Hitler's Background

One of the crucial elements in writing an essay about a dictator is understanding their background and how it influenced their early thinking and behavior during their rise to power. Hitler's background is extremely important as it influenced his interactions with the NSDAP. Using the information on the reading, sift through the most important aspects about Hitler's early life to be able to develop two strong paragraphs that are relevant in his rise to power up to 1923.

NOTE: Use only the most important information. Try to avoid the "trivia" because it will bog down your writing. Also, you may bullet point this information, but then you must still write it out in paragraph form, as you would on an essay. (The bullet points will help you when studying.) HINT: I strongly suspect this question will appear on Wednesday's test.

Hitler's Background

Discuss Hitler's background to 1923 and how it influenced his rise to power with the NSDAP.

Hitler's Past

• Born Austrian - continues to live there for years
• Lives in the slums of Vienna w/ Jewish and Marxist advocates -- begins his anti-Semitic and anti-marxism feelings
• Moves to Munich, Germany in 1913

Hitler's Character

• Shy, awkward, moody, lonely
• Contemptuous of mankind >:(
• Tremendous energy and willpower
• Single minded fanatic

Propaganda Skills

• Great Orator and captured the audience w/ his speeches
• Turned what the crowd wanted to hear into words

Ideas he had

• Social Darwinism/survival of the fittest (German race should override all others)
• All Germans should join together - Pan-Germanism
• "Lebensraum" Germany must expand and become more of a world power to feed growing population
• Believer in socialism - stressing the needs of the national community
• Anti-Marxism and the idea of Karl Marx because he was a non-religious Jew
• Anti-democracy - it provided weak government and needed to be replaced with a single party state
• Anti-capitalism - power that came from being very rich - owners of the big businesses and firms; the Jews

The beginning of Hitler's life and when he moved to Germany:

Hitler was born Austrian to the Schicklgruber family. He continues to live in Austria for many years. After being denied to a school for the arts that he strived to get into in Vienna, he drifts around for years living in the slums of Vienna. In these slums he was forced to live with different minorities including people that had different political and religious views. He began to get anti-semitic, anti-marxist, and anti-democratic reactions from living amongst people that practiced these different views. After being drafted for the Austrian-Hungary army, he flees to Munich and lives there until he is called back to Austria.

Hitler's character and propaganda skills:

Hitler had an odd combination of character traits and interesting propaganda skills. He was a shy and awkward man that really hated mankind. Although he was filled with negative traits, he also acquired tremendous energy and he had a lot of willpower. These positive traits were an excellent edition for his propaganda skills. He was able to give an extremely powerful speech because of his excessive willpower and his tremendous amount of energy. He was able to captivate the audience with his speeches and he was able to put into words the thoughts of the audience members. His speeches and propaganda work helped him greatly in his successes with the NSDAP.

Hitler's ideas:

The ideas that Hitler had about struggling Germany definitely helped him in his success with the NSDAP. First he believed deeply in Social-Darwinism where there should be one superior race in Germany and to eventually override all others. He also believed in the popular idea of "Lebensraum" and expending Germany to its full potential all over the world and increase its strength. This would have made the people of Germany praise Hitler because of the harsh land terms of the Treaty of Versailles and it would improve the countries the low moral. His ideas of socialism were also praised by most of the Germans because Hitler wanted to focus on the national community where the people will provide for the state and in turn the state will provide for the people. He was against Marxism and democracy because he believed that they both provided a weak government and that the state would be much more powerful and successful with a single-party. He also hated capitalism and believed that it would promote Jewish big-business owners that will take all the money from the people.