World's Worst Dictators

Adolf Hitler:

Hitler was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. He was at the centre of the founding of Nazism, the start of World War II, and the Holocaust.

A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the dictatorial and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German supremacy in continental Europe. He directed the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht in September 1939, leading to the outbreak of World War II in Europe. His supremacist and racially motivated policies resulted in the systematic murder of eleven million people, including an estimated six million Jews. On 30 April 1945, he committed suicide to avoid capture by the Red Army.