Adolf Hitler
/ˈhɪtlə
/1 (1889–1945), Austrian-born Nazi leader, Chancellor of Germany 1933–45.
1.1 (as noun a Hitler) A person with authoritarian or tyrannical characteristics: little Hitlers of the Trade Union movement...
- The people said among themselves, ‘We have produced our own Hitlers.’
- I left the site on that wind-swept cold afternoon wondering why such reminders of the past like Dachau have failed to deter the latter-day Hitlers.
- And now the head of the whole organization stands mum while asking for more money from the alleged Hitlers and Mussolinis.
Hitler co-founded the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party in 1919, and came to prominence through his powers of oratory. While imprisoned for an unsuccessful putsch (coup) in Munich (1923-4) he wrote Mein Kampf (1925), an exposition of his political ideas. Becoming Chancellor in 1933, he established the totalitarian Third Reich. His expansionist foreign policy precipitated the Second World War, while his fanatical anti-Semitism led to the Holocaust.