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Buchbinderei: W. Langeliiddeci

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This text, first published in 1941, provides a comprehensive analysis of the rise and nature of National-Socialism, and is the only such analysis written from within Hitler’s Germany. Its central thesis is that two states co-existed in National-Socialist Germany—hence, Fraenkel’s invention of the concept of the dual state. This was comprised of a normative state (which protected the legal order as expressed in legislation, decisions of the courts, and decisions of administrative bodies) and a prerogative state (governed by the ruling party, and unrestrained by legal guarantees). The relationship and conflict between these states is analyzed through decisions of the German courts and the development of judicial practice. The book is divided into three parts. The first part describes the existing legal order. The second part attempts to show that the parallel structures within Germany radically affected German politics and society. The third part delves into the relationship between the dual Nazi state and German capitalism. It asks whether the rise of the dual state was a consequence of a crisis in capitalism. While this book is primarily a first-hand account and analysis of the dual state’s operation in National-Socialist Germany, it retains its vital relevance for the theory of democracy in the twenty-first century. This republication of the 1941 English edition includes both Fraenkel’s 1974 introduction to the German second edition, never before published in English, and a new introduction by Professor Jens Meierhenrich of the London School of Economics and Political Science that places the book in theoretical and historical context and assesses its lasting legacy.