This book opens with the First World War, analyses the highly creative years of the Weimar Republic, and recounts the decline of German public law that began in 1933 and extended to the downfall of the Third Reich. The book examines the dialectic of scholarship and politics against the background of long-term developments in industrial societies, the rise of the interventionist state, the shift of state law and administrative law theory, and the emergence of new disciplines (tax law, social law, labour law, business administration law). The book examines the doctrine of state law and administr ... More

This book opens with the First World War, analyses the highly creative years of the Weimar Republic, and recounts the decline of German public law that began in 1933 and extended to the downfall of the Third Reich. The book examines the dialectic of scholarship and politics against the background of long-term developments in industrial societies, the rise of the interventionist state, the shift of state law and administrative law theory, and the emergence of new disciplines (tax law, social law, labour law, business administration law). The book examines the doctrine of state law and administrative law during the First World War and the impact of the Weimar Constitution and of the Versailles Treaty on the discipline is discussed. Here the famous ‘quarrel of direction’ that occurred in the field of state law doctrine (1926–9) played a central role. But equally important was the development of state law and administrative law theory, administrative doctrine, and the jurisprudence of international law. Part two of the book is devoted to the impact of National Socialism. The displacement of Jewish scholars, the change of direction in the professional journals, and the shutdown of the Association of State Law Teachers form one aspect of the story. The other aspect is manifested in the erosion of public law. The book tackles questions about the co-responsibility of scholars for the Holocaust, and the reasons why academic teachers of public law were all but absent in the opposition to the Nazi regime.