TUCaktuell research
dr Frank Schale from the TU Chemnitz published together with colleagues an annotated autobiography about the political scientist and lawyer Karl Loewenstein – Interview gives personal impressions of researcher Frank Shell
dr Frank Schale from Chemnitz University of Technology is one of the editors of the annotated autobiography about the political scientist and lawyer Karl Loewenstein. Photo/collage: Frank Schale (private)/Matthias Fejes
When democracies around the world come under pressure today, it is not uncommon for people to call for a “fortified democracy”. The founder of the idea that democracies must protect themselves when political movements aim to abolish them – if necessary also by using militant means – was the political scientist and lawyer Karl Loewenstein (1891-1973), who is hardly known today. Researchers with the participation of Chemnitz University of Technology (TUC) have now commented on this important pioneer of a modern democracy Autobiography published.
The team includes Dr. Frank shell, research associate at the Institute for Political Science at the TUC, Prof. Dr. Oliver Lepsius (University of Münster) and Prof. Dr. Robert Chr. van Ooyen (Federal University in Lübeck). “We analyzed a whole range of articles, books and archives by Loewenstein. Accordingly, one of his basic ideas was that the democratic constitutional state guarantees freedom rights that have to be fought for – but also defended,” says Frank Schale. However, Loewenstein did not see the well-fortified democracy as a blank check for far-reaching administrative interventions or interventions that endanger freedom. “Our study shows that the surveillance of enemies of democracy or bans, for example of political opponents, can only ever be a last resort,” said Schale.
More important for Loewenstein is a common civil culture, in which it is clearly signaled that the political rules of the game and constitutional principles are always forms of civilized interaction, violation of which endangers social interaction, Shell continued.
Breeding ground for extremism: How a bourgeois culture slips
The autobiography is also historical testimony to the rapid changes in the 20th century, including their political upheavals – not only in Germany and Europe, but also in the USA, South America and East Asia. Loewenstein was interested in the question of how social rules can be preserved in the face of this change. This is how Loewenstein describes how the bourgeois culture of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, heated up by extremism, slipped – and paved the way for National Socialism. For Loewenstein, defending a free democratic culture is more than politics. Hence the somewhat strange-looking title of the autobiography, “Des Lebens Überfluhung”, which is based on a novella by Ludwig Tieck. What is meant by this is the happiness of a successful coexistence.
One of the fathers of German post-war democracy
After the Second World War, Loewenstein was one of those who helped build democracy in the early Federal Republic. He also worked on the elaboration of the “General Declaration of Human Rights”, the reconstruction of the scientific landscape in post-war Germany and denazification.
“In the autobiography we published, it becomes clear why a purely administrative safeguarding of the democratic constitutional state must remain delicate,” says Schale. Legal norms are always embedded in a broader cultural framework. Where there is a lack of understanding of this connection, there is a risk that a well-fortified democracy will fail.
The numerous encounters with personalities from politics, society and art described by Loewenstein in his autobiography should not only interest researchers, but everyone interested in this era of German history, says Schale.
In an interview with TUCaktuell, Dr. Frank Schale from the TUC gives an insight into his personal impressions of Karl Loewenstein’s thinking and classifies the extent to which Loewenstein’s reflections and analyzes on democracy can be updated.
Dr. Shell, together with two colleagues you have presented an annotated autobiography about Karl Loewenstein. He coined the term “fortified democracy”, which is becoming increasingly topical at a time when liberal and democratic societies are increasingly coming under pressure. Loewenstein certainly had other cases in mind…
The primary experience for Karl Loewenstein in the 1920s and 1930s was National Socialism, which he experienced not only in Germany but also in the USA. There he witnessed how not only civil society, but also the police authorities openly opposed anti-democratic groups, anti-democrats. In the US, he wanted to show that democracies can have different tools to defend themselves against their enemies. Later he worked mainly in South America on behalf of the American government against nationalistic efforts of dictatorships. In all of his writings, however, he naturally always referred to undemocratic systems from the left. As he got older, he saw more and more clearly that the legal discrimination of political actors can also serve to retain power. He wasn’t really satisfied with the party bans in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1950s.
The topic of party bans is very topical when you think of the Discussions about a ban on the AfD thinks that opinion u. a. of the German Institute for Human Rights anti-democratic positions represents. As one of the fathers of post-war German democracy, what position would Loewenstein take here?
Of course, such updates are always a bit tricky because they abstract from the contemporary historical context. Since Loewenstein always pointed to respect for civil liberties as an essential feature of modern constitutions, he would probably be skeptical about a party ban. This is not only for normative reasons. It also follows from his considerations that the idea that a ban on a party could solve social problems is purely legalistic and fails to recognize the reasons for its strengthening. He himself saw an essential driving force in the ideologization of political conflicts – and not just among the enemies of democracy. A party ban – a ‘dangerous instrument’ of a well-fortified democracy, as the legal scholar Martin Morlok put it – is today bound to very high hurdles anyway. But Loewenstein’s proposals do not stop there anyway. They range from the tightening of criminal law for certain propaganda crimes, changes in parliamentary law, to interventions in civil service law in order to enforce loyalty to the democratic state through the police and administration.
What can we learn from Loewenstein about the rise and fall of democracies?
Loewenstein was of the opinion that democratic rule has many prerequisites. By this he meant that modern democracies are a further development of civil liberties. The main problem now is that civil liberties and democratic participation are in tension with one another, because democratic decisions can definitely limit civil liberties. Conversely, fundamental rights are sometimes used to block majority decisions. In addition, liberal democracies are still states in which power is exercised.
For Loewenstein, democracies can arise where these different and contradictory demands on a political system are brought into a stable balance. Therefore, for him, the orientation towards a constitution is central and almost more important than the maximum participation of the population in all political decisions.
For Loewenstein, democracies perish when their members only see technical or political rules in the constitution and do not recognize their normative significance. For him, norms are more than mere rules of government, they are values and an expression of civilized coexistence. Where this constitutional awareness is lacking, the enemies of democracy have it easy. However, the late Loewenstein’s point was that he recognized that trust in the constitution must above all be demonstrated by the political elite. In fact, he did not always see this sense of responsibility as a given, even in modern democracies. Looking at today, I could imagine that Loewenstein would not only have criticized the opponents of democracy, but also all those democratic politicians who themselves are populist, ie irresponsible for him.
What insights have you personally gained through your research into the life of Karl Loewenstein?
What fascinates me not only about Loewenstein, but above all about him, is the complexity of democracy. There are no simple solutions, nor is there a clear line between “good” and “evil”. A second aspect, which I think is very worth considering, is the connection between civil liberties and democracy already described – so that a formula like “We are the people” does not do justice to the complexity of modern democracies at all. The formula is, of course, a legitimate response to undemocratic rule. But historically there has never been a situation in which the people have ruled in this absolute form.
Loewenstein has repeatedly pointed out that democracy inevitably means representation. When he now criticizes that one or the other politician is acting irresponsibly, what he really wants to say is how demanding this task is. It demands respect for the written and unwritten principles of a constitution.
Thank you for the interview.
Further information grants Dr. Frank Schale, telephone 0371 531-34091, e-mail [email protected].
Matthias Fejes
07.08.2023