Leibholz-Schmitt connection ’ s formative infl uence on Bonhoeff er ’ s 1932 – 33 entry into public theology

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s brother-in-law Gerhard Leibholz’s insight into the Fascist theory of the state’s messianic leadership and myth of creating communal life became a major source of information for Bonhoeffer. Leibholz had gained this knowledge in close jurisprudential cooperation with Carl Schmitt as is evidenced by Leibholz’s 1929 habilitation thesis which at the same time intersected with Bonhoeffer’s academic work. Their original political leanings towards authoritarianism, Volk, and Vitalism were revised by Bonhoeffer and Leibholz in November 1932 through stepping out into a coordinated public opposition to the approaching political changes. But both only recognized the populist xenophobic destructiveness of such a life, hidden beneath the myth of unity, once Schmitt turned to National Socialism in early 1933. Bonhoeffer’s theology, built on the Leibholz-Schmitt discourse, remains a call for vigilance against the abuse of power, populism, and xenophobia, and continues to call for seeking Godrevealed life.


Introduction
The forewords to the jurist and Bonhoeffer's brother-in-law Gerhard Leibholz's 1929 first publication of his habilitation thesis and its 1960 second publication disclose a significant connection to and shift in Leibholz's relations to the jurist Carl Schmitt which impacted Bonhoeffer's theology, opposition, and life. This essay 1 will begin with unveiling Carl Schmitt's connection to Leibholz's knowledge of the Fascist legal, political, and leadership system (2). Following this, it will be assessed how such insights impacted, due to the Leibholz-Bonhoeffer friendship, Bonhoeffer's entry into public theology 2 and their 1932-33 coordinated public opposition to the approaching myth-based centralization of power and its creative subsumption of life (3). Lastly, the consequences for Bonhoeffer and Leibholz will be outlined and, with a view to today's rising populism in many democratic states, the question will be raised whether the Leibholz-Bonhoeffer cooperation may yield significant insights (4).

Leibholz's connection to Schmitt
In 1960, 15 years after Dietrich Bonhoeffer's death his brother-in-law, the constitutional lawyer and theorist of state Gerhard Leibholz, published the second edition 3 of his 1928/29 habilitation thesis, titled The Essence of Representation. In the reprint of the foreword to the first edition 4 Leibholz omitted the paragraph in which he in 1929 had thanked Carl Schmitt for his "valuable" and "exceptional" presentation of the problems of representation 2 The term "public theology" is often used synonymously with the term "political theology". Because of Carl Schmitt's book Political Theology (Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, trans. George Schwab, [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005]) and his support of the National Socialist regime, post-war political theology received the prefix "new" in distinction to Schmittian "old" Political Theology. As Jürgen Moltmann explains, the new political theology focusses on the church as the subject with its face toward the world. It is about worldly Christianity and not about metaphysics of the state but political engagement of the church in the world of the poor and Christian commitment to justice, peace and the integrity of creation; Jürgen Moltmann, "Political theology in ecumenical contexts", in Political Theology: Contemporary Challenges and Future Directions, eds. Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, Klaus Tanner, Michael Welker (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2013), 4. Public theology then denotes the infusion of theological, ethical perspectives into the public realm. 3 Gerhard Leibholz, Das Wesen der Repräsentation, 2nd ext. ed. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1960). This edition is apart from the foreword to the 1 st edition an exact reprint of the original publication; therefore page numbers refer in the following to both, the 1 st and 2 nd edition.
in his recently published book Constitutional Theory. 5 Mehring, Schmitt, 234, 241. 11 Schmitt, Tagebücher 1930bis 1934 In his 1928 inaugural university lecture 19 Leibholz analysed in-depth political representation within the prototype of the Fascist system, as it was implemented in Italy since 1924. He delivered a blueprint for how to turn a representational system into a Fascist system. He described how Fascism permeates the whole being of the state with a new life of community and nation that leaves no independent areas such as economy, law, or religion, outside the sphere of the state. 20 Almost all features that would later underlay National Socialism were analysed, such as breathing new life and meaning into a supposedly liberated form of the constitution, 21 strengthening the executive beyond the separation of powers and ruling by decree, personal decisions replacing state law, 22 and retro-active legal sanctioning of already implemented political facts. 23 He went on detailing a unifying effect provided by combining party, state, and the plurality of 16 Schmitt claimed that 'the exception in jurisprudence is analogous to the miracle in theology', because in both cases the sovereign directly intervenes into an order, into a valid legal order, or into the law of nature respectively. Carl Schmitt, wills into one political ideal unit (ideele Einheit) under the one activist decisionist person of the leader. This person supposedly creates dynamic vitality at any given moment and is legitimized with a national myth and his creative charismatic personality. 24 Individual freedom is in Fascism a state controlled concession demanding foremost service to the whole. 25 Creating and selecting an elite-leadership is based, apart from unconditional obedience, on a hierarchical scale of dignities that determines the political value of the individual. 26 This makes educating the youth a priority. 27 Leibholz explicitly referred only to Schmitt within the body of his text. He highlighted Schmitt as convincingly asserting that the concept of dictatorship necessitates identifying an enemy. 28 This connected to Schmitt's existential friend-enemy concept 29 which he had just recently developed as an anthropological foundation 30 for his theory of state. In closing, Leibholz stated in a somewhat enthusiastic fashion that the Fascist state liberates the individual of all generations into a life and meaning giving unified state-totality. This is because "Fascism wants to be life, wants to create life." 31 Even though the publication of this lecture turned Leibholz into an internationally recognized specialist on the Italian Fascist theory of state, 32 his closing argument triggered a social-democratic objection to his call as professor. 33 24 cf. Leibholz,Zu den Problemen,[22][23][37][38][39]Zu den Problemen,[18][19]

Leibholz as source for Bonhoeffer's contribution to public theology
Bonhoeffer and Leibholz shared apart from a friendship and family ties also a common fascination with Italian culture and overlapping doctoral and habilitation theses. While Leibholz's jurisprudential interest was directed at representation as connected to constitutional and public law, Bonhoeffer utilized the private law equivalent to public representation, Stellvertretung, 34 in his doctoral thesis and beyond. In 1929 in Berlin, at the time when Leibholz and Schmitt met frequently, both, Bonhoeffer and Leibholz, worked in their respective habilitation theses on competing phenomenological inquiries into the "question of consciousness and conscience". 35 For Leibholz the "essence of representation presupposed the ability to know a priori, supra-temporal concepts of state theory" and thus the parliamentary representative and decision maker "bundled -so to speak -the spiritual essence in himself." 36 Bonhoeffer instead stated that the philosophical concepts of knowledge, of which jurisprudence arguably is one, close decision makers in on themselves which prevents access to divinely revealed knowledge. 37 Both Bonhoeffer's and Leibholz's political leanings were at that point still relatively naively directed towards authoritarianism, with sentiments of Volk and Vitalism, which was in line with the general trend within their social context. This is attested for Leibholz in his lecture on Fascism and  38 There he focused on "my own people" 39 and, comparing peoples (Völker) with individuals, he asserted that "Strength also comes from God, and power, and victory, for God creates youth in the individual as well as in nations". He continued that "God loves youth, for God himself is eternally young and strong and victorious." "In its own life, in its own youth, and its own strength", Bonhoeffer affirmed, every peoples has "a call from God to create its history, to enter into the struggle that is the life of nations." The moment of action will be determined by human beings who are "surrendering their own selfish will to the divine will that guides world history." 40 However, for both these statements became in later years a source of embarrassment.
In November 1932 at the very moment of the transition from Republic to Reich, both corrected, in a coordinated public objection, their previous positions. 41 Then Leibholz's description of the disintegration of liberal democracy in Germany, which was written as discourse with Schmitt,42 almost climaxed in the revision of his previous positive assessment of the Leibholz warned that the "new political faith movement" 47 is a danger to the Protestant Church. Expressed in the idea of a new Reich, this movement is a comprehensive totality of eternal, earthly, and religious life. 48 He criticized the attempt of implementing a "change of attitude in the young generation" that emphasizes a new human being who is willing to sacrifice the own life 49 based on faith in the "holy" authority of one representative, leading, and responsible personality. 50 In difference to natural authority through office in which the leader "has" authority this new principle of authority is legitimized through a principle of hierarchy between the leader and the led. With faith in a unitary meta-individual principle, the led accept obedience, devotion, and command and the free political personality of the leader who makes decisions and carries the responsibility for all. 51 An immanent "correct faith" (Rechtgläubigkeit) gives access to the minority of the new ruling elite. 52 While Schmitt began contributing to the legislation that would later synchronize all state institutions, 53 Leibholz warned about exactly this collectivization under the leader principle. He warned the church of losing its spiritual and institutional independence to a state that absorbs spiritual content into its comprehensive mythical ideology 54 and remodels the 47 Leibholz,Auflösung,56. 48 'Dieser religionsähnliche, sich in immer wiederkehrenden Bezugnahmen auf das Organische äuβernde Mythus, …, und der durch seine neue Substanz für das religiöse Dogma insbesondere der evangelischen Kirche nicht ohne Gefahr ist, findet bei uns seinen vielleicht sinnfälligsten Ausdruck in dem neuen Reichsgedanken, durch den ewiges und irdisches, religiöses und staatliches Leben zu einer einzigen, … umfassenden Totalität zusammengeschlossen werden soll …'; Leibholz, Auflösung, 56. 49 Leibholz, Auflösung, 57. 50 Leibholz, Auflösung, 66. 51 cf. Leibholz, Auflösung, 60-61, 64. 52 Leibholz, Auflösung, 57, 70. 53 Carl Schmitt, Das Reichsstatthaltergesetz (Berlin: Heymann, 1933) church's constitutionally given form of a society of public law. 55 Because the state is "not the only 'holy place' " the protestant state is conscious of boundaries, it limits the church just as it finds its own limits in the Godgiven church which teaches and proclaims God's revealed word. Therefore Leibholz demanded from the state respect for the naturally given orders (e.g. profession, estate, and family). 56 While rejecting the mythical imperialism he quoted Bonhoeffer's "'Not creation of new life, but preservation of the given life' is the office of the state." 57 Heading Leibholz's warning Bonhoeffer rejected synchronizing the church to the state by affirming congruently to Leibholz's statement that "the church limits the state, just as the state limits the church." 58 For Bonhoeffer "the church is the limit of politics," "points to the limited, to the law, to order, to the state", 59 and witnesses to the transgression of the boundaries to human possibilities. 60 The church and the state, "miracle and order are the two forms in which God's kingdom on earth presents itself ". 61 In this linked duality the kingdom of God exists in our world. 62 The state has to use its authority to "recognize and maintain the order of preservation of life," and "against the destruction of life." 63 Similar to Leibholz this included also for Bonhoeffer the preservation of the order of existing communities (e.g. family, nation/Volk) and excluded creating new communities. 64 But it is God who is the creator and preserver of this world which cannot be escaped through otherworldly piety or humanmade utopias. 65 And God's kingdom is not a new kind of "visible, powerful empire". 66 Rather, in this world the church witnesses to the miracle of Jesus Christ and overcomes "death, loneliness and desire" with resurrection, community and care for others. 67 Using at times very similar language to Leibholz's, 68 Bonhoeffer too noted a generation-based shift in the attitude of the youth towards leadership and leaders. Just as Leibholz, so also Bonhoeffer noted that those in office have authority qua office (e.g. father, teacher, statesman etc.). However, he contrasted this authority to that of a chosen leader who leads by dominance of person. This leader's authority is constantly at risk of losing the people's, the follower's, allegiance. 69 If the led see it as their duty to accept unconditional obedience and surrender to such one, great political leader they abdicate from their own rights and responsibility. 70 And with a stab at Schmitt he added, that for Catholics, "faith in their church includes belief in the justness of its commandments and its guarantee for my obedience." 71 But this transforms the form of the one person of the leader into a collective extreme individualism. 72 Instead, for Bonhoeffer, "it is to God that the individual is responsible" 73 and the people of God owe "obedience towards God in the church and in the state." 74 In distinction to Leibholz, for whom Reich denotes a comprehensive totality, the concept of Reich expresses for Bonhoeffer this lent authority of the leader from below that depends on the leader's personality. Regarding Leibholz's warning about authority that is based on a principle of hierarchy, Bonhoeffer clarified that political authority is transformed into a "political-messianic idea" 76 if a "leader is placed at enormous distance from the led". 77 Similar to Leibholz, he stated that authority of office limits individual freedom with restrictions that call attention to others. 78 But this messiah figure, whose appearance is charged with heralding "the dawn of the fulfilment of ultimate hope" and with bringing closer the eternal kingdom, 79 "tries to become the idol the led are looking for". 80 But seeing himself as ultimate authority he will ignore his penultimate responsibility before God and God's ultimate authority 81 and will not "lead the led into responsibility towards the social structures of life". 82 This leader will misappropriate the eternal limitation. And once his humanity becomes exposed this misleading unbound personality will fail for having taken on superhuman responsibility. 83 Unbound to true communal reciprocal responsibility he will not bring a true sense of community. 84 By demanding communal reciprocity, Bonhoeffer effectively engaged with a sense of fruitful togetherness in community with Schmitt's idea of needing an existential enemy.
In his 1932-33 lecture series, Bonhoeffer fleshed out his theology on creation and preservation as two sides of the same activity of God. 85 This engaged with Schmitt's theory that it is the state that knows justice and uses laws to mediate justice to the empirical world of the individual. 86 However, Bonhoeffer's theology of orders of creation and preservation lost its impact once the state, party and person of the Führer were merged

Insights from the Bonhoeffer-Leibholz cooperation
In courageously stepping out into public opposition in 1932-33 both, Bonhoeffer and Leibholz stringently discussed the central features of this new myth-filled totality of life. At this point also Schmitt was working on preventing a National Socialist government. 92 And for Leibholz it was still improbable that a Fascist style radical collectivization of the individual and a mass-absorption of the intellect could happen within the German circumstances. 93  Overall, Leibholz's insight into replacing the republican democraticrepresentational system with a mythical leader-centred Fascist theory of state and its messianic quality, gained in close jurisprudential cooperation with Schmitt, was for Bonhoeffer a major source of information. This background knowledge supported him in his pointed opposition to the abuse of the Christian faith for purposes of power, even before National Socialism was implemented. Starting in November 1932 Bonhoeffer risked stepping out from a private place into public theology to face the contingency of the "political" in coordination with Leibholz's jurisprudential opposition. But despite their knowledge both miscalculated the pervasiveness, extent, and dangers of the system's intrinsic populist anti-Semitic xenophobia that differentiated National Socialism from Fascism. It was obscured by being embedded in the call for a great personality who was vailed in divine-like myth and the promise for a new prosperous life. The prominence of the myth of unity had concealed the new system's foundation. It was built on 96 Wiegandt,Norm, The literary fragment that is attributed to around 1932 speaks of doubts and fear when the intention to study theology became public but also of the conviction to be triumphant in a way that will astonish enemies. This may have been an indirect reflection on his own fears and inner turmoil in regards to his beginning theological public opposition; DBWE 11:394-396. an anthropological contradiction, on an existential conflict with an enemy, on division, and not on a unity of life as it claimed.
Modern democracy functions only on the basis of an open society that tolerates and accepts others and acknowledges the dignity of all human beings. This ideal calls for continual re-evaluation, dynamic cooperation regarding arising problems, and for the involvement of all societal groups and individuals. 103 Bonhoeffer's theology of the late 1930s and early 1940s, built on Leibholz's jurisprudential discourse with Schmitt, is a call for early vigilance against abuses of power and any form or shape of underlying populist appeals to the negative sides of human nature. Bonhoeffer's theology is a warning against abdicating from God-given personal freedom, refusing accountability to others, and ignoring the responsibility that God has lovingly placed on human beings as a restriction to power. It calls for human beings to seek God-revealed life and justice, instead of creating them.