FREE ESSAY ON HITLER

HITLER

The Nazi Sign is Still Bright Red, The Star of David is Still Seen
Hitler and Nazism is a lasting trauma, not only for the world's society, but also for
it's millions of victims. Only through history can we learn for the future. 
No other individual has made a more profound mark or brought so many changes in this
century than Adolf Hitler. There has been other dictators such as Mussolini, Stalin, Mao
and Castro. Some have been involved in wars of conquest while others have subjected
people in servitude presiding over the perpetration of immeasurable inhumanity. "However,
the rule of most of them has not seared people's consciousness beyond their own
countries; Hitler's mark on this century has been deeper than any of them."( Kershaw 12)
Up until the age of 21 Hitler was a wanderer without any true sense of identify that
appeared to shift from place to place without any real sense of direction or ambition. An
anti- establishment, he joined the German army during World War I but was never promoted
to a rank above corporal. Upon returning from World War I, Hitler was convinced that
Germany's defeat had been managed by Jews and Communists. He returned from the battle
front and joined Germany's Socialist Workers Party. Preaching a gospel of hate from a
platform or prejudice and fear, Hitler and his Nazis rose to form a huge movement looking
for supremacy with a fanatical vision of a New Order for Germany determined to conquer
the world.
"This apparently insignificant and incompetent man, this unlikely pretender, managed to
talk his way into one of the highest political office, while deceiving experienced
leaders of the major powers."(Langer 11) He turned millions of highly civilized skilled
professionals from all ways of life into obeying unquestionably the orders of a former
corporal turning people into barbarians,and ordering the extermination of a large segment
of the population. Hitler built and controlled one of the mightiest war machines ever
known, and plunge the world into history's most devastating war. 
Appointed chancellor in 1933, Hitler spent the next six years changing the face of Europe
by coercing a brutal diplomacy. In 1939 he finally embarked into his "sacred" mission
which was to secure by war that which he had not been able to obtain by appeasement. By
1942 his armies had created an empire that stretched from France to Russia. The combined
military forces of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain were barely
enough to crush the monster that Hitler had created. By the time the war was over,
Germany was a total wasteland and the whole world was exhausted. Stopping Hitler's war
machine had cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of American and British servicemen
and British civilians as well as 20 million Soviet soldiers and private citizens.
Hitler also murdered 6 million Jews which still disturbs the conscience of mankind. Adolf
Hitler still stands as history's greatest example of the dark side of leadership. "More
than 50 years after taking his own life, he continues to cast a dark shadow over the
world. His maniac and fanatical dreams were crushed beneath the ruins he brought to
Berlin."(Wepman 116) 
The twelve years of Hitler's rule permanently changed Germany, Europe and the world.
Without him the course of history would have been different. Within a few years Hitler
had left Germany and Europe physically ruined and totally shattered. Among these changes
:
- The Cold War
- A Germany split by a wall
- Europe split by an Iron Curtain
- A world split between hostile superpowers armed with nuclear weapons capable to blow up
the planet
The cold war ended in 1989, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall as did the Iron Curtain
when the Soviet bloc nations gained their independence. Germany also reunited and we no
longer feel the threat of nuclear war coming from the rivalry among the superpowers. All
of the above changes brought by Hitler lasted for more than 44 years. 
Is it not possible that somewhere in the world another Fuhrer or dictator may be coming
to power on a wave of desperate or fanatical patriotism? "Adolf Hitler may well be
history's greatest example of the dark side of leadership, but there is no darkness so
great that it cannot be illuminated."(Wepman 106) And so the Nazi sign is still bright
red and the Star of David is still seen.
Bibliography
Kershaw, I. (1998). Hitler :1889-1936: Hubris. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Ltd.
Langer, W. (1972). The Mind of Adolf Hitler. New York: Basic Books Inc.
Stein, G. (1968). Hitler. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice Hall, Inc.
Wepman, D. (1985). Adolf Hitler. New York: Chelsea house Publishers