Hitler remains one of the most studied figures in history precisely because his rise was not inevitable. A failed art student and obscure army veteran, he turned grievance after the First World War into a political movement, then used elections, propaganda and intimidation to take power legally before dismantling democracy from within. The regime he led started the Second World War in Europe and carried out the Holocaust, the systematic murder of six million Jews alongside millions of others. Historians continue to examine how an educated, modern nation followed him, and that question is the real reason his name still dominates history shelves. His story is studied today as a warning about how quickly democratic freedoms can be lost.
Key Milestones
1919: Joins the small German Workers' Party in Munich
1923: Leads the failed Beer Hall Putsch and is jailed
1933: Appointed Chancellor of Germany
1939: Invades Poland, starting the Second World War in Europe
1941: Launches the invasion of the Soviet Union
1945: Dies by suicide in his Berlin bunker
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany in the Nazi era from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor of Germany in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934.
