Zum strukturellen Antisemitismus in der politischen Theorie Carl Schmitts

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) is still one of the most widely read authors in the field of social science and law. From the 1910s onwards, he published extensively on a wide range of topics relating to politics, the state and law. With his works, Schmitt left his mark on half a century of constitutional law, state theory and, paradoxically, democratic theory. His best-known concepts include the dichotomy of friend and foe as the centre of the political, his definition of sovereignty and the democratic-theoretical understanding of an ‘identity of rulers and ruled’. In general, research on Carl Schmitt is divided into three areas. 1. biographical studies, 2. studies of his time in historical National Socialism and 3. the study of his major works of early state theory, especially from the 1920s and early 1930s. Even in his early works, however, Schmitt's work is not based on emancipatory ideas, a pluralistic understanding of society and an institutional integration of the demos - contrary to what one might expect from someone who trades as a state and democracy theorist - but on the exact opposite. His life's work revolves around hostility to the subject, authoritarianism and fantasies of homogeneity and annihilation. They run like a red thread from his early works from 1914 to his late work over 50 years later. Neither ideological allies nor bitter enemies have ever denied that Carl Schmitt was one of the sharpest thinkers of his time. He produced a huge number of monographs, specialist articles, reviews and much more during his creative period. Some of his works were published after his death. Schmitt was certainly one of the most influential theorists of the last century. He developed groundbreaking concepts and explanatory models and shaped half a century of German jurisprudence and political theory like no other. Few thinkers demonstrate the importance of both political theory and the history of ideas for understanding the present as much as Carl Schmitt. His work is diverse, fascinating and extensive. It is a proverbial goldmine of ideas of (then) new concepts and ideas of community, society and politics that are still influential today. However, it is also a diverse repository of antisemitic, National Socialist and misanthropic ideologies, which are scrutinised with great critical interest for good reason. In short, and to stay with the analogy: Carl Schmitt's work is a poisoned treasure of political theory. He dedicated his life's work to dictatorship. ‘Auctoritas, non veritas facit legem’ is the key phrase of his decisionist idol, Thomas Hobbes, to whom he repeatedly refers: “Authority, not truth, creates the law.” All parts of his theorising are based on the principle of “authority, not truth”. The decision always takes centre stage, never the process. This exerts an unbroken fascination on people from various authoritarian orientated spectrums. Whether anti-imperialism, undemocratic conservatism or the various varieties of right-wing extremism: wherever a justification is needed to bypass the process and directly enforce a decision, where the subject is neglected in favour of the collective, and where a clear demarcation from the ‘enemy’ is needed, Schmitt's political theory is always on hand. Until now, there has been no study that has dealt with the question of whether Schmitt's writings are not also permeated by the most important pattern of interpretation for the regime outside of National Socialism: Antisemitism. The present study takes on the task of closing this desideratum. The extent to which Schmitt's writings contain antisemitic set pieces, or possibly also a closed antisemitic attitude towards the world, is analysed by comparing three creative phases. For the period before the Third Reich, the three central works of his theory of the state are analysed: Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (1922), The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (1923), The Concept of the Political (1927). For his creative period under National Socialism, the study is based on the two specialist articles The Führer protects the law (1934) and German jurisprudence in the fight against the Jewish spirit (1936). The post-Nazi period is represented by Theory of the Partisan: Intermediate Commentary on the Concept of the Political (1963). The works are analysed in terms of their structural antisemitism using Samuel Salzborn's concept of antisemitism. The results of the study clearly indicate a structural anchoring of an antisemitic attitude towards the world in all periods of his work, explicitly also before National Socialism.