Karl Loewenstein (November 9, 1891 in Munich – July 10, 1973 in Heidelberg) was a German lawyer and political scientist, regarded as one of the prominent figures of Constitutional law in the twentieth century.
He received American citizenship and after World War II worked for the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMG) in West Germany.
In 1931 Loewenstein completed his postgraduate studied on comparative government and began working as a part-time lecturer in law at Munich University.
[1] After the Nazi Party seized power in 1933 Loewenstein immigrated to the United States and worked for two years at Yale University as a lecturer in politics.
[2] He published an academic review of how the Nazis parasitized the German Civil Code in the three years since taking power, explaining bitterly that "National Socialism is anti-liberal and anti-individualistic, by implication it is irrational, mystical, and romantic; by its result it is totalitarian to the point of religious obsession.
"[3] In 1937 Loewenstein published two articles in The American Political Science Review which analyzed the failure of the Weimar Republic and the collapse of democracies on the European continent after World War I. Loewenstein argued that the failed European democracies lacked effective instruments to defend against modern anti-democratic movements.
Therefore, Loewenstein reasoned that a self-preserving democratic state should be prepared to use emergency powers and temporarily suspend a fundamental human right, if the institutional rule of law is obstructed or sabotaged.
[9] When World War II ended in 1945 Loewenstein jumped at the opportunity to work as a consultant for the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMG).
Loewenstein was joined by the exiles Franz Neumann, Ferdinand Hermens and Alexander Rüstow in the attempt to establish political science an independent faculty that developed methodologies of research with autonomy from university subjects such as philosophy, history and jurisprudence.
He regarded political science as autonomous university subject because "more and more, power is being considered the dynamic infrastructure of sociopolitical institutions".
While the universities in the liberal-conservative mainland West Germany awarded professorships to Arnold Bergstraesser, Heinrich Brüning, Ferdinand A. Hermens, Fritz Morstein Marx, and Eric Voegelin.
Loewenstein was 65 years old when he was appointed and was formally put on leave from teaching at Munich University so he could continue to retain his primary residence and professorship in the US.
[21] In 1957 Loewenstein published his book on Political Power and the Governmental Process (retitled Verfassungslehre in a later translation into German), which was reprinted several times.