Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP), also called the Nazi Party. He was the ruler of Germany from 1933 to 1945, serving as Chancellor from 1933 to 1945 and as head of state (Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945.
A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the Nazi Party in 1920 and became its leader in 1921. Following his imprisonment after a failed coup in 1923, he gained support by promoting nationalism, antisemitism and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and propaganda. He was appointed chancellor in 1933, and quickly established a totalitarian and fascist dictatorship. Hitler pursued a foreign policy with the declared goal of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for Germany, directing the resources of the state toward this goal. His rebuilt Wehrmacht invaded Poland in 1939, leading to the outbreak of World War II in Europe.[2]
Within three years, Germany and the Axis powers occupied most of Europe and large parts of Africa, East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean. However, the Allies gained the upper hand from 1942 onward and in 1945 Allied armies invaded Germany from all sides. His forces committed numerous atrocities during the war, including the systematic killing of as many as 17 million civilians[3] with a special emphasis on the genocide of an estimated six million Jews, a crime known as the Holocaust.
During the final days of the war in 1945, Hitler married his long-time mistress Eva Braun. Less than 40 hours later, the two committed suicide
Adolf Hitler was born at the Gasthof zum Pommer, an inn in Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary, on 20 April 1889,[5] the fourth child of six.[6] His father, Alois Hitler (1837–1903), was a customs official. His mother, Klara Pölzl (1860–1907), was Alois' third wife. She was also his half-niece, so a papal dispensation was obtained for the marriage. Of Alois and Klara's six children, only Adolf and his sister Paula, seven years his junior, reached adulthood.[7] Hitler's father also had a son, Alois, Jr., and a daughter, Angela, by his second wife.[7]
Hitler had a troubled childhood, as his father was violent to him and violent towards his mother. Hitler himself said that, as a boy, he was often beaten by his father. Years later, he told his secretary: "I then resolved never again to cry when my father whipped me. A few days later I had the opportunity of putting my will to the test. My mother, frightened, took refuge in front of the door. As for me, I counted silently the blows of the stick which lashed my rear end".[8] Some historians believe a history of family violence committed by his father against his mother is indicated in a section of his book Mein Kampf in which Hitler describes in vivid detail an anonymous example of family violence committed by a husband against a wife. This along with beatings by his father against him could explain Hitler's deep emotional attachment to his mother while at the same time having deep resentment towards his father.
Hitler's family moved often, from Braunau am Inn to Passau, Lambach, Leonding, and Linz. The young Hitler was a good student in elementary school. But in the sixth grade, his first year of high school (Realschule) in Linz he failed and had to repeat the grade. His teachers said that he had "no desire to work". For one school year he was a student there at the same time as Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. But although both boys were exactly the same age, Hitler was placed two school years below Wittgenstein.[9] It is a matter of controversy whether Hitler and Wittgenstein even knew of each other, and if so whether either had any memory of the other. [10]
Hitler later said that his educational slump was a rebellion against his father, who wanted the boy to follow him in a career as a customs official; he wanted to become a painter instead. This explanation is further supported by Hitler's later description of himself as a misunderstood artist. After Alois died on 3 January 1903, Hitler's schoolwork did not improve. At age 16, Hitler dropped out of high school without a diploma.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler attributed his conversion to German nationalism to a time during his early teenage years when he read a book of his father's about the Franco-Prussian War, which caused him to question why his father and other German Austrians failed to fight for the Germans during the war.
Hitler's father, Alois Hitler, was an illegitimate child. For the first 39 years of his life he bore his mother's surname, Schicklgruber. In 1876, he took the surname of his stepfather, Johann Georg Hiedler. The name was spelled Hiedler, Huetler, Huettler and Hitler, and was probably regularized to Hitler by a clerk. The origin of the name is either "one who lives in a hut" (Standard German Hütte), "shepherd" (Standard German hüten "to guard", English heed), or is from the Slavic word Hidlar and Hidlarcek. (Regarding the first two theories: some German dialects make little or no distinction between the ü-sound and the i-sound.)
Allied propaganda exploited Hitler's original family name during World War II. Pamphlets bearing the phrase "Heil Schicklgruber" were airdropped over German cities. He was legally born a Hitler, however, and was also related to Hiedler via his maternal grandmother, Johanna Hiedler.
The name "Adolf" comes from Old High German for "noble wolf" (Adel=nobility + wolf). Hence, one of Hitler's self-given nicknames was Wolf or Herr Wolf; he began using this nickname in the early 1920s and was addressed by it only by intimates (as "Uncle Wolf" by the Wagners) up until the fall of the Third Reich.[12] The names of his various headquarters scattered throughout continental Europe (Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, Wolfsschlucht in France, Werwolf in Ukraine, etc.) reflect this. By his closest family and relatives, Hitler was known as "Adi".
Hitler's paternal grandfather was most likely one of the brothers Johann Georg Hiedler or Johann Nepomuk Hiedler. There were rumors that Hitler was one-quarter Jewish and that his grandmother, Maria Schicklgruber, became pregnant while working as a servant in a Jewish household. The implications of these rumors were politically explosive for the proponent of a racist and antisemitic ideology. Opponents tried to prove that Hitler had Jewish or Czech ancestors. Although these rumors were never confirmed, for Hitler they were reason enough to conceal his origins. According to Robert G. L. Waite in The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler, Hitler made it illegal for German women to work in Jewish households, and after the "Anschluss" (annexation) of Austria, Hitler turned his father's hometown into an artillery practice area. Waite says that Hitler's insecurities in this regard may have been more important than whether Judaic ancestry could have been proven by his peers.
Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich
From 1905 on, Hitler lived a bohemian life in Vienna on an orphan's pension and support from his mother. He was rejected twice by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1907–1908), citing "unfitness for painting", and was told his abilities lay instead in the field of architecture.[13] His memoirs reflect a fascination with the subject:
The purpose of my trip was to study the picture gallery in the Court Museum, but I had eyes for scarcely anything but the Museum itself. From morning until late at night, I ran from one object of interest to another, but it was always the buildings which held my primary interest.[14]
Following the school rector's recommendation, he too became convinced this was his path to pursue, yet he lacked the proper academic preparation for architecture school:
In a few days I myself knew that I should some day become an architect. To be sure, it was an incredibly hard road; for the studies I had neglected out of spite at the Realschule were sorely needed. One could not attend the Academy's architectural school without having attended the building school at the Technic, and the latter required a high-school degree. I had none of all this. The fulfillment of my artistic dream seemed physically impossible.[14]
On 21 December 1907, Hitler's mother died of breast cancer at age 47. Ordered by a court in Linz, Hitler gave his share of the orphans' benefits to his sister Paula. When he was 21, he inherited money from an aunt. He struggled as a painter in Vienna, copying scenes from postcards and selling his paintings to merchants and tourists. After being rejected a second time by the Academy of Arts, Hitler ran out of money. In 1909, he lived in a shelter for the homeless. By 1910, he had settled into a house for poor working men on Meldemannstraße.
Hitler said he first became an anti-Semite in Vienna,[14] which had a large Jewish community, including Orthodox Jews who had fled the pogroms in Russia. But according to a childhood friend, August Kubizek, Hitler was a "confirmed anti-Semite" before he left Linz, Austria.[14] Vienna at that time was a hotbed of traditional religious prejudice and 19th century racism. Hitler may have been influenced by the writings of the ideologist and anti-Semite Lanz von Liebenfels and polemics from politicians such as Karl Lueger, founder of the Christian Social Party and Mayor of Vienna, the composer Richard Wagner, and Georg Ritter von Schönerer, leader of the pan-Germanic Away from Rome! movement. Hitler claims in Mein Kampf that his transition from opposing antisemitism on religious grounds to supporting it on racial grounds came from having seen an Orthodox Jew:
There were very few Jews in Linz. In the course of centuries the Jews who lived there had become Europeanized in external appearance and were so much like other human beings that I even looked upon them as Germans. The reason why I did not then perceive the absurdity of such an illusion was that the only external mark which I recognized as distinguishing them from us was the practice of their strange religion. As I thought that they were persecuted on account of their faith my aversion to hearing remarks against them grew almost into a feeling of abhorrence. I did not in the least suspect that there could be such a thing as a systematic antisemitism. Once, when passing through the inner City, I suddenly encountered a phenomenon in a long caftan and wearing black side-locks. My first thought was: Is this a Jew? They certainly did not have this appearance in Linz. I carefully watched the man stealthily and cautiously but the longer I gazed at the strange countenance and examined it feature by feature, the more the question shaped itself in my brain: Is this a German?[14]
If this account is true, Hitler apparently did not act on his new belief. He often was a guest for dinner in a noble Jewish house, and he interacted well with Jewish merchants who tried to sell his paintings.[15]
Hitler may also have been influenced by Martin Luther's On the Jews and their Lies. In Mein Kampf, Hitler refers to Martin Luther as a great warrior, a true statesman, and a great reformer, alongside Wagner and Frederick the Great.[16] Wilhelm Röpke, writing after the Holocaust, concluded that "without any question, Lutheranism influenced the political, spiritual and social history of Germany in a way that, after careful consideration of everything, can be described only as fateful."[17][18]
Hitler claimed that Jews were enemies of the Aryan race. He held them responsible for Austria's crisis. He also identified certain forms of Socialism and Bolshevism, which had many Jewish leaders, as Jewish movements, merging his antisemitism with anti-Marxism. Later, blaming Germany's military defeat in World War I on the 1918 revolutions, he considered Jews the culprits of Imperial Germany's downfall and subsequent economic problems as well.
Generalising from tumultuous scenes in the parliament of the multi-national Austrian monarchy, he decided that the democratic parliamentary system was unworkable. However, according to August Kubizek, his one-time roommate, he was more interested in Wagner's operas than in his politics.
Hitler received the final part of his father's estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich. He wrote in Mein Kampf that he had always longed to live in a "real" German city. In Munich, he became more interested in architecture and, he says, the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Moving to Munich also helped him escape military service in Austria for a time, but the Austrian army eventually arrested him. After a physical exam and a contrite plea, he was deemed unfit for service and allowed to return to Munich. However, when Germany entered World War I in August 1914, he petitioned King Ludwig III of Bavaria for permission to serve in a Bavarian regiment. This request was granted, and Adolf Hitler enlisted in the Bavarian army
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
BIOLOGY
Biology (from Greek βιολογία - βίος, bios, "life"; -λογία, -logia, study of) is a branch of the natural sciences concerned with the study of living organisms and their interaction with each other and their environment. The term was first used by the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. The science of biology examines the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution and classification of living things. Five unifying principles form the foundation of modern biology: cell theory, evolution, gene theory, energy, and homeostasis.[1]
Biology as a separate science was developed in the nineteenth century, as scientists discovered that organisms shared fundamental characteristics. It is now a standard subject of instruction at schools and universities around the world, and over a million papers are published annually in a wide array of biology and medicine journals.
Traditionally, the specialized disciplines of biology are grouped by the type of organism being studied: botany, the study of plants; zoology, the study of animals; and microbiology, the study of microorganisms. These fields are further divided based on the scale at which organisms are studied and the methods used to study them: biochemistry examines the fundamental chemistry of life, molecular biology studies the complex interactions of systems of biological molecules, cellular biology examines the basic building block of all life, the cell; physiology examines the physical and chemical functions of the tissues and organ systems of an organism; and ecology examines how various organisms interrelate with their environment.
Foundations of modern biology
There are five unifying principles of biology [3]:
Cell theory. Cell Theory is the study of everything that involves cells and tissues. All living organisms are made of at least one cell, the basic unit of function in all organisms. In addition, the core mechanisms and chemistry of all cells in all organisms are similar, and cells emerge only from preexisting cells that multiply through cell division. Cell theory studies how cells are made, how they reproduce, how they interact with their environment, what they are composed of, and how the materials that make up a cell work and interact with other cell sections.
Evolution. Through natural selection and genetic drift, a population's inherited traits change from generation to generation.
Gene theory. A living organism's traits are encoded in DNA, the fundamental component of genes. In addition, traits are passed on from one generation to the next by way of these genes. All information transfers from the genotype to the phenotype, the observable physical or biochemical characteristics of the organism. Although the phenotype expressed by the gene may adapt to the environment of the organism, that information is not transferred back to the genes. Only through the process of evolution do genes change in response to the environment.
Homeostasis. The physiological processes that allow an organism to maintain its internal environment notwithstanding its external environment.
Energy. The attribute of any living organism that is essential for its state. (e.g. required for metabolism)
Cell Theory
Cell theory states that[4]:
The cell is the fundamental unit of life.
All living things are composed of one or more cells or the secreted products of those cells, such as shells.
Cells arise from other cells through cell division
In multicellular organisms, every cell in the organism's body is produced from a single cell in a fertilized egg.
The cell is considered to be the basic part of the pathological processes of an organism.
Evolution
A central organizing concept in biology is that life changes and develops through evolution and that all life-forms known have a common origin. Introduced into the scientific lexicon by Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck in 1809, Charles Darwin established evolution fifty years later as a viable theory by articulating its driving force: natural selection (Alfred Russel Wallace is recognized as the co-discoverer of this concept as he helped research and experiment with the concept of evolution). Darwin theorized that species and breeds developed through the processes of natural selection and artificial selection or selective breeding.[5] Genetic drift was embraced as an additional mechanism of evolutionary development in the modern synthesis of the theory.
The evolutionary history of the species— which describes the characteristics of the various species from which it descended— together with its genealogical relationship to every other species is called its phylogeny. Widely varied approaches to biology generate information about phylogeny. These include the comparisons of DNA sequences conducted within molecular biology or genomics, and comparisons of fossils or other records of ancient organisms in paleontology. Biologists organize and analyze evolutionary relationships through various methods, including phylogenetics, phenetics, and cladistics. For a summary of major events in the evolution of life as currently understood by biologists, see evolutionary timeline.
Up into the 19th century, spontaneous generation, the belief that life forms could appear spontaneously under certain conditions, was widely believed. This misconception was challenged by William Harvey's diction that "all life [is] from [an] egg" (from the Latin "Omne vivum ex ovo"), a foundational concept of modern biology. It means that there is an unbroken continuity of life from its initial origin to the present time.
A group of organisms share a common descent if they share a common ancestor. All organisms on the Earth both living and extinct have been or are descended from a common ancestor or an ancestral gene pool. This last universal common ancestor of all organisms is believed to have appeared about 3.5 billion years ago.[6] Biologists generally regard the universality of the genetic code as definitive evidence in favor of the theory of universal common descent for all bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes (see: origin of life).
Evolution does not always give rise to progressively more complex organisms. For example, the process of dysgenics has been observed among the human population.[7]
Gene theory
Biological form and function are passed on to the next generation by genes, which are the primary units of inheritance. Physiological adaptation to an organism's environment cannot be coded into its genes and cannot be inherited by its offspring (see Lamarckism). Remarkably, widely different organisms, including bacteria, plants, animals, and fungi, all share the same basic machinery that copies and transcribes DNA into proteins. For example, bacteria with inserted human DNA will correctly yield the corresponding human protein.
The total complement of genes in an organism or cell is known as its genome, which is stored on one or more chromosomes. A chromosome is an organized structure of DNA and protein on which thousands of genes, depending on the organism, are encoded. When a gene is active, the DNA code is transcribed into an RNA copy of the gene's information. A ribosome then translates the RNA into a structural protein or catalytic protein
Homeostasis
Homeostasis is the ability of an open system to regulate its internal environment to maintain a stable condition by means of multiple dynamic equilibrium adjustments controlled by interrelated regulation mechanisms. All living organisms, whether unicellular or multicellular, exhibit homeostasis. Homeostasis exists at the cellular level, for example cells maintain a stable internal acidity (pH); and at the level of the organism, for example warm-blooded animals maintain a constant internal body temperature. Homeostasis is a term that is also used in association with ecosystems, for example, the roots of plants help prevent soil from eroding, which helps to maintain the ecosystem. Tissues and organs can also maintain homeostasis.
Energy
The survival of a living organism depends on the continuous input of energy. Chemical reactions that are responsible for its structure and function are tuned to extract energy from substances that act as its food and transform them to form new cells and sustain them. In this process, molecules of chemical substances that constitute food play two roles; first, they contain energy that can be transformed for biological chemical reactions; and also develop molecular structures made up of biomolecules.
Nearly all of the energy needed for life processes originates from the Sun, which plants and other autotrophs convert into chemical energy (organic molecules) via photosynthesis in the presence of water and minerals. A few ecosystems, however, depend entirely on energy extracted from methane, sulfides, or other inorganic molecules by chemosynthetic microorganisms. Some of the captured energy is used to produce biomass to sustain life and provide energy for its growth and development. A part of this energy is lost as heat and waste molecules. The common processes for converting energy in chemical substances into energy useful to sustain life are metabolism and respiration.
Biology as a separate science was developed in the nineteenth century, as scientists discovered that organisms shared fundamental characteristics. It is now a standard subject of instruction at schools and universities around the world, and over a million papers are published annually in a wide array of biology and medicine journals.
Traditionally, the specialized disciplines of biology are grouped by the type of organism being studied: botany, the study of plants; zoology, the study of animals; and microbiology, the study of microorganisms. These fields are further divided based on the scale at which organisms are studied and the methods used to study them: biochemistry examines the fundamental chemistry of life, molecular biology studies the complex interactions of systems of biological molecules, cellular biology examines the basic building block of all life, the cell; physiology examines the physical and chemical functions of the tissues and organ systems of an organism; and ecology examines how various organisms interrelate with their environment.
Foundations of modern biology
There are five unifying principles of biology [3]:
Cell theory. Cell Theory is the study of everything that involves cells and tissues. All living organisms are made of at least one cell, the basic unit of function in all organisms. In addition, the core mechanisms and chemistry of all cells in all organisms are similar, and cells emerge only from preexisting cells that multiply through cell division. Cell theory studies how cells are made, how they reproduce, how they interact with their environment, what they are composed of, and how the materials that make up a cell work and interact with other cell sections.
Evolution. Through natural selection and genetic drift, a population's inherited traits change from generation to generation.
Gene theory. A living organism's traits are encoded in DNA, the fundamental component of genes. In addition, traits are passed on from one generation to the next by way of these genes. All information transfers from the genotype to the phenotype, the observable physical or biochemical characteristics of the organism. Although the phenotype expressed by the gene may adapt to the environment of the organism, that information is not transferred back to the genes. Only through the process of evolution do genes change in response to the environment.
Homeostasis. The physiological processes that allow an organism to maintain its internal environment notwithstanding its external environment.
Energy. The attribute of any living organism that is essential for its state. (e.g. required for metabolism)
Cell Theory
Cell theory states that[4]:
The cell is the fundamental unit of life.
All living things are composed of one or more cells or the secreted products of those cells, such as shells.
Cells arise from other cells through cell division
In multicellular organisms, every cell in the organism's body is produced from a single cell in a fertilized egg.
The cell is considered to be the basic part of the pathological processes of an organism.
Evolution
A central organizing concept in biology is that life changes and develops through evolution and that all life-forms known have a common origin. Introduced into the scientific lexicon by Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck in 1809, Charles Darwin established evolution fifty years later as a viable theory by articulating its driving force: natural selection (Alfred Russel Wallace is recognized as the co-discoverer of this concept as he helped research and experiment with the concept of evolution). Darwin theorized that species and breeds developed through the processes of natural selection and artificial selection or selective breeding.[5] Genetic drift was embraced as an additional mechanism of evolutionary development in the modern synthesis of the theory.
The evolutionary history of the species— which describes the characteristics of the various species from which it descended— together with its genealogical relationship to every other species is called its phylogeny. Widely varied approaches to biology generate information about phylogeny. These include the comparisons of DNA sequences conducted within molecular biology or genomics, and comparisons of fossils or other records of ancient organisms in paleontology. Biologists organize and analyze evolutionary relationships through various methods, including phylogenetics, phenetics, and cladistics. For a summary of major events in the evolution of life as currently understood by biologists, see evolutionary timeline.
Up into the 19th century, spontaneous generation, the belief that life forms could appear spontaneously under certain conditions, was widely believed. This misconception was challenged by William Harvey's diction that "all life [is] from [an] egg" (from the Latin "Omne vivum ex ovo"), a foundational concept of modern biology. It means that there is an unbroken continuity of life from its initial origin to the present time.
A group of organisms share a common descent if they share a common ancestor. All organisms on the Earth both living and extinct have been or are descended from a common ancestor or an ancestral gene pool. This last universal common ancestor of all organisms is believed to have appeared about 3.5 billion years ago.[6] Biologists generally regard the universality of the genetic code as definitive evidence in favor of the theory of universal common descent for all bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes (see: origin of life).
Evolution does not always give rise to progressively more complex organisms. For example, the process of dysgenics has been observed among the human population.[7]
Gene theory
Biological form and function are passed on to the next generation by genes, which are the primary units of inheritance. Physiological adaptation to an organism's environment cannot be coded into its genes and cannot be inherited by its offspring (see Lamarckism). Remarkably, widely different organisms, including bacteria, plants, animals, and fungi, all share the same basic machinery that copies and transcribes DNA into proteins. For example, bacteria with inserted human DNA will correctly yield the corresponding human protein.
The total complement of genes in an organism or cell is known as its genome, which is stored on one or more chromosomes. A chromosome is an organized structure of DNA and protein on which thousands of genes, depending on the organism, are encoded. When a gene is active, the DNA code is transcribed into an RNA copy of the gene's information. A ribosome then translates the RNA into a structural protein or catalytic protein
Homeostasis
Homeostasis is the ability of an open system to regulate its internal environment to maintain a stable condition by means of multiple dynamic equilibrium adjustments controlled by interrelated regulation mechanisms. All living organisms, whether unicellular or multicellular, exhibit homeostasis. Homeostasis exists at the cellular level, for example cells maintain a stable internal acidity (pH); and at the level of the organism, for example warm-blooded animals maintain a constant internal body temperature. Homeostasis is a term that is also used in association with ecosystems, for example, the roots of plants help prevent soil from eroding, which helps to maintain the ecosystem. Tissues and organs can also maintain homeostasis.
Energy
The survival of a living organism depends on the continuous input of energy. Chemical reactions that are responsible for its structure and function are tuned to extract energy from substances that act as its food and transform them to form new cells and sustain them. In this process, molecules of chemical substances that constitute food play two roles; first, they contain energy that can be transformed for biological chemical reactions; and also develop molecular structures made up of biomolecules.
Nearly all of the energy needed for life processes originates from the Sun, which plants and other autotrophs convert into chemical energy (organic molecules) via photosynthesis in the presence of water and minerals. A few ecosystems, however, depend entirely on energy extracted from methane, sulfides, or other inorganic molecules by chemosynthetic microorganisms. Some of the captured energy is used to produce biomass to sustain life and provide energy for its growth and development. A part of this energy is lost as heat and waste molecules. The common processes for converting energy in chemical substances into energy useful to sustain life are metabolism and respiration.
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