He was chancellor and made himself Füher (Dictator) claiming full control of Germany. He brainwashes the people and claims all pure Germans will be Aryan with blonde hair blue eyes like him even though he had brown hair brown eyes and is a fourth of jew ...... he then persecutes the Jews sending them to ghettos and later concentration camps where he will inflict massive and inhumane torments upon them. He was a madman and was tried to be assinated several times in his power his own generals tried to kill him. He ended up killing himself and no he was no puppet he'd rather have his enemies shot in the face and be castrated alive before serving someone else so no....I hope that helped
- Xenology
I guarantee that any lecturer worth his wages would throw such simplistic views out completely and the OP would fail this project. Such nonsense may appeal to the TV documentary makers, but the real facts are considerably- very, in fact- different.
I don't subscribe much to the Great Man school of history
- Rob Matter
No, neither do I. The "Great Man" idea has regained popularity somewhat of late, not least because of society's generally more authoritarian phase: our rulers want us to think that they're where they are because they're great men.
Hitler and Nazism had a momentum which was ultimately self defeating. It is rare in history for a country to go from abject defeat to very near absolute (in Europe) victory and then back to abject defeat again in a mere couple of decades.
But from the beginning, Nazism presented itself as two rather contradictory things: (a) the preserver of German culture and (b) revolutionary, an overhaul of German society and culture.
Hitler's fall out with Ernst Rohm was just one symptom of Hitler being pressurised by the "revolutionary" aspect and nature of Nazism. When Rohm and some of the SA didn't think he was moving fast enough, and feared that his place within the Government might have a taming effect (which is what Hindenberg and all hoped), this led to the tensions even at the early stage.
Once war had broken out, Hitler gambled and gambled again, but always against the clock. His conquest of Poland was dependent upon his gamble that the British and French would not honour their agreement to aid Poland. His conquest of most of Western Europe was a gamble (although not a very big one) that the USSR would not seize the opportunity at least to grab more of Poland. (Of course, the Soviet-Nazi pact was partially to avoid such confrontations, but Stalin was neither trusting nor trustworthy). The so called "Battle of Britain" and subsequent Blitz in Britain was a mere sideshow to Hitler, who never have it his full attention and hence it was never prosecuted whole heartedly: Hitler also knew that he was bound by time, economics and world politics: in short, Germany was already running out of the material means to wage large scale war and hence must secure more. His economic planners had already told him so. Add to that the pressing need for a fast victory in the east, and the gamble that victory would come before the Russian winter closed in. Plus, Hitler was reasonably sure that the USA would eventually be drawn into the war.
Hence, Hitler was rather better informed that most people believe he was, and at the same time, his actions were less arbitrary than most believed, too. As an aside, the war over Britain had, at least, delayed the attack on the USSR by at least 2 months as losses were made good (although never sufficient) and aircrews replaced.
Had the Wehrmacht stood 18 miles from Moscow a couple of months earlier, history may well have been very different.
By early 1942, even Hitler knew that absolute victory was unlikely. The best he could hope for was to drive a wedge between the Western and Eastern Allies, or inflict such damage upon them that they might strike a peace deal. Many high rankers knew this, too, and fought with the same aims.
In short, Hitler knew that Germany's means did not match her ambitions, although she came close. It is, however, significant that in some of his last writings and conversations, he blamed a lack of ideological strength in the German people and his general in particular one minute, and failed to see that had he left the war to those generals, they may well have succeeded without him. For instance, he failed to provide Rommel with the resources he needed in North Africa, and only chose to send more troops, tanks, planes and supplies after the tide had plainly turned, thus reinforcing failure.
A man who plainly knew the facts but who chose to believe that ideological commitment is a substitute for materiel and men is in no way a great man.
The rest of Hitler's legacy, such as the Holocaust, was surely a result of the way the 3rd Reich operated: he who shows the greatest ideological adherence to Hitler's word is he who goes furthest. Himmler being a case in point.
