What Hitler was like?

 

Although he was Austrian by birth, Adolf Hitler, a frustrated architect and painter, took advantage of the social circumstances of the defeated Germany after World War I to establish in this country a demented political system based on Aryan supremacy, national socialism and the cult of his own personality.

The British historian Allan Bullock, one of the most renowned biographers of Hitler, was convinced that the sickly mentality of the dictator was exclusively focused on the vindication of absolute power.

Indeed, the Führer seemed to embody the very essence of brutality. Yet, his election at the polls was hailed by hundreds of thousands of people and the majority of Germany followed the war devoutly. How do you explain such a phenomenon? Ian Kershaw, a Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield (UK) and author of a monumental essay on this figure, points out that to understand this it is essential to deepen his experience during World War I.

A monster full of hate unable to experience empathy

"Those years had a great influence on his psychology. He was dehumanized at the front and had done nothing but look for someone to blame; he became obsessed with turning the story around,” Kershaw stated in an interview in El País. Other researchers, however, such as Polish writer and psychologist Alice Miller, believe that it is necessary to go further and study his childhood to discover the roots of his evilness. 

Hitler was born in Braunau, a small Austrian village near the German border. His father, Alois Hitler, was a modest and severe customs agent. In her study “How could a monster succeed in blinding a nation?”, Miller comments on how the Führer told his secretary that he was once able to count the 32 blows that Alois inflicted on him without shedding a tear.

"Hitler developed a primitive personality, unable to experience empathy, thirsting for hatred," she says. Perhaps this is why Hitler, who was the second of six brothers - although only he and his sister Paula survived childhood - felt especially close to his mother, Klara, whose death, in 1907, deeply affected him.

His father, who had died four years earlier, wanted his son to be a civil servant, a perspective that did not please young Hitler, who was more inclined towards painting and architecture. He failed: he failed the entrance exam at Linz University twice, where he became interested in the anti-semitic ideas of Professor Leopold Poetsch, and was rejected by the Vienna School of Fine Arts "for lack of talent".

Hitler, who embezzled in the Austrian capital from the sale of his paintings, moved to Munich in 1913, partly attracted by German power and partly to evade military service. A year later, however, he did not hesitate to enlist as a volunteer in the German army. During the Great War he was stationed in France and Belgium as a messenger, he then reached the rank of corporal and received two iron crosses. At the end of the conflict, Hitler was temporarily blinded by a toxic gas attack and was transferred to a field hospital. There he was diagnosed as "dangerously psychotic", a mania that grew when Germany capitulated in November 1918.

Later, the draconian conditions set by the Treaty of Versailles helped to create the social and political conditions that would give it power. In September 1919, he joined a small far-right party, the German Workers Party, the future Nazi party.

Video: Hitler's early years 

Above all, he despised Jews and democracies

Two years later, he had gained great notoriety with his speeches, in which he attacked rival groups and Jews. His political career took an even more drastic course and in 1923 he attempted to overthrow the Bavarian Government in Munich, an action which entailed a five-year prison sentence, of which he served only eight months. He took advantage of his stay in prison to dictate Mein Kampf (My Struggle), a whole manifesto in which his contempt for democracy and Jews is evident.

Once he was free, Hitler took advantage of the economic crisis to attract the vote: he promised to create jobs and restore Germany to its strength. Although defeated in the 1932 elections, it prompted a wave of revolt that led the government to collapse. Thus, on January 30, 1933, he was elected chancellor. A year and a half later he was appointed Führer, and prepared to eliminate all opposition. The party took over the bureaucratic apparatus, it began the process of eliminating the "enemies of Germany", took control of the economy and created the Gestapo, a police force that combated "dangerous tendencies for the State".


The Führer had prepared the country thoroughly for war. Ian Kershaw points out that Hitler took advantage of the feeling of national shame originating after the Great War to try to destroy the "inferior peoples", an initiative thwarted by the resistance of the British and Soviets and the entry into the U.S. conflict.

Although he never had a mind to capitulate, his health, however, was delicate: he suffered from headaches, heart attacks and possibly jaundice. By then, the dictator was a human ruin. In 1931, after the suicide of his niece Geli Raubal, of whom he was deeply in love with, he stopped eating meat. 

His diet, on the other hand, included large amounts of pure amphetamine, which caused irritability and hallucinations. In a 1943 document, Henry Murray, a member of the Office of Strategic Services, a forerunner of the CIA, made a report on his personality that ended up being premonitory. In it he pointed out that in the event of defeat he could commit suicide in a dramatic way. In the early morning of 29 April 1945, he wrote his will and married Eva Braun. One day later, they both committed suicide. Their bodies were taken to the garden of the chancellery, sprinkled with gasoline and incinerated.

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