“* * * in order to insure harmony between the communal administration and the Party.” (Art. 6 (2)).
The Reich was given supervision over the municipalities:
“* * * in order to insure that their activities conform with the laws and the aims of national leadership.” (2008-PS)
The Nazi conspirators frequently boasted of their comprehensive program of government centralization. Frick, Minister of the Interior throughout this period, wrote:
“The reconstruction law abolished the sovereign rights and the executive powers of the Laender and made the Reich the sole bearer of the rights of sovereignty. The supreme powers of the Laender do not exist any longer. The natural result of this was the subordination of the Land governments to the Reich government and the Land Ministers to the corresponding Reich Ministers. On 30 January 1934, the German Reich became one state. (2481-PS)
In another article Frick indicated even more clearly the purposes which underlay this program of centralization:
“In the National Socialist revolution of 1933, it was stipulated for the first time in the history of the German nation that the erection of a unified state (Einheitsstaat) would be accomplished. From the early days of his political activity, Adolf Hitler never left a doubt in the mind of anyone that he considered it the first duty of National Socialism to create a German Reich in which the will of the people would be led in a single direction and that the whole strength of the nation, at home and abroad, would be placed on the balance scale.” (2380-PS; 2378-PS.)
D. The Nazi conspirators united the offices of President and Chancellor in the person of Hitler. The merger of the two offices was accomplished by the law of 1 August 1934, signed by the entire cabinet (2003-PS). The official Nazi statement concerning the effect of this statute contains this observation:
“Through this law, the conduct of Party and State has been combined in one hand. * * * He is responsible only to his own conscience and to the German nation.” (1893-PS)
One of the significant consequences of this law was to give to Hitler the supreme command of the German armed forces, always a prerequisite of the Presidency (2050-PS). Accordingly, every soldier was immediately required to take an oath of loyalty and obedience to Hitler. (2061-PS)