Adolf Hitler

The *A Different World* timeline is currently undergoing a massive underwork. Please do not make any changes to the lore unless you have been given permission.

**Adolf Hitler (**20 April 1889 – 29 August 1963) was an Austrian politician and painter who served as the first Director of the Austrian Igual Party from 1931 until his retirement in 1958. He is also famous for his paintings, his most famous painting being *Eine typische polnische Szene*, which he painted in 1927 during one of his trips to Poland.

Hitler was born in Austria, and was raised near Linz. He lived in Vienna in the late 1900s, where he got into art school during 1907. He expressed his passions by painting many scenes of Polish structures in his trips to Poland after the war was over, and symbolising his love for Judaism in many different forms. Adolf has been awarded with many certificates as 'painter of Poland' for 1936, 1937 and 1938 and expressed sympathy for Poland when it was invaded by Germany in 1939.

In 1931, Hitler decided to get into politics as well, and formed his own political party - the Austrian Igual Party, which had an ideology of Igualism, which he described as "*making everyone have equal rights, and equal pay at your workplace, regardless of the colour of your skin, the sexuality you are, the gender you are, or where you come from*." He has been described as a modern man of 1930s Austria, and he almost won the 1936, 1946 and 1951 general elections, and despite not being director of the party past 1956, he lived to see the party come to power in 1961 and was a keen supporter of the new government lead by Julius Raab. He eventually died in 1963 at the age of 74 years old.

## History

### Childhood and education

Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary (in present-day Austria), close to the border with the German Empire. He was the fourth of six children born to Alois Hitler and his third wife, Klara Pölzl. Three of Hitler's siblings – Gustav, Ida, and Otto – died in infancy. Also living in the household were Alois's children from his second marriage: Alois Jr. (born 1882) and Angela (born 1883). When Hitler was three, the family moved to Passau, Germany. There he acquired the distinctive lower Bavarian dialect, rather than Austrian German, which marked his speech throughout his life. The family returned to Austria and settled in Leonding in 1894, and in June 1895 Alois retired to Hafeld, near Lambach, where he farmed and kept bees. Hitler attended *Volksschule* (a state-funded primary school) in nearby Fischlham.

The move to Hafeld coincided with the onset of intense father-son conflicts caused by Hitler's refusal to conform to the strict discipline of his school. His father beat him, although his mother tried to protect him. Alois Hitler's farming efforts at Hafeld ended in failure, and in 1897 the family moved to Lambach. The eight-year-old Hitler took singing lessons, sang in the church choir, and even considered becoming a priest. In 1898 the family returned permanently to Leonding. Hitler was deeply affected by the death of his younger brother Edmund, who died in 1900 from measles. Hitler changed from a confident, outgoing, conscientious student to a morose, detached boy who constantly fought with his father and teachers.

Alois had made a successful career in the customs bureau and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. Hitler later dramatised an episode from this period when his father took him to visit a customs office, depicting it as an event that gave rise to an unforgiving antagonism between father and son, who were both strong-willed. Ignoring his son's desire to attend a classical high school and become an artist, Alois sent Hitler to the *Realschule* in Linz in September 1900. Hitler rebelled against this decision, and in *Mein Kampf* states that he intentionally did poorly in school, hoping that once his father saw "what little progress I was making at the technical school he would let me devote myself to my dream".

Like many Austrian Germans, Hitler began to develop German nationalist ideas from a young age. He expressed loyalty only to Germany, despising the declining Habsburg Monarchy and its rule over an ethnically variegated empire. Hitler and his friends used the greeting "Heil", and sang the "Deutschlandlied" instead of the Austrian Imperial anthem.

After Alois's sudden death on 3 January 1903, Hitler's performance at school deteriorated and his mother allowed him to leave. He enrolled at the *Realschule* in Steyr in September 1904, where his behaviour and performance improved. In 1905, after passing a repeat of the final exam, Hitler left the school without any ambitions for further education or clear plans for a career.

### Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich

In 1907, Hitler left Linz to live and study fine art in Vienna, financed by orphan's benefits and support from his mother. He applied for admission to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna where he was accepted. There, he spent six years while getting high grades and eventually passed all the art exams. Unfortunately, on 21 December 1907, his mother died of breast cancer at the age of 47, when he himself was 18.