The Enduring Influence of Nazi Jurist Carl Schmitt

Recently the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) sent two reporters to Saxony-Anhalt to interview Götz Kubitschek and his wife Ellen Kositza on their country estate.  Kubitschek is the self-styled intellectual leader of the Neue Rechte ("New Right") and is a frequent contributor to the neo-fascist weekly Junge Freiheit.  Kubitschek is anything but an original thinker, and there is not much of interest that came out of the interview.  However, this section interested me: 

Kubitschek will das Gedankengut der Konservativen Revolution in die Parteidebatte einspeisen: antiliberale, antiparlamentarische und antiwestliche Konzepte, die eine fundamentale Abkehr vom Weg bedeuten, den Deutschland nach 1945 eingeschlagen hat. Exponent jener Konservativen Revolution, in Schnellroda meist nur „KR“ genannt, war der sogenannte „Kronjurist des Dritten Reiches“, Carl Schmitt. Den Autor des berüchtigten Aufsatzes „Der Führer schützt das Recht“ zitiert Kubitschek am häufigsten.

Kubitschek denkt konsequent entlang von Schmitts Schemata, etwa in der Frage, wer Feind ist und wer Freund – oder wer Deutscher ist und wer Ausländer. Zum Beispiel ist Kubitschek der Meinung, dass Deutsche mit ausländischen Wurzeln keine Deutsche sind, wenn sie nicht bereit wären, für Deutschland zu sterben. „Loyal ist, wer bereit ist, für das Land, in dem er lebt, in den Krieg zu gehen und sich erschießen zu lassen“, sagt Kubitschek.

Carl Schmitt - also known as "the Crown Jurist of the Third Reich"  - died in 1985, but is more influential than ever. Schmitt can be described as a brilliant anti-liberal theorist.  He had nothing but scorn for Germany's first attempt at parliamentary democracy in the Weimar Republic and supported the Ermächtigungsgesetz (the "Enabling Act of 1933"), which gave Hitler the the power to enact laws without the involvement of the Reichstag.  For Schmitt, a permanent Ausnahmezustand ("State of Exception") which empowers the sovereign the ability to transcend the rule of law in the name of the public good and safety was infinitely more preferable to the plodding inefficiencies of parliament. "Sovereign is he who decides on the exception." By "exception," Schmitt means the appropriate moment for stepping outside the rule of law in the public interest.

Of all of Carl Schmitt's vast work, Götz Kubitschek chooses to refer most to his most radical work - Der Führer schützt das Recht ("The Führer Protects the Law") which was written just following the 1934 "Night of Long Knives"  when Hitler had at least 85 of his adversaries murdered - including former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher.  In identifying and eliminating enemies of the state, “The Führer protects the law against the worst forms of abuse when, in the moment of danger, he immediately creates law by force of his character as Führer as the supreme legal authority.”  In other words - a legal justification for killing off the political opposition.

Carl Schmitt today provides the legal framework for every assault on liberal democracy, from the principle of the "Unitary Executive" in the Bush/Cheney administration to the Russian "philosopher " Alexander Dugin and his vision of a fascist "Eurasia" (see my post Heidegger and Putin's Brain), which is based on Schmitt's Politische Theologie. Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Souveränität.  Even today Schmitt's anti-liberal thinking is seductive because of his elegant arguments, using the modern techniques of rational analysis and secular scholarship.  The proponents of liberalism and the Open Society need to counter this with arguments of equal quality and vigor.

 

 

Comments

[Zyme]

Of course people should be willing to risk their lives for their country, especially when they have no other roots in it.

Now you could say that makes me a Schmittian ;-)
But was that concept truely his invention?

It reminds me a lot of Roman imperial politics. Remember when you critizised me for wanting a Praetorian Guard to resolve our leadership crisis? This is what they did in times of need - find a true leader and remove all powerful opposition.

This system may be cruel and hard at times. However it makes absolutely sure your country will never end up with a failure like Merkel.

[David]

"remove all powerful opposition"

You mean not by the ballot box but by murder?

[koogleschreiber]

Zyme, can you give us an example, when the Roman Praetorian Guard resolved a leadership crisis by finding a true leader and removing all powerful opposition?

And please note it can't be Claudius. He was a true leader, but that was not what the Praetorian Guard was looking for, and there wasn't any strong opposition to be removed.

[Zyme]

Not being a historian, I faintly remember that from 180AD onwards most emperors were either installed by military force or based their authority mostly on it, which is what I hinted at above. Surely this does not always generate great stability. However it makes sure you have no weaklings at the top who are unable to defend your realm's interests.

David, no this did not include wearing down ballot boxes :-D

While I believe many issues can be resolved by using ballot boxes, one precondition necessary for this to work vanishes in the German society (and many other European ones):

It is only natural that politicians worry about their own future at least as much as they worry about their country. Now when you get re-elected every 4 or 5 years, you will of course focus primarily on measurements which increase your chances on the next election date.
Politicians act otherwise only, when the majority of the population is young and demands a better future. Once most of the electorate are old, all they worry about is generous pensions and health care.

[KR]

If more people insisted on social security instead of ranting about imaginary "German interests" it would be better for all.