Adolf Hitler | Biography, Rise To Power, & Facts - Britannica

Early life

After his father’s retirement from the state customs service, Adolf Hitler spent most of his childhood in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. It remained his favorite city throughout his life, and he expressed his wish to be buried there. Alois Hitler died in 1903 but left an adequate pension and savings to support his wife and children. Although Hitler feared and disliked his father, he was a devoted son to his mother, who died after much suffering in 1907. With a mixed record as a student, Hitler never advanced beyond a secondary education. After leaving school, he visited Vienna, then returned to Linz, where he dreamed of becoming an artist. Later, he used the small allowance he continued to draw to maintain himself in Vienna. He wished to study art, for which he had some faculties, but he twice failed to secure entry to the Academy of Fine Arts. For some years he lived a lonely and isolated life, earning a precarious livelihood by painting postcards and advertisements and drifting from one municipal hostel to another. Hitler already showed traits that characterized his later life: loneliness and secretiveness, a bohemian mode of everyday existence, and hatred of cosmopolitanism and of the multinational character of Vienna.

Quick Facts Byname: Der Führer (German: “The Leader”) (Show more) Born: April 20, 1889, Braunau am Inn, Austria (Show more) Died: April 30, 1945, Berlin, Germany (aged 56) (Show more) Title / Office: Führer (1934-1945), Germany chancellor (1933-1945), Germany (Show more) Founder: Hitler Youth SA SS (Show more) Political Affiliation: Nazi Party (Show more) Awards And Honors: Iron Cross (1918) Iron Cross (1914) (Show more) Notable Works: “Mein Kampf” (Show more) Notable Family Members: spouse Eva Braun (Show more) Role In: Anglo-German Naval Agreement Anschluss Anti-Comintern Pact Beer Hall Putsch Drang nach Osten final solution First Battle of Ypres German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact Holocaust July Plot Kristallnacht Munich Agreement Nazism Night of the Long Knives Nürnberg Rally Operation Barbarossa Pact of Steel T4 Program World War I World War II the Blitz Enabling Act (Show more) See all related content Show More

In 1913 Hitler moved to Munich. Screened for Austrian military service in February 1914, he was classified as unfit because of inadequate physical vigor; but when World War I broke out, he petitioned Bavarian King Louis III to be allowed to serve, and one day after submitting that request, he was notified that he would be permitted to join the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment. After some eight weeks of training, Hitler was deployed in October 1914 to Belgium, where he participated in the First Battle of Ypres. He served throughout the war, was wounded in October 1916, and was gassed two years later near Ypres. He was hospitalized when the conflict ended. During the war, he was continuously in the front line as a headquarters runner; his bravery in action was rewarded with the Iron Cross, Second Class, in December 1914, and the Iron Cross, First Class (a rare decoration for a corporal), in August 1918. He greeted the war with enthusiasm, as a great relief from the frustration and aimlessness of civilian life. He found discipline and comradeship satisfying and was confirmed in his belief in the heroic virtues of war.