Hitler invented the two-tier structure of core members surrounded by sympathizers
Evidence
An anonymity which contributes greatly to the weirdness of the whole phenomenon clouds the beginnings of this new organizational structure. We do not know who first decided to organize fellow-travelers into front organizations, who first saw in vaguely sympathizing masses—upon whom all parties used to count at election day but whom they considered to be too fluctuating for membership—not only a reservoir from which to draw party members, but a decisive force in itself. The early Communist-inspired organizations of sympathizers, such as the Friends of the Soviet Union or the Red Relief associations, developed into front organizations but were originally nothing more or less than what their names indicated: a gathering of sympathizers for financial or other (for instance, legal) help. Hitler was the first to say that each movement should divide the masses which have been won through propaganda into two categories, sympathizers and members. This in itself is interesting enough; even more significant is that he based this division upon a more general philosophy according to which most people are too lazy and cowardly for anything more than mere theoretical insight, and only a minority want to fight for their convictions. Hitler, consequently, was the first to devise a conscious policy of constantly enlarging the ranks of sympathizers while at the same time keeping the number of party members strictly limited. This notion of a minority of party members surrounded by a majority of sympathizers comes very close to the later reality of front organizations—a term which indeed expresses most aptly their eventual function, and indicates the relationship between members and sympathizers within the movement itself. For the front organizations of sympathizers are no less essential to the functioning of the movement than its actual membership. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 853
Categorization
- DEFINE: Front organizations defined as a conscious structure: sympathizer masses surrounding a strictly limited core membership.
- XREF: Connects to Gramsci’s hegemony/consent theory — the sympathizer wall as manufactured consent surrounding the activist core.