An Arrogant Argument

One of the most destructive and arrogant persons in history was Adolf Hitler. The destruction that he and his regime brought on humanity has seldom seen its equal. In reality the Holocaust was a terrible horror, but in Hitler’s mind it was merely a brushstroke in the masterpiece that he believed he was creating. Hitler believed that the Aryan race was superior to all others and that it was only natural, and not cruel, that the higher would show no humanity toward the lower (296). This prejudiced belief predominated Hitler’s thinking. In his essay, On Nation and Race, his assumption that Aryans are superior to all others creates a type of logical fallacy called “Begging the Question” (Rottenberg 291).

Hitler not only assumes that Aryans are superior to all other races but that the German people believe this as well. He assumes that that the question of race superiority has already been answered. According to Annette T. Rottenberg’s The Structure of Argument, “if [a] writer makes a statement that assumes that the very question being argued has already been proved, [that] writer is guilty of begging the question” (291). Hitler proudly states, “All the human culture, all the results of art, science, and technology that we see before us today, are almost exclusively the creative product of the Aryan” (300). This statement, which he presents as if it is fact, is most certainly not true. He uses this fallacy to promote his agenda. He wants to take out the competition, most specifically the Jews, so that the Aryan race can dominate Germany and eventually the world. Hitler makes another statement which begs the question: “Nature subject[s] the weaker part to such severe living conditions that by them alone the number is limit...

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... of nature. In fact, this belief, which does beg the question, is what predominates his thinking.

Hitler uses fallacies in his arguments such as; non sequitur, ad populum and faulty appeals to emotion. All of these are simply apparatus that a terribly arrogant and insane man wields to acquire the absolute power that he did in fact attain. Throughout his essay though, we can see that Hitler’s thinking is predominated by a fallacious belief that begs the question: what proof do you have that Aryans are superior to other peoples?

Works Cited

Hitler, Adolf. “On Nation and Race.” The Structure of Argument. Rottenberg, Annette T., and

Donna Haisty. Winchell. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. Print.

Rottenberg, Annette T., and Donna Haisty. Winchell. The Structure of Argument. Boston:

Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. Print.