Historians and biographers note some difficulty in identifying Adolf Hitler's political views. His writings and methods were often adapted to need and circumstance, although there were some steady themes, including anti-Semitism, anti-communism, anti-parliamentarianism, German expansionism, belief in the superiority of an "Aryan race" and an extreme form of German nationalism. Hitler personally claimed he was fighting against Jewish Marxism.
His views were more or less formed during three periods:
- His years as a poverty-stricken young man in Vienna and Munich prior to World War I, during which he turned to nationalist-oriented political pamphlets and anti-semitic newspapers out of distrust for mainstream newspapers and political parties.
- The closing months of World War I when Germany lost the war; Hitler is said to have developed his extreme nationalism during this time, desiring to "save" Germany from both external and internal "enemies" who, in his view, betrayed it.
- The 1920s, during which his early political career began and he wrote Mein Kampf. Hitler formally renounced his Austrian citizenship on April 7, 1925, but did not acquire German citizenship until almost seven years later; thereby allowing him to run for public office.
Read more about Adolf Hitler's Political Views: V-Mann For The Army, German Workers’ Party, The Beer Hall Putsch, Mein Kampf, Anti-communism, Racial Nationalism, Social Conservatism, Distrust of Democracy, Laying Blame On The November Criminals
Famous quotes containing the words adolf hitler, adolf, hitler, political and/or views:
“When an opponent declares, “I will not come over to your side,” I calmly say, “Your child belongs to us already.... What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.””
—Adolf Hitler (1889–1945)
“I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism.”
—Frank Buchman (1878–1961)
“I hate Science. It denies a man’s responsibility for his own deeds, abolishes the brotherhood that springs from God’s fatherhood. It is a hectoring, dictating expertise, which makes the least lovable of the Church Fathers seem liberal by contrast. It is far easier for a Hitler or a Stalin to find a mock- scientific excuse for persecution than it was for Dominic to find a mock-Christian one.”
—Basil Bunting (1900–1985)
“Every community is an association of some kind and every community is established with a view to some good; for everyone always acts in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“The absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things, are the truly philosophic concerns; all superior minds feel seriously about them, and the mind with the shortest views is simply the mind of the more shallow man.”
—William James (1842–1910)