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CARL SCHMITT AND HIS INFLUENCE ON
HISTORIANS
Reinhard Mehring*
INTRODUCTION
The following sketch is a contribution to the debate about the
impact of Schmitt's work on historical scholarship. I will discuss
his significance by examining his influence on a few important
historians, such as Ernst Rudolf Huber, Ernst-Wolfgang
B?ckenf?rde, Christian Meier, and Reinhart Koselleck, all of
whom were significant scholars themselves and maintained close
personal relationships with Schmitt.1 I intend to focus not on these
relationships, but on Schmitt's influence on their work. In this
context, I am not so much interested in presenting a comparison of
their different views of history, but rather in discussing the
methodologies at work in their pragmatically and politically
oriented approaches to history.
I. SCHMITT'S SIGNIFICANCE FOR CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORIANS
(E.G., HUBER, B?CKENF?RDE)
Schmitt's early and predominant influence was in the field of
jurisprudence. Given the personal and intellectual connections
between Schmitt and other scholars, it seems justified to conceive
of them as a school. I have shown the impact of Schmitt's
constitutional teachings on Huber, Ernst Forsthoff, Werner
Weber, Roman Schnur, B?ckenf?rde, and others elsewhere;2
therefore, the following remarks about Schmitt's reception in the
field of constitutional history are meant to serve as an
* Dr. habil. Reinhard Mehring, Institut für Philosophie, Humboldt-Universit?t, Unter
den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin. The author would like to thank Dr. Siegfried Weichlein for
his comments and special help.
1 The reader may be unfamiliar with these guys, but they are really important. People
say: If you want to marry a girl, take a look at her mother. I will say: If you ask what there
is to be learned from Schmitt for our present day-and we should ask this-take a look at
his profound impact on his students.
2 See Reinhard Mehring, Schmitt und die Verfassungslehre unserer Tage, 120 ARCHIV
DES ?FFENTLICHEN RECHTS 177 (1995); see also REINHARD MEHRING, CARL SCHMITT
ZUR EINFüHRUNG (1992).
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introduction.
Schmitt's constitutional theory marks the beginning of a
political view of history as a series of constitutional battles.3
Schmitt's view of the modern age is summarized in his speech, Das
Zeitalter der Neutralisierungen und Entpolitisierungen4 (The Age of
Neutralizations and De-Politicizations). In this context, he
presents his thesis about the emergence of the modern state as a
response to the religious conflicts and civil wars in the early
modern age, and also puts forth his view of "Wilhelminism"5 and
the Weimar Republic as a transitional period. Fritz Hartung was
an early critic of Schmitt's views of recent German national
history.6 Gerhard Ritter discovered the problems concerning
political ethics and militarism in Germany, predominantly through
his analysis of Schmitt's work. Hans Blumenberg later defended
the "legitimacy of the modern age" against Schmitt. As I
mentioned earlier, I do not want to discuss these kinds of
historiographic arguments, but I am interested in the way Schmitt's
methodologies influenced his students. While the emergence of the
state as a process of secularization is a widely accepted thesis in
Germany today, the controversy between Huber and B?ckenf?rde
about the "German type" of constitutional monarchy, and about
the historical legitimacy of Wilhelminism, called the categories of
Schmitt's constitutional theory into question in the late 1960s.7
Even though Huber was among Schmitt's first students, as
well as a personal acquaintance, early on Huber distanced
himself-influenced by Smend8-from Schmitt's constitutional
3 See CARL SCHMITT, DER LEVIATHAN IN DER STAATSLEHRE THOMAS HOBBES
(1938); CARL SCHMITT, DER NOMOS DER ERDE (1950); CARL SCHMITT, HUGO PREU?
(1930); CARL SCHMITT, STAATSGEFüGE UND ZUSAMMENBRUCH DES ZWEITEN
REICHES (1934).
4 CARL SCHMITT, Das Zeitalter der Neutralisierungen und Entopolitisierungen, in DER
BEGRIFF DES POLITISCHEN 79-95 (1963).
5 In German historical terminology, the concept of "Wilhelminism" denotes the
period of the German empire from 1871 to 1918 and the concurrent idea of a
"constitutional monarchy." As Sch?nberger has recently shown, the monarchistic
premises underlying the national law of that period rendered any form of democratic
representation inconceivable. See CHRISTOPH SCH?NBERGER, DAS PARLAMENT IM
ANSTALTSSTAAT: ZUR THEORIE PARLAMENTARISCHER REPR?SENTATION IN DER
STAATSRECHTSLEHRE DES KAISERREICHS (1871-1918) (1997).
6 Fritz Hartung, Staatsgefüge und Zusammenbruch des Zweiten Reiches, 151
HISTORISCHE ZEITSCHRIFT 528 (1935).
7 The controversy is documented in MODERNE DEUTSCHE
VERFASSUNGSGESCHICHTE (1815-1918) (Ernst-Wolfgang B?ckenf?rde ed., 1972).
8 Ernst Rudolf Huber, Rudolf Smend, in JAHRBUCH DER AKADEMIE DER
WISSENSCHAFTEN IN G?TTINGEN FüR DAS JAHR 1976, at 105-21 (1977); Ernst Rudolf
Huber, Verfassungswirklichkeit und Verfassungswert im Staatsdenken der Weimarer Zeit,
in ARBEITEN ZUR RECHTSGESCHICHTE: FESTSCHRIFT FüR GUSTAF KLEMENS
SCHMELZEISEN 126 (1980).
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theories.9 In the mid-1930s he developed his own constitutional
theory as an apotheosis of the national socialist "constitution,"
which he expanded into a comprehensive history of the German
constitution. What was initially meant to be an overview of
German history from the period of the Teutons became Huber's
monumental Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit 178910 (German
Constitutional History After 1789).
The initial historical time frame, as well as the critique of
Schmitt, are already apparent in the work Heer und Staat in der
deutschen Geschichte11 (Army and State in German History),
published in 1938. While Schmitt's arguments for his political
principles12-catholicism, etatism, and nationalism-varied
depending on the particular discursive context, Huber was
consistent in his antiliberal and antidemocratic interpretation of
nationalism.13 Schmitt differentiated between liberalism and
democracy;14 Huber was predominantly interested in promoting
nationalism. In Heer und Staat, Huber presented a national sense
of mission in Prussia and attempted to show in very precise
analysis that the Prussian king never gave up his sovereignty,
which was closely linked to military commandership. In 1938
Huber argued against Schmitt's position that the constitutional
monarchy was, for that reason, not a constitution of compromise.15
He supported this argument with a variation on Schmitt's concept
of sovereignty: "sovereign is he who commands the armed
forces."16
In the later controversy about Wilhelminism, Huber changed
his point of view. He did not emphasize sovereignty so much as
the legitimacy of Wilhelminism, and argued, contradicting his
earlier position, that the ability to reach a constitutional
compromise constituted a criterion for legitimacy.17 At the same
9 ERNST RUDOLF HUBER, Verfassung und Verfassungswirklichkeit bei Carl Schmitt,
in BEWAHRUNG UND WANDLUNG 18 (1975); Ernst Rudolf Huber, Positionen und
Begriffe. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Carl Schmitt, 101 ZEITSCHRIFT FüR DIE
GESAMTEN STAATSWISSENSCHAFTEN 1 (1941).
10 ERNST RUDOLF HUBER, DEUTSCHE VERFASSUNGSGESCHICHTE SEIT 1789 (1990).
11 ERNST RUDOLF HUBER, HEER UND STAAT IN DER DEUTSCHEN GESCHICHTE
(1938).
12 See HELMUT QUARITSCH, POSITIONEN UND BEGRIFFE CARL SCHMITTS (1989).
13 ERNST RUDOLF HUBER, FRIEDRICH CHRISTOPH DAHLMANN UND DIE DEUTSCHE
VERFASSUNGSBEWEGUNG (1937); ERNST RUDOLF HUBER, VOM SINN DER
VERFASSUNG (1935).
14 CARL SCHMITT, DIE GEISTESGESCHICHTLICHE LAGE DES HEUTIGEN
PARLAMENTARISMUS 5-23 (1926).
15 HUBER, supra note 11, at 181, 184, 224.
16 Id. at 245, 254.
17 ERNST RUDOLF HUBER, Bismarck und der Verfassungsstaat, in NATIONALSTAAT
UND VERFASSUNGSSTAAT 188 (1965); see also ERNST RUDOLF HUBER, Die
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time he reaffirmed his rejection of Schmitt's critique of
Wilhelminism as merely a transitional phase. B?ckenf?rde
defended Schmitt's position against Huber and disputed the view
that Wilhelminism had its own legitimacy as a nation-state.18
Unlike Schmitt, B?ckenf?rde emphasized the lack of democracy.
In this debate, different normative values and concepts became
apparent: Schmitt criticized Wilhelminism as an interim phase
between a dynastic and a democratic legitimacy because his
political judgment of the process of constitutionalization and
democratization in the modern age was negative. B?ckenf?rde
criticized Wilhelminism as an interim phase because he approved
of the process of democratization. Huber defended the
constitutional compromise because he argued within the context of
Smend's concept of legitimacy. The key issue of this debate was
the question of sovereignty. Along with Schmitt, Huber argued
for a concept of sovereignty that creates legitimacy. Unlike
Schmitt, Huber acknowledged relative stability. From Huber's
point of view, relative stability deserves acknowledgment.
Political order is a perpetual "struggle for 'constitution.'"19
This debate about the normativeness of the concept of
legitimacy sounds very academic. It reminds us, however, that the
writing of constitutional history does indeed emphasize a normative
concept of legitimacy. From a sociological perspective, agreement
with Huber's position seems reasonable: What sense could it make
to criticize a political system for being transitional? Nothing on
earth is permanent. Historical scholarship constantly deals with
interim phases. Huber's intention in the debate, however, was not
to supply, in retrospect, a sociological evaluation of the relative
stability of a political system; he was interested in the "motives for
obedience":20 Were citizens obedient because they supported the
dynasty in the era of Wilhelminism, or because they supported the
reality of the idea of the nation-state, or because they supported
democracy? These are the central questions of the controversy
and their answers have consequences for the writing of history.
For our discussion of Schmitt's influence, it does not matter
Bismarcksche Reichsverfassung im Zusammenhang der deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte,
in BEWAHRUNG UND WANDLUNG 62 (1975).
18 ERNST-WOLFGANG B?CKENF?RDE, Der deutsche Typ der konstitutionellen
Monarchie im 19. Jahrhundert, in RECHT, STAAT, FREIHEIT 306 (1991); see also Ernst-
Wolfgang B?ckenf?rde, Weimar-Vom Scheitern einer zu früh gekommenen Demokratie,
24 DIE ?FFENTLICHE VERWALTUNG 946 (1981).
19 ERNST RUDOLF HUBER, Vom Sinn verfassungsgeschichtlicher Forschung und
Lehre, in BEWAHRUNG UND WANDLUNG 11 (1975).
20 MAX WEBER, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, in GRUNDRISS DER SOZIAL?KONOMIK
122 (1947).
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which side we take. It is important to remember, however, that
Schmitt's approach to constitutional theory, with its question of
legitimacy, emphasizes the normative perspectives of the historical
actors in order to be able to write constitutional history as a history
of intentionally conducted constitutional struggles. From a political
perspective, according to Schmitt, the writing of constitutional
history asks about what participants fought for or against. This
also applies to historical research: Schmitt defended the right to
write history according to the respective political need for
legitimacy. That is the reason why constitutional history of the
modern age was introduced as a subject in the law school
curriculum by the national socialists.21
II. SCHMITT'S SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE CLASSICAL HISTORIAN
CHRISTIAN MEIER
Schmitt also had an impact on the classical historian, Christian
Meier, who is well known in Germany outside his own discipline.
Some of Meier's works are clearly influenced by Schmitt. Meier's
repeated representations of "the political art of Greek tragedy"22
are prompted by Schmitt's Hamlet oder Hekuba23 (Hamlet or
Hecuba). Schmitt's political interpretation of the relationship
between Shakespeare's Hamlet and contemporary history is at the
same time an implicit interpretation of his own role in national
socialism. In this context, Meier adopts the political view of
tragedy as a reflection of the relationship between power and
myth. He reverses Schmitt's concept of "political theology" and
speaks instead of "theological politics" and the political art of
tragedy.24
Another example is the work Die Ohnmacht des allm?chtigen
Diktators Caesar25 (The Powerlessness of Caesar the Almighty
Dictator), which Meier published in connection with his Caesar
biography and which also addresses contemporary discussions
about Hitler's role as an effectively weak dictator.26 This thesis,
21 See CARL SCHMITT, über die neuen Aufgaben der Verfassungsgeschichte (1936), in
POSITIONEN UND BEGRIFFE 229 (1940).
22 CHRISTIAN MEIER, DIE POLITISCHE KUNST DER GRIECHISCHEN TRAG?DIE
(1988); see also CHRISTIAN MEIER, THE POLITICAL ART OF GREEK TRAGEDY (Andrew
Weber trans., 1993).
23 CARL SCHMITT, HAMLET ODER HEKUBA. DER EINBRUCH DER ZEIT IN DAS SPIEL
(1956).
24 CHRISTIAN MEIER, DIE ENTSTEHUNG DES POLITISCHEN BEI DEN GRIECHEN 222
(1980); see also CHRISTIAN MEIER, THE GREEK DISCOVERY OF POLITICS (David
McLintock trans., 1990).
25 CHRISTIAN MEIER, DIE OHNMACHT DES ALLM?CHTIGEN DICTATORS CAESAR.
DREI BIOGRAPHISCHE SKIZZEN (1980).
26 See Hans Mommsen, Hitlers Stellung im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem, in
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and Meier's discussion of the dialectic of power and powerlessness
in a dictator, had already been developed by Schmitt in an essay
written in 1947;27 it was expanded in 1954 in Gespr?ch über die
Macht und den Zugang zum Machthaber28 (Discussion about
Power and Accessibility of the Ruler).
A third example is his extensive study entitled Die Entstehung
des Politischen bei den Griechen29 (The Greek Discovery of
Politics). In his introduction, Meier offers a brief discussion of
Schmitt, which he continues later in more detail. He asserts that
Schmitt had been inconsistent in developing the "positive, the
more progressive" point of view in his differentiation between the
concept of the political and of the state, because he had been too
focused on the issue of etatism in Weimar.30 Beyond the historical
frame of the modern age, his approach permitted the writing of a
"history of the political"-namely, the history of the emergence of
the political in ancient Greece. However, this would require an
expansion of the concept of the political, which does not consist
exclusively of the differentiation between friend and foe.
Meier also intended to apply Schmitt's approach to the study
of antiquity. Criticism of Schmitt's conceptualization of the
political leads him to closely connect the emergence of the political
with the emergence of democracy in ancient Greece.31 He sees the
democratic political culture and humanity of the Greeks as an
"ideal type"32 and a classic "model"33 for political culture.
According to Meier, the differentiation between the political and
the state is the precondition for the emergence of a democratic
political culture. For him, democracy in Athens is the occidental
prototype of a developed political culture against which even our
present one is to be measured. Meier also adapts this concept for
his analyses of contemporary questions about German national
identity.34
The above-mentioned works are useful examples that
DER "FüHRERSTAAT": MYTHOS UND REALIT?T 43 (Gerhard Hirschfeld & Lothar
Kettenacker eds., 1981).
27 See CARL SCHMITT, Der Zugang zum Machthaber, ein zentrales
verfassungsrechtliches Problem (1947), in VERFASSUNGSRECHTLICHE AUFS?TZE AUS
DEN JAHREN 1924-1954, at 430 (1958).
28 CARL SCHMITT, GESPR?CH üBER DIE MACHT UND DEN ZUGANG ZUM
MACHTHABER (1954).
29 MEIER, supra note 24.
30 Christian Meier, Zu Carl Schmitts Begriffsbildung-Das Politische und der Nomos,
in COMPLEXIO OPPOSITORIUM: üBER CARL SCHMITT 537 (Helmut Quaritsch ed., 1988).
31 CHRISTIAN MEIER, ENTSTEHUNG DES BEGRIFFS 'DEMOKRATIE': VIER
PROLEGOMENA ZU EINER HISTORISCHEN THEORIE (1970).
32 MEIER, supra note 24, at 21.
33 Id. at 47.
34 CHRISTIAN MEIER, DIE NATION, DIE KEINE SEIN WILL (1991).
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illustrate Schmitt's academic influence. It seemed appropriate to
him to complement the diagnosis of the end of the "era of
statehood"35 with an account of the emergence of the political in
Greece, and to use it as a measure for contemporary conditions.
Independent of Schmitt, Hannah Arendt developed similar ideas
and thus also influenced Meier.
III. SCHMITT AND KOSELLECK
At the bottom of Reinhart Koselleck's argument with Schmitt
is the concept of history itself. Like Meier, Koselleck also offers
commentaries on Schmitt's theses and ideas.36 Schmitt's influence
on Koselleck's doctoral thesis of 1959, Kritik und Krise37 (Critique
and Crisis) has already been established. This "pathogenesis of
the bourgeois world"38 essentially argues along the same lines as
Schmitt's work on Hobbes and his later essay entitled Donoso
Cortés in gesamteurop?ischer Interpretation39 (The Interpretation
of Donoso Cortés from a European Perspective). Koselleck
argues that the development of a bourgeois moral counter-public
forces the absolutist state into a crisis. He describes the political
force of "conscience" as a "dialectic of mystery and
enlightenment."40 Whereas Max Weber finds this idea in
bureaucratical confidentiality (Amtsgeheimnis), Schmitt
emphasized its role in the arcane politics of absolutism. Koselleck
provides a new interpretation: The secret of the Enlightenment is
the political force of morality. It was so secret that even
Enlightenment thinkers themselves rarely saw it. It presented
itself in the disguise of a historical philosophy that translated the
political power of morality into political planning.
Koselleck emphasized the fact that the moral opposition
suffered from a kind of self-induced blindness regarding its
political intentions and influence. Helmuth Plessner's
philosophical anthropology had suggested the existence of such a
blindness of conscience which then, after 1945, was postulated in
35 Schmitt speaks about the end of the "era of statehood" in his late works. The most
famous place he mentions it is in Der Begriff des Politischen. SCHMITT, Vorwort, in DER
BEGRIFF DES POLITISCHEN, supra note 4, at 10.
36 Reinhart Koselleck, Die Verzeitlichung der Utopie, 3 UTOPIEFORSCHUNG 1, 8
(1982).
37 REINHART KOSELLECK, KRITIK UND KRISE. EIN BEITRAG ZUR PATHOGENESE
DER BüRGERLICHEN WELT (1959); see also Carl Schmitt, Reinhart Koselleck, 7 DAS
HISTORISCH-POLITISCHE BUCH 301-02 (1959) (reviewing Koselleck's Kritik und Krise.
Ein Beitrag zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt).
38 KOSELLECK, supra note 37, at 1.
39 CARL SCHMITT, DONOSO CORTéS IN GESAMTEUROP?ISCHER INTERPRETATION
(1950).
40 KOSELLECK, supra note 37, at 29.
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Schmitt's reflections about the human tendency toward "selfdeception."
41 Koselleck does not intend to judge the relationship
of morality and politics, but to describe the political aspect of
morality in its historical dimension. In agreement with Schmitt,42
Koselleck, like his friend Hanno Kesting,43 regards historical
philosophy as a political weapon in the "global civil war."44 He
stresses that the moral opposition transfigured its demand for
power in a historical and philosophical way because it could not
articulate it openly without the risk of disclosing and
delegitimizing it. According to Koselleck, this process led to a
dangerous hypocrisy.45
His fervent arguments regarding the pathogenesis of
modernity run the risk of discrediting the moral demands of
politics in the name of a generalized historical philosophy seen in
terms of crisis and criticism. With his book Preu?en zwischen
Reform und Revolution46 (Prussia between Reform and
Revolution), Koselleck adopts a more positive view of the process
of modernization. In a chronological sense, this book on Prussia
immediately follows the critique of the Enlightenment, and it asks
for answers regarding the hypocrisy of the Enlightenment.
Providing his own answer, Koselleck suggests that Prussia had
managed to find a way out of the crisis through legal reform. His
analysis ends with the crisis of 1848, the year he considered the
most significant in modern German history. In his study, Schmitt's
approach to the Vorm?rz period places less emphasis on
constitutional history than the history of ideas. Schmitt focused on
the intellectual discussions about 1848, in which he contrasted the
various Hegelian philosophers with Donoso Cortés, a promoter of
etatism. In contrast to Schmitt, Koselleck emphasized the
administration's role as a reformer before 1848.47
In his subsequent works, Koselleck focused mainly on the
transitional period between the Enlightenment and modernity.
Together with a few other historians, he published the
encyclopedia Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe (Encyclopedia of
41 CARL SCHMITT, EX CAPTIVITATE SALUS 79 (1950).
42 CARL SCHMITT, DIE GEISTESGESCHICHTLICHE LAGE DES HEUTIGEN
PARLAMENTARISMUS 63-77 (2d ed. 1926).
43 HANNO KESTING, GESCHICHTSPHILOSOPHIE UND WELTBüRGERKRIEG (1959).
44 CARL SCHMITT, GLOSSARIUM AUFZEICHNUNGEN DER JAHRE 1947-1951, at 29
(1991).
45 KOSELLECK, supra note 37, at 103.
46 REINHART KOSELLECK, PREU?EN ZWISCHEN REFORM UND REVOLUTION.
ALLGEMEINES LANDRECHT, VERWALTUNG UND SOZIALE BEWEGUNG VON 1791 BIS
1848 (1967).
47 See also Koselleck's introduction to the entry Verwaltung (administration) in the
encyclopedia, 2 GESCHICHTLICHE GRUNDBEGRIFFE 1-7 (1975).
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Historical Terms), which examines the accuracy of the thesis of the
transitional period, and he also wrote a number of essays on the
subject.48 "Terror" is the key word in his assessment of modernity.49
He works out his own experience of national socialism in his
historiographic accounts of the "political cult of the dead."50 He
rejects the role model of a party builder and politicizer. The
destructive potential of the modern age prompts him to alter his
methodology: rather than depicting the hypocritical nature of
German national history, he emphasizes the uniqueness of
modernity from the standpoint of historical theory
(Geschichtstheorie). For Koselleck, the basic principles of historical
experience are themselves historical. For him, it is of primary
importance to point out the uniqueness of the modern experience
of history. The most significant characteristic of the concept of
hypocrisy, which Schmitt found in the process of legislation
(Beschleunigung des Gesetzgebungsverfahren), is its power to
accelerate historical progress.51
Koselleck's theory of history is summarized in the collection
Vergangene Zukunft52 (Futures Past), in which he distances
himself from the legacy of historical theology and historical
philosophy.53 He opens his collection with an article honoring
Schmitt. This article shows that the secular state inherits its peacekeeping
function from the church. The underlying assumption
points to a dramatic shift in the attitude towards the future, from
prophecy to planning. This led to the rise of rational prognostics
in the political sphere: since the French Revolution, the art of
politics had been totally destroyed by historical and philosophical
planning. In a tribute to his philosophical teacher, Karl L?with,
Koselleck then proceeds to investigate the possibilities of a
pragmatic historiography and the role of the old dogmatic concept
of history. Referring to Lorenz of Stein, he maintains that Stein
had not given in to the "acceleration of history," but had used his
historical position to develop a theory of history that had practical
48 He focuses on terms like federation, democracy, emancipation, progress, history,
rule, interest, crisis, revolution, state, and sovereignty, to name a few.
49 See REINHART KOSELLECK, Terror und Traum. Methodologische Ammerkungen
zur Zeiterfahrung im Dritten Reich, in VERGANGENE ZUKUNFT 300 (1979).
50 Reinhart Koselleck, Introduction, in DER POLITISCHE TOTENKULT.
KRIEGERDENKM?LER IN DER MODERNE 9 (Reinhart Koselleck & Michael Jeismann
eds., 1994).
51 CARL SCHMITT, DIE LAGE DER EUROP?ISCHEN RECHTSWISSENSCHAFT (1950).
52 REINHART KOSELLECK, VERGANGENE ZUKUNFT (1979); see also REINHART
KOSELLECK, FUTURES PAST (Keith Tribe trans., 1995).
53 On the discourse of historical philosophy after 1945, see Reinhard Mehring, Karl
L?with, Carl Schmitt, Jacob Taubes und das "Ende der Geschichte," 48 ZEITSCHRIFT FüR
RELIGIONS-UND GEISTESGESCHICHTE 231 (1996).
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implications.54
While Koselleck affirmed the practical significance of history
as a scholarly discipline, he also defended the importance of
traditional history and the history of ideas at a time when the
socio-historical paradigm was predominant. Elsewhere he links his
belief to the inevitable embeddedness of the historian in the
political and historical context, rejecting the concept that history
legitimizes the claims of victorious states.55 Finally, he discusses
the uniqueness of the historical experience of the modern age.56
His studies conclude with the observation that there is a gap
between experience and expectations: in the modern age,
historical experience and expectations of the future proceed in
different directions. There is a prevailing sense that the future will
be essentially different from the past. In this context, history as an
academic discipline loses its role as political teacher. Joachim
Ritter described this phenomenon as an essentially modern break
in the continuity of the past and the future.57
Koselleck doubts the possibility of historiography as magister
vitae. His critique of all sorts of historical theology and historical
philosophy leads him to emphasize the quintessential modern
experience: the acceleration of time beginning in the end of the
eighteenth century. His turn toward historical anthropology and
philosophical hermeneutics58 is motivated by his theoretical work
on the semantics of the change of experience. He interprets the
"terror" of this acceleration as a threat to human experience.
Koselleck's teacher, L?with, appears to have become more
dominant than Schmitt regarding this anthropological shift. On
the other hand, Schmitt's anthropological criticism of the process
of modernization, which he formulated in the epilogue of Political
Theology II, was his last, somewhat cryptic, statement on this
54 Reinhart Koselleck, über die Theoriebedürftigkeit der Geschichtswissenschaft, in
THEORIE DER GESCHICHTSWISSENSCHAFT UND PRAXIS DES GESCHICHTSUNTERRICHTS
10 (Werner Conze ed., 1972); see also KOSELLECK, VERGANGENE ZUKUNFT, supra note
52, at 95; Reinhart Koselleck, Begriffsgeschichte, Sozialgeschichte, begriffene Geschichte,
43 NEUE POLITISCHE LITERATUR 187 (1998); Reinhart Koselleck, Im Vorfeld einer neuen
Historik, 6 NEUE POLITISCHE LITERATUR 577 (1961); Reinhart Koselleck, Wozu noch
Historie?, 212 HISTORISCHE ZEITSCHRIFT 1 (1971).
55 See Reinhart Koselleck, Erfahrungswandel und Methodenwechsel. Eine historischanthropologische
Skizze, 5 THEORIE DER GESCHICHTE 13 (1988).
56 See Reinhart Koselleck, Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert als Beginn der Neuzeit, in
EPOCHENSCHWELLE UND EPOCHENBEWU?TSEIN, 12 POETIK UND HERMENEUTIK 269
(Reinhart Herzog & Reinhart Koselleck eds., 1987); Reinhart Koselleck, Wie neu ist die
Neuzeit?, 251 HISTORISCHE ZEITSCHRIFT 539 (1997).
57 JOACHIM RITTER, METAPHYSIK UND POLITIK 211, 335, 338 (1969).
58 REINHART KOSELLECK & HANS-GEORG GADAMER, HERMENEUTIK UND
HISTORIK (1987). For a recent discussion, see Reinhart Koselleck, Vom Sinn und Unsinn
der Geschichte, 51 MERKUR 319 (1997).
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2000] SCHMITT'S INFLUENCE ON HISTORIANS 1663
issue.59 Koselleck did not use any theologizing rhetoric. He
moved from theological to anthropological semantics. However,
his problematization of the political and practical function of
historiography remains closely linked to Schmitt's approach.
CONCLUSION
The above-mentioned authors have one thing in common:
they share an interest in politics and a normative concept of
historiography. This is most obvious in the works of Huber and
B?ckenf?rde. Both argue from a standpoint of normative
legitimacy. The historians Meier and Koselleck emphasize the
potential of their fields for interpreting and understanding
contemporary societies. These scholars question the German
tradition of universities as ivory towers, while self-critically
refocusing the academic key issues of their disciplines. Like those
of Schmitt, the implications of their scholarly work go far beyond
the boundaries of their disciplines. The hallmark of Schmitt's
quality and success lies in reconnecting scientific theory and
political practice.
Theoretically, Schmitt rebuilt jurisprudence from scratch,
while rejecting the positivist assumptions of the traditional
dogmatic school. His Political Theology60 is deeply motivated by
politics. Schmitt did not recognize any universal implications of a
specific policy. He was a very special kind of a civil theologian,
who merely adapted the name, but not the content, of Christian
theology into a specific form of political theology. His aim was not
to reconstruct any material religious doctrine. He rejected all sorts
of questions that could not be solved. His leading assumption was
that critique cannot satisfy with answers, but is always followed by
crisis. An intriguing philosophical analysis can be found in the
work of Friedrich Balke,61 whereas the latest reconstruction by
Ruth Groh62 has a politico-theological mythology as its leading
category. If Schmitt was really a believing theologian, we would
no longer be interested in his work. The intricate subtleties of his
theoretical challenge can instead be traced in the complex theories
of his students.
This conceptualization is clearly on the defensive.
59 CARL SCHMITT, POLITISCHE THEOLOGIE II (1970).
60 CARL SCHMITT, POLITISCHE THEOLOGIE (1934).
61 FRIEDRICH BALKE, DER STAAT NACH SEINEM ENDE. DIE VERSUCHUNG CARL
SCHMITTS (1996).
62 For her latest discussion, see RUTH GROH, ARBEIT AN DER HEILLOSIGKEIT DER
WELT. ZUR POLITISCH-THEOLOGISCHEN MYTHOLOGIE UND ANTHROPOLOGIE CARL
SCHMITTS (1998).
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1664 CARDOZO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 21:1653
Nevertheless, it partially explains the renewed interest in Schmitt
in modern historiography. It would be misleading to view
Schmitt's students merely in the vanguard of social history. They
were, at least to the same extent, early advocates of a sophisticated
version of the history of ideas as well as of concepts
(Begriffsgeschichte). A political and practical interest for history is
more than the politicization of historiography. It has its own
moral dimension. The interest of individuals for one another
makes them, at the same time, participants in history. Studying
mankind leads us to the individual. The quintessential subject of
historiography is the individual. In the words of Carl Schmitt:
"Der Feind ist die eigne Frage als Gestalt."63 This practical drive in
historiography seems, to me, to be undeniable. The Schmittians
try to reintroduce, and at the same time defend, moral and
political issues into the province of the historians. This
methodological merit seems to be the most important contribution
of Schmitt to contemporary German historiography.
63 SCHMITT, supra note 41, at 90.