is the prerequisite for the entire political order; the
state does not form the people but the people moulds the
state out of itself as the form in which it achieves
historical permanence....[14]

The State is a function of the people, but it is not
therefore a subordinate, secondary 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: