born Apr. 20, 1899, Braunau am Inn, Austria
died Apr. 30, 1945, Berlin, Ger.
Dictator of Nazi Germany (1933–45).
Born in Austria, he had little success as an artist in Vienna before moving to Munich in 1913. As a soldier in the German army in World War I, he was wounded and gassed. After the war, resentful about defeat and the peace terms, he joined the German Workers' Party in Munich (1919). In 1920 he became head of propaganda for the renamed National Socialists, or Nazi Party , and in 1921 party leader. He set out to create a mass movement, using unrelenting propaganda. The party's rapid growth climaxed in the Mein Kampf . Regarding inequality between races as part of the natural order, he exalted the "Aryan race" while propounding anti-Semitism, anticommunism, and extreme German nationalism. The economic slump of 1929 renewed his power. In the Reichstag elections of 1930 the Nazis became the country's second largest party, and in 1932 the largest. Hitler ran for president in 1932 and lost, but he entered into intrigues to gain legitimate power, and in 1933 Paul von Hindenburg invited him to be chancellor. Adopting the title of Führer ("Leader"), he gained dictatorial powers by the Enabling Act and suppressed opposition with assistance from Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels . Hitler also began to enact anti-Jewish measures, hich culminated in the Holocaust . His aggressive foreign policy led to the signing of the Munich agreement . He became allied with Benito Mussolini in the Rome-Berlin Axis. The German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (1939) enabled him to invade Poland, precipitating World War II . After early successes in the war, he often ignored his generals and met dissent with ruthlessness. As defeat grew imminent in 1945, he married {{link=Braun, Eva">Eva Braun in an underground bunker in Berlin, and the next day they committed suicide.