Hermann Heller (legal scholar)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hermann Heller (17 July 1891 in Teschen, Silesia - 5 November 1933) was a German-Austrian legal scholar and philosopher active in the non-Marxist wing of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) during the Weimar Republic. He attempted to formulate the theoretical foundations of the social-democratic relations to the state, and nationalism. He was politically active in the, relatively conservative, Hofgeismarer Kreis of the SPD and is believed to have authored the Kreis's statement of principles.
In his short life, he was involved in a number of political debates and controversies, most notably with Hans Kelsen, Carl Schmitt and Max Adler. In short, Heller's theories are both a reinterpretation of Hegelian social theory and an emendation of Bernstein's revisionism. Heller calls for the integration of the working class in the social, cultural and political structures of the nation-state. Against Carl Schmitt he argued that it is not so much the state of emergency, but rather the state of social and political stability which defines the sovereign. He is generally perceived to have been a major influence on Carlo Schmid who, in turn, drafted most of the German Constitution and was the main force behind the reform of the SPD.
Recently, there is a renewed interest in Heller's work, especially in Germany. Unfortunately, very little of his work has been translated in English, although his views have been influential in both Japan and the Spanish-speaking world.
Hermann Heller was forced to go into exile in 1933 and died in Madrid in the same year, leaving his Magnum Opus, the Staatslehre, unfinished. His collected works, in three volumes, have been published by the Mohr Verlag of Tübingen.
[edit] External link
- Works by and about Hermann Heller (legal scholar) in the German National Library catalogue (in German)
