Adolf Hitler was probably the most intelligent politician in the history, but also probably the most vicious one. When he came to power as Reichskanzler in 1933, he was welcomed by the German people, but how did he accomplish this? How did the poor failed artist from Vienna manage to hide his true intentions from the world long enough to keep them from being twarthed?

How did he get to power, and how long lasted his struggle, what were his motives? This entry will try to answer these questions.

The young boy

At seven o'clock in the Gasthaus zum Pommer on the 20th of April 1889, Adolf Hitler was born. Right at the river Inn, that forms the border of Austria and Bayern. Hitler's hildhood was a good one, even though he describes his young life as poor one in his boigraphy. His father's pension was more than enough to pay for a good education. He attended public school and realschool.

He had dreams of being an painter or an architecht, and so he never got a fulltime job, he lived with his widowed mother drawing unoriginel drawings. He got rejected from art school but kept on trying, not even his mother dying of cancer could get him back, he got back in time for her funeral.

According to his friends he was lazy, he despised work, for years he lived on his no-parent fund, he made the odd painting, his friend Reinhold Hanisch actually sold one of them too for 10 Austrian Marks, Hitler accused him of fraud as he considered it to be worth at least 50 and got him arrested for a week.

In Vienna the years before the first world war, his first insight reaches him, the discovery of the conspiracy designed to poison the public spirit and the endless exploiting of the masses, orginized by the socialists. The nail in the coffin of this discovery was written down in his biography, Mein Kampf;

I have during this time learned the connection between the teaching of destruction and the charachter of a people who until this day has been completely unfamiliar to me. Only the knowledge of the jewism present the true key to understanding of the socialdemokratic core and its true intentions.

In may 1913, Hitler moved to Munich, he moved in with a tailer family for a low price. He said this to be the happiest time of his life, Munich was so unlike Vienna, he loved it. Otherwise his situation remained the same, his fear of work was a strong as ever. He made money by painting fences and posters and selling drawings to people passing by. The very few friends he had at this point described him as eccentric, living in a fantasy world. Often muttering, making up ideas about rasdividing and antisematic and antimarxistic theories.

On the 1st of august 1914, Hitler is clearly visible on a photo during the wardeclaration on Odeon platz, his face is extatic, he felt a great pride in fighting for Germany. Two days after the war was declared he sent a letter to King Ludvig III of Bayern, in which he requested to be accepted into a Bayern regiment despite being an Austrian citizen. His request was accepted.

He joined the 16th bayern reserve infantry regiment, first company with many other volounteers, amongst others Rudolf Hess. Hitler first saw battle during the battle of Ypres, the most fearsome battle of the whole war. When the regiment was pulled out the whole unit had been decimiced from 3500 to 600 men. During the war he served as a runner between the front and the regimental staff. On the 7th of october 1916 he was wounded in the leg and was sent back to Germany for the first time in 2 years.

He returned to the front at the rank of vice corporal in march 1917, just in time for the second battle of Arras and the third battle of Ypres. His regiment was then pulled away from the front until the last big offensive in the spring of 1918.

But in October 1918 his regiment was stationed near Wervick south of Ypres when the British striked with gas. Hitler was stuck at a hill and his eyes got wounded. He managed to get to the back lines but he had lost his ability to see. He collapsed the following morning and was put on a train to a military hospital in Pommern where he was being treated for his eye injury when Germany Capitulated the 11th november 1918.