uehrer, 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 Fuehrer,
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 Fuehrer'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 Fuehrer is always right!" and the second is "Never go against
discipline!"

In view of the importance attached to the Fuehrer 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 Fuehrer 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 recogniti