and Gypsies were at bottom.

However, recent research strongly suggests that Hitler's virulent antisemitism was mostly a post war development, product of influences from the Russian civil war and that in his Vienna years it played little part in his thinking. The idea of the Russian roots of Nazism has been explored by Walter Laqueur and more recently filled out in much more detail by Michael Kellogg

Their ideas were synthesized by the Reichstag Secretary, Alfred Rosenberg, in ''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'', a pseudoscientific treatise proposing that: "[F]rom a northern centre of creation which, without postulating an actual submerged Atlantic continent, we may call Atlantis, swarms of warriors once fanned out, in obedience to the ever-renewed and incarnate Nordic longing for distance to conquer and space to shape". According to Terrence Ball and Richard Bellamy, ''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' is the second-most important book to Nazism, after ''Mein Kampf''. thumb|left|220px|Sketch plan of Treblinka extermination camp. Between the years 1942 and 1943, more than 850,000 Jews were murdered there and only 54 survived..

Hitler declared that racial conflict against Jews was necessary to save Germany from suffering under them and dispensed concerns about such conflict being inhumane or an injustice, saying:

We may be inhumane, but if we rescue Germany we have achieved the greatest deed in the world. We may work injustice, but if we rescue Germany then we have removed the greatest injustice in the world. We may be immoral, but if our people is rescued we have opened the way for morality.

In Germany, the master-race populace was realised by purifying the ''Deutsches Volk'' via (see: eugenics; the culmination was involuntary euthanasia of disabled people, and the compulsory sterilization of the mentally retarded. The ideologic justification was Adolf Hitler's consideration of Sparta(11th c.–195 BC) as the original ''Völkisch'' state; he praised their dispassionate destruction of congenitally deformed infants in maintaining racial purity:

Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels said: "The Jew is the enemy and destroyer of the purity of blood, the conscious destroyer of our race ... As socialists, we are opponents of the Jews, because we see, in the Hebrews, the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation's goods."

Church and State[link]

Point 24 of the Nazi Party Programme of 1920 guaranteed freedom for all religious denominations not inimical to the State and endorsed Positive Christianity to combat “the Jewish-materialist spirit”.

Relations between the Nazi state and the Catholic Church were regulated by the Concordat signed in July of that year, an agreement upheld by both parties despite breaches which were criticized in 1937 in Pope Pius XI’s encyclical ''With Burning Anxiety (Mit brennender Sorge)''.

The historian Joachim Remak thought that political innocence and misjudgement of the Nazis' true aims played their parts in the churches' acceptance of the new regime. Traditional Christianity in Germany had also been undermined by racist and pagan ideologues in the 19th century who had progressively stripped Christianity of its "Jewish" features" and attempted to remould the biblical Christ into an "Aryan" superman.

Hitler respected the power of the Catholic Church and was wary of the negative effect any open confrontation might have on German public opinion. Hitler saw the churches as embodying a socially conservative element that could not be replaced by party ideology. He was prepared to tolerate them as long as they recognised the supremacy of the State and did not interfere in secular affairs.

Dissenting voices were heard in both mainstream churches, especially on the question of the regime's policy of euthanasia. In the case of the Catholic Church opposition was expressed by individual priests and bishops who were punished by internment in concentration camps. Official harassment of the churches ceased on the outbreak of war. While party fanatics like Bormann continued to press for a campaign against the churches (''Kirchenkampf''), Hitler wanted this postponed until after the war. Both mainstream churches continued to supply chaplains to the armed forces and offered prayers for the Führer from their pulpits. By the war's end the relationship between the Nazi state and the churches was still a "major unresolved issue".

Thule Society[link]

Several of the founders and leaders of the Nazi Party were members of the ''Thule-Gesellschaft'' (Thule Society), who romanticized Aryan race superstitions with ritual and theology. Generally, the society's lectures and excursions comprised anti-Semitism and Germanic antiquity, yet it is historically notable for having fought as a paramilitary militia against the Bavarian Soviet Republic. The DAP was initially supported by the Thule Society — but Hitler quickly excluded them in favour of a mass movement political party, by denigrating their superstitious approach to politics.

Luther and Nazi propaganda[link]

The Nazis publicly displayed an original of Martin Luther's ''On the Jews and their Lies'' during the annual Nuremberg rallies, and the city also presented a first edition of it to Julius Streicher, the editor of ''Der Stürmer'', which described Luther's treatise as the most radically anti-Semitic tract ever published. Protestant Bishop Martin Sasse published a compendium of Martin Luther's writings shortly after Kristallnacht; in the introduction, he approved of the burning of synagogues and mentioned the coincidental date: "On November 10, 1938, on Luther's birthday, the synagogues are burning in Germany." He urged Germans to heed the words "of the greatest antisemite of his time, the warner of his people against the Jews." Scholars debate the extent of Luther's influence and whether it is anachronistic to view his work as a precursor of the racial antisemitism of the National Socialists. Some scholars see Luther's influence as limited, and the Nazis' use of his work as opportunistic. Biographer Martin Brecht points out that "There is a world of difference between his belief in salvation and a racial ideology. Nevertheless, Prof. Diarmaid MacCulloch said that ''On the Jews and Their Lies'' was the blueprint for Kristallnacht. His misguided agitation had the evil result that Luther fatefully became one of the 'church fathers' of anti-Semitism and thus provided material for the modern hatred of the Jews, cloaking it with the authority of the Reformer." Theologian Johannes Wallmann, however, said Luther's anti-Semitic tract exercised no continual influence in Germany, that it was mostly ignored during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Uwe Siemon-Netto agreed, arguing that it was because the Nazis were already anti-Semites that they revived Luther's work. Hans J. Hillerbrand agreed that to focus on Luther was to adopt an essentially ahistorical perspective of Nazi antisemitism that ignored other contributory factors in German history.

Economics[link]

Hitler believed that private ownership was useful in that it encouraged creative competition and technical innovation, but insisted that it had to conform to national interests and be "productive" rather than "parasitical". Private property rights were conditional upon the economic mode of use; if it did not advance Nazi economic goals, the state could nationalize it. Although the Nazis privatised public properties and public services, they also increased economic state control. Under Nazi economics, free competition and self-regulating markets diminished; nevertheless, Adolf Hitler's social Darwinist beliefs made him reluctant to entirely disregard business competition and private property as economic engines.

To tie farmers to their land, selling agricultural land was prohibited. Farm ownership was nominally private, but discretion over operations and residual income were proscribed. That was achieved by granting business monopoly rights to marketing boards, to control production and prices with a quota system.

Anti-communism[link]

Historians Ian Kershaw and Joachim Fest argue that in post-World War I Germany, the Nazis were one of many nationalist and fascist political parties contending for the leadership of Germany's anti-communist movement. The Nazis claimed that communism was dangerous to the well-being of nations because of its intention to dissolve private property, its support of class conflict, its aggression against the middle class, its hostility to small businessmen, and its atheism. Nazism rejected class conflict-based socialism and economic egalitarianism, favouring instead a stratified economy with social classes based on merit and talent, retaining private property, and the creation of national solidarity that transcends class distinction.

During the 1920s, Hitler urged disparate Nazi factions to unite in opposition to "Jewish Marxism." Hitler asserted that the "three vices" of "Jewish Marxism" were democracy, pacifism and internationalism.

In 1930, Hitler said: "Our adopted term ‘Socialist' has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not." In 1931, during a confidential interview with influential editor Richard Breiting of the ''Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten'', a pro-business newspaper, Hitler said: "I want everyone to keep what he has earned, subject to the principle that the good of the community takes priority over that of the individual. But the State should retain control; every owner should feel himself to be an agent of the State ... The Third Reich will always retain the right to control property owners." In 1942, Hitler privately said: "I absolutely insist on protecting private property ... we must encourage private initiative".

During the late 1930s and the 1940s, anti-communist regimes and groups that supported Nazism included the Falange in Spain; the Vichy regime and the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French) in France; and the Cliveden Set, Lord Halifax, and associates of Neville Chamberlain in Britain.

Anti-capitalism[link]

The Nazis argued that capitalism damages nations due to international finance, the economic dominance of big business, and Jewish influences. Nazi propaganda posters in working-class districts emphasized anti-capitalism, such as one that said: "The maintenance of a rotten industrial system has nothing to do with nationalism. I can love Germany and hate capitalism."

Hitler, both in public and in private, expressed strong disdain for capitalism, accusing modern capitalism of holding nations ransom in the interests of a parasitic cosmopolitan rentier class. He opposed free-market capitalism's profit-seeking impulses and desired an economy in which community interests would be upheld. He distrusted capitalism for being unreliable, due to its egotistic nature, and he preferred a state-directed economy that is subordinated to the interests of the Volk. Hitler told a party leader in 1934, "The economic system of our day is the creation of the Jews." Hitler said to Benito Mussolini that "Capitalism had run its course". Hitler also said that the business bourgeoisie "know nothing except their profit. 'Fatherland' is only a word for them." Hitler admired Napoleon as a role model for his anti-conservative, anti-capitalist and anti-bourgeois attitudes. However, Hitler had little tolerance for Goebbels insistence upon adherence to socialist ideas and alliance with leftist and socialist parties as Hitler had abandoned them by the time the party rose to power. In correspondence Goebbels tried to convince Hitler the Nazis and the left share a common enemy in capitalists, however, Hitler disagreed and adamantly stated that capitalists are not the enemy of Nazis.

In ''Mein Kampf'', Hitler effectively supported mercantilism, in the belief that economic resources from their respective territories should be seized by force; he believed that the policy of ''Lebensraum'' would provide Germany with such economically valuable territories. He believed that the only means to maintain economic security was to have direct control over resources rather than being forced to rely on world trade. He claimed that war to gain such resources was the only means to surpass the failing capitalist economic system.

A number of other Nazis held strong revolutionary socialist and anti-capitalist beliefs, most prominently Ernst Röhm, the leader of the Sturmabteilung (SA). Röhm claimed that the Nazis' rise to power constituted a national revolution, but insisted that a socialist "second revolution" was required for Nazi ideology to be fulfilled. Röhm's SA began attacks against individuals deemed to be associated with conservative reaction.

Strasserism[link]

The Strasser brothers considered capitalism stained by Jewish finance, and called for a working-class, genuinely socialist and ultra-nationalist revolution following Hitler's rise to power (which they called a half-revolution), emphasizing the ''socialist'' component of National Socialism and proposing a cooperative economic ministry to direct Germany's economy in a more left-wing and guild-based direction.

See also[link]

Adolf Hitler in popular culture

Brown House, Munich, Germany

Consequences of German Nazism

Denazification

Fascism

Fascism and ideology

Final Solution

Functionalism versus intentionalism

Jingoism

List of Adolf Hitler books

Nationalism

Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen

Nazi chic

Nazi Foreign Policy (debate)

Nazi occultism

Nazism in Sweden

Neo-Nazism

New Order (Nazism)

State Capitalism

Statolatry

Women in the Third Reich

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (1985). ''The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890–1935''. Wellingborough, England: The Aquarian Press. ISBN 0-85030-402-4. (Several reprints. Expanded with a new Preface, 2004, I.B. Tauris & Co. ISBN 1-86064-973-4.)

Victor Klemperer (1947). LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii.

David Redles (2005). ''Hitler's Millennial Reich: Apocalyptic Belief and the Search for Salvation''. New York: University Press. ISBN 0-8147-7524-1.

Wolfgang Sauer "National Socialism: Totalitarianism or Fascism?" pages 404–424 from ''The American Historical Review'', Volume 73, Issue #2, December 1967

Richard Steigmann-Gall (2003). ''The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Hitler's National Socialist Party platform

NS-Archiv, a large collection of scanned original Nazi documents.

WWII: Nazi Thugs and Thinkers - slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Exhibit on Hitler and the Germans - slideshow by ''The New York Times''

Jonathan Meades (1994): Jerry Building - Unholy Relics of Nazi Germany (in 4 parts)

Category:Weimar Republic Category:Nazi Germany Category:Adolf Hitler Category:Ideologies Category:History of Germany Category:Politics of Germany Category:Nationalism Category:Fascism Category:Far-right politics Category:Anti-communism Category:Antisemitism Category:Racism Category:Jewish German history Category:The Holocaust Category:Persecution of gay and lesbian people Category:Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust Category:Totalitarianism

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name	Sir Charlie Chaplin
birth name
birth date	April 16, 1889
birth place	Walworth, London, England, United Kingdom
death date
death place	Vevey, Switzerland
medium	Film, music, mimicry
nationality	British
active	1895–1976
genre	Slapstick, mime, visual comedy
influenced	Benny HillMarcel MarceauThe Three StoogesFederico FelliniMilton BerlePeter SellersRowan AtkinsonJohnny DeppJacques TatiWoody Allen
spouse	1 child 2 children 8 children
Signature	Firma de Charles Chaplin.svg }}

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I. Chaplin used mime, slapstick and other visual comedy routines, and continued well into the era of the talkies, though his films decreased in frequency from the end of the 1920s. His most famous role was that of The Tramp, which he first played in the Keystone comedy ''Kid Auto Races at Venice'' in 1914. From the April 1914 one-reeler ''Twenty Minutes of Love'' onwards he was writing and directing most of his films, by 1916 he was also producing them, and from 1918 he was even composing the music for them. With Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, he co-founded United Artists in 1919.

Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-film era. He was influenced by his predecessor, the French silent film comedian Max Linder, to whom he dedicated one of his films. His working life in entertainment spanned over 75 years, from the Victorian stage and the music hall in the United Kingdom as a child performer, until close to his death at the age of 88. His high-profile public and private life encompassed both adulation and controversy. Chaplin was identified with left-wing politics during the McCarthy era and he was ultimately forced to resettle in Europe from 1952.

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Chaplin the 10th greatest male screen legend of all time. In 2008, Martin Sieff, in a review of the book ''Chaplin: A Life'', wrote: "Chaplin was not just 'big', he was gigantic. In 1915, he burst onto a war-torn world bringing it the gift of comedy, laughter and relief while it was tearing itself apart through World War I. Over the next 25 years, through the Great Depression and the rise of Adolf Hitler, he stayed on the job. ... It is doubtful any individual has ever given more entertainment, pleasure and relief to so many human beings when they needed it the most". George Bernard Shaw called Chaplin "the only genius to come out of the movie industry".

Early years (1889–1913)[link]

Background and childhood hardship[link]

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889 to Hannah Chaplin (née Hannah Harriet Pedlingham Hill, 1865–1928) and Charles Chaplin Sr. (1863–1901). There is no official record of his birth, although Chaplin believed he was born at East Street, Walworth, in South London. Chaplin biographer David Robinson notes that it is not surprising that his parents failed to register the birth: "It was easy enough, particularly for music hall artists, constantly moving (if they were lucky) from one town to another, to put off and eventually forget this kind of formality; at that time the penalties were not strict or efficiently enforced." In 2011 a letter sent to Chaplin in the 1970s came to light which claimed that he had been born in a Gypsy caravan at Black Patch Park in Smethwick, Staffordshire. Chaplin's son Michael has suggested that the information must have been significant to his father in order for him to retain the letter.|group=note}} His mother and father had married four years previously, at which time Chaplin Sr. became the legal carer of Hannah's illegitimate son, Sydney John (1885–1965). At the time of his birth, Chaplin's parents were both entertainers in the music hall tradition: Hannah, the daughter of a shoemaker, had a brief and unsuccessful career under the stage name Lily Harley, while Charles Sr., a butcher's son, worked as a popular singer. The Chaplins became estranged in around 1891; a year later, Hannah gave birth to a third son—George Wheeler Dryden—fathered by music hall entertainer Leo Dryden. The child was taken by Dryden at six months old, and did not re-enter Chaplin's life for 30 years.

Chaplin's childhood was fraught with poverty and hardship, prompting biographer David Robinson to describe his eventual trajectory as "the most dramatic of all the rags to riches stories ever told." His early years were spent with his mother and brother in the London district of Kennington; Hannah had no means of income, other than occasional nursing and dressmaking, and Chaplin Sr. provided no support for his sons. Because of this poverty, Chaplin was sent to a workhouse at seven years old. The council housed him at the Central London District School for paupers, which Chaplin remembered as "a forlorn existence". He was briefly reunited with his mother at nine years old, before Hannah was forced to readmit her family to the workhouse in July 1898. The boys were promptly sent to Norwood Schools, another charity institution.

In September 1898, Hannah Chaplin was committed to Cane Hill mental asylum—she had developed a psychosis seemingly brought on by malnutrition and an infection of syphilis. Chaplin recalled his anguish at the news: "Why had she done this? Mother, so light-hearted and gay, how could she go insane?" For the two months she was there, Chaplin and his brother were sent to live with their father, whom the young boy scarcely knew. Charles Chaplin Sr. was by then a severe alcoholic, and life with the man was bad enough to provoke a visit from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. He died two years later, at 37 years old, from cirrhosis of the liver.

Hannah Chaplin entered a period of remission, but in May 1903 became ill again. Chaplin, then 14, had the task of taking his mother to the infirmary. He lived alone for several days, searching for food and occasionally sleeping rough, until his brother Sydney returned from the navy. Hannah Chaplin was released from the asylum eight months later, but in March 1905 her madness returned, this time permanently. "There was nothing we could do but accept poor mother's fate", Chaplin later wrote, and she remained in care until her death in 1928.

Young performer[link]

Chaplin's first stage appearance came at five years old, when he took over from his mother one night in Aldershot. Hannah had been booed off stage, and the manager chose Chaplin, who was standing in the wings, to go on as her replacement. The young boy confidently entertained the crowd, and received laughter and applause. It was an isolated performance, but at nine years old Chaplin became interested in the theatre. He credited his mother, later writing "[she] imbued me with the feeling that I had some sort of talent." Through his father's connections, Chaplin became a member of The Eight Lancashire Lads clog dancing troupe. He began his professional career in this way, as the group toured English music halls from 1899 to 1902. Chaplin worked hard and the act was popular with audiences, but dancing did not satisfy the child and he dreamt of forming a comedy act.

By age 13 Chaplin had fully abandoned education. He supported himself with a range of jobs, but said he "never lost sight of my ultimate aim to become an actor." At 14, shortly after his mother's relapse, he registered with a theatrical agency in London's West End. The manager sensed potential in Chaplin and he was soon on the stage. His first role was a newsboy in H. A. Saintsbury's ''Jim, a Romance of Cockayne''. It opened in July 1903 in Kingston upon Thames, but the show was unsuccessful and it closed after two weeks. Chaplin's comic performance, however, was singled out for praise in many of the reviews. From October 1903 to June 1904, Chaplin toured with Saintsbury in Charles Frohman's production of ''Sherlock Holmes''. He repeated his performance of Billy the pageboy for two subsequent tours, and was so successful that he was called to London to play the role alongside William Gillette, the original Holmes. "It was like tidings from heaven", Chaplin recalled. Chaplin starred in the West End production at the Duke of York's Theatre from 17 October to 2 December 1905. He completed one final tour of ''Sherlock Holmes'' in early 1906, eventually leaving the play after more than two and a half years.

Vaudeville[link]

Chaplin quickly began work in another role, touring with his brother—who was also pursuing an acting career—in a comedy sketch called ''Repairs''. He left the troupe in May 1906, and joined the vaudeville act ''Casey's Court Circus''. Chaplin's specialism with the company was a burlesque of Dick Turpin and the music hall star "Dr. Bodie". It was popular with audiences and Chaplin became the star of the show. When they finished touring in July 1907, the 18-year-old was an accomplished comedian. Several months of unemployment followed, however, and Chaplin lived a solitary existence while lodging with a family in Kennington. He attempted to develop a solo comedy act, but his Jewish impersonation was poorly received and he performed it only once.

By 1908, Sydney Chaplin had become a star of Fred Karno's prestigious comedy company. In February, he managed to secure a two-week trial for his younger brother. Karno was initially wary, thinking Chaplin a "pale, puny, sullen-looking youngster" who "looked much too shy to do any good in the theatre." But the teenager made an impact on his first night at the London Coliseum, winning more laughs in his small role than the star, and he was quickly signed to a contract. His salary was £3 10s a week. |group=note}} Chaplin's most successful role with the Karno company was a drunk called the Inebriate Swell, a character recognised by Robinson as "very Chaplinesque". He took it to Paris in the autumn of 1909. In April 1910, he was given the lead role in a new sketch, ''Jimmy the Fearless, or The Boy 'Ero''. It was a big success, and Chaplin received considerable press attention.

Karno selected his new star to join a fraction of the company that toured America; he also signed Chaplin to a new contract, which doubled his pay. The young comedian headed the show and impressed American reviewers, being described as "one of the best pantomime artists ever seen here." The tour lasted 21 months, and the troupe—which also included Stan Laurel of later Laurel and Hardy fame—returned to England in June 1912. Chaplin recalled: "I had a disquieting feeling of sinking back into a depressing commonplaceness", and was therefore "elated" when a new tour began in October.

Entering films (1914–1917)[link]

Beginning with Keystone[link]

Chaplin's second American tour with the Karno company was not particularly successful, as cast members fell sick and audiences failed to grasp the troupe's burlesque humour. They had been there six months when Chaplin's manager received a telegram, asking "Is there a man named Chaffin in your company or something like that" with the request that that this comedian contact the New York Motion Picture Company. A member of NYMPC had seen Chaplin perform (accounts of whom and where vary) and felt that he would make a good replacement for Fred Mace, outgoing star of their Keystone Studios. Chaplin thought the Keystone comedies "a crude mélange of rough and rumble", but liked the idea of working in films and justified, "Besides, it would mean a new life". He met with the company, and a contract was drawn up in July 1913. After some adjustments, Chaplin signed with Keystone on 25 September. The contract stipulated a year's work at $150 a week.

Chaplin arrived in Los Angeles, home of the Keystone studio, in early December 1913. His boss was Mack Sennett, who initially expressed concern that the 24-year-old looked too young. Chaplin reassured him, "I can make up as old as you like." He was not used in a picture until late January, during which time the comedian attempted to learn the processes of filmmaking. ''Making a Living'' marked his film debut, released 2 February 1914. Chaplin strongly disliked the picture, but one review picked him out as "a comedian of the first water." For his second appearance in front of cameras, Chaplin selected the costume with which he became identified. He described the process in his autobiography:

The film was ''Mabel's Strange Predicament'', but "The Tramp" character, as it became known, debuted to audiences in ''Kid Auto Races at Venice''—shot later but released two days earlier. Chaplin adopted the character permanently, and attempted to make suggestions for the films he appeared in. These ideas were dismissed by his directors. During the filming of his tenth picture he clashed with director Mabel Normand, and was almost released from his contract. Sennett kept him on, however, when a request arrived for more Chaplin films. With an insurance of $1,500 promised in case of failure, Sennett also allowed Chaplin to direct his own film.

''Caught in the Rain'' (issued 4 May 1914), Chaplin's first directed picture, was among Keystone's most successful releases to date. Robinson writes that the comedian already demonstrated "a special mastery of telling stories in images" at this early stage in his career. Chaplin proceeded to direct every short film in which he appeared for Keystone, approximately one per week, which he remembered as the most exciting time of his career. His films introduced a slower, more expressive form of comedy than the typical Keystone farce, and he developed a large fan base. In June, Keystone issued adverts in Britain with the words: "Are you prepared for the Chaplin boom? There has never been so instantaneous a hit as that of Chas Chaplin". In November 1914, Chaplin appeared in the first feature length comedy film, ''Tillie's Punctured Romance'', directed by Sennett. Chaplin only had a supporting role, but the movie's success meant it was pivotal in advancing his career. When Chaplin's contract came up for renewal at the end of the year, he asked for $1,000 a week. Sennett refused this amount as too large, and so the comedian waited to receive an offer from another studio.

Developing with Essanay[link]

The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company sent Chaplin an offer of $1,250 a week with a signing bonus of $10,000. This large amount was irresistible to him, and in late December 1914 he travelled to Chicago to join the studio. Chaplin was unimpressed with the conditions there, and after making one film (''His New Job'', released 1 February 1915), moved to the company's small studio in Niles, California. There, Chaplin began to form a stock company of regular players, including Leo White, Bud Jamison, Paddy McGuire and Billy Armstrong. In San Francisco he recruited a leading lady—Edna Purviance. She went on to appear in 35 films with Chaplin over eight years. The pair also formed a romantic relationship that lasted into 1917.

Chaplin asserted a high level of control over his pictures, and started to put more time and care into each film. There was a month long wait between the release of his second production, ''A Night Out'', to his third, ''The Champion''. With ''The Tramp'', issued April 1915, Chaplin began to inject greater emotion into his pictures. The use of pathos was developed further with ''The Bank'', released four films and four months later, as Chaplin chose to have a sad ending. Robinson notes that this was an innovation in comedy films, and marked the time when serious critics began to appreciate his work. Chaplin made 14 films for Essanay, the last of which was a parody of ''Carmen'' named ''Burlesque on Carmen'' (1916). The film was re-cut and expanded by the studio without Chaplin's consent, leading the star to seek an injunction in May 1916. The court dismissed this claim since he had failed to fulfil his contract requirements, but Chaplin subsequently ensured that every contract he signed prohibited the alteration of his finished products.

During the course of 1915, Chaplin became a cultural phenomenon. Shops were stocked with Chaplin merchandise, he was featured in cartoons and comic strips, and several songs were written about the star. As his Essanay contract came to an end, and fully aware of his popularity, Chaplin requested a $150,000 signing bonus from his next studio. He received several offers, including Universal, Fox, and Vitagraph, the best of which came from the Mutual Film Corporation at $10,000 a week.

Global celebrity with Mutual[link]

A contract was negotiated with Mutual that amounted to $670,000 a year, making Chaplin—at 26 years old—one of the highest paid people in the world. John R. Freuler, the studio President, explained, "We can afford to pay Mr Chaplin this large sum annually because the public wants Chaplin and will pay for him." The comedian made statements to the press in which he claimed money was not his main concern, but that he was "simply making hay while the sun shines."

Mutual gave Chaplin his own Los Angeles studio to work in, which opened in March 1916. He added two key members to his stock company, Albert Austin and Eric Campbell, and embarked on a series of elaborate productions—''The Floorwalker'', ''The Fireman'', ''The Vagabond'', ''One A.M.'' and ''The Count''. For ''The Pawnshop'' he recruited the actor Henry Bergman, who was to work with Chaplin for 30 years. ''Behind the Screen'' and ''The Rink'' finished off Chaplin's releases for 1916. The Mutual contract stipulated that Chaplin release a two-reel film every four weeks, which he had managed to meet. With the new year, however, Chaplin began to demand more time. He made only four more films for Mutual over the next ten months of 1917—''Easy Street'', ''The Cure''. ''The Immigrant'' and ''The Adventurer''. With their careful construction—and in the case of ''Easy Street'' and ''The Immigrant'', their social commentary—these films are considered by Chaplin scholars to be among his finest work. Later in life, Chaplin referred to his Mutual years as "the happiest period of my career."

Chaplin was the subject of a backlash in the British media for not fighting in World War 1. He defended himself, revealing that he had registered for the draft but was not asked to fight. Despite this campaign Chaplin was a favourite with the troops, and his popularity continued to grow worldwide. The name of Charlie Chaplin was said to be "a part of the common language of almost every country", and according to ''Harper's Weekly'' his "little, baggy-trousered figure" was "universally familiar". In 1917, Chaplin imitators were widespread enough for the star to take legal action, and it was reported that nine out of ten men attended costume parties dressed as Chaplin. The same year, a study by the Boston Society for Psychical Research concluded that Chaplin was "an American obsession." The actress Minnie Maddern Fiske wrote in ''Harper's Weekly'' that "a constantly increasing body of cultured, artistic people are beginning to regard the young English buffoon, Charles Chaplin, as an extraordinary artist, as well as a comic genius."

First National (1918–1923)[link]

Mutual were patient with Chaplin's decreased rate of output, and the contract ended amicably. The star's primary concern in finding a new distributor was independence; Sydney Chaplin, then his business manager, told the press: "Charlie [must] be allowed all the time he needs and all the money for producing [films] the way he wants ... It is quality, not quantity, we are after." On 17 June 1917, Chaplin signed to complete eight films for First National Exhibitors' Circuit. He chose to build a new studio, situated on five acres of land off Sunset Boulevard, with production facilities of the highest order. It was completed in January 1918, and Chaplin was given freedom over the making of his pictures.

''A Dog's Life'', released April 1918, was the first film under the new contract. Chaplin paid yet more concern to story construction, and began treating the Tramp as "a sort of Pierrot." The film was described by Louis Delluc as "cinema's first total work of art." Following its completion, Chaplin embarked on the Third Liberty Bond campaign, touring the Unites States for one month to raise money for the Allies of World War One. He also produced a short propaganda film, donated to the government for fund-raising, called ''The Bond''. Chaplin's next release was war-based, placing the Tramp in the trenches for ''Shoulder Arms''. Associates warned him against making a comedy about the war, but he recalled: "Dangerous or not, the idea excited me." It took four months to produce, eventually released in October 1918 at 45 minutes long, and was highly successful.

Mildred Harris, founding United Artists and ''The Kid''[link]

In September 1918, Chaplin married the 17-year-old actress Mildred Harris. It was a hushed affair conducted at a registry office; Harris had revealed she was pregnant, and the star was eager to avoid controversy. Soon after, this pregnancy was found to be a false alarm. Chaplin's unhappiness with the union was matched by his dissatisfaction with First National. After the release of ''Shoulder Arms'' he requested more money from the company, which was refused. Frustrated with their lack of concern for quality, Chaplin joined forces with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and D. W. Griffith to form a new distribution company—United Artists, established in January 1919. The "revolutionary" arrangement gave the four partners complete control over their pictures, which they were to fund personally. Chaplin was eager to start with the new company, and offered to buy out his contract with First National. They declined this, and insisted that he complete the final six films he owed them.

Chaplin felt that marriage stunted his creativity, and he struggled over the production of his next film, ''Sunnyside''. Mildred was pregnant during this period, and on 7 July 1919 she gave birth to a boy. Norman Spencer Chaplin was born malformed, and died three days later. The event seems to have influenced Chaplin's work, as he planned a film that turned the Tramp into the carer of a young boy. Filming on ''The Kid'' began in August 1919, with four-year-old Jackie Coogan his co-star. It soon occurred to Chaplin that it was turning into a large project, so to placate First National he halted production and quickly filmed ''A Day's Pleasure''. Both it and ''Sunnyside'' were considered a disappointment by viewers.

''The Kid'' was in production until May 1920. Shortly before this, Chaplin and his wife had separated after 18 months of marriage—they were "irreconcilably mismated", he remembered. Chaplin became fearful that Mildred would claim ''The Kid'' as part of the divorce proceedings, so packed the 400,000 feet negative into crates and travelled to Salt Lake City to cut the film in a hotel room. At 68 minutes, it was his longest picture to date. Dealing with issues of poverty and parent–child separation, ''The Kid'' is thought to be influenced by Chaplin's own childhood and was the first film to combine comedy and drama. It was released on 6 January 1921 to instant success, and by 1924 had been screened in over 50 countries.

Chaplin spent five months on his next film, the two-reeler ''The Idle Class''. Following its September 1921 release, Chaplin chose to return to England for the first time in almost a decade. He told the press as he arrived, "I felt I had to come home ... I mean to enjoy myself thoroughly, and go to all the old corners that I knew when I was a boy." Robinson writes, "The scenes that awaited him in London were astonishing. His homecoming was a triumph hardly paralleled in the twentieth century". Chaplin was away for five weeks, and later wrote a book about the trip. He subsequently worked to fulfil his First National contract, and released ''Pay Day'', his final two-reeler, in February 1922. ''The Pilgrim'' was delayed by distribution disagreements with the studio, and released a year later.

Independent filmmaker (1924–1975)[link]

''A Woman of Paris'' and ''The Gold Rush''[link]

Having satisfied his First National contract, Chaplin was free to make his first picture for United Artists. In November 1922 he began filming ''A Woman of Paris'', a romantic drama about ill-fated lovers. Chaplin intended it as a star-making vehicle for Edna Purviance, and did not appear in the picture himself other than in a brief, uncredited cameo. Filming took seven months, followed by three months of editing the large negative. ''A Woman of Paris'' premièred in September 1923 and was widely acclaimed by critics. The public, however, seemed to have little interest in a Chaplin film without Chaplin, and it was a box-office disappointment. The filmmaker was hurt by this failure—he had long wanted to produce a dramatic film and was proud of the result—and withdrew ''A Woman of Paris'' from circulation as soon as he could. During production of the film Chaplin had been involved with the actress Pola Negri, a romantic pairing that received vast media interest. In January 1923 the pair announced their engagement; by July they had separated, leading to speculation that the relationship was a publicity stunt.

For his next film Chaplin returned to comedy. Setting high standards, he told himself, "This next film must be an epic! The Greatest!" A photograph from the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush provided his inspiration. The Tramp was to become a lonely prospector fighting adversity and looking for love amid the historic event. With Georgia Hale his new leading lady, Chaplin began filming the picture in February 1924. It was an elaborate production that included location shooting in the Truckee mountains with 600 extras, extravagant sets, and special effects. The last scene was not shot until May 1925, after 15 months. At a cost of almost $1,000,000, Chaplin felt it was the best film he had made to that point. ''The Gold Rush'' opened in August 1925 and earned a profit of $5,000,000. It contains some of Chaplin's most famous gags, such as the "Dance of the Rolls", and he later said it was the film he would most like to be remembered for.

Lita Grey and ''The Circus''[link]

While making ''The Gold Rush'', Chaplin married for the second time. Mirroring the circumstances of his first union, Lita Grey was a teenage actress—originally set to star in ''The Gold Rush''—whose surprise announcement of pregnancy forced Chaplin into marriage. She was 16 and he was 35, meaning Chaplin could have been charged with ''de facto'' rape under Californian law. He therefore arranged a discreet marriage in Mexico on 24 November 1924. When their son, Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr, was born on 5 May 1925, Chaplin sent Lita and the child into hiding: it was seen as too close to their wedding, so a fake birth announcement was made to the press at the end of June.

Chaplin was markedly unhappy with the marriage, and spent long hours at the studio to avoid seeing his wife. Soon after ''The Gold Rush'''s release he was at work on a new film: ''The Circus''. Chaplin built a story around the idea of walking a tightrope while besieged by monkeys, which became the film's "climactic incident", and turned The Tramp into the accidental star of a circus. David Robinson notes that the film provided "a welcome distraction" from the "wretchedness" of his home life; Lita was pregnant for a second time, frustrating Chaplin and exacerbating difficulties between the pair. Their second son, Sydney Earle Chaplin, was born on 30 March 1926. Filming on ''The Circus'' was continuing steadily when a fire broke out on 28 September, destroying the entire set. Although the studio was quickly brought back into operation, it marked the beginning of severe difficulties for Chaplin. In November, Lita took their children and left the family home. Unwilling to allow his film to be drawn into the divorce proceedings, Chaplin announced that production on ''The Circus'' had been temporarily suspended.

Lita's lawyers issued their divorce complaint on 10 January 1927. The document, which ran to an exceptional 52 pages, not only sought heavy material gains but was designed to ruin Chaplin's public image. Accusations of infidelity and abuse were bolstered with lurid details of his sexual preferences. Chaplin entered a nervous breakdown, as the story became headline news and pirated copies of the document were read by the public. The star's fanbase was nevertheless strong enough to survive this smear campaign, and he was heartened by declarations of support. Eager to end the case without further scandal, Chaplin's lawyers agreed to a cash settlement of $600,000—the largest awarded by American courts at that time. Production on ''The Circus'' resumed, and the film was completed in October 1927. It was released the following January to a positive reception. The Lita affair was soon forgotten, but Chaplin was deeply affected by it: the stress of the ordeal turned his hair white, and his second wife received only a passing mention in his autobiography.

1930s[link]

After the arrival of sound films, Chaplin continued to focus on silent films with a synchronised recorded score, which included sound effects and music with melodies based in popular songs or composed by him; ''City Lights'' (1931), and ''Modern Times'' (1936) were essentially silent films. ''City Lights'' has been praised for its mixture of comedy and sentimentality. Critic James Agee, for example, wrote in ''Life'' magazine in 1949 that the final scene in ''City Lights'' was the "greatest single piece of acting ever committed to celluloid".

While ''Modern Times'' (1936) is a non-talkie, it does contain talk—usually coming from inanimate objects such as a radio or a TV monitor. This was done to help 1930s audiences, who were out of the habit of watching silent films, adjust to not hearing dialogue. ''Modern Times'' was the first film where Chaplin's voice is heard (in the nonsense song at the end, which Chaplin both performed and wrote the nonsense lyrics to). However, for most viewers it is still considered a silent film.

Although "talkies" became the dominant mode of film making soon after they were introduced in 1927, Chaplin resisted making such a film all through the 1930s. He considered cinema essentially a pantomimic art. He said: "Action is more generally understood than words. Like Chinese symbolism, it will mean different things according to its scenic connotation. Listen to a description of some unfamiliar object—an African warthog, for example; then look at a picture of the animal and see how surprised you are".

''The Great Dictator''[link]

Chaplin's first talking picture, ''The Great Dictator'' (1940), was an act of defiance against Nazism. It was filmed and released in the United States one year before the U.S. entry into World War II. Chaplin played the role of "Adenoid Hynkel", Dictator of Tomainia, modelled on German dictator Adolf Hitler, who was only four days his junior and sported a similar moustache. The film also showcased comedian Jack Oakie as "Benzino Napaloni", dictator of Bacteria, a jab at Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

Paulette Goddard filmed with Chaplin again, depicting a woman in the ghetto. The film was seen as an act of courage in the political environment of the time, both for its ridicule of Nazism, for the portrayal of overt Jewish characters, and the depiction of their persecution. In addition to Hynkel, Chaplin also played a look-alike Jewish barber persecuted by the regime. The barber physically resembled the Tramp character.

At the conclusion, the two characters Chaplin portrayed swapped positions through a complex plot, and he dropped out of his comic character to address the audience directly in a speech denouncing dictatorship, greed, hate, and intolerance, in favour of liberty and human brotherhood.

The film was nominated for Academy awards for Best Picture (producer), Best Original Screenplay (writer) and Best Actor.

McCarthy era[link]

During the era of McCarthyism, Chaplin was accused of "un-American activities" as a suspected communist. J. Edgar Hoover, who had instructed the FBI to keep extensive secret files on him, tried to end his United States residency. FBI pressure on Chaplin grew after his 1942 campaign for a second European front in the war and reached a critical level in the late 1940s, when Congressional figures threatened to call him as a witness in hearings. This was never done, probably from fear of Chaplin's ability to lampoon the investigators. In February 2012 an MI5 file on Chaplin was opened to the public which revealed that the FBI had contacted the British secret service to provide them with information which would enable them to ban Chaplin from the US. In particular, it wanted MI5 to find out where Chaplin was born and pursue suggestions that his real name was Israel Thornstein. MI5 searched, but to no avail. A suggestion that he "may have been born in France" also came to nothing.

In 1952, Chaplin left the US for what was intended as a brief trip home to the United Kingdom for the London premiere of ''Limelight''. Hoover learned of the trip and negotiated with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to revoke Chaplin's re-entry permit. Chaplin decided not to re-enter the United States, writing: "Since the end of the last world war, I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America's yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted. Under these conditions I find it virtually impossible to continue my motion-picture work, and I have therefore given up my residence in the United States."

That Chaplin was unprepared to remain abroad, or that the revocation of his right to re-enter the United States, was a surprise to him, may be apocryphal: An anecdote in some contradiction is recorded during a broad interview with Richard Avedon, celebrated New York portraitist.

Avedon is credited with the last portrait of the entertainer to be taken before his departure to Europe and therefore the last photograph of him as a singularly “American icon”. According to Avedon, Chaplin telephoned him at his studio in New York while on a layover before the final leg of his travel to England. The photographer considered the impromptu self-introduction a prank and angrily answered his caller with the riposte, “If you’re Charlie Chaplin, I’m Franklin Roosevelt!” To mollify Avedon, Chaplin assured the photographer of his authenticity and added the comment, “If you want to take my picture, you'd better do it now. They are coming after me and I won’t be back. I leave ... (imminently).” Avedon interrupted his production commitments to take Chaplin’s portrait the next day, and never saw him again.

Following his exile from the United States, Chaplin made his home in Vevey, Switzerland. His final two films were made in London: ''A King in New York'' (1957) in which he starred, wrote, directed and produced; and ''A Countess from Hong Kong'' (1967), which he directed, produced, and wrote. The latter film stars Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando, and Chaplin made his final on-screen appearance in a brief cameo role as a seasick steward. He also composed the music for both films with the theme song from ''A Countess From Hong Kong,'' "This is My Song", reaching number one in the UK as sung by Petula Clark.

Final works[link]

Chaplin compiled a film ''The Chaplin Revue'' from three First National films ''A Dog's Life'' (1918), ''Shoulder Arms'' (1918) and ''The Pilgrim'' (1923) for which he composed the music and recorded an introductory narration. Chaplin also wrote ''My Autobiography,'' between 1959 and 1963, which was published in 1964. He briefly returned to the United States in 1972 to receive an honorary Academy Award.

In his pictorial autobiography ''My Life In Pictures'', published in 1974, Chaplin indicated that he had written a screenplay for his daughter, Victoria; entitled ''The Freak'', the film would have cast her as an angel. According to Chaplin, a script was completed and pre-production rehearsals had begun on the film (the book includes a photograph of Victoria in costume), but were halted when Victoria married. "I mean to make it some day," Chaplin wrote. However, his health declined steadily in the 1970s which hampered all hopes of the film ever being produced.

From 1969 until 1976, Chaplin wrote original music compositions and scores for his silent pictures and re-released them. He composed the scores of all his First National shorts: ''The Idle Class'' in 1971 (paired with ''The Kid'' for re-release in 1972), ''A Day's Pleasure'' in 1973, ''Pay Day'' in 1972, ''Sunnyside'' in 1974, and of his feature length films, firstly ''The Circus'' in 1969 and ''The Kid'' in 1971. Chaplin worked with music associate Eric James whilst composing all his scores.

He received a knighthood on 4 March 1975, at the age of 85. Chaplin's last completed work was the score for his 1923 film ''A Woman of Paris'', which was completed in 1976, by which time Chaplin was extremely frail, even finding communication difficult.

Death[link]

Chaplin's robust health began to slowly fail in the late 1960s, after the completion of his final film ''A Countess from Hong Kong'', and more rapidly after he received his Academy Award in 1972. By 1977, he had difficulty communicating, and was using a wheelchair. Chaplin died in his sleep in Vevey, Switzerland on 25 December 1977. Charlie Chaplin was survived by his wife, nine children and 24 grandchildren.

Chaplin was interred in Corsier-Sur-Vevey Cemetery, Switzerland. On 1 March 1978, his corpse was stolen by a small group of Swiss mechanics in an attempt to extort money from his family. The plot failed; the robbers were captured, and the corpse was recovered eleven weeks later near Lake Geneva. His body was reburied under of concrete to prevent further attempts.

Filmmaking[link]

Method[link]

Chaplin never spoke more than cursorily about his filmmaking methods, claiming such a thing would be tantamount to a magician spoiling his own illusion. In fact, until he began making spoken dialogue films with ''The Great Dictator'' in 1940, Chaplin never shot from a completed script. The method he developed, once his Essanay contract gave him the freedom to write for and direct himself, was to start from a vague premise—for example "Charlie enters a health spa" or "Charlie works in a pawn shop." Chaplin then had sets constructed and worked with his stock company to improvise gags and "business" around them, almost always working the ideas out on film. As ideas were accepted and discarded, a narrative structure would emerge, frequently requiring Chaplin to reshoot an already-completed scene that might have otherwise contradicted the story. Chaplin's unique filmmaking techniques became known only after his death, when his rare surviving outtakes and cut sequences were carefully examined in the 1983 British documentary ''Unknown Chaplin''.

This is one reason why Chaplin took so much longer to complete his films than his rivals did. In addition, Chaplin was an incredibly exacting director, showing his actors exactly how he wanted them to perform and shooting scores of takes until he had the shot he wanted. Animator Chuck Jones, who lived near Charlie Chaplin's Lone Star studio as a boy, remembered his father saying he watched Chaplin shoot a scene more than a hundred times until he was satisfied with it. This combination of story improvisation and relentless perfectionism—which resulted in days of effort and thousands of feet of film being wasted, all at enormous expense—often proved very taxing for Chaplin, who in frustration would often lash out at his actors and crew, keep them waiting idly for hours or, in extreme cases, shutting down production altogether.

Themes[link]

Chaplin's political sympathies always lay with the left. His silent films made prior to the Great Depression typically did not contain overt political themes or messages, apart from the Tramp's plight in poverty and his run-ins with the law, but his 1930s films were more openly political. ''Modern Times'' depicts workers and poor people in dismal conditions. The final dramatic speech in ''The Great Dictator'', which was critical of following patriotic nationalism without question, was controversial. His 1947 black comedy, ''Monsieur Verdoux'' showed a critical view of capitalism, which was met with public scorn. Chaplin's final American film, ''Limelight'', was less political and more autobiographical in nature. His following European-made film, ''A King in New York'' (1957), satirised the political persecution and paranoia that had forced him to leave the U.S. five years earlier.

Music[link]

Chaplin wrote or co-wrote the scores and songs for many of his films. "Smile", which he composed for his film, ''Modern Times'', hit number 2 on the UK charts when sung by Nat King Cole in the 1950s. It was also Michael Jackson's favourite song. "This Is My Song", written and composed by Chaplin for his film ''A Countess from Hong Kong'', hit number 1 on the UK charts when sung by Petula Clark in the 1960s. In 1973, Chaplin won the Oscar for Best Film Score for his film, ''Limelight''.

Personal life and family[link]

Chaplin's mother died in 1928 in Glendale, California, seven years after she was brought to the U.S. by her sons. Unknown to Charlie and Sydney until years later, they had a half-brother through their mother. The boy, Wheeler Dryden (1892–1957), was raised abroad by his father but later connected with the rest of the family and went to work for Chaplin at his Hollywood studio. In 1928, Chaplin built the Montecito Inn in Montecito near Santa Barbara as an escape from show business with his closest friends.

The South African duo Locnville, Andrew and Brian Chaplin, are related to Chaplin (their grandfather was Chaplin's first cousin).

Relationships[link]

Edna Purviance was Chaplin's first major leading lady after Mabel Normand. Purviance and Chaplin were involved in a close romantic relationship during the production of his Essanay and Mutual films in 1916–1917. The romance seems to have ended by 1918, and Chaplin's marriage to Mildred Harris in late 1918 ended any possibility of reconciliation. Purviance would continue as leading lady in Chaplin's films until 1923, and would remain on Chaplin's payroll until her death in 1958. She and Chaplin spoke warmly of one another for the rest of their lives.

right|thumb|upright|Mildred Harris, c. 1918–1920 Mildred Harris: On 23 October 1918, Chaplin, age 29, married the popular child actress, Harris, who was 16 at the time. They had one son, Norman Spencer "The Little Mouse" Chaplin, born on 7 July 1919, who died three days later and is interred under the name ''The Little Mouse'' at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood California. Chaplin separated from Harris by late 1919, moving back into the Los Angeles Athletic Club. The couple divorced in November 1920, with Harris getting some of their community property and a US$100,000 settlement. Chaplin admitted that he "was not in love, now that [he] was married [he] wanted to be and wanted the marriage to be a success." During the divorce, Chaplin claimed Harris had an affair with noted actress of the time Alla Nazimova, rumoured to be fond of seducing young actresses.

Pola Negri: Chaplin was involved in a very public relationship and engagement with the Polish actress, Negri, in 1922–23, after she arrived in Hollywood to star in films. The stormy on-off engagement was halted after about nine months, but in many ways it foreshadowed the modern stereotypes of Hollywood star relationships. Chaplin's public involvement with Negri was unique in his public life. By comparison he strove to keep his other romances during this period very discreet and private (usually without success). Many biographers have concluded the affair with Negri was largely for publicity purposes.

Lita Grey: Chaplin first met Grey during the filming of ''The Kid''. Three years later, at age 35, he became involved with the then 16-year-old Grey during preparations for ''The Gold Rush'' in which she was to star as the female lead. They married on 26 November 1924, after she became pregnant (a development that resulted in her being removed from the cast of the film). They had two sons, the actors Charles Chaplin, Jr. (1925–1968) and Sydney Chaplin (1926–2009). The marriage was a disaster, with the couple hopelessly mismatched. The couple divorced on 22 August 1927. Their extraordinarily bitter divorce had Chaplin paying Grey a then-record-breaking US$825,000 settlement, on top of almost one million dollars in legal costs. The stress of the sensational divorce, compounded by a federal tax dispute, allegedly turned his hair white. The Chaplin biographer Joyce Milton asserted in ''Tramp: The Life of Charlie Chaplin'' that the Grey-Chaplin marriage was the inspiration for Vladimir Nabokov's 1950s novel ''Lolita''.

thumb|right|Chaplin and Paulette Goddard in ''The Great Dictator'' (1940) Paulette Goddard: Chaplin and actress Goddard were involved in a romantic and professional relationship between 1932 and 1940, with Goddard living with Chaplin in his Beverly Hills home for most of this time. Chaplin gave her starring roles in ''Modern Times'' and ''The Great Dictator''. Refusal to clarify their marital status is often claimed to have eliminated Goddard from final consideration for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in ''Gone with the Wind''. After the relationship ended in 1940, Chaplin and Goddard made public statements that they had been secretly married in 1936; but these claims were likely a mutual effort to prevent any lasting damage to Goddard's career. In any case, their relationship ended amicably in 1942, with Goddard being granted a settlement. Goddard went on to a major career in films at Paramount in the 1940s, working several times with Cecil B. DeMille. Like Chaplin, she lived her later life in Switzerland, dying in 1990.

Joan Barry (1920–??): In 1942, Chaplin had a brief affair with Barry, whom he was considering for a starring role in a proposed film, but the relationship ended when she began harassing him and displaying signs of severe mental illness (not unlike his mother). Chaplin's brief involvement with Barry proved to be a nightmare for him. After having a child, she filed a paternity suit against him in 1943. Although blood tests proved Chaplin was not the father of Barry's child, Barry's attorney, Joseph Scott, convinced the court that the tests were inadmissible as evidence, and Chaplin was ordered to support the child. The injustice of the ruling later led to a change in California law to allow blood tests as evidence. Federal prosecutors also brought Mann Act charges against Chaplin related to Barry in 1944, of which he was acquitted. Chaplin's public image in America was gravely damaged by these sensational trials. Barry was institutionalised in 1953 after she was found walking the streets barefoot, carrying a pair of baby sandals and a child's ring, and murmuring: "This is magic". Chaplin's second wife, Lita Grey, later asserted that Chaplin had paid corrupt government officials to tamper with the blood test results. She further stated that "there is no doubt that she [Carol Ann] was his child." Oona O'Neill: During Chaplin's legal trouble over the Barry affair, he met O'Neill, daughter of Eugene O'Neill, and married her on 16 June 1943. He was fifty-four; she had just turned eighteen. The marriage produced eight children; their last child, Christopher, was born when Chaplin was 73 years old. Oona survived Chaplin by fourteen years, and died from pancreatic cancer in 1991.

Children[link]

! Child	! Birth	! Death	! Chaplin's age at time of birth	! Mother	! Grandchildren
Norman Spencer Chaplin	7 July 1919	10 July 1919	30	Mildred Harris
	5 May 1925	20 March 1968	36		Susan Maree Chaplin (b 1959)
	31 March 1926	3 March 2009	36	Stephan Chaplin (b 19xx)
Carol Ann Barry Chaplin (Disputed)	2 October 1943		54		Unknown
	31 July 1944		55		Shane Saura Chaplin (b 1974) Oona Castilla Chaplin (b 1986)
	7 March 1946		56	Kathleen Chaplin (b. 1975) Dolores Chaplin (b. 1979) Carmen Chaplin (b 19xx) George Chaplin (b 19xx)
	28 March 1949		59	Julien Ronet (b. 1980)
Victoria Chaplin	19 May 1951		62	Aurélia Thiérrée (b. 1971) James Thiérrée (b. 1974)
	23 August 1953		64	Kiera Chaplin (b. 1982)
Jane Cecil Chaplin	23 May 1957		68	Orson Salkind (b. 1986) Osceola Salkind (b. 1994)
Annette Emily Chaplin	3 December 1959		70
	6 July 1962		73

Awards and recognition[link]

Chaplin was knighted in 1975 at the age of 85 as a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. The honour had been first proposed in 1931. Knighthood was suggested again in 1956, but was vetoed after a Foreign Office report raised concerns over Chaplin's purported communist views and his moral behaviour in marrying two 16-year-old girls; it was felt that honouring him would damage both the reputation of the British honours system and relations with the United States.

Among other recognitions, Chaplin was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1970; that he had not been among those originally honoured in 1961 caused some controversy. Chaplin's Swiss mansion is to be opened as a museum tracing his life from the music halls in London to Hollywood fame.

A statue of Charlie Chaplin was made by John Doubleday, to stand in Leicester Square in London. It was unveiled by Sir Ralph Richardson in 1981. A bronze statue of him is at Waterville, County Kerry, as he and his family spent long holidays in The Butler Arms Hotel during the 1960s.

Academy Awards[link]

Chaplin received three Academy Awards in his lifetime: one for Best Original Score, and two Honorary Awards. However, during his active years as a filmmaker, Chaplin expressed disdain for the Academy Awards; his son Charles Jr wrote that Chaplin invoked the ire of the Academy in the 1930s by jokingly using his 1929 Oscar as a doorstop. This may help explain why ''City Lights'' and ''Modern Times,'' considered by several polls to be two of the greatest of all motion pictures, were not nominated for a single Academy Award.

The 1st Academy Awards ceremony: When the first Oscars were awarded on 16 May 1929, the voting audit procedures that now exists had not yet been put into place, and the categories were still very fluid. Chaplin's ''The Circus'' was set to be heavily recognised, as Chaplin had originally been nominated for Best Production, Best Director in a Comedy Picture, Best Actor and Best Writing (Original Story). However, the Academy decided to withdraw his name from all the competitive categories and instead give him a Special Award "for versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing ''The Circus''". The only other film to receive a Special Award that year was ''The Jazz Singer''.

The 13th Academy Awards ceremony: In 1941, ''The Great Dictator'' was nominated for five awards, including two for Chaplin: Best Writing and Best Actor. Chaplin lost out on both counts. For writing, he lost to Preston Sturges for ''The Great McGinty'', and for acting to James Stewart for ''The Philadelphia Story''.

The 20th Academy Awards ceremony: In 1948, Chaplin's screenplay for ''Monsieur Verdoux'' was nominated, but the award went instead to Sidney Sheldon for ''The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer''.

The 44th Academy Awards ceremony: Chaplin's second Oscar was awarded forty-three years after his first, in 1972. Chaplin came out of exile to accept the Honorary Award for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century". Stepping onto the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Chaplin received the longest standing ovation in Academy Award history, lasting a full twelve minutes.

The 45th Academy Awards ceremony: In 1973, Chaplin's film ''Limelight'' was honoured with an Oscar for Best Original Score. Though the film had originally been released in 1952, due to Chaplin's political difficulties at the time, the film did not play for one week in Los Angeles, and thus did not meet the criterion for nomination until it was re-released in 1972.

Chaplin's American business partner, who helped promote and release his films in the U.S., was Mo Rothman (1919–2011). Rothman is also credited with urging Chaplin to end his self-imposed exile and visit the U.S. to appear and be honoured both by the Lincoln Center Film Society in New York and then at Hollywood's Academy Awards in 1972.

Legacy[link]

Chaplin's "tramp" character is possibly the most imitated on all levels of entertainment. The influence of his 'Tramp' character could be seen on other artists and media providers. Beginning early on there were many tributes, and parodies made. E. C. Segar's 1916 comic strip "Charlie Chaplin's Comedy Capers" is an early example. Segar's 'Chaplin' comics would later be collected in 1917 into five books, precursors of the later comic book format. Two different animated cartoon series also starred 'Charlie' a tramp character, the first a series of nine shorts from 1916 by Movca Film Service. And later ten films by the Pat Sullivan Studio from 1918–1919, which would later use the 'Charlie/Charley' gestures to create Felix the Cat, the character made one later appearance in one of Felix's 1923 cartoons "Felix in Hollywood". From 1917 to 1918, silent film actor Billy West made more than 20 films as a comedian precisely imitating Chaplin's tramp character, makeup and costume.

The third of composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann's 1929–30 composition ''Wachsfigurenkabinett: Fünf kleine Opern (Waxworks: Five Little Operas)'' is entitled 'Chaplin-Ford-Trot', and features the character of Charlie Chaplin (in a speaking rather than operatic role).

Shree 420 and Awaara main characters are heavily influenced by ''The Tramp''.

Kamal Haasan moulded his character "Chaplin Chellappa" on Chaplin in the Tamil film Punnagai Mannan

In 1985, Chaplin was honoured with his image on a postage stamp of the United Kingdom, and in 1994 he appeared on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.

John Woo directed a parody film of Chaplin's "The Kid" called Hua ji shi dai (1981), also known as "Laughing Times."

A minor planet, 3623 Chaplin, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina in 1981, is named after Chaplin.

In 1992, a film was made about Chaplin's life entitled ''Chaplin'', directed by Oscar-winner Richard Attenborough, and starring Robert Downey, Jr., in an Oscar-nominated performance, and Geraldine Chaplin playing the part of Charlie Chaplin's mother, her own grandmother.

In 2001, British comedian Eddie Izzard played Chaplin in Peter Bogdanovich's film, ''The Cat's Meow'', which speculated about the still-unsolved death of producer Thomas H. Ince during a yachting party thrown by William Randolph Hearst, of which Chaplin was a guest.

In 2002, on a UK poll broadcast by the BBC, Chaplin was ranked number 66 on a list of the 100 Greatest Britons. In 2010 the New York Guitar Festival commissioned a number of contemporary artists to compose new scores for some of Chaplin's silent films. The artists included Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, Marc Ribot, David Bromberg, Alex de Grassi and Chicha Libre. On 15 April 2011, a day before his 122nd birthday anniversary, Google celebrated this with a special Google Doodle video on its global and other country-wide homepages.

Filmography and current rights issues[link]

Chaplin wrote, directed, and starred in dozens of feature films and short subjects. Highlights include ''The Immigrant'' (1917), ''The Gold Rush'' (1925), ''City Lights'' (1931), ''Modern Times'' (1936), and ''The Great Dictator'' (1940), all of which have been selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry. Three of these films made the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies and AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) lists: ''The Gold Rush'', ''City Lights'', and ''Modern Times''.

A listing of the dozens of Chaplin films and alternate versions can be found in the Ted Okuda-David Maska book ''Charlie Chaplin at Keystone and Essanay: Dawn of the Tramp''. Thanks to The Chaplin Keystone Project, efforts to produce definitive versions of Chaplin's pre-1918 short films have come to a successful end: after ten years of research and clinical international cooperation work, 34 Keystone films have been fully restored and published in October 2010 on a 4-DVD box set. All twelve Mutual films were restored in 1975 by archivist David Shepard and Blackhawk Films, and new restorations with even more footage were released on DVD in 2006.

Today, nearly all of Chaplin's output is owned by Roy Export S.A.S. in Paris, which enforces the library's copyrights and decides how and when this material can be released. French company MK2 acts as worldwide distribution agent for the Export company. In the U.S. as of 2010, distribution is handled under license by Janus Films, with home video releases from Criterion Collection, affiliated with Janus.

Notes and references[link]

;Notes

;References

Sources[link]

External links[link]

Charlie Chaplin Website

Charlie Chaplin Comedy Film Festival Website

The Charlie Chaplin Archive

Chaplin A Life: 40 Photo-Essays

Films by, about or starring Charlie Chaplin at the Internet Archive

* More Chaplin films at the Internet Archive

Obituary, NY Times, 26 December 1977 ''Chaplin's Little Tramp, an Everyman Trying to Gild Cage of Life, Enthralled World''

The TIME 100: Charlie Chaplin Archived, May 2011.

Category:1889 births Category:1977 deaths Category:19th-century English people Category:Academy Honorary Award recipients Category:Actors awarded British knighthoods Category:Actors from London Category:Articles containing video clips Category:Autobiographers Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:British expatriates in the United States Category:British Romani people Category:Cinema pioneers Category:Composers awarded knighthoods Category:English agnostics Category:English child actors Category:English comedians Category:English expatriates in Switzerland Category:English film actors Category:English film directors Category:English screenwriters Category:English silent film actors Category:English socialists Category:Erasmus Prize winners Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Category:Mimes Category:Music hall performers Category:People from Smethwick Category:Romani actors Category:Romani film directors Category:Short film directors Category:Silent film comedians Category:Slapstick comedians Category:Vaudeville performers Category:20th-century British people

kbd:Чарли Чаплин af:Charlie Chaplin als:Charles Chaplin ar:تشارلي تشابلن an:Charles Chaplin as:চাৰ্লি চেপলিন ast:Charles Chaplin az:Çarli Çaplin bn:চার্লি চ্যাপলিন zh-min-nan:Charlie Chaplin ba:Чарли Чаплин be:Чарлі Чаплін be-x-old:Чарлі Чаплін bg:Чарли Чаплин bar:Charlie Chaplin bo:ཤར་ལི་ཤ་པི་ལིན། bs:Charlie Chaplin br:Charlie Chaplin ca:Charles Chaplin cv:Чарли Чаплин cs:Charlie Chaplin cy:Charles Chaplin da:Charlie Chaplin de:Charles Chaplin et:Charlie Chaplin el:Τσάρλι Τσάπλιν es:Charles Chaplin eo:Charlie Chaplin ext:Charles Chaplin eu:Charlie Chaplin fa:چارلی چاپلین hif:Charlie Chaplin fo:Charlie Chaplin fr:Charlie Chaplin fy:Charlie Chaplin ga:Charlie Chaplin gd:Charlie Chaplin gl:Charlie Chaplin gu:ચાર્લી ચૅપ્લિન got:𐍃𐌾𐌰𐍂𐌻𐌹 𐍃𐌾𐌴𐍀𐌻𐌹𐌽 ko:찰리 채플린 hy:Չարլի Չապլին hi:चार्ली चैप्लिन hr:Charles Chaplin io:Charlie Chaplin bpy:চার্লি চ্যাপলিন id:Charlie Chaplin ia:Charlie Chaplin is:Charlie Chaplin it:Charlie Chaplin he:צ'ארלי צ'פלין jv:Charlie Chaplin kn:ಚಾರ್ಲಿ ಚಾಪ್ಲಿನ್ pam:Charlie Chaplin krc:Чарли Чаплин ka:ჩარლზ ჩაპლინი kk:Чаплин, Чарли kw:Charlie Chaplin sw:Charlie Chaplin ht:Charlie Chaplin ku:Charlie Chaplin mrj:Чаплин, Чарльз lez:Чаплин, Чарльз la:Carolus Chaplin lv:Čārlijs Čaplins lb:Charlie Chaplin lt:Charlie Chaplin li:Charlie Chaplin lmo:Charlie Chaplin hu:Charles Chaplin mk:Чарли Чаплин ml:ചാര്‍ളി ചാപ്ലിന്‍ mr:चार्ली चॅप्लिन arz:تشارلى تشابلين mzn:چارلی چاپین ms:Charlie Chaplin mn:Чарльз Спенсер Чаплин my:ချက်ပလင်၊ ချာလီ nah:Charles Chaplin nl:Charlie Chaplin new:चार्ली च्याप्लिन ja:チャールズ・チャップリン nap:Charlie Chaplin no:Charlie Chaplin nn:Charlie Chaplin nov:Charlie Chaplin oc:Charlie Chaplin mhr:Чарльз Чаплин uz:Charlie Chaplin pfl:Dscharlie Dschäblin pnb:چارلی چپلن pap:Charlie Chaplin pms:Charlie Chaplin nds:Charlie Chaplin pl:Charlie Chaplin pnt:Τσάρλι Τσάπλιν pt:Charlie Chaplin kaa:Charlie Chaplin ksh:Charlie Chaplin ro:Charlie Chaplin qu:Charlie Chaplin rue:Чарлі Чаплін ru:Чаплин, Чарльз sah:Чарли Чаплин sc:Charlie Chaplin sq:Charlie Chaplin scn:Charlie Chaplin simple:Charlie Chaplin sk:Charlie Chaplin sl:Charlie Chaplin szl:Charlie Chaplin so:Charlie Chaplin ckb:چارڵی چاپلن srn:Charlie Chaplin sr:Чарли Чаплин sh:Charlie Chaplin su:Charlie Chaplin fi:Charles Chaplin sv:Charlie Chaplin tl:Charlie Chaplin ta:சார்லி சாப்ளின் roa-tara:Charlie Chaplin tt:Чарльз Чаплин te:చార్లీ చాప్లిన్ th:ชาร์ลี แชปลิน tg:Чарли Чаплин tr:Charlie Chaplin uk:Чарлі Чаплін ur:چارلی چیپلن vec:Charlie Chaplin vi:Charlie Chaplin vo:Charlie Chaplin war:Charlie Chaplin yi:טשארלי טשאפלין zh-yue:差利 diq:Charlie Chaplin bat-smg:Charlie Chaplin zh:查理·卓别林

There are many people in history who are commonly appended with the phrase "''the Great''", or who were called that or an equivalent phrase in their own language. Other languages have their own suffixes such as ''e Bozorg'' and ''e azam'' in Persian and Urdu respectively.

In Persia, the title "the Great" at first seems to be a colloquial version of the Old Persian title "Great King". This title was first used by the conqueror Cyrus II of Persia.

The Persian title was inherited by Alexander III of Macedon (336–323 BC) when he conquered the Persian Empire, and the epithet "Great" eventually became personally associated with him. The first reference (in a comedy by Plautus) assumes that everyone knew who "Alexander the Great" was; however, there is no earlier evidence that Alexander III of Macedon was called "''the Great''".

The early Seleucid kings, who succeeded Alexander in Persia, used "Great King" in local documents, but the title was most notably used for Antiochus the Great (223–187 BC).

Later rulers and commanders began to use the epithet "the Great" as a personal name, like the Roman general Pompey. Others received the surname retrospectively, like the Carthaginian Hanno and the Indian emperor Ashoka the Great. Once the surname gained currency, it was also used as an honorific surname for people without political careers, like the philosopher Albert the Great.

As there are no objective criteria for "greatness", the persistence of later generations in using the designation greatly varies. For example, Louis XIV of France was often referred to as "The Great" in his lifetime but is rarely called such nowadays, while Frederick II of Prussia is still called "The Great". A later Hohenzollern - Wilhelm I - was often called "The Great" in the time of his grandson Wilhelm II, but rarely later.

Rulers[link]

Abbas I of Persia (1571–1629), Shah of Iran

Akbar (1542–1605), ruler of the Mughal Empire of South Asia, mainly India

Alain I of Albret (1440–1522), French aristocrat

Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), King of Macedonia, Persia, Greece, Egypt, and all of Mesopotamia

Alexander I of Georgia (1386–1446), King of Georgia

Alfonso III of León (c. 848-910), King of León, Galicia and Asturias

Alfred the Great (848/849-899), King of Wessex

Antiochus III the Great (c. 241–187 BC), ruler of the Seleucid Empire

Ashoka the Great (c. 304–232 BC), Indian emperor of the Maurya dynasty

Ashot I of Iberia “the Great”(died 826/830), presiding prince of Iberia (modern Georgia),

Askia Mohammad I (c. 1442–1538), ruler of the Songhai Empire

Bhumibol Adulyadej (born 1927), King of Thailand

Bolesław I Chrobry (967-1025), sometimes called "the Great", first King of Poland

Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia (also listed in the following section)

Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke (1736–1809), founder and ruler of the Rattanakosin Kingdom (in what is now Thailand)

Cnut the Great (c. 985 or 995-1035), King of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden

Casimir III the Great (1310–1370), King of Poland

Catherine the Great (1729–1796), Empress of Russia

Chandragupta II (reigned 375-413/415), also known as Vikramaditya, ruler of the Gupta empire in India

Charlemagne (died 814), King of the Franks and Emperor of the Romans

Chulalongkorn (1853–1910), King of Siam (now Thailand)

Chlothar II (584-629), King of Neustria and King of the Franks

Conrad, Margrave of Meissen (c. 1097-1157), Margrave of Meissen

Constantine I (c. 272-337), Roman emperor

Cyaxares the Great (c. 625-585 BC), third king of Media

Cyrus the Great (c. 600 BC or 576 BC–530 BC), founder and ruler of the Persian or Achaemenid Empire

Darius the Great (550 – 486 BC), third ruler of the Persian Empire

Devapala (died 850), ruler of the Pala Empire in the Indian subcontinent

Dionysius I, Greek tyrant of Syracuse

Ferdinand I of León and Castile (c. 1015–1065), King of León and Count of Castile

Frederick the Great (1712–1786), King of Prussia

Genghis Khan (1162?-1227), founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire

Gero (c. 900–965), ruler of Marca Geronis, a very large march in Europe

Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (1594–1632), King of Sweden, founder of the Swedish Empire, and noted military leader

Gwanggaeto the Great, King of Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea

Hanno the Great, the name of three leaders of Carthage, in the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd centuries BC

Henry I, Duke of Burgundy (946–1002)

Henry IV of France (1553–1610), King of France and King of Navarre

Herod the Great (73/74 BC-4 BC), King of Judea

Hugh the Great (898-956), Duke of the Franks and Count of Paris

Hugh Magnus of France (1007–1025), co-King of France

Hugh I, Count of Vermandois (1057–1101)

Humphrey I de Bohun (died c. 1123), Anglo-Norman aristocrat

Ivan III of Russia (1440–1505), Tsar of Russia

John I of Portugal (1358–1433), King of Portugal and the Algarve

John II of Aragon (1398–1479), King of Aragon and, through his wife, King of Navarre

Justinian I (483-565), Byzantine Emperor

Kamehameha I (c. 1758-1819), first King of Hawai'i

Kanishka (died c. 127), ruler of the Kushan Empire in Central Asia and parts of India

Kvirike III of Kakheti (1010–1029), King of Kakheti in eastern Georgia

Kublai Khan (1215–1294), Mongol ruler in the 13th century and Emperor of China; founder of the Yuan Dynasty

Llywelyn the Great (c. 1172–1240), Prince of Gwynedd and de facto ruler of most of Wales

Louis I of Hungary (1326–1382), King of Hungary, Croatia and Poland

Mangrai the Great (1238–1317), Lanna, northern Thailand

Emperor Meiji (1852–1912), Emperor of Japan

Mircea I of Wallachia (1355–1418)

Mithridates II of Parthia (died 88 BC), ruler of the Parthian Empire (in present day Iran)

Mithridates VI of Pontus (134 BC–63 BC), ruler of Pontus and the Bosporan Kingdom

Mstislav I of Kiev (1076–1132), Grand Prince of Kievan Rus

Naresuan (1555–1605), King of Ayutthaya

Narai (1633–1688), King of Ayutthaya (in what is now modern Thailand)

Odo the Great (died c. 735), Duke of Aquitaine

Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (912-973)

K'inich Janaab' Pakal (603-683), ruler of the Mayan city-state of Palenque

Parakramabahu I of Polonnaruwa (1123–1186), King of Sri Lanka

Peter Krešimir IV of Croatia (died 1075), King of Croatia

Peter the Great (1672–1725), Tsar of Russia

Peter III of Aragon (1239–1285), King of Aragon and King of Sicily

Pompey (106 BC-48 BC), military and political leader of the late Roman Republic, rival of Julius Caesar

Radama I (1793–1828), first king of greater Madagascar

Raja Raja Chola I (c. 947-1014), Indian emperor of the Cholas.

Rajendra Chola I (reigned 1014–1044), Tamil King of India

Ramesses II (reigned 1279 BC – 1213 BC), considered the greatest pharaoh of Ancient Egypt

Ram Khamhaeng (around 1237 to 1247-1298), King of Sukhothai (in present day Thailand)

Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona (1082–1131), also Count of Provence and various other counties

Rhodri the Great (c. 820–878), King of Gwynedd (in present day Wales)

Roman the Great (after 1160-1205), Grand Prince of Kiev

Saladin (c. 1138-1193), Kurdish Sultan of Egypt and Syria, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, and victor over the Crusaders

Samudragupta (c. 335–375), ruler of the Gupta empire in the Indian subcontinent

Sancho III of Navarre (c. 992-1035), King of Kingdom of Navarre

Sargon of Akkad (died c. 2215 BC), ruler of the Akkadian Empire

Sejong the Great (1397–1450), Korean king

Shapur II (309-379), king of the Sassanid Empire, Persia

Simeon I of Bulgaria (864/865-927), ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire

Stephen III of Moldavia (1433–1504), Prince of Moldavia (Romania)

Stephen Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia (c. 1308-1355), King of Serbia and Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks

Taksin (1734–1782), King of the Thonburi Kingdom (Thailand)

Tamar (1160-1123), Queen of the Georgian Empire

Timur (1336–1405), better known as Tamerlane, founder of the Timurid Dynasty

Theobald II, Count of Champagne (1090–1151), Count of Blois and of Chartres as Theobald IV, Count of Champagne and of Brie

Theodoric the Great (454-526), King of the Ostrogoths, regent of the Visigoths and a viceroy of the Byzantine Empire

Theodosius I (347-395), Roman emperor

Tigranes the Great (140-55 BC), Emperor of Armenia

Tiridates III of Armenia (285-339), King of Armenia

Umar (c. 586 to 590–644), second caliph of the Muslim Empire

Valdemar I of Denmark (1131–1182), King of Denmark

Valentinian I (364-375), Roman Emperor

Vladimir I of Kiev (c. 958-1015), ruler of Kievan Rus

Vytautas (c. 1350-1430), archduke of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy

William I, Count of Burgundy (1020–1087), Count of Burgandy and Mâcon

William V, Duke of Aquitaine (969-1030), also Count of Poitou

Xerxes I (519-465 BC), King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire (Persia)

Yu the Great (c. 2200-2100 BC), legendary ruler in ancient China

Religious figures[link]

Abraham the Great of Kashkar (ca. 492-586), monk and saint of the Assyrian Church of the East

Abraham Kidunaia (died c. 366, hermit, priest, and Christian saint of Mesopotamia

Albertus Magnus (1193/1206–1280), medieval German philosopher and theologian

Anthony the Great (c. 251–356), early Christian saint of Egypt

Babai the Great (c. 551–628), Assyrian church leader

Basil of Caesarea (330-379), Greek bishop and theologian

Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia (also listed in the previous section)

Euthymius the Great (377-473), abbot and Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox saint

Gertrude the Great (1256-c. 1302), German Benedictine, mystic, theologian and Roman Catholic saint

Pope Gregory I (c. 540-604)

Hiyya the Great, 3rd-century rabbi, Palestine

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005)

Pope Leo I (c. 391 or 400-461)

Macarius of Egypt (c. 300-391), Egyptian hermit

Pope Nicholas I (c. 800-867)

Photius I of Constantinople (c. 810–c. 893), Eastern Orthodox saint and Patriarch of Constantinople

William of Maleval (died 1157), founder of the Catholic congregation of Williamites

Other[link]

Beli Mawr, a figure in medieval Welsh literature and genealogies

Emmy the Great, folk singer

Matteo Rosso the Great, Roman politician and father of Pope Nicholas III

Prokop the Great, Hussite general in Bohemia

See also[link]

Epithet

List of monarchs by nickname

List of nicknames of European Royalty and Nobility: G-I

James, son of Zebedee, also known as James the Greater, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus

Ajax (mythology), called Ajax the Greater

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, whose common honorific "Mahatma" means "Great Soul"

Notes[link]

Category:Monarchs Great, List of people known as The Category:Greatest Nationals Category:Epithets

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name	Alpha Blondy
background	solo_singer
birth name	Seydou Koné
birth date	January 01, 1953
Birth place	Dimbokro, Côte d'Ivoire
band	The Solar System
genre	Reggae
occupation	Singer/Songwriter
years active	1981–present
website	AlphaBlondy.info alphablondyjahgloryfoundation.org
notable instruments	}}

Alpha Blondy (born January 1, 1953) is a reggae singer and international recording artist. Alpha Blondy was born Seydou Koné in Dimbokro, Côte d'Ivoire. He sings mainly in his native language of Dioula, in French and in English, and sometimes in Arabic or Hebrew. His lyrics convey serious political attitudes and a sense of humor.

Early years[link]

Childhood[link]

First son of a family of 9 children, Seydou Kone was raised by his grandmother, growing up in what he described as "among elders", which later was to have a big impact on his career. In 1962, Alpha Blondy went to join his father in Odienné, where he spent ten years, attending the Sainte Elisabeth high school, and getting involved in the Ivory Coast students movement. Here he formed a band. But, this hobby affected his schooling and Alpha Blondy was expelled due to poor attendance. His parents then sent him to study English in Monrovia in the neighboring country of Liberia in 1973. He spent thirteen months there and then moved to the United States of America to improve his English.

First stay in the USA[link]

In 1973 Seydou moved to New York (also briefly Texas), where he studied English at Hunter College in New York, and later in the Columbia University American Language Program. He majored in English because he wanted to become an English teacher. He had to work part-time, and sometimes at night, and became ill. In New York he met Rastafarians for the first time, and was also able to see concerts by Jamaican artists such as Burning Spear. At this time he was recording Christian music but never stopped writing his own songs. Eventually he got into various scrapes in New York and returned to the Ivory Coast, where he got into even more trouble until he met up with one of his childhood friends, Fulgence Kassi, who had become a noted television producer. This was the beginning of his real career as a singer, and he began to use the name "Alpha Blondy".

Musical career[link]

After various TV shows for Kassi, Blondy recorded his first solo album in 1982, entitled ''Jah Glory''. This album was to have enormous success and would become later a symbol of resistance because of the song "Brigadier Sabari", where Alpha criticized the harassment by the police. Some of this was based on personal experience, as Alpha himself had seen police violence. Alpha Blondy became a big star in Abidjan with his own African twist of Reggae music, becoming in the eyes of his fans "the Bob Marley of Africa". Alpha Blondy is spiritual, political and positive just like Marley himself, and even recorded a cover of Bob Marley's song "War". And he doesn't stop progressing; in order to reach more people with his message, he chose to sing in many languages: English, French, Baoule, and his own native language – Dioula. Later he also brought new instrumentation to his brand of reggae such as the violin and cello.

Soon the fame of Alpha Blondy spread to Europe. Following the success of an EP entitled “Rasta Poué” he went to Paris in 1984 to make his second album, ''Cocody Rock'', with the label Pathe Marconi. The "Bob Marley of Africa" traveled to the island of Jamaica and recorded the title track of this album with Marley’s backing group, The Wailers.

Back home in 1985, Alpha went into the studio to record ''Apartheid is Nazism''. This album was more politically committed than ever. It is a call for the end of Apartheid and the freedom for all. In 1986 Blondy recorded “Jerusalem” at the legendary Tuff Gong studios in Jamaica, again with The Wailers featuring Bob Marley's legendary Bass Aston "Family Man" Barrett. Blondy tried to promote unity between the religion of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. He drew his arguments and inspiration from his own diverse knowledge of the Bible, the Quran and the Torah. That same year, Blondy sang in Hebrew during a concert in Morocco. At this point he was touring continuously. His new album ''Revolution'' had a lighter, gentler sound; this was the album with cellos in the instrumentation, and the line-up included veteran Ivory Coast singer Aicha Kone. The album also included "Jah Houphouët parle", a long speech by the Ivory Coast president with only the most minimal beat behind it.

Blondy spent the years 1987–1989 giving concerts and recording ''SOS Guerre Tribale'' in Abidjan. This was promoted by Blondy himself as he was distancing himself from Pathe Marconi at this stage. This was not to be a real success but this wasn't going to stop Blondy and in 1991 he returned to Europe for a concert tour and to record his famous album ''Masada'' with the help of musical legends such as Bocana Maiga and UK reggae producer Dennis Bovell. The album, with its hit single "Rendez Vous" was a huge success, and later, Blondy was to receive his first Gold Disc in Paris.

At the beginning of 1993, worn out from a world tour, Blondy succumbed to depression and was taken into an institution for psychiatric help. But as his health recovered he recorded the album ''Dieu'' ("God"), on which he appears more spiritual and religious, on tracks such as "Heal Me", about his illness and recovery.

Blondy's psychiatric treatment continued but, on December 10, 1994, Blondy was back with the festival in memory of the late President Houphouet, and later he made his European comeback at a storming concert at Le Zenith in Paris. In 1996, Blondy released a hits compilation and went back into the studio to record the album ''Grand Bassam Zion'', singing in six languages: Malinke, Arabic, French, English, Ashanti and Wolof.

After two more years in Paris, Blondy returned to his homeland in 1998, with a new album, ''The Prophet''. Convinced his label was too much focused on the international market, he decided to create his own label. Since then Alpha has recorded albums and singles, such as "Yitzhak Rabin", in memory of the Israeli prime minister who was assassinated in 1995 (this was accompanied by yet another grueling tour of Europe), the single "Journaliste en Danger" from his 2000 album ''Elohim''.

Alpha Blondy celebrated 20 years as a recording artist, with the release of his CD ''MERCI'', in 2002 featuring Ophelie Winter and Saian Supa Crew, which earned him a 2003 Grammy Awards Nomination for "Best Reggae Album". However due to the political situation in his home country of Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), he was unable to personally attend the prestigious award ceremony in New York City. In an unprecedented move, the Grammy Awards permitted him to send a representative in his place of honor. In 2005 ''Akwaba'' was released. His latest CD is entitled "Jah Victory" and was released July 2007. It features Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare as well as Tyrone Downie formerly of Bob Marley and the Wailers. "Victory" is in honor of the peace agreement that was reached and implemented in his country in March 2007.

One of his most popular and successful songs was Sébé Allah Y'é.

On July 19, 2009, Alpha Blondy performed at New York's Central Park before a crowd of many native Africans, Jamaicans, and Americans.

June 13, 2010, a large crowd was allowed into a Blondy concert in the Ivory Coast to celebrate the peace and unity of the country, and at least 20 people were injured, two of whom died.

June 27, 2010, Alpha Blondy was the closing act at Parkpop, The Hague, Netherlands. He replaced Snoop Dogg and Beenie Man.

Blondy has also been an important influence on other African reggae artists such as Ismaël Isaac.

Faith [link]

Alpha Blondy was born to a Muslim mother and a Christian father, and was brought up by a grandmother who taught him to love everyone. Blondy's respect for all religions and the spirituality he derives from them can be heard on the tracks “God is One” or “Jerusalem” where he sang for unity between all religions in 1986.

Humanitarian [link]

Alpha Blondy (Seydou Kone) was named United Nations Ambassador of Peace for Côte d'Ivoire in 2005. He made great efforts to bring about a peaceful solution to his country's political and physical division which was a result of an attempted Coup in 2001. As of March 2007 a peace agreement was signed and implemented, due to the hard work of many people including Alpha Blondy. Alpha now reaches out further with the newly created not-for-profit, non-government, non-political, charitable foundation, Alpha Blondy Jah Glory Foundation, which works towards ending social injustice and generational poverty by giving people the tools that they need to help themselves. He strongly believes in helping the poor (Jah Glory), and also that children should not be hurt. The Foundation strives to create and implement grassroots programs at the village level, such as the Women’s Self-Sufficiency Micro Loan Program, to teach women who are caring for multiple orphans how to start and manage their own business, to better provide for their families, as well as other sustainable projects, such as the Tafari-Genesis Retreat Camp for Children (Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso). It especially hopes to bring joy and hope to children who have been affected by civil wars, former child soldiers, and those who suffer from chronic life-threatening illnesses, such as sickle-cell anemia, malaria, asthma, etc.

Talking about Alpha Blondy, people think usually of music and indeed since 1980 he has written at least 17 albums and 194 titles. This itself indicates the great value he represents for his fans. Alpha is no longer an Ivorian star but an International Mega Star because of his fight for peace and unity all around the world. One example was his single “Who Are You” with Ophelie Winter against antipersonnel mines. He has also participated at many humanitarian and charity concerts, such as the concert in Senegal in March 2006 for the eradication of Malaria in Africa (where he appeared along with many other celebrities). He has done much, much more of this type of work in the Ivory Coast itself, especially at his annual free concert at Bassam beach called “festa”.

Best known songs[link]

His first success was ''Brigadier Sabari''. Some representative songs are :

''Sebe Allah Y'e''

''Jah Glory'' – in which he sings against poverty

''Apartheid is Nazism''

''Brigadier Sabari'' – satirical lyrics about police brutality.

''Cocody Rock'' – has become an Alpha Blondy anthem, which everyone knows and sings

''Guerre Civile'' – about civil war

''Jerusalem'' – a call for peace. The lyrics begins with a Hebrew prayer in Hebrew

''Journalistes en danger'' – about the assassination of Norbert Zongo

''Politiqui'' – about civilian / military government alternance

''Yitzhak Rabin'' – written in 1995, following the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and dedicated to him.

''Sweet Fanta Diallo''

''Téré''

''Blesser''

''Rasta Poué''

Discography[link]

1980s[link]

{|class=wikitable |- !Album/Released !!Track List !!Notes |- |''Jah Glory!'' (1983) || # "Jah Glory" # "The End" # "Bêbi Yêrê Yé" # "Bintou Wêrê-wêrê" # "Brigadier Sabari" # "Dou Nougnan" ||featuring The Natty Rebels |- |''Cocody Rock!'' (1984) || # "Cocody Rock" # "Tere" # "Super Powers" # "Interplanetary Revolution" # "Fangan Kameleba" # "Bory Samory" || |- |''Apartheid Is Nazism'' (1985) || # "Afriki" # "Jah Houphouet" # "Apartheid Is Nazism" # "Idjidja" # "Sahel" # "Sebe Allah Y'e" # "Kiti" # "Come Back Jesus" # "Djinamory" || |- |''Jerusalem'' (1986) || # "Jerusalem" # "Politiqui" # "Bloodshed In Africa" # "I Love Paris" # "Kalachnikov Love" # "Travailler C'est Trop Dur" # "Miva" # "Boulevard De La Mort" # "Dji" ||featuring Wailers Band |- |''Revolution'' (1987) || # "Sweet Fanta Diallo" # "Blesser" # "Jah Houphouet Boigny Nous Parle" # "Rock And Roll Remedy" # "Time" # "Election Koutcha" # "Miri" ||featuring The Solar System |- |''Rasta Poué'' (1988) || # "Rasta Poué" # "Bintou Wêrê-wêrê" # "Jah Glory" # "Dou Nougnan" # "Brigadier Sabari" # "The End" # "Bêbi Yêrê Yé" # "Rasta Fou" |- |''The Prophets'' (1989) || # "The Prophet (Allah Léka Netchi)" # "Banana" # "Coup D'etat" # "Kolombaria" # "Face To Face" # "Black Men Tears" # "Corinthiens" # "Jah Music" ||featuring The Solar System |}

1990s[link]

{|class=wikitable |- !Album / Released !!Track List |- |''Masada'' (1992)featuring The Solar System || # "Masada" # "Multipartisme (Mediocratie)" # "Rendez-vous" # "God Is One" # "Yeye" # "Desert Storm" # "Houphouet Yako" # "Peace In Liberia" # "Papa Bakoye" # "Les Chiens" # "Sciences Sans Conscience" # "Fulgence Kassy" # "Ca Me Fait Si Mal" # "Mystic Night Move" |- |''SOS Guerre Tribale'' (1993) || # "Babylone Kêlê" # "Yagba Dimension" # "Cissê Kiri" # "Café Cacao" # "Sida In The City" # "Véto De Dieu" |- |''Live Au Zénith (Paris)'' (1993) || # "Intro: Jah Houphouët Boigny Nous Parle" # "Psaume 23" # "Jerusalem" # "Masada" # "Politiqui" # "Cocody Rock" # "Multipartisme (Médiocratie)" # "God Is One" # "Dji" # "Come Back Jesus" # "Bénédiction" |- |''Dieu'' (1994)featuring The Solar System || # "Abortion Is A Crime" # "Dieu" # "Wild Time" # "Amour Papier Longueur" # "La Guerre (d'après "War" de Bob Marley & The Wailers)" # "Mon Père Avait Raison" # "Rocking Time" # "Heal Me" # "Gorée (Sénégal)" # "Afrique-Antilles" # "Soukeina (Nangnele)" # "Dos Au Mur" |- |''Grand Bassam Zion Rock'' (1996)featuring The Solar System || # "Ragga Gangstar" # "Alpha Kaya" # "Zion Love" # "Course Au Pouvoir" # "Ya Fohi" # "Valérie" # "Grand Bassam" # "Mo" # "Cheik Amadou Bamba" # "Sefon Dance" # "Unité Nationale" # "Silence Houphouët D'or" # "N'kabourou" # "Mystère Naturel" |- |''The Best Of (Alpha Blondy album)'' (1997) || # "Cocody Rock" # "Apartheid Is Nazism" # "Come Back Jesus" # "Jerusalem" # "Politiqui" # "Sweet Fanta Diallo" # "Banana" # "Café Cacao" # "Masada" # "Rendez-vous" # "Yéyé" # "Fulgence Kassy" # "Amour Papier Longueur" # "Rendez-vous (Cool Summer Mix)" |- |''Yitzhak Rabin'' (1998)featuring The Solar System || # "New Dawn" # "Yitzhak Rabin" # "Assinie Mafia" # "Les Imbeciles" # "Armee Francaise" # "Hypocrites" # "Guerre Civile" # "Saraka" # "Les Larmes De Therese" # "Lalogo" # "Bakoroni" # "Maimouna" |- |''Elohim'' (1999) || # "Les Voleurs De La Republique" # "Monin" # "Journalistes En Danger (Democrature)" # "Waikiki Rock" # "When I Need You" # "Take No Prisoner (Cannibalistic)" # "Petini Go Gaou" # "Sabotage" # "Lune De Miel (Honeymoon)" # "Haridjinan" # "La Queu Du Diable" # "Dictature" # "Djeneba" # "Black Samourai" |}

2000s[link]

{|class=wikitable |- !Album / Released !!Track List |- |''Paris Bercy'' (2001) ||

CD 1

# "Intro" # "New Dawn" # "Hypocrite" # "Jah Glory" # "La Queue Du Diable" # "Black Samourai" # "Samala" # "Sweet Fanta Diallo" # "Assinie Mafia" # "Guerre Civile" # "Las Iarmes De Thérèse" # "Peace In Liberia"

CD 2

# "Les Imbeciles" # "Unité Nationale" # "Medley: Afriki/Bintou/Idjidja/Samory/Rasta Poué" # "Haridjinan" # "Journalistes En Danger" # "Dou Nougnan" # "Tere" # "Brigadier Sabari " |- |''Merci'' (2002) || # "Wari" # "Who Are You" # "Quitte Dans Ça" # "Souroukou Logo" # "God Bless Africa" # "Zoukéfiez-moi Ça" # "Ato Afri Loué" # "Politruc" # "Hey Jack" # "Vanité" # "Si On M'avait Dit" # "Le Feu" |- |''Akwaba: The Very Best Of'' (2005)featuring The Solar System || # "Sweet Sweet (Mix)" # "Good Luck Is Africa" # "Yana De Fohi" # "Apartheid Is Nazism" # "Cocody Rock (Remix)" # "Jerusalem" # "Banana Poyo (Mix)" # "Black Samourai" # "Rasta Poué" # "Travailler C'est Trop Dur" # "Rendez-vous (Cool Summer Mix)" # "Assinie Mafia" # "Masada" # "Wari" # "Young Guns" # "Sweet Fanta Diallo" # "Afriki" # "Desert Storm" # "Bloodshed In Africa" # "Dieu" |- |''Jah Victory'' (2007) || # "I Wish You Were Here" # "Sankara" # "Ranita" # "Ne Tirez Pas Sur L'Ambulance" # "Demain T'Appartient" # "Bahia" # "Mister Grande Gueule" # "Africa Yako" # "Cameroun" # "Jah Light" # "Le Bal Des Combattus" # "Tampiri" # "Les Salauds" # "Sales Racistes" # "Ikafo" # "Jesus" # "Gban-gban" # "La Planete" # "La Route De La Paix" |}

2010s[link]

{|class=wikitable |- !Album / Released !!Track List |- |''Vision'' (2011) || # "Rasta Bourgeois" # "Stewball" # "Trop Bon" # "Pinto (Mon Kôyoga Préféré)" # "C'est Magic" # "Tu Mens" # "Ma Tête" # "Vuvuzela" # "Bôgô" # "Ces Soi-Disant Amis" # "Massaya" # "Le Cha-Cha-Cha Du CFA" # "L'Autre Rive" # "Vuvuzela - Remix By Kore, Featuring Leslie" # "Vuvuzela Video" |}

References[link]

External links[link]

Sahel University, (2006). Alpha Blondy’s Actions. Alpha Blondy Grammy Awards nomination PCCI Center, (2006). Alpha Blondy’s Engagements.

Alpha Blondy Music

Category:1953 births Category:Ivorian reggae musicians Category:Ivorian singers Category:Living people Category:People from Dimbokro

ar:ألفا بلوندي cs:Alpha Blondy de:Alpha Blondy el:Άλφα Μπλόντι es:Alpha Blondy fr:Alpha Blondy it:Alpha Blondy he:אלפא בלונדי sw:Alpha Blondy ht:Alpha Blondy hu:Alpha Blondy nl:Alpha Blondy ja:アルファ・ブロンディ pl:Alpha Blondy pt:Alpha Blondy ru:Альфа Блонди fi:Alpha Blondy sv:Alpha Blondy tr:Alpha Blondy

name	Adolf Hitler
nationality
birth date	April 20, 1889
birth place	Braunau am Inn, Austria–Hungary
death date	April 30, 1945
death place	Berlin, Germany
death cause	Suicide
party	National Socialist German Workers' Party (1921–1945)
otherparty	German Workers' Party (1920–1921)
religion	See Adolf Hitler's religious views
spouse	Eva Braun (29–30 April 1945)
occupation	Politician, soldier, artist, writer
order	Führer of Germany
term start	2 August 1934
term end	30 April 1945
predecessor	Paul von Hindenburg (as President)
successor	Karl Dönitz (as President)
order2	Chancellor of Germany
term start2	30 January 1933
term end2	30 April 1945
president2	Paul von Hindenburg
deputy2
predecessor2	Kurt von Schleicher
successor2	Joseph Goebbels
order3	Reichsstatthalter of Prussia
term start3	30 January 1933
term end3	30 January 1935
primeminister3
predecessor3	''Office created''
successor3	''Office abolished''
signature	Hitler Signature2.svg
allegiance
branch	''Reichsheer''
unit	16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment
serviceyears	1914–1918
rank	''Gefreiter''
battles	World War I
awards	}}

Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party ( (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.

A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, ''Mein Kampf'' (''My Struggle''). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.

Hitler's foreign and domestic policies had the goal of seizing ''Lebensraum'' ("living space") for the Germanic people. He directed the rearmament of Germany and the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht in September 1939, leading to the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Under Hitler's rule, in 1941 German forces and their European allies occupied most of Europe and North Africa. These gains were gradually reversed, and in 1945 the Allied armies defeated the German army. Hitler's supremacist and racially motivated policies resulted in the systematic murder of eleven million people, including nearly six million Jews.

In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time mistress, Eva Braun. On 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two committed suicide to avoid capture by the Red Army, and their corpses were burned.

Early years[link]

Ancestry[link]

Hitler's father, Alois Hitler (1837–1903), was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. Alois's birth certificate did not name the father, so the child bore his mother's surname. In 1842 Johann Georg Hiedler married Anna. After she died in 1847 and he in 1856, Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedler's brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler. It was not until 1876 that Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest before three witnesses. While awaiting trial at Nuremberg in 1945, Nazi official Hans Frank suggested the existence of letters claiming that Alois' mother was employed as a housekeeper for a Jewish family in Graz and that the family's 19-year-old son, Leopold Frankenberger, had fathered Alois. However, no Frankenberger, Jewish or otherwise, was registered in Graz during that period. Historians doubt the claim that Alois' father was Jewish.

At age 39, Alois assumed the surname "Hitler", also spelled as "Hiedler", "Hüttler", or "Huettler". The origin of the name is either "one who lives in a hut" (Standard German ''Hütte''), "shepherd" (Standard German ''hüten'' "to guard", English "heed"), or is from the Slavic words ''Hidlar'' and ''Hidlarcek''.

Childhood[link]

Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 at the Gasthof zum Pommer, an inn in Ranshofen, a village annexed in 1938 to the municipality of Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary. He was the fourth of six children to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl (1860–1907). Adolf'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 than Austrian German, which marked his speech all of 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 tried his hand at farming and beekeeping. Adolf attended school in nearby Fischlham. Hitler became fixated on warfare after finding a picture book about the Franco-Prussian War among his father's belongings.

The move to Hafeld coincided with the onset of intense father-son conflicts caused by Adolf'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 moved to Lambach. Hitler attended a Catholic school in an 11th-century Benedictine cloister, the pulpit of which bore a stylized swastika symbol on the coat of arms of Theodorich von Hagen, a former abbot. The eight-year-old Hitler took singing lessons, sang in the church choir, and even entertained thoughts of becoming a priest. In 1898 the family returned permanently to Leonding. The death of his younger brother, Edmund, from measles on 2 February 1900 deeply affected Hitler. He changed from being confident and outgoing and an excellent student, to a morose, detached, and sullen boy who constantly fought with his father and teachers.

Alois had made a successful career in the customs bureau and wanted his son to follow 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 gave rise to an unforgiving antagonism between father and son, who were both strong-willed. Ignoring his son's desire to attend a classical high school and become an artist, in September 1900 Alois sent Adolf to the ''Realschule'' in Linz. (This was the same high school that Adolf Eichmann would attend some 17 years later.) Hitler rebelled against this decision, and in ''Mein Kampf'' revealed that he did poorly in school, hoping that once his father saw "what little progress I was making at the technical school he would let me devote myself to my dream."

Hitler became obsessed with German nationalism from a young age. He expressed loyalty only to Germany, despising the declining Habsburg Monarchy and its rule over an ethnically-variegated empire. Hitler and his friends used the German greeting "Heil", and sang the German anthem "Deutschland Über Alles" instead of the Austrian Imperial anthem.

After Alois' sudden death on 3 January 1903, Hitler's performance at school deteriorated. His mother allowed him to quit in autumn 1905. He enrolled at the ''Realschule'' in Steyr in September 1904; his behaviour and performance showed some slight and gradual improvement. In the autumn of 1905, after passing a repeat and the final exam, Hitler left the school without showing any ambitions for further schooling or clear plans for a career.

Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich[link]

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. The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna rejected him twice, in 1907 and 1908, because of his "unfitness for painting". The director recommended that Hitler study architecture, but he lacked the academic credentials. On 21 December 1907, his mother died aged 47. After the Academy's second rejection, Hitler ran out of money. In 1909 he lived in a homeless shelter, and by 1910, he had settled into a house for poor working men on Meldemannstraße. At the time Hitler lived there, Vienna was a hotbed of religious prejudice and 19th-century racism. Fears of being overrun by immigrants from the East were widespread, and the populist mayor, Karl Lueger, exploited the rhetoric of virulent antisemitism for political effect. Georg Schönerer's pan-Germanic antisemitism had a strong following and base in the Mariahilf district, where Hitler lived. Hitler read local newspapers, such as the ''Deutsches Volksblatt'', that fanned prejudice and played on Christian fears of being swamped by an influx of eastern Jews. Hostile to what he saw as Catholic "Germanophobia", he developed an admiration for Martin Luther.

The origin and first expression of Hitler's antisemitism have been difficult to locate. Hitler states in ''Mein Kampf'' that he first became an antisemite in Vienna. His close friend, August Kubizek, claimed that Hitler was a "confirmed antisemite" before he left Linz. Kubizek's account has been challenged by historian Brigitte Hamann, who writes that Kubizek is the only person to have said that the young Hitler was an antisemite. Hamann also notes that no antisemitic remark has been documented from Hitler during this period. Historian Ian Kershaw suggests that if Hitler had made such remarks, they may have gone unnoticed because of the prevailing antisemitism in Vienna at that time. Several sources provide strong evidence that Hitler had Jewish friends in his hostel and in other places in Vienna. Historian Richard J. Evans states that "historians now generally agree that his notorious, murderous anti-Semitism emerged well after Germany’s defeat [in World War I], as a product of the paranoid 'stab-in-the-back' explanation for the catastrophe".

Hitler received the final part of his father's estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich. Historians believe he left Vienna to evade conscription into the Austrian army. Hitler later claimed that he did not wish to serve the Habsburg Empire because of the mixture of "races" in its army. After he was deemed unfit for service—he failed his physical exam in Salzburg on 5 February 1914—he returned to Munich.

World War I[link]

At the outbreak of World War I, Hitler applied to serve in the German army. He was accepted in August 1914, likely as the result of a clerical oversight—he was still an Austrian citizen. Posted to the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (1st Company of the List Regiment), 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. Recommended by Hugo Gutmann, he received the Iron Cross, First Class, on 4 August 1918, a decoration rarely awarded to one of Hitler's rank (''Gefreiter''). Hitler's post at regimental headquarters, providing frequent interactions with senior officers, may have helped him receive this decoration. Though his rewarded actions may have been courageous, they were probably not highly exceptional. He also received the Black Wound Badge on 18 May 1918.

During his service at the headquarters, Hitler pursued his artwork, drawing cartoons and instructions for an army newspaper. During the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, he was wounded either in the groin area or the left thigh by a shell that had exploded in the dispatch runners' dugout. Hitler spent almost two months in the Red Cross hospital at Beelitz, returning to his regiment on 5 March 1917. On 15 October 1918, he was temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack and was hospitalised in Pasewalk. While there, Hitler learnt of Germany's defeat, and—by his own account—on receiving this news, he suffered a second bout of blindness.

Hitler became embittered over the collapse of the war effort, and his ideological development began to firmly take shape. He described the war as "the greatest of all experiences", and was praised by his commanding officers for his bravery. The experience reinforced his passionate German patriotism and he was shocked by Germany's capitulation in November 1918. Like other German nationalists, he believed in the ''Dolchstoßlegende'' (Stab-in-the-back legend), which claimed that the German army, "undefeated in the field," had been "stabbed in the back" on the home front by civilian leaders and Marxists, later dubbed the "November criminals".

The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany must relinquish several of its territories and demilitarise the Rhineland. The treaty imposed economic sanctions and levied heavy reparations on the country. Many Germans perceived the treaty—especially Article 231, which declared Germany responsible for the war—as a humiliation. The Versailles Treaty and the economic, social, and political conditions in Germany after the war were later exploited by Hitler for political gains.

Entry into politics[link]

After World War I Hitler returned to Munich. Having no formal education and career plans or prospects, he tried to remain in the army for as long as possible. In July 1919 he was appointed ''Verbindungsmann'' (intelligence agent) of an ''Aufklärungskommando'' (reconnaissance commando) of the Reichswehr, to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers' Party (DAP). While monitoring the activities of the DAP, Hitler became attracted to the founder Anton Drexler's antisemitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist, and anti-Marxist ideas. Drexler favoured a strong active government, a "non-Jewish" version of socialism, and solidarity among all members of society. Impressed with Hitler's oratory skills, Drexler invited him to join the DAP. Hitler accepted on 12 September 1919, becoming the party's 55th member.

At the DAP, Hitler met Dietrich Eckart, one of its early founders and a member of the occult Thule Society. Eckart became Hitler's mentor, exchanging ideas with him and introducing him to a wide range of people in Munich society. To increase its appeal, the DAP changed its name to the ''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (National Socialist German Workers Party – NSDAP). Hitler designed the party's banner of a swastika in a white circle on a red background.

Hitler was discharged from the army in March 1920 and began working full time for the NSDAP. In February 1921—already highly effective at speaking to large audiences—he spoke to a crowd of over 6,000 in Munich. To publicise the meeting, two truckloads of party supporters drove around town waving swastika flags and throwing leaflets. Hitler soon gained notoriety for his rowdy, polemic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians, and especially against Marxists and Jews. At the time, the NSDAP was centred in Munich, a major hotbed of anti-government German nationalists determined to crush Marxism and undermine the Weimar Republic.

In June 1921, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin, a mutiny broke out within the NSDAP in Munich. Members of the its executive committee, some of whom considered Hitler to be too overbearing, wanted to merge with the rival German Socialist Party (DSP). Hitler returned to Munich on 11 July 1921 and angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised that his resignation would mean the end of the party. Hitler announced he would rejoin on the condition that he would replace Drexler as party chairman, and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich. The committee agreed; he rejoined the party as member 3,680. He still faced some opposition within the NSDAP: Hermann Esser and his allies printed 3,000 copies of a pamphlet attacking Hitler as a traitor to the party. In the following days, Hitler spoke to several packed houses and defended himself, to thunderous applause. His strategy proved successful: at a general membership meeting, he was granted absolute powers as party chairman, with only one nay vote cast.

Hitler's vitriolic beer hall speeches began attracting regular audiences. He became adept at using populist themes targeted at his audience, including the use of scapegoats who could be blamed for the economic hardships of his listeners. Historians have noted the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups. Kessel writes, "Overwhelmingly ... Germans speak with mystification of Hitler's 'hypnotic' appeal. The word shows up again and again; Hitler is said to have mesmerized the nation, captured them in a trance from which they could not break loose." Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper described "the fascination of those eyes, which had bewitched so many seemingly sober men." He used his personal magnetism and an understanding of crowd psychology to his advantage while engaged in public speaking. Alfons Heck, a former member of the Hitler Youth, describes the reaction to a speech by Hitler: "We erupted into a frenzy of nationalistic pride that bordered on hysteria. For minutes on end, we shouted at the top of our lungs, with tears streaming down our faces: ''Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil!'' From that moment on, I belonged to Adolf Hitler body and soul". Although his oratory skills and personal traits were generally received well by large crowds and at official events, some who had met Hitler privately noted that his appearance and demeanour failed to make a lasting impression on them.

Early followers included Rudolf Hess, former air force pilot Hermann Göring, and army captain Ernst Röhm. The latter became head of the Nazis' paramilitary organisation, the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA, "Stormtroopers"), which protected meetings and frequently attacked political opponents. A critical influence on his thinking during this period was the Aufbau Vereinigung, a conspiratorial group formed of White Russian exiles and early National Socialists. The group, financed with funds channelled from wealthy industrialists like Henry Ford, introduced him to the idea of a Jewish conspiracy, linking international finance with Bolshevism.

Beer Hall Putsch[link]

Hitler enlisted the help of World War I General Erich Ludendorff for an attempted coup known as the "Beer Hall Putsch" (also known as the "Hitler Putsch" or "Munich Putsch"). The Nazi Party had used Italian Fascism as a model for their appearance and policies. Hitler wanted to emulate Benito Mussolini's "March on Rome" (1922) by staging his own coup in Bavaria, to be followed by challenging the government in Berlin. Hitler and Ludendorff sought the support of ''Staatskommissar'' (state commissioner) Gustav von Kahr, Bavaria's de facto ruler. However, Kahr, along with Police Chief Hans Ritter von Seisser (Seißer) and Reichswehr General Otto von Lossow, wanted to install a nationalist dictatorship without Hitler.

Hitler wanted to seize a critical moment for successful popular agitation and support. On 8 November 1923 he and the SA stormed a public meeting of 3,000 people that had been organised by Kahr in the Bürgerbräukeller, a large beer hall in Munich. Hitler interrupted Kahr's speech and announced that the national revolution had begun, declaring the formation of a new government with Ludendorff. Retiring to a backroom, Hitler, with handgun drawn, demanded and got the support of Kahr, Seisser, and Lossow. Hitler's forces initially succeeded in occupying the local Reichswehr and police headquarters; however, Kahr and his consorts quickly withdrew their support and neither the army nor the state police joined forces with him. The next day, Hitler and his followers marched from the beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry to overthrow the Bavarian government, but police dispersed them. Sixteen NSDAP members and four police officers were killed in the failed coup.

Hitler fled to the home of Ernst Hanfstaengl, and by some accounts contemplated suicide. He was depressed but calm when arrested on 11 November 1923 for high treason. His trial began in February 1924 before the special People's Court in Munich, and Alfred Rosenberg became temporary leader of the NSDAP. On 1 April Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison. He received friendly treatment from the guards; he was allowed mail from supporters and regular visits by party comrades. The Bavarian Supreme Court issued a pardon and he was released from jail on 20 December 1924, against the state prosecutor's objections. Including time on remand, Hitler had served just over one year in prison.

While at Landsberg, Hitler dictated most of the first volume of ''Mein Kampf'' (''My Struggle''; originally entitled ''Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice'') to his deputy, Rudolf Hess. The book, dedicated to Thule Society member Dietrich Eckart, was an autobiography and an exposition of his ideology. ''Mein Kampf'' was influenced by ''The Passing of the Great Race'' by Madison Grant, which Hitler called "my Bible". The book laid out Hitler's plans for transforming German society into one based on race. Some passages implied genocide. Published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926, it sold 228,000 copies between 1925 and 1932. One million copies were sold in 1933, Hitler's first year in office.

Rebuilding the NSDAP[link]

At the time of Hitler's release from prison, politics in Germany had become less combative, and the economy had improved. This limited Hitler's opportunities for political agitation. As a result of the failed Beer Hall Putsch, the NSDAP and its affiliated organisations were banned in Bavaria. In a meeting with Prime Minister of Bavaria Heinrich Held on 4 January 1925, Hitler agreed to respect the authority of the state: he would only seek political power through the democratic process. The meeting paved the way for the ban on the NSDAP to be lifted. However, Hitler was barred from public speaking, a ban that remained in place until 1927. To advance his political ambitions in spite of the ban, Hitler appointed Gregor Strasser, Otto Strasser, and Joseph Goebbels to organise and grow the NSDAP in northern Germany. A superb organiser, Gregor Strasser steered a more independent political course, emphasising the socialist element of the party's programme.

Hitler ruled the NSDAP autocratically by asserting the ''Führerprinzip'' ("Leader principle"). Rank in the party was not determined by elections—positions were filled through appointment by those of higher rank, who demanded unquestioning obedience to the will of the leader.

The stock market in the United States crashed on 24 October 1929. The impact in Germany was dire: millions were thrown out of work and several major banks collapsed. Hitler and the NSDAP prepared to take advantage of the emergency to gain support for their party. They promised to repudiate the Versailles Treaty, strengthen the economy, and provide jobs.

Rise to power[link]

+ Nazi Party election results
Date	Total votes	Votes, percentage	Reichstag seats	Notes
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Brüning administration[link]

The Great Depression in Germany provided a political opportunity for Hitler. Germans were ambivalent to the parliamentary republic, which faced strong challenges from right- and left-wing extremists. The moderate political parties were increasingly unable to stem the tide of extremism, and the German referendum of 1929 had helped to elevate Nazi ideology. The elections of September 1930 resulted in the break-up of a grand coalition and its replacement with a minority cabinet. Its leader, chancellor Heinrich Brüning of the Centre Party, governed through emergency decrees from the president, Paul von Hindenburg. Governance by decree would become the new norm and paved the way for authoritarian forms of government. The NSDAP rose from obscurity to win 18.3% of the vote and 107 parliamentary seats in the 1930 election, becoming the second-largest party in parliament.

Hitler made a prominent appearance at the trial of two Reichswehr officers, Lieutenants Richard Scheringer and Hans Ludin, in the autumn of 1930. Both were charged with membership in the NSDAP, at that time illegal for Reichswehr personnel. The prosecution argued that the NSDAP was an extremist party, prompting defence lawyer Hans Frank to call on Hitler to testify in court. On 25 September 1930 Hitler testified that his party would pursue political power solely through democratic elections, a testimony that won him many supporters in the officer corps.

Brüning's austerity measures brought little economic improvement and were extremely unpopular. Hitler exploited this by targeting his political messages specifically at people who had been affected by the inflation of the 1920s and the Depression, such as farmers, war veterans, and the middle class.

Hitler had formally renounced his Austrian citizenship on 7 April 1925, but at the time did not acquire German citizenship. For almost seven years Hitler was stateless, unable to run for public office, and faced the risk of deportation. On 25 February 1932 the interior minister of Brunswick, who was a member of the NSDAP, appointed Hitler as administrator for the state's delegation to the Reichsrat in Berlin, making Hitler a citizen of Brunswick, and thus of Germany.

In 1932 Hitler ran against von Hindenburg in the presidential elections. The viability of his candidacy was underscored by a 27 January 1932 speech to the Industry Club in Düsseldorf, which won him support from many of Germany's most powerful industrialists. However, Hindenburg had support from various nationalist, monarchist, Catholic, and republican parties, and some social democrats. Hitler used the campaign slogan "''Hitler über Deutschland''" ("Hitler over Germany"), a reference to both his political ambitions and to his campaigning by aircraft. Hitler came in second in both rounds of the election, garnering more than 35% of the vote in the final election. Although he lost to Hindenburg, this election established Hitler as a strong force in German politics.

Appointment as chancellor[link]

The absence of an effective government prompted two influential politicians, Franz von Papen and Alfred Hugenberg, along with several other industrialists and businessmen, to write a letter to von Hindenburg. The signers urged Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as leader of a government "independent from parliamentary parties", which could turn into a movement that would "enrapture millions of people".

Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor after two further parliamentary elections—in July and November 1932—had not resulted in the formation of a majority government. Hitler was to head a short-lived coalition government formed by the NSDAP and Hugenberg's party, the German National People's Party (DNVP). On 30 January 1933 the new cabinet was sworn in during a brief and simple ceremony in Hindenburg's office. The NSDAP held three of the eleven posts: Hitler was named chancellor, Hermann Göring was named minister without portfolio, and Wilhelm Frick was appointed minister of the interior.

Reichstag fire and March elections[link]

As chancellor, Hitler worked against attempts by the NSDAP's opponents to build a majority government. Because of the political stalemate, he asked President Hindenburg to again dissolve the Reichstag, and elections were scheduled for early March. On 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire. Göring blamed a communist plot, because Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe was found in incriminating circumstances inside the burning building. At Hitler's urging, Hindenburg responded with the Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February, which suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial. Activities of the German Communist Party were suppressed, and some 4,000 communist party members were arrested. Researchers, including William L. Shirer and Alan Bullock, are of the opinion that the NSDAP itself was responsible for starting the fire.

In addition to political campaigning, the NSDAP engaged in paramilitary violence and the spread of anti-communist propaganda in the days preceding the election. On election day, 6 March 1933, the NSDAP's share of the vote increased to 43.9%, and the party acquired the largest number of seats in parliament. However, Hitler's party failed to secure an absolute majority, necessitating another coalition with the DNVP.

Day of Potsdam and the Enabling Act[link]

On 21 March 1933 the new Reichstag was constituted with an opening ceremony at the Garrison Church in Potsdam. This "Day of Potsdam" was held to demonstrate unity between the Nazi movement and the old Prussian elite and military. Hitler appeared in a morning coat and humbly greeted President von Hindenburg. To achieve full political control despite not having an absolute majority in parliament, Hitler's government brought the ''Ermächtigungsgesetz'' (Enabling Act) to a vote in the newly elected Reichstag. The act gave Hitler's cabinet full legislative powers for a period of four years and (with certain exceptions) allowed deviations from the constitution. The bill required a two-thirds majority to pass. Leaving nothing to chance, the Nazis used the provisions of the Reichstag Fire Decree to keep several Social Democratic deputies from attending; the Communists had already been banned.

On 23 March, the Reichstag assembled at the Kroll Opera House under turbulent circumstances. Ranks of SA men served as guards inside the building, while large groups outside opposing the proposed legislation shouted slogans and threats toward the arriving members of parliament. The position of the Centre Party, the third largest party in the Reichstag, turned out to be decisive. After Hitler verbally promised party leader Ludwig Kaas that President von Hindenburg would retain his power of veto, Kaas announced the Centre Party would support the Enabling Act. Ultimately, the Enabling Act passed by a vote of 441–84, with all parties except the Social Democrats voting in favour. The Enabling Act, along with the Reichstag Fire Decree, transformed Hitler's government into a de facto legal dictatorship.

Removal of remaining limits[link]

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Having achieved full control over the legislative and executive branches of government, Hitler and his political allies embarked on a systematic suppression of the remaining political opposition. The Social Democratic Party was banned and all its assets seized. While many trade union delegates were in Berlin for May Day activities, SA stormtroopers demolished trade union offices around the country. On 2 May 1933 all trade unions were forced to dissolve and their leaders were arrested; some were sent to concentration camps. The German Labour Front was formed to represent all workers, administrators, and company owners together as one group. This new labour organisation reflected the concept of national socialism in the spirit of Hitler's "Volksgemeinschaft" (German racial community).

By the end of June, the other parties had been intimidated into disbanding. With the help of the SA, Hitler pressured his nominal coalition partner, Hugenberg, into resigning. On 14 July 1933 Hitler's Nazi Party was declared the only legal political party in Germany. The demands of the SA for more political and military power caused much anxiety among military, industrial, and political leaders. Hitler responded by purging the entire SA leadership in what became known as the Night of the Long Knives, which took place from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Hitler targeted Ernst Röhm and other political adversaries (such as Gregor Strasser and former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher). Röhm and other SA leaders, along with a number of Hitler's political enemies, were rounded up, arrested, and shot. While the international community and some Germans were shocked by the murders, many in Germany saw Hitler as restoring order.

On 2 August 1934 President von Hindenburg died. The previous day, the cabinet had enacted a law to take effect upon Hindenburg's death which abolished the office of president and combined its powers with those of the chancellor. Hitler thus became head of state as well as head of government, and was formally named as Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor). This law actually violated the Enabling Act. While the Enabling Act allowed Hitler to deviate from the constitution, it explicitly barred him from passing any law that tampered with the presidency. In 1932, the constitution had been amended to make the president of the High Court of Justice, not the chancellor, acting president pending new elections. With this law, Hitler removed the last legal remedy by which he could be removed from office. As head of state, Hitler became Supreme Commander of the armed forces. The traditional loyalty oath of soldiers and sailors was altered to affirm loyalty to Hitler personally, rather than to the office of supreme commander. On 19 August, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was approved by a plebiscite with support of 90% of the electorate.

In early 1938 Hitler forced his War Minister, Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, to resign when a police dossier was discovered showing that Blomberg's new wife had a record for prostitution. Hitler removed army commander Colonel-General Werner von Fritsch after the Schutzstaffel (SS) produced allegations that he had taken part in a homosexual relationship. Both men had already fallen into disfavour when they objected to his demand that they have the Wehrmacht ready to go to war as early as 1938. Hitler used this incident, known as the Blomberg–Fritsch Affair, to consolidate his hold over the military. He assumed Blomberg's title of Commander-in-Chief, thus taking personal command of the armed forces. He replaced the Ministry of War with the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces, or OKW), headed by General Wilhelm Keitel. On the same day, sixteen generals were stripped of their commands and 44 more were transferred; all were suspected of not being sufficiently pro-Nazi. By early February 1938, twelve other generals had been removed.

Having consolidated his political powers, Hitler suppressed or eliminated his opposition by a process termed ''Gleichschaltung'' ("bringing into line"). He attempted to gain additional public support by vowing to reverse the effects of the Depression and the Versailles Treaty.

Third Reich[link]

Economy and culture[link]

In 1935 Hitler appointed Hjalmar Schacht as Plenipotentiary for War Economy, in charge of preparing the economy for war. Reconstruction and rearmament were financed through Mefo bills, printing money, and seizing the assets of people arrested as enemies of the State, including Jews. Unemployment fell substantially, from six million in 1932 to one million in 1936. Hitler oversaw one of the largest infrastructure improvement campaigns in German history, leading to the construction of dams, autobahns, railroads, and other civil works. Wages were slightly reduced in the pre–World War II years over those of the Weimar Republic, while the cost of living increased by 25%.

Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale. Albert Speer, instrumental in implementing Hitler's classicist reinterpretation of German culture, was placed in charge of the proposed architectural renovations of Berlin. In 1936 Hitler opened the summer Olympic games in Berlin.

Rearmament and new alliances[link]

In a meeting with German military leaders on 3 February 1933, Hitler spoke of "conquest for ''Lebensraum'' in the East and its ruthless Germanisation" as his ultimate foreign policy objectives. In March, Prince Bernhard Wilhelm von Bülow, secretary at the Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office), issued a major statement of German foreign policy aims: Anschluss with Austria, the restoration of Germany's national borders of 1914, rejection of military restrictions under the Treaty of Versailles, the return of the former German colonies in Africa, and a German zone of influence in Eastern Europe. Hitler found Bülow's goals to be too modest. In his speeches of this period, he stressed the peaceful goals of his policies and willingness to work within international agreements. At the first meeting of his Cabinet in 1933, Hitler prioritised military spending over unemployment relief.

Germany withdrew from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference in October 1933. In March 1935 Hitler announced an expansion of the Wehrmacht to 600,000 members—six times the number permitted by the Versailles Treaty—including development of an Air Force (Luftwaffe) and increasing the size of the Navy (Kriegsmarine). Britain, France, Italy, and the League of Nations condemned these plans as violations of the Treaty. The Anglo-German Naval Agreement (AGNA) of 18 June 1935 allowed German tonnage to increase to 35% of that of the British navy. Hitler called the signing of the AGNA "the happiest day of his life", as he believed the agreement marked the beginning of the Anglo-German alliance he had predicted in ''Mein Kampf''. France and Italy were not consulted before the signing, directly undermining the League of Nations and putting the Treaty of Versailles on the path towards irrelevance.

Germany reoccupied the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland in March 1936, in violation the Versailles Treaty. Hitler sent troops to Spain to support General Franco after receiving an appeal for help in July 1936. At the same time, Hitler continued his efforts to create an Anglo-German alliance. In response to a growing economic crisis caused by his rearmament efforts, Hitler issued a memorandum ordering Göring to carry out a Four Year Plan to prepare Germany for war within the next four years. The "Four-Year Plan Memorandum" of August 1936 envisaged an all-out struggle between "Judeo-Bolshevism" and German national socialism, which in Hitler's view required a committed effort of rearmament regardless of the economic costs.

Count Galeazzo Ciano, foreign minister of Benito Mussolini's government, declared an axis between Germany and Italy, and on 25 November, Germany signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan. Britain, China, Italy, and Poland were also invited to join the Anti-Comintern Pact, but only Italy signed in 1937. Hitler abandoned his dream of an Anglo-German alliance, blaming "inadequate" British leadership. At a secret meeting in the Reich Chancellery with his foreign ministers and military chiefs that November, Hitler stated his intention of acquiring ''Lebensraum'' ("living space") for the German people. He ordered preparations for war in the east, to begin as early as 1938 and no later than 1943. He stated that the conference minutes, recorded as the Hossbach Memorandum, were to be regarded as his "political testament" in the event of his death. He felt the German economic crisis had reached a point that a severe decline in living standards in Germany could only be stopped by a policy of military aggression—seizing Austria and Czechoslovakia. Hitler urged quick action, before Britain and France obtained a permanent lead in the arms race. In early 1938, in the wake of the Blomberg–Fritsch Affair, Hitler asserted control of the military-foreign policy apparatus, dismissing Neurath as Foreign Minister and appointing himself ''Oberster Befehlshaber der Wehrmacht'' (supreme commander of the armed forces). From early 1938 onwards, Hitler was carrying out a foreign policy ultimately aimed at war.

The Holocaust[link]

|Adolf Hitler addressing the German Reichstag, 30 January 1939}}

A main Nazi concept was the notion of racial hygiene. On 15 September 1935, Hitler presented two laws—known as the Nuremberg Laws—to the Reichstag. The laws banned marriage between non-Jewish and Jewish Germans, and forbade the employment of non-Jewish women under the age of 45 in Jewish households. The laws deprived so-called "non-Aryans" of the benefits of German citizenship. Hitler's early eugenic policies targeted children with physical and developmental disabilities in a programme dubbed Action Brandt, and later authorized a euthanasia programme for adults with serious mental and physical handicaps, now usually referred to as Action T4.

Hitler's idea of ''Lebensraum'', espoused briefly in ''Mein Kampf'', focused on acquiring new territory for German settlement in Eastern Europe. The ''Generalplan Ost'' ("General Plan for the East") called for the population of occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to be deported to West Siberia, used as slave labour, or murdered; the conquered territories were to be colonised by German or "Germanised" settlers. The original plan called for this process to begin after the conquest of the Soviet Union, but when that failed to happen, Hitler moved the plans forward. By January 1942 the decision had been taken to kill the Jews and other deportees considered undesirable.

The Holocaust (the "''Endlösung der jüdischen Frage''" or "Final Solution of the Jewish Question") was organised and executed by Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. The records of the Wannsee Conference—held on 20 January 1942 and led by Heydrich, with fifteen senior Nazi officials participating—provide the clearest evidence of systematic planning for the Holocaust. On 22 February Hitler was recorded saying to his associates, "we shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews". Approximately thirty Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps were used for this purpose. By summer 1942 Auschwitz concentration camp was rapidly expanded to accept large numbers of deportees for killing or enslavement.

Although no specific order from Hitler authorising the mass killings has surfaced, he approved the ''Einsatzgruppen''—killing squads that followed the German army through Poland, the Baltic, and the Soviet Union—and he was well informed about their activities. During interrogations by Soviet intelligence officers, the records of which were declassified over fifty years later, Hitler's valet, Heinz Linge, and his adjutant, Otto Günsche, stated that Hitler had a direct interest in the development of gas chambers.

Between 1939 and 1945, the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, were responsible for the deaths of eleven to fourteen million people, including about six million Jews, representing two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe, and between 500,000 and 1,500,000 Roma. Deaths took place in concentration and extermination camps, ghettos, and through mass executions. Many victims of the Holocaust were gassed to death, whereas others died of starvation or disease while working as slave labourers.

Hitler's policies also resulted in the killings of Poles and Soviet prisoners of war, communists and other political opponents, homosexuals, the physically and mentally disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists, and trade unionists. Hitler never appeared to have visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the killings.

World War II[link]

Early diplomatic successes[link]

Alliance with Japan[link]

In February 1938, on the advice of his newly appointed Foreign Minister, the strongly pro-Japanese Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler ended the Sino-German alliance with the Republic of China to instead enter into an alliance with the more modern and powerful Japan. Hitler announced German recognition of Manchukuo, the Japanese-occupied state in Manchuria, and renounced German claims to their former colonies in the Pacific held by Japan. Hitler ordered an end to arms shipments to China and recalled all German officers working with the Chinese Army. In retaliation, Chinese General Chiang Kai-shek cancelled all Sino-German economic agreements, depriving the Germans of many Chinese raw materials, though they did continue to ship tungsten, a key metal in armaments production, through to 1939.

Austria and Czechoslovakia[link]

On 12 March 1938 Hitler declared unification of Austria with Nazi Germany in the Anschluss. Hitler then turned his attention to the ethnic German population of the Sudetenland district of Czechoslovakia.

On 28–29 March 1938 Hitler held a series of secret meetings in Berlin with Konrad Henlein of the Sudeten ''Heimfront'' (Home Front), the largest of the ethnic German parties of the Sudetenland. The men agreed that Henlein would demand increased autonomy for Sudeten Germans from the Czechoslovakian government, thus providing a pretext for German military action against Czechoslovakia. In April 1938 Henlein told the foreign minister of Hungary that "whatever the Czech government might offer, he would always raise still higher demands ... he wanted to sabotage an understanding by all means because this was the only method to blow up Czechoslovakia quickly". In private, Hitler considered the Sudeten issue unimportant; his real intention was a war of conquest against Czechoslovakia.

In April 1938 Hitler ordered the OKW to prepare for ''Fall Grün'' ("Case Green"), the code name for an invasion of Czechoslovakia. As a result of intense French and British diplomatic pressure, on 5 September 1938 Czechoslovakian President Edvard Beneš unveiled the "Fourth Plan" for constitutional reorganisation of his country, which agreed to most of Henlein's demands for Sudeten autonomy. Henlein's ''Heimfront'' responded to Beneš' offer with a series of violent clashes with the Czechoslovakian police that led to the declaration of martial law in certain Sudeten districts.

Germany was dependent on imported oil; a confrontation with Britain over the Czechoslovakian dispute could curtail Germany's oil supplies. Hitler called off ''Fall Grün'', originally planned for 1 October 1938. On 29 September 1938 Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Édouard Daladier, and Benito Mussolini attended a one-day conference in Munich that led to the Munich Agreement, which handed over the Sudetenland districts to Germany.

Chamberlain was satisfied with the Munich conference, calling the outcome "peace for our time", while Hitler was angered about the missed opportunity for war in 1938; he expressed his disappointment in a speech on 9 October 1938 in Saarbrücken. In Hitler's view, the British-brokered peace, although favourable to the ostensible German demands, was a diplomatic defeat which spurred his intent of limiting British power to pave the way for the eastern expansion of Germany. As a result of the summit, Hitler was selected ''Time'' magazine's Man of the Year for 1938.

In late 1938 and early 1939, the continuing economic crisis caused by rearmament forced Hitler to make major defence cuts. In his "Export or die" speech of 30 January 1939, he called for an economic offensive to increase German foreign exchange holdings to pay for raw materials such as high-grade iron needed for military weapons.

On 15 March 1939, in violation of the Munich accord and possibly as a result of the deepening economic crisis requiring additional assets, Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to invade Prague, and from Prague Castle proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.

Start of World War II[link]

In private discussions in 1939, Hitler described Britain as the main enemy to be defeated. In his view, Poland's obliteration as a sovereign nation was a necessary prelude to that goal. The eastern flank would be secured and land would be added to Germany's ''Lebensraum''. Hitler wanted Poland to become either a German satellite state or be otherwise neutralised to secure the Reich's eastern flank, and to prevent a possible British blockade. Initially, Hitler favoured the idea of a satellite state; this was rejected by the Polish government. Therefore, Hitler decided to invade Poland; he made this the main German foreign policy goal of 1939. Hitler was offended by the British "guarantee" of Polish independence issued on 31 March 1939, and told his associates that "I shall brew them a devil's drink". In a speech in Wilhelmshaven for the launch of the battleship on 1 April 1939, Hitler threatened to denounce the Anglo-German Naval Agreement if the British persisted with their guarantee of Polish independence, which he perceived as an "encirclement" policy. On 3 April 1939 Hitler ordered the military to prepare for ''Fall Weiss'' ("Case White"), the plan for an invasion of Poland on 25 August 1939. In a speech before the Reichstag on 28 April he renounced both the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact. In August Hitler told his generals that his original plan for 1939 was to "... establish an acceptable relationship with Poland in order to fight against the West". Since Poland refused to become a German satellite, Hitler stated his only option was the invasion of Poland. Historians such as William Carr, Gerhard Weinberg, and Ian Kershaw have argued that one reason for Hitler's rush to war was his morbid and obsessive fear of an early death, and hence his feeling that he did not have long to accomplish his work.

Hitler was concerned that a military attack against Poland could result in a premature war with Britain. However, Hitler's foreign minister—and former Ambassador to London—Joachim von Ribbentrop assured him that neither Britain nor France would honour their commitments to Poland, and that a German–Polish war would only be a limited regional war. Ribbentrop claimed that in December 1938 the French foreign minister, Georges Bonnet, had stated that France considered Eastern Europe as Germany's exclusive sphere of influence; Ribbentrop showed Hitler diplomatic cables that supported his analysis. The German Ambassador in London, Herbert von Dirksen, supported Ribbentrop's analysis with a dispatch in August 1939, reporting that Chamberlain knew "the social structure of Britain, even the conception of the British Empire, would not survive the chaos of even a victorious war", and so would back down. Accordingly, on 21 August 1939 Hitler ordered a military mobilisation against Poland.

Hitler's plans for a military campaign in Poland in late August or early September required tacit Soviet support. The non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) between Germany and the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin, included secret protocols with an agreement to partition Poland between the two countries. In response to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact—and contrary to the prediction of Ribbentrop that the newly-formed pact would sever Anglo-Polish ties—Britain and Poland signed the Anglo-Polish alliance on 25 August 1939. This, along with news from Italy that Mussolini would not honour the Pact of Steel, caused Hitler to postpone the attack on Poland from 25 August to 1 September. In the days before the start of the war, Hitler tried to manoeuvre the British into neutrality by offering a non-aggression guarantee to the British Empire on 25 August and by having Ribbentrop present a last-minute peace plan with an impossibly short time limit in an effort to then blame the war on British and Polish inaction.

As a pretext for a military aggression against Poland, Hitler claimed the Free City of Danzig and the right to extraterritorial roads across the Polish Corridor, which Germany had ceded under the Versailles Treaty. Despite his concerns over a possible British intervention, Hitler was ultimately not deterred from his aim of invading Poland, and on 1 September 1939 Germany invaded western Poland. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September. This surprised Hitler, prompting him to turn to Ribbentrop and angrily ask "Now what?" France and Britain did not act on their declarations immediately, and on 17 September, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland.

The fall of Poland was followed by what contemporary journalists dubbed the "Phoney War" or ''Sitzkrieg'' ("sitting war"). Hitler instructed the two newly-appointed Gauleiters of north-western Poland, Albert Forster of Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia and Arthur Greiser of Reichsgau Wartheland, to "Germanise" their areas, and promised them "There would be no questions asked" about how this was accomplished. To Himmler's chagrin, Forster had local Poles sign forms stating that they had German blood, and required no further documentation. On the other hand, Greiser carried out a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign on the Polish population in his purview. Greiser complained to Hitler that Forster was allowing thousands of Poles to be accepted as "racial" Germans and thus, in Greiser's view, endangering German "racial purity". Hitler told Himmler and Greiser to take up their difficulties with Forster, and not to involve him. Hitler's handling of the Forster–Greiser dispute has been advanced as an example of Kershaw's theory of "working towards the Führer": Hitler issued vague instructions and expected his subordinates to work out policies on their own.

Another dispute broke out between different factions. One side, represented by Himmler and Greiser, championed carrying out ethnic cleansing in Poland, and another side, represented by Göring and Hans Frank, Governor-General of the General Government territory of occupied Poland, called for turning Poland into the "granary" of the Reich. At a conference held at Göring's Karinhall estate on 12 February 1940, the dispute was initially settled in favour of the Göring–Frank view of economic exploitation, which ended the economically disruptive mass expulsions. On 15 May 1940, however, Himmler presented Hitler with a memo entitled "Some Thoughts on the Treatment of Alien Population in the East", which called for expulsion of the entire Jewish population of Europe into Africa and reducing the remainder of the Polish population to a "leaderless class of labourers". Hitler called Himmler's memo "good and correct"; and, ignoring Göring and Frank, implemented the Himmler–Greiser policy in Poland.

Hitler began a military build-up on Germany's western border, and in April 1940, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway. On 9 April Hitler proclaimed the birth of the "Greater Germanic Reich" to his associates; this was his vision of a united empire of the Germanic nations of Europe, where the Dutch, Flemish, Scandinavians, and other peoples would join into a single, racially-pure polity under German leadership. In May 1940, Hitler's forces attacked France, and conquered Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium. These victories prompted Mussolini to have Italy join forces with Hitler on 10 June 1940. France surrendered on 22 June 1940.

Britain, whose forces were forced to leave France by sea from Dunkirk, continued to fight alongside other British dominions in the Battle of the Atlantic. Hitler made peace overtures to the British, now led by Winston Churchill, and when these were rejected he ordered bombing raids on the United Kingdom. Hitler's prelude to a planned invasion of the UK was a series of aerial attacks in the Battle of Britain on Royal Air Force airbases and radar stations in South-East England. However, the German Luftwaffe failed to defeat the Royal Air Force.

On 27 September 1940 the Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin by Saburō Kurusu of Imperial Japan, Hitler, and Italian foreign minister Ciano. The agreement was later expanded to include Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. They were collectively known as the Axis powers. The purpose of the pact was to deter the United States from supporting the British. By the end of October 1940, air superiority for the invasion of Britain—Operation Sea Lion—could not be achieved, and Hitler ordered nightly air raids of British cities, including London, Plymouth, and Coventry.

In the Spring of 1941, Hitler was distracted from his plans for the East by military activities in North Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In February, German forces arrived in Libya to bolster the Italian presence. In April, Hitler launched the invasion of Yugoslavia, quickly followed by the invasion of Greece. In May, German forces were sent to support Iraqi rebel forces fighting against the British and to invade Crete. On 23 May, Hitler released Führer Directive No. 30.

Path to defeat[link]

On 22 June 1941, contravening the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact of 1939, three million German troops attacked the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. The invasion seized a huge area, including the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine. However, the German advance was stopped outside Moscow in December 1941 by the Russian Winter and fierce Soviet resistance. Soviet troop concentrations on Germany's eastern border in the spring of 1941 may have prompted Hitler to engage in a ''Flucht nach vorn'' ("flight forward") to get in front of an inevitable conflict. Viktor Suvorov, Ernst Topitsch, Joachim Hoffmann, Ernst Nolte, and David Irving have argued that the official reason for Barbarossa given by the German military was the real reason—a preventive war to avert an impending Soviet attack scheduled for July 1941. This theory, however, has been faulted; American historian Gerhard Weinberg once compared the advocates of the preventive war theory to believers in "fairy tales".

The Wehrmacht invasion of the Soviet Union reached its peak on 2 December 1941, when the 258th Infantry Division advanced to within of Moscow, close enough to see the spires of the Kremlin. However, they were not prepared for the harsh conditions of the Russian winter, and Soviet forces drove back the German troops over .

On 7 December 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Four days later, Hitler's formal declaration of war against the United States engaged Germany in war against a coalition that included the world's largest empire (the British Empire), the world's greatest industrial and financial power (the United States), and the world's largest army (the Soviet Union).

When Himmler met Hitler on 18 December 1941 and posed the question "What to do with the Jews of Russia?", Hitler replied "''als Partisanen auszurotten''" ("exterminate them as partisans"). Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer has commented that the remark is probably as close as historians will ever get to a definitive order from Hitler for the genocide carried out during the Holocaust.

In late 1942 German forces were defeated in the second battle of El Alamein, thwarting Hitler's plans to seize the Suez Canal and the Middle East. In February 1943 the Battle of Stalingrad ended with the destruction of the German Sixth Army. Thereafter came a decisive defeat at the Battle of Kursk. Hitler's military judgment became increasingly erratic, and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated along with Hitler's health. Kershaw and others believe that Hitler may have suffered from Parkinson's disease.

Following the allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, Mussolini was deposed by Pietro Badoglio, who surrendered to the Allies. Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the Eastern Front. On 6 June 1944 the Western Allied armies landed in northern France in what was one of the largest amphibious operations in history, Operation Overlord. As a result of these significant setbacks for the German army, many of its officers concluded that defeat was inevitable and that Hitler's misjudgement or denial would drag out the war and result in the complete destruction of the country. Several high-profile assassination attempts against Hitler occurred during this period.

Between 1939 and 1945 there were many plans to assassinate Hitler, some of which proceeded to significant degrees. The most well-known came from within Germany and was at least partly driven by the increasing prospect of a German defeat in the war. In July 1944, in the 20 July plot, part of Operation Valkyrie, Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in one of Hitler's headquarters, the Wolf's Lair at Rastenburg. Hitler narrowly survived because someone had unknowingly pushed the briefcase that contained the bomb behind a leg of the heavy conference table. When the bomb exploded, the table deflected much of the blast away from Hitler. Later, Hitler ordered savage reprisals resulting in the execution of more than 4,900 people.

Defeat and death[link]

By late 1944, the Red Army had driven the German army back into Western Europe, and the Western Allies were advancing into Germany. After being informed of the failure of his Ardennes Offensive, Hitler realised that Germany was going to lose the war. His hope, buoyed by the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April 1945, was to negotiate peace with America and Britain. Acting on his view that Germany's military failures had forfeited its right to survive as a nation, Hitler ordered the destruction of all German industrial infrastructure before it could fall into Allied hands. Execution of this scorched earth plan was entrusted to arms minister Albert Speer, who quietly disobeyed the order.

On 20 April, his 56th birthday, Hitler made his last trip from the Führerbunker ("Führer's shelter") to the surface. In the ruined garden of the Reich Chancellery, he awarded Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth. By 21 April, Georgy Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front had broken through the last defences of German General Gotthard Heinrici's Army Group Vistula during the Battle of the Seelow Heights and advanced into the outskirts of Berlin. In denial about the increasingly dire situation, Hitler placed his hopes on the units commanded by Waffen SS General Felix Steiner, the ''Armeeabteilung Steiner'' ("Army Detachment Steiner"). Hitler ordered Steiner to attack the northern flank of the salient and the German Ninth Army was ordered to attack northward in a pincer attack.

During a military conference on 22 April, Hitler asked about Steiner's offensive. After a long silence, he was told that the attack had never been launched and that the Russians had broken through into Berlin. This news prompted Hitler to ask everyone except Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, Hans Krebs, and Wilhelm Burgdorf to leave the room. Hitler then launched a tirade against the treachery and incompetence of his commanders, culminating in his declaration—for the first time—that the war was lost. Hitler announced that he would stay in Berlin until the end and then shoot himself.

Goebbels made a proclamation on 23 April urging the citizens of Berlin to courageously defend the city. That same day, Göring sent a telegram from Berchtesgaden in Bavaria, arguing that since Hitler was cut off in Berlin, he, Göring, should assume leadership of Germany. Göring set a time limit, after which he would consider Hitler incapacitated. Hitler responded angrily by having Göring arrested, and when writing his will on 29 April, he removed Göring from all his positions in the government.

Berlin became completely cut off from the rest of Germany. On 28 April, Hitler discovered that Himmler was trying to discuss surrender terms with the Western Allies. He ordered Himmler's arrest and had Hermann Fegelein (Himmler's SS representative at Hitler's HQ in Berlin) shot.

After midnight on 29 April, Hitler married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony in a map room within the Führerbunker. After a modest wedding breakfast with his new wife, he then took secretary Traudl Junge to another room and dictated his last will and testament. The event was witnessed and documents signed by Hans Krebs, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann. Later that afternoon, Hitler was informed of the assassination of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, which presumably increased his determination to avoid capture.

On 30 April 1945, after intense street-to-street combat, when Soviet troops were within a block or two of the Reich Chancellery, Hitler and Braun committed suicide; Braun bit into a cyanide capsule and Hitler shot himself with his 7.65 mm (0.3 in) Walther PPK pistol. The lifeless bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun were carried up the stairs and through the bunker's emergency exit to the bombed-out garden behind the Reich Chancellery, where they were placed in a bomb crater and doused with petrol. The corpses were set on fire and the Red Army shelling continued.

Berlin surrendered on 2 May. Records in the Soviet archives—obtained after the fall of the Soviet Union—showed that the remains of Hitler, Braun, Joseph and Magda Goebbels, the six Goebbels children, General Hans Krebs, and Hitler's dogs, were repeatedly buried and exhumed. On 4 April 1970 a Soviet KGB team with detailed burial charts secretly exhumed five wooden boxes which had been buried at the SMERSH facility in Magdeburg. The remains from the boxes were thoroughly burned and crushed, after which the ashes were thrown into the Biederitz river, a tributary of the nearby Elbe.

Legacy[link]

thumb|Outside the building in Braunau am Inn, Austria, where Hitler was born, is a [[Hitler birthplace memorial stone|memorial stone reminder of the horrors of World War II. The inscription translates as: For peace, freedom and democracy never again fascism millions of dead remind [us]"]] Hitler's suicide was likened by contemporaries to a "spell" being broken. According to Toland, without its leader, National Socialism "burst like a bubble".

Hitler's actions and Nazi ideology are almost universally regarded as gravely immoral. His political programme had brought about a world war, leaving behind a devastated and impoverished Eastern and Central Europe. Germany itself suffered wholesale destruction, characterised as "Zero Hour". Hitler's policies inflicted human suffering on an unprecedented scale; the Nazi regime was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 21 million civilians and prisoners of war. In addition, 29 million soldiers were killed in the European theater of World War II. Historians, philosophers, and politicians often apply the word "evil" in describing the Nazi regime. In Germany and Austria, Holocaust denial and the display of Nazi symbols such as the swastika are prohibited by law.

The German Liberal historian Friedrich Meinecke described Hitler as "one of the great examples of the singular and incalculable power of personality in historical life". The English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper saw him as "among the 'terrible simplifiers' of history, the most systematic, the most historical, the most philosophical, and yet the coarsest, cruellest, least magnanimous conqueror the world has ever known." For the historian John M. Roberts, Hitler's defeat marked the end of a phase of European history dominated by Germany. In its place emerged the Cold War, a global confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States.

Religious views[link]

Hitler saw the church as important politically, as a conservative influence on society. He felt that if the church were eliminated the faithful would turn to mysticism, which he thought would be a step backwards politically and culturally. Though he never officially left the Catholic church, he had no real attachment to it. After leaving home he never attended Mass or received the sacraments. He favoured aspects of Protestantism that suited his own views, and adopted some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organisation, liturgy, and phraseology in his politics. Historian Richard Steigmann-Gall concludes that he "can be classified as Catholic", but that "nominal church membership is a very unreliable gauge of actual piety in this context."

In public, Hitler often praised Christian heritage and German Christian culture, and professed a belief in an "Aryan" Jesus Christ—a Jesus who fought against the Jews. He spoke of his interpretation of Christianity as a central motivation for his antisemitism, stating that "As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice." In private, he was more critical of traditional Christianity, considering it a religion fit only for slaves; he admired the power of Rome but maintained a severe hostility towards its teaching. Historian John S. Conway states that Hitler held a "fundamental antagonism" towards the Christian churches. In political relations with the church, Hitler adopted a strategy "that suited his immediate political purposes". According to a US Office of Strategic Services report, Hitler had a general plan, even before his rise to power, to destroy the influence of Christian churches within the Reich. The report titled "The Nazi Master Plan" stated that the destruction of the church was a goal of the movement right from the start, but that it was inexpedient to express this extreme position publicly. His intention, according to Bullock, was to wait until the war was over to destroy the influence of Christianity.

Hitler admired the Muslim military tradition, but considered Arabs as "racially inferior". He believed that the racially-superior Germans, in conjunction with Islam, could have conquered much of the world during the Middle Ages. During a meeting with a Japanese professor in 1931, Hitler praised the Shinto religion and Japanese culture. Although Himmler was interested in the occult, the interpretation of runes, and tracing the prehistoric roots of the Germanic people, Hitler was more pragmatic, and his ideology centred on more practical concerns.

Health[link]

Researchers have suggested that Hitler suffered from irritable bowel syndrome, skin lesions, irregular heartbeat, Parkinson's disease, syphilis, and tinnitus. In a report prepared for the Office of Strategic Services in 1943, Walter C. Langer of Harvard University described Hitler as a "neurotic psychopath." Theories about Hitler's medical condition are difficult to prove, and according them too much weight may have the effect of attributing many of the events and consequences of the Third Reich to the possibly impaired physical health of one individual. Kershaw feels that it is better to take a broader view of German history by examining what social forces led to the Third Reich and its policies rather than to pursue narrow explanations for the Holocaust and World War II based on only one person.

Hitler followed a vegetarian diet. At social events he sometimes gave graphic accounts of the slaughter of animals in an effort to make his dinner guests shun meat. A fear of cancer (from which his mother died) is the most widely cited reason for Hitler's dietary habits. An antivivisectionist, Hitler may have followed his selective diet out of a profound concern for animals. Bormann had a greenhouse constructed near the Berghof (near Berchtesgaden) to ensure a steady supply of fresh fruit and vegetables for Hitler throughout the war. Hitler despised alcohol and was a non-smoker. He promoted aggressive anti-smoking campaigns throughout Germany. Hitler began using amphetamine occasionally after 1937 and became addicted to the drug in the fall of 1942. Albert Speer linked this use of amphetamines to Hitler's increasingly inflexible decision making (for example, never to allow military retreats).

Prescribed ninety different medications during the war years, Hitler took many pills each day for chronic stomach problems and other ailments. He suffered ruptured eardrums as a result of the 20 July plot bomb blast in 1944, and two hundred wood splinters had to be removed from his legs. Newsreel footage of Hitler shows tremors of his hand and a shuffling walk, which began before the war and worsened towards the end of his life. Hitler's personal physician, Theodor Morell, treated Hitler with a drug that was commonly prescribed in 1945 for Parkinson's disease. Ernst-Günther Schenck and several other doctors who met Hitler in the last weeks of his life each formed a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease.

Family[link]

To the public, Hitler promoted his own image as that of a celibate man without a domestic life, dedicated entirely to his political mission and the nation. He met his mistress, Eva Braun, in 1929, and married her in April 1945. In September 1931 his niece, Geli Raubal, committed suicide with Hitler's gun in his Munich apartment. It was rumoured among contemporaries that Geli was in a romantic relationship with him, and her death was a source of deep, lasting pain. Paula Hitler, the last living member of the immediate family, died in 1960.

Hitler in media[link]

Hitler used documentary films as a propaganda tool. He was involved and appeared in a series of films by the pioneering filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl via Universum Film AG (UFA):

''Der Sieg des Glaubens'' (''Victory of Faith'', 1933)

''Triumph des Willens'' (''Triumph of the Will'', 1934), co-produced by Hitler

''Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht'' (''Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces'', 1935)

''Olympia'' (1938)

See also[link]

Führermuseum

''Hitler: A Film from Germany''

Julius Schaub – chief aide

Karl Mayr – Hitler's superior in army Intelligence 1919–1920

Karl Wilhelm Krause – personal valet

List of books by or about Adolf Hitler

''Mein Kampf'' (online versions)

Poison Kitchen

Streets named after Adolf Hitler

Vorbunker

Footnotes[link]

{{notes | refs =30em {{efn | name = libel suit | Hitler also won settlement from a libel suit against the socialist paper the ''Münchener Post'', which had questioned his lifestyle and income. . }} {{efn | name = will and marriage | : "Hitler's will and marriage" on the website of MI5, using the sources available to Trevor Roper (a WWII MI5 agent and historian/author of ''The Last Days of Hitler''), records the marriage as taking place after Hitler had dictated his last will and testament. }} }}

References[link]

Sources[link]

Online

External links[link]

 – real life footage in documentaries  – as portrayed in film and TV | years = 1933–1945}} | years = 1934–1945}}

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