The man with the funny little moustache had survived the “Great War” and was now even more determined to put right the wrongs imposed upon his beloved Fatherland by the “Treaty of Versailles” and the nations that had instigated it. He was full of hatred and vehemence against all that it stood for. Although the First War had been a complete disaster for Germany, he would carry on the fight that he had been involved in during his fighting on the western front.
Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria in 1889, years later during his school years this small and timid boy was despised by others for displaying an arrogant and bad tempered attitude. His bullying customs official father wanted him to become an official like himself, but young Adolf decided to become a painter. After leaving school aged sixteen he arrived in Vienna and joined the Academy of Fine Arts.
When his father died he was left to look after his seriously ill mother whom he was devoted to, she later died of breast cancer, he was absolutely devastated and inconsolable.
He returned to Vienna and wandered the streets trying to eke out a living as a painter, and a casual labourer, in the end he was trying to sell his worthless paintings, to pay for his food and lodgings.
Politics became his passion in life, his oratory for speech became like a drug and he was very volatile in temperament becoming incensed at any who opposed him, he shouted and screamed at those that heckled him for his outlandish speeches.
As with a demonic influence he inflamed his audiences with a consuming fire and fervor in extremely manic proportions regarding his own beliefs and ideals. Like a hypnotist he could command his listeners with eloquent speech and grand gestures, sometimes with uncontrollable rages…”He had their souls in his hands”.
The famous “Beer Hall Putsch” of 1923 in Munich’s Burgerbraukellar, was where Hitler, Goring, Hess, and his followers in the Nazi party had tried to seize power. On the evening of November 8th, an unusually large crowd gathered there to enjoy the evening, also there were some High Ranking officials all very powerful and influential men. The Commander of the Army in Bavaria, General Otto von Lossow accompanied by the State’s Police Chief, Colonel Hans von Seisser. They had come there to hear a speech by the right-wing head of Bavaria’s State Government Gustav von Kahr, he had just started to speak when suddenly at 8.30 p.m. Hermann Goring burst into the hall with twenty five Brown shirted supporters, members of the Nazi Storm troopers and created disorder by shouting orders.
At that moment Hitler jumped onto a table fired his pistol at the ceiling and shouted “The national revolution has begun, no one leave the room as there are six hundred heavily armed men with me in this hall”. He forced the three high-ranking officials into a room, stated his demands that they support his Nazi party, under pressure and fear of this little man with a gun all agreed to back him. He finally released them, where they immediately they informed Berlin’s state police. The command soon went out across the land to arrest Hitler and his henchmen, but they had fled the scene and were in hiding.
Unbeknown to Hitler that his arrest was imminent, found himself the following day leading a march through Munich with a column of fellow supporters united arm in arm until they reached the Feldherrnhalle war memorial, on arriving there they encountered a police barricade blocking their route.
Hitler believed he lead a charmed life as in “Great War” when he had been saved by some twist of fate and saved from death by a fellow soldier, he likewise would also find that perhaps fate was guarding his life.
As the protestors forced their way through the barriers a sudden shot was fired by someone…no one knows who…which immediately started a shoot-out between the police and the unruly demonstrators supporting the Nazi party.
As the police continued firing into the crowd the demonstrator marching arm in arm with Hitler was shot and killed, as they both fell to the ground Hitler dislocated his shoulder, although in pain and fear of being killed himself quickly picked himself up and ran off.
The gun battle left three policemen dead and sixteen of Hitler’s Nazis supporters killed.
The policeman who fired that shot could have changed the course of history for ever…had he aimed his pistol to the right or left by a few inches…he would have killed Hitler instead, and the world would not have suffered so horrifically in the coming years…never-the-less for the man with the funny little moustache, he had again been saved as he believed by destiny or perhaps by some unseen force protecting him, or the truth be known, simply by luck itself.
Two days later Hitler was arrested and sentenced to 13 months in Landsberg prison, there he would write his acclaimed political testament, and infamous book “Mein Kampf”. In it he defined his own strange ideas and unscrupulous methods of ruling, and his solutions to achieve his own determined goals.
On his release from prison he devoted many hours speaking energetically in frantic rages at rallies of the newly formed Nazi Party.Germany was in dire straights for the nation was in complete and utter chaos, unemployment rose to over 9, 000, 000 in the early 1930’s. When the 1929 Wall Street crash came, it became impossible to control, Germany suffered from the terrible effects also, inflation rose beyond belief…the price for a loaf of bread was an unimaginable 201, 000, 000 million Marks. Those who were fortunate to have this amount of money carried in wheelbarrows to the bakers and exchange it for the loaf of bread.
Hunger blighted the people, unemployment gave them no money, poverty was everywhere and bankruptcy became prevalent in the middle classes.
Across the whole of Germany the people were desperate to find a leader with the strength of conviction, who could overthrow the then government and release them from this eternal chaotic rule of impotent leaders, suffering and misery.
As the years passed Hitler through unscrupulous and devious means gained more power and control, by his exclamations of reviving the country through his own grandiose speeches, the German nation backed him fully. As they went to the polls the votes were cast and Hitler gained a massive victory of confidence by the majority of the country. They firmly believed and were fully convinced that this “one man” and his Nazi Party could regain all that they had lost since the end of the First War. Hitler certainly had the entire nation now…”in the palm of his hands”…!!!
Immediately after Hitler’s appointment by Field Marshal Paul Von Hindenburg as the New Chancellor, in 1933, one of Hindenburg’s closest friends and comrades from “The Great War”, Field Marshal Eric Von Ludendorff wrote to the old General and penned these words that would become so prophetic…”I prophesy to you solemnly that this accursed man (Hitler) will take our Reich into the abyss”.
These words would become very true and realistic for the future, not only for their New Chancellor and Leader, but also for his Generals and Henchmen in Nazi Party, and more so for all the German people.
His discourses inflamed the audiences with great fervor as he firmly believed that only he could deliver Germany from the breadline and unemployment that was rampaging across the country, coupled with the total misery that had been inflicted upon the nation since the end of World War One.
His tirade of hatred for the “Treaty of Versailles” became an abomination to him, which he detested with great ferocity and vehemence, for it was this he firmly believed had caused the desolation to the nation of Germany.
He outlined his fight for the German people, how he would begin and end with his devout belief in a “New World Order”, a pure Aryan Race, where only the Germanic people would rule and enjoy the fruits of their labours, where his nation would eventually rule the world for “A Thousand Years”…!!! |
