How The Germans Conformed To Adof Hitler

QuestionÐ'... At the end of World War II, who was placed on the list of history's most hated villains? Adolf Hitler. How did he get on that list? By becoming a dictator of Germany and conducting a mass-killing spree against the Jews. Was Hitler always like this? No. He was born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau, Upper Austria. His father, Alois worked as a customs officer on the border crossing and his mother, Klara, was a housewife. Hitler had a brother Gustav and a sister Ida, but they both died at birth. He also had another brother, Edmund but he died at the age of 6 and another sister, Paula. She outlived Adolf. He did very poor as a school going individual and dropped out before graduation with an ambition to be a writer. His father died when he was only 13, and his mother died of cancer when he was 19. Adolf did absolutely nothing to earn his keep at home or at school. He didn't work and didn't keep up with his studies. The only thing that kept his interest was history and politics. After his mother's death, he unsuccessfully found no one that would take him in for free. So he up and moved to Vienna and within a year he was homeless.

The start of his crazinessÐ'...

In 1913, Adolf moved to Munich in Southern Germany and within a year of his move World War I broke out. He then volunteered for service in the German Army and was accepted into the 16th Baumann Reserve Infantry Regiment. He was soon promoted to Corporal and decorated with both the Iron Cross First and Second Class (ironically, the one who promoted him was the regimental captain who happened to be a Jew). After returning from a hospital stay in Traunstein, he witnessed a takeover bid by local communists who seized power before being ousted by the Army. He was then asked to testify sort of speak against what he saw. Soon after testifying, he was asked to become part of a local Army Organization, which was responsible for persuading returning soldiers not to turn to communism (a form of socialism that abolishes private ownership; a political theory favoring collectivism in a classless society, http://www.dictionary.com) or pacifism. In 1919, Hitler gave a speech that attracted over 100 people. A year later he also gave a speech that attracted over 2,000 people. On April 1, 1920, he gave a speech, which brought about the idea of and organization that would soon go into effect after the

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speech called National Socialist German Workers Party (NAZI). By 1921, Hitler gained full control of the Nazi party and had million of followers.

Millions of followersÐ'... What a high that must give someone when they know they have millions of followers. There must even be a high of some sort when someone knows they have only 38 followers and no matter what happens, that person knows that those people will follow him. For example in April of 1997, Marshall Applewhite and his 38 followers committed the biggest mass suicide ever. The people thought that they would be carried on a spacecraft that trailed the Hale-Bopp to the Kingdom of Heaven. So in other words they conformed. Conformity, what does that mean? According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online, conformity/conform means action in accordance with some specified standard or authority, to be obedient or compliant -- usually used with to act in accordance with prevailing standards or customs, correspondence in form, manner, or character. Don't you think that what Adolf Hitler did, was or could be considered conformity? Don't you think he caused his followers to conform after him? According to the information that I found online about Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party, he was technically Ð''conformed' into the position that caused him to go crazy and kill himself. He was carefully and strategically dragged in by the other members of the army and while reading it, it seemed that the army members planned out when they would drag the naÐ"Їve Hitler in. He came in at the point of a takeover and then he probably thought to himself, "Oh I could do that to." And so he did.

What do you think made his followers Ð''conform' after him? "Informational influence. People conform because they want to be correct in there judgments and they assume that four eyes are better than two (Conformity handout)." They thought that what Hitler was dong was ok, just as long as Hitler kept filling them with empty words and promises. Also according to the Conformity Handout, Hitler's followers were also seemed to be part of Normative Influence, which is the conformance of fear due to saying no to the leader. There are two others in the handout that also made sounded like reasons for Hitler's follower to conform. Since I wasn't there back in the day I could only assume that he fed his audiences a lot a bunch of words. At the time I am sure that he didn't realize what he was doing until he knew that what he was doing was causing him

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to have more power. His followers were led

blindly into what would be the biggest killing spree in the entire world.

I guess one of the biggest questions that could be answered during this paper would be that of why people