Karl Schmitt on the Hitler phenomenon in German History: an attempt at literary self-knowledge

The article analyzes the psychological state of a scientist seeking self-justification for cooperation with the criminal government (after its collapse). Romantic ideas and thoughts about the imposture of Karl Schmitt are a search for a convincing version of one’s own conformism. The author of the article shows that conformism is typical of the entire German legal profession of the Nazi era: they, relying mainly on legal positivism, justified their behavior by defending the position of the state, despite or contrary to Nazism. Schmitt’s case is special: he became a Reich theorist, who subsequently rejected his ideas.

The main thesis of the article is to understand the circumstances under which conformism relativizes professionalism and erodes the boundaries between science and ideology, truth and falsehood — a problem interesting from the point of view of relations between scientists and tyrants (Plato and Dionysius, Voltaire and Friedrich, old lawyers and the Bolsheviks, etc.). With this approach, the article aims to determine the boundary between conformism and cooperation, identifying the factors that determine its transition in general and in Schmitt in particular.