In 1971, the historian Dieter Groh, who explains the circumstances in an afterword, conducted extensive interviews with Carl Schmitt, the towering figure in German public law, whose career was tainted because of his insufficient distance to national-socialism. After all, public law is an eminently political subject matter and Schmitt’s academic career just got off, to a good start in the thirties.

Although he never received a chair after the war again, rather resided as a private scholar in his native small village near Munster in Germany, his influence was nevertheless substantial, in particular with the protest movement in the sixties. Germany lived through a veritable Schmitt renaissance across the entire spectrum of the political landscape. In addition, his influence in Italy, Spain and Latin America, and France cannot be underestimated.

This carefully produced book—the index also lists the life data of all the persons contained—reproduces the recorded conversations. Other conversations during walks or over Mosel wine and veal are mentioned and recur partly in the recorded conversations. The crucial question why he collaborated with the Nazi-administration, Schmitt answers frankly by using the calendar. It was Hegel’s philosophy of State which inspired his Legality and Legitimacy of 1934. Johannes Popitz (1884–1945), who later took part in the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944 inspired him in 1933 wit the intention of saving Prussia.

Ernst von Salomon (1902–1972) reasoned similarly—they all turned away from Hitler by 1936. Already on Good Friday of 1933, visiting his Jewish publisher and friend Ludwig Feuchtwanger, he finds him gravely concerned. It is fortunate that the same publishing house has produced this valuable book of conversations.