staat_]. Out of a political
fighting organization the NSDAP grew to a community capable
of carrying the state and the nation. This process was
accomplished step by step in the first months after the
National Socialist seizure of power. The assumption of the
office of Chancelor by the Fuehrer of the movement formed the
basis for this development. Various party leaders were
appointed as _Reichsminister_; the governors of the
provinces were national leaders or _Gauleiter_ of the party,
such as General von Epp; the Prussian government officials
are as a rule _Gauleiter_ of the party; the Prussian police
chiefs are mostly high-ranking SA leaders. By this system of
a union of the personnel of the party and state offices the
unity of party and state was achieved.[85]

The culmination of this development was reached in the "Law To
Safeguard the Unity of Party and State," of December 1, 1933 (document
11-IV, _post_ p. 221), which proclaimed the NSDAP "the bearer of the
German state-idea and indissolubly joined to the state." In order to
guarantee the complete cooperation of the party and SA with the public
officials, the Fuehrer's Deputy and the Chief of Staff of the SA were
made members of the Cabinet.

With regard to the relation between the party and the state, Neesse
writes:

The NSDAP is not a structure which stands under direct state
control, to which single tasks of public administration are
entrusted by the state, but it holds and maintains is claim
to totality as the "bearer of the German state-idea" in all
fields relating to the community--regardless of how various
single functions are divided between the organization of the
party and the organization of the state.[86]

To maintain cooperation between the party and state organizations, the
highest state offices are given to the men holding the corresponding
party offices. Gauweiler (document 8, _post_ p. 204) attributes to the
party supreme leadership in all phases of national life. Thus the
state becomes merely an administrative machine which the party has set
up in accordance with and for the accomplishment of its aims:

As the responsible bearer and shaper of the destiny of the
whole German nation the party has created an entirely new
state, for that which sought to foist itself upon her as a
state was simply the product of a deep human conf