Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, in Austria-Hungary. He attended schools in Linz, but after failing his exams on two occasions, he dropped out of secondary school. In subsequent years, he studied art and displayed sufficient talent to earn a living selling his sketches.
When World War I erupted in 1914, he joined the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment, and by October he was fighting in the First Battle of Ypres in Belgium. He continued serving in the German army for another two years and on several occasions was exposed to poison gas. In October 1916, he was wounded and when the war ended in 1918, he was hospitalized. Although only reaching the rank of corporal, he was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class, and later, the Iron Cross, First Class for his bravery in battle.
In 1919, Hitler joined the German Workers Party and within two years became its leader, renaming it the Nazi Party. A failed coup to overthrow the Weimar Republic government resulted in a 5-year prison sentence that was commuted to 9 months. While in prison, Adolp Hitler wrote his book Mein Kampf (My struggle) in which he expressed his anti-semitic views and his belief in the supremacy of the Aryan race .
In January 1933, the Nazi party was elected into office and Hitler became Germany’s dictator. On the death of President Paul von Hindenburg, Adolph Hitler abolished the office of the president and declared himself the Fürhrer (Head of State and Government). After a series of invasions of neighboring territories, including Czechoslovakia, the German army, on Hitler’s command, invaded Poland, launching World War II.
On April 29, 1945, when Hitler realized that the German defeat was imminent, he married his mistress Eva Braun and forty hours later, they played out their suicide pact. They both ingested poison in the form of cyanide tablets, and as an added measure to ensure that he would not be captured alive, Hitler shot himself in the head. Their bodies were burned by a loyal subject.
