Hitler committed suicide in April, 1945 a few days after his birthday. For some time before that, he had been holed up within the Fuhrerbunker, an underground complex in central Berlin. This complex was intended to protect Nazi war criminals from being captured by the advancing Allied forces.

During the rule of the Nazi Party over Germany, virtually every young person was involved in the Hitler Youth or its associated organizations for girls. The Hitler Youth extended not only through Germany but also across many of the occupied territories in the Nazi “Reich,” or realm. The purpose of the Hitler Youth was to ensure that young people would adhere to the principles of Nazism in the future.

Hitler came from a very ordinary Austrian family. His father is generally considered to have been a petty bureaucrat. However, it is important to understand what this really means in terms of the society of the time. Alois Hitler, Hitler’s father, was not wealthy, but was considerably successful by the standards of Austria at the time.

Modern scholars have uncovered a great deal of new information about Hitler, his frame of mind and his overall state of health. It is now believed that Hitler’s sanity may have been deteriorating throughout much of his rule. Accounts indicate that he might have suffered from tremors and a host of other ailments. Diagnoses such as Parkinson’s Disease and others have been put forth.

Although we often think of Hitler as the “fuhrer” of Nazi Germany who wielded absolute power, the Nazi Party and its racist ideology began to come to power not through dictatorship, but with democracy. It was only after the Nazi Party had become a substantial political force within the German parliament that Hitler was invited by Germany’s president, Paul von Hindenburg, to become chancellor.