Adolf Hitler: History Speech
Born in Austria in 1889, Adolf Hitler rose quickly to the title of Chancellor of Germany swiftly following the disaster that was World War One for the Germans. He brought a nation out of the depths of post-war humiliation to the infamous powerhouse that Nazi Germany became. Today I’d like to look at the specific historical events which defined Hitler as the key to the rise and fall of the Nazis as well as their fearless reputation. From the holocaust to the invasion of the Soviet Union, how did one man manage to influence an entire nation, let alone worldwide war, so heavily?
Firstly, Hitler’s strong push for the aryanisation of Europe led to his aggressive foreign policy, and his decision to invade Poland in September 1939 initiated World War Two, with France and England not willing to let the Reich expand again. Under Hitler, Germany began a program of expansion almost running in parallel to that of Japan in the Pacific and Italy in North Africa and the Mediterranean, as the Nazis sought to restore the "rightful" boundaries of historic Germany. As a prelude to this, Hitler secretly remilitarized Germany in March 1936. Then, his decision to invade Poland not only was intended for the racial purification of the area, but also to expand Germany and open up new territories for Germans to settle in, also uniting German ex-pats under one state that included almost all territories where a German lived. This view was one strongly believed in by Hitler, and hence his impact on the invasion of Poland, and therefore the origins of World War Two, was very significant.
Furthermore, Hitler’s strong prejudice against communists heavily influenced the Nazi decision to invade the Soviet Union, which led to the beginning of the end for the German war effort. The audacity of Hitler to try and fight a war on two fronts when the Nazis were severely outnumbered, particularly by the Soviets, symbolises just how much he must have disliked Stalin and...