Adolf Hitler

Born: 20 April 1889 Birthplace: Braunau, Upper Austria Death: 30 April 1945 (suicide) Best Known As: Nazi leader during World War II Hitler's dictatorial rule of Germany, which led to the deaths of millions in World War II, has placed him among history's most-hated villains. A decorated veteran of World War I, Adolf Hitler joined the German Workers' Party in 1919, later renaming it the National Socialist German Workers Party (shortened to Nazi). By 1921 he was the leader of the group, and in 1923 led an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the ruling German Weimar Republic. Sentenced to prison for his role, Hitler wrote his manifesto, Mein Kampf, and emerged less than a year later as a populist spokesman for economically depressed and nationalistic Germans. Made chancellor in 1933, he suspended the constitution, forcibly suppressed all political opposition and brought the Nazis to power. He enforced policies with a brutal secret police (the Gestapo) and formed concentration camps for the organized murder of Jews, Gypsies and political opponents. Hitler's aggressive foreign policy precipitated World War II in 1939. Although he had remarkable early success in the war, by 1942 the tide had turned. Hitler apparently committed suicide in an air-raid shelter in Berlin in 1945, after the Allied forces had invaded Germany. Hitler survived a 1944 assassination attempt led by Claus von Stauffenberg... One of Hitler's concentration camp victims was Anne Frank... Other WWII leaders include: Britain's Winston Churchill, America's Franklin Roosevelt, Italy's Benito Mussolini, the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, Japan's Hideki Tojo and France's Charles de Gaulle... One day before his death, Hitler finally married his longtime girlfriend Eva Braun; she committed suicide with him by swallowing cyanide on 30 April 1945. Hitler apparently swallowed cyanide and then shot himself.