Carl Schmitt

Schmitt's journals published as Glossarium contain antisemitic remarks and hostile statements about Jewish intellectuals after 1945. Historical studies show that he subsequently denied or minimised his public antisemitic involvement under the Third Reich while continuing to use antisemitic patterns of thought in private notes.

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Directly implicated

Schmitt was interned by the Americans in 1945–1946, then detained for approximately two months at Nuremberg in 1947 as a witness and 'possible defendant'. Investigators examined his role as a jurist of the regime, but no formal indictment was ultimately brought against him.

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Before and during the early war, Schmitt developed his Großraum, or greater-space, theory based on excluding external powers from an area dominated by a leading power. Its relationship to Reich expansion and Nazi international law remains a major debate about his intellectual contribution to German imperialism.

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Schmitt organised a Munich conference on the influence of 'Jewry' in legal scholarship, delivered the opening and closing addresses and called, among other things, for Jewish authors to be separately identified, libraries purged and their origins indicated in citations.

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In December 1936, the SS newspaper Das Schwarze Korps attacked Schmitt, questioning the sincerity of his National Socialism and highlighting his earlier relationships with Jews. He lost several party and legal positions but remained an NSDAP member, Prussian state councillor and professor in Berlin.

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Schmitt published defences of the Nuremberg racial laws, which deprived Jews of civil rights and notably prohibited so-called mixed marriages. He described this framework as the 'constitution of freedom' and contributed to its legal legitimation.

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Personally implicated

Following extrajudicial executions during the Night of the Long Knives, Schmitt published 'Der Führer schützt das Recht', portraying Hitler's actions as the source and protection of law. The text became a major example of law being used to legitimise regime violence.

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Following the April 1933 Nazi law excluding numerous Jews and opponents from public service, Schmitt was the only member of Cologne's law faculty to refuse to support a petition intended to prevent Hans Kelsen's dismissal.

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During the July 1932 Preußenschlag, Papen's government removed Prussia's democratically elected government. Schmitt represented the Reich in Preußen contra Reich before the Staatsgerichtshof. The court subsequently ruled the operation partially unconstitutional.

State of the evidence

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Directly implicated