Adolf Hitler remains one of the most destructive figures in human history Born in Austria in 1889 he rose from an obscure painter to become the absolute dictator of Germany His aggressive foreign policy started World War II in Europe and his radical racial theories led directly to the Holocaust During his youth in Vienna Hitler developed deep anti-Semitic views and a strong hatred for modern democracy After serving in the German army during World War I he joined a small political group that eventually became the Nazi Party He was a powerful speaker who used the economic misery and national humiliation of Germany to win millions of followers By promising to restore national pride and crush communism he was appointed Chancellor in 1933 Once in power Hitler quickly destroyed all democratic institutions He turned Germany into a totalitarian police state where no opposition was tolerated He began a massive program of secret rearmament to prepare for a war of conquest His regime blamed Jewish people and other minorities for all of Germany's problems which led to state-sponsored discrimination and violence In 1939 Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland which forced Britain and France to declare war His armies initially conquered most of Europe through fast military tactics However his decision to invade the Soviet Union in 1941 turned out to be a fatal mistake As the war progressed his forces began to lose ground on multiple fronts While fighting the war Hitler implemented his plan to eliminate the Jewish population of Europe This systematic genocide resulted in the murder of six million Jewish people alongside millions of other victims in a network of death camps With Soviet troops closing in on his underground bunker in Berlin Hitler committed suicide in April 1945 leaving behind a devastated continent and a legacy of unmatched destruction - @dodgerextra77yt