ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Carl Schmitt and others who can be considered as exponents of either 'extra-legal' or 'realist' models of emergency powers. Carl Schmitt's jurisprudence has been described as a 'dark shadow'. Attempts are being made to positively rehabilitate Schmitt and make his authoritarian views respectable. Schmitt's Weimar-period writings not only helped pave the way, both politically and legally, for the German elite's transfer of power to the Nazis, but a clear thread runs through Schmitt's writings before and after Hitler's anointment as German chancellor in January 1933. Thus, there is a clear political and legal logic to Schmitt's trajectory from an authoritarian critic of Weimar constitutionalism to a jurisprudential handmaiden of Nazism. His theories were aimed originally at bolstering the capacity of the German capitalist state to thwart the threats of the perceived 'extremes' of the left and right – communism and fascism.
