Carl Schmitt (1888–1985), Professor für Staats- und Völkerrecht, bewegt nach wie vor die Gemüter. Die Reaktion auf seine Schriften, Handlungen und Ausstrahlungen ist vielfältig; die Spanne reicht von entrüsteten, für die er der Teufel in Person bleibt, über viele Zwischenstufen bis zu jenen Lesern, die ihn für einen der subtilsten, noch keineswegs ausgeloteten Geistern dieses Jahrhunderts halten. Sein Leben lang war Carl Schmitt ein passionierter Schreiber von Briefen. Meist handelte es sich um handschriftlich verfasste, die (...) für den Schreibenden die Fortsetzung eines konkreten Gespräches mit anderen Mitteln war. Das macht das authentische und die Spontanität der Schmitt-Briefe aus. Als erste Edition einer umfangreichen Korrespondenz wird in dem Buch die Korrespondenz zwischen Carl Schmitt und Armin Mohler veröffentlicht. Der Briefwechsel umfasst die Zeit von 1947 bis 1980 und enthält 280 Briefe und Karten von Carl Schmitt an Armin Mohler. Von dem Briefpartner und Herausgeber wird in der Regel aus den eigenen Briefen nur auszugsweise zitiert, sofern es für das von Carl Schmitt Geschriebene notwendig ist. Armin Mohler (1920 bis 2003), ist einer der bekanntesten rechtskonservativen Schriftsteller, Kritiker und Historiker in Deutschland. Sein Handbuch zur Konservativen Revolution ist ein Standardwerk. In der Zeit des Briefwechsels war Mohler von 1949 bis 1953 Sekretär Ernst Jüngers, danach Korrespondent großer Zeitungen in Paris und von 1964 an Geschäftsführer der Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung, in der er sehr beachtete Symposien zu aktuellen wissenschaftlichen Themen organisierte. Der Briefwechsel ist für die Deutung Carl Schmitts in der Nachkriegszeit in seinem Sauerländer "Exil" grundlegend, gleichzeitig enthält er pointierte Schlaglichter auf das politische und kulturelle Geschehen der frühen und mittleren Bundesrepublik sowie auf Werk und Leben von Ernst Jünger. (shrink)

Longtemps attendu, l'ouvrage restitue, pour la première fois en langue française, l'exégèse et l'interprétation complètes de l'œuvre publiée par Carl Schmitt de son vivant, dans ses champs et ses séquences, avant et après 1945. La première partie concerne la philosophie schmittienne du droit et sa fondation théologique: le 'décisionnisme' et 'l'institutionnalisme' ou 'pensée de l'ordre concret.' La deuxième partie porte sur la théorie du droit constitutionnel sous la République de Weimar, puis sous le IIIe Reich, ainsi que les (...) commentaires sur la Loi Fondamentale de Bonn. Autant d'éléments d'une analyse critique renouvelée de l'État de droit démocratique, parlementaire et pluraliste. La troisième partie traite du concept du politique, point d'articulation fondamental entre le droit constitutionnel et la théorie de l'État d'une part, le droit international et la théorie de la guerre d'autre part. La quatrième partie porte sur la doctrine du droit international sous Weimar, puis sous le IIIe Reich, enfin après 1945, dont la rétrospective du jus publicum europaeum. Une somme objective, exposant l'ensemble, donnant à chacun la possibilité de savoir, puis laissant à chacun le soin de juger."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) war wohl der berühmteste deutsche Staatsrechtler seiner Generation. Wegen seines Engagements für die Nationalsozialisten, die ihn zum Preussischen Staatsrat ernannten, war er zugleich der berüchtigste. Er hat sich zeitlebens als Angehöriger der katholischen Kirche zu erkennen gegeben. Problemlos war dieses Verhältnis freilich nicht, wie etwa aus einer Tagebuchnotiz von 1948 hervorgeht: "Das ist das geheime Schlüsselwort meiner gesamten geistigen und publizistischen Existenz: das Ringen um die eigentliche katholische Verschärfung dots". Was meinte Carl Schmitt (...) mit diesem Begriff, und wie ist die auffallende Absenz gerade der katholischen Theologie in seinem Werk zu erklären? Mein Buch ist unter anderem der Versuch einer Antwort auf diese beiden Fragen. (shrink)

A philosopher, rabbi, religious historian, and Gnostic, Jacob Taubes was for many years a correspondent and interlocutor of Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), a German jurist, philosopher, political theorist, law professor--and self-professed Nazi. Despite their unlikely association, Taubes and Schmitt shared an abiding interest in the fundamental problems of political theology, believing the great challenges of modern political theory were ancient in pedigree and, in many cases, anticipated the works of Judeo-Christian eschatologists. In this collection of Taubes's writings on (...) Schmitt, the two intellectuals work through ideas of the apocalypse and other central concepts of political theology. Taubes acknowledges Schmitt's reservations about the weakness of liberal democracy yet distances himself from his prescription to rectify it, arguing the apocalyptic worldview requires less of a rigid hierarchical social ordering than a community committed to the importance of decision making. In these writings, a sharper and more nuanced portrait of Schmitt's thought emerges, as well as a more complicated understanding of Taubes, who has shaped the work of Giorgio Agamben, Peter Sloterdijk, and other major twentieth-century theorists. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt (1888–1985), one of the leading conservative legal thinkers of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany, is best known today for his critique of liberalism. Between the late 1930s and mid-1950s, Schmitt wrote numerous articles and two books addressing the mythical and geopolitical significance of land and sea. In recent years, these texts have begun to attract attention from historians as well as theorists. This article reconstructs the origins of Schmitt's theories about land and (...) sea, and shows how they developed in the context of his efforts to delegitimize the British Empire and justify the persecution of Jews. It also explains how Schmitt selectively misread the history of maritime law in order to critique the ‘freedom of the seas.’ Finally, it reveals that the meaning Schmitt ascribed to ‘the opposition of the elements of land and sea’ changed dramatically to suit his political needs. For all their evocative qualities and insights, Schmitt's texts on land and sea do not constitute a coherent theory, but rather a shifting field of polemical positions in search of theoretical support. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) appropriated the early modern tradition of political thought to his own juridical and political writings. By examining Schmitt's use of this tradition, it is possible to decipher the structure of his own political philosophy and better understand his polemic. This article therefore discusses the key sources and concepts that informed his understanding of the state and interstate relations. The main focus is on Schmitt's engagement with Hobbes, Bodin and Gentili. It becomes clear that (...) Schmitt's appropriation of their thought is selective and that his deliberate silence about certain aspects of Hobbes's or Gentili's theories in particular is almost as telling as his deliberate use of their arguments. (shrink)

ExcerptCarl Schmitt (1888–1985) is known as the most consequential German legal and political mind of the twentieth century.1 Many crimes of the Nazi regime found support in his conceptual justifications, and Schmitt is called the “Crown Jurist” of the Third Reich with good reason. Historians, political scientists, and sociologists must grapple with the author in order to understand the course of totalitarianism in modernity. Whether literary historians should do so is far less settled, though he was fascinated (...) by their object of study. His writings on literary topics are said to reveal much about Schmitt’s person, politics, and period, but little about literature itself.2 This explains why his “Don Quijote und das Publikum” (“Don Quixote and the Public”), published in the arts and cultural journal Die Rheinlande in 1912, was almost unknown in literary studies for a century.3 Schmitt’s text on the novel by Miguel de Cervantes has not been reprinted, and until recently it had not been translated from the original German. Size has a role too. At under two thousand words, the text has probably escaped notice due to its small scale.4 Recent English and Italian translations in major humanistic journals may signal the end of its obscurity though.5 “Don Quixote and the Public” is at the door of literary studies. The question now is not whether to respond, but how. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article examines the prominent Japanese postwar thinker Maruyama Masao’s critical engagement with his contemporary German legal theorist Carl Schmitt. Maruyama engaged with Schmitt’s decisionistic notion of “the political” and sovereignty since he found it useful in addressing the pathological elements of Japanese political culture, namely, the widespread political passivity and fatalistic ethos of the Japanese public. In his view, such a “decision-avoiding” political culture, which had contributed to the rise of fascism in interwar and wartime (...) Japan, posed a fundamental threat to the viability of Japan’s postwar democracy. Although Maruyama objected to Schmitt’s authoritarian theory of political leadership, he nevertheless believed Schmitt provided important insights into the key concepts of modern politics, such as political agency and the constituent power of the people. In his efforts to foster political subjectivity and liberal individuality in postwar Japan, Maruyama attempted to strike a balance between two extremes: Schmittian normless decisionism, on the one hand, and a politically naïve liberal constitutionalism, on the other. I conclude by suggesting that the hitherto overlooked intellectual affinity between Maruyama and one of the leading Weimar-era constitutional theorists—Hermann Heller—can enrich our understanding of Maruyama’s unceasing effort to formulate and insist on the imperative role of political subjectivity and liberal individuality in consolidating liberal democracy in postwar Japan. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article examines the prominent Japanese postwar thinker Maruyama Masao’s critical engagement with his contemporary German legal theorist Carl Schmitt. Maruyama engaged with Schmitt’s decisionistic notion of “the political” and sovereignty since he found it useful in addressing the pathological elements of Japanese political culture, namely, the widespread political passivity and fatalistic ethos of the Japanese public. In his view, such a “decision-avoiding” political culture, which had contributed to the rise of fascism in interwar and wartime (...) Japan, posed a fundamental threat to the viability of Japan’s postwar democracy. Although Maruyama objected to Schmitt’s authoritarian theory of political leadership, he nevertheless believed Schmitt provided important insights into the key concepts of modern politics, such as political agency and the constituent power of the people. In his efforts to foster political subjectivity and liberal individuality in postwar Japan, Maruyama attempted to strike a balance between two extremes: Schmittian normless decisionism, on the one hand, and a politically naïve liberal constitutionalism, on the other. I conclude by suggesting that the hitherto overlooked intellectual affinity between Maruyama and one of the leading Weimar-era constitutional theorists—Hermann Heller—can enrich our understanding of Maruyama’s unceasing effort to formulate and insist on the imperative role of political subjectivity and liberal individuality in consolidating liberal democracy in postwar Japan. (shrink)

Der Verfassungsrechtler und Rechtsphilosoph Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) ist ohne Zweifel ein faszinierender Autor. Die von ihm ausgehende Suggestion basiert auf der Virtuosität seines polemischen Stils, der oft vergessen macht, welch sachliche Kritik von Zeitgenossen an seinen Theorien geübt wurde. Erstmals liegt nun eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit den wichtigsten Aspekten seines Werkes vor, die die Nähe seines konservativen Denkens zum Nationalsozialismus systematisch aufzeigt. Gegenüber der vorherrschenden biografischen Behandlung dieses Verhältnisses lassen sich damit auch aktuelle politische Theoreme und Positionen (...) sehr viel deutlicher verorten. Ziel des Buches ist es, dem Leser sowohl die Komplexität dieses außergewöhnlichen Denkens als auch dessen Konsequenzen vor Augen zu führen. (shrink)

Desde tiempos inmemoriales, filosofía y teoría política han deambulado por senderos paralelos: en unas ocasiones, prestándose armas mutuamente; en otras, sin embargo, arrinconándose y asfixiándose. A causa de la complejidad de los sucesos acaecidos en el pasado siglo XX, a aquella conflictiva pero siempre enriquecedora relación se unieron compañeras como la teología, la sociología o la antropología, que desearon aportar algo de luz en el opaco contexto de las guerras mundiales, el desarrollo del nazismo, la Revolución rusa, la emergencia de (...) los fascismos, etc. En este novedoso libro, Roberto Navarrete Alonso se ocupa de dos figuras coetáneas y del todo fundamentales: Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) y Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929). El autor se propone, a partir del estudio conjunto de estos pensadores, reflexionar sobre el Holocausto, sobre la Shoah o Catástrofe, abriendo de nuevo el insoslayable problema de la vertiente política del mal y su acaecimiento en la historia. El presente volumen se hace cargo de un nexo tan capital como inexplorado en el seno del pensamiento político-filosófico de comienzos del XX, analizando las fuentes, los cruces, los encuentros y desencuentros que tuvieron lugar entre Schmitt –referencia inexcusable de la reflexión jurídico-política del pasado siglo– y Rosenzweig –autor de la La estrella de la redención–. (shrink)

'Volgens de Duitse denker Carl Schmitt is zonder vijandbeeld geen politiek mogelijk,' schreven Coen Simon en Frank Meester aan Arnon Grunberg. Zij vroegen hem Het begrip politiek van Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) te lezen om na te gaan wat hij ons nu nog te zeggen heeft. Hoeveel natiestaat hebben wij nodig? Hoeveel vijanden? Waartoe dient politiek? En is een samenleving zonder oorlog en geweld mogelijk? Aan de hand van Schmitt en denkers als Walter Benjamin en Jacques (...) Derrida probeert Grunberg antwoord te geven op die vragen. 'Onze cultuur heeft de vegetarische slager voortgebracht en zal uiteindelijk ook de geweldloze oorlog produceren. Hoe die er precies uit zal zien is onduidelijk, maar Schmitts vermoeden dat die oorlog om de oorlog eens en voor altijd uit te roeien gruwelijk zal zijn lijkt me gerechtvaardigd,' aldus Grunberg. Maar ook stelt hij dat er geen rechtvaardigheid kan bestaan als het geweld wordt afgezworen. In Vriend & vijand legt Grunberg de vinger op zowel de zere plekken van de parlementaire democratie als de kritiek erop. Vrienden en vijanden van deze democratie mogen dit essay niet aan zich voorbij laten gaan"--Back cover. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt was a jurist, political philosopher, and a devoted student of Thomas Hobbes. Schmitt lived from 1888 to 1985 in Germany, and for a time enjoyed with Martin Heidegger the right to create under Hitler a new spiritual German state. Both men shared enduring veneration, admiring pilgrimages, and remain sources of political and philosophical discussions and interpretation. Recently, three of Schmitt’s books were added to the one already available in English, The Concept of the Political. (...) Most of Schmitt’s books are pamphlets addressing particular subjects, which were important at the time they were written. The interest we have in Schmitt today could not be easily evaluated if we were to turn to his books for historical information. He has written on topics that would interest the constitutional jurist and the political philosopher, but they are not vital books and, if lost, there would be little weeping. We write about Schmitt because we want to show the danger of every political philosophy that claims for its hypothesis scientific data. His theory of humankind is reduced to the problem of evil and his concepts of reality claim that realism, the analysis of what is, is eternally timed and fatefully structured. We read such realists with pleasure because they seem to satisfy our need to see our fellow human beings in the most dismal light. We read them with disdain because we are naturally idealistic and believe that we are condemned to no given condition, and that ideals are not absent from reality, but are the source of its evaluation and the power of its transformation. We read Hobbes and find him perceptive and insightful, for example when he tells us: “I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power that ceaseth only in death”. We seem to find much that is true and valuable. There is much that is absent if we believe that people and communities have always believed that reason and the reasonable force them to find differences between the good and the evil, between the truth and the lie, between the just and the unjust. The deepest difference lies between the philosopher of reason, or the speculative philosopher, and the political thinker who refuses to draw a distinction between what exists and what should exist, i.e., the thinker who absolutizes the given and values only what is suitable to it. (shrink)