...Rhetoric and Ethics Assignment "The Ethic of Expediency" by Steven B. Katz discusses the ethical problems of technical writing. The author suggest that the ethic of expediency enables deliberative rhetoric and gives impulse to most of our actions in technological capitalism. Katz explains that the problem with deliberative rhetoric and technical communication is epistemology and ethics. He uses a Nazi memo as a technical writing sample, which embodies the rhetoric and ethos of the Nazi Party but fails to take any account for ethics. He also uses Aristotle's Politic and Rhetoric to make the connection between rhetoric, ethics, technology, and expediency. Katz concludes that the deliberative orators aim is utility, to determine means to ends- a question of expediency. Aristotle believed that practical wisdom must be accompanied by moral virtue to supply the right end. Hitler used Aristotle’s work to form the ethos in Nazi Germany. However, with Hitler, there was no distinction between "practical wisdom" and "moral virtue", between expediency and the good as long as rhetoric serves its end, that is, the State. His belief in the efficacy of science and technology as the basis of ethics and politics resulted in mass extermination. Based on the ethic of expediency, rhetoric for Hitler was pure technique, designed not to encourage debate, but rather to indoctrinate. Hitler created an ethos of expediency to carry out his program for the “greater good” of Germany. Katz believes that to...
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...6 million of those victims were Jewish.” (Shoah Research) From 1933 to 1945, humans, despite their race, gender, age, or religion were executed under the mighty feat of the Nazis. Whether they did right, or wrong, whether they were weak or strong, these humans were persecuted, tortured, starved, shot, gassed, whipped, abused, and forced to believe that death would be their only relief. For the lapse of twelve years, Hitler and his Nazis brutalized 11 million people, dehumanized 11 million people, and killed 11 million people. America knew of this, from 1933 onward, and still 11 million people were killed. Despite the fact Germany was overseas, despite the fact that they had their own problems, despite the fact that they would have to participate in another World War, they could have and should have intervened. While the news was making fluffy headlines, 11 million men, women, and children would suffer. Sure, America rescued the remaining in 1945, but did they have to wait so long? What is wrong with humanity? Even if it was just a simple maltreatment, as the Chicago Tribune put it, should we not support and help each other? Did we have to wait until we see the black smoke in the clouds and millions of dead carcuses decay? Of course the Nazis and Adolf Hitler are responsible, for even just the thought that wiping these people off the face of the planet. But what about the ones who stood by, who published articles, hiding from reality? As Tim Holden...
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...“What is the first thing that comes to mind when the phrase ‘World War II’ is mentioned?” The typical response to this question will almost always be “Hitler and his cruelty toward Jews.” What is strange about this answer, is the fact that the majority of people do not realize what actually occurred in Europe during this time. To most people, the Holocaust was an “event” where many Jews were killed by Nazis. In fact, the Holocaust was a tragic point in history which many believe never occurred, or do not realize the suffering behind the widespread destruction. The pain and conditions exper- ienced by the victims is unimaginable by any standards. In the early 1930’s, the United States was reveling in turmoil. Eastern Europe was on the verge of power, and in a small western European country called Germany, trouble was brewing. In 1933, Europeans had no worries beyond their daily struggle to earn money, put food on their family's table, and clothes on their children's backs. This would all change in a matter of months. Whatever type of life a person had built or molded for themselves, it was all to come to a crashing halt if they did not conform to Hitler’s specifications. On January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. In March 1933, with the building of the Dachau concentration camp, “Adolf Hitler's rising became one of the swiftest, most destructive leaderships in recorded human existence” (Bauer 12). After his inception as ruler of Germany, Adolf Hitler...
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...enter the Reichstag against the opposition deputies. If outvoting them takes longer than out shooting them, at least the results will be guaranteed by their own constitution. Sooner or later we shall have a majority, and after that- Germany. (Heiden, 142)' Adolf Hitler spoke these words in 1920, soon after becoming leader of the newly named National Socialist German Workers' Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party. There are many contributing factors, which lead to Hitler's gain in power over the next thirteen years. The recent history of post-war Germany, and the events that would follow were of perfect conditions for the rise of an extremist party such as the Nazis. World War One had left Germany in defeat. Germany was put under immense pressure by the treaty of Versailles, which contributed to the disastrous and politically unstable early twenties. Hitler was a strong and manipulating character, with extraordinary leadership skills and his party was very tactical. He was very much underestimated by opposing political parties. All of these factors lead to Hitler and his Nazis' becoming the sole political party in the Reichstag in 1933. The German Empire was formed in 1871 and soon became one of Europe?s most influential countries. It dominated in industrial and military power, and the German people were proud of their achievements. Up until the end of World War One, a Kaiser ruled Germany. From 1888 the Kaiser was Wilhelm II. He was very ambitious and militaristic and a threat...
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...The creation of a nazi mass movement In july 1932 the nazi gained 13,745,000 votes and their voters represented 37.3% of the electorate, making hitlers party the largest in the Reichstag. The results of the elections 1928-32 showed the changes in political parties. It was clear that the Nazis made gains from parties with a middle class/protestant identity. Catholic, communist and social democrat parties were able to withstand the Nazi advances. Geography and denomination Nazi support was higher in the North and east of the country and lower in the south and west. Across the North German plain from east Prussia to Schleswig Holstein, the Nazis gained their best results and reflects the significance of religion and degree of urbanisation. The areas with significant numbers of catholics, was were the Nazis gained the less support but the more protestant regions was were they gained more support, and didn’t do so well in large industrial areas but did well in rural areas. The Nazis did the worst in the west catholic areas such as Cologne. And it was at its highest in areas such as Pomerania. Class Nazi voters reflected the rural/urban division in terms of their social groupings. They gained the most support from peasants and farmers, the mittlestand (lower and middle class shop keepers), established ,idle class- teachers and white collar workers. High proportion of the middle class supported the party, but although the working class did join the Nazis in smaller proportions...
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...nvariably when it comes to history what is believed by the society at the time to be true is almost always more significant to national development than what is actually true and this can be proved in two very significant events of German history namely the treaty of Versailles and the establishment of the Eburt government. However what will see in the essay is a third event in German national history where the consensus of what was believed to be true was violently exposed to what was actually true, which lead to the development of a myth, due to the previous misinformation, which undoubtedly played part in the succession of the Nazi party to power and the outbreak of the second world war. Within Weimar Germany there was no idea more unanimously held than that of the inherent unfairness of the treaty of versailles and of the embedded anti-German sentiment of it's authors. German society believed that previous German territory most specifically the Sudetanland was claimed by the allies and put under their mandate through their greed and motive to decimate Germany. However the Sudetanland especially was an allied territorial claim which went against this belief of the Germans. The Sudetanland was seized by the allies for the purpose of being a buffer zone between Germany and France so that France, who suffered particularly badly in the war, shouldn't call for even more extensive limitations on Germany to avoid a similar conflict. However although in reality the allies' motives...
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...property; the destruction of cities and towns. The third: crimes against humanity, which include persecution on racial, political, or religious grounds either before or during a war. All of these violations were raised on Germany's actions. Trials of the Nazi leaders begun on October 18, 1945, and lasted for 10 months. Trials of Japanese leaders began on May 3, 1946 in Tokyo and ended on November 12, 1948. There were more than 2,000 lesser trials accusing Nazi leaders of wrong doing. Even more took place in the Soviet Union. Most of the war criminals were convicted, and many were also executed. The Nuremberg Trials, one of the more substantial trials, accused 22 German Nazi leaders of war crimes. Altogether 12 were sentenced to death, including Keitel, Ribbentrop, Rosenberg, Bromann (who was tried in absentia), and Goering (who committed suicide). Only three, including Hess were given life sentences. Just four, including Doenitz and Speer were sentenced to up to 20 years of prison. Amazingly, three including Papen and Schacht were acquitted. These trials brought some anger and sadness. The prosecution took almost four months to present their case to the jury. Each man who was being tried was a major part of the whole Nazi power. Albert Speer (1905-81) was a German architect and public official who became Hitler's number one architect. Albert devised a system of slave labor which showed in the concentration camps. Albert served 20 years in prison....
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...| How and why did the Nazi treatment of Jews change between the years 1933 and 1945? | Curran De Braganca | How and why did the Nazi treatment of Jews change between the years 1933 and 1945? Most of us have heard of the Nazi party’s horrific, genocidal regime on destroying the Jewish race, but what events led up to their dire judgement? In this study I aim to uncover the events, reasons and changes which led to the Holocaust and the further changes in the treatment of the Jewish race by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. In the aftermath of the First World War, Germany is under the Judgment of the Allies as a result of Allied victory Germany is being blamed for most of the war, The Treaty of Versailles stated that they: * Are to pay compensation to the Allies: £6.6 Million, which was well over Germany’s financial capacity at the time. * Portions of Germany’s land has been claimed and will distributed under Allied power to form new nations and also will be given to allied nations who lost land during the war. * Germany’s army will be reduced to only 100,000 men plus their naval vessels have been limited to 6 capital ships. The west of Rhineland had been Demilitarised and occupied by Allied forces. * Germany was not allowed to join with Austria to boost its economy. These were only just a few of the terms of the treaty. In Germany, many people were ‘pointing fingers’ and putting the blame on others, one group of people however, is taking...
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...Nazi Germany and the Spanish Civil War Continuity in Hitler’s Foreign Policy Tom Goldstein Professor Herf HIST441 May 15, 2001 The Spanish Civil War (1936-9) was a very important event during the tense1930s in Europe. Although it did not make World War II inevitable, it increased the likelihood of a general war a great deal. The war had a tremendous impact on Spain itself, leaving much of the state’s economic and social infrastructure in ruins and leaving thousands dead. But the war also saw involvement from other European states as both sides of the conflict – the Right-wing Nationalists and the Left-wing Republicans (a.k.a. Loyalists) – requested and received foreign aid not only in terms of financial assets, but also in terms of war material and troops. Adolf Hitler’s Germany was one of the foreign countries most involved in the conflict, contributing economic loans as well as several thousand troops to the Nationalist cause. Hitler’s involvement in the Spanish war was consistent with a larger Nazi foreign policy aimed at diverting British and French attention from Central and Eastern Europe so that he would be unhindered in his plans for eastern expansion. However, the ramifications of the Spanish war for the rest of Europe were great in other ways. The Spanish Civil War was a major contributor to the hardening of the division between the democracies (Britain and France) and the dictatorships (Italy and Germany). Germany also...
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...Thinking, Man’s Greatest Power It is common knowledge that humans and chimpanzees are closely related. In fact, 95% of their DNA sequence is in common. But what separates a man from a chimpanzee? The blurred line that borders the two is ‘thinking’. Thinking is what makes a man. Thinking is man’s greatest power. And thinking can lead a man to its gradual completion or utter destruction. Adolf Hitler is a man of reason, as he was the Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was also the leader of now infamous, Nazi Party. Under his domain, he ordered the killing of the six million innocent Jews because of his ideology concept of racial hygiene. He ‘reasoned’ that the Aryan race is the so-called ‘pure race’, and the only race that should proliferate around the world. And his hubris and ideology led to his imminent downfall and demise, with six million innocent people in tow. Clearly, ‘thinking’ is man’s greatest power, but with great power comes great responsibility. If one lets it to rampant on its own, thinking is man’s utter destruction. On a lighter note, thinking may well be the cause of man’s gradual completion, in terms of spirit and science. Take for example the early philosophers – like Aristotle. Aristotle is the man who thought about the differentiation between a use value and an exchange value, which was the rudimentary form of economy. Without his thinking, there may not be an economy today. Men like Mahatma Gandhi prove that thinking is a power that...
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...Fall Term Essay 1 Mariam Khan 4792982 Political Science 1F90 TA: Ayisha Ali There are many political ideologies in today’s world, and with everyone’s individual views, who can actually say whether one is more right than the other (Gellner, 1-7). Nationalism has been an extremely ancient ideology dating back to primitive people and tribalism (Snyder 1990, 241-249). This concept then manifested itself during Athenian times aiding in the development of the great empires and progressed into England and then jolt started the French revolution (Snyder 1990, 241-249). All these eras of nationalism conjoined political, economical, religious, and ethnic factors to unite peoples and nations (Gellner, 1-7). Nationalism can also be considered an ideology of debate because of its vague definition and complexity. Many people can state nationalism is the appreciation of their country or nation; others can define it as the need for independency (Gellner, 1-7). Both these routes can have negative and positive characteristics and outcomes. The positives are very straight forward, the love of one’s country and bond between citizens can be dubbed vital to the prosperity of a nation or country. What happens when this love of one’s country and the bond between its citizens crosses ethnic and human boundaries? This can be defined as ethnic nationalism, which allows ethnicity to become main component in being a nationalist (Snyder 1990, 241-249). This paper will define nationalism...
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...In 1933, when the Nazi Party came to power, it had two main aims – to reduce unemployment, and to make Germany as strong an economic and military power as possible, so that the humiliating and devastating defeat of the Great War could never happen again. In order to achieve their aims, there were plans devised that were to shape the future of Germany in the coming years. The main stages involved in economic recovery were as follows: the New Plan – 1933-1936 – under Hjalmar Schacht where the focus was on reducing unemployment and the balance of payment deficit – ensuring the government spending matched government income; the Four Year Plan – 1936-1940 – under Goering, that focused more on speedy rearmament as Hitler wanted to go to war and acquire Lebensraum, living space. The economic policies included everything from giving the Mittelstand their required state of lifestyle – which had worsened throughout the years leading to the rise of the Nazis as big business had ousted them from the market – jobs to unemployed people, stabilising the economy, controlling imports into the country, to preventing inflation of the currency and developing autarky – self-sufficiency in producing own goods and raw materials especially in times of war. With such deteriorating economic conditions, it is overwhelming, the amount of pressure that the Nazis put on themselves and the promises they made to the Germans, such that the achievement of these aims seems implausible; this sheds light on the...
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...Was the Reichstag Fire more important than the Enabling Act in allowing Hitler to increase his power? Explain your answer. [10] The Reichstag Fire happened on 27th February, 1933. Inside the burning building was found a Dutch communist called Marinus van der Lubbe. He was accused for starting the fire in the Reichstag and was arrested, and after an unfair trial, he was executed. Hitler immediately blamed communists for this. He went to Hindenburg and persuaded him to pass a law called the “Emergency Decree”. This meant that the government were very powerful and that power was wide-ranged. It also took away civil rights and freedom, giving the police a lot of control. But the reason Hitler managed to convince Hindenburg to do this was because he said that this could be the start of a communist revolution which no one wanted. When the next elections took place, in March 1933, over 4 000 communists were arrested by the SA. They also shut down the communist newspaper, broke up any communists meetings and this could all happen because the Emergency Decree was around. Hitler had a lot of control at this point. He had power all over, especially in the police force. If there was someone he didn’t like then he could have them killed. He could do nearly anything he wanted and Hindenburg agreed as he didn’t want a communist attack either. The Enabling law was a part of the Weimar constitution that stated, if two thirds of the Reichstag agreed, that the...
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...The sole factor that separated Tadeusz Borowski from the gas chambers when he was at Auschwitz—beyond the fact that he wasn’t Jewish—was his cooperation with the S.S. soldiers. He assisted the Nazis in eliminating thousands of Jewish men, women, and children. “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” ultimately uses the narrator to convey Borowski’s message of what really happened during the Holocaust. This also explains why the story is in first person: it reflects the author’s own experiences. Borowski’s writing is quite crude: harsh yet realistic. Readers cannot judge Borowski negatively; he was as much of a victim as the people coming off the transports. Throughout “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen,” Borowski portrays the internal struggle that each prisoner faces: aid the S.S. soldiers in unloading transports and sending Jewish people to their deaths, or die themselves? Neither do the prisoners have weapons nor the rations to sustain themselves. “They can’t run out of people, or we’ll starve to death in this blasted camp. All of us live on what they bring,” Henri states to the narrator (Charters 152). Keeping themselves alive is of great importance. How can they even think of revolting? The language used by the narrator is also enough to prove that in no way did Borowski condone any of the things he was forced to do: “It is the camp law: people going to their death must be deceived to the very end. This is the only permissible form of charity” (156). The narrator...
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...Causes WW2 Treaty of Versailles: * Peace treaty after WW1 * 28 June 1919 * The treaty was registered by the League of Nations * The League of Nations was established in 1920 after WW1. It should prevent the outbreak of another war * Germany: * Germany saw the treaty as a punishment * Had to give up part of their territories (Rheinland) * Germany had to admit the war guilt for WW1 * Pay preparations cost to France and Britain Rise of fascism: * Fascism is a totalitarian form of government: * Glorifies the state * Has one leader and one party * All aspects of society are controlled by the government * No opposition or protests are tolerated * Propaganda and censorship are widely practiced * Italy: Benito Mussolini (1922) Great depression, unemployment level high * After WW1 many countries had to suffer from unstable European economy * However to boom in the U.S. helped to sustain worldwide trade * 1929 stock market crashed (Great Depression) * Unemployment level rose * Power leaders and government promised success through military buildup and imperialism Japanese Expansionism: * 1931 Japan invaded Manchuria for raw materials * Sino-Japanese war 1937 * 1938 Japan and Soviet war Fascism Vs. Communism * Production is controlled by the government * Media and all other aspects of society are property of the government *...
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