Carl Schmitt and the Jews: The ""Jewish Question," the Holocaust, and German Legal Theory (George L. Mosse Series)
by Raphael Gross
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German jurist and legal theorist Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) significantly influenced Western political and legal thinking in the last century, yet his life and work have also stirred considerable controversy. While his ideas have been used and diffused by prominent philosophers on both the left and the right, such as J#65533;rgen Habermas and Leo Strauss, his Nazi-era past, especially his active efforts to remove Jewish influence from German law, has cast a cloud over his life and show more oeuvre. Still, his many supporters have generally been successful in claiming that Schmitt's was an "antisemitism of opportunity," a temporary affectation to gain favor with the Nazis. In Carl Schmitt and the Jews, available in English for the first time, historian Raphael Gross vigorously repudiates this "opportunism thesis." Through a reading of Schmitt's corpus, some of which became available only after his death, Gross highlights the importance of the "Jewish Question" on the breadth of Schmitt's work. According to Gross, Schmitt's antisemitism was at the core of his work--before, during, and after the Nazi era. His influential polarities of "friend and foe," "law and nomos," "behemoth and Leviathan," and "ketechon and Antichrist" emerge from a conceptual template in which "the Jew" is defined as adversary, undermining the Christian order with secularization. The presence of this template at the heart of Schmitt's work, Gross contends, calls for a major reassessment of Schmitt's role within contemporary cultural and legal theory. show lessTags
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Der von Raphael Gross geöffnete "Casus Schmitt" zeigt das Ausmaß und die Intensität, mit der deutsche Rechtsintellektuelle vor, während, und vor allem auch nach dem Dritten Reich antijudaistisches und antisemitisches Denken übernommen und befördert haben. Zudem wird sichtbar, "wie sich der durch Leugnen, Verschweigen und Verfälschen geprägte Umgang mit diesen Denkern in den Jahren nach show more dem Ende des NS-Staates auf die politische und geistesgeschichtliche Entwicklung in Deutschland" ausgewirkt hat und noch immer auswirkt. Gross hat in seiner engagierten und präzisen Arbeit zudem die vielfältigen Leugnungs-, Relativierungs- und Selbststilisierungsstrategien Carl Schmitts (taktischer Rückzug ins Christentum, Zugehörigkeit zur sogenannten Konservativen Revolution und Opfer des nationalsozialistischen Regimes) in nüchterner und sachlicher Diktion demaskiert und dekonstruiert. Der zwischen den Zeilen an die Adresse der Schmitt-Apologeten hingeworfenen Interjektion "vae ignorantis!" ist eine breite Hörerschaft innerhalb der deutschen Wissenschaftslandschaft zu wünschen. show less
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15+ Works 53 Members
Raphael Gross is director of the Leo Baeck Institute in London, director of the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt, and reader in history at the University of Sussex.
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- Genres
- Nonfiction, Politics and Government, History, Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy
- DDC/MDS
- 323.1192 — Society, government, & culture Political science Civil Rights & Liberties/ Human Rights Minority Politics Specific Groups Biography And History Biography
- LCC
- JC263 .S34 .G75813 — Political Science Political theory Political theory. The state. Theories of the state Modern state
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- English, French, German
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