THE CONCENTRATI ·ON CAMPS
idea of total domination was not only inhuman but also unrealistic.
Meanwhile we have learned that the power of man
is
so great that
he really can be what he wishes to be.
It
is in the very nature of totalitarian regimes to demand un–
limited power. Such power can only be secured if literally all men,
without a single exception, are reliably dominated in every aspect of
their life. In the realm of foreign affairs new neutral territories must
constantly be subjugated, while at home ever-new human groups
must be mastered in expanding concentration camps, or, when cir–
cumstances require, liquidated to make room for others. Here the
question of opposition is unimportant both in foreign and domestic
affairs. Any neutrality, indeed any spontaneously given friendship is
from the standpoint of totalitarian domination just as dangerous as
open hostility, precisely because spontaneity as such, with its incalcu–
lability, is the greatest of all obstacles to total domination over man.
The Communists of non-Communist countries, who fled or were
called to Moscow, learned by bitter experience that they constituted a
menace to the Soviet Union. Convinced Communists are in this
sense, which alone has any reality today, just as ridiculous and just as
menacing to the regime in Russia as for example the convinced Nazis
of the Roehm faction were to the Nazis.
What makes conviction and opinion of any sort so ridiculous
and dangerous under totalitarian conditions is that totalitarian reg–
imes take the greatest pride in having no need of them, or of any
human help of any kind. Men insofar as they are more than animal
reaction and fulfillment of functions are entirely superfluous to
totalitarian regimes. Totalitarianism strives not toward despotic rule
over men, but toward a system in which men are superfluous. Total
power can be achieved and safeguarded only in a world of condi–
tioned reflexes, of marionettes without the slightest trace of SRontanei–
ty. Precisely because man's resources are so great, he can be fully dom–
inated only when he becomes
.a
specimen of the animal-species man.
Therefore character is a threat and even the most unjust legal
rules are an obstacle; but individuality, anything indeed that dis–
tinguishes one man from another, is intolerable.
As
long as all men
have not been made equally superfluous-and this has been accom–
plished only in concentration camps-the ideal of totalitarian dom–
ination has not been achieved. Totalitarian states strive constantly,
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