What’s “Left” in Schmitt?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew G. Specter
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
The Third ◽  
Chantal Mouffe ◽  
The Third Reich

Since the mid-1980s, the Western Left has split on how to evaluate the political and constitutional theory of Carl Schmitt. The analysis traces and historicizes a movement from aversion to appropriation of Schmitt’s writings in contemporary political theory. In the first half of the chapter Habermas is presented as developing his own positions in part through deep engagements with Schmitt’s thought. In the second half of the chapter, three contemporary political philosophers who are grouped under the label “left-Schmittian” are profiled. Contemporary left-Schmittians try to circumvent the Schmitt compromised by the “Third Reich,” but sometimes by diluting him beyond recognition. Close readings of Gopal Balakrishnan, Andreas Kalyvas, and Chantal Mouffe support the argument that contemporary left-Schmittians create a theory of domestic and international politics that are either normatively or institutionally deficient.

Issues Surrounding the Development of the Neo-Nazi Scene in East Berlin

2000 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Brothers
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Culture ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich

The rise of neo-Nazism in the capital of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) was not inspired by a desire to recreate Hitler's Reich, but by youthful rebellion against the political and social culture of the GDR's Communist regime. This is detailed in Fuehrer-Ex: Memoirs of a Former Neo-Naxi by Ingo Hasselbach with Tom Reiss (Random House, New York, 1996). This movement, however, eventually worked towards returning Germany to its former 'glory' under the Third Reich under the guidance of 'professional' Nazis.

scholarly journals Neurosciences in the Third Reich: from Ivory Tower to Death Camps

1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael I. Shevell
Keyword(s):  
Medical Practice ◽  
Physical Disabilities ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
The Political ◽  
Racial Hygiene ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
The Third Reich

Abstract: It is commonly thought that the horrific medical abuses occurring during the era of the Third Reich were limited to fringe physicians acting in extreme locales such as the concentration camps. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that there was a widespread perversion of medical practice and science that extended to mainstream academic physicians. Scientific thought, specifically the theories of racial hygiene, and the political conditions of a totalitarian dictatorship, acted symbiotically to devalue the intrinsic worth to society of those individuals with mental and physical disabilities. This devaluation served to foster the medical abuses which occurred. Neurosciences in the Third Reich serves as a backdrop to highlight what was the slippery slope of medical practice during that era. Points on this slippery slope included the “dejudification” of medicine, unethical experimentation in university clinics, systematic attempts to sterilize and euthanasize targeted populations, the academic use of specimens obtained through such programs and the experimental atrocities within the camps.

Teaching in Vain

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. McCormick
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
State Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
German State ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich

This chapter traces Carl Schmitt’s attempt, in his 1932 book The Concept of the Political, to quell the near civil war circumstances of the late Weimar Republic and to reinvigorate the sovereignty of the German state through a reappropriation of Thomas Hobbes’s political philosophy. The chapter then examines Schmitt’s reconsideration of the Hobbesian state, and his own recent reformulation of it, in light of the rise of the “Third Reich,” with particular reference to Schmitt’s 1938 book The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes.

scholarly journals Help of neutral countries in the return to life of the Women deportees from Ravensbrück camp. The Spanish Women case

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 024
Author(s):  
Rose Duroux
Keyword(s):  
Third Reich ◽  
Political Prisoners ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Third ◽  
Spanish Women ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
French Resistance

Nothing more usual than to find Spanish refugees of 1939 in the French Resistance as they continued their fight against fascism. Therefore, hundreds of Spaniards where caught in the nets of the Vichy Government and the Gestapo. They are imprisoned in the French jails (Toulouse, Montluc, Fresnes, Compiègne, etc.) alongside the French Resistant women. Both will be piled up in wagons to the camps of the Third Reich. Many ended at the women’s camp in Ravensbrück. Usually, the Spaniards were labelled “F”, “French”, because they were arrested in France. This “F” was part of the “red triangle” of the “political prisoners”. Some were even classified NN (Nacht und Nebel), i.e. called to disappear without a trace. As they were recognized by nobody (neither the French nor the Spaniards), this means: no mail, no parcels. They held on for life thanks to the links they forged randomly across blocks, satellite camps, languages, affinities... However, many died. For some of them, the release arrived in April 1944, thanks to “neutral” countries initiatives: in fact, a few Spanish women were able to slip into the Red Cross convoys transiting through Switzerland, which were initially reserved for French women. Others returned by Sweden. Others, finally, faced the apocalyptic evacuation of the camps of 1945 and the “marches of death”. We propose to study “the return to life” helps through some cases – obviously return to France since there could be no possible repatriation for these Spanish anti-fascist survivors, as the victory of the Allies did not affect General Franco’s power. After returning to France, this help continued for two or three years, in particular thanks to convalescent stays in Switzerland, Sweden and somewhere else, and thanks to one-off material contributions from the Swiss Grant (“Don suisse”) or from various organizations.

Ludendorff in the Third Reich

2021 ◽  
pp. 160-181
Author(s):  
Jay Lockenour
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
The Third ◽  
National Socialists ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Impact

This chapter outlines Erich Ludendorff’s attacks, written in his paper, Ludendorffs Volkswarte, on Adolf Hitler, the National Socialists, and their new cabinet allies after the political party consolidated their power in the summer of 1933. It discusses the relations between Hitler and Ludendorff throughout the first two years of the Third Reich. Despite the many ideological similarities with Nazism, the chapter reveals how Ludendorff’s followers experienced persecution, including their lectures being banned at the last minute or disrupted by Sturmabteilung (SA) rowdies. Some Ludendorffers lost their jobs or chances for promotion because of their championing the Feldherr’s cause. Some spent time in jail or concentration camps because of their “subversive” belief in Deutsche Gotterkenntnis. The chapter then discusses Ludendorff’s Volkswarte as a “purely religious” journal after the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) banned his paper and the Tannenbergbund. The chapter also mentions Ludendorff’s refusal to attend the festivities commemorating the Battle of Tannenberg. Ultimately, the chapter assesses the impact of Hitler and Ludendorff’s reconciliation on Germany.

Geology in Germany 1933–1945: People, politics and organization

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Kölbl-Ebert
Keyword(s):  
Broad Spectrum ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich

This paper explores geology in Germany during the Third Reich, 1933–1945. It deals with the effect of the political regime on the daily life in institutes and universities, with victims, perpetrators and bystanders, with geologists supporting the regime with their expertise in administration, economy and military, with ideological influences on geology as such and most of all with German geologists of that time and the broad spectrum of attitudes they cultivated.

Imagining a Greater Germany

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin R. Hochman
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Third ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Political Right

This book looks at the questions of state- and nation-building in interwar Central Europe. Ever since Hitler annexed his native Austria to Germany in 1938, the term “Anschluss” has been linked to Nazi expansionism. The legacy of Nazism has cast a long shadow not only over the idea of the union of German-speaking lands but also over German nationalism in general. Due to the horrors unleashed by the Third Reich, German nationalism has seemed virulently exclusionary, and Anschluss inherently antidemocratic. However, as the text makes clear, nationalism and the desire to redraw Germany's boundaries were not solely the prerogatives of the political right. Focusing on the supporters of the embattled Weimar and First Austrian Republics, this book argues that support for an Anschluss and belief in the großdeutsch idea (the historical notion that Germany should include Austria) were central to republicans' persistent attempts to legitimize democracy. With appeals to a großdeutsch tradition, republicans fiercely contested their opponents' claims that democracy and Germany, socialism and nationalism, Jew and German, were mutually exclusive categories. They aimed at nothing less than creating their own form of nationalism, one that stood in direct opposition to the destructive visions of the political right. By challenging the oft-cited distinction between “good” civic and “bad” ethnic nationalisms and drawing attention to the energetic efforts of republicans to create a cross-border partnership to defend democracy, the book emphasizes that the triumph of Nazi ideas about nationalism and politics was far from inevitable.

Genetics as a Modernization Program: Biological Research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes and the Political Economy of the Nazi State

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernd Gausemeier
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Scientific Development ◽  
Biological Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
War Economy ◽  
The Third ◽  
Virus Research ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
The One

During the Third Reich, the biological institutes of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft) underwent a substantial reorganization and modernization. This paper discusses the development of projects in the fields of biochemical genetics, virus research, radiation genetics, and plant genetics that were initiated in those years. These cases exemplify, on the one hand, the political conditions for biological research in the Nazi state. They highlight how leading scientists advanced their projects by building close ties with politicians and science-funding organizations and companies. On the other hand, the study examines how the contents of research were shaped by, and how they contributed to, the aims and needs of the political economy of the Nazi system. This paper therefore aims not only to highlight basic aspects of scientific development under Nazism, but also to provide general insights into the structure of the Third Reich and the dynamics of its war economy.

Colonial Education in the Third Reich: The Witzenhausen Colonial School and the Rendsburg Colonial School for Women

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willeke Sandler
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The Political ◽  
Colonial Education ◽  
World War ◽  
Colonial Society ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
New Phase

AbstractIn 1926, the Women's League of the German Colonial Society opened the Rendsburg Colonial School for Women to train young women to go abroad to the former German colonies. This school joined the Witzenhausen Colonial School (for men), founded in 1899, as institutions of colonial education in a Germany now without an overseas empire. After 1933, the schools entered a new phase of their histories. This article examines the Rendsburg and Witzenhausen Colonial Schools in tandem in order to explore the place of colonial education in the Third Reich. Through their curricula, the schools sought to negotiate the value of this education to the ideological and territorial goals of the Third Reich, a negotiation that was not always smooth, as demonstrated by debates about the political and pedagogical suitability of the directors of the schools. World War II heightened the gendered differences between the schools and led to different wartime experiences, in particular the Rendsburg school's participation in Germanization projects in eastern Europe. The trajectory of both schools in the Third Reich demonstrates that the cultural/national/racial importance of colonial work retained relevance and indeed obtained increased value in a Germany without overseas colonies.

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