on of the Fuehrer 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]

German writers often pretend that the Fuehrer principle does not
necessarily result in the establishment of a dictatorship but that it
permits the embodiment of the will of the people in its leaders and
the realization of the popular will much more efficiently than is
possible in democratic states. Such an argument, for example, is
presented by Dr. Paul Ritterbusch in _Demokratie und Diktatur_
(_Democracy and Dictatorship_), published in 1939. Professor
Ritterbusch claims that Communism leads to a dictatorial system but
that the Nazi movement is much closer to the ideals of true democracy.
The real nature of National Socialism, however, cannot be understood
from the standpoint of the "pluralistic-party state." It does not
represent a dictatorship of one party and a suppression of all others
but rather an expression of the will and the character of the whole
national community in and through one great party which has resolved
all internal discords and oppositions within itself. The Fuehrer of
this great movement is at once the leader and the expression of the
national will. Freed from the enervating effects of internal strife,
the movement under the guiding hand of the Fuehrer can bring the whole
of the national community to its fullest expression and highest
development.

The highest authority, however, Hitler himself, has left no doubt as
to the nature of Nazi Party leaders. In a speech delivered at the
Sportpalast in Berlin on April 8, 1933, he said:

When our opponents say: "It is easy for you: you are a
dictator"--We answer them, "No, gentlemen, you are wrong;
there is no single dictator, but ten thousand, each in his
own place." And even the highest authority in the hierarchy
has itself only one wish, never to transgress against the
supreme authority to which it, too, is responsible. We have
in our movement developed this loyalty in following the
leader, this blind obedience of which all the others know
nothing and which gave to us the power to surmount
everything.[58]

As has been indicated above, the Fuehrer principle applies not only to
the Fuehrer of the Reich, Adolf Hitler, but to all the subordinate
leaders o