Adolf Hitler
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Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria on April 20, 1889. Adolfs father, Alois, was 52 years old and his mother, Klara, was 28 years old. Adolfs mom and dad were second cousins. Adolf had 7 siblings but only 4 made it to adulthood.
Soon after Adolf was born his father retired from being a customs official, and the family moved to Linz, Austria. Alois had a bad temper and would beat Adolf if he did not mind. However, Adolf was a very bright student. He received
good grades in elementary school and was very well liked. He was a very religious boy and had once thought of becoming a monk.
However, once got to highschool, his grades and popularity dropped. The competition was much higher, and since he was not on top, he quit trying. His father became very furious with him. Alois wanted Adolf to became a government official like he had once been.
Once Adolf lost popularity with his fellow pupils, he started bossing around younger pupils. He loved to pkay games with them. His favorite thing to do was to re-enact war scenes or battles.
Adolf enjoyed his history class taught by Leopold Potsch. Adolf loved hearing about the different battles and wars. One of his early historical heroes was Otto van Bismarck, the first chancellor of the German Empire. Adolfs other interest in school was his art class. Adolfs father was very upset with him when Adolf told him he wasn joining the civil service and instead he was going to become an artist.
Alois and Adolfs relationship went down hill from there. The conflict was finally resolved in 1903 when Adolfs dad died. Two years while on vacation Adolf developed a lung infection and used this to drop out of school. He celebrated by getting drunk. Afterwards he found it humiliating and promised to himself he would never drink again. By the age of 30 he had completely given up acohol.
When he was 18, Hitler received
money from his fathers will and moved to Vienna in 1907 to become an art student. He took the entrance examination twice but failed both times. He could not bring himself to tell his mother that he had failed, so he stayed in Vienna acting as an art student. While Hitler was in Vienna, his mother died of cancer. He loved his mother very much and carried a picture of her wherever he went.
Being the oldest child, Hitler received
his fathers civil service pension. It was a large sum of money, more than most people made in wages and meant that Hitler did not need to find work. He spent his days reading and walking around Vienna studying buildings, visiting musuems, or painting. Hitler had always hated non-Germans, such as Jew and Slavs, and while in Vienna his hatred began to increase more and more. Hitler considered himself a German as many of the German speaking Austrians did. He believed that different nationalites should not be treated the same way.
About 1909 Hitler received
call-up papers to join for military service. He didn want to serve for Austria; therefore, he ignored the papers. It took authorities four years to catch up with him. When they caught up with him in 1913, they forced him to take a medical examination. He failed; they said he was too weak for battle and unable to bear arms.
Hitler enjoyed being in the army. He felt he was a part of a group fighting for the same dream. He wanted to prove that Germany was still a superior power. At the thought of being in a battle, Hitler was excited. He impressed his commanders when he would volunteer himself for a dangerous mission.
His fellow soldiers described him as odd, strange, peculiar, and very tempermental. They said he kept to himslef and he was very isolated. He would sit in the corner in pure silence and hold his head, then jump up and would give a speech.
For the first time since primary school Hitler was a heroic figure. He was a messenger, which was a life-or-death situation. Three out of eight soldiers were killed on the job daily. He won the prestigious Iron Cross during the first World War and also won 4 other medals. Although Hitler was an idol, he only reached the ranking of a corporal. This was thought to be because they feared soldiers would not answer to a person so peculiar.
Hitler was in the hospital, recovering from a temporary blindess caused by a gas attack, in 1918 when Germany surrendered. Hitler felt that he failed in helping his country. This depressed him very deeply and at times he either refused to talk to anyone or could not stop crying.
Germany