ABSTRACT
The chapter follows Carl Schmitt, the supreme jurist of the Third Reich, bestowed legal legitimacy on Hitler's dictatorial rule. A genealogy of his primary writings of the German jurist shows that his romance with the Nazis was not the result of a historical accident, and proves that there is a thread running from his early theoretical writings to his juridical position and his radical political activity during the thirties. Schmitt is a member of the “nihilist order” – thinkers, artists and cultural critics who promulgated the nihilistic position which at the same time was a dynamic structure on a totalitarian basis. The members of the “nihilist order” generally moved from nihilistic criticism to totalitarian conclusions. Schmitt, on the other hand, took the opposite route – from totalitarianism to nihilism. Schmitt's political activities and his intellectual work are strongly interconnected. The purpose of the chapter is to reveal the different connections between Schmitt's theoretical and political initiatives. It demonstrates that Schmitt's theorizing became increasingly fascist in character as his political commitments and activities increased.
