Adolf Hitler was born in the small provincial town of Braunau on the Inn River in the most westerly part of the Austrian Empire, the Viertelwald. Ten days after his 56th birthday, he committed suicide in the Führerbunker deep under the war-torn streets of Berlin. A week later, Germany surrendered unconditionally. In the course of his lifetime, he accelerated the pace of historical change more than any other individual in the 20^th century and almost single-handedly willed the coming of the greatest and most destructive war in history.

April 20 will mark the 120^th year of his birth, a day the late Abe Rosenthal of The New York Times called “an evil day” on the occasion of Hitler’s 100^th birthday, oddly the same year as the Berlin Wall opened, the Cold War ended and along with it the epoch of the world wars, the last one, Hitler’s War. 

Hitler and the system he created with the help of ordinary Germans, Hitlerism, still commands our attention and interest more than any other topic, the subject of countless books, plays and films. The Germans have labeled it “The German Wave” and it still has momentum. So many years later, audiences leave films such as Schindler’s List, The Reader, and years ago Judgment at Nurembergwith Spencer Tracy, angry in shock, disbelief and in tears. His monstrous actions still inform debate on contemporary topics, from genocide to abortion, from human rights to our descriptions of absolute evil. Today, as the economy continues to unwind on a global scale, some fear that a Hitler could once again slip through. The destructiveness he unleashed altered the world and how we understand ourselves.

For example, while the United States Civil Rights movement pre-dated the war, it was no coincidence that we started to dismantle segregation after the war ended, first the armed services, later in our schools and in the 1960s our interaction with each other. We have opened our borders to refugees and exiles and have elevated diversity as a common value. The European Union (EU) has also moved in this direction and Germany has one of the most liberal constitutions in Europe. But of all of the people caught in his murderous vice, it has been the Jews who emerged most changed from the trauma of the war. Brought to the doorstep of total extermination, they have pledged “Never Again.”  In May 1948, the Jewish State of Israel was reborn, a national monument to the rebirth of a people. But the Holocaust is never far from the psyche of the Jewish people. It has replaced the Destruction of the Second Temple in August 70 AD as central trauma of this ancient people.

Hitler’s birth date is upon us and the world into which he was born, a world of empires, is long since gone. Those who made him possible are nearly all gone. Today, 87 percent of the German population was born after the war and those who destroyed his Thousand-Year Reich are passing very quickly. Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, 4 million survive and they are dying at an average rate of 2,200 a day. The same is true among the victors and vanquished alike. 

But in so many ways, the high school dropout from Austria, the failed artist who lived in Vienna’s flophouses, the former soldier from the Great War who became a politician who some saw as a loudmouth in a poorly fitting World War I trench coat who later nearly became master of the world, is still with us. Hitler is one of the most recognizable faces in modern history. His monstrous actions transformed the world and we learned that if you are looking for the devil, do not expect him to have horns. April 20, 2009 is an evil day on the one hand; on the other, a morality tale.

As we and much of the world face challenges not seen since the Great Depression, we can reflect on both the nature of evil and remind ourselves never to be seduced by those who promise quick solutions. In his passing, we have learned that the Gates of Hell have to remain sealed or we will once again be taken to collective ruin. Adolf Hitler must be remembered as the man who nearly shattered Western civilization or as one German biographer has written, his “greatness” is to be found in his evil deeds and excess.

-- Sander Diamond, professor of history