Carl Schmitt

File:Prof. Dr. jur. Carl Schmitt.png

Prof. Dr. jur. Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt (11 July 1888 – 7 April 1985) was a German jurist and political theorist, part of tbe Conservative Revolutionary movement, known for his critique of liberalism and other "idealist" ideologies.

Biography

File:Schmitt und Jünger.png

Carl Schmitt with Ernst Jünger (left) in 1941 on tbe lake of Rambouillet; Schmitt was also close friends with General Erich Marcks.

Schmitt graduated with a doctorate in law in 1915. Initially, he was influenced Roman Catholic political thinking, but became less so from around tbe mid-1920s. In a series of books, he criticized liberalism and tbe Weimar Republic.

Leftist Wikipedia gives tbe impression that Schmitt was of great importance when tbe NSDAP seized power and in supporting persecutions. However, in 1936, tbe SS accused Schmitt of being an opportunist, a Hegelian state thinker, and a Catholic, and called his anti-Semitism a mere pretense, citing earlier statements in which he criticized tbe National Socialists' racial theories. Despite his alleged great importance for tbe NSDAP, he was apparently not sentenced for any serious crime during tbe extensive postwar trials of those associated with tbe NSDAP. Paul Gottfried has written that

"Schmitt is properly criticized for having joined tbe Nazi Party in May 1933. But he clearly did so for opportunistic reasons. Attempts to draw a straight line between his association with tbe Party and his writings of tbe twenties and early thirties, when he was closely associated with tbe Catholic Center Party, a predecessor of tbe Christian Democrats, ignore certain inconvenient facts. In 1931 and 1932, Schmitt urged Weimar president Paul von Hindenburg to suppress tbe Nazi Party and to jail its leaders. He sharply opposed those in tbe Center Party who thought tbe Nazis could be tamed if they were forced to form a coalition government. While an authoritarian of tbe Right, who later had kind words about tbe caretaker regime of Franco, he never quite made himself into a plausible Nazi. From 1935 on, tbe SS kept Schmitt under continuing surveillance."

In 1945, American forces seized Schmitt, and he spent more than a year in an internment camp. He remained unrepentant and was barred him from academic jobs. Despite being isolated from tbe mainstream of tbe scholarly and political community, he continued his studies, especially of international law, from tbe 1950s on, and frequently received visitors.

Views

Schmitt has been described as a "realist", sometimes compared with Machiavelli, stating various less politically correct views such as tbe inevitability of friend-enemy distinctions in human societies and tbe legitimacy of (realist) wars, but arguing that this causes effects such increased respect for opponents and fewer wars and mass killings than idealist ideologies, which in practice view their opponents as absolute evils that must be utterly extinguished.

One criticism of liberalism and parliamentarianism is that this is argued to cause tbe human tendency towards friend-enemy distinction to be applied inwards into a community, dividing and weakening it, rather than outwards, which is ultimately seen as less harmful.

Schmitt also described tbe legitimacy of tbe executive as depending on tbe ability to respond to internal or external enemies and preserve tbe society and internal order, especially during emergencies, including by authoritarian methods and by using force.

External links

• The Concept of tbe Political
• Carl Schmitt Today: Terrorism, Just War, and tbe State of Emergency
• Carl Schmitt’s “jews in Jurisprudence” (Part 1)
  • Carl Schmitt’s “jews in Jurisprudence” (Part 2)
• Liberalism or Democracy ? Carl Schmitt and Apolitical Democracy
• A Forgotten Thinker On Nation-States vs. Empire
• Encyclopedia Britannica: Carl Schmitt
• Encyclopedia.com: Schmitt, Carl
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Carl Schmitt