&quot;Auf einen Widerspruch stoßen…&quot;: Carl Schmitt in der Korrespondenz mit Otto Kirchheimer und Ingeborg Maus

Hubertus Buchstein; Reinhard Mehring

doi:10.5771/9783465147749

Summary

The constitutional lawyer Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) is today discussed as the ‘leading legal theorist’ of both the Weimar presidential system and National Socialism, as a critic of liberal democracy, and as a pioneer of all authoritarian and dictatorial processes of transformation worldwide. However, he also sought and found ‘left-wing’ resonance and has continued to influence ‘left-wing’ theoretical debates and discourses right up to the present day. Otto Kirchheimer (1905–1965) and Ingeborg Maus (1937–2024) each maintained, in their own way, a cautious personal contact with him. For both the Weimar Republic and the early Federal Republic of Germany, spanning half a century, generations and systemic upheavals, they represent, as it were, the beginning and the end of a ‘left-wing’ reception of and engagement with Schmitt’s work and influence. This edition presents the biographical sources of the correspondence in an annotated version. Hubertus Buchstein is responsible for the Kirchheimer section, which includes fundamental remarks on the problematic label ‘left-wing Schmittianism’. Reinhard Mehring is the editor of the second part, containing Schmitt’s highly surprising, fully preserved correspondence with Ingeborg Maus, as well as further materials. For the ‘left-wing interest’ in Schmitt, this volume serves as a case study.