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)

In this work, legal theorist and political philosopher Carl Schmitt argues that liberalism's basis in individual rights cannot provide a reasonable justification for sacrificing oneself for the state.

Written in the intense political and intellectual tumult of the early years of the Weimar Republic, Political Theology develops the distinctive theory of sovereignty that made Carl Schmitt one of the most significant and controversial ...

One of the most significant political philosophers of the twentieth century, Carl Schmitt is a deeply controversial figure who has been labeled both Nazi sympathizer and modern-day Thomas Hobbes. First published in 1938, The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes used the Enlightenment philosopher’s enduring symbol of the protective Leviathan to address the nature of modern statehood. A work that predicted the demise of the Third Reich and that still holds relevance in today’s security-obsessed society, this (...) volume will be essential reading for students and scholars of political science. “Carl Schmitt is surely the most controversial German political and legal philosopher of this century. . . . We deal with Schmitt, against all odds, because history stubbornly persists in proving many of his tenets right.”— Perspectives on Political Science “[A] significant contribution. . . . The relation between Hobbes and Schmitt is one of the most important questions surrounding Schmitt: it includes a distinct, though occasionally vacillating, personal identification as well as an association of ideas.”— Telos. (shrink)

In this, his most influential work, legal theorist and political philosopher Carl Schmitt argues that liberalism’s basis in individual rights cannot provide a reasonable justification for sacrificing oneself for the state—a critique as cogent today as when it first appeared. George Schwab’s introduction to his translation of the 1932 German edition highlights Schmitt’s intellectual journey through the turbulent period of German history leading to the Hitlerian one-party state. In addition to analysis by Leo Strauss and a foreword (...) by Tracy B. Strong placing Schmitt’s work into contemporary context, this expanded edition also includes a translation of Schmitt’s 1929 lecture “The Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations,” which the author himself added to the 1932 edition of the book. An essential update on a modern classic, The Concept of the Political, Expanded Edition belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in political theory or philosophy. (shrink)

A translation of Carl Schmitt's classic explanation of the nature and historical/sociological significance of political Catholicism.

Carl Schmitt and the Problem of the Realization of Law 1. The famous pithy aphorisms that Carl Schmitt used to open his major works - 'the sovereign is he who decides on the exception', 'the concept of the state presupposes the concept of the political', etc. - have become a part of the common discourse of contemporary scholarship on politics and the law. The theoretical framework that animates these slogans, however, has remained somewhat opaque. It has (...) often been argued that there is no such framework, that Schmitt was a situational thinker whose works are best understood as interventions in concrete political debates that do not add up to a grand theoretical vision. (shrink)

The work that we have the honour to present here in its first Italian translation is a short essay published by Carl Schmitt in the first half of the ‘10s in the German Journal Die Rheinlande and titled Don Quixote and the public. A very brief but at the same time dense piece of literary criticism in which the future Kronjurist of the Third Reich, in those years still engaged in his legal practice, offers to the readers a (...) juvenile proof of his vastly and heterogeneous interests, trying to determine which is the proper interpretation of the renowned masterpiece of Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote of the Mancha. A juvenile work, therefore, in which Schmitt, as we will try to highlight in the introduction that accompanies the translation, offers an interpretation of the novel and particularly of its main character focusing on the contraposition between the level of the simple reading and that of erudite valorisation, applying a methodology similar to that he used in the coeval Law and Judgement that in some ways anticipate the critique of Romanticism that he will develop just a few years later in Political Romanticism. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt, the author of such books as Political Theology and The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, was one of the leading political and legal theorists of the twentieth century. His critical discussions of liberal democratic ideals and institutions continue to arouse controversy, but even his opponents concede his uncanny sense for the basic problems of modern politics. Political Romanticism is a historical study that, like all of Schmitt's major works, offers a fundamental political critique. In it, he (...) defends a concept of political action based on notions of good and evil, justice and injustice, and attacks the political passivity entailed by the romanticization of experience. The book has three strands. The first is an attack on received notions of the origins of the Romantic Movement. Schmitt argues that this movement represents a secularization, subjectification, and privatization in which God is replaced by the emancipated, private individual of the bourgeois social order. The second is an assault on political romanticism that includes a broader attack on the new European bourgeoisie, which Schmitt characterizes as the historical bearer of the movement. The third strand is a defense of political conservatism and a refutation of the view that political romanticism is intrinsically linked with romanticism. Here Schmitt argues that the political romantic is tied not to positions but to aesthetics, and can therefore as easily become a Danton as a Frederick the Great. Guy Oakes's introduction places the book in historical context and also suggests its continuing relevance through his discussion of the latest outcropping of political romanticism in the late 1960s, intriguingly brought out in his example of Norman Mailer as a political romantic. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt kept diaries throughout his life, several of which he specifically selected for academic publication. These are the recordings made in the early years after World War II, when Schmitt lost all his positions. After his release from the prison he returned to his home in small town of Plettenberg, where he remained until his death. Schmitt ordered these diaries to be published only after his death, because, even several decades after the war, they remained (...) ideologically dangerous. In this issue we continue to publish fragments of translation of the “Glossarium”. In the fragments prepared for present publication, Schmitt argues on several important topics. First, he writes about utopia — paradise located in a remote, but achievable future. The ability to think future located at long distance decreases in modern times. Therefore, in the 19th century they have to move from utopia to positive science. Those who write on future must say that heaven can come tomorrow. Schmitt goes further to compare the utopian ideas of Thomas More with the utopias of the 19th century. More was not a cleric; he was just a clerk, an intellectual, a writer, not a priest. Schmitt questioned the rightfulness of the canonization of More and compared him with another Catholic thinker of that time, Fr. Vitoria. Another important topic — the problem of legality and legitimacy. Schmitt once again handles it in connection with the events in Czechoslovakia in 1948. These events he contrasts with the situation in Germany in 1929-1932. (shrink)

Kempner. You do not have to testify, Professor Schmitt, if you do not want to, and if you think you are incriminating yourself. But if you do testify, then I would be grateful if you would be absolutely truthful, would neither conceal nor add anything. Is that your wish? Schmitt: Yes, of course. Kempner: And if I come to something you might find self-incriminating, you can simply say you prefer to remain silent. Schmitt: I have already been (...) interrogated by the C.I.C. and in the camp. I would be glad to tell you all I know. However, I would like to know what I am being blamed with. (shrink)

This is a translation of the afterword of Legality and Legitimacy, rewritten by Carl Schmitt in 1958 for his collection Verfassungsrechtliche Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1924–1954. In the afterword, Schmitt once again describes the situation in Germany in the early 1930’s, and argues against the influential German lawyers who rejected his interpretation of the Weimar Constitution. He rejects the wide-spread opinion that he wanted a state of emergency in Germany to be introduced, and insists that this book (...) was his final attempt to rescue the presidential republic of Weimar Germany. Schmitt then demonstrates the weakness of legal positivism and specifically stops at the several key points in his argument. First, according to Schmitt, the positivists did not know that legality, an unopposed form of the manifestation of legitimacy, had originally been an essential part of Western rationalism. Second, it is necessary to distinguish between the law and the sanctions because of their different legal statuses. This distinguishing is important because the legislative state was gradually becoming the administrative state. As a result, the governing institutions are more powerful than the parliamentary laws. Any parliamentary decision providing executive bodies relevant authority cannot be executed without an effective parliamentary majority. Thirdly, Schmitt explores the question of the so-called “premiums” for the legal possession of power. The afterword concludes with a brief overview of the situation at the end of the January 1933. The Publication includes the translator’s preface providing an overview of the main provisions of Schmitt's book, Legality and Legitimacy. (shrink)

This volume provides the first English translation of Hans Kelsen's and Carl Schmitt's influential Weimar-era debate on constitutional guardianship and the legitimacy of constitutional review. It includes Kelsen's seminal piece, 'The Nature and Development of Constitutional Adjudication', as well as key extracts from the 'Guardian of the Constitution' which present Schmitt's argument against constitutional review. Also included are Kelsen's review of Schmitt's 'Guardian of the Constitution', as well as some further material by Kelsen and Schmitt (...) on presidential dictatorship under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. These texts show Kelsen and Schmitt responding to one another, in the context of a debate focused on a concrete constitutional crisis, thus allowing the reader to assess the plausibility of Kelsen's and Schmitt's legal and constitutional theories. (shrink)

I have experienced the tribulations of fate.Victories and defeats, revolutions and restorations.Inflations and deflations, bombings,Defamations, broken regimes and broken pipes,Hunger and cold, internment and solitary confinement.Through it all I have passed,And through me it all has passed.I am acquainted with the abundant varieties of terror,The terror from above and the terror from below,Terror on the land and terror from the air,Terror legal and extra-legal,Brown, red and checkered terror,And worst of all, the terror none dares to name.I am acquainted with them (...) all and know their grip. (shrink)

Written in the early stages of the Cold War by one of the most controversial political and legal thinkers of the twentieth century, Carl Schmitts two short dialogues on power and space bring together several dimensions of his work in new ways. The dialogues renew Schmitts engagement with the questions of political power and geo-politics that had been a persistent concern throughout his intellectual life. As a basis on which to think through the historical role of human agency in (...) relation to power and its new geographies, the dialogues condense and rework key concepts in Schmitts political theory during a transitional period between his Weimar and fascist years to the post-war writings. In this book, Schmitt develops a new dialectics of modern power and an original understanding of the global spatial transformations of the Cold War period. Equally important, the dialogues anticipate the debates on the new geo-political possibilities and threats related to cosmic spaces, overpowering technological advances, and the existential predicament of the human in an increasingly multipolar world. (shrink)

Distinctions among juristic ways of thinking -- Classification of juristic ways of thinking in the overall development of legal history.

ExcerptThe great dramatic work of art that bears the name Hamlet is, in the core of its action and the main character, nothing other than the dramatized story of a real king named James, James Stuart, son of Mary Stuart and her husband. James's father was murdered, and his mother married the murderer shortly afterward. What Mary Stuart, the mother of King James, did was bad, almost as bad “As kill a king, and marry his brother.” Shakespeare's Hamlet drama is (...) grounded then in a direct relation to the times. It contains the kind of dramatization that results from participation…. (shrink)

Even the thinking of professional revolutionaries progresses, as evidenced today in legal revolution. According to the German constitutional jurist, Rudolf Smend, who died in 1975, the German people suffer from a “touching need for legality.” Smend came to this conclusion not only as historian of the Supreme Court of the German Reich, but also as observer of the positivistic normativism of his own time. Recently an old and experienced Spanish revolutionary, Santiago Carrillo, put forward the same notion in a book (...) about Eurocommunism and the State. Akhough his “touching need for legality” is politically of a different nature, Carrillo is expressly convinced that die more violent mediods of Lenin's and Trotsky's illegal revolution of October 1917 are now antiquated, mat they were only justifiable in the instance of an agrarian (peasant) society breaking dirough to a modern (industrial) society. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt veröffentlichte einen Großteil seiner wichtigen Werke im Verlag Duncker & Humblot. Im Zuge der engen Zusammenarbeit mit dem damaligen Verlagsleiter Ludwig Feuchtwanger entwickelte sich ein reger intellektueller, anspielungsreicher Austausch auf Augenhöhe zwischen Autor und Verleger. Ludwig Feuchtwanger, ein heute nahezu vergessener Intellektueller der jüdischen Renaissance nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg, vermochte es, auf Schmitts Interessen einzugehen und diese z.T. zu lenken. Dieser nun erstmals edierte Briefwechsel zeichnet ein Bild zweier Gelehrter in der Weimarer Republik, veranschaulicht u.a. auch (...) die materielle Lage eines wissenschaftlichen Autors und gibt Einblick in den damaligen Buchmarkt. Daneben finden sich Bausteine zur Biographie Carl Schmitts und Ludwig Feuchtwangers sowie ihren intellektuellen Netzwerken. Der Briefwechsel dokumentiert zugleich aber auch das Scheitern einer Freundschaft. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt unterhielt zeitlebens eine beeindruckend umfangreiche Korrespondenz. Seine Briefpartner waren höchst unterschiedlich. Es zählten dazu sowohl Künstler, wie Gelehrte aller Art, insbesondere juristische Kollegen als auch sonstige Persönlichkeiten.Ein Teil seiner Korrespondenz, nämlich die mit Ernst Jünger und mit Armin Mohler wurde in den letzten Jahren bei Klett-Cotta bzw. dem Akademie-Verlag veröffentlicht. In unserem Hause erschienen 1989 Briefe an Carl Schmitt, die der langjährige frühere Leipziger Studentenpfarrer Werner Becker in den Jahren 1923-1978 an Schmitt gerichtet (...) hatte. Die Schreiben Schmitts, die sich leider nicht mehr erhalten haben, erschließen sich insoweit, als Becker darin auf vorangehende Schreiben Schmitts inhaltlich eingeht. Im Dezember 2003 erschien in der Festschrift für Werner Krawietz unter dem Titel »Legalität, Legitimität und das Politische - Ein Briefwechsel« eine von Florian Simon aus unserem Verlagsarchiv zusammengestellte Korrespondenz Schmitts, die dieser in den Jahren 1931-1933 mit Ludwig Feuchtwanger, in den Jahren 1913-1936 wissenschaftlicher Leiter unseres Hauses, geführt hat.In Spanien war einer von Schmitts intensiven Briefpartnern, der 1915 geborene Römischrechtler Prof. Dr. Álvaro d'Ors. Er kannte Schmitt anfangs nur mittelbar und zwar über seinen Vater, den Philosophen und Essayisten Eugenio d'Ors. Dieser war mit Schmitt seit 1929 befreundet und hatte ihm in seiner Schrift Glosario mit der Darstellung seines Rangs und Originalität seiner Denkweise ein Denkmal gesetzt. 1944 lernten Álvaro d'Ors und Schmitt sich auch persönlich kennen, bei Gelegenheit eines Vortrags von Carl Schmitt »Vitoria und sein Ruhm«, den dieser an der Universität von Granada hielt. An diese war Álvaro d'Ors kurz zuvor zum Ordinarius für Römisches Recht berufen worden.Der Briefwechsel zwischen Schmitt und d'Ors setzt 1948 ein und endet 1983, zwei Jahre vor dem Ableben Schmitts. Der Briefwechsel war begleitet von einer Reihe von Begegnungen in Deutschland, aber mehr noch in Spanien, und zwar insbesondere in Santiago, wohin d'Ors später berufen worden war. Dort lebte seit 1959 auch Schmitts einzige Tochter Anima, nach Ihrer Eheschließung mit Alfonso Otero, Ordinarius für Rechtsgeschichte an der dortigen Universität.Der hier nun vorgelegte Briefwechsel zeigt, wie sehr die theoretischen und praktischen Interessen beider Juristen miteinander verwoben, aber dennoch ihre Denkansätze und Ergebnisse sehr verschieden waren. Der Briefwechsel führt uns durch einen für beide Partner überaus fruchtbaren Dialog zu grundlegenden Aspekten des Denkens beider Autoren: der Nomos der Erde, die Einheit der Welt, Ausnahme und Norm, Legalität und Legitimität und politische Theologie.In sorgfältigen und umfangreichen Anmerkungen der Herausgeberin werden dem Leser Zusammenhänge und Hintergründe erschlossen sowie die in den Briefen erwähnten Persönlichkeiten vorgestellt, die dem deutschen Leser weitestgehend unbekannt sind. Die Briefe mit den Anmerkungen geben einen aufschlußreichen Einblick in das Denken der Briefpartner und insbesondere Carl Schmitts. Sie sind zugleich ein spannendes Zeitdokument und ein Beitrag zur Geistesgeschichte Deutschlands und Spaniens. (shrink)

Einfuhrung Carl Schmitt: Der Schatten Gottes. INtrospektionen, Tagebucher und Briefe 1921 bis 1924 Teil I: Tagebuch August 1921 bis August 1922 Bearbeitet von Gerd Giesler und Ernst Husmert Teil II: Tagebuch 1923 und 1924 Bearbeitet von Wolfgang H. SPindler Teil III: Der Schatten Gottes. AUfzeichnungen aus den Jahren 1922 bis 1924 Bearbeitet von Gerd Giesler, Ernst Husmert und Wolfgang H. SPindler Anhang Briefe, Dokumente und Abbildungen Verzeichnis der mehrfach genannten Literatur Quellen und Nachschlagewerke Abbildungs- und Quellennachweis Personenverzeichnis.

Schmitt, C. Die Tyrannei der Werte.--Jüngel, E. Wertlose Wahrheit.--Schelz, S. Der Wert als ideologischer Begriff.