Heller, Hermann

Introduction

Hermann Heller (1891–1933) was a distinguished public lawyer and state theorist during Weimar age. Unfortunately, his work was overshadowed by the two “giants” of that age – Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt – and also because he did not live long: the Nazi rise to power in 1933 forced him to flee, as a result of his socialist faith together with his Jewish origins, to Madrid, where he died in the same year.

Yet, by no means, we have to do with a sort of “supporting actor.” Heller accepted the challenge of rethinking the theory of state and public law, owing to the crisis of liberal state and the rise of mass democracy; what is more, the way Heller attempted to win that challenge is far more complex than Schmitt’s or Kelsen’s: by keeping a balance among law, politics, and morality and by enlarging the social and political legitimacy of state, what will bring from the “old” concept of Rechtsstaat (“state based on the rule of law”) to the “new” concept of sozialer Rechtsstaat...