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THE COUNTRY AS A LIVING ORGANISM CONTAINING PATHOGENIC MICROORGANISMS
At the heart of Hitler’s ideology was his conception of Germany as a living organism. "My movement," Hitler declared, "Encompasses every aspect of the entire Volk. It conceives of Germany as a corporate body, as a single organism." There could be no such thing as "non-responsibility in this organic being,” he wrote, “not a single cell which is not responsible, by its very existence, for the welfare and well-being of the whole." There could not be the least amount of room for “apolitical people." In short, each and every German was like a cell in an enormous body. Given this concept, no cell could exist separately from this body.
Political theorist Gottfried Neese stated that in contrast to the state, the people form "a true organism—a being which leads its own life and follows its own laws." This "living unity of the people has cells in its individual members." Just as in every body there are cells to perform certain tasks, this is "likewise the case in the body of the people."
This conception of the nation as a gigantic organism—with each individual constituting a cell—lay at the heart of Nazi totalitarianism. If the nation is a single organism and each individual a cell, then no individual can escape this organism; each individual is responsible for the health of the organism; and the health of each individual cell impacts upon the health of the entire organism.
However, while some cells contribute to the health of the national organism, so other cells are not capable of making a contribution. Hitler believed he had identified the presence of malignant cells within the body politic that were acting to destroy it. Jews were conceived as bacteria or virus—source of a disease within the body politic. This fantasy of Jews as pathogenic cells generated the Final Solution, whose purpose was to destroy these cells, and thus to save the life of Germany.
Given that Germany was a real body politic, it followed that the purpose of politics was to maintain the health and life of this body. Politics, HItler insisted, could be nothing other than the practical waging of a people’s life-battle “with all means available." Since Hitler imagined that the health of the German body was threatened—politics became a “life and death struggle.”
"The people." Hitler declared, is "the object, the value in and of itself which is to be preserved." All of the functions of the body politic ultimately fulfill only one purpose: "securing the preservation of this body in the future.” The purpose of politics was to make certain that Germany—"lived on."
The discourse of nationalism personifies or reifies nations. To this day, we speak of and treat nations as if they are living beings. These living beings may be healthy or sick, stable or in danger of “falling apart.” We speak of countries as if they are bodies possessing a life of their own. “History” is the narrative of these bodies called nations.
Nazism represented the apogee of the tendency within the ideology of nationalism to conceive of countries as bodies. Hitler imagined that he and the German people constituted a single organic being; a “national organism.” His struggle, essentially (Mein Kampf) was a struggle to keep the national organism alive. Insofar as Hitler identified his own body with the German body politic, his struggle to rescue Germany was a struggle for his own survival.
Some historians say that Hitler had no personality; that he was a non-entity. What is misunderstood is that Hitler’s personality existed by virtue of his identification with the German nation. He imagined that he was the nation. He did not separate his being from Germany. He projected himself entirely into political life.
There is nothing hidden about Hitler. Everything he was—was contained within his public rhetoric. Reading his Table Talks, one learns nothing new. He may have been a "non-entity" in terms of his personal life, but he also was a “world historic personality” (his own conception of himself).
It is a mistake to imagine that Hitler had a secret, hidden life--separate from what he uttered on the stage of politics. Hitler was his public statements. What one sees is what one gets. This was one of the sources of his popularity: his absolute sincerity in his embrace of the dream of nationalism.
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