Totalitarian rule

TOTALITARIAN RULE The concept of totalitarian rule cannot be determined by purely logical means. It was explained and clarified only by those who went through the bitter experience of this form of government. As late as the end of the 1920's the word "totalitarian" was used to designate any state which was governed in an authoritarian rather than a parliamentarian manner. The London Times, for example, on November 2, 1929, spoke of a reaction against parliamentarism "in …

…the sentence, "Hitler is Germany--Germany is Hitler." Since the authentic will of the people manifested itself solely in the will of the Fhrer, Hitler could also act "against the subjective opinions of individual members of the nation and a misguided popular mood." On this point, then, the National Socialist concepts led to the same practical ends as did the Communist ones: the totalitarian regime imposes on the people what is allegedly the people's real will.