Carl Schmitt Quotes

“As the war drew to a close, Schmitt had no idea what new difficulties he might encounter, though he surely must have suspected that the Allies would hold him accountable for his Nazi collaboration. In April 1945, the Russians oc­cupied Berlin and arrested Schmitt at his home. During several hours of interrogation, Schmitt told the Russians that his relationship with National Socialism could best be
understood in reference to the experiments of the German scientist Max von Pettenkofer. Schmitt explained to his baffled interrogators that at the beginning of this century, Pettenkofer had argued that the susceptibility of a person to illness was more important than a bacillus in causing infectious disease. To prove his point, Pettenkofer stood before his students and drank a glass of water containing a culture of cholera bacteria; he remained healthy. "You see," Schmitt concluded, "I have done exactly the same thing: I drank of the Nazi bacillus, but it had not infected me." While it is unknown what effect this story had on the Russians, Schmitt was released and allowed to return home.”
― Joseph J. Bendersky, Carl Schmitt: Theorist for the Reich