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coincide as the system runs into war. Rimmler, the party in general, has
by no means succeeded in gaining jurisdiction over the army. The uneasy
and often indefinite balance of power between the 4 elites is counter·
balanced by the antagonisms which beset the system and lend to the elites
a total fear of the working class. Again the analysis is pointed to
explain war.
IV: Just as the basic outline of the political and economic structure
is teased out from the legal and doctrinal verbiage, so are the ideologies
of the regime explained in terms of the composition and developmental
trends of the social structure and its various strata. Ideologies and social
structure are seen conjointly, which is the only way to see either in accu·
rate and telling focus. For in some situations nothing that is said can be
taken at its face value, and it is more important to know meanings than to
.test for truth. Indeed, the way to political reality is
through
ideological
analysis. This is the way that Neumann has taken, and this is why his
account of Nazi ideology is at times definitive and always interesting. His
account of the blending of geopolitics and international law to form a
"Germanic Monroe Doctrine" is a model for such analysis.
If
this particu·
lar style of imputation is intellectually too brutal, it stands in fortunate
contrast to Rauschnigg, de Sales, Vierick, and others who have not con·
trolled their ·understanding of Nazi proclamations, ideas, and policies by
careful reference to their anchorages in the evolving features of the politi·
cal-economic structure.
Ideas are political cloaks. The ideology of
Gemeinschajt, e.g.,
masks
the impersonality of a rationalized society. Those academic sociologists
who in Amercan silos yearn from a "primary-group" society, take note:
Jefferson died in 1826. As human relations become impersonal by virtue
of bureaucratic intervention, the ideologies of "community" and of "lead·
ership" have been imposed. In a similar contradiction Neumann shows
that as the political power of the state has increased, the doctrine of the
totalitarian state has been rejected by Nazi intellectuals.
Anti-Semitism has ·its economic functions which work conjointly with
propagandic uses: it aids monopolization by distributing spoils to indus·
trial capitalists whose support is vital, it diverts the discontent of small
Aryan businessmen, and attempts to satisfy the anti-capitalist feeling of
those areas· of the masses who want wholesale expropriation. Thus, anti·
Semitism operates as a surrogate for class struggle by heaping hatred upon
one "enemy"; in the same act it seeks to "unify" the Aryan community.
The manner in which Nazi doctrine is shaped by the need to ensnare
various strata is neatly illustrated by its inclusion of perverted Marxist
elements. "Proletarian racism" stands as a strategical surrogate for "pro·
letariat"; nationalist war against capitalism, for "class struggle"; "peo·
pies community," for "classless society," and so on. Thus has the Marxist
May Day become a national holiday.
Neumann's style of imputation systematically accomplishes 2 objec·
tives: it makes possible a controlled understanding of doctrinal formula·
