Versailles, Weltkrieg, westliche Hemisphäre

The article outlines a paradigmatic shift in Carl Schmitt's perception and interpretation of the decline of European international law. In Weimar, Schmitt accused the Treaty of Versailles and its »empty normativism« of weaken and destabilizing the traditional European order of sovereign nation-states. This understanding, among other affinities, led Schmitt to strongly support the revisionist policies of National Socialism. In his perspective, the »Third Reich« had a historical mission to either restore the old Jus Publicum Europaeum or create a »Grossraum« as a foundation for peace and stability in Europe. The failure of this option became apparent with the escalation of the Second World War. Schmitt now directed his criticism toward U.S. interventionism and the perceived expansion of a »Western Hemisphere.« In his Nomos of the Earth, his major geopolitical work written during the war, Schmitt describes the unilateral dominance of the United States as the single greatest threat to any meaningful European peace order.