Rhetorical Analysis of Mein Kampf - 2nd Draft

In September of 1935 the Nuremberg laws were issued not only excluding the Jewish people from public life, but also ripping them off from their German citizenship and the right to marry Germans. Adolf Hitler in “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle), addresses with noticeable anger and contempt, how the Jewish people managed a large string of lies hiding their true intentions of world domination. Although this indictment lacks of a theoretical basis, the tremendous loads of emotions shown throughout the book tries to persuade the audience to hate the Jewish people. Hitler, a warm-blooded believer of the superiority of the Aryan race, combines hate and fear along these lines to substantiate his fight or “struggle” against the Jews and its practices. It becomes evident on the text that the platform used by Hitler to deliver his message is the same one that he criticizes throughout the book.

Adolf opens the text by frightening the reader showing the consequences of a world ruled by the Jew. It pictures this fear with catastrophic sceneries claiming that this had happened thousands of years ago. Feeding the initial scare with baseless arguments, he goes on describing how the doctrine of the Jewish people rests on the natural appeal of masses of believing a big lie to avoid public embarrassment. The once “Führer” continuously fuels the imposed hate and fear onward on the text in a very intense tone to impact the reader.

Using fear to defend his struggle, Hitler uses imagery of mass destruction and disgrace if the Jews accomplish its true intentions of world domination in order to make the reader react to that feeling through its human nature. Adolf excites the nature of survival on the readers by using a large dosage of fear throughout the lines of this book, and just when the reader is frightened enough to let its most basic instincts react, he disqualifies the Jews by calling them “Villains”, “Bastards” and “The Great Master of Lies” citing Arthur Schopenhauer when in fact his thoughts on the Jew were unclear by the time this book was written, and remain on debate nowadays by experts and historians.

Acerbating the injected fear, Adolf warms up the sentiment of hate on the reader pointing out the lies used by the Jew through his path to world domination. He structures this hate on cause and effect making suggestions like “Since the Jew is not the attacked but the attacker, not only anyone who attacks passes as his enemy, but also anyone who resists him.”, meaning that he who is not fighting against the Jew will be destroyed consequently. The mixture of hate and fear at this point is meant to appeal to the natural reaction of survival. Hitler’s continuous discredit towards the Jew runs along these lines on the backstage orchestrating endless lines of arguments finely articulated to nurture the reader’s abhorrence to the Jews. He makes genetic references and treat the Jew with evident disgust “With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people”. This use of imagery infuses contempt on the reader and fuels the dangerous mixture of fear and hate already present on the reader.

In the best interest of obtaining an emotional reaction on the audience, Adolf vaguely gives credibility to the text; a very fragile quote on Schopenhauer is about the only attempt to somehow support the content. He also tries to support his struggle by stating “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord”. This powerful yet senseless quotation, unveils Hitler’s persona in the text: He consider himself the one and only fighter, the ultimate warrior, in the defense of the volition of God. Despite of the lack of a credible source that supports his claims, Adolf utilized a perfect blend of feelings, sentiments and persona to impact the audience and persuade it to follow his ideas and extremist principle.