The will of the German people finds its expression in the party as the political organization of the people. It represents the political conception, the political conscience, and the political will. It is the expression and the organ of the people's creative will to life. It comprises a select part of the German people for "only the best Germans should be party members" ... The inner organization of the party must therefore bring the national life which is concentrated within itself to manifestation and development in all the fields of national endeavor in which the party is represented. [[60]]
Gauweiler defines the relationship of the party to the state in the following terms:
The party stands above and beside the state as the wielder of an authority derived from the people with its own sovereign powers and its own sphere of sovereignty ... The legal position of the party is therefore that of a completely sovereign authority whose legal supremacy and self-sufficiency rest upon the original independent political authority which the Führer and the movement have attained as a result of their historical achievements.[[61]]
Neesse states that "It will be the task of National Socialism to lead back the German people to an organic structure which proceeds from a recognition of the differences in the characters and possibilities of human beings without permitting this recognition to lead to a cleavage of the people into two camps."[[62]] This task is the responsibility of the party. Although it has become the only political party in Germany, the party does not desire to identify itself with the state. It does not wish to dominate the state or to serve it. It works beside it and cooperates with it. In this respect, Nazi Germany is distinguished from the other one-party states of Europe: "In the one-party state of Russia, the party rules over the state; in the one-party state of Italy, the party serves the state; but in the one-party state of Germany, the party neither serves the state nor rules over it directly but works and struggles together with it for the community of the people."[[63]] Neesse contends that the party derives its legal basis from the law inherent in the living organism of the German Volk:
The inner law of the NSDAP is none other than the inner law of the German people. The party arises from the people; it has formed an organization which crystallizes about itself the feelings of the people, which seemed buried, and the strength of the people, which seemed lost.[[64]]
Neesse states that the party has two great tasks—to insure the continuity of national leadership and to preserve the unity of the Volk:
The first main task of the party, which is in keeping with its organic nature, is to protect the National Socialist idea and to constantly renew it by drawing from the depths of the German soul, to keep it pure and clear, and to pass it on thus to coming generations: this is predominantly a matter of education of the people.
The second great task, which is in keeping with its organizational nature, is to form the people and the state into the unity of the nation and to create for the German national community forms which are ever new and suited to its vital development: this is predominantly a matter of state formation. These two tasks, one of which deals with substance and the other with function, belong together. It is as impossible to separate them as it is to split up the party into organism and organization, form and content.[[65]]
Huber (document 1, post p. 155) describes the tasks of the party in similar terms. He states that the party is charged with the "education of the people to a political people" through the awakening of the political consciousness of each individual; the inculcation of a "uniform political philosophy," that is, the teaching of Nazi principles; "the selection of leaders," including the choice and training of especially promising boys to be the Führers of the future; and the shaping of the "political will of the people" in accordance with the Führer's aims.[[66]]
The educational tasks of the party are stressed by Beck, who develops the idea that the Volk can be divided into three main groups, "a supporting, a leading, and a creative class."[[67]] It is the duty of the leading class, that is, the party, from which the creative class of leaders is drawn, to provide for the education of the supporting class.