Adolf (Adolph) Hitler
Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 - April 30, 1945) was Chancellor and Fuhrer of Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was the principal instigator of the Holocaust and World War II.
Table of contents
1 Childhood and youth
2 Vienna and Munich
3 The Nazi Party
4 The Road to Power
5 The Nazi regime
6 World War II: Victories
7 The Holocaust
8 World War II: Defeat
Childhood and youth
Adolf Hitler was born on April 20 1889 at Braunau-am-Inn, a small town near Linz in the province of Upper Austria, near the German border, in what was then Austria-Hungary. His father Alois (1832-1903) was a minor customs official. His mother, Klara Hitler (n?P??), was Alois's third wife. Of their six children, only Adolf and his sister Paula survived infancy.
Alois Hitler was born illegitimate, and as a young man he used his mother's surname, Schicklgruber. In 1876 he legally adopted his natural father's surname, Hitler. Adolf Hitler never used the name Schicklgruber: this was a canard circulated later by his political enemies—as were insinuations that he was of Jewish descent.
Hitler was an intelligent but moody boy, and he twice failed to pass the examinations to gain admission to the high school in Linz. He was devoted to his indulgent mother and developed a hatred for his father, whom he later portrayed as a sadistic tyrant, although in fact he was probably no more than a normal, strict German father.