The concept Geheime Staatspolizei (State Secret Police) appears to contradict this position, for it obviously links the Gestapo with the state. However, this is shown to be only another terminological obscurity. Reinhard Hohn has also pointed out in this connection that
'the command of the Secret Police ... was taken over by a community of men originating and firmly established within the movement. Thus the fact that the word "Staatspolizei" does not really take account of this should be mentioned' (see Grundfragen der deutschen Polizei, quoted by Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism).
The expression 'the party dictates to the state', which became familiar in the process of seizing power, described the true situation much more accurately. If it continued to exist alongside the later, also statutorily established, formula of the 'unity of party and state', this only demonstrated anew the regime's indifference or intent to confuse in the matter of jurisdiction. Though of course the party, or more correctly the movement, had no original right of command; that right lay only with Hitler personally. See in this connection the somewhat artificial system of preponderant powers which Franz Neumann has developed in his book Behemoth. The Structure and Practice of National Socialism. Neumann exaggerates the importance of jurisdiction and pays too little attention to the decisive importance of personal relationships in totalitarian systems. Often the authority of a group or institution was dependent on the (still precarious) position which its representative at that time held at Hitler's court. See further on this Hans Buchheim, 'Der Stellvertreter des Fuhrers' in Gutachten des Instituts fur Zeitgeschichte.