Reinhard Mehring – författare

Carl Schmitt is one of the most widely read and influential German thinkers of the twentieth century.  His fundamental works on friend and enemy, legality and legitimacy, dictatorship, political theology and the concept of the political are read today with great interest by everyone from conservative Catholic theologians to radical political thinkers on the left.In his private life, however, Schmitt was haunted by the demons of his wild anti-Semitism, his self-destructive and compulsive sexuality and his deep-seated resentment against the complacency of bourgeois life. As a young man from a modest background, full of social envy, he succeeded in making his way to the top of the academic world in Germany, and yet he never felt at home in the academic establishment and among those of high social standing. When the Nazis seized power, Schmitt was susceptible to their ideology. He broke with his Jewish friends, joined the Nazi Party in May 1933 and lent a helping hand to Hitler, thereby becoming deeply entangled with the regime. Schmitt was irrevocably compromised by his role as the 'crown jurist' of the Third Reich. After the war, he led a secluded life in his home town in the Sauerland and became a key background figure in the intellectual scene of postwar Germany.Reinhard Mehring's outstanding biography is the most comprehensive work available on the life and work of Carl Schmitt. Based on thorough research and using new sources that were previously unavailable, Mehring portrays Schmitt as a Shakespearean figure at the centre of the German catastrophe.

Carl Schmitt is one of the most widely read and influential German thinkers of the twentieth century.  His fundamental works on friend and enemy, legality and legitimacy, dictatorship, political theology and the concept of the political are read today with great interest by everyone from conservative Catholic theologians to radical political thinkers on the left.In his private life, however, Schmitt was haunted by the demons of his wild anti-Semitism, his self-destructive and compulsive sexuality and his deep-seated resentment against the complacency of bourgeois life. As a young man from a modest background, full of social envy, he succeeded in making his way to the top of the academic world in Germany, and yet he never felt at home in the academic establishment and among those of high social standing. When the Nazis seized power, Schmitt was susceptible to their ideology. He broke with his Jewish friends, joined the Nazi Party in May 1933 and lent a helping hand to Hitler, thereby becoming deeply entangled with the regime. Schmitt was irrevocably compromised by his role as the 'crown jurist' of the Third Reich. After the war, he led a secluded life in his home town in the Sauerland and became a key background figure in the intellectual scene of postwar Germany.Reinhard Mehring's outstanding biography is the most comprehensive work available on the life and work of Carl Schmitt. Based on thorough research and using new sources that were previously unavailable, Mehring portrays Schmitt as a Shakespearean figure at the centre of the German catastrophe.

Die vorliegenden, grundlegend überarbeiteten und teils stark erweiterten Studien führen zentrale Aspekte der Biographie Carl Schmitt. Aufstieg und Fall (Beck-Verlag, München 2009) exemplarisch weiter. Sie erörtern Schmitts Ekstasetechnik außeralltäglicher Dramatisierung seines Lebens als Ausnahmezustand, die Wirkung des Lehrers auf Otto Kirchheimer, das ambivalente Verhältnis zum Heidelberger Rechtspositivismus, den nationalsozialistischen Aufstieg im Kölner Sommersemester 1933, den frühen Auftritt des NS-"Kronjuristen" gegenüber dem prätendierten Philosophenführer Martin Heidegger, die rückblickende Spiegelung Hitlers in der dramatischen Figur von Friedrich Schillers "Demetrius", die spätere Distanzierung von Walter Benjamin im Handexemplar von Benjamins Trauerspiel-Buch, das spannungsvolle Verhältnis zu Ernst Jünger und die "esoterischen" Vernetzungen und elitären Kommunikationsformen des "Diskurspartisanen" der Bundesrepublik. Der Diskurspartisan erscheint als intellektuell brillanter und radikaler, charismatischer und schöngeistiger "Kriegstechniker des Begriffs".

Seit dem Erscheinen der Schwarzen Hefte tobt eine neue internationale Debatte um Heideggers Nationalsozialismus und Antisemitismus. Reinhard Mehring verweist diese Debatte in wirkungsgeschichtlicher Perspektive und im Interesse der heutigen philosophischen Kultur auf den Aspekt der Nachlasspolitik. Er analysiert die Genese und die exzentrische Form von Heideggers Werk, indem er eine leitende These zu seiner postmetaphysischen Hermeneutik des universitären Daseins und akademischen Auftritts entwickelt und intellektuelle Konstellationen, Prägungen und Wirkungen erörtert. Außerdem analysiert er Heideggers Stellung im Nationalsozialismus sowie die Gesamtausgabe und den Betrieb des Heideggerianismus als Telos des Werkes. In der Nietzsche-Nachfolge stellte Heidegger seine "große Politik" von Hochschulpolitik auf Nachlasspolitik um und verlegte sich auf die Stiftung eines "anderen Denkens" und die "Zucht und Züchtung" des Heideggerianers als "künftigen Mensch" und "Übermensch".