Leaders

Adolf Hitler was born in 1889, to an Austrian couple in Austria. His father Alois Hitler worked in customs for the Austrian government. His mother Klara Polzl was a stay at home mom. As a young toddler they moved to Passau, Germany where he developed the speech inflection he was known for. When he was young he found one of his fathers’ book on war and became obsessed with it. They moved back to Austria, which caused Adolf to have confrontation with his father. Alois Hitler tried everything to convince his son to follow his footsteps in to government but he didn’t want too. In “Mein Kampf” Adolf wrote “All the attempts to arouse my interest or my liking for such a carrier by stories of my father had the opposite effect” (Hitler, 1939 pg. 12-13). He was infatuated with German Nationalism, at a young age, as a way to rebel against his father who proudly worked for the Austrian government. Back in Austria he didn’t want to conform to strict rules of his new school and was in trouble with teachers and his father often. His father failed to make a farmers’ living so they had to moved again, this time too Lambach, Austria. Adolf attended a catholic school there that had a swastika on its wall; Adolf would use this symbol later on. When he was here he was a good student, a singer in the choir, had thoughts about being a priest and an overall good kid (Toland, 1976 pg.).

Then in 1900 his brother Edmund died of the measles, this deeply changed Adolf. He became morose, detached and began to constantly fight with his father and teachers even more. His father pushed him to follow his career and sent him to a technical school, even though Adolf wanted to go to a classical high school and pursue art. Adolf continued to rebel against his father...

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...class, such as untouchables in India (Hill, 2002). There was another instant where he was beaten because he refused to move for a European passenger. He was barred from hotels and even was asked to take his turban off which he refused. These experiences raised his awareness of social injustice.

Works Cited

1. Hitler, A. (1939). Mein kampf. (11th ed.). Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company.

2. Toland, J. (1976). Adolf hitler. (pp. 1-21). Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc.

3. Jainism. In (2011). Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (6th ed. pp. pg.1-1). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

4. Gandhi, M., & Desai, M. (1996). An autobiography, or, the story of my experiments with truth : M.k. gandhi. Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Pub. House.

5. Hill, B. (2002). 8 spiritual heroes their search for god. Cincinnati, OH: St. Anthony Messenger Press