Young Hitler
The book is divided into two sections: in the first part, a narrative retells the formative years of the young Adolf Hitler between 1907 and 1918, when he lived as a starving artist on the streets and in the asylums of Vienna, and then joined World War I as a volunteer on the Western Front. When the war ends, Hitler comes into contact with members of the Thule Society in Munich, an association of occultists who had launched a political party, the German Workers Party (DAP).The narration ends in 1920 when Hitler takes over the DAP and turns it into the Nazi Party (NSDAP). In an interview with The Guardian, author Claus Hant explained that the events after 1920 are exhaustively documented in the numerous Hitler biographies. But what the biographies do not investigate is the time before then, when Hitler was transformed from inconsequential artist and drifter to towering political leader. Hant says that he has centered Young Hitler deliberately around this momentous transformation. According to Hant, this decisive turning point in Hitler’s life can only be explained satisfactorily now that recent research has unearthed certain previously unknown data and facts.
Adolf Hitler
Hitler was born in Austria—then part of Austria-Hungary—and was raised near Linz. He moved to Germany in 1913 and was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I. In 1919, he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the NSDAP, and was appointed leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted to seize power in a failed coup in Munich and was imprisoned. In jail, he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle"). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, anti-semitism and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. He frequently denounced international capitalism and communism as part of a Jewish conspiracy.