Totalitärer Pluralismus

Jürgen Bast reconstructs the works of Franz L. Neumann, in which Neumann deals with the legal, political and economic situation during the National Socialist era. In these works, Neumann interprets National Socialism as the radicalization of dominant developmental tendencies in the 20th century which culminated in the complete disintegration of legal structures and in the decline of a unified state authority. Neumann called this dual destruction of the basic rational moments of a modern state - sovereignty and the guarantee of freedom under the law - the »behemoth«. The author analyzes this symbol as an allusion to the structure of a 'totalitarian pluralism'. Presenting Neumann's works in various contexts, he gives the reader an insight into the structures of the Nazi regime, the history of ideas in the social democratic labor movement and helps to explain central categories of modern governmental and legal theory.