In “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle” by Kenneth Burke, he discusses the use of Hitler’s rhetoric, diction, and speeches in his rise to power.  During the 1930s, Hitler rose to power while the German government was very weak.  They had just lost World War One, and the German economy, morale, and government was very weak.  This allowed Hitler to almost be given a seat in the government, and he began to publicly spread his ideas.  As the morale was low and Hitler was a powerful voice, the public began to take to his ideas and support him. In this paper, I will discuss how Hitler used a “common enemy”, inborn dignity, and “symbolic rebirth” to unite the German people (Burke 34, 39).  

Firstly, Hitler uses the idea of a common enemy very effectively in his rhetoric and speeches.  In history, different cultures have used a common enemy to unify themselves together against another separate culture or society.  One of the main goals of Hitler was to unify the German people against the Jews to make Germany a European power again, so implementing a common enemy was very instrumental in this.  As Burke states, “An important ingredient of unity in the Middle Ages (an ingredient that long did its unifying work despite the many factors driving toward disunity) was symbol of a common enemy” (Burke 34).  By saying this, Burke is implying that Hitler is using a tactic from the Middle Ages that got different people to unite together, finding a common enemy.  In finding a common enemy for the German people, Hitler uses religion.  In Hitler’s famous book, Mein Kampf, he builds a strong campaign against the Jews, and even calls them dangerous bacteria (Burke 38).  Mein Kampf was really the start of Hitler’s campaign of propaganda against the Jews.  It was widely popular in Germany, and Hitler used his rhetoric and writing style to make the German people turn against the Jews.  To show the effectiveness of Hitler’s tactic of using religion, Burke says “One terrifically effective weapon of propaganda in a period where religion has been progressively weakened by many centuries of capitalist materialism” (Burke 35).  Hitler uses religion to state to the German people that the Jews are the enemy which is important, but what makes Hitler so effective is that he combines capitalism and religion to stake the Jews as a common enemy against the “superior” Aryans.  Burke discusses how Hitler talks about how the Jews run the stock exchange and economy and basically asks the people why the “inferior Jews” are running the “superior” Aryans’ economy and country (Burke 35).  Hitler creates a distraction from Germany’s real economic problems by unifying the country and the Aryan citizens against the Jews.  He blamed the Jews for Germany’s economic problems constantly, and one of Hitler’s main goals is to pit the middle class against the Jews.  Usually when a country’s economy is bad, the middle class is poor as well, and Hitler basically tells the middle class Aryans that it is the Jews’ fault they are in bad shape (Burke 36).  By doing this, Hitler knew they would boycott Jewish business and other establishments, thus pitting the majority of German citizens against the Jews and starting his “Final Solution”.  

Overall, Hitler used four main rhetorical devices to unify the German people against the Jews.  These devices were inborn dignity, projection device, symbolic rebirth, and commercial use.  Hitler uses the “inborn dignity” of the Aryan race as propaganda against the Jews as well.  He does this in a sense “build up” the Aryan Germans by telling them they are better than the Jews, Blacks, Catholics, etc.  For this rhetoric to work, there must be prejudices that already exist, but Hitler drives these existing prejudices to greater levels in the German society (Burke 41).  Burke demonstrates this when he says “Hitler gives…an ominous twist by his theories of race and nations, whereby the ‘Aryan’ is elevated above all others by the innate endowment of his blood, while other races, in particular Jews and Negroes, are innately inferior” (Burke 39).  Hitler would talk about how these “inferior races” were taking away the dignity of the “inferior” Aryans by ruining the country and the economy.  Hitler used the fact that Germany had just lost World War One very beneficially for his purposes.  He told the people that their dignity had been taken since they lost the war, and they had to regain their dignity by “retaking” their country from the “evil” Jews.  In order to get the economy stronger, Hitler implemented this dignity into the German citizens, because “you cannot possibly derive dignity from economic stability. Dignity must come first-and if you possess it, and implement it, from it may follow from its economic counterpart” (Burke 41).  If the economy is stable and everything is in order, there would be no need for a rise in nationalism or inborn dignity for the German people, so Hitler used the decrepit state of Germany greatly to his advantage in persuading the people to follow him.  This is why the aspect of an inborn dignity inside the German people was very essential to Hitler’s campaign and propaganda against the Jews, something that he used very effectively.

Another rhetoric that was very important and essential in Hitler’s rise to power was symbolic rebirth.  In this process, he uses the Jews as a scapegoat for Germany’s problems, which parallels with inborn dignity.  Burke says “the Hitlerite doctrine of inborn racial superiority, provides its followers with a ‘positive’ view of life” (Burke 40).  Hitler uses this rhetoric to provide the German people with a feeling of a better society and way of life.  He promotes the idea of a German, Utopian society.  In this case, Hitler makes the case that this society will be only consisted of Aryans, which again brings him back to his point of a superior race.  He uses this against the Jews by “renouncing the ‘ancestry’ and ‘materialistic’ way by voting himself and members of his lodge a different ‘blood stream’ from that of the Jews” (Burke 40).  In this rhetoric, eliminating the Jews is “made ok” by the aspect of rebirth.  As well as the extermination of the Jews, Hitler uses this tactic to justify invading other countries.  He makes the case to the German people that the area is rightfully theirs, and in order to have a utopian society they deserve to have this land back.  Again, Hitler uses this idea of symbolic rebirth as a way of turning the German people against the Jews.  

Through these aspects as well as others, Burke shows how Hitler came into power and gained the support of the German people.  He used the implementation of a common enemy, inborn dignity, symbolic rebirth, as well as the theme of unity to “unite” the German people with him.  It was a very sinister tactic, but Hitler used it to perfection to get his ideals and plans across.  
