TheFührerprinzip (German pronunciation:[ˈfyːʀɐpʀɪnˌtsiːp]ⓘ,Leader Principle) was the basis ofexecutive authority in thegovernment of Nazi Germany. It placedAdolf Hitler's word above all written law, and meant thatgovernment policies, decisions, and officialsall served to realize his will. In practice, theFührerprinzip gave Hitler supreme power over the ideology and policies ofhis political party; this form ofpersonal dictatorship was a basic characteristic ofNazism.[1] The state itself received "political authority" from Hitler, and theFührerprinzip stipulated that only what the Führer "commands, allows, or does not allow is our conscience," withparty leaders pledging "eternal allegiance to Adolf Hitler."[1][2]
According to Deputy FührerRudolf Hess, the Nazi German political system meant "unconditional authority downwards, and responsibility upwards."[3] At each level of the pyramidal power structure the sub-leader, orUnterführer, was subordinate to the superior leader, and responsible to him for all successes and failures.[4][1] "As early as July 1921," Hitler proclaimed theFührerprinzip as the "law of the Nazi Party," and inMein Kampf he said the principle would govern the new Reich.[5] At theBamberg Conference on 14 February 1926, Hitler invoked theFührerprinzip to assert his power,[6] and affirmed his total authority overNazi administrators at the party membership meeting inMunich on 2 August 1928.[4]
The Nazi government implemented theFührerprinzip throughout German civil society. Business organizations and civil institutions were thus led by an appointed leader, rather than managed by an elected committee of professional experts. This included the schools, both public and private,[7] the sports associations,[8] and the factories.[9] Beginning in 1934, theGerman armed forces swore a "Führer Oath" to Hitler personally, not theGerman constitution.[10] As a common theme ofNazi propaganda, the "Leader Principle" compelled obedience to the supreme leader who—by personal command—could override therule of law as exercised by electedparliaments, appointed committees, andbureaucracies.[11] The Germancultural reverence for national leaders such as KingFrederick the Great (r. 1740–1786) and ChancellorOtto von Bismarck (r. 1871–1890), and the historic example of theNordic saga, were also appropriated to support the idea.[12] Theultranationalist "Leader Principle" vested "complete and all-embracing" authority in the "myth person"[6] of Hitler who, as Rudolf Hess declared in 1934, "was always right and will always be right."[1]
The political-science termFührerprinzip was coined byHermann von Keyserling (1880–1946), an Estonian philosopher of German descent.[13][need quotation to verify] Ideologically, theFührerprinzip seesorganizations as ahierarchy of leaders, wherein each leader (German:Führer) has absolute responsibility in, and for, his own area of authority, is owed absolute obedience from subordinates, and answers to his superior officers; the subordinates' obedience also includes personal loyalty to the leader.[14] In both theory and practice, theFührerprinzip made Adolf Hitler supreme leader of the German nation.[15]
By presenting Hitler as the incarnation of authority—a saviour-politician who personally dictates the law—theFührerprinzip functioned as acolor of law legalism that conferredexecutive,judicial, andlegislative powers of government on the person of Hitler asFührer und Reichskanzler (Leader and State Chancellor), the combined leader andchancellor of Germany. For example, following the 1934Night of the Long Knives, Hitler justified his violentpolitical purge ofErnst Röhm and theStrasserite faction of the Nazi Party as a matter of German national security, and stated: "In this hour, I was responsible for the fate of the German nation and was therefore the supreme judge of the German people!"[16]
As a proponent of theFührerprinzip, the German legal theoristCarl Schmitt (1888–1985) defended the political purges and thefelony crimes of the Nazis individually, and the Nazi Party collectively, because theFührerprinzip stipulated that the Führer's word supersedes any contradictory law.[17][18] In the bookThe Legal Basis of the Total State (1933), Schmitt stated that theFührerprinzip was the ideological and political foundation of the Nazi Germantotal state, writing:
The strength of the National Socialist State lies in the fact that it is [ruled] from top to bottom and in every atom of its existence ruled and permeated with the concept of leadership (German:Führertum). This principle [of leadership], which made the movement strong, must be carried through systematically, both in the administration of the State and in the various spheres of self-government, naturally taking into account the [ideologic] modifications required by the particular area in question. But it would not be permissible for any important area of public life to operate independently from theFührer concept.[18]
In the Nazi Party, the "Leader Principle" came to be considered[citation needed] integral to political cohesion. In July 1921, to affirm personal control of the Nazi Party, Hitler confrontedAnton Drexler—the original founder of the Nazi Party—to thwart Drexler's proposal to unite the Nazi Party with the largerGerman Socialist Party. Fervently opposed to this idea, Hitler angrily left the Nazi Party on 11 July 1921. However, understanding that the absence of Hitler would destroy the party's credibility, party-committee members accepted Hitler's demand to replace Drexler as party chairman, and Hitler rejoined.[19][20]
The increased number of party members split into two ideological factions; the northern faction (led byOtto Strasser andGregor Strasser) of the Nazi Party championed theThird position politics ofStrasserism (revolutionary nationalism andeconomic antisemitism); the southern faction (led by Hitler himself) of the party followed Hitler's brand of Nazism. The two factions greatly disagreed about theFührerprinzip, and whether or not it was an essential principle for the party. On 14 February 1926, at theBamberg Conference, Hitler defeated all factional opposition and established theFührerprinzip as the managing principle of the Nazi Party.[21]
In 1934, Hitler imposed theFührerprinzip on the government and civil society ofWeimar Germany in order to establish the Nazi state.[22] While the fascist government did not require the German business community to adopt Nazi techniques of administration, it did mandate that companies rename their management hierarchies using thepolitically correct language of theFührerprinzip ideology.[8]
With regard to the ultimate value of subordinates' input,Hermann Göring told British ambassador SirNevile Henderson: "When a decision has to be taken, none of us counts more than the stones on which we are standing. It is the Führer, alone, who decides”.[23] Following the adoption of the "Führer Oath" by the German armed forces in 1934, Hitler wrote a public letter to Defense MinisterWerner von Blomberg, saying, "Just as the officers and soldiers of theWehrmacht bind themselves to the new state in my person, so shall I always regard it as my highest duty to defend the existence and inviolability of theWehrmacht in fulfillment of the testament of thelate field marshal and, faithful to my own will, to anchor the army in the nation as the sole bearer of arms."[10]
Nazi propaganda films promoted theFührerprinzip as a basis for the organization of thecivil society of Germany. In the 1933 filmFlüchtlinge, the hero rescues refugeeVolga Germans from Communist persecution by a leader who requires unquestioning obedience.[24]Der Herrscher altered the source material to depict the hero, Clausen, as the stalwart leader of his munitions company, who, when faced with the machinations of his children, decides to disown them and bestows the company to the state, confident that there will arise a factory worker who is a true leader of men capable of continuing Clausen's work.[25] In the 1941 filmCarl Peters the protagonist is a decisive man of action who fights and defeats the African natives to establish German colonies in Africa, but Peters is thwarted by a parliament who does not understand that German society needs theFührerprinzip.[26] In the 1945Kolberg, when Gneisenau is set to the city to defend it, he insists on control, telling Nettelbeck that there must be a leader.
At school, adolescent boys were taught Nordic sagas as the literary illustration of theFührerprinzip possessed by the German heroesFrederick the Great andOtto von Bismarck.[27]
This was combined with the glorification of the one, centralFührer, Adolf Hitler. During theNight of the Long Knives, it was claimed that his decisive action saved Germany,[28] though it meant (in Goebbels's description) suffering "tragic loneliness" from being a Siegfried forced to shed blood to preserve Germany.[29] In one speechRobert Ley explicitly proclaimed "TheFührer is always right."[30] Booklets given out for theWinter Relief donations includedThe Führer Makes History,[31][32] a collection of Hitler photographs,[33] andThe Führer’s Battle in the East[34] Films such asDer Marsch zum Führer andTriumph of the Will glorified him.
In the aftermath of the Second World War (1937–1945), at the Allied war-crimeNuremberg Trials (1945–1946) of captured Nazi leaders in Germany, and at theEichmann Trial (1961) in Israel, the criminal defence arguments presented theFührerprinzip as a concept ofjurisprudence that voided the militarycommand responsibility of the accused war criminals, because they were military officers followingsuperior orders.
In the bookEichmann in Jerusalem (1963),Hannah Arendt said that, aside from a personal desire to improve his career as an administrator, Eichmann did not manifestantisemitism or any psychological abnormality. That Eichmann personifiedthe banality of evil given the commonplace personality Eichmann displayed at trial, which communicated neither feelings of guilt nor feelings of hatred whilst he denied personal responsibility for his war crimes. In his defense, Eichmann said he was "doing his job", and that he always tried to act in accordance with thecategorical imperative proposed in thedeontological moral philosophy ofImmanuel Kant.[35]
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