Adolf Hitler has long been the focus of many debates and arguments. It is accurate to say that he is one of the most controversial leaders ever to walk the Earth. It is hard to believe by most how such a cruel and oddly looking man became the leader of a very powerful country. Hitler's rise to power was not through that of brute force (except for his first try through the Beer Hall Putsch), but rather through his ideas of a better, superior Germany. In this paper I want to examine Hitler's childhood and life in the army during WW I, how it shaped his thoughts on Jews, and his tedious rise to "Fur her" in Germany. I also want to answer the question, "was the fall of Hitler preventable or inevitable?"
CHILDHOOD
Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in a small town of Braunau, Austria, near the German border. Both of Hitler's parents came from poor peasant families. Right from the beginning, Hitler had it rough. Three of his sibling died within the first few years of life and only him and a sister would make it into adult hood. Already you can see Hitler was exposed to death and hardship at such a young age, a very traumatic experience for anyone. Hitler's father, Alois, was fifty-one and had already married twice before he met his last wife, Klara (Adolf's mother). Alois was a very strict man who wanted to see his son succeed in life. A son from his previous marriage had been a huge disappointment to him, so he routinely beat and whipped young Adolf to keep him in line, in fear of Adolf becoming like his abandoned first son. As a result of this constant pressure from his father, Hitler did extremely well in primary school and looked destined to become something great. Also, he was very popular with the other students and was portrayed as a great leader, even so young in life. He soon realized school was not as easy as he thought when told he was going to have to repeat a year during his middle school years. This embarrassed Adolf
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