The personality of Adolf Hitler has been described as stubborn, rash, outspoken, but amazingly charming. He had a way with words and describing his feelings in long speeches; he knew the human soul well, and could take advantage of the common man’s innermost feelings.
Hitler was invariably driven by some of the psychological needs described in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. As a teenager, he fell madly in love with Stefanie Jansten, a girl he casually spotted in his walks around Linz, the city in which he spent much of his teenage life. In his infatuation with her, he was delusional in the fact that he believed she understood all of his ideals and his love for her, without even introducing himself or even carrying out conversation with her. He believed his thoughts could be communicated to her only by long glances. When he was refuted by her, he was, without a doubt, crushed, depriving him of the all important need for love, and to be accepted. After joining the Bavarian Army, he was considered brave and intelligent, but was never given a promotion past private, first class, because (ironically) his superiors thought he lacked the leadership qualities. He was deprived of his need for recognition by this, being unrecognized as the person he knew he was- a driven man who could get the job done.
Even though in his early days he had befriended two Jews in anti-Semitic Vienna, the city’s views took root in him. After living in Vienna, Hitler constantly preached against Jews, Gypsies, Communists, and others that weren’t of the “Aryan” race, a concept forged many years earlier by Joseph Arthur Gobineau, a French diplomat and social philosopher who wrote Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races. This may have stemmed from the fact that on his in his early schooling, one of his teachers was part of the Völkisch movement, the more advanced beliefs of Gobineau, in direct relationship to Germans. Also, Adolf’s beloved mother Klara was diagnosed with breast cancer, and the doctor who treated her was Jewish. He blamed his early failure on the Jews and directed much, if not all of his anger towards them.
Hitler joined, and mostly forged the National Socialist German Workers Party. He had joined in September of 1919, and became the party leader a few short years later. He led a revolt against the Weimar Republic, called the Beerhall Putsch on November 8, 1923, but it was put down, and Adolf was sentenced to five years in prison. In prison, he wrote a book called Mein Kampf, or My Struggle, that became a second bible to the Nazis of Germany in later years.
The only true love of Hitler’s life was Geli Raubal, the daughter of Adolf’s half-sister, Angela. He was insanely jealous of anyone who paid attention to her, and loved to take her to parties to show her off, even though it was rumor that they fought constantly. Adolf was crushed again after her death; she had been shot to death in her apartment in Munich next to his. He mourned her for the rest of his life, and most probably used that sadness and anger as fuel for his goals.
When the Great Depression struck in 1929, he used Communists and Jews as scapegoats for the event, and turned the country loose on them. He blamed everyone else for the troubles of the world, and planned revenge on Europe for what it did to Germany.
He was often described as an impersonal man, incapable of having close friends or relationships. He tried to overcome this, by having the multitudes follow him and love him. Mein Kampf was given to newly wed couples as his present to them, and his political rallies at Nuremberg were famous throughout the world for being the largest gatherings of singly driven people.
Adolf Hitler has also been described as one of the most insanely genius men of his time, accomplishing goals that others could only dream of. He united a torn country, rebuilt that country, and made the hearts of men all around the world tremble at the sound of his name. Yet, he accomplished all of this through negative means, and that would take from him any positive recognition from our posterity. His aim to get back at the world succeeded, and even today we still feel the repercussions of his wrath.