ABSTRACT
The Weimar parliamentary state had been smashed. The Nazi state was, first of all, a dictatorship based on the personal power of Adolf Hitler. The Nazi state was also a one-party state. Success had made a large impact on the Nazi Party. The top leadership positions—Reichsleiter, Gauleiter, and Kreisleiter—were filled mostly by Nazi veterans who questioned the sincerity of the new members who flocked to the party after the Nazi victory and were cynically labeled the March converts. The fundamental political problem after the Nazi takeover was whether the party would dominate the state or vice versa. Once in power, the Nazi Party tended to crumble into various constituencies such as the SA, the SS, Hitler Youth, Labor Front, National Socialist Physicians’ League, and numerous others. In the 1930s, many people, even in the West, believed the Nazi propaganda that the Third Reich was an efficient dictatorship superior to democracy.
