ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes how scholarly authority and liberal language served to develop the far-right production of migration as a constitutional threat in Germany after 2015. It examines how a number of influential legal scholars contributed to an escalating public terminology and helped to develop a Far-Right Newspeak that dressed in legal terms the far-right expectation of the collapse of democracy in Germany as a consequence of migration and human rights. Even for conservatives, and driven by public anxiety, Germany seemed to be “flooded” by “foreigners,” attacked by an “aggressive anti-deportation industry,” and even “undermined” by governmental policy. By picking up ideological pieces of “great replacement theory” and by connecting democracy to ethnicity, “the rule of injustice” became the key term of an apocalyptic paranoia dressed in legal jargon. From a realistic perspective, these positions proved volatile, rejected by both the scholarly majority and—if they ever made it that far—courts. Publicly and politically these claims developed a tremendous impact. While legal scholars often contribute to public opinion based on their distinct expertise, their public expressions are rarely analyzed as factors of contemporary history. This chapter therefore approaches constitutional scholars as public communicators in times of crises and analyzes how in the heated atmosphere in Germany after 2015 liberal legal language could be used to advance right-wing agendas.
