legal order. Compulsory subordination to an arbitrary ordering would be the abolition of personality. The ordering of force of the life of the people (Volks-lebens) must be a just ordering so that at the same time it fulfills the demands of the life of the people (Volkslebens) and the demands of the individual. Thus, law orders the relationship of force (legal rights in the subjective sense: the authorization of force) within the people according to the standard of the living ideal of justice in the community of the people (Volksgemeinschaft); the ultimate source of faith in such is the divine justice that also controls the life of the people (Volksleben). Justice is a principle regulating the division of goods (attributing goods, denying goods), at the same time recognizing and evaluating the person as a member of a higher community. It gives to each his “own”, that is, according to his worth. Divine justice measures a human in accordance with his moral worth (the worth before God). Community with God is the foundation of the moral life. Human justice measures a human according to his legal worth (his worth for the people). The community of the partners in the people with one another (der Volksgenossen) is the foundation of the life of the law. The legal worth of a person, the worth for the people (Volk), has the moral worth as a condition (not as the measure). Hence comes the strong relationship of the content of the legal ordering with morality. The just ordering of law must correspond to the moral reality of the partners in the law, or not contradict it. Nonetheless, law is not there to compel a minimum of morality. Morality cannot be forced, above all cannot be comprehended in any formal law of general validity. Even more is law not there to promote ‘practical Christianity’: statutory Christianity is a contradiction in terms. Law educates toward Christian morality, but it carries its own laws within itself. It demands what is Caesar’s (the people’s (des Volkes)), never what is God’s. The fundamental rule of law is the maintenance of the people: what serves the powerful maintenance of the people is (in human terms) just. Salus publica, suprema lex. [The safety of the people is the supreme law]. Law is the battle order of the people (des Volkes) for the struggle for existence. The creator of law is war. “War is the father of all things.” Under the pressure of danger of war, the people (Volk) consolidates itself into an army; into the state. War is not the power that destroys communities, but that builds them up. The order of the army means the origin of legal order: the soldier is the father of the fatherland. The constitution of the army begets the constitution of the state; and the division of war booty creates ownership. Under the sign of the spear (sub hasta) were born law and the state. All law exists so that the people (Volk) is there, is strong, and the force of the law over individuals rests in their subordination, morally demanded, to the life of the people (Volksleben). Give your life back to the people (dem Volke) from whom you receive it. Populum
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