The Narrator in “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s ‘Battle’” by Kenneth Burke, shows how well engineered “Mein Kampf” was in regards to how well it brought a large portion of Germany together during a time of despair. As a quick history lesson for the uninitiated, Adolf Hitler was imprisoned in Germany after he attempted to overthrow the government in Munich, De. During his imprisonment he wrote a book called “Mein Kampf”, or translated, my struggle. In this book he wrote of how the government was misrepresenting the true German people and how it was the Jewish people’s fault for their economic struggle. This carefully engineered book managed to capture the thoughts of the majority of Germany while, but limiting itself to only the Germans, no other citizens were brainwashed quite the same. 

From the very beginning, the ‘first stage’ of brainwashing can be seen the use of “Nazi Magic”, as described by the narrator, to get the German people to come together and join his movement despite its various flaws. This “Nazi Magic” starts with “the geo-political importance of the center of a movement.” (Burke 34) The idea stemmed from Rome and Mecca being the foundation and roots of massive movements. These roots gave an almost logical reason to believe the Nazis and was the make or break for the strategical brainwash.  Hitler decided that Munich would be his Rome and began his campaign to power.  As with Rome, He believed that all roads should lead to the center of the movement and that any government work must also pass through this hypothetical foundation. 

The next point of order was to get the German people to become unified. For this, as the narrator explains, Hitler looked back to the middle ages where European nations became unified only over a common enemy. This common enemy, he decided, would be the Jewish people. In England, where the narrator lives, it is argued that the main reason they are not unified, and therefore are saved from Nazism, is because the English couldn’t come together over the many prejustices depicted in “Mein Kampf.” None the less, this idea that the Jewish people were responsible for the economic and political turmoil stuck and managed to convince the German people to come together. 

The narrator illustrates this by showing how Hitler made evidence to support his claim that the Jewish People were at fault. He claimed that it was “Jewish” capitalism that caused all of the economic suffering and only “Aryan” capitalism could restore the country to what it once was. The narrator explained how this was the keystone in forming unity in Germany. 

To better understand and continue this idea of almost brainwashing German citizens, the carful engineering of “Mien Kampf” can be seen with how Hitler told the people the parliament of Germany is misrepresenting them. He explains how the government is inherently bias and sometimes opposed each other, and other times would kind of agree but would rarely agree on things. This was his primary argument when he began to obtain power in the government. The narrator of the essay regrettably informs us that this continues his rise in popularity.

The continuous rise is also helped by Hitler’s inclusion of religion in his book. He used an emphasis on a person being an actual person rather than just an entity in the environment. He then used this idea of an individual person to give a non-economic cause for the economic problems. He had used Vienna as a laboratory for this idea of cultural idea causing economic problems rather than an actual economic turmoil. 

Despite the similar economic situation in England, the people managed to keep their moral compass in check and did not give in to most of the Nazi ideas. This being said, if you look at actual history, much of the world thought what Hitler was doing, economically was very good and they were simply turning a blind eye towards the Nazis treatment of the Jewish people. By creating all of this unity described by the narrator, he turned his entire country around and made Germany economically important again. 

The narrator also points out the rather brilliant idea of “selling” his ideology to financial bakers. He did this by giving non-economic reasons for the economic problems in an effort to hide the actual problems. He continued to get the citizens to mistrust the Jewish People and blame all problems on them. Never once throughout all of this does Hitler deviate from his idea that the “Aryan race” and their ways can solve all the problems that the Jewish people had caused. 

At the end of the essay, the narrator points out the when everyone was in unity against the Jewish people, Hitler had come to his ultimate power. Once there, he began ignoring the requests of his people and tells them that their sacrifice of having little food or being drafted for war was for the greater good of the people. However, desperate times called for desperate measures for the German people.  

This was the only reason Hitler made it so far, the German people were so vulnerable and desperate for change. Tables turned when the British, and many other allied powers, found unity through a common enemy, Hitler. The idea that unity can be found by being anti-Hitler together was the “winning idea” of World War I thus aiding in the allied victory. The same idea that made the Germans so susceptible to “Mein Kampf” also lead to nearly half the world coming together to victory.  