131214840-Carl-Schmitt

Page 85
Notes
Preface to the Second Edition (1926)
1. [Tr.] "Die Geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus" first appeared
in the Bonner Festgabe für Ernst Zitelmann (Munich & Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot,
1923), 415–473. This first edition comprised the text from the introduction through
chapter 4; the preface, "On the Contradiction between Parliamentarism and Democracy,"
first appeared as "Der Gegensatz yon Parlamentarismus und Moderner
Massendemokratie," Hochland 23 (1926), 257–270, in response to Richard Thoma's
critique "Zur Ideologie des Parlamentarismus und der Diktatur," which had appeared the
previous year in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik 53 (1925), 212–217.
The preface was reprinted under its original title in Schmitt's Positionen und Begriffe im
Kampf mit Weimar, Genf, Versailles, 1923–39 (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlag, 1940),
52–66.
2. Richard Thoma, "Zur Ideologie des Parlamentarismus," and in Kurt Kluxen, ed.,
Parlamentarismus (Königstein/Ts: Verlagsgruppe Athenäum, Hain, Scripter, Hanstein,
1980), 54–58.
3. [Tr.] See the translation of Thoma's review included in this volume. Largely because
of his Römischer Katholizismus und politische Form (1923), Schmitt was the bestknown
advocate of the Catholic view among German jurists at this time. See Karl
Muth's review of Römischer Katholizismus: "Zeitgeschichte," Hochland 21 (1923) 96–
100. Muth states its main thesis accurately: "In contrast to Cromwell's rage [against
Roman Catholicism], its opponent in the modern age has become more and more
rationalistic, humanitarian, utilitarian, and superficial . . . but as many degrees of anti-
Catholic feeling as there have been, there still remains the fear of Roman Catholicism's
incomprehensible political power" (p. 96). Schmitt understood these anti-Roman
tendencies as a "depoliticization" of the world in which "order [would be] secured
through the play of economic and
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