Politics
Further information: Adolf HitlerThe Nazi state idolized Hitler as its Führer ("Leader"), centralizing all power in his hands. Nazi propaganda centered on Hitler and created what historians call the "Hitler Myth" – that Hitler was all-wise and that any mistakes or failures by others would be corrected when brought to his attention. In reality, Hitler had a narrow range of interests, and decision-making was diffused among overlapping, feuding power centers; on some issues he was passive, simply assenting to pressures from whoever had his ear. Top officials reported to Hitler and followed his basic policies, but they had considerable autonomy on a daily basis. Through staffing of most government positions with Nazi Party members, by 1935 the German national government and the Nazi Party had become virtually one and the same. By 1938, through the policy of Gleichschaltung, local and state governments lost all legislative power and answered administratively to Nazi Party leaders, known as Gauleiters, who governed Gaue and Reichsgaue.
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Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Politics begin where the masses are, not where there are thousands, but where there are millions, that is where serious politics begin.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)