Mr. Hill study set 5 2024-2025 (Post WWI part 3 Germany)

The Weimar Republic

After the German Revolution in November 1918, Germans went to the polls in early 1919 and elected delegates to a national assembly in Weimar that drafted a constitution for Germany establishing a democratic republic. The Weimar Republic lasted from 1919 to 1933 when it was replaced by Hitler’s Third Reich. Many Germans resented the collapse of the government of the Kaiser, claimed that Weimar leaders had betrayed the nation by accepting the Treaty of Versailles, and never fully embraced the new parliamentary system of government; some far-right groups advocated for a truth to autocracy. Ultimately, the new government failed to overcome widespread opposition to its policies that followed the dictates of the Treaty of Versailles; Germans were especially angered by the payment of war reparations and refusal to rebuild the military.

German Resentment

Resentment in Germany over their defeat in the war continued to pervade the nation in the post-war years. Most Germans resented the Treaty of Versailles because they felt that the death of two million German soldiers meant little to the Allied Powers. The Treaty created a sense of intense bitterness in Germany, sparking a rise in extreme German nationalism and setting the stage for the eventual rise of Adolf Hitler. To Germans, it felt like their world had collapsed, that they had lost everything, including West Prussia, their colonies, their army, and air force, and the prestige of being a great power. Many Germans also resented the fact that the Weimar Republic had brought about the end of the German/Prussian monarchy and massive political rallies staged by the left and the right plagued the fledgling nation.

The “Stab in the Back”

Many Germans felt the need to blame someone other than the German army for the loss of the war. In the fall of 1919, German general Ludendorff originated the theory that the German imperial army did not lose the war. Ludendorff endorsed the myth that Germany was betrayed by civilian politicians and revolutionaries on the home front, especially Jews and communists, who brought about the downfall of the monarchy and the signing of the armistice in November 1918. Soon, he and Hindenburg popularized this anti-Semitic and anti-communist conspiracy theory and it gained widespread support in Germany. Believers condemned the founders of the Weimar Republic and the signers of the armistice as the “November criminals.”

Reparations

Post-war Germany was burdened by reparation payments; Great Britain and France promised their citizens that the German Government would pay reparations for the full cost of the war-$35 billion. Already beset by serious economic problems, the German government in 1922 announced it could not meet its obligation to pay the reparations. France, however, insisted that Germany pay its debt. To ensure that this would happen, to the humiliation of Germany, French troops marched into Germany’s industrial Ruhr Valley in 1923 and took control of the coal mines and steel mills. With income from Ruhr industries going to France, Germany lost an important economic asset and further fuel resentment in the nation.

Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic

The burden of the reparations payments demanded by the Treaty of Versailles placed enormous economic pressure on the fledgling republic. Already beset by serious economic problems in the weak of their defeat, the German government it had great difficulty meeting its financial obligations in the early 1920s. In 1923, to meet expenses, the German government printed more and more money and, as a result, inflation soared, resulting in a hyperinflation-a period of rapidly accelerating inflation. Before the war, four marks (German currency) equaled one American dollar; by the late 1923, it took over four trillion marks to equal one dollar. Hyperinflation wiped out the saving accounts of many middle-class Germans.

Prosperity in the Weimar Republic

In 1924, the United States brokered a deal, the Dawes Plan, that offered a compromise to France and ended the crises. The Weimar Republic was given an enormous loan from Wall Street banks that eased German payments and, subsequently, the French withdrew their army from the Ruhr. Freed of debt and strengthened by American loans, hyperinflation ended in Germany. As a result, Germany entered a five-year period of relative prosperity, sparking the era of the “Golden Twenties” from 1924 to 1929, similar to the Roaring Twenties in the U.S.. It was a time of cabarets, gender-fluid nightclubs, and jazz music as well as flourishing cultural movements in architecture, painting, design, and film.

The Great Depression

The Golden Twenties of the Weimar republic came crashing down when eh market on Wall Street crashed in 1929 and the United States withdrew its loans and unemployment soared. Germany was hit harder by the Great Depression than most other nations; 30% of its workforce was unemployed. More ominously, the seeds of discontent were planted anew by mass unemployment and the economic downturn. Disillusionment with Weimar Republic’s inability to respond to the economic crisis gave rise to sinister forces that threaten to tear Germany asunder. A toxic brew engulfed the nation:

-violent protests against the government driven by the unemployed, radicals, and paramilitary groups

-a surge in support for the Communist party in the face of the failure of capitalism

-the resurgence of antisemitism as Germans looked for scapegoat

-an explosion of nationalism and the rise of fascism to restore Germany’s greatness

Several political parties, including the Communist Party and several far-right parties, clashed in city streets as well as trying to unseat the elected government of the Weimar republic in the election of 1930. Among the far-right political parties challenging the Weimar Republic and promising to make Germany great again was the fascist National Socialist Workers’ party or Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler.

Hitler - The Early Years

Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 in Austria, into a middle class family with a doting and devoted mother and strict, distant, and domineering father; Hitler had no Jewish ancestors. He was a mediocre student in school: after his father died in 1903, Hitler dropped out of school to pursue his dream of becoming an arrest. Living on a small inheritance, seventeen-year-old Hitler moved to Linz and applied to art school; he was rejected twice, failing in his efforts to become a successful artist. At this time he began thinking that he was bound for greatness and destined to pursue a special “mission” in life that hints at the begging of his egomania-delusions of greatness and an exaggerated sense of self-importance”-and as one historian noted “played in his unstable psyche.”

Hitler - Vienna

Hitler’s mother died in 1907 and the Jewish doctor who attended her said, “In almost forty years of practice, I have never seen a young man filled with pain and grief as the young Adolf Hitler.” Hitler struggled to acclimate to high society due to his past; putting sugar in red wine, hating suits, and not knowing what spoon to use at dinner parties. In 1908, he moved to Vienna and led an idle, aimless existence living on his meager inheritance; he was a failed artist who did not work and did not go to college. When his inheritance evaporated, he entered into “a world of misery and poverty”; he was a vagabond living in homeless shelters. Hitler moved to Munich in 1913 and finally found a purpose in life when World War I erupted, enlisting in the German army.

Hitler - 1914 -1922

The years 1914-1922 are among the most crucial in Hitler’s life; during these years, he developed the political theories that would lead him to power. He fought in the First Battle of Ypres during which Hitler’s company of 250 men were reduced to 42: some believe that this experience drove Hitler to be aloof, withdrawn, and emotionally distant for the remained of his life. However, he had a fondness for dogs. Hitler was also a messenger on the Western front, carrying dispatches from headquarters to the front lines. During the war, he only rose one rank to corporal, but he won the Iron Cross, a prestigious award for bravery on the recommendation of his Jewish commanding officer. In the closing weeks of the war, Hitler was temporarily blinded by poison gas; he learned of Germany’s defeat in the hospital and dreamed about revenge against the victors of the war. Seething with anger due to the armistice, he declared, “Had everything happened only so that a band of criminals could get their hands on our fatherland? In the nights that followed, my hatred grew, my hatred for those responsible for this deed.” In 1919, the thirty-year-old Hitler settled in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, and joined the Nazi party; it was here that he first began to rage against Jews, blaming them for Germany’s defeat, the German Revolution, and the socialist government in Bavaria. As Hitler rose to power by weaponizing the “Big Lie.” He made the stab-in-the-back conspiracy theory an integral part of his message, portraying the leaders of the German Revolution in November 1918 and the Weimar Republic as the “November criminals” who stab the nation in the back to gain power and blaming Germany’s ignominious defeat on communism and Jews. Hitler conflated his antisemitism and animosity for communism into his fanatical hatred for “Jewish Bolshevism.”

The Nazi Party

Hitler, a fervent nationalist, joined the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazi party, in 1919. The Nazis were one of many political parties that arose out of postwar Germany’s political and economic chaos, looking to rescue their nation from defeat and humiliation. The Nazi Party was founded by right-wing, anti-democratic nationalists; antisemitic racists: anti-communists: and Aryan supremacists (believers in the superiority of the German race). The driving force of the Nazi Party was antisemitism -a social term describing an irrational hatred against all Jewish (Semitic) people. In the early 1920, Hitler had turned into a captivating and hypnotic speaker who attracted more and more people to the Nazi Party.

Hitler and the Nazi Party

By 1921, Hitler had become the undisputed leader of the Nazi Party. For Hitler, the twin goals of the party was German expansionism (conquest of foreign lands) and antisemitism. Also in 1921, Hitler formed the SA or Storm Troopers, a private army of former Friekorps members, young veterans, and street thugs that played a significant role in his rose to power. Also known as the Brownshirts, this paramilitary force was led by Ernst Röhm, a close personal friend of Hitler’s as well as a former army and Freikorps officer. Using grievance politics, Hitler won support in Germany by appealing to the bitterness over the defeat of World War I, the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles the loss of German territory, the abdication of the kaiser, and the collapse of the German economy due to reparations.

Hitler - The beer hall Putsch

In November 1923 during the hyperinflation crisis, Hitler, Ludendorff, and Röhm planned a putsch (a violent attempt to overthrow a government and seize power). During the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler rallied two thousand Brownshirts outside a Munich beer hall, and then led them in the streets of the city. The Beer Hall Putsch failed when police intervened. Hitler, Ludendorff, and Röhm were arrested and put on trial for treason and the Nazi Party was banned. Hitler was sent to prison.

Hitler - Mien Kampf

While in prison, Hitler wrote his autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle)in which set forth his ideas and his ambitions to conquer the world. In is view, the Germans were not responsible for losing the war; he blamed Jewish Bolshevism-Jews and Communists-for the German defeat. Hitler wrote, “The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assume the living shape of the Jew.” Hitler saw himself as the leader who would unite all German-speaking people into a new empire that would dominate other groups and nations. Hitler also sought vengeance and retribution. He declared: “I will tear up the Treaty of Versailles, build a mighty military machine, and Germany will become Lord of the Earth!It is all here in my book!”

Hitler and Lebensraum

Hitler also declared that the Germans were a “master race”: called Aryans who were superior to all other races and whose destiny was to rule the world. Hitler argued that the Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe, in particular Poles and Russians, were an inferior race. Since the German population was growing rapidly, Hitler believed Germany needed lebensraum (“living space”). Furthermore, he thought that the Slaivc peoples of Poland and the Soviet Union should be enslaved and displaced (deported or killed) so that Germany could expand into their territory (Nazi expansionism). Hitler railed against the treaty of Versailles-”What ink has written will one day be blotted out in blood”-and promised to rebuild the German war machine. Hitler was released in 1924 after serving only one year of his five-year sentence (according to Peter Gay less then a year).

Hitler and his rise to Power

After his release, Hitler changed tactics and focused on getting Nazis elected to the Reichstag, the German parliament; the Nazis would use democracy to destroy democracy from within. Throughout the 1920s, the Brownshirts, the Nazi;s paramilitary militia led by Röhm, brutally attacked German Communists in the streets, contributing to the political chaos in Germany. When the Great Depression spread to Europe, nearly one-third of Germans were unemployed-the highest unemployment rate in Europe. The Great Depression and the political discontent that followed opened the way for the rise of the Nazi Party and Hitler. Hitler appealed to workers and industrialists alike with his promise to end unemployment and to restore Germany’s economy as well as its military might and former greatness. Most Germans responded to Hitler's call for Germany to unite together to create a better future and to return Germany to its former greatness. After an election in 1932, the Nazis were the largest party in the multiparty Reichstag, the German legislature, but it was supported by less than half of the German people (the Nazi Party received 37% of the vote), many of whom did not support its antisemitic message. With the parliamentary government paralyzed by political divisions, conservative politicians decided to back Hitler and believed they could use him for their own ends. On January 30, 1933, Hitler became chancellor but he was held in check Hindenburg, the aging president

Through entirely legal means, Hitler and the Nazis had come to power.

The Reichstag Fire

Conservative politicians fatally underestimated Hitler’s cunningness and deviousness: the utterly ruthless and supremely ambitious Hitler soon outmaneuvered them politically. Hitler’s goal all along was the creation of a totalitarian state. Using a combination of force, trickery, and oratory, within months, Adolf Hitler controlled the German government. On February, 1933, the Reichstag, the home of the German parliament, was set ablaze by a communist and, subsequently, Nazi propaganda magnified the communist threat. Hitler blamed the Communists for the fire, exploiting the fire to gain dictatorial power only one month after becoming chancellor. He unleashed the Brownshirts; the SA ran rampant attacking communists in the streets across Germany, creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

Absolute Dictator

Hitler persuaded President von Hindenburg to sign a special emergency decree (law), granting the chancellor broad powers. This law suspended civil liberties (freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom to protest) and legalized all. Nazi actions in putting down rival political parties. With Brownshirts inside the chamber to intimidate the representatives, the Nzi-dominated Reichstag passed the emergency decree in March 1933 and voted Hitler emergency dictatorial powers. This decree ended democracy in Germany and gave Hitler unlimited power, establishing him as an absolute dictator. This emergency decree transferred power from the Reichstag to Hitler and was the foundation for Hitler’s dictatorship and the Nazi Regime. The impotent Reichstag would only meet a handful of times during the twelve-year reign of Hitler. Hitler’s most loyal and adoring advisor Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels declared, “Now we are the masters!” Goebbels had six children who were ages six to sixteen when Hitler died, at the news of Hitler’s death Goebbels and his wife, a loyal Nazi, kills their children and took their own lives.

The Night of the Long Knifes

Hitler, suspicious of even his closest supporters, moved quickly to take complete control of the Nazi Party and Germany by eliminating all potential rivals. He particularly feared radical members among the Brownshirts who demanded more political and military powers. In June, 1934, the “Night of the Long Knives,” Hitler ordered the executions of hundreds of Brownshirts and their leaders, including his long time friend Ernst Röhm (who was a homosexual). Hundreds of others-perhaps 700 to 1000 people- including critics, a former chancellor, army generals, politicians, and journalists, were murdered by the SS, the Nazi paramilitary group that were Hitler’s most loyal followers. Hitler claimed that all those who had been murdered were traitors, declaring, “I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason. And let it be known for all time to come that if anyone raises his hand to strike the state, them certain death is his lot.” Hitler’s actions during the Night of the Long Knives consolidated the support of the military and placed Hitler beyond the reach of law and order. In 1938, Hitler reorganized the Wehrmacht (the German armed forces), making himself the commander-in-chief and replacing generals in command with officers loyal to him.

Dachau and the SS

Hitler used his new powers to crush his opponents and consolidate his rule. The SA arrested 45,000 of Hitler’s political opponents and critics. In March 1933, the first German concentration camp was created in Dachau to imprison political prisoners. Dachau (and all future concentration and death camps) were administered and controlled by the SS. Hitler’s elite paramilitary force. The SS were Hitler’s bodyguard and most dedicated supporters who were responsible for mass arrests, torture, and executions; t was led by Heinrich Himmler, one of Hitler’s most fanatical and ruthless disciples. Heinrich Himmler committed suicide in 1945 by posing capsule.

Hitler in power

Fear gripped Germany as Nazi intimidation and depression increased. Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of press, assembly. Protest, and religion was ended. In April 1933, the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police force, is established by Herman Göring, the number two-man in the Nazi Party, the Interior Minister and future commander of the Luftwaffe, the German air force. The Gestapo was an instrument of Nazi terror and repression, arresting, torturing, and executing civilians and committing widespread atrocities during the Holocaust. Hitler used the Gestapo and the SS to turn Germany into a Police state-a totalitarian government that used a security force to secretly monitor civilian activities, exercise a supreme level of control over society, and uses terror (arrests, imprisonment, and executions) to control the population. After president Hindenburg died in August 1934, Hitler finalized his plans to create a police state. All political parties, except the Nazi Party, were banned, creating a one-party system, and all political opponents were arrested, beaten,imprisoned, or killed. Over 100,000 political prisoners were imprisoned in the growing concentration camp system. It also tried to control the Christian churches and silence clergy who opposed Nazi Policies. In his hatred of Jewish Bolshevism, Hitler had already silenced any opposition by the communist Party to his regime, so now he turned his attention to German Jews.

Nuremberg laws

Hitler directed his most bitter attacks against the Jews of Germany although less than 1% of the population was Jewish, approximately 500,000 Germans. Nazis quickly moved to deprive German Jews of many established, long-standing rights. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews if their citizenships, prohibited Jews from holding public office, banned marriage between Jews and other Germans, and marked the passports of Jews with a red “J” (Jews were also only allowed Jewish sevents). The Law defined Jews as a race and not a religion and it barred Jewish students from schools and universities and destroyed Jewish businesses. The Brownshirts forced Germans to boycott Jewish businesses and terrorized Jews in the streets with impunity.

Attacks on Jews

These laws [Nuremberg Laws] were the first in a series of over 400 decrees restricting all aspects of public and private life regarding Jews; other laws prohibited Jews from voting and barred Jews from using public pools and other public spaces (cinema, libraries, museums, etc.). In march and April of 1936, Jewish judges, lawyers, professors, university students, conductors, musicians, business owners, and government workers were banned from working by new Nazi laws, forcing many, including Nobel Prize-winning scientist Albert Einstein, to emigrate. By 1936, German Jews were forced out of their jobs as civil servants, college professors, and journalists, and by 1938, the Nazis also legally banned Jews from practicing law and medicine and from operation a business. The Nazi government placed heavy fees on Jews leaving Germany, forcing those who could leave to give up most of their life’s savings, severely limiting the number of Jews who wished to emigrate. In 1941, all Jews were ordered to wear the yellow identification badge.

Kristallnacht

On November 7, 1938, a young Polish Jewish refugee killed a German diplomat in Paris because his parents and more than 14,000 other Polish Jews had been deported from Germany to Poland. Subsequently, Hitler unleashed the Brownshirts on the Jews of Germany. Hitler ordered his minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, to instruct the Brownshirts to burn down synagogues, destroy Jewish stores, and ransack the homes of Jews. Goebbels also told the police not to interfere or arrest anyone involved in these acts of destruction and terror. During the Kristallnacht of November 9 and 10, 1938, anti-Jewish violence erupted throughout Germany and Austria as the Brownshirts violently attack Jews on the streets and vandalized Jewish synagogues, schools, hospitals, and businesses throughout Germany and Austria. This pogrom (an organized attack on Jews condoned by a government) came to be called Kristallnacht, or “night of broken glass,” because shards of galls littered the streets from vandalized Jewish owned stores, buildings, and synagogues. Over a thousand German Jews died and the gestapo arrested 30,000 Jewish men and sent them to concentration camps where prisoners were confined under harsh conditions; hundreds of other were shot. The persecution of Jews that had been pursued by legal means turned to physical violence and intimidation of Jews after Kristallnacht. Historians view Kristallnacht as a prelude to the Final Solution and the Holocaust.

Jews flee Germany

Kristallnacht and its aftermath marked a significant escalation of Nazi persecution of the Jews as Nazis knew that no one would stop them. Despite worsening conditions, many Jews chose to remain in Nazi Germany because they were reluctant to leave and believed conditions would improve in time. Some Jews were able to leave Germany; by 1939, nearly 300,000 Jews had escaped from Germany, including the family of Anne Frank, and emigrated to dozens of countries in Europe, and North and South America, as well as to Palestine (what is now Israel).

The S.S. Saint Louis

Some German Jews had difficulty foreign countries that were hostile to Jewish immigration. On May 27,1939, the S.S St Louis, a German ocean liner, was not allowed by Cuban authorities to disembark the 930 Jewish refugees on board. The ship’s captain steered his ship off the coast of Florida, but the U.S denied the passengers entry into the country; immigration quotas were tightly controlled by U.S law, allowing only 150,000 immigrants per year with no exceptions for refugees. The ship returned to Europe and passengers were allowed to disembark in France, Holland, Belgium, and Great Britain. They did not head to Candida despite being told they would accept immigrants. Tragically, after France, Holland, and Belgium were conquered in 1949, one quarter of these Jewish passengers perished in he Holocaust , this cruise was henceforth called the “Voyage of the Dam*ed.”

The Third Reich - industry

Hitler pledged a national revolution that would restore German strength and dignity; he called his government the Third Reich or third Empire and boasted it would last 1,000 years. The First Reich was the Holy roman Empire (800-1806) and the Second Reich (1871-1918) was the German Empire created by Bismarck. The first step in Hitler’s plan to revitalizing Germany was the restoration of the German economy. In 1932, five and a half million Germans were unemployed; by 1936, full employment had been accomplished due to the cooperation between the third Reich and German corporations and businesses. German industry supported the Third Reich, including Mercedes-Benz that provided Hitler with bullet proof sedans and the Porsche company that designed the Volkswagen-the car Hitler envisioned that every German could afford.

The Third Reich - economy

Hitler made no secret of his ambitions to expand Germany’s territory: “Today, Germany; tomorrow, the world!” To achieve the goal of taking back German territory taken away in the Treaty of Versailles and to secure lebensraum (living space), he set about restoring Germany’s military might. He ignored the provisions of the Versailles Treaty, which limits the size of the German army, and ordered German factories to begin turning out guns, ammunition, airplanes, tanks, and other weapons. The economy of the Third Reich was based on the rearmament of Germany and as a result, there was an increase in employment, reversing the economic downturn of the Great Depression. The German economy under Hitler revitalized the Military industrial complex-industries focused on armaments, aircraft, and petrochemicals. German industry produces some of the most superior and advanced aircraft, tanks and weapons of World War II. Moreover, once the war began, these industries benefited from their association with Hitler: many of these business used tens of thousands of enslaved laborers from concentration camps: more than 25,000 enslaved laborers lost their lives in the construction of Auschwitz. German companies also assisted in the Holocaust, manufacturing crematoria and Zyklon B poison gas that was used in the gas chambers at death camps.

Nazi Germany - sending a message

Hitler and the Nazi Party put their imprint on Germany. Hitler worked with propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels to actively use media to flood Germany with propaganda parsing the Nazi cause, the importance of strong military devotion to the nation and its leader. Massive celebratory rallies in Nuremberg played a central role in Nazi propaganda, projecting the image of a strong and unified Germany under Nazi leadership and creating a cult of personality under Hitler. To glorify Nazism, Hitler made plans to build Berlin in the style of monumental classical architecture. The first section of the autobahn - the first high-speed road network for cars - was completed in 1935; it was one of several major infrastructure projects in Nazi Germany, including the Berlin Olympic Stadium. In 1936, Berlin hosted the Olympic Summer games and for the first time, the torch rally ended with the lighting of the Olympic flame in the Olympic stadium - a ceremony that was invented by the German Olympic committee and has been repeated ever since.

Nazi Germany - Traditional Values

The Nazis believed in traditional conservative family values. The rights and equality that woman had gained in the Wiemar Republic were wiped away by the male-dominated Nazi Party: women in Nazi-Germany could no longer be proffers, politicians, or doctors and they were supposed to only concentrate on “children, kitchen, church.” In the more cosmopolitan urban centers of the Weimar Republic, there had been a thriving gay community; in Nazi Germany gay men were persecuted and more then 100,000 gay men were arrested: between 5,000 and 6,000 gay men were sent to concentration camps.

Nazi Germany - Artistic Expression

Hitler promoted art that conformed to his traditional tastes and banned modern art that he believed was “contaminated” by Jewish artists. He discouraged the artistic experimentation that had flourished in the 1920s and, as a result, many of Germany’s most talented artists and writers fled the country. Hitler youth was created in 1933 for boys between fourteen and eighteen years of age as a quasi-paramilitary youth organization to train future officers, soldiers, and sailors as well as indoctrinating its members in Nazi racial ideology; by 1940, it had eight million members. Nazis began to hold public bonfires to burn books that were considered un-German, including the works of Sigmund Frued and Karl Marx, and all modern art and music was banned. In 1933, the Nazi solute became the mandatory greeting in Nazi Germany and special courts were established to punish those who refused to salute.

Der Führer

Assured of absolute power, Hitler took the title of Der Führer, “the leader.” Hitler rose to power because of his skills as a gifted orator; he isn't active appealed to people’s longing for revenge against Germany’s enemies and their desires for Germany to be a great nation again. Journalists observed that he put people under a hypnotic spell, captivating large audiences with his message. His promise of a better future reverberated with his audience who believed Nazi propaganda that Hitler was the “chosen one” or savior of Germany. Moreover, Hitler had seen himself as Germany’s messiah on a historic mission for many years before he rose to power, and his megalomania grew exponentially once he was in power and triumph followed triumph. As Führer, Hitler kept emotional distance between himself and everyone else - a life-long, deep seeded trait

Der Führer - relationships

Hitler was a lower concealing himself from all; he only had a few close friends in his inner circle and no life- long friends. Hitler had only one serious long-time romantic relationship with Eva Braun (1912-1945) and their relationship was seen as a typical with few displays of affection or warmth. They met when she was seventeen and he was forty, Braun was kept hidden from view so he could maintain his image of the Fuhrer who had renounced all private relationships for the sake of his historic mission. Braun rarely attend events with him-and then out of sight of the public-and they only spent time together at the Berghof, Hitler’s secluded private home in the mountains of Bavaria. Some historians have suggested that Hitler’s inability to foster close, personal bonds indicate that he suffered from narcissist personality disorder-a condition in which a person lacks empathy, is insensitive to human suffering, has a grandiose sense of self importance, and needs to be adored.

Der Führer - Epitome of evil

However, Hitler was a mystery or even those closest around him, “it seemed as thought there was something to him that we’ll never grasp,” remarked a Nazi leader.