The supreme position of Adolf Hitler as Führer of the Reich, which Huber and Neesse emphasize in the preceding quotations, is also stressed in the statements of high Nazi officials. For example, Dr. Frick, the German Minister of the Interior, in an article entitled "Germany as a Unitary State," which is included in a book called Germany Speaks, published in London in 1938, states:
The unity of the party and the state finds its highest realization in the person of the Leader and Chancelor who ... combines the offices of President and Chancelor. He is the leader of the National Socialist Party, the political head of the state and the supreme commander of the defense forces.[[54]]
It is interesting to note that, notwithstanding the generally recognized view as expressed in the preceding citations that the authority of the Führer is supreme, Hitler found it necessary in April 1942 to ask the Reichstag to confirm his power to be able at any time, if necessary, to urge any German to fulfil his obligations by all means which appear to the Führer appropriate in the interests of the successful prosecution of the war.[[55]] (The text of the resolution adopted by the Reichstag is included as document 5, post p. 183.)
Great emphasis is placed by the Nazi leaders on the infallibility of the Führer and the duty of obedience of the German people. In a speech on June 12, 1935, for instance, Robert Ley, director of the party organization, said, "Germany must obey like a well-trained soldier: the Führer, Adolf Hitler, is always right." Developing the same idea, Ley wrote in an article in the Angriff on April 9, 1942 (document 6, post p. 184): "Right is what serves my people; wrong is what damages it. I am born a German and have, therefore, only one holy mission: work for my people and take care of it." And with reference to the position of Hitler, Ley wrote:
The National Socialist Party is Hitler, and Hitler is the party. The National Socialists believe in Hitler, who embodies their will. Therefore our conscience is clearly and exactly defined. Only what Adolf Hitler, our Führer, commands, allows, or does not allow is our conscience. We have no understanding for him who hides behind an anonymous conscience, behind God, whom everybody conceives according to his own wishes.
These ideas of the Führer's infallibility and the duty of obedience are so fundamental in fact that they are incorporated as the first two commandments for party members. These are set forth in the Organisationsbuch der NSDAP (Nazi Party Organization Book) for 1940, page 7 (document 7, post p. 186). The first commandment is "The Führer is always right!" and the second is "Never go against discipline!"
In view of the importance attached to the Führer principle by the Nazis, it is only natural that youth should be intensively indoctrinated with this idea. Neesse points out that one of the most important tasks of the party is the formation of a "select group" or elite which will form the leaders of the future:
A party such as the NSDAP, which is responsible to history for the future of the German Reich, cannot content itself with the hope for future leaders but must create a strain of strong and true personalities which should offer the constantly renewed possibility of replacing leaders whenever it is necessary. [[56]]
Beck, in his work Education in the Third Reich, also insists that a respect for the Führer principle be inculcated in youth:
The educational value of the Hitler Youth is to be found in this community spirit which cannot be taught but can only be experienced ... But this cultivation of the community spirit through the experience of the community must, in order to avoid any conception of individual equality which is inconsistent with the German view of life, be based upon inward and outward recognition of the Führer principle ... In the Hitler Youth, the young German should learn by experience that there are no theoretical equal rights of the individual but only a natural and unconditional subordination to leadership. [[57]]