Hitler in media

Video of Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden

See also: Adolf Hitler in popular culture

Oratory and rallies

Hitler was a gifted orator who captivated many with his beating of the lectern and growling, emotional speech. He honed his skills by giving speeches to soldiers during 1919 and 1920. He became adept at telling people what they wanted to hear (the stab-in-the-back, the Jewish-Marxist plot to conquer the world, and the betrayal of Germany in the Versailles treaty) and identifying a scapegoat for their plight. Over time, Hitler perfected his delivery by rehearsing in front of mirrors and carefully choreographing his display of emotions^{[citation needed]}. He was allegedly coached by Erik-Jan Hanussen, a self-styled clairvoyant who focused on hand and arm gestures and who, ironically, had Jewish heritage. Munitions minister and architect Albert Speer, who may have known Hitler as well as anyone, said that Hitler was above all else an actor.^[369][370]

Hitler and Baron Mannerheim (June 1942)

Massive Nazi rallies staged by Speer were designed to spark a process of self-persuasion for the participants. By participating in the rallies, by marching, by shouting heil, and by making the stiff armed salute, the participants strengthened their commitment to the Nazi movement. This process can be appreciated by watching Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, which presents the 1934 Nuremberg Rally. The camera shoots Hitler from on high and from below, but only twice head-on. These camera angles give Hitler a Christ-like aura. Some of the people in the film are paid actors, but most of the participants are not. Whether the film itself recruited new Nazis out of theatre audiences is unknown. The process of self-persuasion may have affected Hitler. He gave the same speech (though it got smoother and smoother with repetition) hundreds of times first to soldiers and then to audiences in beer halls.

Recorded in private conversation

Hitler visited Finnish Field Marshal Mannerheim on 4 June 1942. During the visit an engineer of the Finnish broadcasting company YLE, Thor Damen, recorded Hitler and Mannerheim in conversation, something which had to be done secretly since Hitler never allowed recordings of him off-guard.^[371] Today the recording is the only known recording of Hitler not speaking in an official tone. The recording captures 11½ minutes of the two leaders in private conversation.^[372] Hitler speaks in a slightly excited, but still intellectually detached manner during this talk (the speech has been compared to that of the working class). The majority of the recording is a monologue by Hitler. In the recording, Hitler admits to underestimating the Soviet Union's ability to conduct war.

Patria picture disc

Adolf Hitler even released a 7-inch picture disc with one of his speeches. Known as the Patria (Fatherland) picture disc, the obverse bears an image of Hitler giving a speech and has a recording of both a speech by Hitler and also Party Member Hans Hinkel. The reverse bears a hand holding a swastika flag and the Carl Woitschach recording (1933 – Telefunken A 1431) "In Dem Kampf um die Heimat – Faschistenmarsch".

Documentaries during the Third Reich

Hitler appeared in and was involved to varying degrees with a series of films by the pioneering filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl via Universum Film AG (UFA):

• Der Sieg des Glaubens (Victory of Faith, 1933).
• Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1934), co-produced by Hitler.
• Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht (Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces, 1935).
• Olympia (1938).

Hitler was the central figure of the first three films; they focused on the party rallies of the respective years and are considered propaganda films. Hitler also featured prominently in the Olympia film. Whether the latter is a propaganda film or a true documentary is still a subject of controversy, but it nonetheless perpetuated and spread the propagandistic message of the 1936 Olympic Games depicting Nazi Germany as a prosperous and peaceful country.^[373] As a prominent politician, Hitler was featured in many newsreels.

Television

Hitler's attendance at various public functions, including the 1936 Olympic Games and Nuremberg Rallies, appeared on television broadcasts made between 1935 and 1939. These events, along with other programming highlighting activity by public officials, were often repeated in public viewing rooms. Samples from a number of surviving television films from Nazi Germany were included in the 1999 documentary Das Fernsehen unter dem Hakenkreuz (Television Under the Swastika).

Documentaries post Third Reich

• The World at War (1974): a Thames Television series which contains much information about Hitler and Nazi Germany, including an interview with his secretary, Traudl Junge.
• Adolf Hitler's Last Days: from the BBC series "Secrets of World War II" tells the story about Hitler's last days during World War II.
• The Nazis: A Warning From History (1997): six-part BBC TV series on how the cultured and educated Germans accepted Hitler and the Nazis up to its downfall. Historical consultant is Ian Kershaw.
• Cold War (1998): a CNN series about the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The series begins with World War II footage, including Hitler, and how the Cold War began in earnest after Germany surrendered.
• Im toten Winkel – Hitlers Sekretärin (Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary) (2002): an exclusive 90 minute interview with Traudl Junge, Hitler's secretary. Made by Austrian Jewish director André Heller shortly before Junge's death from lung cancer, Junge recalls the last days in the Berlin bunker. Clips of the interview were used in Downfall (film).
• Undergångens arkitektur (The Architecture of Doom) (1989): documentary about the National Socialist aesthetic as envisioned by Hitler.
• Das Fernsehen unter dem Hakenkreuz (Television Under the Swastika) (1999): documentary by Michael Kloft about the domestic use of television in Nazi Germany for propaganda purposes from 1935 to 1944.
• Ruins of the Reich (2007): four-part series of the Rise and Fall of Hitler's Reich and its effects, created by Third Reich historian R.J. Adams

Family

Paula Hitler, the last living member of Adolf Hitler's immediate family, died in 1960.
The most prominent and longest-living direct descendant of Adolf Hitler's father, Alois, was Adolf's nephew William Patrick Hitler. With his wife Phyllis, he eventually moved to Long Island, New York, changed his last name, and had four sons. None of William Hitler's children have had any children of their own.
Over the years, various investigative reporters have attempted to track down other distant relatives of the Führer. Many are now alleged to be living inconspicuous lives and have long since changed their last name.

Adolf Hitler's genealogy

• Klara Hitler, mother
• Alois Hitler, father
• Alois Hitler, Jr., half-brother
• Angela Hitler Raubal, half-sister
• Bridget Dowling, sister-in-law
• Eva Braun, mistress and then wife
• Geli Raubal, niece
• Gretl Braun, sister-in-law through Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun
• Heinz Hitler, nephew
• Hermann Fegelein, brother-in-law through Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun
• Ilse Braun, sister-in-law through Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun
• Johann Georg Hiedler, presumed grandfather
• Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, maternal great-grandfather, presumed great uncle and possibly Hitler's true paternal grandfather
• Leo Raubal Jr, nephew
• Maria Schicklgruber, grandmother
• Paula Hitler, sister
• William Patrick Hitler, nephew

Sexuality

Hitler presented himself publicly as a man without a domestic life, dedicated entirely to his political mission. He had a fiancée in the 1920s, Mimi Reiter, and later had a mistress, Eva Braun. He had a close bond with his half-niece Geli Raubal, which some commentators have claimed was sexual, though there is no evidence that proves this.^[365] All three women attempted suicide (two succeeded), a fact that has led to speculation that Hitler may have had sexual fetishes,^{[clarification needed]} such as urolagnia (aroused by urine or urination), as was claimed by Otto Strasser, a political opponent of Hitler. Reiter, the only one to survive the Nazi regime, denied this.^[366] Some theorists have claimed that Hitler had a relationship with British fascist Unity Mitford.^[367] Lothar Machtan argues in The Hidden Hitler that Hitler was homosexual.^[368]

Health

Hitler's health has long been the subject of debate. He has variously been said to have had irritable bowel syndrome, skin lesions, irregular heartbeat, Parkinson's disease,^[276] syphilis,^[276] Asperger syndrome.^[347][348] He had problems with his teeth and his personal dentist Hugo Blaschke stated that he fitted a large dental bridge to his upper jaw in 1933 and that on 10 November 1944 he carried out surgery to cut off part of the left rear section of the bridge that was causing an infection of his gums. He was also suffering from a sinus infection.^[349]
After the early 1930s, Hitler generally followed a vegetarian diet, although he ate meat on occasion. There are reports of him disgusting his guests by giving them graphic accounts of the slaughter of animals in an effort to make them shun meat.^[350] A fear of cancer (from which his mother died) is the most widely cited reason, though it is also asserted that Hitler, an antivivisectionist, had a profound concern for animals.^[351] Martin Bormann had a greenhouse constructed for him near the Berghof (near Berchtesgaden) to ensure a steady supply of fresh fruit and vegetables for Hitler throughout the war.
Hitler was a non-smoker and promoted aggressive anti-smoking campaigns throughout Germany. (See Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany.)^[352] Hitler "despised" alcohol.^[353]

Syphilis

Hitler's tremors and irregular heartbeat during the last years of his life could have been symptoms of tertiary (late stage) syphilis,^[354] which would mean he had a syphilis infection for many years. Along with another doctor, Theodor Morell diagnosed the symptoms as such by early 1945 in a joint report to SS head Heinrich Himmler.^[354] Some historians have cited Hitler's preoccupation with syphilis across 14 pages of Mein Kampf, where he called it a "Jewish disease", leading to speculation he may have had the disease himself. His possible discovery in 1908 that he had the disease may have been responsible for his demeanor; while his life course may have been influenced by his anger at being a syphilitic, as well as his belief that he had acquired the disease from undesirable societal elements which he intended to eliminate. In several chapters of Mein Kampf, he wrote about the temptation of prostitution and the spreading of syphilis, specifically volume 1, chapter 10 "Causes of the Collapse".^[355] Historians have speculated he may have caught the affliction from a German prostitute at a time when the disease was not yet treatable by modern antibiotics, which would also explain his avoidance of normal sexual relations with women. However, syphilis had become curable in 1910 with Dr. Paul Ehrlich's introduction of the drug Salvarsan.
Since the 1870s, however, it was a common rhetorical practice on the völkisch right to associate Jews with diseases such as syphilis. Historian Robert Waite claims Hitler tested negative on a Wassermann test as late as 1939, which does not prove that he did not have the disease, because the Wassermann test was prone to false-negative results. Regardless of whether he actually had syphilis or not, Hitler lived in constant fear of the disease, and took treatment for it no matter what his doctors told him.^[354]
In his biography of Doctor Felix Kersten called The Man with the Miraculous Hands,^[356] journalist and Académie française member Joseph Kessel wrote that in the winter of 1942, Kersten heard of Hitler's medical condition. Consulted by his patient, Himmler, as to whether he could "assist a man who suffers from severe headaches, dizziness and insomnia," Kersten was shown a top-secret 26-page report. It detailed how Hitler had contracted syphilis in his youth and was treated for it at a hospital in Pasewalk, Germany. However, in 1937, symptoms re-appeared, showing that the disease was still active, and by the start of 1942, signs were evident that progressive syphilitic paralysis (Tabes dorsalis) was occurring. Himmler advised Kersten that Morell (who in the 1930s claimed to be a specialist venereologist) was in charge of Hitler's treatment, and that it was a state secret. The book also relates how Kersten learned from Himmler's secretary, Rudolf Brandt, that at that time, probably the only other people privy to the report's information were Nazi Party chairman Martin Bormann and Hermann Göring, the head of the Luftwaffe.

Monorchism

See also: Hitler's possible monorchism

It has been alleged that Hitler had monorchism, the medical condition of having only one testicle. Hitler's personal doctor, Johan Jambor, supposedly described the dictator's condition to a priest who later wrote down what he had been told in a document which was uncovered in 2008, 23 years after the doctor's death.^[357]
Soviet doctor Lev Bezymensky, allegedly involved in the Soviet autopsy, stated in a 1967 book that Hitler's left testicle was missing. Bezymensky later admitted that the claim was falsified.^[358] Hitler was routinely examined by many doctors throughout his childhood, military service and later political career, and no clinical mention of any such condition has ever been discovered. Records do show he was wounded in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme, and some sources do describe his injury as a wound to the groin.

Parkinson's disease

It has also been speculated Hitler had Parkinson's disease.^[359] Newsreels of Hitler show he had tremors in his hand and a shuffling walk (also a symptom of tertiary syphilis, see above) which began before the war and continued to worsen until the end of his life. Morell treated Hitler with a drug agent that was commonly used in 1945, although Morell is viewed as an unreliable doctor by most historians and any diagnoses he may have made are subject to doubt.
A more reliable doctor, Ernst-Günther Schenck, who worked at an emergency casualty station in the Reich Chancellery during April 1945, also claimed Hitler might have Parkinson's disease. However, Schenck only saw Hitler briefly on two occasions and, by his own admission, was extremely exhausted and dazed during these meetings (at the time, he had been in surgery for numerous days without much sleep). Also, some of Schenck's opinions were based on hearsay from Dr. Haase.

Other complaints

From the 1930s he suffered from stomach pains, in 1936 a non-cancerous polyp was removed from his throat and he developed eczema on his legs.^[360] He suffered ruptured eardrums as a result of the July 20 plot bomb blast in 1944 and 200 wood splinters had to be removed from his legs,^[361] but he was otherwise uninjured. Some doctors dismiss Hitler's ailments as hypochondria, pointing out the apparently drastic decline of Hitler's health as Germany began losing World War II.

Addiction to amphetamine

Hitler began using amphetamine occasionally after 1937 and became addicted to amphetamine after the late summer of 1942.^[362] Albert Speer stated he thought this was the most likely cause of the later rigidity of Hitler’s decision making (never allowing military retreats).^[363]

Historians' views

In a 1980 article, the German historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler dismissed theories that sought to explain Nazi Germany as due to some defect, medical or otherwise in Hitler. In his opinion, besides the problem that such theories about Hitler's medical condition were extremely difficult to prove, they had the effect of personalizing the phenomena of Nazi Germany by attributing everything that happened in the Third Reich to one flawed individual.^[364] The British historian Sir Ian Kershaw agreed that it was better to take a broader view of German history by seeking to examine what social forces led to the Third Reich and its policies, as opposed to the "personalized" explanations for the Holocaust and World War II.^[271]

Attitude to occultism

Some writers believe that, in contrast to some Nazi ideologues, Hitler did not adhere to esoteric ideas, occultism, or Ariosophy.^[329] Hitler ridiculed such beliefs in Mein Kampf.^[337][342] Nevertheless, other writers believe the young Hitler was strongly influenced, particularly in his racial views, by an abundance of occult works on the mystical superiority of the Germans, such as the occult and anti-semitic magazine Ostara, and give credence to the claim of its publisher Lanz von Liebenfels that Hitler visited Liebenfels in 1909 and praised his work.^[343] The historians are still divided on the question of the reliability of Lanz' claim of a contact with Hitler.^[344] Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke considers his account reliable, Brigitte Hamann leaves the question open^[345] and Ian Kershaw, although questioning to what degree he was influence by it, notes that, "Most likely, Hitler did read Ostara, along with other racist pulp which was prominent on Vienna newspaper stands.^[29] Kershaw also notes that it is usually taken for granted that Hitler did so and was to some extent influence by the occult publication, pointing to Hitler's account of conversion to anti-semitism after reading some unnamed anti-semitic pamphlets.^[346]

Religious views

Hitler was raised by Roman Catholic parents, but after he left home, he never attended Mass or received the sacraments.^[321] Hitler favoured aspects of Protestantism if they were more suitable to his own objectives. At the same time, he adopted some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organization, liturgy and phraseology in his politics.^[322][323] After he had moved to Germany, where the Catholic and the Protestant church are largely financed through a church tax collected by the state, Hitler never "actually left his church or refused to pay church taxes. In a nominal sense therefore," the historian Richard Steigmann-Gall (whose views on Christianity and Nazism are admittedly outside the consensus) states, Hitler "can be classified as Catholic."^[324] Yet, as Steigmann-Gall has also pointed out in the debate about religion in Nazi Germany: "Nominal church membership is a very unreliable gauge of actual piety in this context."^[325]
In public, Hitler often praised Christian heritage, German Christian culture, and professed a belief in an Aryan Jesus Christ, a Jesus who fought against the Jews.^[326] In his speeches and publications Hitler spoke of his interpretation of Christianity as a central motivation for his antisemitism, stating that "As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice."^[327][328] His private statements, as reported by his intimates, show Hitler as critical of traditional Christianity, considering it a religion fit only for slaves; he admired the power of Rome but had severe hostility towards its teaching.^[329] Here Hitler's attack on Catholicism "resonated Streicher's contention that the Catholic establishment was allying itself with the Jews."^[330] In light of these private statements, for John S. Conway and many other historians it is beyond doubt that Hitler held a "fundamental antagonism" towards the Christian churches.^[331] The various accounts of Hitler's private statements vary strongly in their reliability; most importantly, Hermann Rauschning's Hitler speaks is considered by most historians to be an invention.^[332][333]
In the political relations with the churches in Germany however, Hitler readily adopted a strategy "that suited his immediate political purposes".^[331] Hitler had a general plan, even before the rise of the Nazis to power, to destroy Christianity within the Reich.^{[334][335][336]} The leader of the Hitler Youth stated "the destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose of the National Socialist movement" from the start, but "considerations of expedience made it impossible" publicly to express this extreme position.^[334] His intention was to wait until the war was over to destroy the influence of Christianity.^[329]
Hitler for a time advocated for Germans a form of the Christian faith he called "Positive Christianity",^[337][338] a belief system purged of what he objected to in orthodox Christianity, and featuring added racist elements. By 1940 however, it was public knowledge that Hitler had abandoned advocating for Germans even the syncretist idea of a positive Christianity.^[339] Hitler maintained that the "terrorism in religion is, to put it briefly, of a Jewish dogma, which Christianity has universalized and whose effect is to sow trouble and confusion in men's minds."^[340]
Hitler once stated, "We do not want any other god than Germany itself. It is essential to have fanatical faith and hope and love in and for Germany."^[341]

Legacy

Outside the building in Braunau am Inn, Austria where Adolf Hitler was born is a memorial stone warning of the horrors of World War II

Hitler, the Nazi Party and the results of Nazism are typically regarded as gravely immoral.^[315] Historians, philosophers, and politicians have often applied the word evil in both a secular^[316] and a religious^{[citation needed]} sense. Historical and cultural portrayals of Hitler in the west are overwhelmingly condemnatory. Holocaust denial, along with the display of Nazi symbols such as swastikas, is prohibited in Germany and Austria.
Outside of Hitler's birthplace in Braunau am Inn, Austria, the Memorial Stone Against War and Fascism is engraved with the following message:

FÜR FRIEDEN FREIHEIT
UND DEMOKRATIE
NIE WIEDER FASCHISMUS
MILLIONEN TOTE MAHNEN

Loosely translated it reads: "For peace, freedom // and democracy // never again fascism // millions of dead remind [us]"^{[clarification needed]}
Some people have referred to Hitler's legacy in neutral or favourable terms. Former Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat spoke of his 'admiration' of Hitler in 1953, when he was a young man, though it is possible he was speaking in the context of a rebellion against the British Empire.^[317] Louis Farrakhan has referred to him as a "very great man".^[318] Bal Thackeray, leader of the right-wing Hindu Shiv Sena party in the Indian state of the Maharashtra, declared in 1995 that he was an admirer of Hitler.^[319] Friedrich Meinecke, the German historian, said of Hitler's life that "it is one of the great examples of the singular and incalculable power of personality in historical life".^[320]

Defeat and death

By late 1944, the Red Army had driven the Germans back into Central Europe and the Western Allies were advancing into Germany. Hitler realized that Germany had lost the war, but allowed no retreats. He hoped to negotiate a separate peace with America and Britain, a hope buoyed by the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April 1945.^{[278][279][280][281]} Hitler's stubbornness and defiance of military realities allowed the Holocaust to continue. He ordered the complete destruction of all German industrial infrastructure before it could fall into Allied hands, saying that Germany's failure to win the war forfeited its right to survive.^[282] Rather, Hitler decided that the entire nation should go down with him. Execution of this scorched earth plan was entrusted to arms minister Albert Speer, who disobeyed the order.^[282]
On 20 April, Hitler celebrated his 56th birthday in the Führerbunker ("Führer's shelter") below the Reichskanzlei (Reich Chancellery). Elsewhere, the garrison commander of the besieged Festung Breslau ("fortress Breslau"), General Hermann Niehoff, had chocolates distributed to his troops in honour of Hitler's birthday.^[283]
By 21 April, Georgi Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front had broken through the last defences of German General Gotthard Heinrici's Army Group Vistula during the Battle of the Seelow Heights. Facing little resistance, the Soviets advanced headlong into the outskirts of Berlin.^[284] Ignoring the facts, Hitler saw salvation in the ragtag units commanded by Waffen SS General Felix Steiner. Steiner's command became known as Armeeabteilung Steiner ("Army Detachment Steiner"). But "Army Detachment Steiner" existed primarily on paper. It was more than a corps but less than an army. Hitler ordered Steiner to attack the northern flank of the huge salient created by the breakthrough of Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front. Meanwhile, the German Ninth Army, which had been pushed south of the salient, was ordered to attack north in a pincer attack.
Late on 21 April, Heinrici called Hans Krebs, chief of the Oberkommando des Heeres (Supreme Command of the Army or OKH), and told him that Hitler's plan could not be implemented. Heinrici asked to speak to Hitler but was told by Krebs that Hitler was too busy to take his call.
On 22 April, during the military conference, Hitler interrupted the report to ask what had happened to Steiner's offensive. There was a long silence. Then Hitler was told that the attack had never been launched and the Russians had broken through into Berlin. Hitler asked everyone except Wilhelm Keitel, Hans Krebs, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Burgdorf, and Martin Bormann to leave the room,^[285] and launched into a tirade against the treachery and incompetence of his commanders. This culminated with Hitler openly declaring for the first time the war was lost.^[286] Hitler announced he would stay in Berlin, head up the defence of the city and then shoot himself.^[287]
Before the day ended, Hitler again found salvation in a new plan that included General Walther Wenck's Twelfth Army.^[288] This new plan had Wenck turn his army – currently facing the Americans to the west – and attack towards the east to relieve Berlin.^[288] Twelfth Army was to link up with Ninth Army and break through to the city. Wenck did attack and, in the confusion, made temporary contact with the Potsdam garrison. But the link with the Ninth Army, like the plan in general, was ultimately unsuccessful.^[289]
On 23 April, Joseph Goebbels made the following proclamation to the people of Berlin:

I call on you to fight for your city. Fight with everything you have got, for the sake of your wives and your children, your mothers and your parents. Your arms are defending everything we have ever held dear, and all the generations that will come after us. Be proud and courageous! Be inventive and cunning! Your Gauleiter is amongst you. He and his colleagues will remain in your midst. His wife and children are here as well. He, who once captured the city with 200 men, will now use every means to galvanize the defence of the capital. The Battle for Berlin must become the signal for the whole nation to rise up in battle ...^[285]

The same day, Göring sent a telegram from Berchtesgaden in Bavaria. Göring argued that, since Hitler was cut off in Berlin, he should assume leadership of Germany as Hitler's designated successor. Göring mentioned a time limit after which he would consider Hitler incapacitated.^[290] Hitler responded, in anger, by having Göring arrested. Later when Hitler wrote his will on 29 April, Göring was removed from all his positions in the government.^{[290][291][292]} Further on the 23 April, Hitler appointed General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling as the commander of the Berlin Defense Area. Weidling replaced Lieutenant General (Generalleutnant) Helmuth Reymann and Colonel (Oberst) Ernst Kaether. Hitler also appointed Waffen-SS Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke the (Kommandant) Battle Commander for the defence of the government district (Zitadelle sector) that included the Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker.^[293]
By the end of the day on 27 April, Berlin was completely cut off from the rest of Germany. As the Soviet forces closed in, Hitler's followers urged him to flee to the mountains of Bavaria to make a last stand in the National Redoubt. However, Hitler was determined to either live or die in the capital.
On 28 April, Hitler discovered that Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler was trying to discuss surrender terms with the Western Allies (through the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte).^[294] Hitler ordered Himmler's arrest and had Hermann Fegelein (Himmler's SS representative at Hitler's HQ in Berlin) shot.^[291][295]

Cover of US military newspaper The Stars and Stripes, May 1945

During the night of 28 April, Wenck reported that his Twelfth Army had been forced back along the entire front. He noted that no further attacks towards Berlin were possible. General Alfred Jodl (Supreme Army Command) did not provide this information to Hans Krebs in Berlin until early in the morning of 30 April.
In the early morning hours of April 29, Hitler married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony in a map room within the Führerbunker. Antony Beevor stated that after Hitler hosted a modest wedding breakfast with his new wife, Hitler then took secretary Traudl Junge to another room and dictated his last will and testament.^[296][297] Hitler signed these documents at approximately 4:00 AM. The event was witnessed and documents signed by Hans Krebs, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann, as well.^[291] Hitler then retired to bed.^[298] That afternoon, Hitler was informed of the assassination of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, which is presumed to have increased his determination to avoid capture.^[299]
On 30 April 1945, after intense street-to-street combat, when Soviet troops were within a block or two of the Reich Chancellery, Hitler and Braun committed suicide, Eva by biting into a cyanide capsule^[300] and Hitler by shooting himself with his Walther PPK 7.65 mm pistol.^{[301][302][303][304]} Hitler had at various times in the past contemplated suicide, and the Walther was the same pistol that his niece, Geli Raubal had used in her suicide.^[305] The lifeless bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun were carried up the stairs and through the bunker's emergency exit to the bombed-out garden behind the Reich Chancellery where they were placed in a bomb crater^[306][307] and doused with petrol. The corpses were set on fire^[308] as the Red Army advanced and the shelling continued.^[309]
On 2 May, Berlin surrendered. In the postwar years there were conflicting reports about what happened to Hitler's remains. After the fall of the Soviet Union, records found in the Soviet archives revealed that the remains of Hitler, Eva Braun, Joseph and Magda Goebbels, the six Goebbels children, General Hans Krebs and Hitler's dogs, were collected, moved and secretly buried in graves near Rathenow in Brandenburg.^[310] In 1970, the remains were disinterred, cremated and scattered in the Elbe River by the Soviets.^[311][312] According to the Russian Federal Security Service, a fragment of human skull stored in its archives and displayed to the public in a 2000 exhibition came from the remains of Hitler's body. The authenticity of the skull has been challenged by historians and researchers.^[313] DNA analysis conducted in 2009 showed the skull fragment to be that of a woman, and analysis of the sutures between the skull plates indicated an age between 20 and 40 years old at the time of death.^[314]

Attempted assassination

There were numerous attempts or ideas by private individuals, organisations or states wishing to assassinate Hitler. Some of the plans proceeding to significant degrees. While some attempts occurred before World War II, the most famous attempt came from within Germany. The plan was at least partly driven by the prospect of the increasingly imminent defeat of Germany in the war.
In July 1944, as part of Operation Valkyrie in what became known as the 20 July plot, Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in Hitler's headquarters, the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) at Rastenburg. Hitler narrowly escaped death due to random chance, as someone unknowingly moved the briefcase that contained a bomb by pushing it behind a leg of the heavy conference table. When the bomb exploded, the table subsequently deflected much of the blast away from Hitler. Later, Hitler ordered savage reprisals, resulting in the executions of more than 4,900 people,^[277] sometimes by starvation in solitary confinement followed by slow strangulation. The main resistance movement was destroyed, although smaller isolated groups continued to operate.

Path to defeat

On 22 June 1941, three million German troops attacked the Soviet Union, breaking the non-aggression pact Hitler had concluded with Stalin two years earlier. This invasion seized huge amounts of territory, including the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine. It also encircled and destroyed many Soviet forces, which Stalin had ordered not to retreat. However, the Germans were stopped barely short of Moscow in December 1941 by the Russian winter and fierce Soviet resistance. The invasion failed to achieve the quick triumph Hitler wanted.
A major historical dispute concerns Hitler's reasons for Operation Barbarossa. Some historians such as Andreas Hillgruber have argued that Barbarossa was merely one "stage" of Hitler's Stufenplan (stage by stage plan) for world conquest, which Hillgruber believed that Hitler had formulated in the 1920s.^[268] Other historians such as John Lukacs have contended that Hitler never had a stufenplan, and that the invasion of the Soviet Union was an ad hoc move on the part of Hitler due to Britain's refusal to surrender.^[269] Lukacs has argued that the reason Hitler gave in private for Barbarossa, namely that Winston Churchill held out the hope that the Soviet Union might enter the war on the Allied side, and that the only way of forcing a British surrender was to eliminate that hope, was indeed Hitler's real reason for Barbarossa.^[270] In Lukacs's perspective, Barbarossa was thus primarily an anti-British move on the part of Hitler intended to force Britain to sue for peace by destroying her only hope of victory rather than an anti-Soviet move. Klaus Hildebrand has maintained that Stalin and Hitler were independently planning to attack each other in 1941.^[271] Hildebrand has claimed that the news in the spring of 1941 of Soviet troop concentrations on the border led to Hitler engaging in a flucht nach vorn ("flight forward" – i.e. responding to a danger by charging on rather than retreating.)^[271] A third faction comprising a diverse group such as Viktor Suvorov, Ernst Topitsch, Joachim Hoffmann, Ernst Nolte, and David Irving have argued that the official reason given by the Germans for Barbarossa in 1941 was the real reason, namely that Barbarossa was a "preventive war" forced on Hitler to avert an impeding Soviet attack scheduled for July 1941. This theory has been widely attacked as erroneous; the American historian Gerhard Weinberg once compared the advocates of the preventive war theory to believers in "fairy tales"^[272]
The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union reached its apex on 2 December 1941 as part of the 258th Infantry Division advanced to within 15 miles (24 km) of Moscow, close enough to see the spires of the Kremlin,^[273] but they were not prepared for the harsh conditions brought on by the first blizzards of winter and in the days that followed, Soviet forces drove them back over 320 kilometres (200 miles).
On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and four days later, Hitler's formal declaration of war against the United States officially engaged him 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).
On 18 December 1941, the appointment book of the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler shows he met with Hitler, and in response to Himmler's question "What to do with the Jews of Russia?", Hitler's response was recorded as "als Partisanen auszurotten" ("exterminate them as partisans").^[274] The 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.^[274]

Adolf Hitler in Reichstag during his speech against Franklin D. Roosevelt. 11 December 1941.

The destroyed 'Wolf's Lair' barracks after the 20 July 1944 plot

In late 1942, German forces were defeated in the second battle of El Alamein, 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 6th Army. Thereafter came the Battle of Kursk. Hitler's military judgment became increasingly erratic, and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated along with Hitler's health, as indicated by his left hand's severe trembling. Hitler's biographer Ian Kershaw and others believe that he may have suffered from Parkinson's disease.^[275] Syphilis has also been suspected as a cause of at least some of his symptoms, although the evidence is slight.^[276]
Following the allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky) in 1943, Mussolini was deposed by Pietro Badoglio, 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. Realists in the German army knew defeat was inevitable, and some plotted to remove Hitler from power.

Start of World War II

As part of the anti-British course, it was deemed necessary by Hitler to have Poland either a satellite state or otherwise neutralized. Hitler believed this necessary both on strategic grounds as a way of securing the Reich's eastern flank and on economic grounds as a way of evading the effects of a British blockade.^[238] Initially, the German hope was to transform Poland into a satellite state, but by March 1939 the German demands had been rejected by the Poles three times, which led Hitler to decide upon the destruction of Poland as the main German foreign policy goal of 1939.^[239] On 3 April 1939, Hitler ordered the military to start preparing for Fall Weiss (Case White), the plan for a German invasion to be executed on 25 August 1939.^[239] In August 1939, Hitler spoke to his generals that his original plan for 1939 had to "... establish an acceptable relationship with Poland in order to fight against the West" but since the Poles would not co-operate in setting up an "acceptable relationship" (i.e. becoming a German satellite), he believed he had no choice other than wiping Poland off the map.^[240] The historian Gerhard Weinberg has argued since Hitler's audience comprised men who were all for the destruction of Poland (anti-Polish feelings were traditionally very strong in the German Army), but rather less happy about the prospect of war with Britain and France, if that was the price Germany had to pay for the destruction of Poland, it is quite likely that Hitler was speaking the truth on this occasion.^[240] In his private discussions with his officials in 1939, Hitler always described Britain as the main enemy that had to be defeated, and in his view, Poland's obliteration was the necessary prelude to that goal by securing the eastern flank and helpfully adding to Germany's Lebensraum.^[241] Hitler was much 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".^[242] 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 "encirclement" policy as represented by the "guarantee" of Polish independence.^[242] As part of the new course, in a speech before the Reichstag on 28 April 1939, Adolf Hitler, complaining of British "encirclement" of Germany, renounced both the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact.

Adolf Hitler's face on a German stamp 1944. The country's name was changed to Greater German Reich (Grossdeutsches Reich) in 1943 and this name can be seen on the stamp.

As a pretext for aggression against Poland, Hitler claimed the Free City of Danzig and the right for "extra-territorial" roads across the Polish Corridor which Germany had unwillingly ceded under the Versailles treaty. For Hitler, Danzig was just a pretext for aggression as the Sudetenland had been intended to be in 1938, and throughout 1939, while highlighting the Danzig issue as a grievance, the Germans always refused to engage in talks about the matter.^[243] A notable contradiction existed in Hitler's plans between the long-term anti-British course, whose major instruments such as a vastly expanded Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe would take several years to complete, and Hitler's immediate foreign policy in 1939, which was likely to provoke a general war by engaging in such actions as attacking Poland.^[244][245] Hitler's dilemma between his short-term and long-term goals was resolved by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, who told Hitler that neither Britain nor France would honour their commitments to Poland, and any German–Polish war would accordingly be a limited regional war.^[246][247] Ribbentrop based his appraisal partly on an alleged statement made to him by the French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet in December 1938 that France now recognized Eastern Europe as Germany's exclusive sphere of influence.^[248] In addition, Ribbentrop's status as the former Ambassador to London made him in Hitler's eyes the leading Nazi British expert, and as a result, Ribbentrop's advice that Britain would not honour her commitments to Poland carried much weight with Hitler.^[248] Ribbentrop only showed Hitler diplomatic cables that supported his analysis.^[249] In addition, the German Ambassador in London, Herbert von Dirksen, tended to send reports that supported Ribbentrop's analysis such as a dispatch in August 1939 that reported British Prime Minister Neville 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.^[247] The extent that Hitler was influenced by Ribbentrop's advice can be seen in Hitler's orders to the German military on 21 August 1939 for a limited mobilization against Poland alone.^[250] Hitler chose late August as his date for Fall Weiss in order to limit disruption to German agricultural production caused by mobilization.^[251] The problems caused by the need to begin a campaign in Poland in late August or early September in order to have the campaign finished before the October rains arrived, and the need to have sufficient time to concentrate German troops on the Polish border left Hitler in a self-imposed situation in August 1939 where Soviet co-operation was absolutely crucial if he were to have a war that year.^[251]
The Munich agreement appeared to be sufficient to dispel most of the remaining hold which the "collective security" idea may have had in Soviet circles,^[252] and, on 23 August 1939, Joseph Stalin accepted Hitler's proposal to conclude a non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), whose secret protocols contained an agreement to partition Poland. A major historical debate about the reasons for Hitler's foreign policy choices in 1939 concerns whether a structural economic crisis drove Hitler into a "flight into war" as claimed by the Marxist historian Timothy Mason or whether Hitler's actions were more influenced by non-economic factors as claimed by the economic historian Richard Overy.^[253] Historians such as William Carr, Gerhard Weinberg and Ian Kershaw have argued that a non-economic reason for Hitler's rush to war was Hitler's morbid and obsessive fear of an early death, and hence his feeling that he did not have long to accomplish his work.^{[139][254][255]} In the last days of peace, Hitler oscillated between the determination to fight the Western powers if he had to, and various schemes intended to keep Britain out of the war, but in any case, Hitler was not to be deterred from his aim of invading Poland.^[256] Only very briefly, when news of the Anglo-Polish alliance being signed on 25 August 1939 in response to the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (instead of the severing of ties between London and Warsaw predicted by Ribbentrop) together 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.^[257] Hitler chose to spend the last days of peace either trying to manoeuvre the British into neutrality through his offer of 25 August 1939 to "guarantee" the British Empire, or having Ribbentrop present a last-minute peace plan to Henderson with an impossibly short time limit for its acceptance as part of an effort to blame the war on the British and Poles.^[258][259] On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded western Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September but did not immediately act. Hitler was most unpleasantly surprised at receiving the British declaration of war on 3 September 1939, and turning to Ribbentrop angrily asked "Now what?"^[260] Ribbentrop had nothing to say other than that Robert Coulondre, the French Ambassador, would probably be by later that day to present the French declaration of war.^[260] Not long after this, on 17 September, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland.^[261]

Members of the Reichstag greet Hitler in October 1939 after the conclusion of the Polish campaign

Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Munich, 1940

Adolf Hitler in Paris, 1940, with Albert Speer (left) and Arno Breker (right)

“

Poland never will rise again in the form of the Versailles treaty. That is guaranteed not only by Germany, but also ... Russia.[262]

”

– Adolf Hitler in a public speech in Danzig at the end of September 1939.

After the fall of Poland came a period journalists called the "Phoney War," or Sitzkrieg ("sitting war"). In part of north-western Poland annexed to Germany, Hitler instructed the two Gauleiters in charge of the area, namely Albert Forster and Arthur Greiser, to "Germanize" the area, and promised them "There would be no questions asked" about how this "Germanization" was to be accomplished.^[263] Hitler's orders were interpreted in very different ways by Forster and Greiser. Forster followed a policy of simply having the local Poles sign forms stating they had German blood with no documentation required, whereas Greiser carried out a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign of expelling the entire Polish population into the Government-General of Poland.^[264] When Greiser, seconded by Himmler, complained to Hitler that Forster was allowing thousands of Poles to be accepted as "racial" Germans and thus "contaminating" German "racial purity", and asked Hitler to order Forster to stop, Hitler merely told Himmler and Greiser to take up their difficulties with Forster, and not to involve him.^[265] Hitler's handling of the Forster–Greiser dispute has often been advanced as an example of Ian Kershaw's theory of "Working Towards the Führer", namely that Hitler issued vague instructions, and allowed his subordinates to work out policy on their own.
After the conquest of Poland, another major dispute broke out between different factions with one centring around Reichsfüherer SS Heinrich Himmler and Arthur Greiser championing and carrying out ethnic cleansing schemes for Poland, and another centring around Hermann Göring and Hans Frank calling for turning Poland into the "granary" of the Reich.^[266] At a conference held at Göring's Karinhall estate on 12 February 1940, the dispute was settled in favour of the Göring-Frank view of economic exploitation, and ending mass expulsions as economically disruptive.^[266] On 15 May 1940, Himmler showed Hitler a memo entitled "Some Thoughts on the Treatment of Alien Population in the East", which called for expelling the entire Jewish population of Europe into Africa and reducing the remainder of the Polish population to a "leaderless labouring class".^[266] Hitler called Himmler's memo "good and correct".^[266] Hitler's remark had the effect of scuttling the so-called Karinhall argreement, and led to the Himmler–Greiser viewpoint triumphing as German policy for Poland.
During this period, Hitler built up his forces on Germany's western frontier. In April 1940, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway. In May 1940, Hitler's forces attacked France, conquering Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium in the process. These victories persuaded Benito Mussolini of Italy to join the war on Hitler's side on 10 June 1940. France surrendered on 22 June 1940.
Britain, whose forces evacuated France by sea from Dunkirk, continued to fight alongside other British dominions in the Battle of the Atlantic. After having his overtures for peace rejected by the British, now led by Winston Churchill, Hitler ordered bombing raids on the United Kingdom. The Battle of Britain was Hitler's prelude to a planned invasion. The attacks began by pounding Royal Air Force airbases and radar stations protecting South-East England. However, the Luftwaffe failed to defeat the Royal Air Force. On 27 September 1940, the Tripartite Treaty was signed in Berlin by Saburo Kurusu of Imperial Japan, Hitler, and Ciano. The purpose of the Tripartite Treaty, which was directed against an unnamed power that was clearly meant to be the United States, was to deter the Americans from supporting the British. It was later expanded to include Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. They were collectively known as the Axis Powers. By the end of October 1940, air superiority for the invasion Operation Sealion could not be assured, and Hitler ordered the bombing of British cities, including London, Plymouth, and Coventry, mostly at night.

Adolf Hitler in his second visit to an occupied territory, in this case, Maribor, Yugoslavia in 1941.

In the Spring of 1941, Hitler was distracted from his plans for the East by various activities in North Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In February, German forces arrived in Libya to bolster the Italian forces there. In April, he launched the invasion of Yugoslavia which was followed quickly by the invasion of Greece. In May, German forces were sent to support Iraqi rebel forces fighting against the British and to invade Crete. On 23 May, Hitler released Fuhrer Directive No. 30.^[267]