Adolf Hitlers Abuse Of Power

The next few paragraphs explain and prove how Hitler abused his power because of his ego, greed, and self centeredness.

Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 in Austria. He lived in Viennia from 1907 to 1913. the young Hitler was a poverty stricken solitary art student dropout. During World War 1 Hitler was injured twice. After the army, Hitler was assigned to spy on the German Worker’s Party in Munich. The tiny nationalistic group impressed him and he joined. he reorganized it and called it the National Socialist or Nazi Party. This started Hitler’s rein and abuse of power.

Hitler reorganized his Nazi Party, adopting the swastika symbol and “Heil” salute. After attempting a rally, Hitler served a short term in prison where he dictated the successful “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle). With his new wealth he purchased a villa in Berchtesgaden. Hitler took the legal way to power.

Using his special power for speech making, he held emotinal mass meetings throughout Germany, calling on all the people to make Germany triumphant. By 1930, the Nazi party was the second largest in the country. Appointed chancellor in 1933, within a year Hitler had acclaimed full dictorial powers and the title “Führer” (leader). To consolidate his power, he outlawed all but Nazi controlled organizations, used the secret police (the Gestapo) to spy, and concentration camps to punish.

At this time he instigated “The Hitler Youth Program” which was a compulsory program for all youth of Germany which was run by the schools and government powers. Every youth over the age of thirteen was forced to join.

This began Hitler’s biggest attempt at abusing his power. this began the Holocaust. Persecution of the Jews during the Halocaust, known in Hebrew as the Sho’ah. German’s beleive history is a struggle between races. In this struggle the “Aryan” or “Nordic” race was dominat. Most other people were inferior, fit only to be slaves for the Aryans. Worst of all were the Jews who were opposite of everything the Aryans stood for. Hitler believed his mission was to make the Germans the rulers of the world, and destroy the Jews totally. Hatred of the Jews was a key Nazi belief, and murder of the Jews a key policy.

German laws made by Hitler soon required everyone who had one or more Jewish grandparent to register. Those with one grandparent may have escaped but if you had two grandparents you were sent to a concentration camp and classifed as a Jew. One night symbolizing the begining of mass persecution was Kristallnacht, November 10th, 1938, “the night of broken glass”. Jewish stores and houses were attacked, synagogues burned, and many Jews were sent to concentration camps. During this time, there were a few countries that would accept Jews.

Hitler launched World War 2 by marching into Poland in 1939. Most of Western Europe then fell into the Führer (Hitler), who had personal command of the troops. Germany invaded the soviet Union in 1941, but Hitler, Crazed with power, had lost his military judgement. His failure to Capture Stalingrad, 1942 – 1943, was the turning point; unable to cope with defeat, he refused to recognize it or negotiate for peace. As the tide of war turned against him, his mass annhiliation of Jews, socialists, gypsies, and others was excelerated.

After the Second World War had began in 1939, the Nazi’s dropped all restrictions they had previously made towards the systematic murder of all Jews. In countries such as Europe, steps were made for Jews to follow in order to be seperated from the rest of the population. First Jews were required to register, then they were known to the Gestapo. Some families sent their children to live with christian families and live under an assumed identity.

Hitler sent The Jews of Poland to live in poverty stricken ghettos where they were exposed to disease and malnutrition. With the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Nazi policy of murder began to operate with no restrictions. The armies in Russia were followed by an “extermination squad” who shot hundreds of thousands of people, the majority being Jewish.

The Nazis had already setup thousands of concentration camps to imprison anyone who imposed them. These now began to operate as factories of death. Auschwitz was the biggest of these death camps, a city of barricks where hundreds of thousands of people starved to death amid indescribable brutality. At it’s center stood gas chambers and creamatoria design to take train loads of human beings, gas them and burn them. The Jews were seperated into two groups upon arrival at the concentration camps. Those who would go to the slow death of the slave camp, and those who were sent directly to the gas chamber. It is estimated that 1.6 million were killed in Auschwitz, under the order of Hitler.

Although only Jews were intended for systematic murder, many others died. Such as, millions of Russian prisoners of war, homosexuals, the mentally and physically disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, communists, Gypsies, political and religious protesters, large numbers of Greeks, Yukoslavs, and resistent fighters from other Euorpean countries, and many others.

Few Jews escaped. Some went into hiding and others went into the Soviet Union ahead of the German armies. By 1945 the Holocaust of the death camps had consumed more than 6 million Jews. This is an example of Hitler’s greed. He felt that everyone had to be like him for he was, “the perfect man.” Everyone that was different than Hitler threatened his rein of power and authority, so he felt getting rid of everyone else would help keep him the Führer. He knew that people of the Nazi party worshipped him for he had great ideas that he put in well written speeches, for he was self centered.

Jews feel that someone could restart what Hitler had began. There are German’s today that still have a growing hatred for Jews. For example, the cast of “Seinfield” is all Jewish, therefore this show is banned in some parts of Germany. You could never see it on t.v. or read an article in the news paper about it.

What Hitler started can never be finished by any ordinary person. They would have to be the greatest speaker to ever live but he knew what he wanted in life and that was power. He worked his way to the top and used his power to get what he wanted.

Early in 1945, ill and half mad, Hitler retreated to the bunker in the Berlin chancellory. There he was joind by his mistress Eva Braun, whom he had married before they commited suicide, April 30th , 1945. This ended the Holocaust and Germany’s great rien over all other countries for their Führer was gone.

In conlusion, Hitler’s ego, greed, and self centeredness caused him to abuse his great deal of power. He took advantage of what he had, which was a great many people who worshipped and followed Hitler’s every move.

Work Cited

1. Sale, Roger. “Adolf Hitler.” The Grolier Multimedia Electronic Encyclopedia. Danbury: Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1997.

2. “Adolf Hitler.” Webster’s Family Encyclopedia. 1985, vol.10, pp.2629/2638.