Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the Nazi Party. He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. Hitler was at the centre of Nazi Germany, World War II in Europe, and the Holocaust.

In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état in Munich, known as the Beer Hall Putsch. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism.

Hitler's aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe. To this end, his foreign and domestic policies had the aim of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for the Germanic people. He directed the rearmament of Germany and the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht in September 1939, resulting in the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Under Hitler's rule, in 1941 German forces and their European allies occupied most of Europe and North Africa. In 1943, Germany was forced onto the defensive and suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time partner, Eva Braun. On 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two committed suicide to avoid capture by the Red Army, and their corpses were burned. (Wikipedia)

Charlie Chaplin as Adenoid Hynkel, a thinly veiled satirical portrait of Adolf Hitler in the classic comedy The Great Dictator (1940). The film also starred Paulette Goddard and was nominated for 5 Oscars including Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Actor (Chaplin).

Citizen Kane (1941) was probably the first Hollywood film to feature an actor playing Adolf Hitler, Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane appearing briefly with Hitler, played by Carl Ekberg, in the opening "News on the March" segment.

Carl Ekberg again playing Hitler in the thriller Man Hunt (1941) directed by Fritz Lang and starring Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett and George Sanders.

Tom Dugan impersonating Der Fuhrer in the classic comedy To Be or Not To Be (1942) directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Carole Lombard, Jack Benny and Robert Stack.

Hitler makes an appearance in Walt Disney's animated short Reason and Emotion (1943) which received an Oscar nomination for Best Cartoon Short.

James Mason as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and Luther Adler as Adolf Hitler in The Desert Fox (1951) directed by Henry Hathaway and also starring Jessica Tandy and Cedric Hardwicke.

Richard Basehart as Adolf in the drama Hitler! (1962) directed by Stuart Heisler.

Rolf Stiefel as the Fuhrer in the WWII epic Battle of Britain (1969) directed by Guy Hamilton and featuring an all-star cast.

The great Alec Guinness in one of his most acclaimed roles, Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973) directed by Ennio De Concini and also starring Simon Ward and Diane Cilento.

Frank Finlay in the TV movie The Death of Adolf Hitler (1973) directed by Rex Firkin.

The Bunker (1981) a TV movie directed by George Schaefer and starring Anthony Hopkins as Adolf, also starring Richard Jordan and Piper Laurie. Hopkins won an Emmy for his performance. 150mins.

"All I want is peace. Peace! Peace! A little piece of Poland, a little piece of France..." Mel Brooks impersonating Hitler in To Be or Not To Be (1983) a remake of the 1942 film of the same name. The comedy was directed by Alan Johnson and also starred Anne Bancroft, Christopher Lloyd, Charles Durning and Jose Ferrer.

Steven Berkoff as Adolf in the epic 12-part mini-series War and Remembrance (1988) directed by Dan Curtis and starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Seymour.

Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones disguised as a Nazi bumps into Hitler, played by Michael Sheard, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Directed by Steven Spielberg and also starring Sean Connery (as Indy's father), Denholm Elliott, John Rhys-Davies and Alison Doody.

Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003) a TV movie directed by Christian Duguay and starring Robert Carlyle as Hitler, with Stockard Channing, Matthew Modine and Liev Schreiber.

Bruno Ganz as Hitler in the critically acclaimed German film, Downfall (2004) directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and also starring Alexandra Maria Lara. Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.

"Nein! Nein! Nein!" Martin Wuttke as an irate Hitler in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009) which stars Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent and Christoph Waltz who received an Oscar Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay.