From his visceral hatred of Jews and his obsession with occultism to his bizarre relationship with his wife Eva Braun, we delve into the mind of the world’s most notorious dictator.
Why did Hitler hate Jews?
Hitler’s intense loathing of Jews is inspired by a long history of anti-Semitic hatred stretching through the European establishment and far-right figures back to medieval times.
He spelled out his disgust in his notorious autobiography Mein Kampf, which he wrote during a short spell in prison after his attempted coup in 1923.
Translating to ‘My Struggle’, the book spells out its author’s obsession with the so-called “Aryan race” typified with blonde hair, blue eyes and white skin.
Hitler describes at length how he became increasingly antisemitic during his early years in Vienna, Austria and expresses his belief of the world’s two major evils – Communism and Judaism.
Mein Kampf contains chilling allusions to the frame of mind which led to the Holocaust, the genocide which cost the lives of around six million Jews during World War II.
For example, Hitler writes: “The nationalisation of our masses will succeed only when, aside from all the positive struggle for the soul of our people, their international poisoners are exterminated.”
Why were the Nazis obsessed with the occult?
It is a little-appreciated fact that the Nazis employed magicians, diviners, tarot card readers and astrologists in a mystifying attempt to aid them in the war effort.
This bizarre occultism also manifested itself in their racist policies, believing that Aryans were not descended from apes but from divine creatures brought to earth by meteors.
World Ice Theory, which the Nazis promoted, suggests that these Supermen inhabited Atlantis before fleeing at its destruction to set up the Eastern religions and ultimately Christianity.
This obsession also manifested itself in the choice of the Swastika symbol as their haunting emblem.
The Swastika is an ancient symbol from the Indian subcontinent signifying good luck.
Who was Eva Braun and how did she and Hitler die?
Hitler’s devoted wife Eva Braun was transfixed by the Fuhrer’s ruthlessness from their first meeting in October 1929, when the Nazi leader was being photographed at her employer’s studio in Munich.
She attempted suicide twice in August 1932, shooting herself in the chest in a move that historians believe was a bid to get the soon-to-be Fuhrer’s attention.
They soon became lovers but her obsessions pushed her to another attempted suicide in 1935 when Hitler was unable to spend more time with her.
Hitler, in wanting to remain popular, presented himself as a chaste figure so would avoid appearing in public with Eva.
But she spent her final moments with the defeated Fuhrer in his Berlin bunker at the end of the war in 1945.
On 30 April, as allied troops rolled into the German capital, Braun and Hitler committed suicide together just 40 hours after marrying.
She ate a cyanide capsule while the Fuhrer shot himself in the head.