Adolf Hitler is one of the infamous figures in history due to his role in World War II (WWII) and the Holocaust. Born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau, Austria, Hitler was the fourth of six children born to Alois Hitler and his third wife, Klara, who lived between 1837-1903 and 1860-1907, respectively (Dinning, 2021). Hitler spent most of his childhood in Linz, Austria, and is known to have had a difficult relationship with his father mostly due to his failure to behave well at school. He wanted to become an artist, against his father’s wish for him to pursue a career in customs. Just like in his education, Hitler was considered to be mediocre as an artist. It was in Vienna when Hitler developed his worldviews regarding several subjects, some of which included hatred for Marxists and Jews.
Hitler joined the 16th Bavarian Infantry Regiment in 1914 when World War I (WWI) broke out and entered politics once the war was over. In 1919, he was assigned to spy on the German Workers Party, a group comprised over 40 idealists. Instead, he joined this political party and quickly gained a position of power and dominance. He renamed the party the Socialist German Workers Party and established the Schutzstaffel (SS) and other armed groups to attack opponents. Hitler became president and Führer in 1932 and was the key architect of WWII (Wilde, 2019). Additionally, his reign was symbolized by his extreme hatred for the Jews, which led to the Holocaust spanning the WWII period. This hatred intensified after the WWI defeat, where he blamed the Jews (Dinning, 2021). As a tyrant, he also despised democracy, which was considered to be a Jewish ideal.
The Holocaust
The Holocaust remains one of the most significant events in the history of the Jews and WWII. As mentioned earlier, Hitler blamed the Jews for the defeat in WWI, even though his anti-Semitism attitudes had developed earlier. As the president and Führer, Hitler had the power to exercise his wishes for the Jews, which was mostly to see them extinguished from Europe. According to Munson (2018), the Holocaust signifies the ultimate step in social engineering and illustrates the inability of a country to tolerate minorities. In this case, Hitler was the leader of the Nazis, which means that his ideologies were upheld across the entire Nazi hierarchy. Additionally, it can be argued that the Holocaust was the truest manifestation of the historical demonization of the Jews, which can be traced to the New Testament. Here, the Jews are labeled spiritually blind, hypocritical, and diabolical, sentiments that the Nazis were happy to use against the Jews.
The Holocaust was a genocide in that it involved killing a large group of people due to their race and/or religion. As such, it started with the discrimination against the Jews and ended with millions being murdered. Concentration camps were established for imprisoning the Jews considered to be enemies of the state. It is estimated that over 40000 camps were established between 1933 and 1945, most of which were transits to prisons and extermination camps (BBC, 2022). Mass killings were also witnessed in these camps as guards murdered Jews at will while a significant number of deaths were also caused by the terrible conditions in the camps. A key event in the Holocaust was the ‘final solution,’ a plan that was devised to kill larger numbers of people. The defeat of the Nazis in WWII marked the end of the Holocaust.
Leadership Styles
Adolf Hitler used multiple leadership styles during his reign, all of which made him one of the most ruthless dictators in the history of the planet. According to Muenjohn et al. (2018), Hitler was a charismatic leader due to his ability to invoke massive support among his followers, even in unethical actions. Charisma is described by some theorists as being so strong and powerful that it can challenge and transform rational and traditional norms and values. This description fits the behaviors and actions of Hitler and his followers, which comprises the Nazis and their supporters. The Holocaust described in the section above is one of the greatest legacies of Hitler and the Nazis. Considering the ethical implications of the incident, the truth about charisma emerges where followers are willing to break all values, rules, and norms to support the ideologies of the leader no matter how absurd or diabolical. Hitler may be considered an evil leader today, but the fact that his actions had gathered massive support among the Nazis means his charisma was exceptional.
Charismatic leadership can be described as the use of persuasiveness, communication skills, and charm to influence other people. The term charisma does not have a universal definition since the concept itself is abstract. However, the basic idea is that charisma depicts certain qualities of an individual personality considered to be extraordinary or endowed with superhuman, supernatural, or at least exceptional qualities or powers (Fragouli, 2018). Charisma can be developed by an individual and the ties to the followers are often psychological. For this reason, Fragouli (2018) believes that there is a dark side to charismatic leadership, which can be observed in Hitler. Through his charisma, Hitler made the Nazi party the largest political organization in Germany, which was made possible through propaganda and his speech skills. Germans were devastated after the defeat in WWI, and they believed that Hitler was the leader to change their situation. Even though he was eventually defeated in WWII, Hitler remains one of the best case examples of charismatic leadership.
It is important to emphasize that Hitler misused his charisma for evil. From a political perspective, Hitler was largely successful in steering Germany into economic prosperity and military might. Such a feat may not be easy for a country already demoralized by a defeat. However, Hitler’s charisma means that the entire nation could be hopeful again. Hitler’s anti-Semitic ideologies are arguably what ruined his legacy and turned his otherwise successful regime into an evil empire driven by hatred and intolerance of a racial minority. His charisma means that Germans believed his propaganda regarding the role that the Jews played in Germany’s defeat in WWI. Overall, it was through his charisma that Hitler managed to successfully rule Germany and lead them into war with the allied powers. The dark side of charisma was that he made ordinary people to believe in lies that he had started regarding the Jews.
Another leadership style associated with Hitler is autocratic, considering that he was a dictator. Autocratic leadership has been described by Luqman et al. (2019) as a top to bottom authoritative style implicating punishments and threats, which often works against teamwork. However, a charismatic dictator manages to use this charm to force followers to execute his will voluntarily. As an autocrat, Hitler used his position of leadership to shape the country to how own image through irrevocable decisions. Autocratic leadership is also referred to as authoritarian, and it involved individual control over decisions and minimal input from followers (Cherry, 2020). Autocratic leaders make decisions founded on their judgments and ideas. Hitler hated Marxists and Jews, but it is difficult to determine whether all Germans shared these sentiments. Therefore, the decision to incarcerate and kill Jews was made from Hitler’s judgment toward this racial minority. However, it is through charisma that some of the followers shared their beliefs. For a dictator, people in the power hierarchy are often selected based on their loyalty to the leader, which means that Hitler’s charisma was the foundation for this authoritarian rule over Germany.
Hitler’s autocratic leadership made him the most feared leader of the time. However, it is important to acknowledge that autocratic leadership may be successful in the short term but it is not effective in the long run (Sapkota, 2020). During Hitler’s reign, other autocratic leaders across Europe registered massive success, which was followed by massive failure. The greatest failure of Hitler was the country’s defeat during WWII. Joseph Staling and Benito Mussolini of the Soviet Union and Italy respectively also suffered defeats during their reign, and are all examples of the inability of autocratic leadership to withstand the test of time. Hitler made Germany a powerful country but also led it to defeat by the allied countries. The fact that autocratic leaders tend not to trust their subordinates means that advice is not accepted or even considered. In such a case, even warning signs could be ignored or the followers fail to respond effectively to orders, which ultimately leads to the collapse of a regime.
Ethical Issues
Hitler’s leadership can be labeled as one of the most unethical due to all the problems associated with it. The Holocaust remains to be the biggest ethical problem in Hitler’s leadership and this incident hints at the fact that Hitler did not have an ethical responsibility. As a leader, the outcomes of one’s actions should be well thought out before making decisions that could have a historical implication on a certain race. As mentioned earlier, Hitler hated the Jews and Marxists, which means that he would have preferred Germany and Europe without them (Dinning, 2021). political leaders tend to turn against individuals that have facilitated a negative political outcome for a country, especially people who can be labeled traitors. As for Hitler, his perceptions of the Jews were largely personal as opposed to political, which means that the Holocaust was not intended to have any positive implications for the continent. Besides causing deaths, the Holocaust could also be viewed as a misuse of leadership power to pursue personal interests.
The Holocaust may have been facilitated by Hitler and officials serving in his Nazi regime. However, the ethical issues do not end with them considering that the scale of the crime would have required help from countless ordinary individuals. As a regime, it can be argued that Hitler had succeeded in turning races against each other such that even ordinary people participated in the evils (Munson, 2018). It is assumed that leaders are often the main culprits when crimes against humanity are committed. However, these leaders have supporters and followers who believe in their ideology and participate in the vices. This implies that ordinary people became involved and not just because they were coerced or forced or feared execution and concentration camps. Even though ordinary citizens should take as much blame as Hitler and his officials, it can be argued that the overall leadership had created the framework used by the followers to commit the genocide.
An interview by Laurence Rees with Rob Attar reveals that the logic used at the time was that if the Germans killed Jewish adults, then their children will grow to become their avengers. In this case, it can be argued that the regime had created paranoia against the Jews such that failure to kill Jewish children was considered morally wrong since the children will grow up and avenge their parents. Therefore, Hitler and the Nazis made ordinary people believe that killing Jewish children was an act of showing love to their own children (Rees, 2020). Hitler had contaminated the minds of the ordinary people with his propaganda comprising an exaggeration of facts regarding the role played by Jews in the WWI defeat. Regardless of any rationalization, the main ethical problem with Hitler’s leadership was the Holocaust and tricking citizens into believing his lies and participating in the evils.
Another issue that can be found with Hitler’s leadership is that the entire Nazi ideology was unethical. Eugenics and euthanasia are critical components of the Nazi ideology as explained by Grodin et al. (2018). Eugenics can be described as an immoral and scientifically erroneous theory of racial improvement. This ideology emerged from Hitler’s hatred for the Jews, whom he considered to be an inferior race. As such, his leadership practiced eugenics through sterilization of the Jews and other medical and scientific procedures meant to ensure that the more powerful race was not compromised by the inferior one. As such, the medical personnel was among the most Nazified members of the German society since their knowledge and expertise in such practices as sterilization and euthanasia were useful for Hitler’s agenda. The concentration camps could be considered a playground for the medical personnel who bought into Hitler’s ideologies. However, it is important to acknowledge that many doctors were unemployed at the time, and serving in the regime was an attractive proposition.
Eugenics was an unethical policy adopted by Hitler’s leadership considering that this was the foundation on which the Holocaust and other evils were committed. According to Grodin et al. (2018), the genocide committed by the regime involved health practitioners in conceptualizing, initiating, and implementing the mass killings. This observation also supports an earlier argument regarding the involvement of ordinary people in the evils of Hitler’s regime. Euthanasia in medicine is associated with mercy killings. However, the policy of eugenics deployed by Hitler meant that the medical personnel serving Hitler did not necessarily implement or conceptualize euthanasia as it should. In this case, it can be observed that Hitler’s and Nazi’s ideologies were built on racism, offensive warfare, racial extermination, and population expansion. Such events as the Holocaust are majorly the visible outcomes of unethical leadership and the failure of leaders in taking ethical responsibility for their actions.
References
BBC. (2022). What was the Holocaust? BBC.co.uk.
Cherry, K. (2020). Autocratic leadership: Key characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses of autocratic leadership. Verywellmind.
Dinning, R. (2021). Your guide to Adolf Hitler: key facts about the Nazi dictator. History Extra.
Fragouli, E. (2018). The dark-side of charisma and charismatic leadership. The Business and Management Review, 9(4), 298-307.
Grodin, M., Miller, E., & Kelly, J. (2018). The Nazi physicians as leaders in eugenics and “euthanasia”: Lessons for today. The American Journal of Public Health, 108(1), 53-57.
Luqman, R., Fatima, S., Ahmed, S., Khalid, I., & Bhatti, A. (2019). The impact of autocratic leadership style on counterproductive work behavior: The mediating role of employee commitment and moderating role of emotional exhaustion. Pollster Journal of Academic Research, 6(1), 22-47.
Muenjohn, N., McMurray, A., Fernando, M., Hunt, J., Fitzgerld, M., McKenna, B., Intezari, A., Bankins, S., & Waterhouse, J. (2018). Leadership: Regional and global perspectives. Cambridge University Press.
Munson, H. (2018). Christianity, antisemitism, and the Holocaust. Religions, 9(1), 1-15.
Rees, L. (2020). Laurence Rees on the perpetrators of the Holocaust: “What they told us was, at the time, they felt it was the right thing to do”. History Extra.
Sapkota, S. (2020). Adolf Hitler: the leadership according to the Time. Reader Spice.
Wilde, R. (2019). Biography of Adolf Hitler, leader of the Third Reich. ThoughtCo.