The Dual State. A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship

2010. ISBN-13:9781616190699 ISBN-10: 1616190698. Landmark Study of Nazi Law Fraenkel, Ernst. The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship. Translated From the German by E.A. Shils, in Collaboration with Edith Lowenstein and Klaus Knorr. Originally published: New York: Oxford University Press, 1941. xvi, 248 pp. Reprinted 2010 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN-13:9781616190699; ISBN-10: 1616190698. Paperback. New. $39.95 * This classic study is one of the standard works on constitutional law, jurisprudence and judicial administration in Nazi Germany. Also considered one of the finest analyses of totalitarianism, it was written in Germany in the late 1930s and completed in the United States in 1940, where Fraenkel [1898-1975] lived after fleeing the Nazis in 1938. The title derives from Fraenkel's thesis that National Socialism divided the law into two co-existing areas. The first of these, The Normative State, protects the legal order as expressed in statutes, decisions of courts and the activities of administrative agencies. Its counterpart is the Prerogative State, which is governed by the party. It exercised "unlimited arbitrariness and violence unchecked by any legal guarantees" (xiii). "As a detailed record of what has happened to the Rechtstaat under totalitarian auspices, this book is without rival.": Fritz Morstein Marx, Harvard Law Review 54 (1940-1941) 1267.