1 The original reads: “Ich bin der letzte, bewusste Vertreter des jus publicum Europaeum, sein letzter Lehrer und Forscher in einem existenziellen Sinne und erfahre sein Ende so, wie Benito Cereno die Fahrt des Piratenschiffs erfuhr. Da ist das Schweigen am Platz und an der Zeit. Wir brauchen uns nicht davor zu fürchten. Indem wir schweigen, besinnen wir uns auf uns selbst und auf unsere göttliche Herkunft.” Carl Schmitt, Ex Captivitate Salus 21 (1950).Google Scholar

2 An instructive examination of Schmitt's self-description as taciturn captain (“At that time, I felt superior. I intended to give the term National Socialism a new meaning.” [“Ich fühlte mich damals überlegen. Ich wollte dem Wort Nationalsozialismus von mir aus einen Sinn geben.” Carl Schmitt, Carl Schmitt—Antworten in Nürnberg 65 (Helmut Quaritsch ed., 2000)]) which contrasts sharply with Walter Benjamin, who felt like a “shipwrecked person drifting on a wreck by climbing on the top of the already shattered mast” (“Schiffbrüchiger, der auf einem Wrack treibt, in dem er auf die Spitze des Mastbaums klettert, der schon zermürbt ist”, Walter Benjamin: Briefe 1 und 2 532 (Theodor Adorno ed., 1978)) can be found in Susanne Heil, ‘Gefährliche Beziehungen’—Walter Benjamin und Carl Schmitt (1996); see also Richard Faber, 'Benito Cereno’ oder die Entmythologisierung Euro-Amerikas: Zur Kritik Carl Schmitts und seiner Schule, in Kultursoziologe—Symptom des Zeitgeistes, 688 (Helmuth Berking/Richard Faber eds., 1989).Google Scholar

3 Schmitt (supra, note 1), 21.Google Scholar

4 Hermann Melville, Benito Cereno, in Works, vol. 10 sec. 8 (Raymond Weaver ed., 2nd ed., 1963).Google Scholar

5 Id., “[…] you generalize, Don Benito; and mournfully enough. But the past is passed; why moralize upon it? Forget it. […] You are saved; what has cast such a shadow upon you?—The Negro.—There was silence […]”.Google Scholar

6 See Dirk van Laak, Gespräche in der Sicherheit des Schweigens: Carl Schmitt in der politischen Geistesgeschichte der frühen Bundesrepublik (1993).Google Scholar

7 Schmitt (supra, note 2), 54-55: “Ich möchte betonen, den hochwissenschaftlichen Zusammenhang der Stelle zu beachten. Der Intention, der Methode und der Formulierung nach eine reine Diagnose […] Alles, was ich gesagt habe, […] ist nach Motiv und Intention wissenschaftlich gemeint, als wissenschaftliche These”. [“I would like to stress the highly scientific context of this passage. According to its intention, method and formulation, it is pure diagnosis […] All I have said […] was, concerning its method and intention, meant scientifically, as a scientific argument.”].Google Scholar

8 Darker Legacies of Law in Europe: The Shadow of National Socialism and Fascism over Europe and its Legal Traditions (Christian Joerges/Navraj Singh Ghaleigh eds., 2003).Google Scholar

9 Joerges, Christian/Ghaleigh, Navraj Singh, Preface and Acknowledgements, in DARKER LEGACIES OF LAW IN EUROPE, ix (Christian Joerges/Navraj Singh Ghaleigh eds., 2003).Google Scholar

10 As an inquiry into this matter John LAUGHLAND's The Tainted Source: The Undemocratic Origins of the European Idea (1997) can be mentioned here; yet his account offers an all too general and due to its polemical tone a rather problematic perspective. For a study into the nexus of European history and its significance for law, see Felix Hanschmann, 'Geschichtsgemeinschaft': Ein problematischer Begriff und seine Verwendung im Staats- und Europarecht, 5 Rechtsgeschichte 150 (2004).Google Scholar

11 Stolleis, Michael, Reluctance to Glance in the Mirror, in Darker Legacies Of Law In Europe, 1 (Christian Joerges/Navraj Singh Ghaleigh eds., 2003).Google Scholar

12 Ghaleigh, Navraj Singh, Looking into the Brightly Lit Room: Braving Carl Schmitt in Europe, in Darker Legacies Of Law In Europe, 43 (Christian Joerges/Navraj Singh Ghaleigh eds., 2003).Google Scholar

13 Joerges, Christian, Europe a Großraum? Shifting Legal Conceptualisations of the Integration Project, in Darker Legacies Of Law In Europe, 167 (Christian Joerges/Navraj Singh Ghaleigh eds., 2003).Google Scholar

14 This is how Joerges and Ghaleigh summarize the reservations carried forward at the EUI, see Joerges/Ghaleigh (supra, note 9), ix.Google Scholar

15 Weiler, Joseph HH, Europe's Dark Legacy: Reclaiming Nationalism and Patriotism, in Darker Legacies Of Law In Europe, 389, 394 (Christian Joerges/Navraj Singh Ghaleigh eds., 2003).Google Scholar

16 For the notion of a space of visibilities and ascriptions as precondition for collectivity, see Armin Nassehi, Politik des Staates oder Politik der Gesellschaft? Kollektivität als Problemformel des Politischen, in Niklas Luhmanns politische Soziologie 38, 45-48 (Kai-Uwe Hellmann/Rainer Schmalz-Bruns eds., 2002).Google Scholar

17 Weiler (supra, note 15), 389.Google Scholar

18 Zur Politik des kollektiven Gedächtnisses: Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis 36 (2000).Google Scholar

19 Weiler (supra, note 15), 386.Google Scholar

20 Stolleis (supra, note 11), 6.Google Scholar

21 Id., at 7.Google Scholar

22 Id., at 16.Google Scholar

23 Id., at 17.Google Scholar

24 Ditlev Tamm, Retsopgöret efter Besaettelsen (2nd ed., 1985).Google Scholar

25 Weiler (supra, note 15), at 400.Google Scholar

26 Weiler (supra, note 15), at 397; for Ipsen, see JOERGES (Supra, note 12), 182, footnote 92.Google Scholar

27 For the relationship between Hans Morgenthau and Carl Schmitt, see Martti Koskenniemi, Carl Schmitt, Hans Morgenthau, and the Image of Law in International Relations, in The Role of Law in International Politics 17 (Michael Byers ed., 1999); Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960 465 (2002). As explicated in a review of Wilhelm GREWE's The Epochs of International Law (35 Kritische Justiz 277 (2002)), Koskenniemi too acknowledges the need for further inquiry. As Grewe's work and its treatment “demonstrates that even in this field, the work of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (‘mastering the past’) is far from having been fully accomplished” (id., 281). For the mutual reception and nexus of Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt, see Heinrich MEIER's instructive study Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss und ‘Der Begriff des Politischen’ (1988), which also makes available three letters of Strauss addressed to Schmitt and which sets Schmitt's revision of his concept of the political in direct connection to Strauss’ criticism of Schmitt's original argument, published in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik in 1932 (id., 16; Strauss’ article Anmerkungen zu Carl Schmitt: Der Begriff des Politischen can be found id., 97).Google Scholar

28 Joerges (supra, note 13), 191.Google Scholar

29 Somek, Alexander, Authoritarian Constitutionalism: Austrian Constitutional Doctrine 1933 to 1938 and its Legacy, in Darker Legacies Of Law In Europe, 361 (Christian Joerges/Navraj Singh Ghaleigh eds., 2003).Google Scholar

30 For a comprehensive account, see David Fraser, Law After Auschwitz: Towards A Jurisprudence of the Holocaust (2005).Google Scholar

31 Fraser, David, 'The outsider does not see all the game…': Perceptions of German Law in Anglo-American Legal Scholarship, 1933-1940, in Darker Legacies Of Law In Europe, 87, 110 (Christian Joerges/Navraj Singh Ghaleigh eds., 2003).Google Scholar

32 Jacques Derrida, Politik der Freundschaft 123-124, footnote 4 (2002).Google Scholar