Riccardo Bavaj

Memorializing Socialist Contradictions: A ‘Think-Mark’ for Rosa Luxemburg in the New Berlin

Since September 2006, dozens of anthracite concrete bars, sunk into the ground and up to 7 metres long, have been loosely scattered around Berlin’s Volksbuhne (People’s Theatre), right in the centre of Germany’s capital (Figure 24).1 Each bar carries a single statement, in laser-cut bronze letters, followed by a single name, that of Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919), socialist revolutionary and co-founder of the German Communist Party (KPD). About 60 statements, taken from speeches, articles, and letters written by Luxemburg between 1898 and January 1919 (the month in which she was murdered by members of the notorious Freikorps militia), can be encountered during a stroll across the very square that bears her name.

Otto Kirchheimers Parlamentarismuskritik in der Weimarer Republik. Ein Fall von Linksschmittianismus

Vorspann Gibt es Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen Konservativer Revolution und Frankfurter Schule? Angesichts ihrer ähnlich ausgeprägten Abneigung gegenüber dem Liberalismus ist die Frage, welche Anleihen ein Walter Benjamin oder ein Jürgen Habermas bei dem umstrittenen Weimarer Staatsrechtler Carl Schmitt genommen haben, bis heute umstritten. Ebenso gilt dies für das politische Denken des linkssozialistischen Schmitt-Schülers Otto Kirchheimer, über den bislang aber relativ wenig bekannt ist. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersucht Riccardo Bavaj Kirchheimers intellektuelle Entwicklung von seiner Promotion im Jahr 1928 bis zur nationalsozialistischen Machtübernahme 1933.

Turning "liberal Critics" into "Liberal-Conservatives": Kurt Sontheimer and the Re-coding of the Political Culture in the Wake of the Student Revolt of "1968"

The student revolt of the late 1960s had far-reaching repercussions in large parts of West German academia. This article sheds light on the group of liberal scholars who enjoyed a relative cohesiveness prior to “1968” and split up in the wake of the student revolt. The case of Kurt Sontheimer (19282005) offers an instructive example of the multifaceted process of a “liberal critic” turning into a liberal-conservative. While he initially welcomed the politicization of students and the democratization of universities, he became increasingly concerned about the stability of West Germany’s political order and placed more and more emphasis on preserving, rather than changing the status quo. Sontheimer was a prime example of a liberal critic shifting and being shifted to the center-Right within a political culture that became increasingly polarized during the 1970s.