Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler, born April 20, 1889, in Austria-Hungary and deceased April 30, 1945, was an Austrian-born German politician who ruled Germany as dictator throughout the Nazi era from 1933 until his death. He ascended to power leading the Nazi Party, assuming the chancellorship in 1933 before adopting the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. His invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, triggered the Second World War. During the conflict, he directed German military strategy and orchestrated the Holocaust—the systematic murder of approximately six million Jews alongside millions of additional victims.

Born in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary, Hitler relocated to Germany in 1913. He served in the German Army during the First World War, earning the Iron Cross for his military service. In 1919, he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), which preceded the Nazi Party, and became the Nazi Party's leader in 1921. He attempted to seize power through a failed Munich coup in 1923, resulting in a five-year prison sentence of which he served slightly over one year. During his imprisonment, he dictated the initial volume of his autobiographical political manifesto, Mein Kampf. Following his early release in 1924, he attracted widespread support through attacks on the Treaty of Versailles and promotion of pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anti-communism via compelling oratory and Nazi propaganda. He regularly characterized communism as part of an international Jewish conspiracy. By November 1932, the Nazi Party controlled the largest number of Reichstag seats without holding a majority. Former chancellor Franz von Papen and other conservative figures persuaded President Paul von Hindenburg to name Hitler chancellor on January 30, 1933. Soon after, the Reichstag enacted the Enabling Act of 1933, initiating the transformation of the Weimar Republic into Nazi Germany, a single-party dictatorship founded on the totalitarian, autocratic, and fascistic principles of Nazism.

Following Hindenburg's death on August 2, 1934, Hitler simultaneously became head of state and government with absolute authority. Domestically, he enacted numerous racist policies and pursued the deportation or extermination of German Jews. His initial six years in power produced swift economic recovery from the Great Depression, elimination of post-First World War restrictions on Germany, and annexation of territories containing millions of ethnic Germans, which initially garnered him substantial popular approval. Among Hitler's primary objectives was Lebensraum for the German population in Eastern Europe, and his aggressive, expansionist foreign policy is regarded as the principal catalyst for World War II in Europe. He ordered massive rearmament and invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, prompting Britain and France to declare war on Germany. In June 1941, Hitler commanded an invasion of the Soviet Union. He declared war on the United States in December 1941. By late 1941, German forces and the European Axis powers controlled most of Europe and North Africa. These territorial gains gradually reversed after 1941, culminating in the Allied armies' defeat of the German military in 1945. On April 29, 1945, he married his longtime companion, Eva Braun, in the Führerbunker in Berlin. The couple took their own lives the following day to avoid capture by the Soviet Red Army.

Historian and biographer Ian Kershaw characterized Hitler as "the embodiment of modern political evil." Under Hitler's leadership and racist ideology, the Nazi regime executed the genocide of an estimated six million Jews and millions of other victims whom he and his followers deemed subhumans or socially undesirable. Hitler and the Nazi regime were additionally responsible for the deliberate killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war. Furthermore, 28.7 million soldiers and civilians perished due to military action in the European theatre. The civilian death toll during World War II represented an unprecedented level in warfare history, making the casualties the deadliest conflict ever recorded.