Under the influence of war developments, which have given the Nazis a chance to apply their racial theories in occupied territories, their spokesmen have become increasingly open with regard to the political implications of the folk concept.  In an article on “The Structure and Order of the Reich,” published late in 1941, Ernst Rudolf Huber wrote, “this folk principle has found its full confirmation for the first time in the events of this war, in which the unity of the folk has been realized to an extent undreamed of through the return to the homeland of territories which had been torn from it and the resettlement of German folk-groups.  Thus the awakening of Germandom to become a political folk has had a twofold result:  the unity of the folk-community has risen superior to differences of birth or wealth, of class, rank, or denomination; and the unity of Germandom above all state boundaries has been consciously experienced in the European living-space [Siedlungsraum]."[45]

The Fuehrer Principle

The second pillar of the Nazi state is the Fuehrer, the infallible leader, to whom his followers owe absolute obedience.  The Fuehrer principle envisages government of the state by a hierarchy of leaders, each of whom owes unconditional allegiance to his immediate superior and at the same time is the absolute leader in his own particular sphere of jurisdiction.

One of the best expositions of the Nazi concept of the Fuehrer principle is given by Huber in his Constitutional Law of the Greater German Reich (document 1, post p. 155): 

The Fuehrer-Reich of the [German] people is founded on the recognition that the true will of the people cannot be disclosed through parliamentary votes and plebiscites but that the will of the people in its pure and uncorrupted form can only be expressed through the Fuehrer.  Thus a distinction must be drawn between the supposed will of the people in a parliamentary democracy, which merely reflects the conflict of the various social interests, and the true will of the people in the Fuehrer-state, in which the collective will of the real political unit is manifested ...

The Fuehrer is the bearer of the people’s will; he is independent of all groups, associations, and interests, but he is bound by laws which are inherent in the nature of his people.  In this twofold condition:  independence of all factional interests but unconditional dependence on the people, is reflected the true nature of the Fuehrer principle.  Thus the Fuehrer has nothing in common with the functionary, the agent, or the exponent who exercises a mandate delegated to him and who is bound to the will of those who appoint him.  The Fuehrer is no “representative” of a particular group whose wishes he must carry out.  He is no “organ” of the state in the sense of a mere executive agent.  He is rather himself the bearer of the collective