ABSTRACT
In 1932, the National Socialist German Worker's Party won control of the Reichstag, the German parliament, through two free and popular elections. Revered intellectuals such as Voegelin, Viereck, Friedrich von Hayek, Hannah Arendt, and Erich Fromm have attempted to excavate the roots of the Nazi revolt against human decency. In the words of Benedetto Croce, a twentieth-century Italian philosopher who underscored the relevance of history and imagination in his work. The sneering distinction between men of books and men of deeds is made false by the fact that in the long run books are bullets". This contention, that "books are bullets", is a central theme of Viereck's political philosophy. The unwritten constitution is that intuitive ethical code of manners and conventions that, while implicit and uninstitutionalized, serves as the bedrock for the institutionalized strictures of government by establishing a general ethical sense throughout society.
