But until the law concerned had been eliminated in accordance with the rules of German constitutional law, all officials of the hierarchy would have had to obey it. No functionary would have had the right, let alone the duty, to examine its legal binding force with the aim of obeying or refusing to obey it, depending on the result of this examination. This is not different in any other State in the world. It never was and never can be different. Every State has had the experience of its ultimate orders, its highest orders, which must be binding on the hierarchy if the authority of the State is to exist at all, being on occasion in conflict with rules not imposed by the State - to divine law, to natural law and to the laws of reason.
Good governments take trouble to avoid such conflicts.
And, if only for this reason, his way of governing was not a good one, even though it was for some years successful in some spheres. They just did not. Now in a State in which the entire power to make final decisions is concentrated in the hands of a single individual, the orders of this one man are absolutely binding on the members of the hierarchy. After all, the world is not faced by such a phenomenon for the first time. In former times it may even have seemed to be normal.