Who was the leader of Nazi Germany?

Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany. He became chancellor in 1933 after the Nazi Party’s rise to power and became Germany’s dictator, or Führer, the following year after President Paul von Hindenburg died.

Hitler led the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, commonly called the Nazi Party. His regime dismantled democratic institutions, persecuted political opponents and minorities, and established a racist dictatorship centered on aggressive nationalism, antisemitism, and territorial expansion.

As Germany’s supreme political and military leader during the Second World War, Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland in 1939, an act that triggered war between Germany, Britain, and France. His government also organized the Holocaust, the systematic murder of six million European Jews and millions of other victims.

Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, and Hermann Göring were powerful Nazi officials, but none was Germany’s overall leader. Goebbels controlled propaganda, Himmler led the SS and police apparatus, and Göring was a senior military and political figure. Hitler died by suicide in Berlin on April 30, 1945, shortly before Germany surrendered.