In his material-rich study from 1932 at the end of the Weimar Republic, Carl Schmitt examines the connection between the problem of a "guardian of the constitution" and the concrete constitutional situation. He initially refutes the view that, just as in the USA, the judiciary should be the guardian of the constitution for the German state as well. He then analyzes in depth the three state-dissolving tendencies that he believes emerge from the current situation: "pluralism," "polycracy," and "federalism." He questions why, in a democratic constitutional state, the parliament does not simply contain the guarantee of the constitution. According to Schmitt, this is no longer the case due to its transformation into the arena of a pluralistic system and the shift from a non-interventionist neutral state to an economic and total state. The state is faced with the...