The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it.

The line expresses a dynamic often attributed to authoritarian politics: intimidation does not merely silence opponents; it can pressure them into adopting the regime’s methods—centralization, coercion, propaganda, surveillance—in the name of “security” or “necessity.” Read this way, the “strength” of totalitarianism lies in its capacity to reshape the political field so that even adversaries begin to mirror it, narrowing the space for liberal or pluralist alternatives. However, because the attribution to Hitler is doubtful, the quote is best treated as a later formulation about totalitarian contagion rather than reliable evidence of Hitler’s own self-description.