Schmitt and Evola (2)
Schmitt presented himself as a radical anti-semite. Like Evola, he
welcomed the promulgation of racial laws in the Third Reich. When,
for the first time, a law for the protection of German blood and
German honour is proclaimed, at Nuremberg in November 1935, he got
enthusiastic about that "constitution of freedom", directed at those
he called the "parasites of Germany". He aimed at justifying National
Socialist legislation as a racial legislation. As "the chairman of a
law teachers' convention in Berlin in October 1936, (...) he demanded
that German law be cleansed from the "Jewish spirit" ("jüdischem
Geist'), going so far as to demand that all publications by Jewish
scientists should henceforth be marked with a small symbol." "For us,
he said, a Jewish author has no authority". To rid German law of any
Jewish influence meant for him to fight formal legality and
internationalism in it. Those abstractions are instrumentalised by
the Jews to reach their goal : the destruction of German society. For
Jews, to Schmitt, are essentially liars. There are no one to beat
them for "perfidious and diabolical change of mask", under which they
organise the huge trick of internationalism. "Those who speak
of 'humanity' mean to deceive". Universal values only hide the
interests of the Jewish community.
In December of that year, however, "the SS publication "Das schwarze
Korps" accused Schmitt of being an opportunist, a Hegelian state
thinker and basically a Catholic, and called his anti-Semitism a mere
mock-up, citing earlier statements in which he criticised the Nazi's
racial theories. After this, Schmitt lost most of his prominent
offices, and retreated from his position as a leading Nazi jurist,
although he remained as a professor in Berlin."
Yet, unlike many anti-Semites who changed sides more or less
elegantly after world war II, Schmitt never changed his mind about
the Jews. In 1947, in the 'Glossarium', he stated : "Jews always
remain Jews. While a Communist may improve or change (...). The true
enemy is precisely the assimilated Jew. Following on Evola's and many
other clear-headed authors' footsteps, he added : "There is no use in
demonstrating that the slogan of the Elders of Zion is a fake."
"Though some have recently made apologies for Schmitt's conduct
during the Nazi era, it must be remembered that, along with the early
Heidegger, Schmitt lent his considerable authority to the Nazi
regime, and played a leading role in constructing the legal façade
that justified its seizure of power". Even though Versluis judges
Schmitt's thought from the lowest standpoint of all, that is, from
the moralist democratic one, he doesn't have the condescension to
make apologies for a man who never apologised and never felt he had
done something which justified apologies : " IT SEEMS UNLIKELY THAT A
POLITICAL MIND AS INSIGHTFUL AS SCHMITT'S COULD HAVE BEEN MISTAKEN
ABOUT THE TRUE NATURE OF THE NSDAP AND ITS LEADERSHIP." Indeed.
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