La Prestacion

Early years

Ancestry

Hitler's father, Alois Hitler (1837–1903), was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. Because the baptismal register did not show the name of his father, Alois initially bore his mother's surname, Schicklgruber. In 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Alois's mother, Maria Anna. After she died in 1847 and Johann Georg Hiedler in 1856, Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedler's brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler.[2] In 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Alois's father (recorded as Georg Hitler).[3][4] Alois then assumed the surname Hitler,[4] also spelled as Hiedler, Hüttler, or Huettler. The Hitler surname is probably based on "one who lives in a hut" (Standard German Hütte for hut) or on "shepherd" (Standard German hüten for to guard); alternatively, it may be derived from the Slavic words Hidlar or Hidlarcek.[5]

Nazi official Hans Frank suggested that Alois's mother had been employed as a housekeeper for a Jewish family in Graz and that the family's 19-year-old son, Leopold Frankenberger, had fathered Alois.[6] Because no Frankenberger was registered in Graz during that period, and no record of Leopold Frankenberger's existence has been produced,[7] historians dismiss the claim that Alois's father was Jewish.[8][9]

Childhood and education

Adolf Hitler as an infant (c. 1889–1890)

Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 at the Gasthof zum Pommer, an inn located at Salzburger Vorstadt 15, Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary, a town on the border with Bavaria, Germany.[10] He was the fourth of six children to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl (1860–1907). Hitler's older siblings—Gustav, Ida, and Otto—died in infancy.[11] When Hitler was three, the family moved to Passau, Germany.[12] There he acquired the distinctive lower Bavarian dialect, rather than Austrian German, which marked his speech all of his life.[13][14][15] In 1894 the family relocated to Leonding (near Linz), and in June 1895, Alois retired to a small landholding at Hafeld, near Lambach, where he farmed and kept bees. Hitler attended Volksschule (a state-supported school) in nearby Fischlham. He became fixated on warfare after finding a picture book about the Franco-Prussian War among his father's belongings.[16][17]

The move to Hafeld coincided with the onset of intense father-son conflicts caused by Hitler's refusal to conform to the strict discipline of his school.[18] Alois Hitler's farming efforts at Hafeld ended in failure, and in 1897 the family moved to Lambach. The eight-year-old Hitler took singing lessons, sang in the church choir, and even considered becoming a priest.[19] In 1898 the family returned permanently to Leonding. The death of his younger brother, Edmund, from measles on 2 February 1900 deeply affected Hitler. He changed from being confident and outgoing and an excellent student, to a morose, detached, and sullen boy who constantly fought with his father and teachers.[20]

Hitler's mother, Klara

Alois had made a successful career in the customs bureau and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.[21] Hitler later dramatised an episode from this period when his father took him to visit a customs office, depicting it as an event that gave rise to an unforgiving antagonism between father and son, who were both strong-willed.[22][23][24] Ignoring his son's desire to attend a classical high school and become an artist, in September 1900 Alois sent Hitler to the Realschule in Linz.[25] Hitler rebelled against this decision, and in Mein Kampf revealed that he intentionally did poorly in school, hoping that once his father saw "what little progress I was making at the technical school he would let me devote myself to my dream".[26]

Like many Austrian Germans, Hitler began to develop German nationalist ideas from a young age.[27] He expressed loyalty only to Germany, despising the declining Habsburg Monarchy and its rule over an ethnically variegated empire.[28][29] Hitler and his friends used the German greeting "Heil", and sang the "Deutschlandlied" instead of the Austrian Imperial anthem.[30]

After Alois's sudden death on 3 January 1903, Hitler's performance at school deteriorated and his mother allowed him to leave.[31] He enrolled at the Realschule in Steyr in September 1904; his behaviour and performance showed some improvement.[32] In 1905, after passing a repeat and the final exam, Hitler left the school without any ambitions for further schooling or clear plans for a career.[33]

Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich

The house in Leonding where Hitler spent his early adolescence (c. 1984)

From 1905, Hitler lived a bohemian life in Vienna, financed by orphan's benefits and support from his mother. He worked as a casual labourer and eventually as a painter, selling watercolours. The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna rejected him twice, in 1907 and 1908, because of his "unfitness for painting". The director recommended that Hitler study architecture,[34] but he lacked the academic credentials.[35] On 21 December 1907, his mother died aged 47. After the Academy's second rejection, Hitler ran out of money. In 1909 he lived in a homeless shelter, and by 1910, he had settled into a house for poor working men on Meldemannstraße.[36] At the time Hitler lived there, Vienna was a hotbed of religious prejudice and racism.[37] Fears of being overrun by immigrants from the East were widespread, and the populist mayor, Karl Lueger, exploited the rhetoric of virulent antisemitism for political effect. Georg Schönerer's pan-Germanic antisemitism had a strong following in the Mariahilf district, where Hitler lived.[38] Hitler read local newspapers, such as the Deutsches Volksblatt, that fanned prejudice and played on Christian fears of being swamped by an influx of eastern Jews.[39] Hostile to what he saw as Catholic "Germanophobia", he developed an admiration for Martin Luther.[40]

The Alter Hof in Munich. Watercolour by Adolf Hitler, 1914

The origin and first expression of Hitler's antisemitism have been difficult to locate.[41] Hitler states in Mein Kampf that he first became an antisemite in Vienna.[42] His close friend, August Kubizek, claimed that Hitler was a "confirmed antisemite" before he left Linz.[43] Kubizek's account has been challenged by historian Brigitte Hamann, who writes that Kubizek is the only person to have said that the young Hitler was an antisemite.[44] Hamann also notes that no antisemitic remark has been documented from Hitler during this period.[45] Historian Sir Ian Kershaw suggests that if Hitler had made such remarks, they may have gone unnoticed because of the prevailing antisemitism in Vienna at that time.[46] Several sources provide strong evidence that Hitler had Jewish friends in his hostel and in other places in Vienna.[47][48] Historian Richard J. Evans states that "historians now generally agree that his notorious, murderous anti-Semitism emerged well after Germany's defeat [in World War I], as a product of the paranoid 'stab-in-the-back' explanation for the catastrophe".[49]

Hitler received the final part of his father's estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich.[50] Historians believe he left Vienna to evade conscription into the Austrian army.[51] Hitler later claimed that he did not wish to serve the Austro-Hungarian Empire because of the mixture of races in its army.[50] After he was deemed unfit for service—he failed his physical exam in Salzburg on 5 February 1914—he returned to Munich.[52]

World War I

Main article: Military career of Adolf Hitler

Hitler (far right, seated) with his army comrades of the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (c. 1914–1918)

At the outbreak of World War I, Hitler was a resident of Munich and volunteered to serve in the Bavarian Army as an Austrian citizen.[53] Posted to the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (1st Company of the List Regiment),[54][53] he served as a dispatch runner on the Western Front in France and Belgium,[55] spending nearly half his time well behind the front lines.[56][57] He was present at the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, and the Battle of Passchendaele, and was wounded at the Somme.[58] He was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in 1914.[58] Recommended by Hugo Gutmann, he received the Iron Cross, First Class, on 4 August 1918,[59] a decoration rarely awarded to one of Hitler's rank (Gefreiter). Hitler's post at regimental headquarters, providing frequent interactions with senior officers, may have helped him receive this decoration.[60] Though his rewarded actions may have been courageous, they were probably not highly exceptional.[61] He received the Black Wound Badge on 18 May 1918.[62]

Adolf Hitler as a soldier during the First World War (1914–1918)

During his service at the headquarters, Hitler pursued his artwork, drawing cartoons and instructions for an army newspaper. During the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, he was wounded in the left thigh when a shell exploded in the dispatch runners' dugout.[63] Hitler spent almost two months in hospital at Beelitz, returning to his regiment on 5 March 1917.[64] On 15 October 1918, he was temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack and was hospitalised in Pasewalk.[65] While there, Hitler learnt of Germany's defeat,[66] and—by his own account—on receiving this news,

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