In the light of these hypotheses it becomes understandable for the first time why these rootless, petty-bourgeois representatives of the masses gave Hitler's ambitious party its stamp and proved equal so quickly and convincingly to the technical demands of power. During these years were to be found, down to the lowest rungs of the party hierarchy, a profound knowledge of the workings of power that proved surprisingly capable of projecting these men to the top, seeing them successfully through their rivalries, and enabling them to secure and gradually extend their spheres of influence: in short, commanding the whole repertoire of Machiavellian tactics. Such knowledge, however, was accompanied in the majority of cases by extreme professional incompetence in the mastery of the positions thus gained, and only in exceptional cases did the outsiders who forced their way into the key positions of the state and society in 1933 breathe life into the generations-old office routines.