Hitler's Background up to 1923

Discuss Hitler's background up to 1923 and how it influenced his rise to power with the NSDAP.

Hitler's family background caused his hatred of the Jews, and he successfully took advantage of the widespread hatred of the Jews in the NSDAP party's platform. Hitler despised his repressive father Alois, who was possibly of Jewish heritage. Adolf Hitler grew increasingly anti-Semitic after he lived in Vienna's slums which were also called the Jewish quarters. When Hitler and the NSDAP sought power, Hitler claimed that the purity of German blood was defiled by the Jews and that all Jews should be banned from Germany. Hitler was trying to obliterate traces of his ancestry with his anti-Semitism.

Hitler's early educational and career failures caused him to fantasize that he was destined for a great role in history, and he eventually convinced himself that he could gain such power through the NSDAP. In 1903, Hitler was unhappy at his school in Lintz and left school in 1905 without any qualifications. Hitler went to Vienna in 1907, but he failed to earn a spot at the Academy of Fine Arts. Hitler believed he had finally found his real purpose in life when he joined a Bavarian regiment in 1914, but he was not promoted higher than a corporal and was believed to have lacked leadership qualities. In 1919, Hitler decided to become a NSDAP member. Hitler became a great orator who had a hypnotic effect on his audience and said what the German people wanted to hear. As he and his party gained power, Hitler was convinced that he was destined for the great role that he had dreamed of having.