adolf hitler - Adolf Hitler (help·info) (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) was Chancellor of Germany from 1933, and 'Führer' (leader) of Germany from 1934 until his death. He was leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), better known as the Nazi Party. Hitler gained power in a Germany facing crisis after World War I. Using propaganda and charismatic oratory, he was able to appeal to the economic need of the lower and middle classes, while sounding resonant chords of nationalism, anti-Semitism and anti-communism. With the establishment of a restructured economy, a rearmed military, and a totalitarian fascist dictatorship, Hitler pursued an aggressive foreign policy with the intention of expanding German Lebensraum ('living space'), which triggered World War II when Germany invaded Poland. At the height of its power, Nazi Germany occupied most of Europe, but it and the Axis Powers were eventually defeated by the Allies. By then, Hitler's racial policies had culminated in a genocide of approximately eleven million people, including about six million Jews, in what is now known as the Holocaust. In the final days of the war, Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin with his newlywed wife, Eva Braun.