THE RISE OF HITLER

Hitler in World War I - 1914-1918

Hitler moved to Munich, Germany in May 1913. He did so to avoid arrest for evasion of his military service obligation to Habsburg Austria and financed by the last installment of his inheritance from his father. In Munich, he continued to drift, supporting himself on his watercolors and sketches until World War I gave his life direction and a cause to which he could commit himself totally. By all surviving accounts, Hitler was a brave soldier: he was promoted to the rank of Corporal, was wounded twice (in 1916 and 1918) and was awarded several medals.

Though reportedly not given to lengthy political discourses at this time, Hitler appeared to have been carried along by an increasingly vicious political anti-Semitism promulgated by the radical right and seeping into the military hierarchy during the last two years of the war.

In October 1918, Hitler was partially blinded in a mustard gas attack near Ypres in Belgium. He was sent to the military hospital, where the news of the November 11, 1918, armistice reached him as he was convalescing.