- Born:
- July 11, 1888, Plettenberg, Westphalia, Prussia [Germany]
- Died:
- April 7, 1985, Plettenberg (aged 96)
- Political Affiliation:
- Nazi Party
- Role In:
- Nazism
Carl Schmitt
-
Who was Carl Schmitt?
Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) was a German jurist and political theorist known for his critique of liberalism and his definition of politics based on friend-enemy distinctions. During the Weimar Republic (1919–33), he challenged Enlightenment political philosophy, emphasizing the need for transcendental sources to ground moral-political authority. His influential works include Political Theology (1922) and The Concept of the Political (1927, elaborated in 1932), where he argued that the essence of politics lies in the human tendency to identify "enemies." In 1933, Schmitt joined the Nazi Party, endorsing Hitler's policies and contributing pseudo-academic justifications for German expansion. After the war, he continued to write, often defending his actions.
1 Britannica SourceCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
What was Carl Schmitt known for in the field of political science?
Carl Schmitt was a German jurist and political theorist known for his critique of liberalism and his definition of politics. He defined politics based on identifying distinctions between friends and enemies and his support of Nazism. Schmitt emphasized what he considered deficiencies of Enlightenment political philosophy and liberal political practice. He insisted on transcendental sources to ground moral-political authority and portrayed liberal parliamentary government as a sham.
In The Concept of the Political, Schmitt defined "the political" as human groups identifying each other as enemies, with whom mortal combat is a constant possibility.
1 Britannica SourceCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
What does it mean when someone is called a jurist?
A jurist is someone with extensive knowledge of the law, especially a judge or legal expert.
Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) was a German jurist and political theorist known for his critique of liberalism and his definition of politics. He overtly supported Nazism and is known for his writings during the Weimar Republic, where he emphasized the deficiencies of Enlightenment political philosophy and liberal political practice. After the war, Schmitt was banned from teaching but continued to write.
3 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
What was Carl Schmitt's idea of the 'state of exception'?
Carl Schmitt was a German jurist and political theorist known for his critique of liberalism and support of Nazism. Schmitt believed that transcendental sources are necessary to ground moral-political authority. In The Concept of the Political, he defined "the political" as the propensity of human groups to identify each other as enemies, with whom mortal combat is a constant possibility.
In Legality and Legitimacy, Schmitt argued that the democratic legitimacy of the republic’s president outweighed any legal limits on his authority. He advised bypassing parliament and ruling by presidential decree during crises, which influenced the Nazi seizure of power.
1 Britannica SourceCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
How did Carl Schmitt define the relationship between politics and law?
Carl Schmitt defined "the political" as the propensity of human groups to identify each other as enemies, representing different ways of life, with whom conflict is always possible. He believed this refuted Enlightenment and liberal ideas. In Legality and Legitimacy (1932), Schmitt argued that in crisis, the president's democratic legitimacy could outweigh legal limits on authority. He advised bypassing parliament and ruling by decree. Later, he supported the Nazi seizure of power and endorsed Hitler's policies.
1 Britannica SourceCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
Why do some people find Carl Schmitt's theories controversial?
Carl Schmitt's theories are controversial due to his critique of liberalism, his definition of politics, and his support of Nazism. He challenged Enlightenment political philosophy and liberal practice, believing that transcendental sources are necessary for moral-political authority. Schmitt defined "the political" based on identifying "enemies," with whom conflict is a constant possibility. During the Weimar Republic's crisis, he advocated for presidential authority over parliamentary limits. Although initially advising conservatives, Schmitt later aided the Nazi seizure of power and endorsed Hitler's policies, including anti-Jewish measures, further fueling the controversy.
1 Britannica SourceCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Carl Schmitt (born July 11, 1888, Plettenberg, Westphalia, Prussia [Germany]—died April 7, 1985, Plettenberg) was a German conservative jurist and political theorist, best known for his critique of liberalism, his definition of politics as based on the distinction between friends and enemies, and his overt support of Nazism.
Schmitt studied law in Berlin, Munich, and Hamburg, graduating with a doctorate in law in 1915.
In a series of books written during the Weimar Republic (1919–33), Schmitt emphasized what he thought to be the deficiencies of Enlightenment political philosophy and liberal political practice. In Political Theology (1922) and Roman Catholicism and Political Form (1923), he insisted that transcendental, extrarational, and supramaterial sources are necessary to ground moral-political authority. He also held that Russian anarchism and communism represented a general revolt against authority that would destroy Europe and irrevocably degrade humanity. Schmitt’s Crisis of Parliamentarism (1923) portrayed liberal parliamentary government as a sham: interest-based political parties feign protection of the national good while actually pursuing their own particularist agendas. Contemporary parliaments, Schmitt averred, were incapable of reconciling democracy, which presupposed political unity, with liberalism, a fundamentally individualist and pluralist doctrine.
Moving out of the ambit of Roman Catholic political thinking in the mid-1920s, Schmitt composed his most influential works. His magnum opus, Constitutional Theory (1927), offered an analysis of the Weimar Constitution as well as an account of the principles underlying any democratic constitution. In The Concept of the Political, composed in 1927 and fully elaborated in 1932, Schmitt defined “the political” as the eternal propensity of human collectivities to identify each other as “enemies”—that is, as concrete embodiments of “different and alien” ways of life, with whom mortal combat is a constant possibility and frequent reality. Schmitt assumed that the zeal of group members to kill and die on the basis of a nonrational faith in the substance binding their collectivities refuted basic Enlightenment and liberal tenets. According to Schmitt, the willingness to die for a substantive way of life contradicts both the desire for self-preservation assumed by modern theories of natural rights and the liberal ideal of neutralizing deadly conflict, the driving force of modern European history from the 16th to the 20th century.
Schmitt’s several other works included Legality and Legitimacy (1932), published during Weimar’s final years. In the midst of economic collapse and social conflict bordering on civil war, Schmitt argued that the democratic legitimacy of the republic’s president outweighed any limits on his authority as legally articulated in the Weimar Constitution. Schmitt advised members of President Paul von Hindenburg’s circle to bypass the parliament and rule by presidential decree for the duration of the crisis and potentially beyond it. Once those conservatives were outmaneuvered by Adolf Hitler, however, Schmitt helped to legally coordinate the Nazi seizure of power, and in 1933 he joined the Nazi Party. He wholeheartedly endorsed Hitler’s murder of political adversaries and promulgation of anti-Jewish policies. Schmitt subsequently occupied himself with pseudo-academic studies such as The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes (1936) and international law-based justifications of an expanding German empire, or Grossraum.
Refusing to be de-Nazified by the Allies (because he insisted that he had never been “Nazified”), Schmitt was banned from teaching after the war but continued to produce intriguing but often self-exculpating scholarly works, such as Ex Captivitate Salus, and a philosophical-historical study of international law, Nomos of the Earth, both published in 1950.