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55. Gustav Radbruch, "Goldbilanz der Reichsverfassung," Die Gesellschaft 1 (1924),
57–69.
56. Ibid., 62. Compare Landauer, "Sozialismus und parlamentarisches System."
57. Radbruch, "Goldbilanz," 65.
58. Ibid., 65.
59. Ibid., 65–66. Radbruch was not alone in thinking that the office of Reichspräsident
has a special place in the constitution; see also Hugo Preuss, "Reichsverfassungsmässige
Diktatur," Zeitschrift für Politik 13 (1924), 97–113. Hermann Pünder comments that
"Ebert in no sense shared the view that the office of the Reichspräsident was a
decoration." Pünder, Der Reichspräsident in der Weimarer Republik (Bonn &
Frankfurt/M: Athenäum Verlag, 1961), 17.
60. Ulrich Scheuner, "Die Anwendung des Art. 48 der Weimarer Reichsverfassung
under den Präsidenten von Ebert und Hindenburg," in Ferdinand A. Hermens and
Theodor Schieder, eds., Staat, Wirtschaft und Politik in der Weimarer Republik (Berlin:
Duncker & Humblot, 1967), 249–286.
61. Ibid. "Die Diktatur des Reichspräsident," in Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigungen
der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer, Heft 1 (Berlin: W. de Gruyter & Co., 1924), 63ff.
62. See Scheuner, "Art. 48," 266ff.
63. According to Schmitt, a "commissarial dictator" exercised power temporarily and for
the purpose of restoring the already established constitutional order; a "sovereign
dictator" creates a new constitutional order. See also Schwab, The Challenge of the
Exception, 30–37.
64. Schmitt, Die Diktatur, ix.
65. Schmitt's paper at the 1924 conference of German constitutional lawyers (see note
61 above) was appended to the second edition of Die Diktatur (1927), 213–259. Hugo
Preuss's view of Schmitt's interpretation of presidential powers in article 48 was an
exception among German jurists. Commenting on Schmitt's view in a 1924 article,
Preuss wrote: "This definition of the concept of dictatorship completely conforms to the
essence of extraordinary power that is set out in article 48 of the Weimar constitution
and given to the Reichspräsident." Preuss, "Reichsverfassungsmässige Diktatur," 101.
See also Richard Grau, Die Diktaturgewalt des Reichspräsident und der
Landesregierungen auf Grund des Artikel 48 der Reichsverfassung (Berlin: Liebmann,
1922). Grau argued that "the Rechtsstaat cannot preserve itself when threatened from
within only by the means given in the division of powers." Grau further noted that these
extraordinary powers "were firmly anchored in constitutional-legal responsibility." Grau,
Diktaturgewalt, 104–105.
66. See Bendersky, Carl Schmitt, 145ff., and Ellen Kennedy, "Review Article, Joseph
W. Bendersky, Carl Schmitt: Theorist for the Reich," History of Political Thought 4
(1983) 579–589.
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