look at this baby so gentle so innocent you'd think this child would grow up to become a good man an honest man well think again hitler was born adolphus hitler in 1889 in a small town in austria-hungary his father a louis schickelgruber was born out of wedlock but eventually changed his name to that of his stepfather becoming a louise hitler alois was a mid-level austrian customs officer not really rolling in cash but certainly rolling a woman he married a rich older lady but then immediately started having affairs including one with a much younger house servant a few years later he left his sick wife to be with his mistress but since the catholic church didn't allow divorce at the time he couldn't marry her so he waited for his old wife to die and had a child in the meantime then his wife died so he married his mistress and had another child but then his new wife got sick so he employed his much much younger cousin clara to take care of her then when his new wife died he immediately got clara his cousin pregnant and then married her in that order you rockstar clara and eloise had three children together who all tragically died while in infancy so when the fourth child adolf came along clara spoiled him rotten the hitlers had two more kids and the family moved around a few times meaning adolf had to attend five different elementary schools adele's father was strict quick to anger and took most of it out on the eldest son until he had enough and ran away at the age of 14 leaving seven-year-old adolf to do most of the chores and get berated by his father the result was a difficult relationship with his dad while he was super attached to his mother who worried over him and his health excessively hitler did well in school at first his grades were good and his teachers praised him he was popular with the other kids and enjoyed gathering them together to play war games he also loved reading and particularly liked stories about cowboys and indians as he grew older though he started to get into trouble he was caught smoking once organized a raid on a local orchard tormented his pro-austrian religion teacher with symbolic gestures displaying his allegiance the idea of united germanic people under a greater german state in defiance of habsburg austria you know the usual all of this enraged adults father who punished him severely the area of austria-hungary that hitler lived in was once part of the german confederation and many of the people who live there consider themselves to be german adolph tended to just go against whatever his father said and since his father was an austrian public official hitler got big into german nationalism this enraged adult's father who punished him severely around this time a family tragedy struck his six-year-old brother whom he loved a lot died of measles when adolf was 10 and was buried in the cemetery just across from their home around this time neighbors reported a change in the young boy strange behaviors such as talking to trees and staying up late staring at the stars from the cemetery walls he lost interest in religion and his school grades started to decline which enraged his father who punished him severely it also didn't help that he had just entered high school and the cool city boys treated him like a rural peasant he had to repeat a grade and had little interest in most school subjects instead spending his time reading and drawing which he was quite good at one day his father said son someday you'll be a big balls public official like me and adolf replied no father i'm going to become an artist and soar high above the clouds with the eagles this enraged his father but by this time he was an old-ass man so he just sort of let it go and then died of a lung hemorrhage hitler just about passed his final semester and celebrated in the typical way by getting blackout drunk and wiping his ass with a certificate however he didn't take the overall final school exam instead just dropping out the now 16 year old boy was unemployed without much purpose in life and for the next three years he stayed that way he spent most of his time at the opera with his only friend august kubisek kubizek later wrote his memories of the young hitler and said he was passionately interested in many things felt he was in many ways better than others his age was quick to anger just like his father and an incredible speaker once he was ranting when he was 18 he said a very sad goodbye to his mother and went to vienna to take the entrance exam for art school he failed soon after he had to return home his mother was sick and her health was rapidly deteriorating hitler stayed by her side and when she eventually died the family doctor said he had never seen someone so overwhelmed with grief as hitler was then hitler returned to vienna still hoping to find a career in the arts but he never did instead without parental support hitler ended up on the streets now in his early twenties he spent a few rough years living in and out of homeless shelters making what little he could from selling postcards he painted it's hard to pinpoint exactly when and how hitler's extreme ideological beliefs formed but his time in vienna would have certainly played a role anti-semitism was widespread in the city the mayor whom hitler supported was an outspoken anti-semite there were many right-wing anti-semitic newsletters which hitler took a keen interest in he bought into the conspiracy theories and became a firm believer in the idea that there are many races in constant struggle with one another the purest of which were the german aryan people and the worst of which he believed were jews since austria-hungary was a multi-ethnic empire full of lesser races hitler wasn't a fan so when he was 24 he moved to munich in germany to avoid doing military service and for one more year he was a drifter on the streets until something huge happened in 1914 long-standing tensions in europe erupted into the first world war crowds across europe celebrated the news within days hitler volunteered for the german army the war gave him a purpose in life his fellow soldiers gave him friendship and brotherhood despite the horrors of war hitler considered it to be the best time of his life he was reportedly a brave soldier and was awarded the iron cross first class he was also very lucky and had many close encounters with death his luck ran out in 1916 however when an artillery shell injured his leg he went back to germany to recover and was outraged to find a general apathetic anti-war attitude among the exhausted and hungry german populace with the war turning against germany he returned to the front lines but was temporarily blinded by a british gas attack in 1918 a month later still recovering in hospital hitler learned of germany's defeat and surrender the terms of the peace treaty were tough on germany it had to pay a lot of money and lose a lot of soldiers these conditions weakened germany and humiliated the german people europe's borders changed after the war too new countries were formed out of russia's lost territory austria-hungary was dissolved and there was one big new country splitting germany into two hitler seeing the country he loved humiliated like this said that hatred grew in him for those responsible by which he meant communists and jews who he believed had stabbed germany in the back by spreading dissent and anti-war propaganda back home [Music] you