Ernst Rudolf Huber

It's not a question of the "narcissism" of the leader--or the fact that the leader is a "psychopath." Rather, a leader becomes a leader to the extent that he articulates the collective will of the people. This is the role and job of a leader: to invent words and phrases that express the fantasies and desires of the people.

Nazi political theorist Ernst Rudolf Huber in Constitutional Law of the Third Reich stated that the Führer is the “bearer of the collective will of the people.” In the will of the leader, Huber said, the “will of the people is realized.” Hitler’s will was not the “subjective will of a single man.”

Rather, the “collective national will” was embodied within the leader. A people’s collective will is rooted in the “political idea which is given to a people.” The political idea is present in the people, but the Führer “raises it to consciousness and discloses it.”

The role of the leader is to “disclose” a people’s political idea—bring into consciousness that which had been unconscious. The leader brings forth—makes manifest—ideas and desires that are latent within a people. His ideology reveals and crystallizes a people’s shared fantasies.

The leader invents images, metaphors and phrases to convey these fantasies. He processes his own fantasies and those of his people—and “returns” information to his audience in the form of a societal discourse.

By virtue of being transformed into a societal discourse, energies and passions bound to unconscious fantasies are released for action. The ideology transforms latent desires and fantasies into the “collective will” to act.

The will to act is generated by the wish to actualize or bring into reality fantasies contained within the ideology. Thus, the role of the leader is not only to bring into consciousness fantasies shared by members of society, but also to devise a plan or program allowing these fantasies to transform reality.

Germans embraced Hitler and his ideology because they liked what he was saying. The words and phrases and metaphors that he used in his speeches conveyed a message that struck a chord within the German people. Hitler’s ideas evoked a deep response. His ideology transformed vague desires, undefined fears and inchoate longings into a system of belief capable of generating action on the stage of political reality.

Hitler created an ideology that expressed the desires and fantasies of the German people. When Hitler spoke, people in the audience jumped to their feet and shouted, “Heil Hitler.” Germans shouted “Heil” because they agreed with what Hitler was saying.

A nation or people become capable of creating “History” when they unite to engage in concerted action. Historical actions come into being as the manifestation of a people’s collective will; as a result of their desire to transform reality in accordance with fantasies contained within an ideology.