• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Fuehrerprinzip [Leadership Principle]

The organization of the Nazi party was like a pyramid, with Hitler at the top and below him the party leaders. Everybody in the party was responsible to him as the Fuehrer. The lines were clear, and every man had a leader above him and a follower below him. Among the highly placed and more ambitious members of the party there was a never-ending struggle for power. It was cut-throat and ferocious. Only the strongest men won. Hitler partly overlooked and partly encouraged this battle, for two reasons : (1) the strugglers become more dependent on him, and (2) under his jungle law, the toughest and most brutal men survived as his leaders.

The procedure within the party was governed in the most absolute may by the "leadership principle" (Fuehrerprinzip). According to the principle, each Fuehrer has the right to govern, administer, or decree, subject to no control of any kind and at his complete discretion, subject only to the orders he received from above. This principle applied in the first instance to Hitler himself as the leader of the party, and in a lesser degree to all other party officials. All members of the party swore an oath of "eternal allegiance" to the leader.

The Nazi regime sought submission to the Führerprinzip -- absolute loyalty to Hitler. Youths had been taught to honor Hitler before their parents, religious clergy coopted by the Reich, and professional organizations turned into adjuncts of the Nazi Party. Hitler exercised unlimited power over the National-Socialist Party and his word was law to every member. He was always right and need never give an account of his deeds. He appoints leaders whom he allows a certain amount of power. They, in turn, choose lesser leaders, and so on down through the ranks. Thus the tall ladder sways from top to bottom. Even the oath given by soldiers as they enter military service bears a personal character - it is a pledge of loyalty to Hitler: "I swear before God this sacred oath, that I shall render unquestioning obedience to the Leader of the German Reich, Adolf Hitler, Supreme Commander and Chief of the Army. And that I, as a brave soldier, shall be prepared at any time to give my life in fulfillment of this oath."

Hitler was not only supreme commander with an operational and integrated staff (the OKW) but after 1941 he became commander of the German army, with the General Staff directly subordinate to him. Thereafter Hitler became increasingly hostile toward the General Staff and sought to downgrade its role.

Students immediately think they understand the aspect of the Hitler regime in which the "Fuehrer" "says," or dictates, and his minions follow. Their usual view of Hitler assumes a tireless leader who works around the clock to supervise--through the secret state police (Gestapo) and other institution -- every detail of German life. The second concept students may think they understand is totalitarianism, the systematic Nazi attempt to exert total control over the lives of Germans. Students may also share a commonly held view that dissent in any form was stifled and that concentration camps were an essential part of totalitarian Germany, 1933-45.

However, recent scholarship suggests that the tight organization and "well-oiled machine" for which the Nazis are famous simply do not apply to the Hitler regime. There is abundant evidence that Germany under Hitler's governance was extraordinarily chaotic and confusing. Perhaps the most surprising aspect for students to grasp today is Hitler's amazing lack of interest in serious governmental work, meetings, administration, and bureaucracy. His daily routine involved very little dictating on the Stalin model, particularly when he was away from Berlin in the Obersalzburg, Bavaria.

How, then, was Germany actually governed under this supposedly totalitarian tyrant? Studies of the Third Reich in the 1950's and 1960's put Hitler's dominating personality at the center of analysis. This "intentionalist" school of historians is best exemplified by Hugh Trevor Roper, who portrayed the dictator as "the complete master" of Germany who consistently carried out the "Weltanschauung" outlined in his autobiography, "Mein Kampf." By the 1980's a new interpretation had appeared, sometimes called the "structuralist" or "functionalist" approach. Historians such as Martin Broszat emphasize Hitler's disinterest in the day-to-day operation of the Nazi government, and depict Hitler as a "weak dictator." They portray Hitler as having far less control of the Nazi state than had been assumed and, indeed, as being incapable of creating an efficient government. Hitler's "permanent improvisation," the chaotic decision-making apparatus and his contempt for the military ensured that erratic strategic guidance was continually out of step with stated policies.