Adolf Hitler, as one of historyโs most loathed dictators, continues to pique peopleโs interest, with aspects of his life portraying a melancholic man. From his desire to become a priest to his journey to becoming a dictator that the entire world despised, the journey of Adolf Hitler was striking. Therefore, we present to you our exclusive curated list of 12 interesting Adolf Hitler facts you probably never knew about.
So, without any further ado, letโs dive into the article.
1. Hitler was born in Austria
If you thought Adolf Hitler was from Berlin, Munich, or Frankfurt, you are mistaken. The fallen dictator was an Austrian citizen until the age of three before gaining German citizenship. Hitler learned to loathe the Austrian Empire, expressing only devotion to Germany, thanks to the guidance of his high school instructor.
In April 1925, he publicly relinquished his Austrian citizenship, although he did not immediately become a German citizen. He lost his citizenship, risked deportation, and was barred from standing for election.
Despite the fact that Hitlerโs family moved from Austria to Germany while he was only three, the home where he was born continues to have a problem with their link to Hitler.
2. The desire to become a priest
Because Hitler was up in a Catholic home, he was quite religious. He sang in the chorus and went to a Catholic school. His faith grew so strong in him that he pondered becoming a priest at one point. Later in life, he came to admire some parts of Protestantism. According to a study by the United States Strategic Services, Adolf intended to eliminate the authority of churches in German-controlled countries. His desire to eradicate Christianity reveals that he has become a rabid atheist.
If Hitler had been a priest, history would have taken a different turn. The irony here appears to be that he was such a devout Christian that he felt the Almighty took his side duringย his most heinous acts.
3. Adolf Hitler could paint
Art and concentration camps are two roads that never cross. However, young Adolf saw days when he dreamt of becoming an artist.
The Academy of Fine Arts
Hitler appeared for the admission exam to the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. However, he failed the testย twice because his human figures lacked depth and character, despite his skill for architectural talent.ย In spite of failing twice, his love for canvas did not stop there.
Young Adolf began selling drawings toย visitors as part of his passion for art, and he lived off the proceeds. During this period, he focused his energies on developing a strong worldview and anti-Semitic attitudes.
4. His surname was Schicklgruber
Adolf Hitler was born to Alois Schicklgruber, a man who married Maria Anna Schicklgruber and bared her surname. Alois Schicklgruber decided to become Alois Hitler when he was around forty years old.
Hitlerโs father elected to use his stepfatherโs surname, Johann Georg Hiedler, as his surname, which some suspected was his biological father. Hitler was presented as the new last name on official papers, albeit the cause for Heidler becoming Hitler remains unknown.
5. He went temporarily blind in every Gas Attack
During the first world war, Hitler was affected many a time by toxic gases. The British mustard gas attack was one such occasion that happened in October 1915.
This saw Hitler hospitalized in Pasewalk, Germany. He learned about Germanyโs defeat and the Armistice with the United Kingdom and France while he was there.
Serving in the Bavarian army
Before Hitlerโs rise, he was taken into the Bavarian reserve infantry regiment in Ypres. Despite being an Austrian, Hitler served the German army and was made a regimental message runner.
A role that wasnโt injury-prone still saw Hitler take a bullet to the leg during the Somme battle in 1916 whilst his services during the first world war.
6. Served jail time for treason
Adolf Hitlerโs rise was surely a rough road from the start. It is a fact that before Paul von Hindenburg appointed him as chancellor, Hitler was in prison.
The Beer Hall Putsch
In the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed coup dโรฉtat by the Nazi Party to dethrone the Bayern government resulted in Hitler serving prison time in Germany. Hitler served five years in prison with no indentured servitude and the ability to visit him on a regular basis by the courtโs sympathy for his ideology.
His actual prison years were far less than what the court initially stated. Hitler was supposed to serve jail time for 60 months but came out in 9.
7. The Mein Kampf
Within a year of jail time, the far-fetched Nazi leader utilized the chance to start writing Mein Kampf, his autobiography and philosophy. The book expressed strong racial utopian ideals and anti-Semitic sentiments while holdingย a grand blueprint of Germanyโs capitulation.
In the book, Hitler expresses his desire to conquer Russia as well as the rest of the Slavic countries. By the start of WWII, almost five million copies had been sold.
8. Flames made him Fรผhrer
Believe it or not, Hitlerโs rise was due to a fire incident back in 1933. This was basically the Reichstag fire decree, a protest that ricocheted on the ideas of the communist party. Due to this incident, public voting was ruled out and the Nazis had the majority of seats on the day that followed the Reichstag fire.
Hitler becomes the chancellor
Hitler grasped this golden opportunity, and Paul Von Hindenburg, the ruling President at that time, made him chancellor, thanks to his public speaking skills along the way.
Within a short span of time in 1934, when Hindenburg, the ruling president passed away, Hitler took charge and called himself -โFรผhrer.โ
9. Adolf Hitler never visited Concentration Camps
We all know the holocausts take the center stage in the German leaderโs dreadful legacy but turns out Hitler has never been to concentration camps in his entire life. Even though most of the concentration camps were created in East Germany, it is still a startling truth because it is where Hitler spent most of his time.
The reason behind Hitler not visiting concentration camps
The distance Hitler maintained between himself and the actual killing ground fostered neo-Nazi accusations into believingย that Hitler wasnโt behind the genocides.
And it was Heinrich Himmler, a leading member of the Nazi Party who prevented the fascist leader from knowing what was actually going on. This is one of the 12 Hitler facts in this article you probably did not see coming.
10. Adolf Hitlerโs nephew served in the US Navy
In Liverpool back in 1911, William Patrick Hitler was the son of Alois Hitler Jr and Bridget Dowling. In 1914, Alois Hitler went back to Germany to serve in the First World War. William had numerous roles mostly in theย Third Reich as a result of his uncleโs clout, having arrived in Deutschland by 1933, but allegedly engaged in extortion to achieve higher positions.
How did William Patrick Hitler join the US Navy?
In 1939, at the request of William Randolph Hearst, a publisher, William travelled to the United States in order to serve the American side of the first world war. In 1944, after being stranded by the onset of warfare, William Patrickย Hitler pleaded to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was granted permission to enter the US Navy.
After being wounded in fighting against the Hitler-led German army, he was even awarded the Purple Heart.
11. Hitler prioritized animals over humans
The Nazi leader was a vegetarian, which was somewhat humorous. Whoโd have guessed that a brutal dictator who didnโt care about the deaths of innocent people could be a vegetarian? This is surely one of the Hitler facts that still surprise people even now.
How did Germany benefit from this?
The German leader was such a proponent of vegetarianism that Germany went on to become the first country in Europeย whichย establishedย legislation protecting animal rights.
As a matter of fact, the German people were not allowed the liberty to conduct live animal experiments, as well as boiling lobsters alive or catching animals for profit.
The reason behind becoming vegetarian
After watching the postmortem of his former lover Stefanie Rabatsch, who had passed away by killing herself, Hitler took such a choice.
As a result, the decision to become a vegetarian was made on an emotional rather than a moral basis. It is surprising to see the Nazi leader make a life-changing decision based on an emotional basis and not a moral-driven one.
12. Adolf Hitler never won elections
In April 1932, Adolf Hitler ran for President. Unfortunately for the Nazi dictator, Paul Von Hindenburg was voted by the German people.
However, in the June federal election two months after the general elections, the Nazi Party gained 37 percent of the vote, making it the Reichstagโs largest party.
13. Hitler loved movies
How on Earth can the worldโs most feared dictator have time to spend in front of a screen? You probably would be wondering if this is a bluff, but no, Adolf Hitler loved watching movies during his Nazi regime.
Johannes Heesters: Hitlerโs favourite actor
Johannes Heestersโ movies were said to be Hitlerโs most-watched ones and the Nazi leader simply loved his acting. The Dutch actor Johannes Heesters, died at the age of 108. The Dutchman was nevertheless permitted to play in spite of drawing attention from theย German leaderย and the S.S. because the Allies did not believe he was engaged in theย Nazi propaganda. He was still investigated for decades after performing for the Nazi dictator.
Adolf Hitler was a fan of Disney
While we associate Disney with childrenโs films and families, the Nazi dictator saw it as a symbol of technological progress, as Snow Whiteย had some very stunning animation when it was released in 1937.
According to rumours, he was also a big fan of King Kong due to the obvious fantastic effects, and he watched it and war movies a lot.
Interesting to see how Hitler observed the advanced technology that was used and not the characters or the storyline.
14. The Autobahn: An Adolf Hitler development
The worldโs fastest roads are in Germany thanks to Hitlerโs political power. Hitler did an amazing job in redeeming Nazi Germany after the first world war. The development of the Autobahn, or motorway, was one of the best ideas of Hitler. Despite his nefarious aims, Hitlerโs freshly constructed Autobahn network was a significant success.
After 1933, it enhanced the appeal of the Nazi Party among the general public. People were won over by new highways. The irony in all of this is, that the German parliament built the Autobahns which was the first initiative taken after the ruins of the first world war.
But only later Hitler ordered the German army to go into world war II which again disappointed the German people.
15. Hitler was titled โMan of the Yearโ in 1938
The German was named โMan of the Yearโ by Time magazine just a year before Hitler forced Germany into world war II. Itโs worth noting, though, that the prize isnโt necessarily meant as a recommendation.
Indeed, Time maintains that the title is based on media coverage and influence, which explains why Stalin, Khrushchev, and Ayatollah Khomeini have all received the dubious honor.
16. Hitler was nominated for Nobel Prize
Adolf Hitler being nominated for a Nobel peace prize is hands down the most ironic thing youโve ever heard. For the sake of god, Mother Teresa has the same award and sheโs not a world war-triggering Nazi dictator. Erik Gottfried Christian Brandt, a member of the Parliament of Sweden, nominated Adolf Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939. It was intended purely as a satirical dig at the fascist leader.
Hitler banned the German people from receiving the Nobel peace prize
Adolf Hitler saw that as a disrespect not only to him but the entire Nazi Germany and immediately withdrew his nomination.
It does not stop there. Hitler ordered that no German will take part in Nobel peace prize ceremonies. With the political power, the Mein Kampf author possessed, he made sure no German wins a Nobel peace prize during the Nazi movement.
17. Hitler has numerous problems with his health
Adolf Hitler has a long list of biological problems that he carried during his Nazi regime. It is believed by many that Hitlerโs death was mainly fueled by the usage of drugs.
- Syphilisโ effect on Hitler: In Mein Kampf, syphilis was cited with prostitution as the main reason why Hitler used to get unconscious and collapse quite often.
- Parkinsonโs disease: Parkinsonโs disease is a degenerative ailment in the nerves that impairs the patientโs ability to move, remember, think, and behave. This is the genetic heredity that Hitlerโs father passed on to him.
- Monorchism: The condition of just having one testicle, albeit the origins are dubious. The first was a first-hand report of an injury sustained during the Somme Battle, and the latter was withdrawn after a Soviet doctor participated in Hitlerโs autopsy.
It was also rumored, to increase the sexual urge of Adolf Hitler, Morell, his physician, allegedly injected him with sample genitals of young bulls. Morell used to give Adolf a testosterone preparation called Testoviron before he went to sleep with his lover, Eva Braun.
18. Adolf Hitler was a drug addict
Hitler had been ecstatic throughout his reign. His euphoria stemmed from cocaine and opioids, which he required to function daily, implying that he might have been abusing drugs while making choices regarding German politics.
Historians believe that Dr Morellโs prescription for Hitlerโs drug addiction impacted his excessive war rhetoric as well. The Allies charged Morell with criminal negligence after capturing him. Hitler received opiates, barbiturates, morphine, and amphetamines, according to Morell.
19. Hitler committed suicide?
Hitler committed suicide by putting a bullet in his head on April 30, 1945.ย Eva Braun, someone he had married only a few hours earlier, committed suicide by cyanide poisoning.
Both remains were to be burnt and buried, according to Hitlerโs message. The Soviet Union was unable to confirm Hitlerโs death, according to conspiracies. Later, burned bones and a head with a gunshot wound were discovered. However, DNA testing in 2009 indicated the bones were a femaleโs rather than a guyโs.
This only leads to further questions about whether Hitler committed suicide or faked his death to save his pride.
Now there you go, some quite astonishing facts about the despised Adolf Hitler. For more such amazing articles, visit our website here.
Last Updated on by Sathi
