Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt (July 11 1888 - April 7 1985) was a controversial German legal theoretician and catholic intellectual.

Related Topics:
July 11 - 1888 - April 7 - 1985 - German - Legal - Catholic - Intellectual

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Schmitt was born the son of a small businessman in Plettenberg, Westphalia on July 11 1888; he studied political science and law in Berlin, Munich and Strasbourg and took his graduation and state exams in the then-German Strasbourg in 1915.

Related Topics:
Plettenberg - Westphalia - July 11 - 1888 - Political science - Law - Berlin - Munich - Strasbourg - 1915

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In 1921, Schmitt became a professor at the University of Greifswald, where he published his essay "Die Diktatur" ("On Dictatorship"), in which he discussed the foundations of the newly-established Weimar Republic, emphasising the office of the Reichspräsident. For Schmitt, a strong dictator could embody the will of the people more effectively than any legislative body, as it can be decisive, whereas parliaments inevitably involve discussion and compromise:

Related Topics:
1921 - Greifswald - Dictatorship - Weimar Republic - Reichspräsident

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?If the constitution of a state is democratic, then every exceptional negation of democratic principles, every exercise of state power independent of the approval of the majority, can be called dictatorship.?

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For Schmitt, every government capable of decisive action must include a dictatorial element within its constitution. Thus, in "Die Diktatur," we find Schmitt's judgement that dictatorships can be more meaningfully democratic than democracies.

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This was followed by another essay in 1922, titled "Politische Theologie" ("Political Theology"); in it, Schmitt, who at the time was working as a professor at the University of Bonn, further substantiated his authoritarian theories, effectively denying free will based on a catholic world view. Another year later, Schmitt supported the emergence of totalitarian power structures in his paper "Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus" (roughly: "The Intellectual-Historical Situation of Today's Parliamentarianism, translated as The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy by Ellen Kennedy). Schmitt criticized the institutional practices of liberal politics, arguing that they are justified by a faith in rational discussion and openness that is at odds with actual parliamentary party politics, in which outcomes are hammered out in smoke-filled rooms by party leaders. Schmitt also posits an essential division between the liberal doctrine of separation of powers and what he holds to be the nature of democracy itself, the identity of the rulers and the ruled. Although many critics of Schmitt today take exception to his fundamentally authoritarian outlook, the notion that there is an incompatibility between liberalism and democracy is one reason why his work is of continued interest to students of political philosophy.

Related Topics:
1922 - Theology - University of Bonn - Free will - Catholic - Totalitarian - Parliamentarianism - Party politics - Separation of powers - Democracy - Authoritarian - Political philosophy

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Schmitt changed universities in 1926, when he became professor for law at the Hochschule für Politik in Berlin, and again in 1932, when he accepted a position in Cologne. It was in Cologne, too, that he wrote his most famous paper, "Der Begriff des Politischen" ("The Concept of the Political"), in which he developed a theory that ascribed a specific domain of interest, called "the political," to the state. This concept gives the state its own area of predominance, just as churches are predominant in religion or society is predominant in economics. Schmitt, in perhaps his best-known formulation, bases his conceptual realm of state sovereignty and autonomy upon the distinction between friends and enemies. This distinction is to be determined "existentially," which is to say that the enemy is whoever is "in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien, so that in the extreme case conflicts with him are possible." (Schmitt, 1996, p. 27) Such an enemy need not even be based on nationality: so long as the conflict is potentially intense enough to become a violent one between political entities, the actual substance of emnity may be anything. Although there have been divergent interpretations offered of this work, there is broad agreement that "The Concept of the Political" is an attempt to achieve state unity by defining the content of politics as opposition to a foreign "other," and also through the preeminence of the state, which stands as a neutral force over potentially fractious civil society, whose various antagonisms must not be allowed to reach the level of the political, lest civil war result.

Related Topics:
1926 - Berlin - 1932 - Cologne

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Apart from his academic functions, Schmitt was counsel for the Reich government in the case "Preussen contra Reich," wherein the SPD-led government of the state of Prussia disputed its dismissal by the right-wing von Papen government. Papen was motivated to make this move because Prussia, by far the largest state in Germany, served as a powerful base upon which the political left could draw, and also provided them with institutional power, particularly in the form of the Prussian Police. One of the counsels for the Prussian government was Hermann Heller. In German history, this struggle leading to the de facto destruction of federalism in the Weimar republic is known as the 'Preußenschlag'.

Related Topics:
Prussia - Hermann Heller

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Schmitt's theories in this brief were later used by the Nazis for an ideological foundation of their dictatorship, and Schmitt was later accused of having justified the "Führer" state with regard to legal philosophy. In fact, Schmitt, who became a professor at the University of Berlin in 1933 (a position he held until the end of World War II) joined the NSDAP on May 1 1933; he quickly was appointed "Preußischer Staatsrat" by Hermann Göring and became the president of the "Vereinigung nationalsozialistischer Juristen" ("Union of National-Socialist Jurists") in November.

Related Topics:
Nazi - Führer - Berlin - 1933 - World War II - NSDAP - May 1 - Hermann Göring - November

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Half a year later, in June 1934, Schmitt became editor in chief for the professional newspaper "Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung" ("German Jurists' Newspaper"); in July 1934, he justified the political murders of the Night of the Long Knives as the "highest form of administrative justice" ("höchste Form administrativer Justiz").

Related Topics:
June - 1934 - July - Night of the Long Knives

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Schmitt presented himself as a radical anti-semite and also was the chairman of a law teachers' convention in Berlin in October 1936, where he demanded that German law be cleansed from the "Jewish spirit" ("jüdischem Geist"), going so far as to demand that all publications by Jewish scientists should henceforth be marked with a small symbol. Nevertheless, two months later, in December, the SS publication "Das schwarze Korps" accused Schmitt of being an opportunist, a Hegelian state thinker and basically a Catholic, and called his anti-semitism a mere mock-up, citing earlier statements in which he criticised the Nazi's racial theories. After this, Schmitt lost most of his prominent offices, and retreated from his position as a leading Nazi jurist, although he remained as a professor in Berlin.

Related Topics:
Anti-semite - Convention - Berlin - October - 1936 - December - SS - Nazi

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In 1945, Schmitt was captured by the American forces; after spending more than a year in an internment camp, he returned to his home town of Plettenberg following his release in 1946, and later to the house of his housekeeer Anni Stand in Plettenberg-Pasel. Despite being isolated in the mainstream scholarly and political community, he continued his studies especially of international law from the 1950s on, and he received a never-ending stream of visitors, both colleagues and younger intellectuals, until well into his old age. Schmitt died on April 7 1985 and is buried in Plettenberg.

Related Topics:
1945 - American - Plettenberg - 1946 - International law - 1950s - April 7 - 1985

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Though some have recently made apologies for Schmitt?s conduct during the Nazi era, it must be remembered that, along with the early Heidegger, Schmitt lent his considerable authority to the Nazi regime, and played a leading role in constructing the legal façade that justified its seizure of power. It seems unlikely that a political mind as insightful as Schmitt?s could have been mistaken about the true nature of the NSDAP and its leadership, yet, if this was the case, many other people shared his delusions. Schmitt clearly favored a strong, even dictatorial executive, but it is an open question as to whether he was looking forward to the Führer regime of Hitler or backward to the authoritarian regime of Otto von Bismarck—if we are very charitably inclined, it seems possible he mistook one for the other. It may be called one of the many ironies of Schmitt?s story that, at the very moment of Nazi triumph, he decisively declared his support for a regime that ultimately had little use for someone like him. Yet the fact remains that Schmitt tried to use his status within the party to make himself the foremost authority in his field in Nazi Germany, just as Heidegger did: yet despite their ambitions, both were not seen as loyal party members, as they were regarded as too independent, and therefore too egotistical, by the intellectual watchdogs within the Party, and so were removed from opositions of authority.

Related Topics:
Nazi - Heidegger - NSDAP - Executive - Hitler - Bismarck

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In this context, the comment of Schmitt?s former student, Paul Adams, in a letter written shortly after a visit to Schmitt in 1934, seems prescient: "The condition of Carl Schmitt is terrible. In Munich he certainly treated me very well. New to me was his abrupt manner of denigrating my views and their explanations?. Politically he will never be accepted by the National Socialists. His style, his genius, his fundamentally solitary existence will always cause offense. It would have been better if he had gone to Munich and existed on the periphery." (Balakrishnan, 2000, p. 204)

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See also: Hans Kelsen.

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