Carl Schmitt facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Carl Schmitt
Born	(1888-07-11)11 July 1888 Plettenberg, Prussia, German Empire
Died	7 April 1985(1985-04-07) (aged 96) Plettenberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany
Other names	“Crown Jurist of the Third Reich” (Nickname)
Education	University of Berlin (1907) University of Munich (1908) University of Strasbourg (Dr. jur., 1910; Dr. habil., 1916)
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Continental philosophy Conservative Revolution Decisionism IR realism
Institutions	University of Greifswald (1921) University of Bonn (1921) Technische Universität München (1928) University of Cologne (1933) University of Berlin (1933–1945)
Main interests	Politics Jurisprudence Constitutional law Political theology Philosophy of religion
Notable ideas	State of exception Friend–Enemy distinction Sovereignty as a "borderline concept" Legality–legitimacy distinction
Influences Bodin Plato Machiavelli Hobbes Heidegger Rousseau Burke Grotius Gentilis Kant Maistre Hegel Cortés Stirner Marx Freud Darwin Hartmann Kierkegaard Nietzsche Sorel Weber Guénon Strauss Eliade de Vitoria
Influenced Agamben Arendt Arato Benjamin Benoist Buck-Morss Foucault Copenhagen School Derrida Dugin Ferrara Galli Gottfried Gurian Guzmán Habermas Hayek Jiang Jünger Koselleck Lilla Liu Lottieri Miglio Mouffe Moldbug Morgenthau Münkler Negri Strauss Taubes Tronti Vermeule Wang Wielomski Yockey Žižek

Carl Schmitt (/ʃmɪt/; 11 July 1888 – 7 April 1985) was a German jurist, political theorist, and prominent member of the Nazi Party. Schmitt wrote extensively about the effective wielding of political power. A conservative theorist, he is noted as a critic of parliamentary democracy, liberalism, and cosmopolitanism. His work has been a major influence on subsequent political theory, legal theory, continental philosophy, and political theology, but its value and significance are controversial, mainly due to his intellectual support for and active involvement with Nazism. Schmitt's work has attracted the attention of numerous philosophers and political theorists, including Giorgio Agamben, Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Susan Buck-Morss, Jacques Derrida, Waldemar Gurian, Carlo Galli, Jaime Guzmán, Jürgen Habermas, Friedrich Hayek, Reinhart Koselleck, Chantal Mouffe, Antonio Negri, Leo Strauss, Adrian Vermeule, and Slavoj Žižek, among others.

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Schmitt was an acute observer and analyst of the weaknesses of liberal constitutionalism and liberal cosmopolitanism. But there can be little doubt that his preferred cure turned out to be infinitely worse than the disease."

Life

Schmitt was born in Plettenberg, Westphalia, German Empire. His parents were Roman Catholics from the German Eifel region who had settled in Plettenberg. His father was a minor businessman. Schmitt studied law at Berlin, Munich and Strasbourg and took his graduation and state examinations in then-German Strasbourg during 1915. His 1910 doctoral thesis was titled Über Schuld und Schuldarten (On Guilt and Types of Guilt).

Schmitt volunteered for the army in 1916. The same year, he earned his habilitation at Strasbourg with a thesis under the title Der Wert des Staates und die Bedeutung des Einzelnen (The Value of the State and the Significance of the Individual). He then taught at various business schools and universities, namely the University of Greifswald (1921), the University of Bonn (1921), the Technische Universität München (1928), the University of Cologne (1933), and the University of Berlin (1933–45).

In 1916, Schmitt married his first wife, Pavla Dorotić, a Croatian woman who pretended to be a countess. They divorced, but no annulment was granted by a Catholic Church tribunal, so that his 1926 marriage to Duška Todorović (1903–1950), a Serbian, was not deemed valid under Catholic law. Schmitt was excommunicated by the Church due to his second marriage.

Schmitt and Todorović have a daughter, Anima, who in 1957 married Alfonso Otero Varela (1925–2001), a Spanish law professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela and a member of the ruling Spanish Falange party in Francoist Spain. She translated several of her father's works into Spanish. Letters from Schmitt to his son-in-law have been published.

Schmitt died on 7 April 1985 and is buried in Plettenberg.

Religious beliefs

As a young man, Schmitt was "a devoted Catholic until his break with the church in the mid twenties." From around the end of the First World War, he began to describe his Catholicism as "displaced" and "de-totalised". Consequently, Gross argues that Schmitt's work "cannot be reduced to Roman Catholic theology given a political turn. Rather, Schmitt should be understood as carrying an atheistic political-theological tradition to an extreme."

Schmitt met Mircea Eliade, a Romanian religion historian, in Berlin in the summer of 1942 and later spoke to his friend Ernst Jünger of Eliade and his interest in Eliade's works.

Hitler's seizure of control

Schmitt remarked on 31 January 1933 that with Adolf Hitler's appointment as Chancellor, "one can say that 'Hegel died.'" Richard Wolin observes:

it is Hegel qua philosopher of the "bureaucratic class" or Beamtenstaat that has been definitely surpassed with Hitler's triumph... this class of civil servants—which Hegel in the Rechtsphilosophie deems the "universal class"—represents an impermissible drag on the sovereignty of executive authority. For Schmitt... the very essence of the bureaucratic conduct of business is reverence for the norm, a standpoint that could not but exist in great tension with the doctrines of Carl Schmitt... Hegel had set an ignominious precedent by according this putative universal class a position of preeminence in his political thought, insofar as the primacy of the bureaucracy tends to diminish or supplant the prerogative of sovereign authority.

The Nazis forced through the passage of the Enabling Act of 1933 in March, which changed the Weimar Constitution to allow the "present government" to rule by decree, bypassing both the President, Paul von Hindenburg, and the Reichstag.

Alfred Hugenberg, the leader of the German National People's Party, one of the Nazis' partners in the coalition government that was being squeezed out of existence, hoped to slow the Nazi takeover of the country by threatening to quit his ministry position in the Cabinet. Hugenberg reasoned that by doing so, the government would thereby be changed, and the Enabling Act would no longer apply, as the "present government" would no longer exist. A legal opinion by Schmitt prevented this maneuver from succeeding. At the time well known as a constitutional theorist, Schmitt declared that "present government" did not refer to the Cabinet's makeup when the act was passed, but to the "completely different kind of government"—that is, different from the democracy of the Weimar Republic—that Hitler's cabinet had brought into existence.

Tombstone of Carl Schmitt, Catholic cemetery, Plettenberg-Eiringhausen (the inscription is a reference to the Odyssey, in which Odysseus's having 'seen many cities and learnt their customs' is changed to 'and learnt their laws')

Career

Academic career (1921–1932)

During 1921, Schmitt became a professor at the University of Greifswald, where he published his essay Die Diktatur (on dictatorship). In 1922 he published Politische Theologie (political theology) while working as a professor at the University of Bonn. Schmitt changed universities in 1926, when he became professor of law at the Handelshochschule in Berlin, and again in 1932, when he accepted a position in Cologne. His most famous paper, "Der Begriff des Politischen" ("The Concept of the Political"), was based on lectures at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik in Berlin.

In 1932, Schmitt was counsel for the Reich government in the case Preussen contra Reich (Prussia v. Reich), in which the Social Democratic Party of Germany-controlled government of the state of Prussia disputed its dismissal by the right-wing Reich government of Franz von Papen. Papen was motivated to do so because Prussia, by far the largest state in Germany, served as a powerful base for the political left and provided it with institutional power, particularly in the form of the Prussian police. Schmitt, Carl Bilfinger and Erwin Jacobi represented the Reich and one of the counsel for the Prussian government was Hermann Heller. The court ruled in October 1932 that the Prussian government had been suspended unlawfully but that the Reich had the right to install a commissar. In German history, the struggle resulting in the de facto destruction of federalism in the Weimar republic is known as the Preußenschlag.

Nazi Party

Schmitt joined the Nazi Party on 1 May 1933. Within days, he supported the party in the burning of books by Jewish authors, rejoiced in the burning of "un-German" and "anti-German" material, and called for a much more extensive purge, to include works by authors influenced by Jewish ideas. From June 1933, he was in the leadership council of Hans Frank's Academy for German Law and served as chairman of the Committee for State and Administrative Law. In July, Hermann Göring appointed him to the Prussian State Council, and in November he became the president of the Association of National Socialist German Jurists. He also replaced Heller as a professor at the University of Berlin, a position he held until the end of World War II. He presented his theories as an ideological foundation of the Nazi dictatorship and a justification of the Führer state concerning legal philosophy, particularly through the concept of auctoritas.

In June 1934, Schmitt was appointed editor-in-chief of the Nazi newspaper for lawyers, the Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung [de] ("German Jurists' Journal"). In July he published in it "The Leader Protects the Law (Der Führer schützt das Recht)", a justification of the political murders of the Night of the Long Knives with Hitler's authority as the "highest form of administrative justice (höchste Form administrativer Justiz)". Schmitt presented himself as a radical antisemite and was the chairman of an October 1936 law teachers' convention in Berlin at which he demanded that German law be cleansed of the "Jewish spirit (jüdischem Geist)" and that all Jewish scientists' publications be marked with a small symbol.

Nevertheless, in December 1936, the Schutzstaffel (SS) publication Das Schwarze Korps accused Schmitt of being an opportunist, a Hegelian state thinker, and a Catholic, and called his antisemitism a mere pretense, citing earlier statements in which he criticized the Nazis' racial theories. After this, Schmitt resigned as Reichsfachgruppenleiter (Reich Professional Group Leader) but retained his professorship in Berlin and his title "Prussian State Councillor". Schmitt continued to be investigated into 1937, but Göring stopped further reprisals.

During the German occupation of Paris a "round-table" of French and German intellectuals met at the Georges V Hotel, including Schmitt, the writers Ernst Jünger, Paul Morand, Jean Cocteau, and Henry Millon de Montherlant, and the publisher Gaston Gallimard.

After World War II

"San Casciano", home of Carl Schmitt in Plettenberg-Pasel from 1971 until 1985

In 1945, American forces captured Schmitt and, after spending more than a year in an internment camp, he returned to his home town of Plettenberg and later to the house of his housekeeper Anni Stand in Plettenberg-Pasel. He remained unrepentant for his role in the creation of the Nazi state, and refused every attempt at denazification, which barred him from academic jobs. Despite being isolated from the mainstream of the scholarly and political community, he continued his studies, especially of international law, from the 1950s on, and frequently received visitors, both colleagues and younger intellectuals, well into his old age. Important among these visitors were Ernst Jünger, Jacob Taubes and Alexandre Kojève.

In 1962, Schmitt gave lectures in Francoist Spain, two of which resulted in the publication, the next year, of Theory of the Partisan, in which he characterized the Spanish Civil War as a "war of national liberation" against "international Communism". Schmitt regarded the partisan as a specific and significant phenomenon which, during the latter half of the 20th century, indicated the emergence of a new theory of warfare.

Influence

Through Walter Benjamin, Giorgio Agamben, Andrew Arato, Chantal Mouffe and other writers, Schmitt has become a common reference in recent writings of the intellectual left as well as the right. These discussions concern not only the interpretation of Schmitt's own positions, but also matters relevant to contemporary politics: the idea that laws of the state cannot strictly limit actions of its sovereign, the problem of a "state of exception" (later expanded upon by Agamben).

Schmitt's argument that political concepts are secularized theological concepts has also recently been seen as consequential for those interested in contemporary political theology. The German-Jewish philosopher Jacob Taubes, for example, engaged Schmitt widely in his study of Saint Paul, The Political Theology of Paul (Stanford Univ. Press, 2004). Taubes' understanding of political theology is, however, very different from Schmitt's, and emphasizes the political aspect of theological claims, rather than the religious derivation of political claims.

Schmitt is described as a "classic of political thought" by Herfried Münkler, while in the same article Münkler speaks of his post-war writings as reflecting an: "embittered, jealous, occasionally malicious man" ("verbitterten, eifersüchtigen, gelegentlich bösartigen Mann"). Schmitt was termed the "Crown Jurist of the Third Reich" ("Kronjurist des Dritten Reiches") by Waldemar Gurian.

Timothy D. Snyder has asserted that Schmitt's work has greatly influenced Eurasianist philosophy in Russia by revealing a counter to the liberal order.

According to historian Renato Cristi in the writing of the 1980 Constitution of Chile, Pinochet collaborator Jaime Guzmán based his work on the pouvoir constituant concept used by Schmitt (as well as drawing inspiration in the ideas of market society of Friedrich Hayek). This way Guzmán would have enabled a framework for a dictatorial state combined with a free market economic system.

Law of emergency powers

Schmitt's "state of exception" doctrine has enjoyed a revival in the 21st century. Formulated 10 years before the 1933 Nazi takeover of Germany, Schmitt claimed that urgency justified the following:

1. Special executive powers
2. Suspension of the Rule of Law
3. Derogation of legal and constitutional rights

Schmitt's doctrine helped clear the way for Hitler's rise to power by providing the theoretical legal foundation of the Nazi regime.

United States

Among other things, his work is considered to have influenced neoconservatism in the United States. Most notably the legal opinions offered by Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo et al. by invoking the unitary executive theory to justify the Bush administration's legally controversial decisions during the War on Terror (such as introducing unlawful combatant status which purportedly would eliminate protection by the Geneva Convention, the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse, the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance program and various excesses of the Patriot Act) mimic his writings. Professor David Luban points out that the American legal database Lexis.com has five references to Schmitt in the period between 1980 and 1990, 114 between 1990 and 2000, and 420 between 2000 and 2010, with almost twice as many in the last five years as the previous ones five.

China

Some have argued that Schmitt has become an important influence on Chinese political theory in the 21st century, particularly since Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012. Leading Chinese Schmittians include the theologian Liu Xiaofeng, the public policy scholar Wang Shaoguang, and the legal theorist and government adviser Jiang Shigong. Schmitt’s ideas have proved popular and useful instruments in justifying the legitimacy of Communist Party rule.

The first important wave of Schmitt's reception in China started with Liu's writings at the end of the 1990s. In the context of a transition period, Schmitt was used both by liberal, nationalist and conservative intellectuals to find answers to contemporary issues. In the 21st century, most of them are still concerned with state power and to what extent a strong state is required to tackle China's modernization. Some authors consider Schmitt's works as a weapon against liberalism. Others think that his theories are helpful for China's development.

A critical reception of his use in a Chinese context does also exist. These differences go together with different interpretations of Schmitt's relation with fascism. While some scholars regard him as a faithful follower of fascism, others, such as Liu Xiaofeng, consider his support to the Nazi regime only as instrumental and attempt to separate his works from their historical context. According to them, his real goal is to pave a different and unique way for the modernization of Germany—precisely what makes him interesting for China. Generally speaking, the Chinese reception is ambivalent: quite diverse and dynamic, but also highly ideological. Other scholars are cautious when it comes to Schmitt's arguments for state power, considering the danger of totalitarianism, they assume at the same time that state power is necessary for the current transition and that a "dogmatic faith" in liberalism is unsuitable for China. By emphasizing the danger of social chaos, many of them agree with Schmitt—beyond their differences—on the necessity of a strong state.

Russia

Several scholars have noted the influence of Carl Schmitt on Vladimir Putin and Russia, specifically in defense of illiberal norms and exercising power, such as in disputes with Ukraine.

Works

English translations of Carl Schmitt

Note: a complete bibliography of all English translations of Schmitt's books, articles, essays, and correspondence is available here.

• The Concept of the Political. George D. Schwab, trans. (University of Chicago Press, 1996; expanded edition 2007, with an introduction by Tracy B. Strong). Original publication: 1st edn., Duncker & Humblot (Munich), 1932; 2nd edn., Duncker & Humblot (Berlin), 1963. (The 1932 text is an elaboration of a 1927 journal article of the same title.)
• Constitutional Theory. Jeffrey Seitzer, trans. (Duke University Press, 2007). Original publication: 1928.
• The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy. Ellen Kennedy, trans. (MIT Press, 1988). Original publication: 1923, 2nd edn. 1926.
• Dictatorship. Michael Hoelzl and Graham Ward, trans. (Polity Press, 2014). Original publication: 1921, 2nd edn. 1928.
• Four Articles, 1931–1938. Simona Draghici, trans. (Plutarch Press, 1999). Originally published as part of Positionen und Begriffe im Kampf mit Weimar – Genf – Versailles, 1923–1939 (1940).
• Hamlet Or Hecuba: The Intrusion of the Time Into the Play. David Pan and Jennifer R. Rust, trans. (Telos Press, 2009). Originally published 1956.
• The Idea of Representation: A Discussion. E. M. Codd, trans. (Plutarch Press, 1988), reprint of The Necessity of Politics (1931). Original publication: 1923.
• Land and Sea. Simona Draghici, trans. (Plutarch Press, 1997). Original publication: 1942.
• Legality and Legitimacy. Jeffrey Seitzer, trans. (Duke University Press, 2004). Original publication: 1932.
• The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol. George D. Schwab & Erna Hilfstein, trans. (Greenwood Press, 1996). Original publication: 1938.
• The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum. G.L. Ulmen, trans. (Telos Press, 2003). Original publication: 1950.
• On the Three Types of Juristic Thought. Joseph Bendersky, trans. (Praegar, 2004). Original publication: 1934.
• Political Romanticism. Guy Oakes, trans. (MIT Press, 1986). Original publication: 1919, 2nd edn. 1925.
• Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. George D. Schwab, trans. (MIT Press, 1985 / University of Chicago Press; University of Chicago edition, 2004 with an Introduction by Tracy B. Strong. Original publication: 1922, 2nd edn. 1934.
• Roman Catholicism and Political Form. G. L. Ulmen, trans. (Greenwood Press, 1996). Original publication: 1923.
• State, Movement, People (includes The Question of Legality). Simona Draghici, trans. (Plutarch Press, 2001). Original publication: Staat, Bewegung, Volk (1933); Das Problem der Legalität (1950).
• Theory of the Partisan. G. L. Ulmen, trans. (Telos Press, 2007). Original publication: 1963; 2nd ed. 1975.
• The Tyranny of Values. Simona Draghici, trans. (Plutarch Press, 1996). Original publication: 1979.
• War/Non-War: A Dilemma. Simona Draghici, trans. (Plutarch Press, 2004). Original publication: 1937.

Works in German

• Über Schuld und Schuldarten. Eine terminologische Untersuchung, 1910.
• Gesetz und Urteil. Eine Untersuchung zum Problem der Rechtspraxis, 1912.
• Schattenrisse (published under the pseudonym "Johannes Negelinus, mox Doctor", in collaboration with Dr. Fritz Eisler), 1913.
• Der Wert des Staates und die Bedeutung des Einzelnen, 1914.
• Theodor Däublers 'Nordlicht': Drei Studien über die Elemente, den Geist und die Aktualität des Werkes, 1916.
• Die Buribunken, in: Summa 1/1917/18, 89 ff.
• Politische Romantik, 1919.
• Die Diktatur. Von den Anfängen des modernen Souveränitätsgedankens bis zum proletarischen Klassenkampf, 1921.
• Politische Theologie. Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Souveränität, 1922.
• Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus, 1923.
• Römischer Katholizismus und politische Form, 1923.
• Die Rheinlande als Objekt internationaler Politik, 1925.
• Die Kernfrage des Völkerbundes, 1926.
• Der Begriff des Politischen, in: Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik vol. 58, no. 1, 1927, 1–33.
• Volksentscheid und Volksbegehren. Ein Beitrag zur Auslegung der Weimarer Verfassung und zur Lehre von der unmittelbaren Demokratie, 1927.
• Verfassungslehre, 1928.
• Hugo Preuß. Sein Staatsbegriff und seine Stellung in der dt. Rechtslehre, 1930.
• Der Völkerbund und das politische Problem der Friedenssicherung, 1930, 2., erw. Aufl. 1934.
• Der Hüter der Verfassung, 1931.
• Der Begriff des Politischen, 1932 (elaboration of the 1927 essay).
• Legalität und Legitimität, 1932.
• Starker Staat und gesunde Wirtschaft, 1933
• Staat, Bewegung, Volk. Die Dreigliederung der politischen Einheit, 1933.
• Das Reichsstatthaltergesetz, 1933.
• Der Führer schützt das Recht, 1934.
• Staatsgefüge und Zusammenbruch des Zweiten Reiches. Der Sieg des Bürgers über den Soldaten, 1934.
• Über die drei Arten des rechtswissenschaftlichen Denkens, 1934.
• Der Staat als Mechanismus bei Hobbes und Descartes, 1936.
• Der Leviathan in der Staatslehre des Thomas Hobbes, 1938.
• Die Wendung zum diskriminierenden Kriegsbegriff, 1938.
• Völkerrechtliche Großraumordnung mit Interventionsverbot für raumfremde Mächte. Ein Beitrag zum Reichsbegriff im Völkerrecht, 1939.
• Positionen und Begriffe im Kampf mit Weimar – Genf – Versailles 1923–1939, 1940 (collection of essays).
• Land und Meer. Eine weltgeschichtliche Betrachtung, 1942.
• Der Nomos der Erde im Völkerrecht des Jus Publicum Europaeum, 1950.
• Donoso Cortes in gesamteuropäischer Interpretation, 1950.
• Ex captivitate salus. Erinnerungen der Zeit 1945/47, 1950.
• Die Lage der europäischen Rechtswissenschaft, 1950.
• Das Gespräch über die Macht und den Zugang zum Machthaber, 1954.
• Hamlet oder Hekuba. Der Einbruch der Zeit in das Spiel, 1956.
• Verfassungsrechtliche Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1924–1954, 1958 (collection of essays).
• Theorie des Partisanen. Zwischenbemerkung zum Begriff des Politischen, 1963.
• Politische Theologie II. Die Legende von der Erledigung jeder Politischen Theologie, 1970.
• Glossarium. Aufzeichnungen der Jahre 1947–1951, edited by Eberhard Freiherr von Medem, 1991 (posthum).
• Das internationale Verbrechen des Angriffskrieges, edietd by Helmut Quaritsch, 1993 (posthum).
• Staat – Großraum – Nomos, edited by Günter Maschke, 1995 (posthum).
• Frieden oder Pazifismus? Edited by Günter Maschke, 2005 (posthum).
• Carl Schmitt: Tagebücher, edited by Ernst Hüsmert, 2003 ff. (posthum).

See also

In Spanish: Carl Schmitt para niños

• Streitbare Demokratie
• German nationalism