Adolf von Henselt

Adolf von Henselt , 1814-89, German pianist and composer. One of the most brilliant performers of his time, he gave up his concert career in 1838 to become court pianist and teacher in St. Petersburg. He composed a concerto, salon pieces, and studies for the piano.

Hildebrand, Adolf von (1847–1921). German sculptor and writer on art. He spent much of his career in Italy and is regarded as one of his period's main upholders of the classical tradition in sculpture. His most characteristic works were nude figures—timeless and rather austere, in the high-minded spirit of Greek art—although he also made several large monuments, including a statue of Johannes Brahms in Meiningen (1898) and an equestrian statue of Bismarck in Bremen (1907–10). These are both in bronze, but he also worked a good deal in stone. He is now, however, better known for his treatise Das Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst (1893) than for his highly accomplished but rather bland sculpture. The book went through many editions (an English translation, The Problem of Form in Painting and Sculpture, was published in 1907) and it was influential in promoting a move against surface naturalism in sculpture in favour of clarity of form. Later his work was adopted as one of the models for the pseudo-classical sculpture typical of National Socialist art.

Hitler, Adolf (1889–1945) German dictator. He was born in Austria, the son of Alois Hitler and his wife Klara Poelzl. He volunteered for the Bavarian army at the start of World War I, becoming a corporal. After demobilization he joined a small nationalist group, the German Workers' Party, which later became the National Socialist German Workers (or NAZI) Party. In Vienna, he had imbibed the prevailing ANTI-SEMITISM and this, with tirades against the VERSAILLES PEACE SETTLEMENT and against Marxism, he used as a basis for his oratory in winning over a Germany humiliated by defeat. In 1921 he became leader of the Nazis and in 1923 staged an abortive uprising, the Munich ‘beer-hall putsch’. During the months shared in prison with Rudolph HESS he dictated Mein Kampf, a political manifesto in which he spelt out Germany's need to rearm, strive for economic self-sufficiency, suppress trade unionism and communism, and exterminate its Jewish minority. The Great DEPRESSION beginning in 1929 brought him a flood of adherents. After the failure of three successive Chancellors, President HINDENBURG reluctantly appointed Hitler head of the government (1933). As a result of the REICHSTAG fire, Hitler established his one-party dictatorship, and the following year eliminated his rivals in the NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES. On the death of Hindenburg he assumed the title of President and ‘Führer of the German Reich’. He began rearmament in contravention of the Versailles Treaty, re-occupied the Rhineland in 1936, and took the first steps in his intended expansion of his THIRD REICH: the ANSCHLUSS with Austria in 1938 and the piecemeal acquisition of Czechoslovakia, beginning with the SUDETENLAND. He concluded the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact with Stalin in order to invade Poland, but broke this when he attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941. His invasion of Poland had precipitated WORLD WAR II. Against the advice of his military experts he pursued ‘intuitive’ tactics and at first won massive victories; in 1941 he took direct military control of the armed forces. As the tide of war turned against him, he intensified the mass assassination that culminated in the Jewish HOLOCAUST. He escaped the July Plot to kill him (see STAUFFENBERG, CLAUS GRAF VON), and undertook a vicious purge of all involved. In 1945, as the Soviet army entered Berlin, he went through a marriage ceremony with his mistress, Eva Braun, with whom he committed suicide.