Otto Kirchheimer

Otto Kirchheimer ( born November 11, 1905 in Heilbronn, † November 22, 1965 in Washington, DC ) was a socialist embossed state and constitutional lawyer, who worked in Germany, France and America. He is considered one of the most important German state and constitutional theorist.

Life

Originally from a Jewish family Kirchheimer attended from 1912 to 1924, the school in Heilbronn, Heidelberg, and Ettenheim. He then studied law and sociology in Munich, Cologne, Berlin and Bonn. In 1928, he graduated with a doctorate ( Dr. jur., Magna cum laude) from the University of Bonn. He was graduated from Carl Schmitt with the work to political theory of socialism and Bolshevism. In Bonn, Kirchheimer was considered a " favorite student " Schmitt.

Kirchheimer be known early in his youth to his socialist beliefs. Later he was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

From 1930 to 1933, Kirchheimer employee of the Social Democratic journal Society and professor of political science at the Graduate School. 1932 to 1933 he also worked as a lawyer in Berlin.

In the period of the Weimar Republic, the young Kirchheimer emerged excitatory analyzes on the relationship between social structure and constitution with a stir. Much Discussed especially his essay Weimar and what was it? Formation and the presence of the Weimar Constitution, Berlin 1930, in which Kirchheimer the Weimar Constitution was described as a non- viable state basis.

Together with Ernst Fraenkel and Franz Leopold Neumann was Kirchheimer the conservative constitutional lawyer Carl Schmitt close. Kirchheimer 1932 published in the socialist journal The company an essay entitled legality and legitimacy ( The Society, Volume 2, Issue 7, 1932). Carl Schmitt took over this title for a famous, published in September 1932 in the same font. He was referring specifically to praise Kirchheimer. Also elsewhere Schmitt Kirchheimer had repeatedly cited. So he wrote in 1929 in an essay on fascism: " In highly developed industrialized countries [ ... ] the internal political situation is completely dominated by the phenomenon of ' social equilibrium structure ' between capital and labor, employer and employee. This phenomenon, well- recognized and named by Otto Bauer first, (Vol. 17, 1928, p 596) is then by O. Kirchheimer in an interesting essay in the Journal of Political treated the state and constitutional theory. " ( Schmitt, nature and becoming the fascist state, in: positions and terms, 1940, pp. 124-130, here p 127). Add legality and legitimacy Schmitt wrote: "That's why I think the wording of the article by Otto Kirchheimer about legality and legitimacy ( The Company, July 1932 ) is right, who says that the legitimacy of parliamentary democracy, only in its legality is ' and today, obviously the legal barrier is equated with legitimacy ' " ( Schmitt, legality and Legitimacy, p 14). Kirchheimer retaliated in turn by positive references to Schmitt. It was said in an essay of 1932: "If a later time sifts through the spiritual component of this era, as the book by Carl Schmitt on legality and legitimacy is her present as a font that arising out of this circle both by her going back to Fundamentals of theory of the state as well as by their restraint in the conclusions prevail. " ( Constitution reaction 1932, the Company, IX, 1932, pp. 415ff. )

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists, the Socialist Jew Kirchheimer emigrated to Paris. Here he spent four years working as a scientist in the French branch of the International Institute for Social Research ( Horkheimer Institute). He began with the reworking of George Rusches Punishment and Social Structure. The Rusche - Kirchheimer version of Punishment and Social Structure was published in 1939. With his teacher Carl Schmitt, who had risen in Nazi Germany for " jurist of the Third Reich ," Kirchheimer had broken.

On November 11, 1937 Kirchheimer emigrated with his wife Hilde Kirchheimer and his daughter (born in 1930) in the United States. The marriage was, however, there divorced in 1941. In New York, continued Kirchheimer continued his work for the International Institute of Social Research as a research assistant for Law and Social Sciences in 1937 until 1942. Parallel he was a lecturer in the Institute program at Columbia University.

1943 moved Kirchheimer with his second wife, Anne Rosenthal, Washington, DC, where in 1945 their son Peter was born. The lawyer initially worked one year ( 1943-1944 ) in part-time, then from 1944 to 1952 full-time as a research analyst in the Research and Analysis Branch of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS ), a forerunner of the CIA. On November 16, 1943 Kirchheimer became an American citizen. He was a visiting assistant professor of sociology at Wellesley College ( 1943). He also worked as a lecturer at the American University ( 1951-1952 ) and at Howard University ( 1952-1954 ). From 1952-56 Otto Kirchheimer was head of the Central Europe section of the service at the State Department. Kirchheimer left the OSS and was visiting professor at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research at (1954). The next year he became Professor of Political Science ( until 1961 ). Here he wrote his second book entitled: Political Justice: The Use of Legal Procedures for Political Ends, which was completed in 1961. 1960-1965 Otto Kirchheimer was Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. From 1961 to 1962 he was also a Fulbright Professor at the University of Freiburg.

On November 22, 1965 Kirchheimer died of a heart attack when he tried to board a plane at Dulles Airport.

Work

Otto Kirchheimer saw himself as "producer policy analysis ", whose goal was "to decipher government systems in full activity to diagnose or substitute in his mind better for them."

His journalistic activities began Kirchheimer as a young socialist in the Weimar Republic. The focus of his work here was the ratio of the constitution and social structure as well as the analysis of social power relations and their impact on the state law. He examined various examples the tension between political "legal order" and economic " power structure ". With Carl Schmitt Kirchheimer shared the rejection of parliamentarism, and the critique of pluralism. Kirchheimer is therefore also attributed to the " left Schmittianismus ". Wilhelm Hennis had brought the agreement between the two thinkers on the concise formula: " Schmitt methods for left ends." For Kirchheimer and Schmitt, a parliamentary consensus in the class state was in principle impossible. The majority system was bound to both the assumption of homogeneity, because otherwise not decide to Parliament on the policy, but economic power complexes. The Weimar Constitution Kirchheimer considered only as an episode. She was an outmoded legal mechanism that would inevitably fail because of the real power relations. Therefore, he already presented in 1930 the question: " Weimar and then what? "

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists, the focus of Kirchheimers work shifted to the analysis of the " German fascism ". Here, Kirchheimer presented explicitly against the thesis of the dual state, which his colleagues from the Weimar days, Ernst Fraenkel set. He also argued against the view of the Frankfurt School, according to the National Socialist primacy of politics have transformed the monopoly capitalism into state capitalism. Similar to Franz Leopold Neumann's Behemoth. Structure and Practice of National Socialism 1933-1944 exist uncoupled territorial areas, the policy is determined by the power struggle among various power groups even in Kirchheim by the state. As with Neumann there can be no structurally uniform state authority for Kirchheimer in National Socialism, then, the Third Reich thus appears as " Unstaat ". According to Kirchheimer usurp - thought schmittianisch again - the social groups of the state and its functions, which shall distribute it among themselves. So would create an addition to and against each other different power complexes in which the question of the binding decision-making powers would remain open.

In the postwar period the main topics Kirchheimers were the analysis of German and Central European post-war development and the study of the forms and effects of "Political Justice". Kirchheimer was one of the doyens of comparative party research. His writings on the transformation of Western European party systems, with the information contained in their thesis of a trend to Allerweltspartei ( " catch-all party " ) and a consequent " decline of the opposition," are considered masterpieces of the tray. As part of an abandonment of the ideology, the thesis Kirchheimers, the major parties of Western European countries began to approach each other, and the " ideological parties " on sectarian or class structural basis transformed themselves into Allerweltsparteien. In his work on Political Justice Kirchheimer described the problem of the rule of law wrongfully obtaining political exclusion by normal law or the " use of legal process options for political purposes ," as the subtitle of the investigation was. From Political Justice "said Kirchheimer, when meals are taken for political purposes to complete, so that the field of political action can be extended and secured. The functioning of political justice is that political action is subject of groups and individuals of the judicial review. Such judicial review of action seeks to anyone who wants to strengthen his own position and weaken his political opponents. " ( Political Justice, p 606).

Although Kirchheimer did not return after 1945 Germany, practiced his theories in Germany for a substantial influence on the constitution of political science.

Writings

• For the theory of the state of socialism and Bolshevism. Heymann, Berlin 1928.
• Weimar - and then what? Formation and the presence of the Weimar Constitution. Leaves, Berlin 1930.
• The limits of expropriation. De Gruyter, Berlin, 1930.
• With George Rushe: Punishment and Social Structure. Columbia University Press, New York 1939. Social structure and law enforcement. European publishing house, Frankfurt am Main, Cologne 1974.

• Political Justice: use of legal process options for political purposes. From the American Arcadius Rudolf Lang Gurland. Luchterhand, Neuwied 1965.