the ultimate dictator
TRANSCRIPT
1#The Rise
The first time they heard him speak, Germany was awed into silence. The man had a gift that was certain. Oratory skill like that was rare to
find. And Germany knew that the crowd around him was just as spellbound by those fluid,
persuasive words.
The second time Germany heard him speak, they were shocked—by his fervor, his strength, his patriotism. He was bolder now, stronger. He
had a greater following. He had polished his gift. And as he spoke—shouted, really—the
crowd could not help but listen.
The third time Germany heard him speak, they were terrified. The man’s words were hateful, sharp and bitter. He wove them as if they were
thread, slowly creating a net with which to ensnare his listeners. His face, slick with sweat,
was alight with fury and victory. And his eyes…his eyes were bright with madness. Though he did not like to admit it to himself, deep down, Germany knew he was afraid. And the crowd
listened, frozen, immobile and thoroughly caught.
The man with the Swastika, Adolf Hitler was here.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in Germany in September 1919 when Hitler joined the political
party known as the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (abbreviated as DAP – German Workers' Party);
the name was changed in 1920 to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei –
NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party). The
party believed in the idea of extreme nationalism, Pan-Germanism and was against the post-war
democratic government of Germany.
13 March, 1932; Hitler had come second in the general elections. This was a blow both to Hitler
as well as his party, but Hitler didn’t stop. He
started “campaigning”, as it was called, against the rival party, Kommunistische Partei
Deutschland (KPD). Blood was spilled on the streets, people were openly attacked, and the
whole nation was turned into a war zone.
By November of 1932, the violence of the Nazi party was beginning to make the German
population rethink their position, and the party’s popularity was beginning to fall. President von Hindenburg now saw the KPD as the greatest
threat and, to fight this threat, decided to appoint Hitler as Chancellor, as well as creating a very
leftist cabinet. The general mood about this was “Oh, Hitler won’t be a problem. We’ll control
him.”
Hitler knew he was on the right track. He was more blunt and confident now. When asked about his newly gained power by a British
reporter, he replied, “ At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense I tell you that the National Socialist movement will go on for 1,000
years! ... Don't forget how people laughed at me 15 years ago when I declared that one day I
would govern Germany. They laugh now, just as foolishly, when I declare that I shall remain in
power!”
2#More than
just “Control”
In February 1933, news came that The German Reichstag was ignited to ashes. Emergency was
imposed upon the nation; Germany was in a state of shock and fear. The growing rumor was that the hand of the Nazis was involved in this catastrophe. Adolf Hitler, The Chancellor of Germany, addressed the public and openly
pointed the finger at KPD.
March same year; The Enabling Act is passed giving all powers of legislation to Hitler’s
cabinet for next 4 years, making him the virtual dictator. From that day, Hitler’s regime started full fledged. The communist party was banned. Socialists, trade unions and strikes were banned.
He withdrew from the League of the Nations,
increased the German army size manifold and ignored the arms restrictions imposed by the
Treaty of Versailles.
By June 1934, Hitler had crushed all his rival parties and became an autonomist. After the
death of President Hindenburg, Hitler became “Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor” and abolished the title of President. Hitler re-armed Germany
with the aim of undoing the Treaty of Versailles and uniting all the German peoples.
Simultaneously in Hitler’s motherland Austria, the Austrian Nazi Party, a party strongly supportive of idea of Nazism, had gained
control over the country. The Austrian Chancellor, leader of the Austrian Nazi Party, invited German army to occupy Austria and
proclaim a union with Germany.
September 29, 1938; at a meeting in Berlin, Prime Ministers of Britain, France and Italy met Adolf Hitler and signed The Munich Agreement
which dictated to peacefully give away Sudetenland to German territory on the
backdrop of Hitler’s demands to protect the German speaking majority of Sudetenland.
Later, in March 1939 Hitler ignored the Munich Agreement and invaded Czechoslovakia.
This marked the ruthless and violent uprising of The German Empire commanded by The
Ultimate Dictator.
3#השואה
(The Holocaust)
The oppression of the Jews started because of Hitler’s hatred towards the community. He
considered them to be an inferior non-Aryan class of people who didn’t have the right to live. He had always been straightforward about his
plans for the Jews. His dream of a racially "pure" empire would tolerate no Jews.
The first blow to the Jews came as their disablement to own lands. Consequently, they
were banned from various unions and were deprived of health insurance. Further, Nazi party forcefully aborted Jewish babies in order to stop
the spread of the “scum” population. Jewish pupils were expelled from all non-Jewish
German schools.
The Nazis set up concentration camps after 1933 to detain without legal procedure Jews,
Communists, Gypsies, homosexuals, and others. During World War II extermination, or death, camps were established for the sole purpose of killing men, women, and children. In the most notorious camps, more than 6 million people,
mostly Jews and Poles, were killed in gas
chambers. Millions of others were also interned during the war, and a large proportion died of gross mistreatment, malnutrition, and disease.
The Holocaust represents 11 million lives that abruptly ended the extermination of people
not for who they were but for what they were.
4#Poland Polished
Poland was attacked by Germany on September 1st 1939. The German attack was code-named Operation White. The attack on Poland started
at 04.45 hours when blitzkrieg tore through the Polish military and by the end of the month
Poland had surrendered to the Germans and the country was occupied.
On this day in 1939, German forces bombard Poland on land and from the air, as Adolf Hitler seeks to regain lost territory and ultimately rule
Poland.World War II had begun…
Why did Hitler attack Poland? The reason Hitler gave was that the Poles were persecuting those
Germans who lived in Poland.The German invasion of Poland was a primer on how Hitler intended to wage war--what would
become the "blitzkrieg" strategy. This was characterized by extensive bombing early on to
destroy the enemy's air capacity, railroads, communication lines, and munitions dumps,
followed by a massive land invasion with overwhelming numbers of troops, tanks, and
artillery. Once the German forces had ploughed their way through, devastating a swath of
territory, infantry moved in, destroying any remaining resistance.
Once Hitler had a base of operations within the target country, he
immediately began setting up "security" forces to annihilate all enemies of his
Nazi ideology, whether racial, religious, or political. Concentration camps for
slave laborers and the extermination of civilians went hand in hand with
German rule of a conquered nation.The Polish army made several severe strategic
miscalculations; although one million in strength, the Polish forces were severely under-
equipped and attempted to take the Germans head-on with horsed cavaliers in a forward
concentration, rather than falling back to more natural defensive positions. The outmoded
thinking of the Polish commanders coupled with the antiquated state of its military was simply no
match for the overwhelming and modern mechanized German forces. And, of course, any
hope the Poles might have had of a Soviet counter-response was dashed with the signing of
the Ribbentrop-Molotov Non-aggression Pact (The Nazi-Soviet Pact) between Germany and
Russia.
Great Britain responded with bombing raids over Germany three days later, but that didn’t stop Him, for His reign had
merely just begun. Likewise, the Ultimate Dictator spread his blanket of
control over Danzig, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland,
Monaco, Yugoslavia and Greece and Lithuania.
5#Et tu, Adolf?
Adolf Hitler, the words were spoken on the streets only in reverend tones or
terrified whispers. He looked up to no one. There was one, however, who had risen to the heights of Adolf, and Stalin
was his name.
Stalin’s rise in Russia had paralleled that of Hitler’s. He had become the
leader of the Soviet Union, the strongest force known to the “prey” of the
Second World War. The Soviet Union hadn’t earned the name ‘The Red
Army’ merely because its logo was a red hammer and sickle; it was because when The Soviet Union attacked, rivers
ran red.
In the fall of 1939, Stalin could not help but to be concerned, for Hitler was known to have
attacked countries that showed even the slightest potential to rise to power. For this purpose only,
Stalin decided to form a pact of peace with Germany. While Hitler was opposed to
Communism and had little regard for Eastern Europeans, he appreciated that Stalin
represented a formidable force and the two signed a non-aggression pact, The
Ribbentrop-Molotov, in 1939.
With peace established between the two unstoppable forces, the rest of the countries saw a dark age coming.
With Japan bombed by the Americans and India being under the British rule,
the Nazis and the Soviets were enjoying sky high power privileges.
Not many months following the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact, Hitler found himself trotting the streets of Russia
with a few of his men. He had a reason
to be there. The group waited vigilantly in a bar that Stalin frequented. The plan was simple; wait for Stalin, isolate him,
assassinate.
To break the silence of the wait, Stalin showed at the bar with a friend of his.Without hesitation, Hitler announced, “Now!” Adolf’s men grabbed Stalin,
whose friend, Trotsky, fled.
Hitler spat, “This world’s too small for the both of us, for neither can live while the other survives.” With that said, he
ended Stalin by putting a bullet through his head.
6#Epilogue
When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it. And I had love, but I did not feel it. Many decades would pass
before I understood the meaning of all three. And now, the twilight of my life,
this understanding has passed into contentment. Love, liberty, and time: once so disposable, are the fuels that
drive me forward. And love, most especially, Eva Braun, for you, our
children, our brothers and sisters and for the vast and wonderful world that gave us life, and keeps us guessing.
~Forever yours, Adolf Hitler.
On April 30, 1945, Adolf committed suicide with his wife, Eva Braun.