Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

726 DER FUEHREREven spatially this was limited authority, and Hitler's personal friendwas forced to look on bitterly while in great Prussia a commonplaceofficial without any academic background, one Hans Kerrl, was put atthe head of the Ministry of Justice because he was Goring's bosomfriend; while a lawyer from Kassel, a certain Roland Freisler, actuallymanaged the Ministry's affairs as Kerrl's State Secretary; while laterFreisler succeeded Kerrl, when Kerrl had proved too obvious a failure.But he, Frank, could not achieve the goal which for the leader of theNational Socialist jurists was the highest, the only one worth desiring:the Reich Ministry of Justice, the office where the laws were reallymade.Through their own experience these men slowly learned that the stateand power were not necessarily one and the same thing. They had beenbrought up on the idea that all political executive power wasconcentrated in the state. Since the creation of the Spanish monarchy inthe sixteenth century, this view had become dominant in continentalEurope. Since Napoleon I, it had no longer been disputed. Whenfinanciers and industrialists exercised their power, they did it byinfluencing the government authorities; only the Church had its ownsphere of influence in society. This state monopoly of political powerwas not shaken until after the First World War, and then in the verycountries where one would have least expected it: the so-calleddictatorships. In these countries the party — or, more accurately, thenumerous organizations between the party and the state — competedwith or surpassed the power of the government administration; and in athousand concrete cases it was impossible to predict which of the twowould be stronger and emerge victorious. It was an excess of power thatburst all controls and for a limited time spilled over into a chaos ofcrosscurrents.Thus, for instance, Frank, who had not become Minister of Justice,instead was appointed 'Reich Commissioner for the Coordination ofJustice in the German States and for the Renovation of theAdministration of Law.' This opaque title meant that he was to enlist allthe officials entrusted with the administration of justice, including thejudges, into the National Socialist organizations; for this purpose herebaptized the 'League of National Socialist