Today in History: Nazi Dictator Adolf Hitler was born in 1889

He was born April 20,1889, Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary. He was a German politician and the leader of the Nazi party. He rose to power as Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and later Führer in 1934. During his dictatorship from 1933 to 1945, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland in September 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust. In 1924, while in prison for high treason, Hitler began writing what would later be considered one of the world's most dangerous books - Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"). Hitler was a teetotaler, nonsmoker, and vegetarian. Hitler favored the idealized work of Classical Greece and Rome, but was highly critical of contemporary movements such as Impressionism, Cubism, and Dada. On April 30, 1945, with the war lost and Soviet troops advancing, Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin, shooting himself.