The Effects of World War I on Adolf Hitler
Hitler's Progression As a Human Between the Two World Wars
Jul 27, 2009
When the German government decided to have their country join in the original World War in 1914, they had both economic and nationalistic reasons for doing so. This lunge for power affected the attitudes of the country for years to come, and it was reflected in the people of Germany at the time, especially in the heart of a young Austrian runner on the Western Front: Adolf Hitler.
While Hitler has become the figure of World War II and its included fringes (Nazism, fascism, the Holocaust, propaganda of hate, etc), he is seen only as that particular figure. That does not, however, diminish the importance—in regards to Germany, the rest of the world, and the inhabitants of each—of the main source of this World War II icon’s rise and fall. How did Hitler’s involvement in World War I help shape his views and actions as a leader during and up to World War II?
Hitler’s Time In Vienna
After leaving school at the age of 16 and failing to succeed in his career as a painter in Vienna, Hitler joined up to fight in the first world war for Germany. The classy and cultured Vienna helped support his artistic leanings, but it also mixed his German nationalism with the Vienna anti-Semitism.
If not for the failure of his art, Hitler may not have enlisted in the German military and gained many of the tools he would use upon becoming Fürher: battle experience, a sense of the inner workings of a military, and the effects of propaganda on the everyday person.
Germany’s Loss in World War I
Once Hitler actually reached the war, he gained the aforementioned tools and skills, being rewarded for his bravery twice before the end of the first part of his military career (and the subsequent end of the war a month later). Germany’s loss of the war took a toll on Hitler’s attitude, and he even claims to have lain in bed and cried after finding out that Germany had lost.
The faith he had in his country had been dealt a blow, but if nothing else it drove him to take advantage of the millions around him who felt as he did. As a member of a community that was literally fighting for their nation, Hitler was able to take that ideology and lead an extreme group of nationalists that wanted to bring purity and power back to Germany.
From War to War
After fighting in the first World War, Hitler went on to become the figure he is known as today. However, without his closeness to the German defeat of that war, he would have either evolved without his nationalist/fascist passion, his knowledge of the battlefront, and his leadership qualities or he would not have become anything at all.
Sources:
“Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945).” BBC Online.
Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. Secker and Warburg: 1925
