machine which can be used or laid aside at will.  It is the form in which the people attains to historical reality.  It is the bearer of the historical continuity of the people, which remains the same in the center of its being in spite of all changes, revolutions, and transformations.[15]

A similar interpretation of the role of the Volk is expounded by Gottfried Neesse in his Die Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei—­Versuch einer Rechtsdeutung (The National Socialist German Workers Party—­An Attempt at Legal Interpretation), published in 1935.  From the National Socialist viewpoint, according to Neesse, the state is regarded not as an organism superior to the people but as an organization of the people:  “In contrast to an organism, an organization has no inherent legality; it is dependent upon human will and has no definite mission of its own.  It is a form in which a living mass shapes itself into unity, but it has no life of its own."[16] The people is the living organism which uses the organization of the state as the form in which it can best fulfil its mission.  The law which is inherent in the people must be realized through the state.

But the central and basic concept of National Socialist political theory is the concept of the people: 

In contrast to the state, the people form a true organism—­a being which leads its own life and follows its own laws, which possesses powers peculiar to itself, and which develops its own nature independent of all state forms....  This living unity of the people has its cells in its individual members, and just as in every body there are certain cells to perform certain tasks, this is likewise the case in the body of the people.  The individual is bound to his people not only physically but mentally and spiritually and he is influenced by these ties in all his manifestations.[17]

The elements which go to make up a people are beyond human comprehension, but the most important of them is a uniformity of blood, resulting in “a similarity of nature which manifests itself in a common language and a feeling of community and is further moulded by land and by history."[18] “The unity of the people is increased by its common destiny and its consciousness of a common mission."[19]

Liberalism gave rise to the concept of a “society-people” (Gesellschaftsvolk) which consisted of a sum of individuals, each of whom was supposed to have an inherent significance and to play his own independent part in the political life of the nation.  National Socialism, on the other hand, has developed, the concept of the “community-people” (Gemeinschaftsvolk) which functions as a uniform whole.[20]