Meeting Opposites

Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 44, No. 4, 2011Copyright 2011 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

Meeting Opposites: The Political Theologies of Walter Benjamin and CarlSchmitt

Marc de Wilde

abstractThis article analyzes the critical dialogue between Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt, to which a letter and several references in their work testify. It shows how affinities and differences between their respective positions can be explained from a shared theologico-political approach. Both authors believe that, in spite of secularization, political phenomena can only be adequately understood in light of certain theological concepts, images, and metaphors. However, they explain these theologico-political analogies differently. Whereas Schmitt advocates the authoritarian state, which he compares to Gods omnipotence, Benjamin endorses the proletarian revo-lution, in which he recognizes traces of a divine law-destroying violence. Challenging existing interpretations, this article shows how the political theologies of Benjamin and Schmitt are not static but developed in the course of their dialogue, in which both authors respond to each others crit-icism by changing and correcting their own positions in significant ways.

introductionOn 9 December 1930, Walter Benjamin sent a copy of his book The Origin of German Tragic Drama to Carl Schmitt, accompanied by a letter in which

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he expressed his indebtedness to Schmitt: You will very quickly recognize how much my book is indebted to you for its presentation of the doctrine of sovereignty in the seventeenth century. Perhaps I may say, in addition, that I have also derived from your later works, especially Die Diktatur, a confirmation of my modes of research in the philosophy of art from yours in the philosophy of the state. If the reading of my book allows this feeling to emerge in an intelligible fashion, then the purpose of my sending it to you will be achieved (qtd. in Weber 1992, 5). As Benjamin suggested in his letter, he had not only been influenced by Schmitt while developing his views on the doctrine of sovereignty but had also applied a methodology that showed affinity with Schmitts. Benjamins book did indeed contain several references to Schmitts theory of sovereignty and also testified to the kind of methodological extremism characteristic of Schmitts work.1

When Gershom Scholem and Theodor Adorno first published an extensive selection of Benjamins correspondence in 1966, they left out the letter to Schmitt. Apparently, they did not want the memory of Benjamin, who had taken his life while fleeing National Socialism, to be associated with the conservative lawyer, who had actively supported Hitlers Third Reich. Jacob Taubes describes how, having come across the letter, he called Adorno to ask him why it had not been included in the correspondence: A letter like that doesnt exist, was the answer. I say, Teddy, I know the handwriting, I know the typewriter Benjamin wrote with, dont tell me stories, Ive got it right here! Cant be. Typically German answer. So I made a copy and sent it to him (Taubes 2004, 98).2 Regrettable though Scholem and Adornos decision might seem in hindsight, it is understand-able in its contextboth had been close friends of Benjamin, and they probably wanted to protect his philosophical inheritance from what they considered dubious political ideas. In fact, it was Schmitt himself who actively distributed Benjamins letter after the war, hoping that it would contribute to his intellectual and political rehabilitation.3

The initial suppression of Benjamins letter to Schmitt and its sub-sequent rediscovery have probably contributed much to the scandal that has surrounded the letter ever since it was first published in 1974.4 Taubes himself characterized the letter as a mine that can blow to pieces our conception of the intellectual history of the Weimar period (1987, 27). He thereby suggested that the clear-cut political distinctions that were meant to make sense of Weimars intellectual history had missed their pur-pose and that contacts and influences between intellectuals on the far left and the extreme right had in fact been more frequent and substantial than


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one was prepared to admit after the war. In 1987, Ellen Kennedy concluded in a well-argued article that the affinities between Schmitt, Benjamin, and the other Frankfurt School members had indeed been much deeper and more problematic than had been acknowledged in the literature, because, in spite of their very different political ideals, they had shared an aversion to liberalism and parliamentary democracy (1987, 66). Kennedys essay met with highly critical responses from Martin Jay, Ulrich Preuss, and others, who admitted that there were indeed similarities between various Frankfurt School positions and those of Schmitt, yet claimed that these positions were ultimately irreconcilable ( Jay 1987; Preuss 1987).

The affinities between Schmitt and Benjamin were thus subject to controversy from the start: Benjamins apparent endorsement of Schmitts theory of sovereignty and methodology was either believed to indicate a significant affinity between intellectuals of the far left and right or declared incidental or superficial. However, with the passing of time, more nuanced interpretations were proposed, and the relationship between Schmitt and Benjamin was judged more often on its own merits. These readings sought to reveal a critical dialogue in their writings, testifying to shared meth-odological presuppositions and a critical engagement with each others positions. Thus, authors such as Norbert Bolz, Samuel Weber, and Giorgio Agamben showed that although Benjamin had borrowed Schmitts con-cepts, he injected them into new contexts in which their original mean-ings were challenged and opposed (Bolz 1989, 8594; Weber 1992, 518; Agamben 2005, 5264). In her turn, Suzanne Heil argued that the writings of Schmitt and Benjamin could be read next to and as answers to each other, even though it was not always possible to ascertain whether they were indeed meant as interventions in a dialogue (Heil 1996, 8).

In these interpretations, the theologico-political convictions of Schmitt and Benjamin play a key role. Their authors suggest that the shared theologico-political approaches of Schmitt and Benjamin explain both the similarities and differences between their respective positions (see also Figal 1992, 252). Thus, Benjamin and Schmitt believe that, in spite of seculariza-tion, political phenomena are to be understood primarily in light of certain theological concepts and images. However, whereas Schmitt starts from a Catholic perspective on the political, emphasizing the necessity of the existing legal-political order, Benjamin takes a messianic perspective that regards the legal-political order as destined to wither away. Their shared theologico-political approaches can thus explain their different philosophi-cal and political positions: whereas Schmitt advocates the authoritarian


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state, because he compares it with Gods omnipotence, Benjamin sides with the revolutionaries in whose anarchistic violence he recognizes traces of a divine law-destroying violence.

I too believe that the relationship between Schmitt and Benjamin can be characterized best as a critical dialogue on the question of political theology. However, I also believe that this dialogue has not been adequately understood for two reasons. First, I submit that the nature of political theology as Schmitt and Benjamin understand it has been misrepresented. Interpretations of their work tend to represent their theologico-political analogies as simple identities, but their political theologies are postsecular, which implies, among other things, that direct identifications of the politi-cal with the theological have become impossible. Suzanne Heil, for exam-ple, claims that Schmitts political theology comes down to an identity of political and theological concepts, which liquidates theologys critical potential with regard to existing power relations (1996, 10910). However, by treating the structural analogies to which Schmitt and Benjamin refer as identities, Heil disregards their specific, postsecular nature. Political theol-ogy in their writing refers not to an identity of theology and politics but to the (re)appearance of theological figures of thought in a political sphere that has become exposed to processes of secularization and neutralization. As a result, it has become inadmissible or even impossible to refer directly to theological categories in the public sphere, even though they continue to haunt our understanding of the political. Here, we have left the sphere of direct and explicit identifications and entered into that of an indirect language, of translations and analogies.

Secondly, I criticize the existing interpretations for ignoring develop-ments in the theologico-political views of Benjamin and Schmitt, resulting in a too static image of their dialogue. Agamben, for instance, claims that the whole debate between the two thinkers can be summarized in terms of reformulations: While Schmitt attempts every time to reinscribe violence within a juridical context, Benjamin responds to this gesture by seeking every time to assure itas pure violencean existence outside of the law (2005, 59, emphasis mine). However, a close examination of their work shows important developments and shifts in their theologico-political positions. For instance, in his later writings, Schmitt no longer compares the sovereigns unlimited power to Gods omnipotence but to the restrain-ing force described by Saint Paul (1997, 2832). He thereby seems to have given up his earlier view, according to which something of Gods eternity reflected on the sovereign. I believe that the shifts and developments in



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Schmitt and Benjamins theologico-political views can, at least in part, be explained by their attempts to answer each others criticism and objections.

In what follows, I start by examining the nature of political theology as Schmitt and Benjamin understand it. Then, I explore the main claims and arguments that constitute their critical dialogue.

political theology: a postsecular conceptAs Jan Assmann has argued, the concept of political theology tradition-ally is understood as the ever-changing relationships between political community and religious order, in short between power [or: authority: Herrschaft] and salvation [Heil] (2000, 15). Yet, in the work of Benjamin and Schmitt, the concept acquires a somewhat different meaning: for them, political theology covers more than politics and less than theology. Politi-cal theology does not refer to what is usually called politics, that is, those issues that concern politicians but to the political [das Politische]. Both Benjamin and Schmitt, independently of each other but using similar words, suggest that the political is no longer limited to the traditional polit-ical arenas, such as government and parliament, but has become omnipres-ent: in modern societies the political is potentially at work in every social domain, in the media, economy, culture, and so on. Each of these domains can suddenly become politically charged when a fundamental opposition takes shape that determines the experience of the political.

Moreover, what is usually called theology, that is, comments on rev-elation and theories of the religious, can scarcely be found in their work. Hence, for Schmitt and Benjamin, the concept of political theology does not refer to a theologization of politics nor to a theology by other means.5 As usual, Schmitt expresses this idea polemically: Today, every-thing is theology, with the exception of that which the theologians put forward (qtd. in Taubes 1987, 37).6 In a similar vein, Benjamin suggests that traditional theology, in both its theoretical and dogmatic form, has become obsolete. Therefore, thinking can only relate to theology as a blotting pad is related to ink (2002, 471). Although it is saturated with theology, it can no longer express itself in an explicitly theological language. For Benjamin and Schmitt, then, political theology refers to a postsecular theology that seems to have erased its own traces.

Assmann proposes a distinction between two types of political theol-ogy, a structural and a genealogical type (1995, 26, 35). The structural type can


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be found in the writings of both Schmitt and Benjamin. Benjamin refers, to a structural resemblance between political and theological concepts in several texts, noting, for instance, the resemblance between the proletarian general strike and divine law-destroying violence, between the sovereign and the martyr, and between the revolutionary fight for an oppressed past and the messianic arrest of happening (1996, 252; 2003a, 69; 2003b, 396). Schmitt, in his turn, argues that all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state correspond to certain theological concepts with respect to their systematic structure [systematische Struktur] (2005, 36). As examples he mentions the analogy between the legal state of exception and the miracle in theology, between the sovereigns unlimited authority and Gods omnipotence, and between the sovereign decision that emanates from nothingness and the theological creatio ex nihilo (2005, 32, 36, 49).

Contrary to Benjamin, Schmitt claims to be describing a political the-ology of the genealogical type as well, explaining that all significant con-cepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts (2005, 36). He thereby suggests that some of the qualities originally attrib-uted to God have, in the process of secularization, been transferred [ber-tragen] to the secular ruler. Yet, as Hans Blumenberg has rightly observed, nowhere in his work does Schmitt in fact attempt to analyze these redis-tributions (1974, 106). In response to this criticism, Schmitt will later back off from his genealogical claim: Everything I have said about the topic of political theology consists of the remarks of a lawyer about a systematic structural affinity [eine systematische Struktur-Verwandtschaft] of theologi-cal and political concepts that presents itself in legal theory and practice (1996, 79n1). In other words, Schmitt no longer defends his original, genea-logical claim that political concepts are secularized theological concepts but focuses on the structural claim instead.

law, violence, and the divineGiorgio Agamben has argued that Schmitts Political Theology (1922), an important early work, can be read as a precise response to Benjamins 19211922 essay Critique of Violence (2005, 54). He cites several historical facts to support this view. For instance, Benjamins essay was published in issue 47 of the Archiv fr Sozialwissenschaften und Sozialpolitik, a journal of which Schmitt, at the time, was a regular reader.7 Moreover, Schmitt is believed to have congratulated Benjamin on his essay. However, proof that Schmitt read Benjamins essay is lacking (as is evidence that he congratulated him



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on itno letter of congratulation, for instance, has surfacedand so this appears to be no more than a persistent rumor that probably originated with Jrgen Habermas, who may have confused Benjamins letter of congratulation to Schmitt of December 1930 with a letter of Schmitt to Benjamin).8 Still, with regard to content, the affinities between both essays are striking: both seek to examine the relationship between law and vio-lence in light of certain theologico-political figures of thought. Therefore, I believe that Schmitts Political Theology can, indeed, be read as a response to Benjamins Critique of Violence, even though it remains uncertain whether it was written as a response.

In his Critique of Violence, Benjamin criticizes the interdependence of law and violence. In the legal order, he perceives traces of an immediate violence that does not refer to any purpose outside of itself and that, in consequence, cannot be understood by its normative meaning or function. Benjamin identifies this violence as a lawmaking violence [rechtsetzende Gewalt], to be distinguished from a law-preserving violence [rechtser-haltende Gewalt] (1996, 24041). Lawmaking violence is said to reside in the force of law, guaranteeing the laws applicability. The legal order betrays its dependence on lawmaking violence, for instance, when it imposes capital punishment. As Benjamin suggests, capital punishment shows a kind of lawlessness at work in the legal order, an immediate violence that escapes attempts at legal regulation. Confronted with this violence, the laws prove to be powerless and fragile, incapable of checking the excess on which their applicability seems to depend. Therefore, capital punishment is said to reveal something rotten in the law [etwas Morsches im Recht]: originating in a lawless violence, the law itself is always already destined to decay, exposed to the possibility of its own internal corruption (1996, 242, 251).

According to Benjamin, lawmaking violence and its corrupting effects can be countered only by an unalloyed violence that has broken all ties to the law. He calls this violence law destroying. It is law destroying in that it interrupts the workings of lawmaking violence and questions the laws dependence on violence. Benjamin argues that this unalloyed, law-destroying violence can under certain conditions take the shape of a revo-lutionary strike. Following the French anarcho-syndicalist Georges Sorel, he distinguishes between a political general strike, which uses the threat of violence as a means of forcing the state into accepting compromises, and a proletarian general strike, which categorically rejects the use of violence and aims at the complete abolition of the state. Whereas the first form of work interruption is said to be the means of a lawmaking violence, the


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second is described as the medium of a law-destroying violence: it destroys the law without creating a new law of its own and can therefore bring the corrupting dialectic of lawmaking and law-preserving violence to an end.

In what can be considered the central passages of the text, Benjamin defines the distinction between lawmaking and law-destroying violence in theologico-political terms. He thus calls lawmaking violence mythical, and law-destroying violence divine. Benjamin argues it is characteristic of mythical violence that it demands the sacrifice of life with the goal of preserving life itself; for instance, capital punishment requires the sacrifice of the convicts life to protect the lives of others. By contrast, divine vio-lence is said to accept the sacrifice of life only for the sake of justice itself (1996, 24950). The meaning of these phrases is difficult to fathom. I believe that by arguing that divine violence does not demand but only accepts the sacrifice of life, Benjamin intends to articulate a kind of responsibil-ity, namely, the political actors own responsibility to decide, in exceptional cases, whether he is prepared to sacrifice life itself to secure the righteous-ness of life. In my reading, then, while divine violence will refuse to accept the sacrifice of life if it is enforced under the law, it will accept those sac-rifices that originate in a responsibility before the law (Butler 2006, 205; Wilde 2006, 198).

Whereas Benjamin argues that the proletarian general strike bears wit-ness to a divine violence, Schmitt, in Political Theology, claims the exact opposite: sovereign lawmaking violence, not the general strike, is compared to the divine. Like Benjamin, Schmitt acknowledges the existence of an immediate lawmaking violence that escapes attempts at legal regulation. This violence shows itself in the state of exception [Ausnahmezustand], when the laws are temporarily suspended in order to enable the sovereign to counter a threat to the legal order, for example, a revolution or foreign invasion. As Schmitt points out, the proclamation of the state of excep-tion is not without risk, for the emergency powers established to defend the legal order could end up eroding it instead. The sovereign, for instance, could seize on the emergency as a pretext for creating a situation in which fundamental norms can be ignored with impunity. Schmitt believes that there are no constitutional guarantees to prevent this from happening. Like the lawmaking violence Benjamin describes, the sovereign violence Schmitt has in mind is immediate and beyond legal regulation.

Schmitts account of lawmaking violence can be considered a response to Benjamins criticism in that he proposes an interpretation contrary to Benjamins: although both refer to an immediate lawmaking violence,



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Benjamin calls it mythical, whereas Schmitt compares it to the divine. However, in this case, the affinities between Schmitt and Benjamin prove to be even more significant than the differences. Most importantly, both Benjamin and Schmitt relate divine violence to a notion of responsibil-ity. This has remained unnoticed in literature, but is, I believe, essential to the interpretation of their early political theologies: like Benjamin, Schmitt suggests that it is the denial of an immediate violence, that is, the reality of violence as such, that makes redemption impossible. Hence, according to Schmitt, attempts to repress the notion of the radical exception and the reality of violence it reveals are to be regarded as a method of circum-venting responsibility [eine Methode die Verantwortung zu umgehen] (2005, 63). For both Schmitt and Benjamin, then, a notion of responsibility is at the heart of what they regard as divine violence as it manifests itself in the legal and political sphere.

Schmitt and Benjamin concur not only in their emphasis on respon-sibility but also in the nature they ascribe to it, for, as it turns out, both define it in relation to a possible sacrifice. Thus, in the state of exception, the revolutionary and sovereign respectively are expected to take responsibil-ity for putting mere life at stake for their political beliefs. Only this can prove the seriousness of their beliefs. Yet, for both Schmitt and Benjamin, the very logic of the sacrifice presupposes the possibility of the worst. This possibility threatens to actualize as soon as the relation between the politi-cal and the divine is no longer understood in terms of responsibility but in terms of a direct identification. Therefore, Benjamin and Schmitt propose a different notion of divine violence: it does not directly manifest itself in the legal-political sphere but only indirectly, as an appeal to the political actors own responsibility, a silent call to engage with the reality of violence.

This notion of responsibility will reappear in their later writings, for instance, in Schmitts Concept of the Political, in which the possibility of sacrifice is identified as the foundation of the political (2007, 78), and in Benjamins Origin of German Tragic Drama, in which the sovereign is compared to the martyr, who is prepared to sacrifice life itself for his beliefs (2003a, 69).

the theater of powerWhile in their early essays on law and violence, the dialogue between Schmitt and Benjamin remains implicitneither of them mention-ing the name of the otherBenjamin, in The Origin of German Tragic Drama, explicitly acknowledges his indebtedness to Schmitt. In a letter to


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the Frankfurt sociologist Gottfried Salomon, written in December 1923, Benjamin mentions that he is reading a book on the concept of sover-eignty (qtd. in Kambas 1982, 609). He is probably referring to Schmitts Political Theology, the subtitle of which is Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty; the book had appeared a year earlier (see Bredekamp 1999, 249). In September 1924, Benjamin reports to Gershom Scholem that he has completed the chapter on the king in tragic drama (Witte 1991, 73). This chapter is the only one in which he explicitly and repeatedly refers to Schmitts Political Theology (2003a, 239nn14, 16, and 17). In line with Schmitts main thesis, Benjamin argues that the concept of sovereignty is to be defined in relation to the state of exception. Affirming Schmitts interpretation that the sovereign, in the state of exception, is no longer constrained by the laws, Benjamin observes that the ruler in tragic drama is designated from the outset as the holder of dictatorial power if war, revolt, or other catastrophes should lead to a state of exception (2003a, 65, transla-tion modified).

Although Benjamin borrows Schmitts concepts of sovereignty and the state of exception, the context he applies them in, that is, that of the baroque play of mourning, changes their meanings decisively. According to Benjamin, the baroque play of mourning shows how the theory of sover-eignty that focuses on the state of exception tends to complete the image of the sovereign as tyrant (2003a, 69, translation modified). Schmitt had never claimed any such thing. For him, the orientation toward the excep-tional case did not legitimize tyranny but merely served to prove the sov-ereigns authority and responsibility. But according to Benjamin, the focus on the state of exception in which the laws have been suspended means that the Schmittian sovereign will eventually transform into a tyrant who indulg[es] in the most violent display of power (2003a, 70). It will inevi-tably lead to a sovereign who is no longer forced to justify his decisions and deeds and who can govern beyond all accountability.

Benjamin avoids expressing his criticism of Schmitts doctrine of sovereignty explicitly; it is implied in a discussion of its theologico- political backgrounds. He starts by confirming Schmitts idea that the modern doctrine of sovereignty has its roots in the Counter- Reformation. More par-ticularly, he argues that the modern doctrine of sovereignty originates in the Counter-Reformations ideal of a complete stabilization and longing for an ecclesiastical and political restoration (2003a, 65). From this perspective, the sovereigns task is to guarantee law, order and security and to avert the state of exception (2003a, 65). Several commentators have interpreted



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Benjamins phrasinghe uses the word averting [ausschliessen] in contrast to Schmitt, who uses suppressing [niederhalten]as implying a criticism of Schmitts theory. Samuel Weber, for instance, recognizes a slight but decisive modification, for, in Schmitts interpretation, the sovereigns task was to suppress the state of exception but only in each particular case, never as such (1992, 12). Horst Bredekamp considers this shift of nuance to be of the utmost significance, for, while Schmitt views the state of exception as the conditio sine qua non for the establish-ment of sovereignty, Benjamin sees sovereignty as existing in order to avoid the state of exception in the first place (1999, 260). According to both, then, Benjamin subtly changes the meaning of Schmitts theory by describing the sovereigns task as averting the state of exception instead of merely suppressing it.

What both commentators appear to ignore, however, is that Benjamin, while emphasizing the need to avert the state of exception, refers only to a particular interpretation of sovereignty, that is, that of the Counter-Reformation. In view of the Counter-Reformations ideal of a complete sta-bilization and restoration, the sovereigns task must indeed be to avert the state of exception. But, as Benjamin suggests, this desire for perfect restora-tion does not adequately characterize the modern doctrine of sovereignty. Instead, this doctrine is said to originate in an antithesis: it is based not only on the Counter-Reformations ideal of a complete stabilization and restoration but also on the baroque representation of history as a perma-nent catastrophe (2003a, 66). From this perspective, the sovereigns task is still to avert the state of exception, yet it becomes doubtful whether, faced with a continuing catastrophe, he will actually succeed in fulfilling his task. It seems more likely that, instead of averting the state of exception, the sovereign will declare it indefinite in order to counter a catastrophe that has become equally permanent.

In this context, Benjamin evokes the tragic image of a sovereign who is faced with a permanent catastrophe and proves unequal to his task. The sovereign fails to cope with the situation that presents itself in the state of exception, falling victim to doubt and despair instead. Benjamins image of an indecisive, even despairing, sovereign seems to be polemically aimed against Schmitts notion of sovereignty. In Political Theology, Schmitt had defined the sovereign as he who decides on the exception (2005,5). Quoting Schmitts definition, Benjamin argues that the prince, who is responsible for making the decision to proclaim the state of exception, reveals, at the first opportunity, that he is almost incapable of making a


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decision (2003a, 71). Whereas Schmitt sees the state of exception as demonstrating the sovereigns unlimited authority, Benjamin suggests that it reveals the sovereigns impotence and indecisiveness.

Although in his letter of December 1930, Benjamin enthusiastically expressed his indebtedness to Schmitts theory of sovereignty, he turns out to reject its central claims: on Benjamins reading, the Schmittian state of exception does not allow for a sovereign decision but leads to an indecisive-ness that threatens the legal order from within. By placing Schmitts theory of sovereignty into a different theologico-political context, that is, that of an antithesis, Benjamin implicitly but fundamentally changes its meaning and rejects it on theologico-political grounds: a sovereign is not he who decides the exception, but he who proves unable to decide when faced with the eschatological vision of a continuing catastrophe.

the power of mythWhereas Benjamins criticism of Schmitt has attracted quite a lot of atten-tion (see Heil 1996, 12735; Weber 1992, 1215; Bredekamp 1999, 25961; Figal 1992, 26165), Schmitts response to it has been largely ignored. After a long and difficult genesis, Benjamins Origin of German Tragic Drama finally appeared in 1928. The same year, Schmitt published what would become his most influential and controversial text, The Concept of the Political. Based on an article he had written the year before, it would take on its definite form in 1932, when it appeared in a thoroughly revised second edition. According to Heinrich Meier, it is the only revised text by Schmitt in which the changes are not limited to polishing style, introducing minor shifts in emphasis, and making opportunistic corrections, but reveal con-ceptual interventions and important clarifications of content (1995, 7). It is not unlikely that in the meantime, Schmitt had become acquainted with Benjamins Origin of German Tragic Drama.

A notable change in the revised second edition is Schmitts redefinition of his concept of sovereignty: he now argues that the sovereign has to seek not only stabilization and restoration but also to accept the real possibility of violent death. Whether consciously or not, Schmitt thereby appears to endorse Benjamins criticism: he no longer believes the sovereign capable of creating a completely stabilized order but, instead, describes his task as restraining a catastrophe that can never be completely overcome. Consequently, after 1932, Schmitts theory of sovereignty is no longer exclusively focused on the ideal of a complete stabilization and restoration



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but is equally marked by the baroque vision of history as a permanent catastrophe.

In other respects, however, Schmitt rejects Benjamins criticism, formulating his own objections to Benjamins reading. For example, by transferring the concept of sovereignty to the context of the baroque play of mourning, Schmitt argues, Benjamin undermines its seriousness [Ernst]. This criticism is implicit in his Concept of the Political, particu-larly in his notion of the Ernstfall, but he makes it explicit in his 1956 book Hamlet or Hecuba. Again, he prefaces his criticism with words of admira-tion, citing Benjamins Origin of German Tragic Drama as one of the few books to which I am particularly indebted for valuable information and essential insights (1999, 7).9 Yet what follows is, in fact, sharp criticism:

In his book (pages 5556, 64, and the notes on page 241), Walter Benjamin refers to my definition of sovereignty; in 1930, he expressed his gratitude to me in a personal letter. I have the impression, though, that he underestimates the difference between the English-insular and the European continental condition. . . . The difference can be characterized most quickly and adequately with a brief antithesis. . . . It is the antithesis between barbarism and politics. (1999, 64)

What is most striking in Schmitts formulation is that, now, he too places the doctrine of sovereignty in the context of an antithesis. But the particular antithesis he refers to, between barbarism and politics, differs from the one Benjamin had proposed between the ideal of a complete stabilization and restoration and the experience of catastrophe. This difference has important consequences for their interpretations of sovereignty: whereas Benjamin had emphasized the gap between, on the one hand, the sovereigns task of stabilizing and restoring order, and, on the other, his actual capacity to rule (as a finite human being, faced with catastrophe), leading to indecision and despair on the part of the sovereign, Schmitt, by contrast, suggests that the sovereign might succeed in transforming a desperate moment of catastro-phe and crisis into a powerful and politically effective myth (1999, 32). He points out that faced with the hopelessness of the spiritual situation, the monarch may appeal to the divine right of the kings instead of falling vic-tim to indecision and despair as Benjamin had suggested (1999, 67).

Schmitt thus responds to Benjamins critique by arguing that the sovereign uses the very antithesis on which Benjamin had grounded his


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critique to legitimize his claims to an unlimited authority. Instead of falling prey to indecision and despair, the sovereign turns out to be capable of transforming a desperate moment of catastrophe and crisis into a powerful myth that supports his claims to power: the myth of the divine right of the kings. The vision of a permanent catastrophe is invoked to legitimize an essentially unlimited authority: faced with a permanent catastrophe, the sovereign must remain exempted from the laws, because he has to be capable of coping with threats that can occur at any time. Schmitt thus criticizes Benjamin for having underestimated the power of myth: although Benjamin was right to relate the doctrine of sovereignty to the vision of a perma-nent catastrophe, he did not acknowledge the power of myth that made this vision instrumental to the sovereigns claims to legitimacy and power.

angel of history and restraining forceThe tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the state of exception in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a concep-tion of history that accords with this insight. Then we will clearly see that it is our task to bring about a real state of exception, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism (2003b, 392, translation modified). The words are Benjamins from his essay On the Concept of History, the last text he completed before his death in 1940. It is not without signifi-cance that Benjamin puts the words state of exception between quotation marks. Once more, he addresses Carl Schmitt. In the meanwhile, much had happened in their lives. As an adviser to the Weimars last governments, Schmitt had been personally involved in the republics downfall (Kennedy 2004, 16369). He had advised President Paul von Hindenburg to declare a state of exception to counter the danger of anticonstitutional parties. The president had used his emergency powers to govern without parliamentary consent; after three years of so-called presidential cabinets, he appointed Adolf Hitler as chancellor of the Reich. In May 1933, Schmitt became a member of the National-Socialist Workers Party; by then, Benjamin had been forced to flee.

In On the Concept of History, Benjamin suggests that the state of exception had decisively contributed to the triumphal march of fas-cism. Although theoretically meant to protect the legal order, the state of exception had, in fact, contributed to the establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship. More particularly, Schmitts understanding of the state of exception had enabled him to represent Hitlers violent transgression of



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rights as a realization of the law. Thereby, fascism had shown its true face: as a regime of lawlessness, veiled with the appearance of legality. Schmitt had argued that the state of exception was necessary to protect the existing legal order, but Benjamin observed that it was mobilized instead to legalize an essentially unrestricted and lawless violence. To counter Schmitts doc-trine of the state of exception and the fascist turn it had taken, Benjamin now advocated the creation of a real state of exception through which the laws dependence on violence would be brought to an end once and for all.

In their post-1933 writings, Schmitt and Benjamin introduce new theologico-political motifs to articulate the various tasks and responsi-bilities of the sovereign and the revolutionary respectively. Schmitt now compares the sovereign to the theological figure of the restraining force [katechon] mentioned by Saint Paul (1997, 2832; see also Meuter 1994 and Grossheutschi 1996). In his Second Letter to the Thessalonians, Saint Paul describes a restraining force that prevents the coming of the antichrist and thereby postpones the arrival of the end -time. In these verses, the antichrist is characterized as the lawless one [ho anomos] (2:68). In line with an age-old tradition (see Metger 2005, 1548), Schmitt proposes a theologico-political reading of Pauls verses: thus, with the image of the restraining force in mind, the sovereign has to protect the existing order and suppress lawlessness at all costs, even if it requires violating the laws. By so doing, he acquires a theological legitimacy, justifying state violence as a temporary measure to prevent the worst, that is, the revelation of the antichrist.

Like Schmitt, Benjamin, in his final essay, introduces a theological figure to articulate the revolutionarys responsibility: he evokes the figure of an angel of history, who, his face turned toward the past, sees one single catastrophe, which he seeks to end in vain: The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise and has got caught in his wings; it is so strong that the angel can no longer close them. This storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows toward the sky. What we call progress is this storm (2003b, 39293). With the image of the angel in mind, the revolutionary is expected to turn against the existing order, it being the embodiment of an ongoing catastro-phe. The catastrophe is caused by the storm of progress, which condemns every aspect of the past that does not directly contribute to a legitimization of the present to oblivion (Wilde 2009, 17794). It is the revolutionarys task to revive the memory of the oppressed by destroying the order to which they have been sacrificed.


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Benjamins allegory of the angel can be understood as a critical response to Schmitts theologico-political notion of the restraining force: while Schmitt, by invoking the figure of the restraining force, legitimized state violence as necessary in order to prevent a future catastrophe, Benjamin, with the image of the angel, invited him to look over his shoulder to see the catastrophe that had already taken place.

Faculty of LawUniversity of Amsterdam

notes 1. References to Schmitt can be found in Benjamin 2003a, 239, nn14, 16, and 17. Samuel Weber coined the term methodological extremism (1992, 7). 2. Taubes probably received a copy from Schmitt himself, whom he visited in the 1970s in his hometown of Plettenberg. On the relationship between Schmitt and Taubes, see Taubes 1987, 65ff. 3. Schmitt first referred to the letter in Hamlet oder Hekuba; oder, Der Einbruch der Zeit in das Spiel (1999, 64). He also distributed copies of the letter to friends and students (Lethen 1999, 56). Schmitts biographer, Joseph Bendersky, who interviewed Schmitt several times in Plettenberg in the 1970s, told me that Schmitt kept Benjamins letter in a special file, which also contained letters from Ernst Jnger and Rudolf Smend. His impression was that Schmitt kept the file with the specific purpose of showing it to visitors. 4. The letter was first published by Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhuser in their edition of Benjamins complete works. Agamben observes that the letter has always appeared scandalous (2005, 52). 5. The characterizations are Suzanne Heils and Hans Blumenbergs respectively (Heil 1996, 16061; Blumenberg 1974, 113). 6. As Mathias Eichorn argues, it is remarkable that Schmitt often uses the concept of theology and that he is even considered as the representative of a particular political theology, even though he never wrote about theology and abstained from every theological remark or argumentation (1994, 24). 7. In footnotes and bibliographies, Schmitt cites the issues immediately preceding and following the one containing Benjamins essay. Agamben concludes that as an avid reader of and contributor to the Archiv, Schmitt could not easily have missed a text like Critique of Violence, which . . . touched upon issues that were essential for him (2005, 5253). 8. Derrida writes: Carl Schmitt . . . congratulated him for his essay (1994, 69, trans-lation mine). The source of Derridas remark is probably an essay by Jrgen Habermas, who

I believe that Benjamins allegory of the angel of history, though probably not conceived in reaction to Schmitts theory of the restraining force, can be read as an answer to it.10 Although Schmitt does not share the belief in progress that Benjamin criticizes, he does seek to justify the continuing violence in light of a future event, that is, the end-time that, announced by a period of anarchy and lawlessness, is to be restrained at all costs. Schmitt therefore tends to represent the suffering of past generations as a meaningful episode in the history of salvation: it appears as a necessary sacrifice to prevent the threatening catastrophe. By contrast, Benjamin, by evoking his allegory of the angel, suggests that the worst is already taking place, not despite but because of the willingness to accept state violence as a temporary measure. In Benjamins view, then, it is the very attempt to found the present order on violence that has caused the catastrophe, which Schmitt believed had been avoided by the state of exception.

conclusionWhen Taubes characterized Benjamins 1930 letter to Schmitt as a mine that can blow to pieces our conception of the intellectual history of the Weimar period, he was suggesting that the affinities between these think-ers had been both more substantial and more problematic than had been acknowledged in literature. My analysis of this relationship, however, leads to a different conclusion: the dialogue between Schmitt and Benjamin turns out to have been critical from the start. One should, for instance, not be misled by Benjamins praising words in his 1930 letter, for it was intended to accompany a copy of his Origin of German Tragic Drama, in which an implicit criticism of the Schmitts theory of sovereignty could already be found. Although Schmitt appears to have taken Benjamins criticism seriously, his remark in Hamlet or Hecuba that he had been particularly indebted to Benjamin should not mislead us either, for it did not pre-vent him from formulating sharp objections to Benjamins interpretation of sovereignty instead.

Beginning in the mid-1930s, both thinkers seem to have distanced themselves from each other even further. Thus Benjamin, in On the Concept of History, described the Schmittian state of exception as an instrument of state oppression, calling for a real state of exception that would bring the oppression to an end. In this context, he evoked the allegory of the angel of history, who sought to redeem the past, ending oppression and repairing what had been smashed. As I have explained,



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Benjamins allegory of the angel can be understood as a critical response to Schmitts theologico-political notion of the restraining force: while Schmitt, by invoking the figure of the restraining force, legitimized state violence as necessary in order to prevent a future catastrophe, Benjamin, with the image of the angel, invited him to look over his shoulder to see the catastrophe that had already taken place.

Faculty of LawUniversity of Amsterdam

notes 1. References to Schmitt can be found in Benjamin 2003a, 239, nn14, 16, and 17. Samuel Weber coined the term methodological extremism (1992, 7). 2. Taubes probably received a copy from Schmitt himself, whom he visited in the 1970s in his hometown of Plettenberg. On the relationship between Schmitt and Taubes, see Taubes 1987, 65ff. 3. Schmitt first referred to the letter in Hamlet oder Hekuba; oder, Der Einbruch der Zeit in das Spiel (1999, 64). He also distributed copies of the letter to friends and students (Lethen 1999, 56). Schmitts biographer, Joseph Bendersky, who interviewed Schmitt several times in Plettenberg in the 1970s, told me that Schmitt kept Benjamins letter in a special file, which also contained letters from Ernst Jnger and Rudolf Smend. His impression was that Schmitt kept the file with the specific purpose of showing it to visitors. 4. The letter was first published by Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhuser in their edition of Benjamins complete works. Agamben observes that the letter has always appeared scandalous (2005, 52). 5. The characterizations are Suzanne Heils and Hans Blumenbergs respectively (Heil 1996, 16061; Blumenberg 1974, 113). 6. As Mathias Eichorn argues, it is remarkable that Schmitt often uses the concept of theology and that he is even considered as the representative of a particular political theology, even though he never wrote about theology and abstained from every theological remark or argumentation (1994, 24). 7. In footnotes and bibliographies, Schmitt cites the issues immediately preceding and following the one containing Benjamins essay. Agamben concludes that as an avid reader of and contributor to the Archiv, Schmitt could not easily have missed a text like Critique of Violence, which . . . touched upon issues that were essential for him (2005, 5253). 8. Derrida writes: Carl Schmitt . . . congratulated him for his essay (1994, 69, trans-lation mine). The source of Derridas remark is probably an essay by Jrgen Habermas, who


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claims that Carl Schmitt was . . . forced to congratulate the young Walter Benjamin with his essay on G. Sorel (1987, 112). 9. The translations from Hamlet or Hecuba are mine. 10. Although Schmitt claims he had developed his theory of the katechon as early as 1932, he first mentions it explicitly in a 1942 article (1995, 43536). Benjamin mentions the image of the angel of history in 1940, in his ninth thesis on the concept of history (2003b, 392).

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