The Rise of Hitler

Adolf Hitler is known for his role as dictator and leader of Nazi Germany and the Nazi Party, which is a far cry from the aspiring artist he was in his teen years in Austria. Born in 1889, Hitler's rise to power began after the First World War, in which he served as a German soldier. He was a decorated war veteran, but he was also very displeased with Germany's surrender that ended the war. His existing anti-Semitic ideologies were fueled by the German Workers' Party, which he joined in 1919. He became the leader of this party in 1920 and subsequently renamed it the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party).
 
He used this power to build his political agenda, and after a failed coup he decided to take the legal, proper route to political power. Using his leadership of the Nazi Party and his public speaking prowess, Hitler built a following that ended up getting him elected chancellor in 1933. By 1934, he had named himself dictator and started the implementation of the Third Reich, his totalitarian dream of how a government should be, based largely in fascism and anti-Semitism.
 
Hitler's 'cleansing' began with simple things like discrimination. Through the Nuremburg Laws, Adolf Hitler and his growing army were able to boycott Jewish business, take away rights of Jewish citizens, and eventually push them out of their homes and into impoverished ghettos, along with other inferior citizens. Homosexuals, Jewish people, Romanians, Poles, disabled people, the elderly, the ill, and children who were too young to be 'useful' were all targeted by Hitler and the Third Reich. They were first starved and forced to live in deplorable conditions where they were dying from exposure and disease, and then eventually moved to the camps once there was more order to the 'cleansing', or the Final Solution, as it was known to the Nazis and Adolf Hitler.
 
Hitler never visited concentration camps. Nor did he ever hand down official, recorded orders to kill all of the inferiors. He simply instilled his ideology in his followers and all but spelled out what needed to be done. Still, he is known for being the start of World War II, when European countries finally got tired of his taking over their people. He is also held accountable for the Holocaust, which killed more than 11 million people between 1933 and 1945. In 1945, the Allied forces took control of Germany and Adolf Hitler committed suicide shortly thereafter.