THE FALL OF HITLER

“Adolf Hitler is probably the last of the great adventurer -conquerors in the tradition of Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon.”

~William L. Shirer.

“It is obvious that the war which Hitler and his accomplices waged was a war not only against Jewish men, women, and children, but also against Jewish religion, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, therefore Jewish memory.” 

~ Elie Wiesel.

“We should never forget that everything Adolph Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany.” 

~Martin Luther King Jr.

   

  

  Adolf Hitler! It is the name that influenced European history the most, the orator who made people forget their work and stand to listen to him relentlessly. And as Elie Wiesel expressed, he waged a war against memory of the Jews! That was legal in his rule! Of course, everything in the world is relative and he constructed a world where being “Hitler” was the only right thing to do! But the self-centered intentions and the hatred for a particular creed turned the person who could be a great ruler to a dictator. He is regarded as one of the cruelest figures, world has ever witnessed. Adolf Hitler lived from April 20, 1889 to April 30, 1945—almost exactly fifty six years. The difference between his first thirty years and the following twenty six years seems to be inexplicable. For thirty years he was an obscure failure, then almost overnight a local celebrity and eventually the man around whom the whole of world policy revolved. Who would expect that the most powerful individual, would end up killing himself! Quoting a famous dialogue, “Madness is like a gravity. All it takes is a little push.” But to make this madman perform such a madness on himself, it did not take a little push. It took the cruelest and most destructive war, the world has ever seen!

   He found an ideology that allowed him to explain his failure and a target for his resentments. It is impossible to explain the precise cause or the exact beginning of Hitler's hatred of the Jews, but it is also clear that anti Semitism was the oxygen of his mental life. It was all too easy to transfer his impotent anger and frustration into race hatred. Once it had crystallized, it remained a permanent and growing feature of his character. He certainly took pains to cover his tracks and obscure his origins. Even in his body language, gestures such as covering his mouth and nostrils, repeatedly while speaking, to obscure facial features he felt to be "Jewish". The famous mustache was designed to draw attention away from his "Jewish" nostrils.

    An inability to form loving ties with anyone corresponding tendency towards manipulation in relationships. This trait of Hitler can well justified by the event when, in 1939 he ordered the complete destruction of the Austrian village of Döllersheim. The tiny village, birthplace of his ancestors, was converted into an artillery range for the army and blasted beyond recognition by guns and mortars. Why did the leader of the Greater German Reich order the obliteration of his father's birthplace and destroy the site of his grandmother's grave? Perhaps Hitler was obsessed with the possibility that he was one quarter Jewish.

   He was decidedly gifted, if one sided, but had difficulty controlling his temper. He was considered intractable and willful, always had to be right and easily flew off the handle, and he clearly found it difficult to accommodate himself to any kind of limits. He demanded unconditional subordination even from his schoolmates.

  There were two enemies, both spreading their roots deep and finally got strong enough to kill Hitler! Where one enemy was the “Rest Of the World”, other was his inner self! Hitler was a symbol! And to destroy that symbol it took 6 years of global war and 26 years of inner war, which slowly and carefully encompassed him, his beliefs and his confidence and finally on April 30^th, 1945, a bullet was shot by the hands of the most powerful mind into the brains of the most powerless man! Hitler shot himself, thus becoming ending an era! 

Chetna Jain,

Event Management,

IBC.