Requiem 𖦏

National Socialist Heinz Oskar Schaefer describes the relationship between the party and the state (from "Fundamental Principles of the National Socialist Worldview", a publication of the National-Political Enlightenment Pamphlet series, 1942; endorsed by the NSDAP): In earlier times, we saw that the state itself laid claim to totality, and was thus often in a position to violate German life, or at least to restrict it from above, with the help of its legal and administrative apparatus. In those times, there was no shortage of men who rebelled against this course of events, but there was a lack of the influence of a united communal movement such as we have today in the party: now, through the organization of the party, the will of the people flows from the smallest units through the districts to the Reich leadership, where the unity of the party, the state, and the military is established. Enforcing the will of the people was once the slogan of “democracy”, but after this had failed miserably in our living space, National Socialism consciously took up this goal as the main task of its reconstruction work - the battle cry “One people, one Reich, one Führer” thus took on a special significance for the shaping of the Reich. The government's first measures included establishing the unity of the Reich and the states of the state administration, legally regulating the cooperation between the party and the state, and uniformly regulating the rights and duties of civil servants on the basis of the National Socialist worldview (Reich Civil Service Law): these included the Enabling Act of March 24th, 1933, the various laws on Reich unity of 1933/34 and 1939, the Law on the Head of State of August 1st, 1934, and the Law on Securing the Unity of Party and State of December 1st, 1933, whose most important paragraph reads: “After the victory of the National Socialist revolution, the National Socialist German Workers' Party is the bearer of the German idea of the state, and is inseparably linked to the state.” Finally, in German life, there is a productive tension and polarity in the relationship between the party and the state that is conducive to the development of the people's achievements: as the shaper of the people's principles of life, the party also supervises the implementation of legislation and administration by politicians from its own ranks, ensuring that the dynamic drive of a healthy people will never be stifled by the unbearable constraints of bureaucracy. "The state is a means to an end, and its purpose lies in the preservation and promotion of a community of physically and spiritually similar beings: this preservation itself encompasses, first and foremost, its racial stock, and thereby shapes the free development of all the powers that slumber in this race of people." - Adolf Hitler