|
|
(April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 and Führer (Leader) of Germany from 1934 until his death. He was leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), better known as the Nazi Party.
Hitler gained power in a Germany facing crisis after World War I. He used charismatic oratory and propaganda, appealing to economic need, nationalism and anti-Semitism to establish an authoritarian regime. With a restructured economy and rearmed military, Hitler pursued an aggressive foreign policy with the intention of expanding German Lebensraum ('living space') and triggered the European theater of World War II by invading Poland. At the height of their power, Germany and the Axis Powers occupied much of Europe, but they eventually were defeated by the Allies. By then, Hitler's racial policies had culminated, with Hitler's knowledge, in the genocide of 11 million people, including about six million Jews, in what is now known as the Holocaust.
In the final days of the war, Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin, together with his newly wed wife, Eva Braun. The Third Reich, which he proclaimed would last a thousand years, collapsed in only twelve.
|