The power of propaganda is often over looked, and those who manipulate and utilize its strength can make even the most absurd and repelling thought seem appealing. Adolf Hitler was one such man as he stated that, “The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan” On the contrary, Mein Kampf was initially available in two rather large volumes.
Until January 30, 1933, the total sales of the book in Germany amounted to just 287,000 copies, which to a certain degree justifies that there was a “Nichtbeachtung” (ignoring) or “Nichtvertrautheit” (unfamiliarity) with the book before Hitler’s actual rise to power. (3) After that, the sale numbers rose dramatically, reaching almost ten million books sold. (4) But while people might not have read this book, thousands of them certainly listened voluntarily, or were obliged to listen, to his many inflammatory and hateful speeches.
They often contained verbatim sections out of Mein Kampf so that people were confronted with its absurd goals whether they liked it or not. Hitler’s rhetorical “art” as an author and as a speaker was evident in the way he used metaphorical expressions from conversational speech in order to clarify or extend more abstract arguments or ideas. Quite often Hitler uses so-called twin-formulas whose alliteration, rhyme, formulaic structure, and metaphors add expressive color and emotion to his otherwise lengthy sentences and paragraphs.
Hitler had an aggressive style of writing based on folk speech, and it becomes clear that he uses the twin formulas in particular to characterize or embarrass his political enemies. He declares enemies of the movement to be “Neunmalkluge” (smart alecks), when he writes,”The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses. The fact that our smart alecks do not understand this merely shows how mentally lazy and conceited they are,” (180).
He also calls them “Angsthasen” (chicken-hearted); “For the cursing and ‘beefing’ you could hear at the front were never an incitement to shirk duty or a glorification of the chicken-hearted. No! The coward still passed as a coward and as nothing else” (192). Opposers were “the type of lazybones who could perfectly well think, but from sheer mental laziness seizes gratefully on everything that someone else has thought, with the modest assumption that the someone else has exerted himself considerably” (241), and he believed that “only a bourgeois ‘einfaltspinsel’ (blockhead) is capable of imagining that Bolshevism has been exorcised” (661).
In Mein Kampf Hitler already knows everything better than anybody else. Whoever attempts to argue against him is quickly brushed aside as being incapable, or stupid. It should not be surprising that Hitler also makes frequent use of other formulaic phrases which date from the warfare of the Middle Ages or the military in general. After all, there is a reason for this book’s being called “Mein Kampf” or “My Battle”, and such proverbial phrases as “gegen jdn.
Sturm laufen” (to be up in arms against), “Since the Social Democrats best know the value of force from their own experience, they are most up in arms against those in whose nature they detect any of this substance which is so rare” (43); “auf Leben und Tod” (for life and death), “For me (Hitler), to be sure, these incidents had the virtue that the squad of my loyal followers came to feel really attached to me, and was soon sworn for life and death by my side” (558); and “bei der Stange halten” (to stick to one’s guns), “The enormous propaganda which had made the British people persevere and stick to their guns in this war, which recklessly incited them and stirred up all their deepest instincts and passions, now inevitably weighed like lead on the decisions of British statesmen” (616).
Hitler also writes “jdn. us dem Felde schlagen” (to drive someone from the field of battle), “And so he (jews) inevitably drives every competitor in this sphere from the field in a short time” (322). The National Socialists were “die Lunte ans Pulverfa legen”, “like a powder barrel that could blow up at any moment, with a burning fuse placed already under it” (484). All of these terms fit splendidly into Hitler’s description of the battle for power of the National Socialists. Hitler also had a militaristic interpretation of the rather philosophical Hamlet-quotation “Sein oder Nichtsein” (to be or not to be). This sententious remark turned proverb appears six times in Mein Kampf, and Hitler also used it repeatedly in his speeches, especially in his proclamations of the “Endkampf” (final battle) during 1944 and 1945.
At the end of the Thousand Year Reich, Hitler was concerned only with the struggle over life or death of the German people: “It is our duty to inform all weaklings that this is a question of to be or not to be” (44), “A fight for freedom had begun, and this time not the fate of Serbia or Austria was involved, but whether the German nation was to be or not to be” (161), “For me it was not that Austria was fighting for some Serbian satisfaction, but that Germany was fighting for her existence, the German nation for to be or not to be, for freedom and future” (162), “Just as the Republic today can dissolve parties, this method should have been used at that time, with more reason.
For to be or not to be of a whole nation was at stake” (169-170), “When the nations of this planet fight for existence – when the question of destiny, ‘to be or not to be,’ cries out for a solution – then all considerations of humanitarianism or aesthetics crumble into nothingness (177), and “… the whole attention of a people must be focused and concentrated on this one question [the sin against blood and race], as though to be or not to be depended on its solution” (249). Hitler had a special liking for the classical proverb “Mens sana in corpore sano”, which appears in Mein Kampf three times in its German translation of “Ein gesunder Geist in einem gesunden Krper” (A healthy mind in a healthy body).
As the following example will show, even this proverb was rather perversely put into the service of Hitler’s racist plans. The way he makes use of this classical health ideal can only be described as absurd. In the first part of the book Hitler writes, “Above all, in our present education a balance must be created between mental instruction and physical training. The institution that is called a Gymnasium today is a mockery of the Greek model. In our educational system it has been utterly forgotten that in the long run a healthy mind can dwell only in a healthy body. Especially if we bear in mind the mass of the people, aside from a few exceptions, this statement becomes absolutely valid” (253).
Barely two hundred pages later, Hitler returns to this proverb, but there he manipulates it in an even more obviously. Hitler speaks no longer of a balance between the mind and the body, but he clearly prefers the “krperliche Ertchtigung” (physical training) or “krperliche Gesundheit” (physical health) over the mind or intellect. The Greek ideal is lost, as the proverb is used to help justify Hitler’s powerful racial politics; “And as in general the precondition for spiritual achievement lies in the racial quality of the human material at hand, education in particular must first of all consider and promote physical health; for taken in the mass, a healthy, forceful spirit will be found only in a healthy and forceful body.
The fact that geniuses are sometimes physically not very fit, or actually sick, is no argument against this. Here we have to do with exceptions which – as everywhere – only confirm the rule” (407-408). Hitler’s Mein Kampf is not so much an autobiography but in large parts rather “the typical life experience and the current ideological clichs of the collective social experience”. These language clichs reach from stereotypes to crude expressions in the form of slogans and curses. Hitler’s book was quoted plenty of times by teachers in schools which quickly became Nazified. Hitler’s slogans from this book appeared on posters, in headlines, and on the radio, and they even wound up as sententious remarks in the “Bchmann” book of German quotations.
There is no way to deny the effectiveness of this book. It found its readers one way or the other, just as Hitler lured people in droves to listen to his speeches. The printed book helped Hitler to gain ultimate power,(5) and his manipulative and shrewd misuse of folk speech with its proverbs and proverbial expressions played an important role in this process. The power of propaganda is often over looked, and those who manipulate and utilize its strength can make even the most absurd and repelling thought seem appealing. Adolf Hitler was one such man as he stated that, “The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous.
In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan” On the contrary, Mein Kampf was initially available in two rather large volumes. Until January 30, 1933, the total sales of the book in Germany amounted to just 287,000 copies, which to a certain degree justifies that there was a “Nichtbeachtung” (ignoring) or “Nichtvertrautheit” (unfamiliarity) with the book before Hitler’s actual rise to power. (3) After that, the sale numbers rose dramatically, reaching almost ten million books sold. 4)
But while people might not have read this book, thousands of them certainly listened voluntarily, or were obliged to listen, to his many inflammatory and hateful speeches. They often contained verbatim sections out of Mein Kampf so that people were confronted with its absurd goals whether they liked it or not. Hitler’s rhetorical “art” as an author and as a speaker was evident in the way he used metaphorical expressions from conversational speech in order to clarify or extend more abstract arguments or ideas. Quite often Hitler uses so-called twin-formulas whose alliteration, rhyme, formulaic structure, and metaphors add expressive color and emotion to his otherwise lengthy sentences and paragraphs.
Hitler had an aggressive style of writing based on folk speech, and it becomes clear that he uses the twin formulas in particular to characterize or embarrass his political enemies. He declares enemies of the movement to be “Neunmalkluge” (smart alecks), when he writes,”The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses. The fact that our smart alecks do not understand this merely shows how mentally lazy and conceited they are,” (180). He also calls them “Angsthasen” (chicken-hearted); “For the cursing and ‘beefing’ you could hear at the front were never an incitement to shirk duty or a glorification of the chicken-hearted. No! The coward still passed as a coward and as nothing else” (192).
Opposers were “the type of lazybones who could perfectly well think, but from sheer mental laziness seizes gratefully on everything that someone else has thought, with the modest assumption that the someone else has exerted himself considerably” (241), and he believed that “only a bourgeois ‘einfaltspinsel’ (blockhead) is capable of imagining that Bolshevism has been exorcised” (661). In Mein Kampf Hitler already knows everything better than anybody else. Whoever attempts to argue against him is quickly brushed aside as being incapable, or stupid. It should not be surprising that Hitler also makes frequent use of other formulaic phrases which date from the warfare of the Middle Ages or the military in general. After all, there is a reason for this book’s being called “Mein Kampf” or “My Battle”, and such proverbial phrases as “gegen jdn.
Sturm laufen” (to be up in arms against), “Since the Social Democrats best know the value of force from their own experience, they are most up in arms against those in whose nature they detect any of this substance which is so rare” (43); “auf Leben und Tod” (for life and death), “For me (Hitler), to be sure, these incidents had the virtue that the squad of my loyal followers came to feel really attached to me, and was soon sworn for life and death by my side” (558); and “bei der Stange halten” (to stick to one’s guns), “The enormous propaganda which had made the British people persevere and stick to their guns in this war, which recklessly incited them and stirred up all their deepest instincts and passions, now inevitably weighed like lead on the decisions of British statesmen” (616).
Hitler also writes “jdn. us dem Felde schlagen” (to drive someone from the field of battle), “And so he (jews) inevitably drives every competitor in this sphere from the field in a short time” (322). The National Socialists were “die Lunte ans Pulverfa legen”, “like a powder barrel that could blow up at any moment, with a burning fuse placed already under it” (484). All of these terms fit splendidly into Hitler’s description of the battle for power of the National Socialists. Hitler also had a militaristic interpretation of the rather philosophical Hamlet-quotation “Sein oder Nichtsein” (to be or not to be). This sententious remark turned proverb appears six times in Mein Kampf, and Hitler also used it repeatedly in his speeches, especially in his proclamations of the “Endkampf” (final battle) during 1944 and 1945.
At the end of the Thousand Year Reich, Hitler was concerned only with the struggle over life or death of the German people: “It is our duty to inform all weaklings that this is a question of to be or not to be” (44), “A fight for freedom had begun, and this time not the fate of Serbia or Austria was involved, but whether the German nation was to be or not to be” (161), “For me it was not that Austria was fighting for some Serbian satisfaction, but that Germany was fighting for her existence, the German nation for to be or not to be, for freedom and future” (162), “Just as the Republic today can dissolve parties, this method should have been used at that time, with more reason.
For to be or not to be of a whole nation was at stake” (169-170), “When the nations of this planet fight for existence – when the question of destiny, ‘to be or not to be,’ cries out for a solution – then all considerations of humanitarianism or aesthetics crumble into nothingness (177), and “… he whole attention of a people must be focused and concentrated on this one question [the sin against blood and race], as though to be or not to be depended on its solution” (249). Hitler had a special liking for the classical proverb “Mens sana in corpore sano”, which appears in Mein Kampf three times in its German translation of “Ein gesunder Geist in einem gesunden Krper” (A healthy mind in a healthy body). As the following example will show, even this proverb was rather perversely put into the service of Hitler’s racist plans. The way he makes use of this classical health ideal can only be described as absurd. In the first part of the book Hitler writes, “Above all, in our present education a balance must be created between mental instruction and physical training.
The institution that is called a Gymnasium today is a mockery of the Greek model. In our educational system it has been utterly forgotten that in the long run a healthy mind can dwell only in a healthy body. Especially if we bear in mind the mass of the people, aside from a few exceptions, this statement becomes absolutely valid” (253). Barely two hundred pages later, Hitler returns to this proverb, but there he manipulates it in an even more obviously. Hitler speaks no longer of a balance between the mind and the body, but he clearly prefers the “krperliche Ertchtigung” (physical training) or “krperliche Gesundheit” (physical health) over the mind or intellect.
The Greek ideal is lost, as the proverb is used to help justify Hitler’s powerful racial politics; “And as in general the precondition for spiritual achievement lies in the racial quality of the human material at hand, education in particular must first of all consider and promote physical health; for taken in the mass, a healthy, forceful spirit will be found only in a healthy and forceful body. The fact that geniuses are sometimes physically not very fit, or actually sick, is no argument against this. Here we have to do with exceptions which – as everywhere – only confirm the rule” (407-408). Hitler’s Mein Kampf is not so much an autobiography but in large parts rather “the typical life experience and the current ideological clichs of the collective social experience”.
These language clichs reach from stereotypes to crude expressions in the form of slogans and curses. Hitler’s book was quoted plenty of times by teachers in schools which quickly became Nazified. Hitler’s slogans from this book appeared on posters, in headlines, and on the radio, and they even wound up as sententious remarks in the “Bchmann” book of German quotations. There is no way to deny the effectiveness of this book. It found its readers one way or the other, just as Hitler lured people in droves to listen to his speeches. The printed book helped Hitler to gain ultimate power,(5) and his manipulative and shrewd misuse of folk speech with its proverbs and proverbial expressions played an important role in this process.
