I mentioned elsewhere that, after years of avoiding it, I decided I should teach a course about racism. I was hesitant because I think there are too damn many white people telling non-white people about their experiences. I decided to teach it when I realized my goal wasn’t telling non-white people about their experiences, but about trying to get people currently on the winning side of institutional racism to understand why and how we’re winning, and how to talk to other people of privilege about racism without falling into the thoroughly useless slough of white liberal guilt.
My area of scholarly interest (sometimes I say “expertise,” but I really shouldn’t, since there is no way to be an expert on this) is train wrecks in public deliberation (aka, pathologies of deliberation). Cases that I thought would be really different turned out to be very similar: evasion of policy argumentation in favor of factionalized zero-sum thinking; the reduction of the varied array of available policy options to This Policy or Doing Nothing; the assumption that the course of action is obvious, and motivistic dismissals of anyone who criticized This Policy, or even wanted time to think (they’re on the side of the enemy, they want us to do nothing, they’re cowards, they’re effeminate); faith in The Will, so that a plan is completely impractical is irrelevant because Real Americans (Athenians, Germans, Whatevs) who beleeeeeve enough can make it happen (meaning political discourse is now reduced to the scene in Peter Pan when the audience claps enough to make Tinkerbell shine again); and, well, a lot of other things.
Those things (scholars of rhetoric would call them topoi) show up in all sorts of places. I’ve listened to people appeal to the “if we commit with full will to this plan it must succeed” topos in gatherings of political groups, MLA Delegate Assembly meetings, far too many State of the Unions or political speeches generally, Sunday school, faculty meetings, Fourth of July speeches, homeowner association meetings, even a random guy who stopped to talk to me while I was weeding appealed to it. It’s in self-help rhetoric, pickup artist rhetoric, the entire world of make money fast, any incarnation of prosperity gospel, weight-loss ads, and far too much discourse about politics.
My goal in teaching, like my goal in scholarship, came to be to persuade people that what matters about what people argue is what it means for how they think about political argument. And, it’s pretty clear that certain topoi are consistently problematic, such as the “if you have enough will” topos.
It’s hard for people to see the problems with many of the most consistently disastrous topoi since it often took years before the disastrous outcome happened. (And, as with the slaver state commitment to slavery, when their commitment turned out to be disastrous, they just pretended they’d never had it—a not uncommon response to profoundly disconfirming evidence.) And even now, many generations later, many descendants of the people who made the disastrous decision to go to war over slavery won’t admit it’s a mistake.
War, famously, has a way of testing theories very quickly: no battle plan ever survives contact with the opposition, and the enemy has a vote. Someone might argue that the CSA was right to go to war to protect slavery and get some supporters, but they’d have a very hard time getting anyone to support the argument that they won that war.
I developed a course, “Deliberating War,” that was an attempt to: 1) complicate students’ understandings of public discourse, especially to disentangle deliberation from compliance-gaining; 2) get them to see some of the patterns about disastrous public decision-making; 3) get students to see that, just because someone says “We have to go to war because otherwise the enemy will destroy us, so this is self-defense” doesn’t mean it is. And, of course, Hitler figured in that course. (Most of that course was about the Peloponnesian War, but that’s a different post.) Hitler also figured in the “Rhetoric and Racism” course I teach. And, consistently, in anonymous end-of-semester evaluations, students said they wanted to know more about Hitler.
I’m not Jewish. I’m not German. I was once translation fluent in German, but I now struggle. So, once again, there is an issue of feeling like an interloper.
Talking about Hitler is always talking about persuasion. And it’s also, interestingly enough, talking about how false models of persuasion mean that people get persuaded.
So, I girded my loins, and created a course on Hitler and Rhetoric. It’s a funny course in a bunch of ways. It gets a huge number of students who sign up, get the syllabus, and then drop. A large number get as far as when the first paper is due, and they drop. It is, fundamentally, a course about the distinction between deliberation and compliance-gaining models of public discourse, and so student papers have to be deliberation. Students are well-trained in papers oriented toward display (as though that is compliance-gaining), and so can be intimidated when you ask for deliberative papers.
My goal in the course was to have students begin with Hitler’s rhetoric, then move to the rhetoric that supported him, and then have the third paper about the Hitler comparison, but that never happened. Here is what did happen.
I explain elsewhere why I write prompts the way I do. Here’s the information I gave students about the papers:
The prompts are designed to get more complicated and more time-consuming as the semester progresses—you’ll need a lot of time just for research for the final paper. I’ve made an effort to come up with topics that are comparable in terms of work and difficulty. Sometimes we can work out other topics, but only if you come talk to me at least two weeks before the paper is due.
Whether or not you do outside research, remember that you have to cite the sources of ideas as well as language–it doesn’t matter if the source is another student, another class, a paper for another course, the Internet, a book, or an article. If you have any questions about how to cite appropriately, or if you are nervous that you are plagiarizing, just write a note in the margin of your paper to that effect. Any handbook tells you how to cite sources, including webpages; papers without appropriate citation will be considered late.
I’ve grouped the assignments on the basis of course readings, but, if you discuss it with me at least one week before the paper is due, you can do an assignment from another part of the course. I just need to make sure that you write on a range of topics, and that your papers remain within an appropriate range of difficulty. If you simply turn a paper in from another part of the course, you can expect icky consequences.
The prompts ask that you apply a concept from rhetoric. You can use anything (other than ethos, pathos, or logos) from Jasinski, and here is a list that is likely to help:
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- any of Burke’s terms from “Rhetoric of Hitler’s ‘Battle’”
- art of masculine victimhood (Johnson)
- the four terms described by O’Shaughnessy (pages 4-5)
- condensation symbols (Jasinski)
- dissociation (the rhetorical concept)/paired terms (it’s rare that you can do one without the other)
- dog whistle politics
- enthymematic reasoning (beginning from common ground)
- identification through transcendence/common ground
- inoculation
- interpellation/constitutive rhetoric
- jeremiad
- prophetic ethos
- rhetoric of survivance (Powell)
- specific or universal topoi
- stock topics (policy argumentation)
- ultimate terms
Some good resources for the papers include:
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- The Domarus collection of Hitler’s speeches and proclamations. Available here.
- This collection of Nazi propaganda
- Here is a link to the official records of speeches in the Reichstag (in German). This is July 13, 1934—for other dates, just use the forward or backward arrows.
Paper One. Use a concept from rhetoric (from Jasinski or the list above—NOT ethos, pathos, or logos) to explain something puzzling about one of these speeches by Hitler:
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- April 12, 1922 speech in Munich
- Something from The New Germany desires Work and Peace (not the March 23 speech)
- “Sportspalast speech” (you can hear it here)
- April 28 1939 speech (coursepack)
- Deliberations with his generals (from Hitler and His Generals: Military Conferences 1942-1945; edited by Helmut Heiber, David M. Glantz) (some is in the coursepack, but a lot of it is really fascinating)
- Invasion of Poland
- February 20, 1933 “Speech to the Industrialists”
- Announcement of the Soviet invasion June 22, 1941
- November 8, 1942 (“Stalingrad speech”)
- November 8, 1943 speech (a recording is here: )
- His “last speech”
For these papers, your audience is other class members, and so the “puzzling” something should be something that you find interesting or weird about the text—that it doesn’t fit your image of Hitler, for instance, or that it seems completely different from other things we’ve read, or that you can’t imagine it being effective, or something along those lines. In class, we’ll go over thesis questions (that is, a statement of the puzzle you’re pursuing) so that we can make sure that you’ve got a manageable topic.
Paper Two
1) Trace out the development (or not) of a specific rhetorical strategy (use Jasinski or the list above—NOT ethos, pathos, or logos) from at least three speeches within a set such as these:
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- Hitler’s speeches about the Soviet Union
- Goebbels’ birthday speeches for/about Hitler
- Hitler’s declarations of war/speeches at the moment of invasion
- Hitler’s speeches about (references to) the United States/FDR
- If you didn’t do this for the first paper, you can write about Hitler’s deliberations with his generals (from Hitler and His Generals: Military Conferences 1942-1945; edited by Helmut Heiber, David M. Glantz)
- If you’d like to do a different set, you need to get written approval from me by 2/27
- Nazi theories of propaganda: in addition to what Hitler says in Mein Kampf, Goebbels’ Knowledge and Propaganda, and Our Battle Against Judah.
2) Or, write about the rhetorical strategy of one of these texts resisting/criticizing Hitler and/or Nazism. Use a concept from Jasinski or the list above (you can also use “rhetoric of survivance”—you can’t use ethos, pathos, or logos).
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- Otto Wels’ March 23, 1933 speech against “The Enabling Act.” This one is harder than it looks, since it’s short. You’ll need to talk a lot about it in the context of Hitler’s speech and the rhetorical situation.
- Various responses to the “Aryan Paragraph” (you’ll need to talk about all of them probably, since they’re all pretty short—you can find them in M. Solberg’s A Church Undone)
- von Papen’s “Marburg Speech” (You’ll find Evans’ discussion of that speech helpful [II; 27-41] and Ullrich
- Clara Zetkin’s 1933 Reichstag speech (if you can find the full text in English, or can read German)
- July 2017 speech by the President of France
- Thomas Mann’s “This Man is My Brother” (coursepack)
Paper Three. For this paper, write about characteristics of Hitler’s rhetoric in other places. Use terminology from this class (that is, again, something from Jasinski or the above list, and not ethos, pathos, or logos). Thus, you won’t just be showing that they were praising Hitler or repeating what he said—you need to show that a concept from rhetoric helps us understand what is or is not the same about this rhetoric.
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- Adolph Eichmann’s testimony and/or interrogation answers (pick one section from this). You can also watch Eichmann’s testimony here.
- The Nazi Generals’ discussion of their situation (from Tapping Hitler’s Generals)
- The Daily Stormer style guide
- Hermann Goering, Reconstruction of a Nation (1934)
- Aryanism.net or something from David Duke’s website
- This site (essentially, a guide how to argue for white supremacy)
- Gertrud Scholtz-Klink’s speeches about women and Nazism
- A pamphlet released after things started going badly in Stalingrad: What Does Bolshevization Mean in Reality? Be forewarned, it’s really grim and deliberately horrifying—even I find it almost unreadable.
- Theodore Bilbo’s Take Your Choice. Bilbo was a segregationist who cited the same authorities the Nazis cited. He was an Alabama governor and Senator, and his book is from 1948.
- How Nuremburg defendants framed/explained their actions (see Interrogations), showing that a rhetorical concept explains their strategies (so you have to think rhetoric does).
- F. von Bernhardi’s 1912 Germany and the Next War
==========
And here is the TOC for the coursepack
Rhetoric and Hitler Table of Contents
Syllabus
Rhetoric and Hitler: an introduction
Kenneth Buke, “Rhetoric of Hitler’s ‘Battle’”
O’Shaughnessy, from Selling Hitler
McElligott, from Rethinking Weimar Germany
Hitler, March 23, 1933 speech
Sample papers
“Advice on Wrting”
Hitler, speech to the NSDAP 9/13, 1937
—. speech, 8/22/39
—. interview with Johst
—. speech, 1/27/32
Tourish and Vatcha, “Charismatic Leadership and Corporate Cultism at Enron: The Elimination of Dissent, the Promotion of Conformity and Organizational Collapse”
Entry on interpellation
Hitler, speech 4/28/39
Selection from Hitler’s Table Talk (480-83)
Kershaw, from The End (386-400)
Hitler, speech 7/13/34
Longerich, selection from Holocaust (Nazi evolution on genocide)
Selection from Hitler’s Table Talk 12-16, 422-426
Entry on inoculation
Selection from Tapping Hitler’s Generals (30-62)
Kershaw, from Hitler, The Germans, and the Final Solution (197-206)
Selection from Mayer, They Thought They Were Free (166-173)
“Dog whistle politics”
Selections from Shirer’s radio broadcasts
Selection from Snyder’s Black Earth
Selection from Hitler’s Table Talk (75-79)
Selection from Spicer’s Antisemitism, Christian Ambivalence, and the Holocaust
Hitler, speech 4/12/22
“Dissociation” from Perelman and Olbrecths-Tyteca’s The New Rhetoric
Selection from Encyclopedia of Rhetoric
Selection from Eichmann in Jerusalem
Selection from Eichmann Interrogated
Selection from Hitler and His Generals
Selection from Ordinary Men
Louis Goldblatt’s testimony before the Committee on National Defense Migration
Letter to Mr. Monk
Thomas Mann, “That Man is My Brother”
“Masculinity and Nationalism”
“Art of Masculine Victimhood”
Hitler, speech 6/22/41
selection from Longerich’s Hitler
selection from Maschmann’s Account Rendered
========
Here is the course calendar. It’s pretty messy, so, if you’d like a copy that’s a table, just email me:
8/29 First day of classes
8/31 Read “Rhetoric and Hitler: an introduction” and the course syllabus (especially the part on microthemes). Microtheme (due by 8:00 am [not as attachment—please never send microthemes as attachments]: what questions do you have about the class? What other rhetoric classes have you taken? What other courses about Hitler have you taken? What questions do you have about the material?
9/3 Labor Day
9/5 Read sample papers (coursepack) “Hitler’s speech to the NSDAP September 13, 1937” (coursepack) and “Advice on Writing” (coursepack and here https://www.patriciarobertsmiller.com//advice-on-writing/ ) Microtheme (due in email, by 8:00 a.m.): how is this advice like or unlike your writing processes on previous papers? What surprises you about the papers? What aspects of them do you especially like? What are some questions you have about the prompts? What prompt do you think you’ll answer? If you were going to write about this Hitler speech, what are some puzzles or odd things you might identify?
9/7 Read Evans, I: 1-76; Ullrich 92-109; Gregor 57-89. Microtheme (due by 8:00 am : What questions do you have about the reading? What sorts of topoi did the historical and cultural circumstances provide a racist and authoritarian rhetor like Hitler?
9/10 Read Ullrich 174-181, “Nation and Race” from Mein Kampf, and Burke’s “Rhetoric of Hitler’s ‘Battle’” (coursepack). Microtheme (due by 8:00 am : what questions do you have about the reading? Which of Burke’s unification devices do you see in this chapter from Hitler? A lot of students find “Rhetoric of Hitler’s ‘Battle’” a really useful basis of analysis—using it for their papers.
9/12 Read Ullrich 436-445; Evans I: 310-354. Read O’Shaughnessy (Selling Hitler cp) 4-5 and 170-181. Read McElligott (Rethinking cp) 181-207, and Hitler’s March 23, 1933 speech (cp) and Jasinski “Case Construction” and “Stock Issues,” (you can get that through the UT library—it’s an ebook). Microtheme (due in email, by 8:00 a.m.): apply the Jasinski to the Hitler speech. What kind of case does he make? Which stock issues does he use?
9/14 Microtheme (due by 8:00 am ): read the section in the syllabus on thesis questions, and submit at least one thesis question. You’re welcome to submit more than one. This is not your thesis statement.
9/17 1.1 due. If you’re the sort of person who prints up drafts, please include them. Microtheme (due by 8:00 am to patriciarobertsmiller@gmail.com): where is your thesis statement? Where is your thesis question? What is your primary text? How many quotes do you have from that text?
9/19 Read Longerich’s explanation of Nazi evolution on genocide (coursepack) and Evans III: 3-23 (in coursepack), Hitler’s August 22, 1939 speech (coursepack), and selections from his Table Talk (12-17; 422-26, coursepack), and article on inoculation. Microtheme (in email, by 8:00 a.m.): How does Hitler inoculate his audience in the speech?
9/21 Read Hitler’s interview with Johst (January 24, 1932, coursepack) and his (long and boring) speech before German industrialists (January 27, 1932, in the coursepack) and Ullrich 290-293. Microtheme (due by 8:00 am : German industrialists would later support Hitler wholeheartedly, but, as Ullrich says, this speech didn’t do the trick. Apply Burke, topoi, or one of the other concepts from the reading to discuss this speech.
9/24 Return 1.1. Microtheme (due by 8:00 am : 2 Read Jasinski on “prophetic speech/ethos,” article on charismatic leadership (coursepack) and “Our Hitler” (1935 birthday speech) http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/unser35.htm Microtheme (due in email, by 8:00 a.m.): apply either concept (prophetic speech or charismatic leadership) to the reading.
9/26 Otto Wels decided to respond to Hitler’s speech in favor of “The Enabling Act.” Before doing any of the reading, make some notes as to what you would do in that situation. Then, read the information on “interpellation” (coursepack) and Wels’ speech (coursepack) and Hitler’s response (coursepack). Also read McElligott 214-215 and Evans’ discussion of the Enabling Act. Microtheme (in email, by 8:00 a.m.): did Wels take the strategy you would have? How would you characterize Wels’ response? Are you surprised or puzzled by it? What rhetorical strategies does he use? How is Hitler’s rhetoric different in this speech from his speech earlier that evening? Why wasn’t that speech in the Nazi pamphlet? How does Hitler hail Germans such that they should support him?
9/28 Class cancelled because of individual conferences.
10/1 Microtheme (due by 8:00 am : revised introductions for your first paper. Make sure that your introductions sets up your thesis question, and that your thesis statement is delayed till the end of your paper.
10/3 1.2 due. Include all previous versions of every paper. If you’re the sort of person who prints up drafts, please include them. Microtheme (due by 8:00 am : what changes did you make to your paper? Where is your thesis statement? How much close analysis do you have in your paper?
10/5 Quiz.
10/8 In class: return 1.2 and go over sample student material.
10/10 Read William Shirer on Hitler’s April 28, 1939 speech 397-404, coursepack), and then that speech. Microtheme (in email, by 8:00 a.m.) what seems weird to you about Hitler’s speech? What rhetorical strategies does Hitler use?
10/12 Microtheme (due by 8:00 am : read the section in the syllabus on thesis questions, and submit at least one thesis question. You’re welcome to submit more than one. This is not your thesis statement.
10/15 2.1 due. Include all previous versions of every paper. If you’re the sort of person who prints up drafts, please include them.
10/17 Read Mein Kampf 176-186, 394-412, 579-589, selection from Table Talk (480-482) and this material on propaganda: “The Nature” http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/dietz.htm “First Course” http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/lehrgang.htm “Directive” http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/bolshevist.htm and Kershaw 386-400 (cp). Microtheme (in email, by 8:00 a.m.): As always, just feel free to react to the material, and don’t worry about reading the Mein Kampf carefully (the Kershaw will also have a lot of references you don’t get). What rhetorical strategies are constant in this material, and what changes?
10/19 Read background to the “Night of Long Knives” (Ullrich 458-473) and Hitler’s July 13, 1934 speech justifying the massacre (coursepack). Microtheme (in email, by 8:00 a.m.): As always, just feel free to react to the material. What rhetorical strategies does he use? This happens to be one speech where there is reasonably good evidence (which Ullrich mentions) that it was persuasive. Can you speculate as to why it worked?
10/22 [Return 2.1] Read these articles about American Nazis: https://the-avocado.org/2018/08/11/how-we-got-here-the-mad-legions-of-america/ and https://the-avocado.org/2018/08/11/how-we-got-here-the-mad-legions-of-america/ (you can see footage from the rally here https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/542499/marshall-curry-nazi-rally-madison-square-garden-1939/) and https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/8/15/16144070/psychology-alt-right-unite-the-right . Microtheme (in email, by 8:00 a.m.): how similar (or not) are the rhetorical strategies?
10/24 This reading is fairly disturbing: it’s about how various groups (such as“ordinary Germans” or military officers) rationalized supporting the regime. Selection from Tapping Hitler’s Generals (30-62, coursepack), Kershaw, “Popular Opinion” (197-209, coursepack), selection from They Thought They Were Free (166-173, coursepack). Microtheme (due by 8:00 am ): these readings all concern the complicated interactions of coercion, rhetoric, compliance, and belief. What role do you see rhetoric playing for these various kinds of Germans?
10/26 Read Hitler’s speech announcing the invasion of Poland (https://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/document/HITLER1.htm), “dog whistle politics” (coursepack), and excerpts from Shirer’s radio broadcasts (coursepack and here https://www.patriciarobertsmiller.com//excerpts-william-shirers-berlin-1999/). Microtheme (in email, by 8:00 a.m.): As always, just feel free to react to the material. Also, how is Hitler framing the situation? Are there dog whistles and, if so, what are they and how do they function?
10/29 1.3 due. Include the marked copies of 1.1 and 1.2.
10/31 Read background to invasion of the USSR; (Snyder [Black Earth] in coursepack and this: https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005164) read Hitler’s speech on Stalingrad (http://comicism.tripod.com/421108.html) Microtheme (in email by 8:00 a.m.): what are Hitler’s main rhetorical problems and constraints with this speech?
11/2 Quiz.
11/5 2.2 due. Include all previous versions of every paper. If you’re the sort of person who prints up drafts, please include them.
11/7 Read Hitler selection from Table Talk 75-79, Spicer 105-120, Hitler’s April 12, 1922 speech and Perelman on dissociation (all in coursepack) and Jasinski on dissociation (ebook). Microtheme (due by 8:00 am : How does he use dissociation? Also, note his use of religious rhetoric. 11/9 Read “Duties of a Law-Abiding Citizen” (from Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem). Arendt is a tough read because she engages in a lot of indirect paraphrase (so she is often describing a point of view she does not have, such as that Eichmann was a victim) and the selection from Eichmann Interrogated (both in the coursepack). You might also find this background helpful: https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007412 Microtheme (in email, by 8:00 a.m.): do you see any of Hitler’s topoi in Eichmann’s rhetoric about himself or his situation? What is Eichmann’s argument, and how does he make it?
11/12 Return 2.2. Read Hitler’s September 30, 1942 speech and and background information from Kershaw 534-555 (both in coursepack) Microtheme (due by 8:00 am :
11/14 Read selection from Deliberations with His Generals (coursepack). Microtheme (due by 8:00 am : how is this private and deliberative rhetoric like or unlike his more public rhetoric?
11/16 Microtheme (due by 8:00 am : Introductions for 3.1.
11/19 Microtheme (due by 8:00 am necessary but not sufficient for getting an A on 3.1 or 3.2). Draft of 3.1. 11/21 Thanksgiving break
11/23 Thanksgiving break
11/26 Read the speeches by Speer and Goebbels trying to make the best of a bad situation: (Speer) http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/tatsachen.htm
and (Goebbels): http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb40.htm Microtheme (due by 8:00 am : what rhetorical strategies do they use? How is their rhetorical approach different (from each other, or from previous speeches of theirs) or alike?
11/28 3.1 due. Include all previous versions of every paper. If you’re the sort of person who prints up drafts, please include them. For class, read http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-stupid-ways-alt-right-destroying-itself-from-within/ Microtheme (in email, by 8:00 a.m.): What do you think about the strategy of humor in regard to Nazis?
11/30 Read selection from Ordinary Men (coursepack). Microtheme (in email, by 8:00 a.m.): this is a difficult reading, and it’s challenging for thinking about rhetoric—what difference did rhetoric make in the “persuasion” of these “ordinary men”?
12/3 Return 3.1 In class: quiz. Microtheme (in email, by 8:00 a.m.): what’s a concept from this course that you used outside of class? How did you use it? Or what’s a concept from this class you’ve found really useful outside of class?
12/5 Read this article about modern Nazis’ use of digital spaces: “Killing 8chan: The Heart of Modern Nazi Terrorism [CW]” https://c4ss.org/content/51110 Microtheme (due by 8:00 am : In what ways are these Nazis like the Nazis they admire? What rhetorical concepts help us understand these groups? What surprises you (or not) about them?
12/7 Read Goldblatt’s speech before the Congressional Committee on Japanese internment (which they called “evacuation” coursepack) Microtheme (in email, by 8:00 a.m.): what’s a concept from this course that you used outside of class? How did you use it? Or what’s a concept from this class you’ve found really useful outside of class?
12/10 Last day of classes
3.2 due. Include all previous versions of every paper, your filled-out gradesheet, and printed versions of any plus or check-plus microthemes. If you’re the sort of person who prints up drafts, please include them.
We’ll be talking about Cabaret, so, if you have a chance, you should try to watch it.