As the absolute dictator of the German Third Reich and self- appointed commander of its military, Adolf Hider conquered the largest portions of Europe, Asia, and Africa ever subdued by a single armed force. In the process, he initiated World War II, which led to the deaths of more than 35 million people. In earning his position as one of the most influential military leaders of all time, Hitler also became the most diabolical and barbaric.
Born the son of a minor customs clerk of German ancestry and an Austrian peasant on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, Austria, Hider failed high school and spent his early twenties as a laborer and street artist, sleeping in parks and eating in soup kitchens. Embittered by continuous failures, Hider moved from Vienna to Munich, hoping to find his father’s German homeland an improvement over his native Austria. He later summed up his feelings:
“I was convinced that the State (Austria) was sure to obstruct every really great German. … I hated the modey collection (in Austria) of Czechs, Ruthenians, Poles, Hungarians, Serbs, Croats, and above all that ever-present fungoid growth—-Jews…. I became a fanatical anti-Semite.”
The Bavarian government convicted Hider of treason and confined him in the Landsberg Prison for nine months before re¬leasing him through a general amnesty. While in jail, Hider wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), oudining his Nazi philosophies and hinting at his future expansion plans. By 1927, Hider had restored the Nazi Party to prominence and increased its numbers through his public-speaking ability. The Great Depression of 1929 brought Hider to the attention of the mainstream German public, who fell under his spell of promises to provide jobs, strengthen the economy, and return Germany to national glory and power.
What Hider had been unable to achieve with force, he accomplished through the ballot. The election of 1932 gave the Nazi Party control of the Reichstag, and the following year, the former army corporal became the chancellor of Germany.
Once in power, Hider quickly established himself as a popular leader through his personal charm and as an absolute dictator via the murder or imprisonment of opponents. He blatantly violated the World War I armistice conditions by rearming Germany, an action which gave him a strong military, provided sufficient jobs, and boosted the German economy. Hider, who considered himself a veteran frondine soldier, disdained the tided military elites, whom he blamed for defeat in World War I, and replaced them with his own favorites.
Militarily, Hider was extremely well read, with an excellent grasp of the emerging concept of armor and maneuver warfare. He funded the building of the Panzer Corps and other weaponry to make blitzkrieg warfare a reality; he also authorized the forma¬tion of an air force and a U-boat fleet. Although Hider readily adopted new technology and understood the importance of mass and surprise in modern warfare, he was, overall, a poor military commander. He did not pay heed to the advice of his experienced subordinates and on occasion sacrificed his service personnel and endangered the civilian population for no apparent reason.
In 1936, Hider began his offensive to return gloryand land—to Germany by occupying the Rhineland. Two years later, he annexed his native Austria and took over the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia while the rest of the world stood in awe of Germany’s military might. Not until Hider invaded Poland in 1939 did France and Great Britain finally declare war on Germany, but their efforts barely slowed the German advance. In 1940, Hider occupied Scandinavia, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, and the following year, he took over Greece and Yugoslavia. Only a brilliant air defense and the barrier of the English Channel prevented Ger-many from invading Great Britain.
By 1941, Hider had accomplished all, if not more, than could be expected from a country the size of Germany, but it was not enough for the Fiihrer (undisputed leader). In June he broke a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union and invaded Russia. At about the same time, after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hitler declared war on the United States.
Hider and Germany were at their height of power. However, the German eastern offensive against the Soviets stalled outside Moscow in the face of the Red Army and the Russian winter, adding Hitler’s name to the list of commanders defeated there. Hitler fired his senior generals and refused to accept the possibility that his army could fail, allowing his soldiers to be killed or captured rather than giving his permission to retreat For the next four years, Hitler acted as his own military commander in chief. He dealt with the army through a Chief of Staff and with the other services through a command organization of his own design. Hitler now dressed mosdy in uniform and commanded every move of the German military, relishing the tide Grofaz, an acronym of the German for “the greatest commander of all dme.” Despite such able subordinates as Karl Doenitz [85], Erwin Rom¬mel [79], and Heinz Guderian [75], Hider retained full command authority and often disregarded his commanders and advisers.
Even though it was becoming obvious that Germany did not have the strength to sustain fronts against both the Soviets to the east and the Americans and other Allies to the west, Hider ratio¬nalized the deterioration of his army, believing that Germany did not deserve to survive if it did not attain world dominance. At this critical time, Hider, and Germany as a whole, continued to deploy trains, men, and supplies, in great demand at the front, to trans¬port Jews and other “undesirables,” including political opponents, Gypsies, homosexuals, and the physically ajid mentally disabled, to the gas chambers and crematoriums. To the very end, Hider con-tinued his efforts to destroy entire peoples by killing more than 6 million innocents, most of them Jews. This Holocaust alone marks Hitler as history’s most deplorable, barbaric character.
Even as his military crumbled, Hider promised the delivery of “superweapons” and boasted that he and Germany would fight “until five past midnight,” which they very nearly did. However, in the end, with Soviet troops closing in on his Berlin command bunker, Hider, fifty-six, committed suicide on April 30, 1945. Seven days later, World War II came to an end, leaving more than 35 mil¬lion dead and coundess more wounded, maimed, and homeless.
For nearly a decade, Hider stood as the world’s mightiest military commander. He rates a ranking high on this list of influential military leaders not for any enduring personal achievement but as the impetus for world change. His aggression started World War II, which killed millions and redrew the map of Europe. In the wake of the war, old world powers declined, and new ones replaced them. Germany endured nearly a half century of division before re¬uniting. The British and French empires have yet to recover. The Soviets rose to superpower status, only to later collapse. The United States abandoned its isolationist doctrine and became the only superpower. The independent state of Israel emerged and has already survived longer than Hider’s Nazi Germany.