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The Man Behind the Third Reich: The Study of A Dictator

Adolf Hitler was more then a just a dictator, he was an artist, a WWI veteran , an invalid, and a madman. Henry Field said in his 201 file on Hitler in 1942 that, "he is a mixture between a fox and a wolf. He plays the fox as long as possible and sometimes even a lamb but in the end, the end, the wolf is always ready to emerge."1 Adolf Hitler has to be the world's most recognizable totalitarian leader. He has been immortalized in history, movies, cartoons, television, theater, and books, as the world most ruthless tyrant; yet the world knows little of the man behind the mustache. When one imagines Adolf Hitler they envision a monster of immense proportions and in most cases they are correct in this assumption; but what was he truly like, where did he grow up, what did his youth consist of, who were his influences, and how did he become the beast that nearly devoured the eastern world? To understand the Third Reich and the Nazi party one must first understand the man behind it, Adolf Hitler; and therefore in the following discussion I will explain the man behind the Third Reich, and how he started and influenced his nation through totalitarian ideals.

First we must understand how the Hitler line had come to be. Adolf's parents both came from the identical rural area of Austria which was known as Waldviertel, just northwest of Vienna. During the seventeenth century, according to some family relations, the family line stemmed from Moravian blood. On June 7, 1837 Alois, Adolf's father was born to a single mother Maria Anna Schicklgruber. According to the birth records Alois's father was not mentioned and on the birth certificate the section for the paternal parent was left blank. Historians speculate that it may have been Johann Georg Hiedler, which after being legitimized by the courts became spelled Hitler. When Alois became an adult he changed his name from Schicklgruber to Hitler, some say he was persuaded by Georg Hiedler to do so in exchange for inheritance from his will. Evidence to this was later confirmed when six months after Georg Hiedler's death Alois bought a farm for five-thousand Florins.2 It would be hard to imagine the phrase, "Hail Schicklgruber" being changed by thousands.

Alois set his sights on a young girl named Klara Plzl, who was the granddaughter of Georg Hiedler's brother, Nepomuk Hiedler. In 1884 the two were wed, with three Children from

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