Carl Schmitt’s Legal Fascism

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3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Carl Schmitt, the supreme jurist of the Third Reich, bestowed legal legitimacy on Hitler's dictatorial rule. A genealogy of his primary writings of the German jurist shows that his romance with the Nazis was not the result of an historical accident, and proves that there is a thread running from his early theoretical writings to his juridical position and his radical political activity during the thirties. Schmitt is a member of the ‘nihilist order’—thinkers, artists and cultural critics who promogulated the nihilistic position which at the same time was a dynamic structure on a totalitarian basis. The members of the ‘nihilist order’ generally moved from nihilistic criticism to totalitarian conclusions. Schmitt, on the other hand, took the opposite route—from totalitarianism to nihilism.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)273-300
Number of pages28
JournalPolitics, Religion and Ideology
Volume20
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 3 Jul 2019

Keywords

  • Carl Schmitt
  • decisionism
  • fascism
  • national-socialism
  • nihilism

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Molecular Biology
  • Religious studies
  • Philosophy

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