The Nazi Experiment, Vol. 6: Carl Schmitt and the Total State

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 176

The Nazi State was a totalitarian state. This, nobody denies. While Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party associates obviously intended to organize the Nazi State in that way, a thoroughgoing justification was provided by the so-called "Crown Jurist of the Third Reich," Carl Schmitt, who has become popular on the so-called "New Right" (Woke Right). Schmitt resisted the idea of the Nazi movement, despite his political and judicial theories that went on to justify it, but only until Hitler took the Chancellorship in January 1933. Then Schmitt joined and soon after penned an essay, "The Legal Basis for the Total State," to justify Nazi totalitarianism and the Führerprinzip in the "miracle" of legal decisionism (the dictatorial executive making decisions on top of rule of law). In this groundbreaking episode of the New Discourses Podcast, not only does host James Lindsay continue his sprawling series on the "Nazi Experiment," but he also presents this Schmittian essay in English for the first time. Join him for an introduction to Carl Schmitt and to hear "The Legal Basis for the Total State."

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