Hello everyone,

Adolf Hitler was the founder of the Nazi party and was a front line soldiers in the first world war. According to the textbook, he believed that since he was a front line soldier, he was the chosen one to rule their nation. He believed that since he surpassed and defeated death, he can defeat anything. Though he was successful in wartime, he used force and intimidation in order to seize power and that mindset would eventually lead to the mass killings and torture of Jewish people. At the time, Germany was ran under a fascism government and Hitler believed that the government was turning into a democracy and that the people living in Germany were becoming more individualistic and tolerating diversity, which he did not agree with because of his fascist mindset of striping individuals of low power of their rights. Because of this, he wanted to find a way that would bring the government back to practicing dictatorship, limiting the rights of certain individuals and practicing social darwinism. In his mind, the German people were fighting for survival and fighting for their own living space against other races, specifically the Jewish people. Because of this, he wanted all of the Jewish people dead or slaving and working for his government and he did not stop until he got just that. The text also states that Hitler justified nationalism and used it to have a political revolution. (Brower & Sanders, 2014).

The text says that Nazism was a combination of nationalism and racism and Hitler wanted to torture others that were not Germans, because of his resentment of Germany being blamed for World War 1. Germany had great losses because of the war that included loosing the amount of people involved in the military, a communist revolution and the savings of the middle class. Hitler promised to fix these things and to lead the Germans out of a dead end. He was great at speaking and was not afraid to use violence to get what he wanted, therefore people trusted and followed him because they truly believed he could help the citizens, or they were afraid that if they didn’t follow him, he would hurt them.

I believe that it was easier for Hitler and his following to persecute Jews and make Germans believe that this is freeing up their land and making it possible for them to have a “new heaven and new earth.” This was easier than actually following through and changing their government for the better or making it ideal for the Germans. I believe that Hitler was angry because of the economic distress that the war caused and him being against Jews and Semitic caused him to take his anger out on the Jews and the economic distress and fear of a change in government justified his actions of killing the Jews. The Jews did not cause any problems at all and this type of action should not have been justified. The statement surely does seem to justify this action though,basically saying that Hitler promises new happiness for the Germans and persecuting the Jews is something that will make them happy because they believe this type of action will help them gain a heavenly land back that was once taken from them. I believe he is trying to scare anti-semitics and tell them to beware because he will continue to persecute the Jews regardless of what they think because he has the majority of the power. Historyonthenet, talks about how Hitler threatened Germany with war and had the military on his side and that is ultimately how he was granted all of the power. Unfortunately the power landed in his hands and he was able to do some very terrible things and did not have to get permission to kill innocent lives.

Brower, D., & Sanders, T. (2014). The world in the twentieth century: From empires to nations (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

How did Hitler come to power? (n.d.) Retrieved from https://www.historyonthenet.com/how-did-hitler-come-to-power (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

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