
Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau-am-Inn on the Austrian-German border. His father was a customs official. Hitler left school at 16 with no qualifications and struggled to make a living as a painter in Vienna. This was where many of his extreme political and racial ideas originated.In 1913, he moved to Munich and, on the outbreak of World War I, enlisted in the German army, where he was wounded and awarded the Iron Cross medal. In 1919 he joined the extreme right wing (fascist) German Workers' Party (DAP). As propaganda minister for the party, he promised extremist 'remedies' to Germany's post-war problems, such as the Depression, unemployment and the weak global position Germany had been forced into after losing World War I,...