German and Austrian border police dismantle a border post.

The Anschluss [ˈʔanʃlʊs] ( listen) (spelled Anschluß at the time of the event, and until the German orthography reform of 1996; German for "link-up"^[1]), also known as the  Anschluss Österreichs (help·info), was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938.^[2]

Austria was annexed into the German Third Reich on 12 March 1938. There had been several years of pressure by supporters from both Austria and Germany (by both Nazis and non-Nazis) for the "Heim ins Reich" movement.^[3] Earlier, Nazi Germany had provided support for the Austrian National Socialist Party (Austrian Nazi Party) in its bid to seize power from Austria's Austrofascist leadership.

Devoted to remaining independent but under considerable pressure from both Austrian and German Nazis, Austria's Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg tried to hold a referendum for a vote on the issue. Although Schuschnigg expected Austria to vote in favour of maintaining autonomy, a well-planned coup d'état by the Austrian Nazi Party of Austria's state institutions in Vienna took place on 11 March 1938, prior to the referendum, which they canceled.

They transferred power to Germany, and the Wehrmacht troops entered Austria to enforce the Anschluss. The Nazis held a plebiscite within the following month, asking the people to ratify the fait accompli. They claimed to have received 99.7% of the vote in favor.^{[4] [5]}

Although the Allies were committed to upholding the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and St. Germain, which specifically prohibited the union of Austria and the German Empire, their reaction was only verbal and moderate. No military confrontation took place and even the strongest voices against the annexation, particularly Fascist Italy, France and the United Kingdom (the "Stresa Front") remained at peace.

The Anschluss was among the first major steps of Adolf Hitler's creation of a Greater German Reich which was to include all of the ethnic German and lands and territories which German Empire had lost after World War I, although Austria had never been a part of (in 20th-century terms) Germany. Prior to the 1938 annexation, the German Empire had remilitarized the Rhineland, and the Saar region was returned to Germany after 15 years of occupation through a plebiscite. After the Anschluss, Hitler targeted Czechoslovakia, provoking an international crisis which led to the Munich Agreement in September 1938, giving the Third Reich control of the industrial Sudetenland, which had a predominantly ethnic German population. In March 1939, Hitler then annexed truncated Czechoslovakia and made the rest of the nation a protectorate. That same year, Memelland was returned from Lithuania.

The German-speaking Republic of Austria ceased to exist as a fully independent state until late 1945. A Provisional Austrian Government was set up on 27 April 1945, and was legally recognized by the Allies in the following months. It was not until 1955 that Austria regained full sovereignty.

Situation after World War I[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

The dissolution of Austria–Hungary

The idea of grouping all ethnic Germans into one unified country (as a nation-state) had been the subject of inconclusive debate since the end of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation in 1806. At the same time, the 18th century was a period when thousands of Germans emigrated to other areas, sometimes at the invitation of governments who wanted to resettle areas depopulated by war and the plague, or to improve farming. Often promised special rights and the ability to keep their language and religion, the Germans settled in communities along the Danube (territory that is mostly now present-day Serbia), in Poland, Russia, and across the Atlantic to North America before the American Revolutionary War.

The system of spheres of influence in Europe, developed at Vienna in 1815, depended upon the fragmentation of the German and Italian states, not their consolidation. Consequently, a German nation united under one banner presented significant questions (and answers): Who were the Germans? (German-speaking people.) Where was Germany? (The German-speaking land in middle Europa.) But also, Who was in charge?, and, importantly, Who could best defend "Germany", whoever, whatever, and wherever it was? Different groups offered different solutions to this. In the Kleindeutschland (little, or "lesser," Germany) solution, the German states would be united under the leadership of Prussia; in the Großdeutsche Lösung (Greater Germany) solution, the German states would be united under the leadership of the Germans (Habsburg) in Austrian state. This controversy, called dualism, dominated Prusso-Austrian diplomacy and the politics of the German states, for the next 20 years.^[6]

In a series of diplomatic and military moves during the late 19th century, the Chancellor of Prussia Otto von Bismarck increasingly isolated Austria from its traditional position of influence in broader German affairs. Prussia's defeat of Austria in the Austro-Prussian War eliminated Austrian influence north of its border, allowed for the creation of the North German Confederation and consolidated the German states through Prussia, enabling the creation of a German Empire in 1871.

When the German-Hungarian Empire, called "Austria-Hungary", broke up in 1918, many German Austrians hoped to join with German Empire in the realignment of Europe. On 12 November 1918, German Austria was officially declared a republic. The provisional national assembly drafted a provisional constitution that stated that "German Austria is a democratic republic" (Article 1) and "German Austria is a component of the German Republic" (Article 2). Later plebiscites in the German border provinces of Tyrol and Salzburg yielded majorities of 98 and 99% in favor for a unification with the German Republic.

The Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Saint-Germain (both signed in 1919) explicitly prohibited the inclusion of Austria to politically join the German state. This measure was criticized by Hugo Preuss, the drafter of the German Weimar Constitution, who saw the prohibition as a contradiction of the Wilsonian principle of self-determination of peoples, intended to help bring peace to Europe.^[7] Following the destruction of World War I, however, both France and Britain feared the power of a larger Germany, and had begun to dis-empower the current one. Austrian particularism, especially among the nobility, also played a role in the decisions; Austria was Roman Catholic, while Germany was dominated by Protestants, especially in government (the Prussian nobility, for example, was Lutheran). The constitutions of the Weimar Republic and the First Austrian Republic included the political goal of unification, which was widely supported by democratic parties. In the early 1930s, popular support in Austria for union with German Empire remained overwhelming, and the Austrian government looked to a possible customs union with German Republic in 1931.

The rise of Hitler and the Nazis to power in German Empire initially caused the Austrian government to withdraw from such economic ties. By the same token Hitler, an Austrian German by birth, had picked up German nationalism ideas after WWI and advocated the idea of a Greater Germany, in accordance to this one of the Nazis ideologies was to re-unite all ethnic Germans living outside of the Reich. From the early beginning of his leadership in the Nazi Party he had publicly stated in his 1924 auto-biography (Mein Kampf) that he would create a union between Austria and Germany by any means possible.

Austria shared the economic turbulence of the Depression, with a high unemployment rate and unstable commerce and industry. These economic problems made the young democracy vulnerable to social unrest. The First Republic, dominated from the late 1920s by the Catholic nationalist Christian Social Party (CS), gradually disintegrated from 1933 (dissolution of parliament and ban of the Austrian National Socialists) to 1934 (Austrian Civil War in February and ban of all remaining parties except the CS). The government evolved into a pseudo-fascist, corporatist model of one-party government, which combined the CS and the paramilitary Heimwehr with absolute state domination of labour relations and no freedom of the press (see Austrofascism and Patriotic Front).

Power was centralized in the office of the chancellor, who was empowered to rule by decree. The predominance of the Christian Social Party (whose economic policies were based on the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum) was an Austrian phenomenon. Austria's national identity had strong Catholic elements that were incorporated into the movement, by way of clerical authoritarian tendencies not found in Nazism. Both Engelbert Dollfuss and his successor, Kurt Schuschnigg, turned to Austria's other fascist neighbour, Italy, for inspiration and support. The statist corporatism often referred to as Austrofascism bore much more resemblance to Italian Fascism than German National Socialism. Benito Mussolini supported the independence of Austria until his need for German support in Ethiopia (see Second Italo-Abyssinian War) led him into a client relationship with Berlin that began with the 1937 Berlin–Rome Axis.

On 25 July 1934, Chancellor Dollfuss was assassinated by Austrian Nazis in a failed coup. The second civil war followed, lasting until August 1934. Afterward leading Austrian Nazis fled to Germany but they continued to push for unification from there. The remaining Austrian Nazis started to make use of terrorist attacks against Austrian governmental institutions, causing a death toll of more than 800 between 1934 and 1938.

Following Dollfuss' assassination, his successor was Schuschnigg, who followed a similar political course. In 1935 Schuschnigg used the police to suppress the Nazi supporters in Austria. Police actions under Schuschnigg included gathering Nazis (and Social Democrats) and holding them in internment camps. However, the support from the powerful and increasingly popular Nazi German state to the north was impossible to prevent. Eventually Schuschnigg gave up his anti-Nazi program and in July 1936 he signed the Austro-German Agreement, which, among other concessions, allowed the release of Nazis imprisoned in Austria and the inclusion of National Socialists in his Cabinet. This did not satisfy Hitler and the pro-Germany Austrian Nazi's grew in strength.

February 1938[link]

Following increasing violence and demands from Hitler that Austria agree to a union, Schuschnigg met with Hitler on 12 February at Berchtesgaden in an attempt to avoid the take-over of Austria. Hitler presented Schuschnigg with a set of demands which included appointing known Austria Nazi sympathizers to positions of great power in the Austrian government. The key appointment was: Seyss-Inquart would take over as Minister of Public Security, with full and unlimited control of the police forces in Austria. In return Hitler would publicly reaffirm the treaty of 11 July 1936 and reaffirm his support for Austria’s national sovereignty. Schuschnigg accepted Hitler's "deal", returned to Vienna and made the changes to his government.

One week later, Hitler made a speech saying "The German Reich is no longer willing to tolerate the suppression of ten million Germans across its borders." This was clearly directed at Austria and Czechoslovakia. As would be proved throughout Hitler's career, he could not be trusted to keep his side of any bargain.

Schuschnigg announces a referendum[link]

On 9 March 1938, in an effort to preserve Austria's independence, Schuschnigg scheduled a plebiscite on the issue of unification for 13 March. To secure a large majority in the referendum, Schuschnigg set the minimum voting age at 24, as he believed younger voters were now supporters of the German Nazi ideology. This was a risk, and the next day it became apparent that Hitler would not simply stand by while Austria declared its independence by public vote. Hitler declared that the referendum would be subject to major fraud and that Germany would not accept it. In addition, the German ministry of propaganda issued press reports that riots had broken out in Austria and that large parts of the Austrian population were calling for German troops to restore order. Schuschnigg immediately responded publicly that reports of riots were false.^{[citation needed]}

Hitler sent an ultimatum to Schuschnigg on 11 March, demanding that he hand over all power to the Austrian National Socialists or face an invasion. The ultimatum was set to expire at noon, but was extended by two hours. Without waiting for an answer, Hitler had already signed the order to send troops into Austria at one o'clock^{[citation needed]}

Schuschnigg desperately sought support for Austrian independence in the hours following the ultimatum. Realizing that neither France nor Britain was willing to take steps, he resigned as chancellor that evening. In the radio broadcast in which he announced his resignation, he argued that he accepted the changes and allowed the Nazis to take over the government 'to avoid the shedding of fraternal blood [Bruderblut]'.^[8]

Also to be noted, it is said that after listening to Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, Hitler cried: "How can anyone say that Austria is not German! Is there anything more German than our old pure Austrianness?"^[9]

German troops march into Austria[link]

Cheering crowds greet the Germans in Vienna.

On the morning of 12 March, the 8th Army of the German Wehrmacht crossed the border to Austria. The troops were greeted by cheering Austrian Germans with Nazi salutes, Nazi flags and flowers. Because of this, the Nazi annexing is also called the Blumenkrieg (war of flowers), but its official name was Unternehmen Otto.^[10] For the Wehrmacht, the invasion was the first big test of its machinery. Although the invading forces were badly organized and coordination among the units was poor, it mattered little because no fighting took place.^[11]

Hitler's car crossed the border in the afternoon at Braunau, his birthplace. In the evening, he arrived at Linz and was given an enthusiastic welcome in the city hall.

Hitler announces the Anschluss in the Heldenplatz, Vienna, 15 March 1938.

Hitler's travel through Austria became a triumphal tour that climaxed in Vienna, on 2 April 1938, when around 200,000 German-Austrians gathered on the Heldenplatz (Square of Heroes) to hear Hitler proclaim the Austrian Anschluss.^[12] Hitler later commented: "Certain foreign newspapers have said that we fell on Austria with brutal methods. I can only say: even in death they cannot stop lying. I have in the course of my political struggle won much love from my people, but when I crossed the former frontier (into Austria) there met me such a stream of love as I have never experienced. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators."^[13]

The Anschluss was given immediate effect by legislative act on 13 March, subject to ratification by a plebiscite. Austria became the province of Ostmark, and Seyss-Inquart was appointed governor. The plebiscite was held on 10 April and officially recorded a support of 99.7% of the voters.^[14]

Voting ballot from 10 April 1938. The ballot text reads "Do you agree with the reunification of Austria with the German Reich that was enacted on 13 March 1938, and do you vote for the party of our leader Adolf Hitler?" The large circle is labelled "Yes", the smaller "No".

Hitler's forces worked to suppress any opposition. Before the first German soldier crossed the border, Heinrich Himmler and a few SS officers landed in Vienna to arrest prominent representatives of the First Republic, such as Richard Schmitz, Leopold Figl, Friedrich Hillegeist and Franz Olah. During the few weeks between the Anschluss and the plebiscite, authorities rounded up Social Democrats, Communists and other potential political dissenters, as well as Jews, and imprisoned them or sent them to concentration camps. Within only a few days of 12 March, 70,000 people had been arrested. The plebiscite was subject to large-scale propaganda and to the abrogation of the voting rights of around 400,000 people (nearly 10% of the eligible voting population), mainly former members of left-wing parties and Jews.^[14]

While historians concur that the result was not manipulated, the voting process was neither free nor secret. Officials were present directly beside the voting booths and received the voting ballot by hand (in contrast to a secret vote where the voting ballot is inserted into a closed box). In some remote areas of Austria, people voted to preserve the independence of Austria on 13 March (in Schuschnigg's planned but officially cancelled plebiscite) despite the Wehrmacht's presence. For instance, in the village of Innervillgraten, a majority of 95% voted for Austria's independence.^[15] However, in the plebiscite on 10 April, 73.3% of votes in Innervillgraten were in favor of the Anschluss, which was still the lowest number of all Austrian municipalities. ^[16]

A largely unhindered voting process occurred in the Italian harbour city of Gaeta, where an extraterritorial vote of German and Austrian clerics, studying at the German college of Santa Maria dell'Anima, took place. The vote was concluded on board the German cruiser Admiral Scheer, which was anchored in the harbour. Contrary to the overall result, these clerical votes rejected the Anschluss by over 90%, an incident which became known at the time as the "Shame of Gaeta" (Vergogna di Gaeta, Schande von Gaeta).

Austria remained part of the Third Reich until the end of World War II, when a preliminary Austrian government declared the Anschluss null und nichtig (null and void) on 27 April 1945. After the war, then Allied-occupied Austria was recognized and treated as a separate country. It was not restored to sovereignty until the Austrian State Treaty and Austrian Declaration of Neutrality, both of 1955, largely due to the rapid development of the Cold War and disputes between the Soviet Union and its former allies over foreign policy.

[edit] Reactions and consequences of the Anschluss

Seyss-Inquart and Hitler in Vienna, March 1938

Austria in the first days of the Third Reich had many contradictions: at one and the same time, Hitler's terror regime began to tighten its grip in every area of society, beginning with mass arrests as thousands of Austrians tried to escape; yet other Austrians cheered and welcomed the German troops entering their territory. Many Austrian political figures announced their support of the Anschluss and relief that it happened without violence.

Cardinal Theodor Innitzer (a political figure of the CS) declared as early as 12 March: "The Viennese Catholics should thank the Lord for the bloodless way this great political change has occurred, and they should pray for a great future for Austria. Needless to say, everyone should obey the orders of the new institutions." The other Austrian bishops followed suit some days later. Vatican Radio, however, broadcast a strong denunciation of the German action, and Cardinal Pacelli, the Vatican Secretary of State, ordered Innitzer to report to Rome. Before meeting the Pope, Innitzer met Pacelli, who had been outraged by Innitzer's statement. He told Innitzer that he needed to retract his statement; he was made to sign a new statement, issued on behalf of all the Austrian bishops, which provided: "The solemn declaration of the Austrian bishops ... was clearly not intended to be an approval of something that was not and is not compatible with God's law".^{[citation needed]} The Vatican newspaper reported that the German bishops' earlier statement had been issued without approval from Rome.

Robert Kauer, president of the minority Lutheran Church in Austria, greeted Hitler on 13 March as "saviour of the 350,000 German Protestants in Austria and liberator from a five-year hardship".^{[citation needed]} Karl Renner, the most famous Social Democrat of the First Republic, announced his support for the Anschluss and appealed to all Austrians to vote in favour of it on 10 April.^[15]

The international response to the Anschluss was publicly moderate. The Times commented that 300 years before, Scotland had joined England as well, and that this event would not really differ much. On 14 March, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, noted in the House of Commons:

His Majesty's Government have throughout been in the closest touch with the situation. The Foreign Secretary saw the German Foreign Minister on the 10th of March and addressed to him a grave warning on the Austrian situation and upon what appeared to be the policy of the German Government in regard to it.... Late on the 11th of March our Ambassador in Berlin registered a protest in strong terms with the German Government against such use of coercion, backed by force, against an independent State in order to create a situation incompatible with its national independence.

However, the speech concluded:

I imagine that according to the temperament of the individual the events which are in our minds to-day will be the cause of regret, of sorrow, perhaps of indignation. They cannot be regarded by His Majesty's Government with indifference or equanimity. They are bound to have effects which cannot yet be measured. The immediate result must be to intensify the sense of uncertainty and insecurity in Europe. Unfortunately, while the policy of appeasement would lead to a relaxation of the economic pressure under which many countries are suffering to-day, what has just occurred must inevitably retard economic recovery and, indeed, increased care will be required to ensure that marked deterioration does not set in. This is not a moment for hasty decisions or for careless words. We must consider the new situation quickly, but with cool judgement... As regards our defence programmes, we have always made it clear that they were flexible and that they would have to be reviewed from time to time in the light of any development in the international situation. It would be idle to pretend that recent events do not constitute a change of the kind that we had in mind. Accordingly we have decided to make a fresh review, and in due course we shall announce what further steps we may think it necessary to take.^[17]

Within this speech Chamberlain also said, "The hard fact is that nothing could have arrested what has actually happened [in Austria] unless this country and other countries had been prepared to use force."^[18]

The moderate reaction to the Anschluss (the U.S. issued a similar statement) was a result of the British appeasement foreign policy strategy. Hitler appeared to conclude that he could use more aggressive tactics in his "roadmap" to expand the Third Reich, as he would later in annexing the Sudetenland.

Legacy[link]

[edit] Anschluss: annexation or union?

The word Anschluss outside the context of March 1938 is properly translated as "joinder", "connection", "unification" or "political union". In contrast, the German word Annektierung that would mean military annexation unambiguously was and is not commonly used in this context. The usage of the term Anschluss has been widespread before and in 1938 describing an incorporation of Austria into Germany. Calling the incorporation of Austria into Nazi Germany an "Anschluss", that is a unification or joinder, was also part of the propaganda used in 1938 by Hitler and the Nazis to create the impression the events of March 1938 were not backed and enforced by military pressure. Hitler described the incorporation of Austria as its return to its original home (Heimkehr). The word Anschluss has endured during and following World War II, despite its being a euphemism for what took place.

Some historical sources, like the Encyclopædia Britannica, describe the Anschluss as an "annexation"^[19] rather than a union. Given that events were driven mainly by the German military power and political pressure within Austria and from the outside, the term annexation is a closer description than the term "Anschluss". No one word captures the differences between the Anschluss and other Nazi annexations backed by force, namely, that much of the Austrian population either supported or were indifferent to the incorporation of Austria into the Third Reich.^{[citation needed]}

Second Republic[link]

Moscow Declaration[link]

The Moscow Declaration of 1943, signed by the U.S., the Soviet Union and the UK, included a "Declaration on Austria", which stated the following:

The governments of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States of America are agreed that Austria, the first free country to fall a victim to Hitlerite aggression, shall be liberated from German domination. They regard the annexation imposed on Austria by Germany on 15 March 1938, as null and void. They consider themselves as in no way bound by any charges effected in Austria since that date. They declare that they wish to see re-established a free and independent Austria and thereby to open the way for the Austrian people themselves, as well as those neighbouring States which will be faced with similar problems, to find that political and economic security which is the only basis for lasting peace. Austria is reminded, however, that she has a responsibility, which she cannot evade, for participation in the war at the side of Hitlerite Germany, and that in the final settlement account will inevitably be taken of her own contribution to her liberation.^[20]

The declaration was mostly intended to serve as propaganda aimed at stirring Austrian resistance. Although some Austrians aided Jews and are counted as Righteous among the Nations, there never was an effective Austrian armed resistance of the sort found in other countries under German occupation. The declaration is said to have a somewhat complex drafting history.^[21] At Nuremberg, Arthur Seyss-Inquart^[22] and Franz von Papen,^[23] in particular, were both indicted under count one (conspiracy to commit crimes against peace) specifically for their activities in support of the Austrian Nazi Party and the Anschluss, but neither was convicted of this count. In acquitting von Papen, the court noted that his actions were in its view political immoralities but not crimes under its charter. Seyss-Inquart was convicted of other serious war crimes, most of which took place in Poland and the Netherlands, was sentenced to death and executed.

Austrian identity and the "victim theory"[link]

After World War II, many Austrians sought comfort in the idea of Austria as "the Nazis' first victim". Although the Nazi party was promptly banned, Austria did not have the same thorough process of de-Nazification at the top of government which was imposed on Germany for a time. Lacking outside pressure for political reform, factions of Austrian society tried for a long time to advance the view that the Anschluss was only an annexation at the point of a bayonet.^[24]

This view of the events of 1938 has deep roots in the 10 years of Allied occupation and the struggle to regain Austrian sovereignty: the "victim theory" played an essential role in the negotiations on the Austrian State Treaty with the Soviets, and by pointing to the Moscow Declaration, Austrian politicians heavily relied on it to achieve a solution for Austria different from the division of Germany into separate Eastern and Western states. The state treaty, alongside the subsequent Austrian declaration of permanent neutrality, marked important milestones for the solidification of Austria's independent national identity during the course of the following decades.^[25]

As Austrian politicians of the left and right attempted to reconcile their differences in order to avoid the violent conflict that had dominated the First Republic, discussions of both Austrian Nazism and Austria's role during the Nazi-era were largely avoided. Still, the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) had advanced, and still advances, the argument that the establishment of the Dollfuss dictatorship was necessary in order to maintain Austrian independence. On the other hand, the Austrian Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) argues that the Dollfuss dictatorship stripped the country of the democratic resources necessary to repel Hitler; yet it ignores the fact that Hitler himself was a native to Austria.^[26]

Political events[link]

For decades, the victim theory remained largely undisputed. The Austrian public was rarely forced to confront the legacy of the Third Reich; most notably it had to face issues during the events of 1965, when Taras Borodajkewycz, a professor of economic history, made anti-Semitic remarks following the death of Ernst Kirchweger, a concentration camp survivor killed by a right-wing protester during riots. It was not until the 1980s that Austrians confronted their mixed past. The catalyst for the Vergangenheitsbewältigung was the Waldheim affair. When Kurt Waldheim, the successful candidate of a presidential election and former UN Secretary-General, was accused of having been a member of the Nazi party and of the infamous SA (he was later absolved of direct involvement in war crimes), Austrians said that scrutiny was an unwelcome intervention in the country's internal affairs. Despite the politicians' reactions to international criticism, the Waldheim affair started the first serious discussions about Austria's past and the Anschluss.

Another factor was the rise of Jörg Haider and the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) in the 1980s. The party had combined elements of the pan-German right with free-market liberalism since its foundation in 1955, but after Haider ascended to the party chairmanship in 1986, the liberal elements became increasingly marginalized. Haider began to openly use nationalist and anti-immigrant rhetoric. He was criticised for using the völkisch (ethnic) definition of national interest ("Austria for Austrians") and his apologetics for Austria's past, notably calling members of the Waffen-SS "men of honour". Following a dramatic rise in electoral support in the 1990s that peaked in the 1999 elections, the FPÖ entered a coalition with the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), led by Wolfgang Schüssel. This was condemned in 2000. The coalition prompted the regular Donnerstagsdemonstrationen (Thursday demonstrations) in protest against the government, which took place on the Heldenplatz where Hitler had greeted the masses during the Anschluss. Haider's tactics and rhetoric, often criticised as sympathetic to Nazism, forced Austrians to reconsider their relationship to the past. Haider's coalition partner, former Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel, in a 2000 interview with the Jerusalem Post, stated that Austria was the first victim of Hitler-Germany, repeating the victim story.^[27]

Literature[link]

The political discussions and soul-searching were reflected in other aspects of culture. Thomas Bernhard's last play, Heldenplatz (1988), generated controversy even before it was produced, fifty years after Hitler's entrance to the city. Bernhard made the historic elimination of references to Hitler's reception in Vienna emblematic of Austrian attempts to claim its history and culture under questionable criteria. Many politicians called Bernhard a Nestbeschmutzer (damaging the reputation of his country) and openly demanded that the play should not be staged in Vienna's Burgtheater. Waldheim, still president, called the play "a crude insult to the Austrian people".^[28]

Historical Commission and outstanding legal issues[link]

The SS raid a Jewish community center, Vienna, March 1938.

In the context of the postwar Federal Republic of Germany, one encounters a Vergangenheitsbewältigung ("struggle to come to terms with the past") that has been partially institutionalised, variably in literary, cultural, political, and educational contexts (its development and difficulties have not been trivial; see, for example, the Historikerstreit). Austria formed a Historikerkommission^[29] ("Historian's Commission" or "Historical Commission") in 1998 with a mandate to review Austria's role in the Nazi expropriation of Jewish property from a scholarly rather than legal perspective, partly in response to continuing criticism of its handling of property claims. Its membership was based on recommendations from various quarters, including Simon Wiesenthal and Yad Vashem. The Commission delivered its report in 2003.^[30] Noted Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg refused to participate in the Commission and in an interview stated his strenuous objections in terms both personal and in reference to larger questions about Austrian culpability and liability, comparing what he thought to be relative inattention to the settlement governing the Swiss bank holdings of those who died or were displaced by the Holocaust:

I personally would like to know why the WJC has hardly put any pressure on Austria, even as leading Nazis and SS leaders were Austrians, Hitler included... Immediately after the war, the US wanted to make the Russians withdraw from Austria, and the Russians wanted to keep Austria neutral, therefore there was a common interest to grant Austria victim status. And later Austria could cry poor – though its per capita income is as high as Germany's. And, most importantly, the Austrian PR machinery works better. Austria has the opera ball, the imperial castle, Mozartkugeln [a chocolate]. Americans like that. And Austrians invest and export relatively little to the US, therefore they are less vulnerable to blackmail. In the meantime, they set up a commission in Austria to clarify what happened to Jewish property. Victor Klima, the former chancellor, has asked me to join. My father fought for Austria in the First World War and in 1939 he was kicked out of Austria. After the war they offered him ten dollars per month as compensation. For this reason I told Klima, no thank you, this makes me sick.^[31]

The Simon Wiesenthal Center continues to criticise Austria (as recently as June 2005) for its alleged historical and ongoing unwillingness aggressively to pursue investigations and trials against Nazis for war crimes and crimes against humanity from the 1970s onwards. Its 2001 report offered the following characterization:

Given the extensive participation of numerous Austrians, including at the highest levels, in the implementation of the Final Solution and other Nazi crimes, Austria should have been a leader in the prosecution of Holocaust perpetrators over the course of the past four decades, as has been the case in Germany. Unfortunately relatively little has been achieved by the Austrian authorities in this regard and in fact, with the exception of the case of Dr. Heinrich Gross which was suspended this year under highly suspicious circumstances (he claimed to be medically unfit, but outside the court proved to be healthy) not a single Nazi war crimes prosecution has been conducted in Austria since the mid-1970s.^[32]

In 2003, the Center launched a worldwide effort named "Operation: Last Chance" in order to collect further information about those Nazis still alive that are potentially subject to prosecution. Although reports issued shortly thereafter credited Austria for initiating large-scale investigations, there has been one case where criticism of Austrian authorities arose recently: The Center has put 92-year-old Croatian Milivoj Asner on its 2005 top ten list. Asner fled to Austria in 2004 after Croatia announced it would start investigations in the case of war crimes he may have been involved in. In response to objections about Asner's continued freedom, Austria's federal government has deferred to either extradition requests from Croatia or prosecutorial actions from Klagenfurt, neither of which appears forthcoming (as of June 2005).^[33] Extradition is not an option since Asner also holds Austrian citizenship, having lived in the country from 1946-1991.^[34]

Austrian political and military leaders in Nazi Germany[link]

• Adolf Hitler
• Ernst Kaltenbrunner
• Arthur Seyss-Inquart
• Odilo Globocnik
• Amon Göth
• Lothar Rendulic
• Alfred Ritter von Hubicki
• Alexander Löhr
• Franz Böhme
• Otto Skorzeny
• Julius Ringel
• Adolf Eichmann
• Erhard Raus
• Hans Fischböck

See also[link]

• The Sound of Music (a dramatization based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp)
• The Great Dictator (a fictitious account of the invasion of "Osterlich" by "Tomania", modeled on the Anschluss)
• King Ottokar's Sceptre (a fictitious account of the failed Bordurian coup d'état and invasion of their democratic neighbour Syldavia, modeled on the Anschluss)

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Books[link]

• Bukey, Evan Burr (1986). Hitler's Hometown: Linz, Austria, 1908–1945. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-32833-0.
• Parkinson, F. (ed.) (1989). Conquering the Past: Austrian Nazism Yesterday and Today. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-2054-6.
• Pauley, Bruce F. (1981). Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis: A History of Austrian National Socialism University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-1456-3.
• (German) Scheuch, Manfred (2005). Der Weg zum Heldenplatz: eine Geschichte der österreichischen Diktatur. 1933–1938. ISBN 3-8258-7712-4.
• Schuschnigg, Kurt (1971). The brutal takeover: The Austrian ex-Chancellor's account of the Anschluss of Austria by Hitler. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-00321-6.
• (German) Stuckel, Eva-Maria (2001). Österreich, Monarchie, Operette, und Anschluss: Antisemtismus, Faschismus, und Nationalsozialismus im Fadenkreuz von Ingeborg Bachman und Elias Canetti. Kulturfoerderverein Ruhrg. ISBN 3-931300-09-9.

Electronic articles and journals[link]

• Österreichs Weg zum Anschluss im März 1938," Wiener Zeitung, 25 May 1998 (detailed article the on the events of the Anschluss, in German).
• Die propagandistische Vorbereitung der Volksabstimmung," Austrian Resistance Archive, Vienna, 1988 (accessed 10 June 2005).
• 1938: Austria (Archived 2009-10-31), MSN Encarta. (accessed 10 June 2005).
• The Crisis Year of 1934 Buchner, A. From the Destruction of the Socialist Lager to National Socialist Coup Attempt (accessed 10 June 2005).

External links[link]

• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Library Bibliography: Anschluss
• Austrian Historical Commission
• Encyclopædia Britannica, Anschluss artilcle
• BBC article by Robert Knight, who served on the Historikercommission
• Full text of the Moscow Declaration
• Simon Wiesenthal Center
• Time magazine coverage of the events of the Anschluss
• Pictures of Adolf Hitler in Vienna
• Anschluss - a soundbite history of the German invasion into Austria
• Map of Europe at time of Anschluss at omniatlas.com

v t e Territorial changes of Germany in the 20th century   Pre World War II Treaty of Versailles (1919) Silesian Uprisings (1918–1919) Polish Corridor Return of the Saar region (1935) Remilitarization of the Rhineland (1936) Anschluss with Austria (1938) Munich Agreement (1938) Treaty of the Cession of the Memel Territory to Germany (1939) Seizure of Czechoslovakia (1939)   World War II Großdeutschland Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany Tehran Conference (1943) Yalta Conference (1945)   Post World War II Potsdam Conference (1945) Dutch annexations (1949) Treaty of Zgorzelec (1950) Return of Heligoland (1952) Saar Treaty (1956) Little Reunification with Saarland (1957) Treaty of The Hague (1960) Return of Selfkant (1963) Treaty of Warsaw (1970) Two Plus Four Treaty (1990) German-Polish Border Treaty (1990) Oder-Neisse line (current eastern border)   Areas Former eastern territories of Germany   Adjacent countries Territorial changes of Poland Territorial changes of the Baltic states

Adolf Hitler
Hitler in 1937
Führer of Germany
In office 2 August 1934 – 30 April 1945
Preceded by	Paul von Hindenburg (as President)
Succeeded by	Karl Dönitz (as President)
Chancellor of Germany
In office 30 January 1933 – 30 April 1945
President	Paul von Hindenburg
Deputy	Franz von Papen Position vacant
Preceded by	Kurt von Schleicher
Succeeded by	Joseph Goebbels
Reichsstatthalter of Prussia
In office 30 January 1933 – 30 January 1935
Prime Minister	Franz von Papen Hermann Göring
Preceded by	Office created
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Personal details
Born	(1889-04-20)20 April 1889 Braunau am Inn, Austria–Hungary
Died	30 April 1945(1945-04-30) (aged 56) Berlin, Germany
Nationality	Austrian citizen until 7 April 1925[1] German citizen after 25 February 1932
Political party	National Socialist German Workers' Party (1921–1945)
Other political affiliations	German Workers' Party (1920–1921)
Spouse(s)	Eva Braun (29–30 April 1945)
Occupation	Politician, soldier, artist, writer
Religion	See Adolf Hitler's religious views
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	German Empire
Service/branch	Reichsheer
Years of service	1914–1918
Rank	Gefreiter
Unit	16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment
Battles/wars	World War I
Awards	Iron Cross First Class Iron Cross Second Class Wound Badge

Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (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.^[2] It was not until 1876 that Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest before three witnesses.^[3] 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.^[4] However, no Frankenberger, Jewish or otherwise, was registered in Graz during that period.^[5] Historians doubt the claim that Alois' father was Jewish.^[6][7]

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.^[8]

Childhood[link]

Adolf Hitler as an infant (c. 1889–1890)

Hitler's mother, Klara

Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 at the Gasthof zum Pommer, an inn in Ranshofen,^[9] 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.^[10] When Hitler was three, the family moved to Passau, Germany.^[11] There he acquired the distinctive lower Bavarian dialect, rather than Austrian German, which marked his speech all of his life.^[12][13][14] 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.^[15][16]

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.^[17] 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.^[18] The eight-year-old Hitler took singing lessons, sang in the church choir, and even entertained thoughts of becoming a priest.^[19] 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.^[20]

Alois had made a successful career in the customs bureau and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.^[21] 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.^[22][23][24] 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.^[25] (This was the same high school that Adolf Eichmann would attend some 17 years later.)^[26] 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."^[27]

Hitler became obsessed with German nationalism from a young age.^[28] He expressed loyalty only to Germany, despising the declining Habsburg Monarchy and its rule over an ethnically-variegated empire.^[29][30] Hitler and his friends used the German greeting "Heil", and sang the German anthem "Deutschland Über Alles" instead of the Austrian Imperial anthem.^[31]

After Alois' sudden death on 3 January 1903, Hitler's performance at school deteriorated. His mother allowed him to quit in autumn 1905.^[32] He enrolled at the Realschule in Steyr in September 1904; his behaviour and performance showed some slight and gradual improvement.^[33] 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.^[34]

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,^[35] but he lacked the academic credentials.^[36] 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.^[37] At the time Hitler lived there, Vienna was a hotbed of religious prejudice and 19th-century racism.^[38] 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.^[39] 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.^[40] Hostile to what he saw as Catholic "Germanophobia", he developed an admiration for Martin Luther.^[41]

The origin and first expression of Hitler's antisemitism have been difficult to locate.^[42] Hitler states in Mein Kampf that he first became an antisemite in Vienna.^[43] His close friend, August Kubizek, claimed that Hitler was a "confirmed antisemite" before he left Linz.^[44] 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.^[45] Hamann also notes that no antisemitic remark has been documented from Hitler during this period.^[46] 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.^[47] Several sources provide strong evidence that Hitler had Jewish friends in his hostel and in other places in Vienna.^[48][49] 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".^[50]

Hitler received the final part of his father's estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich.^[51] Historians believe he left Vienna to evade conscription into the Austrian army.^[52] Hitler later claimed that he did not wish to serve the Habsburg Empire because of the mixture of "races" in its army.^[51] After he was deemed unfit for service—he failed his physical exam in Salzburg on 5 February 1914—he returned to Munich.^[53]

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.^[54] Posted to the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (1st Company of the List Regiment),^[55][54] he served as a dispatch runner on the Western Front in France and Belgium,^[56] spending nearly half his time well behind the front lines.^[57][58] 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.^[59]

Hitler with his army comrades of the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (c. 1914–1918)

He was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in 1914.^[59] Recommended by Hugo Gutmann, he received the Iron Cross, First Class, on 4 August 1918,^[60] 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.^[61] Though his rewarded actions may have been courageous, they were probably not highly exceptional.^[62] He also received the Black Wound Badge on 18 May 1918.^[63]

Adolf Hitler as a soldier during the First World War (1914–1918)

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^[64] or the left thigh by a shell that had exploded in the dispatch runners' dugout.^[65] Hitler spent almost two months in the Red Cross hospital at Beelitz, returning to his regiment on 5 March 1917.^[66] On 15 October 1918, he was temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack and was hospitalised in Pasewalk.^[67] While there, Hitler learnt of Germany's defeat,^[68] and—by his own account—on receiving this news, he suffered a second bout of blindness.^[69]

Hitler became embittered over the collapse of the war effort, and his ideological development began to firmly take shape.^[70] He described the war as "the greatest of all experiences", and was praised by his commanding officers for his bravery.^[71] The experience reinforced his passionate German patriotism and he was shocked by Germany's capitulation in November 1918.^[72] 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".^[73]

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.^[74] The Versailles Treaty and the economic, social, and political conditions in Germany after the war were later exploited by Hitler for political gains.^[75]

Entry into politics[link]

After World War I Hitler returned to Munich.^[76] Having no formal education and career plans or prospects, he tried to remain in the army for as long as possible.^[77] 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.^[78] 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,^[79] becoming the party's 55th member.^[80]

A copy of Adolf Hitler's German Workers' Party (DAP) membership card

At the DAP, Hitler met Dietrich Eckart, one of its early founders and a member of the occult Thule Society.^[81] Eckart became Hitler's mentor, exchanging ideas with him and introducing him to a wide range of people in Munich society.^[82] To increase its appeal, the DAP changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party – NSDAP).^[83] Hitler designed the party's banner of a swastika in a white circle on a red background.^[84]

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.^[85] 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.^[86] 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.^[87]

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).^[88] 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.^[89] 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.^[90] 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.^[90][a] 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.^[91]

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.^[92][93][94] 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."^[95] Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper described "the fascination of those eyes, which had bewitched so many seemingly sober men."^[96] He used his personal magnetism and an understanding of crowd psychology to his advantage while engaged in public speaking.^[97][98] 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".^[99] 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.^[100][101]

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,^[102] 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.^[103]

Beer Hall Putsch[link]

Drawing of Hitler (30 October 1923)

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.^[104]

Hitler wanted to seize a critical moment for successful popular agitation and support.^[105] 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.^[106] Retiring to a backroom, Hitler, with handgun drawn, demanded and got the support of Kahr, Seisser, and Lossow.^[106] 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.^[107] 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.^[108] Sixteen NSDAP members and four police officers were killed in the failed coup.^[109]

Hitler fled to the home of Ernst Hanfstaengl, and by some accounts contemplated suicide.^[110] He was depressed but calm when arrested on 11 November 1923 for high treason.^[111] His trial began in February 1924 before the special People's Court in Munich,^[112] and Alfred Rosenberg became temporary leader of the NSDAP. On 1 April Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison.^[113] 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.^[114] Including time on remand, Hitler had served just over one year in prison.^[115]

Dust jacket of Mein Kampf (1926–1927)

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.^[115] 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".^[116] The book laid out Hitler's plans for transforming German society into one based on race. Some passages implied genocide.^[117] 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. ^[118]

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.^[119] However, Hitler was barred from public speaking, ^[120] a ban that remained in place until 1927.^[121] 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.^[122]

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.^[123]

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.^[124]

Rise to power[link]

Brüning administration[link]

Hitler and NSDAP treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz at the dedication of the renovation of the Palais Barlow on Brienner Straße in Munich into the Brown House headquarters, December 1930

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.^[126] 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.^[127] 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.^[128]

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.^[129] The prosecution argued that the NSDAP was an extremist party, prompting defence lawyer Hans Frank to call on Hitler to testify in court.^[130] On 25 September 1930 Hitler testified that his party would pursue political power solely through democratic elections,^[131] a testimony that won him many supporters in the officer corps.^[132]

Brüning's austerity measures brought little economic improvement and were extremely unpopular.^[133] 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.^[134]

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.^[135] 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,^[136] and thus of Germany.^[137]

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.^[138] 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.^[139] 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.^[140]

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".^[141][142]

Hitler, at the window of the Reich Chancellery, receives an ovation on the evening of his inauguration as chancellor, 30 January 1933

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.^[143]

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.^[144] 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.^[145] Researchers, including William L. Shirer and Alan Bullock, are of the opinion that the NSDAP itself was responsible for starting the fire.^[146][147]

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.^[148]

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.^[149][150]

Paul von Hindenburg and Adolf Hitler on the Day of Potsdam, 21 March 1933

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.^[151] 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.^[152]

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.^[153] 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.^[154]

Removal of remaining limits[link]

At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense I tell you that the National Socialist movement will go on for 1,000 years! ... Don't forget how people laughed at me 15 years ago when I declared that one day I would govern Germany. They laugh now, just as foolishly, when I declare that I shall remain in power!

— Adolf Hitler to a British correspondent in Berlin, June 1934^[155]

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.^[156] 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.^[157] 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).^[158]

In 1934, Hitler became Germany's head of state with the title of Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor of the Reich).

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.^[158][156] 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.^[159] 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.^[160] While the international community and some Germans were shocked by the murders, many in Germany saw Hitler as restoring order.^[161]

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).^[162] 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.^[163] With this law, Hitler removed the last legal remedy by which he could be removed from office.

Hitler's personal standard

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.^[164] On 19 August, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was approved by a plebiscite with support of 90% of the electorate.^[165]

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.^[166][167] Hitler removed army commander Colonel-General Werner von Fritsch after the Schutzstaffel (SS) produced allegations that he had taken part in a homosexual relationship.^[168] 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.^[169] 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.^[170] By early February 1938, twelve other generals had been removed.^[171]

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]

Ceremony honouring the dead (Totenehrung) on the terrace in front of the Hall of Honour (Ehrenhalle) at the Nazi party rally grounds, Nuremberg, September 1934

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.^[172] Unemployment fell substantially, from six million in 1932 to one million in 1936.^[173] 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%.^[174]

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.^[175] 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.^[176] 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.^[177] In his speeches of this period, he stressed the peaceful goals of his policies and willingness to work within international agreements.^[178] At the first meeting of his Cabinet in 1933, Hitler prioritised military spending over unemployment relief.^[179]

Germany withdrew from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference in October 1933.^[180] 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.^[181] 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.^[182] 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.^[183]

Hitler with Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Martin Bormann, Heinrich Himmler, and Reinhard Heydrich in Vienna, 1938

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.^[184] 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.^[185] 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.^[186]

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.^[187] 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.^[188] 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.^[189][190] Hitler urged quick action, before Britain and France obtained a permanent lead in the arms race.^[189] 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).^[185] From early 1938 onwards, Hitler was carrying out a foreign policy ultimately aimed at war.^[191]

The Holocaust[link]

If the international Jewish financiers outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the bolshevisation of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!^[192]

— 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.^[193] 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.^[194]

Hitler's idea of Lebensraum, espoused briefly in Mein Kampf, focused on acquiring new territory for German settlement in Eastern Europe.^[195] 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;^[196] the conquered territories were to be colonised by German or "Germanised" settlers.^[197] 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.^[196][198] By January 1942 the decision had been taken to kill the Jews and other deportees considered undesirable.^[199]

A wagon piled high with corpses outside the crematorium in the newly liberated Buchenwald concentration camp (April 1945)

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".^[200] Approximately thirty Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps were used for this purpose.^[201] By summer 1942 Auschwitz concentration camp was rapidly expanded to accept large numbers of deportees for killing or enslavement.^[202]

Although no specific order from Hitler authorising the mass killings has surfaced,^[203] he approved the Einsatzgruppen—killing squads that followed the German army through Poland, the Baltic, and the Soviet Union^[204]—and he was well informed about their activities.^[205] 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.^[206]

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,^[207][208] and between 500,000 and 1,500,000 Roma.^[209] 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.^[210]

Hitler's policies also resulted in the killings of Poles^[211] and Soviet prisoners of war, communists and other political opponents, homosexuals, the physically and mentally disabled,^[212][213] Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists, and trade unionists. Hitler never appeared to have visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the killings.^[214]

World War II[link]

Early diplomatic successes[link]

Alliance with Japan[link]

Hitler and the Japanese Foreign Minister, Yōsuke Matsuoka, at a meeting in Berlin in March 1941. In the background is Joachim von Ribbentrop.

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.^[215] Hitler ordered an end to arms shipments to China and recalled all German officers working with the Chinese Army.^[215] 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.^[216]

Austria and Czechoslovakia[link]

On 12 March 1938 Hitler declared unification of Austria with Nazi Germany in the Anschluss.^[217][218] Hitler then turned his attention to the ethnic German population of the Sudetenland district of Czechoslovakia.^[219]

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".^[220] In private, Hitler considered the Sudeten issue unimportant; his real intention was a war of conquest against Czechoslovakia.^[221]

October 1938: Hitler (standing in the Mercedes) drives through the crowd in Cheb (German: Eger), part of the German-populated Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, which was annexed to Nazi Germany due to the Munich Agreement

In April 1938 Hitler ordered the OKW to prepare for Fall Grün ("Case Green"), the code name for an invasion of Czechoslovakia.^[222] 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.^[223] 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.^[224][225]

From left to right: Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano, pictured before signing the Munich Agreement, which gave the Sudetenland to Germany

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.^[226] 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.^[227][228]

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;^[229][230] he expressed his disappointment in a speech on 9 October 1938 in Saarbrücken.^[231] 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.^[232][233] As a result of the summit, Hitler was selected Time magazine's Man of the Year for 1938.^[234]

Jewish shops destroyed in Magdeburg, following Kristallnacht (November 1938)

Hitler visits Prague Castle shortly after the occupation of Czechoslovakia, 15 March 1939

In late 1938 and early 1939, the continuing economic crisis caused by rearmament forced Hitler to make major defence cuts.^[235] 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.^[235]

On 15 March 1939, in violation of the Munich accord and possibly as a result of the deepening economic crisis requiring additional assets,^[236] Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to invade Prague, and from Prague Castle proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.^[237]

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.^[238] 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.^[239] 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.^[240] 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".^[241] In a speech in Wilhelmshaven for the launch of the battleship Tirpitz 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.^[241] 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.^[240] 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.^[242] 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.^{[243][244][245]}

Hitler portrayed on a 42 pfennig stamp from 1944. The term Grossdeutsches Reich (Greater German Reich) began to be used in 1943 for the expanded Germany under his rule.

Hitler was concerned that a military attack against Poland could result in a premature war with Britain.^[239][246] 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.^[247][248] 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;^[249] Ribbentrop showed Hitler diplomatic cables that supported his analysis.^[250] 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.^[248] Accordingly, on 21 August 1939 Hitler ordered a military mobilisation against Poland.^[251]

Hitler's plans for a military campaign in Poland in late August or early September required tacit Soviet support.^[252] The non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) between Germany and the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin,^[253] 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.^[254] 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.^[255][256]

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.^[257] Despite his concerns over a possible British intervention, Hitler was ultimately not deterred from his aim of invading Poland,^[258] 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?"^[259] France and Britain did not act on their declarations immediately, and on 17 September, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland.^[260]

Poland never will rise again in the form of the Versailles treaty. That is guaranteed not only by Germany, but also ... Russia.

—Adolf Hitler, public speech in Danzig at the end of September 1939^[261]

Members of the Reichstag salute Hitler at the Kroll Opera House on 6 October 1939, at the end of the campaign against 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.^[262] To Himmler's chagrin, Forster had local Poles sign forms stating that they had German blood, and required no further documentation.^[263] On the other hand, Greiser carried out a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign on the Polish population in his purview.^[262] 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.^[262] 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.^[264] 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.^[264] 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".^[264] Hitler called Himmler's memo "good and correct";^[264] 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.^[265] 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.^[266]

Britain, whose forces were forced to leave France by sea from Dunkirk,^[267] 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.^[268]

On 27 September 1940 the Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin by Saburō Kurusu of Imperial Japan, Hitler, and Italian foreign minister Ciano.^[269] 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.^[270]

Hitler visiting Maribor (German: Marburg an der Drau), Yugoslavia, with Otto Dietrich, Siegfried Uiberreither, and Martin Bormann in 1941

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.^[271] 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.^[272]

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.^[273] 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.^[274]

With generals Keitel, Paulus and von Brauchitsch, discussing the situation on the Eastern Front in October 1941

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.^[275] 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".^[276]

The Wehrmacht invasion of the Soviet Union reached its peak on 2 December 1941, when the 258th Infantry Division advanced to within 15 miles (24 km) of Moscow, close enough to see the spires of the Kremlin.^[274] However, they were not prepared for the harsh conditions of the Russian winter, and Soviet forces drove back the German troops over 320 kilometres (200 mi).

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).^[277]

Hitler during his speech to the Reichstag attacking American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 11 December 1941

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").^[278] 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.^[278]

In late 1942 German forces were defeated in the second battle of El Alamein,^[279] 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.^[280] 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.^[281]

Following the allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, Mussolini was deposed by Pietro Badoglio,^[282] 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.^[283] 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.^[284] Several high-profile assassination attempts against Hitler occurred during this period.

The destroyed map room at the 'Wolf's Lair' after the 20 July plot

Between 1939 and 1945 there were many plans to assassinate Hitler, some of which proceeded to significant degrees.^[285] 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.^[286] 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.^[287]

Defeat and death[link]

Front page of the U.S. Armed Forces newspaper, Stars and Stripes, 2 May 1945