The Fascist Theory of the State - Reversal of Ends and Means
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume I, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
The inner logic of fascist ideology (Chapter 28.4) required a theory-of-the-state implementation. How was the state to be organized that realizes the myth, protects the Volksgemeinschaft, annihilates the enemy? The answer reveals a fundamental reversal of ends and means: institutions that are normally means for human ends become ends in themselves—and human beings become mere means.
28.5.1 The Systematic Perversion - From Means to End
Marx had analyzed the reversal of ends and means in capitalism. In normal economic activity, money serves as means to an end—one sells commodities © in order to obtain money (M), in order to buy other commodities with it: C-M-C. The end is need-satisfaction through commodities. In capitalism this logic is inverted: M-C-M′—one invests money in order to produce commodities, in order to obtain more money. The means (money) becomes the end; the actual end (need-satisfaction) becomes a mere means. The human being becomes an instrument of capital accumulation.
Fascism carried out an analogous perversion—but more radically. Normally, state, war, and concepts like “people” or “nation” are means for human ends: security, prosperity, self-determination, peace. In fascism these means became ends in themselves. The state does not exist for the citizens; rather, the citizens exist for the state. War is not waged in order to secure peace, but becomes a permanent form of life. Race does not serve the life of human beings; rather, human beings become means of “racial improvement.”
The structural parallel:
In capitalism: human being -> means | capital accumulation -> end
In fascism: human being -> means | state/war/race -> end
Both make the human being a mere means. Both pervert the end-means relation. But they do so in different ways. Capitalism makes the human being a means of economic valorization—but it needs him alive, capable of consumption, capable of work. Fascism makes the human being a means of biological-political projects—and does not need millions, but wants to annihilate them.
The difference shows in reformability: capitalism has immanent limits (profitability) and is in principle reformable through regulation, welfare state, unions. Fascism has no immanent limits—if race or struggle is an end in itself, there is no point at which one could say: “Now it is enough.” The system is not reformable—it must be destroyed from outside or it collapses on its own.
28.5.2 Carl Schmitt - The Theorist of the Blank Space
Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) was the most significant theorist of the state who theoretically prepared the transition from the liberal constitutional state to the fascist state of emergency. His analyses are precise, his diagnoses often accurate—his conclusions devastating. Schmitt supplied the form of the total state without determining its content. This blank space was filled by the Nazis.
The Starting Question: Who Decides?
“Sovereign is he who decides on the state of exception”—thus begins Schmitt’s “Political Theology” (1922).[1] The normal constitutional state operates according to rules. Laws determine what is permitted and forbidden. Courts decide according to established procedures. But who decides on the rule of rules? Who defines when the state of exception occurs, in which the normal rules no longer apply?
Liberalism had no answer to this question—or rather: it did not want to pose it. It hoped, through good constitutions, to avoid the state of exception. Schmitt showed: this is naive. Every order has a founding act that is not itself legitimated by the order. Every constitution has a constitution-giving power that is not itself bound by the constitution. Somewhere someone must decide—without being bound by prior rules.
This analysis was not wrong. It captured a real problem. The question is what consequences one draws from it.
The Friend-Enemy Distinction
In “The Concept of the Political” (1927/1932), Schmitt defined the essence of the political through the distinction between friend and enemy.[2] Not morally (good/evil), not aesthetically (beautiful/ugly), not economically (profitable/unprofitable), but existentially: who threatens our existence? That is the enemy. The political arises where this distinction is drawn.
The friend-enemy distinction is not rationally justifiable—it is decisionistic. One cannot prove through arguments who is the enemy. The sovereign decides it. And against the enemy everything is permitted—for it concerns existence.
Schmitt’s critique of parliamentarism followed this logic. Parliament, endless discussion, compromise—all this misjudges the seriousness of the political. In the serious case, what counts is not the better argument, but the decision. Liberalism wants to avoid the serious case by discussing it. But one cannot discuss away the serious case.
The Critique of Parliamentarism
Schmitt sharply analyzed the weaknesses of Weimar democracy: endless debates without decisions, particular interests instead of the common good, paralysis through pluralism, inability to act in crisis. The parties represented special interests, not the people. Parliament was a stage for intrigues, not a place of truth-finding.
This diagnosis was partially accurate. The Weimar Republic was unstable, the parties were at odds, governments changed constantly. But Schmitt’s therapy was fatal: instead of strengthening democracy, he pleaded for its overcoming through “decisionistic” leadership. The strong state that decides, instead of discussing.
The Legitimation of Dictatorship
In the “Constitutional Theory” (1928), Schmitt distinguished between “commissarial” and “sovereign” dictatorship. Commissarial dictatorship temporarily suspends the constitution in order to save it—like a doctor who injures the patient in order to heal him. Sovereign dictatorship creates a new constitution—it is constitution-giving power.
With this distinction, Schmitt could legitimate the Nazi seizure of power as a necessary act of rescue. The “Enabling Act” (1933), which gave Hitler dictatorial powers, appeared as a “commissarial dictatorship” to save Germany from chaos. That this became a permanent dictatorship, Schmitt had not predicted—but he made it possible.
The Blank Space - Form without Content
Here lies the problem: Schmitt describes the structure of the state of exception, but not its content. He says: someone must decide. But he does not say: what should be decided? He says: there are friends and enemies. But he does not say: who is the enemy and why?
These questions Schmitt leaves to the sovereign. The sovereign decides—and his decision is by definition legitimate, because he is the sovereign. A circle that accepts any content.
Schmitt’s theory is an empty formula—it says that a decision must be made, but not what. It supplies the state-theoretical form of the total state—but does not fill it with content. This blank space was filled by the Nazis: with race, with living space, with the extermination of the Jews.
Schmitt’s Role - Forerunner, Not Architect
Was Schmitt a Nazi? The question is more complicated than it seems. He joined the NSDAP in 1933, he legitimated Nazi rule juridically, he wrote antisemitic texts. But his antisemitism was opportunistic, not ideologically grounded as with Rosenberg. He was no race theorist, no blood-and-soil ideologue.
Schmitt was something else: a forerunner. He theoretically destroyed the normative barriers that protected the constitutional state. He made the total state thinkable and legitimate. He supplied the vocabulary—state of exception, friend-enemy, decision—with which the Nazis justified their rule.
This makes him an intellectual accomplice, even if he did not supply the content. Whoever opens the door is co-responsible for what comes through it—even if he did not summon it.
Systematic Placement
Schmitt’s theory of the state systematically negates the basic requirements of legitimate order:
Self-application is refused: the sovereign stands above the law, need not subject himself to the rules. The law applies to others, not to the one who makes it.
Differentiation is replaced by reduction: friend-enemy instead of mediation of various perspectives. Complex interest constellations are reduced to binary decisions.
Mediation is replaced by decision: contradictions are not sublated, but decided. Conflict is not resolved, but ended through power.
Recognition is denied to the enemy: the enemy is to be existentially negated, not recognized as a rational being. Against him everything is permitted.
Schmitt is the theorist of form without content. The Nazis supplied the content—and showed where Schmitt’s theory leads.
28.5.3 State, War, and Race as Supreme End
Where Schmitt left a blank space, the Nazis filled it with their worldview. Three elements formed the fascist “supreme end,” for which human beings became mere means—hierarchically ordered: the total state, permanent war, biological race.
The Total State - Not for the People, but as an End in Itself
Mussolini’s formula ran: “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato”—everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state. The state was not a means for human ends, but the highest end itself.
In German National Socialism the matter was more complicated. Hitler wrote in “Mein Kampf”: “The state is a means to an end. Its purpose lies in the preservation and promotion of a community of physically and mentally similar beings.” The state was thus not an end in itself (as with Mussolini/Gentile), but an instrument for the preservation of the race.
But this instrumentalization did not make the state weaker—on the contrary. A state serving only one purpose (racial preservation) can grasp more totally than a state that must balance various purposes. The coordination (Gleichschaltung) of all social spheres followed this logic: the economy became a war economy, education became military-preparatory education, culture became propaganda, family became a breeding institution. There were no more autonomous spheres—everything was subordinated to the one purpose.
War - Not as a Means of Politics, but as a Form of Life
Clausewitz’s famous dictum reads: “War is merely the continuation of politics by other means.”[3] War is instrumental—one wages it to achieve political goals. Once these are achieved, the war ends and peace returns.
Fascism inverted this: politics became the continuation of war by other means. War was not exception, but normal condition. “Life is struggle”—this formula ran through the entire National Socialist ideology. Not only between nations, but in all spheres: economic struggle, biological struggle, cultural struggle. The “Volksgemeinschaft” was a permanent community of war.
This explains the dynamic of radicalization. The regime could not stop at internal coordination. It had to expand, conquer, fight—for that was its purpose. War was not a means to secure German interests, but an end in itself. When the war was lost, only self-destruction remained—Hitler in the bunker, the “Nero Decree” for the destruction of the country’s own infrastructure, Goebbels’s call for “total war” to the point of downfall.
A system that makes war its purpose cannot endure lasting peace. It must escalate or collapse.
Race - The Biological Substance as Ultimate Ground
In the hierarchical structure of fascist ends, “race” stood at the top. Even the state was merely a means to its preservation and “improvement.” Even war was ultimately racial struggle—for “living space,” for the elimination of “inferior races,” for proving the “Aryan race.”
Race was understood as biological substance, not as a cultural or historical construct. It existed “by nature,” was prepolitical, precultural, prehistoric. Human beings were reduced to specimens of their race—their worth was determined not by deeds, character, achievements, but by belonging to the correct or incorrect biological category.
This led to systematic dehumanization: Jews, Roma, Slavs, people with disabilities were treated not as inferior human beings, but as non-humans, as biological pests that had to be “eradicated.” The language of extermination was consistently biological: “vermin,” “parasites,” “pests of the people,” “life unworthy of life.”
“Racial hygiene” was the logical consequence: forced sterilization for the “hereditarily ill” (from 1933, ca. 400,000 affected), “euthanasia” for people with disabilities (Aktion T4, ca. 70,000 murdered), the Lebensborn program for “Nordification,” finally the extermination of European Jews. Human beings became material for a biological breeding project.
28.5.4 The Logic of Totalization - Why Fascism Could Not Stop
The reversal of ends and means has an inner logic that drives toward totalization. It explains why the National Socialist regime could not remain at a “moderate” authoritarianism, but had to progress to totalitarian annihilation.
An Absolute End Tolerates No Boundaries
If the state, the war, the race are ends in themselves, there are no longer any external standards by which to measure them. Normally one asks: does the state serve the citizens? Does the war make sense? Is the policy humane? But if state, war, and race are themselves the standard, this question falls away.
No critic can any longer say: “This goes too far”—for there is no “too far” anymore. The standard would be exactly what is to be criticized. Every critique becomes sabotage, every objection becomes treason. The system no longer has self-limitation—and thus no brake.
All Means Become Legitimate
If the end is absolute, it sanctifies all means. There are no longer moral barriers that could not be crossed in the name of the higher purpose. Mass murder, torture, enslavement—all become acceptable if it “serves the race,” “benefits final victory,” “protects the Volksgemeinschaft.”
The annihilation of millions becomes “historical necessity,” “a heavy but necessary sacrifice.” Himmler spoke in his Posen speech (1943) of the “extermination of the Jewish people” as a “page of glory never written and never to be written”—a “heavy” work that one had “endured.”[4] The language of sacrifice, of duty, of necessity served to reinterpret mass murder as a moral achievement.
The Logic of Escalation
A system based on absolute ends can never say: “Now it is enough.” It must always continue, radicalize, escalate.
The “solution of the Jewish question” escalated: discrimination (1933), disenfranchisement (1935), pogrom (1938), ghettoization (1939-41), finally systematic extermination (1941-45). Every stage followed “logically” from the previous—if discrimination does not “suffice,” one must go further. And further. And further.
The war aims became ever more megalomaniacal: revision of Versailles, annexation of Austria, the Sudetenland, the rest of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Western Europe, the Soviet Union—each success made the next necessary. For struggle is an end in itself; peace would be betrayal.
There was no end point except total victory—or total defeat.
Self-Destruction
A system without self-limitation ultimately destroys itself. Fascism led not only to the annihilation of millions of victims, but also to the destruction of the societies in which it ruled.
The extermination of the Jews bound resources—trains, personnel, administrative capacity—needed for the war. The persecution of “inner enemies” (dissidents, deserters, “defeatists”) weakened society. The overextension of military forces through ever new conquests led to catastrophe.
In 1944/45, when defeat was inevitable, transports to Auschwitz were prioritized over military transports. This was not “rational”—but annihilation took precedence over survival.
Germany lay in ruins in 1945. The “thousand-year Reich” lasted twelve years. The reversal of ends and means led to self-sublation—in the most destructive sense.
The Philosophical Dimension
The reversal of ends and means is not merely a political or economic misdevelopment—it is a philosophical perversion. It negates the basic structure of reasonable action:
Self-determination means: the human being sets his own ends. In fascism, human beings are made into means of alien ends—of the state, the race, war. They lose their autonomy completely.
Mediation would require: different ends must be weighed, balanced, integrated. Fascism knows only one end and subordinates everything else.
Recognition presupposes: the other is also an end in himself, not merely a means. Kant’s categorical imperative—“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means”—is systematically violated.[5]
The reversal of ends and means is the practical-political manifestation of the negation of all basic requirements of legitimate order. It shows: if one perverts the rational structure of action, one inevitably ends up in barbarism.
The Contemporary Relevance of the Analysis
The warning remains relevant: wherever abstract ends (security, economic growth, national greatness, “progress”) are elevated to absolutes, for which human beings are to be sacrificed, fascist logic threatens. Not every reversal of ends and means is fascist—but every fascism is based on this perversion.
The critical questions must be asked: whom does this serve? Who is made a means? Are there limits? Is self-correction possible? If a system no longer asks these questions—or no longer may ask them—it is on the road to barbarism.
Carl Schmitt: Politische Theologie. Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Souveränität, Munich/Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1922. ↩︎
Carl Schmitt: Der Begriff des Politischen, Munich: Duncker & Humblot, 1932 (expanded edition of the first edition of 1927). ↩︎
Carl von Clausewitz: On War (1832), Book I, Chapter 1. ↩︎
Heinrich Himmler: speech before SS group leaders in Posen, October 4, 1943. Documented in: Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg 1947, Vol. 29, pp. 110-173. ↩︎
Immanuel Kant: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), AA IV, p. 429. ↩︎