Can one man influence the people of the world strongly and affect their fortunes?
Can he virtually dictate the well-being of his nation and make people give up their lives as if they are nothing?
We have an example for that in Adolf Hitler. This is a name that makes us shiver as we remember the atrocities committed on the Jewish race and we loath him with all our heart.
His name is thought of as equivalent to indiscriminate and wanton killing and is thought to be inhuman and monstrous.
But how could Hitler influence his people so much and in turn alter the history of Mankind?
Hitler was absolutely ruthless, fearless, determined and focused on his goal, not wavering an inch till his end.
Hitler came to power on account of the great depression of 1929 when unemployment in Germany went up from 8.5% in 1929 to 30% in 1932.
After coming to power in 1933 Hitler achieved remarkable success in reviving the economy in the first 5 years. The national income of Germany doubled during those years.
It was Hitler who instituted the Autobahn or German super highways.
Television, jet-propelled aircraft, guided missiles, electronic computers, the electron microscope, atomic fission, data processing, all of these were either first developed in Nazi Germany or reached their high point at that time.
There are innovations in the area of basic physics (nuclear fission, discovered by Otto Hahn and Lisa Meitner in 1938), hormone and vitamin research, automotive engineering (the Volkswagen was supposed to be the "people's car"), pharmacology, and synthetic gasoline and rubber (I. G. Farben in 1942 controlled more than 90 percent of the world's synthetic rubber production).
The nerve gas sarin and the chemical warfare agent tabun are both I. G. Farben inventions of Third Reich vintage - as is the opiate methadone, synthesized in 1941, and Demerol, created about this time with the name "pethidine."
There are many other examples. Nazi aeronautic engineers designed the first intercontinental ballistic missiles-never actually assembled-and it was Germans in the 1940s who built the first jet ejection seat.
German engineers built the world's first autobahns, and the world's first magnetic tape recording is of a speech by Hitler.
The first television broadcast strong enough to escape the planet featured Hitler's speech at the opening of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
During the Hitler era (1933-45), the economy developed a high prosperity, supported by high government subsidies to those sectors that Hitler favored because they gave Germany military power and economic autarchy, that is, economic independence from the global economy.
Hitler claimed to have achieved full employment in Germany by 1939. There were still five million Americans unemployed at the end of 1941 when Hitler achieved 100% employment.
Hitler's Germany had long since absorbed its unemployment by building arms and German infrastructure.
Whatever may be the actual rise of unemployment, the people were immensely satisfied by the goods delivered by Hitler.
This catapulted him into being the hero of Germany in people’s eyes and everyone was ready to follow him. Whatever little opposition he had, he got it suppressed with his ruthlessness.
So Hitler was actually the uncrowned king of Germany and people were ready to be led by him.
Whatever the claim of western historians may be, there is no doubt that Hitler achieved an economic miracle in his country.
Germany incurred the maximum loss in the 1st World War that concluded in 1911.
The treaty of Versailles was forced on Germany by the allies represented by the UK, USSR, France and Belgium, and Germany had no choice but to sign on the dotted line.
This treaty is a horrible piece of document that deprived Germany of all its rights as a nation.
The German representatives were threatened with guns and were made to sign the treaty.
As it was Germany was in a miserable condition and the Allies made them pay huge war reparations.
German gold was taken away by the Allies. Germany was torn into pieces and the allies happily grabbed them.
France occupied the Alsace Lorraine area of Germany; Belgium occupied Eupen Malmedy and Saarland. In fact half the area of Germany was divided between the various allied powers, not to speak of the huge war reparations.
The Rhineland area was forced to be demilitarized. As per the treaty Germany cannot enlist an army of over 100,000 men.
They have annulled Germany’s air and naval forces. Not only that, whenever they got a chance at International Fora, Germany and its people, were insulted both by UK and France.
All these moves by the allies made the blood of the German citizens boil with anger.
These insults pushed the Germans into extreme nationalism and they wanted revenge on those nations even if they die.
Hitler used those emotions to come to power in 1933.
In 1922 a similar dictator to Hitler came to power in Italy. He was Benito Mussolini. Italy was one of the allies in the 1st World war.
After the war Italy too wanted a pound of the flesh of Germany as spoils of the war. But by that time German spoils were already shared by the other allies and nothing was left for Italy.
This made the people of Italy angry with the allied nations of the 1st World War. After the war using the discontent and the terrible economic conditions Mussolini came to power leading his Fascist Party.
Both the dictatorships in Germany and Italy fomented extreme nationalism in their people and made them ready for war to achieve more territory.
Hitler wanted to make a greater Germany comprising of all the territories of the Roman Empire.
Japan was not to be left behind either, it coined a slogan Asia for Asians meaning that all other powers that had their hegemony there should be ousted so they can take over instead.
For centuries Japan followed a closed door policy. No exports and no imports and just being self sufficient. It just kept to itself.
The USA saw that as an opportunity and forced Japan to sign an agreement in 1854. After this the other European powers England, France, Dutch and Russia followed suit, imposing unfair treaties on Japan.
After their entry Japan’s economy got messed up. However, Japan managed to come back and became one of the top industrialized countries of the world.
Japan never had any natural resources so it continuously attacked the neighbouring countries. China, Russia, Korea and Taiwan were attacked. In the 1st World war Japan too was on the side of the allies.
Japan’s navy has become the strongest navy in Asia which was not to the liking of the USA.
In 1931, Japan attacked China and occupied Manchuria. When the League of Nations condemned the attack, Japan simply walked out of it saying I don’t care.
In 1935 Italy occupied Ethiopia. When questioned by League of Nations Italy too walked out of it, not caring for the body.
After coming to power in 1933, Hitler started arming Germany and encouraged scientists to develop new arms.
In 3 years Germany increased its armed strength by 10 times.
In 1936 well prepared Hitler sent his army into the demilitarized zone of Rhineland, this directly violated the Treaty of Versailles but Britain and France did nothing.
They tried to reason with Hitler and told him, okay if you had come here but don’t do anything further.
Hitler readily agreed to the proposal because anyway, he had no intentions of keeping his word.
Then Germany and Italy came closer and Hitler and Mussolini became friends. On the other side, Hitler also maintained friendly relations with Japan.
All three leaders including Japan's Emperor Tojo believed that they were the chosen people and should rule the world.
In 1936 Mussolini proclaimed that all the European nations would revolve under Germany and Italy from which time the name Axis powers was coined.
Germany entered into a pact with Italy and then later with Japan known as the Comintern pact.
Hitler’s dislike of communism is well known and this pact is made for fighting against communist countries. In 1937 Japan too signed this pact.
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