The National Socialist regime is in many respects a peculiar phenomenon which does not fit theories of comparative government. There have been numerous attempts to arrive at a consistent description of the Nazi state, among them Franz Neumann's model of the ‘Behemoth’ state, alluding to Thomas Hobbes, and Ernst Fraenkel's theory of the ‘dual state’, distinguishing between a normative and an arbitrary sector of state power. Both depicted only the early stages of Nazi dictatorship, while the diversity of explanations based on the concept of totalitarianism, including the assumption that Nazism was essentially ‘Hitlerism’, as Hans Buchheim claimed, accentuated the personal aspects of Hitler's rule. All these patterns of explanation tend to omit the point that the Nazi dictatorship was characterised by an inherent tendency towards self-destruction. It did not so much expand governmental prerogative through bureaucratic means as progressively undermined hitherto effective public institutions through arbitrary use of power. An accelerating fragmentation of the administrative apparatus was increasingly accompanied by the formation of new independent administrative bodies controlled by the party and promoting their own agendas. While this procedure of creating new ad hoc agencies increased the regime's short-term efficiency, it ultimately led to a dissolution of the unity and authority of the government. In some respects, Nazi expansionist policy accelerated the process of internal dissolution, because the methods of rule in the occupied territories were subsequently transferred to the Reich itself and contributed to the progressive destruction of public administration, which became more and more controlled by party functionaries.