Carl Schmitt was a prominent German jurist and political analyst who supported the Nazi Party. He is considered as one of the most influential critics of liberalism and parliamentary democracy. He was an academician and lawyer during the final years of the ‘Wilhelmine Period’ and wrote his most influential work when he was a young professor in Bonn and Berlin. His early works attacked the legitimacy of the parliamentary form of government, and advocated authoritarian rule. He joined the ‘Nazi’ party and supported Hitler and soon came to be regarded as the ‘Crown Jurist’ of ‘National Socialism.’ He defended the elimination of political opponents by Hitler and the eradication of Jewish influence. He was criticised by his contemporaries for supporting Hitler’s views to further his own career. He was interested in international law and believed that the world would turn toward liberal cosmopolitanism in the 20th century. He was detained after World War II and made a defendant in the ‘Nuremberg trials’ for his support to the ‘Nazi’ party. Carl Schmitt remained an important personality in German intellectual circles till his death in 1985.
