Carl Schmitt is one of the most widely read and influential
German thinkers of the twentieth century. His fundamental works on
friend and enemy, legality and legitimacy, dictatorship, political
theology and the concept of the political are read today with great
interest by everyone from conservative Catholic theologians to
radical political thinkers on the left.
In his private life, however, Schmitt was haunted by the demons
of his wild anti-Semitism, his self-destructive and compulsive
sexuality and his deep-seated resentment against the complacency of
bourgeois life. As a young man from a modest background, full of
social envy, he succeeded in making his way to the top of the
academic discipline of law in Germany through his exceptional
intellectual prowess. And yet he never felt at home in the academic
establishment and among those of high social standing.
In his works, Schmitt unmasked the liberal Rechtsstaat as a
constitutional facade and reflected on the legitimacy of
dictatorship. When the Nazis seized power Schmitt was susceptible
to their ideology. He broke with his Jewish friends, joined the
Nazi Party in May 1933 and lent a helping hand to Hitler, thereby
becoming deeply entangled with the regime. Schmitt was irrevocably
compromised by his role as the 'crown jurist' of the Third Reich.
But by 1936 he had already lost his influential position. After the
war, he led a secluded life in his home town in the Sauerland and
became a key background figure in the intellectual scene of postwar
Germany.
Reinhard Mehring's outstanding biography is the most
comprehensive work available on the life and work of Carl Schmitt.
Based on thorough research and using new sources that were
previously unavailable, Mehring portrays Schmitt as a Shakespearean
figure at the centre of the German catastrophe.
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