Adolf Hitler was born in Austria in 1889 to relatively humble beginnings. His early life gave few hints as to his future destiny. He was a comparative failure and something of a loner. He was twice rejected from his application to study art, and after struggling to survive in Vienna, in 1913, he moved to Munich. In his early life, he imbibed the anti-semitic feelings which were common for the times but displayed little political interest. On the outbreak of the First World. Adolf Hitler was a charismatic leader of the Nazi party, gaining power in 1933 and become dictator of Germany until his death in 1945. He led Germany in an aggressive war of conquest invading Western Europe and then the Soviet Union. Initially successful, his army then suffered a series of reverses, before the eventual complete defeat of his Nazi Germany in 1945. Hitler has become infamous as a personification of human evil. His name is inexorably linked to the Holocaust and extermination of Jews and other ‘undesirables’. He is also seen as the principal cause of the Second World War in which over 70 million people died. Yet, in the midst of the Great Depression, he captivated a nation with his mixture of charm, xenophobia, and ability to persuade.
