How and When did Hitler Become Anti-Semitic?

In an older post, I wrote about how we should not ignore historical fact for pleasant-sounding bullshit using Hitler being the most consequential person from the 20th century as an example. I also pointed out that portraying such people as cartoonish caricatures hinders our ability to understand why they did what they did. With that in mind, let us now move into an even more loaded area- how and when did he become so strongly anti-Semitic? While there are those who want to believe that the guy was mentally ill, sociopathic or otherwise deranged- the reality, as we can piece together from multiple independent accounts, suggests that he was actually quite rational- if a bit full of himself and prone to grandiosity. In other words, not especially different in his mental makeup and worldview from the vast majority of people who seek political power and office. But the vast majority of them don’t become Hitler.

At this point, we should talk about the historical milieu in which he grew up. Today, most people forget that the Austro-Hungarian Empire in which Hitler was born, and contemporaneous German Empire were among the most socially liberal places in the West. Only USA and perhaps UK were slightly better if you were Jewish, while many parts of pre-WW1 Europe such as the French Republic, Russian Empire, Kingdom of Romania, Serbia etc were noticeably worse places to live if you were Jewish. There is a reason why so many Jews from the peripheral areas of Russian Empire emigrated to USA in 1870-1920 timespan. In contrast, Jews in the German and Austro-Hungarian Empire (especially in urbanized parts) were far more assimilated and were found at all levels of society and occupations. Intermarriage was also far more common in those two countries than many other parts of Europe.

The point I am trying to make is that the era and society in which Hitler grew up was noticeably less anti-Semitic than most parts of Europe at that time. This is not to say that they were as progressive as USA in 2023, but the level of ambient anti-Semitism in both societies was moderate and difficult to reconcile with what we see beginning in the 1920s. I should also point out that his father, Alois Schicklgruber, who later changed his last name to Hitler to match that of his adoptive father- was born out of wedlock and there is a decent amount of evidence that his biological father was the son of a Jewish merchant who employed Hitler’s grandmother. So ya.. Hitler was likely a quarter Jewish, by ancestry. And this is not just some made up story, as many in the Nazi party strongly suspected this was the case. Did I mention that Hitler himself commissioned a secret investigation to explore this possibility.

So is there is any evidence that Hitler, in his childhood and youth, was prone to extreme anti-Semitism. As it turns out, accounts from multiple people who knew him as a child and youth portray him as a smart but introverted boy with little interest in traditional academics who was good at art, disliked his father but adored his mother. More relevantly, the doctor who treated his mother for terminal breast cancer, Eduard Bloch, was Jewish. After the Austrian Anschluss of 1938, Hitler personally helped him and his remaining family emigrate to USA. It is worth nothing that Bloch, in his later years, never mentioned that Hitler was especially anti-Semitic in his youth. Don’t you find it odd that somebody whose very name is a byword for anti-Semitism today was not visibly anti-Semitic as a teenager. And it keeps getting more interesting.

See.. after his rejection from entry into the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Hitler lived in Vienna for a few years as a struggling artist in conditions that were close to homelessness by selling his paintings on the street. Sometime in 1913, he moved to Munich and lived a similar lifestyle for a year until WW1 broke out. As some of you know, he almost immediately joined the Bavarian Army after the conflict which became WW1 was declared. One his superiors, Hugo Gutman, who recommended him for the Iron Cross First Class was Jewish. Moreover the German Army in WW1 had a decent percentage of Jewish soldiers (linked to their percentage in population). Any yet, almost nobody who knew him in all those years remembered him for being stridently anti-Semitic. Those who served with him remember him for being a bit aloof, brave, patriotic, anti-communist etc. Don’t you find that a little bit odd?

After WW1, Hitler was employed to infiltrate potentially socialistic parties- which is how he ended up making contact with the German Workers' Party (DAP) which he joined, became its new leader and renamed as the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) aka Nazi party. It is worth noting that the DAP was originally formed in opposition to communism, internationalism and yes.. even capitalism. They were originally what we would today call social and economic conservatives with some populist ideas and a sprinkling of anti-Semitism. But it is very clear that they were far more opposed to Communism and Socialism than Jews. Having said that, there was a considerable overlap between being Communist and Socialist in 1920 and 1930 era Germany and being Jewish. Let us also not forget that 1920 era Germany had many other right-wing parties with similar plans and ideas which eventually folded up or whose membership eventually joined the Nazi party.

The first time we see strong and unequivocal evidence for Hitler’s anti-Semitism is his now infamous book- “Mein Kampf”. This book was published in 1925 and gives us a pretty good blueprint of what Hitler intended to do as well as his belief system. While that book contains a decent amount of anti-Semitism, Hitler spend significantly more time fixated on conquering Slavic lands and replacing them with Germans. At this point, I should mention that USSR suffered 26 million casualties (mostly civilian) during WW2 and combat on the Eastern front used up to 70-80% of German war production and troops after the failed invasion of USSR in summer 1941. Based on the ferocity of this theater of conflict and large number of casualties on both sides, it is fair to say that Hitler hated Slavs almost as much as Jews. It is also worthwhile to remember that the Nazis treated Polish Catholics pretty badly and killed large numbers of them after the invasion and occupation of Poland in September 1939.

So we are still left without a good answer to the original question- how and when did Hitler become so anti-Semitic? Clearly, he wasn’t an ardent anti-Semite at the end of WW1. But it is equally clear that he was blaming Jews for a lot of things by 1925 when he wrote ‘Mein Kampf’. There is also no doubt that Hitler was fully aware of all the horrors of the Holocaust and presided over the ‘Final Solution’. So wouldn’t it be interesting to know who or what triggered him between 1919 and 1925.

What do you think? Comments?