The Dual State

Abstract Fraenkel sees the Nazi polity as a combination of the normative state, by which he means a rational state governed in accordance with clearly defined legal norms, and the prerogative state, by which he means a state which exercises power arbitrarily. The normative state is maintained as a precondition for the stability of capitalism, while the scope for arbitrary violence provided by the prerogative state enables the state to persecute its enemies. The escalation of the persecution of the Jews is particularly related to the growth of the prerogative state. However, for Fraenkel the ideology of community, and the pursuit of the perfect ethnic community via the persecution of the Jews, exists and occurs in order to obscure the reality of National Socialism’s role in restabilizing capitalism and reasserting class relations. It is Fraenkel’s emphasis on the nature of Nazi polity as an evolving system whose pursuit of ideological goals was a product of the increasing erosion of legal norms and their replacement with a state of growing lawlessness which makes his work central to subsequent discussions.