
Adolf Hitler is an almost universally known name but not for good reason. In Kenneth Burke’s “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s “Battle””, Burke breaks down Hitler’s politically charged propaganda book “Mein Kampf” which is a book that outlines Hitler’s struggles with society and his political ideas to bring Germany back from the ashes of World War I, and Hitler’s rise to political power in Germany. Burkes analysis takes a different approach than other reviewers of the time due to the fact that he goes into his reading and analyzation with an open mind unlike other reviewers who only seem to bash Hitler. Burke’s close reading and analyzation of the ideas in Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and revealed that Hitler was in fact a political mastermind through his employment of the unification of Germany over a common enemy, Germany’s innate psychological yearning for unity, and his power as a strong new political figure. 

Burke begins his break down of “Mein Kampf” by examining the first step in Hitler’s political plan, this being unity of the German people over a common enemy. Hitler uses literary and historical allusion that go all the way back to ancient Rome and Mecca, Burke elaborates that each political movement must have a geo-political center. But what that political center truly needs is a symbol to look to, something to fear which in turn creates unity among the population, a common enemy, in the middle ages this was the devil. The Jewish population became this symbolic enemy. Hitler uses the Jews as a symbol for everything wrong with the country at the time, he blames them for the downfall of the Germany after World War I. In this situation Berlin was to Rome as the Jews were to the devil. This simple analogy, this simple connection, was one of the key building blocks for Hitler’s political platform. Hitler begins to gain more traction and what seems to be credibility among the German people. Once the German population begin to accept Hitler’s views and his scapegoat the gears begin to truly turn for his political machine. Hitler begins to twist and contort all political problems into a finger that pointed right back to the Jewish population. No matter what happened Hitler managed to turn things into a political statement that bashed the Jews and uplifted himself and his Aryan super race. Burke examines the many symbols Hitler employs throughout his book including the tainting of pure Aryan blood by the Jew which symbolizes a literal infection and spread of Jewish blood but it also symbolizes the figurative tainting of politics with Jewish ideas. Burke dives into this idea when he says “So, we have, as unifying step No. 1, the international devil materialized, in the visible, point-to-able form of people with a certain kind of ‘blood’…”  Hitler believes that due to the Jews intertwining with the German population the system of government and the country itself has been tainted, in Hitler’s eyes the Jews muddled the pure blood of his beloved country. This unity over a common enemy was not something that the German population saw coming but it is something that the people of Germany needed, the Germans needed unity to get back on their feet. 

The next major step in Hitler’s plan for political triumph was to exploit Germany’s need for unity. Burke analyzes the class difference between the German population and the unrest it caused for its citizens. Hitler was the catalyst that helped bring together the people of Germany though his new radical ideas and political views. Hitler in a way was a symbol for hope for the German people, he was the man they needed in order to unify again. Hitler’s rise to power was a long process but much of the German population looked to him for leadership and a brighter future. Hitler played on the humans basic psychological need for community and belonging to further his political agenda. On the topic of unity as a country Burke says that “As a whole, and at all times, the efficiency of the truly national leader consists primarily in preventing the division of a people, and always in concentrating it on a single enemy.” (Burke) Hitler was the “truly national leader” that the country needed at the time he was the symbol they wanted to see in office to represent the German people and bring them back from the devastation of World War I. (Burke) In an attempt to further unify the population Hitler uses more allusions in his writing which reference the bible, a key factor in his psychological campaign. No matter what class you were in, no matter what background, if you were a churchgoer you followed God’s law and through Hitler’s contortion of God’s word he was able to amass more followers and unify them under a single idea that is shared by many and is universal throughout all Christians. This unification under the Christian ideology helped Hitler give the idea that Christians and therefore the Aryan Christians are far superior in every way to the Jews. Psychological manipulation was not the only way Hitler rose to power though, he did have actual effective political ideas and he liked to flex his newly established political muscles to show who really had power.

Hitler was an amazing speaker, but his speeches were important for more reasons than just the content. While the content of his speeches was very well crafted his set up for the events where he did his speaking was also an important component of his rise to power and his becoming a symbol for the Germans. During speeches Hitler was surrounded by personal bodyguards and bouncers who would forcibly remove hecklers from Hitler’s speaking engagements. Burke paraphrased Hitler saying that “He would, he recounts, fill his speech with provocative remarks, whereat his bouncers would promptly swoop down in flying formation, with swinging fists, upon anyone whom these provocative remarks provoked an answer.” This use of visible power further solidified Hitler’s standing with the German people as a symbol himself, but not just as a future for Germany but as a source of power and a leader who actually wanted to get things done and resurrect Germany.

Through Burkes analyzation of Hitler’s rise to power we can pick out clear points in Hitler’s writing which definitely helped him in his rise to power. Hitler’s constant use of symbols throughout his writing and political campaign made it easier for the German population to identify the problems in their society that supposedly were there but they were in fact created by Hitler himself as a scare tactic and as a scapegoat for all of Germany’s problems. Hitler used the Jewish population as a symbol of pure evil to create a common enemy of the German people. He built himself up as a symbol for hope for the German people through his psychological unification campaign which brought together the people of his nation. Hitler turned his new political power into actual power by using violence to remove hecklers from his speeches helping establish himself as a symbol for power, not just a symbol for hope. Throughout Hitler’s political campaign his use of symbols was very apparent and very smart. Symbols are easy to understand when presented in the correct format, while they may not be completely obvious to the regular person subconsciously they are seen, whether the symbols are symbols of evil, symbols of hope, or symbols of power, symbols were exactly what Germany needed at the time and that is what Hitler provided. 
