State within the state

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State within the state ( Latin imperium in imperio ) is a negative political slogan that describes groups that are actually or allegedly not or only partially loyal to the government of a state and only obey their own laws.

Emergence

The phrase “Staat im Staate” can be found in German for the first time in 1764. She gained greater attention in the work Ueber Freymaurer, published in 1784 , especially in Bavaria by the Munich theater poet Joseph Marius Babo , in which he summarized various conspiracy fantasies that were currently in circulation. Babo charged that the Illuminati , a radical Enlightenment secret society , had already completely infiltrated the Bavarian state. If necessary, the uninitiated would be cleared out of the way with poison, the members would have committed themselves to absolute obedience to the order leadership, which they would not know personally:

"The Inquisition in Spain does not have such shameful principles, and an overt riot would be less harmful than this state within the state and this invisible poison."

Systematization

The charge of forming a state within a state is often, but not exclusively, raised against

  • national and other minorities
  • Parts of the state apparatus such as armies, secret services or powerful authorities,
  • Interest groups such as companies, trade unions or associations,
  • criminal organizations.

National, ethnic and religious minorities

National, ethnic or religious minorities are often accused of forming a state within a state. In particular, this is an anti-Semitic stereotype towards the Jews .

Other examples were the Jesuits in the 18th century up to the abolition of the Jesuit order , or the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia in the interwar period .

In 1899 , the African-American writer Sutton Elbert Griggs published a novel under the title Imperium in imperio , in which the blacks of the USA form their own state within the USA.

Parts of the state apparatus

Due to their lack of transparency, armies and intelligence services are often suspected of forming a state within a state. While the work of intelligence services in democracies is subject to - at least partially - parliamentary control, for example by the Parliamentary Control Commission in Germany, it remains deliberately uncontrolled in dictatorships . For example, the Russia correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung , Georgi Popow , spoke of the Cheka in 1925 as a “state within a state”. Christina Wilkening used the term “State within the State” to describe the way the Stasi worked in the GDR .

The military is often described as a state within a state when it assumes an autonomous socio-political role promoted by organizational and personal requirements and regulations and does not see itself as part of civil society , but is perceived as a structurally independent power factor with its own interests and political goals . Thus the Reichswehr became a state within a state through its own jurisdiction under the supreme command of the Reich President .

Even civil state action by civil servants, judges and other public officials is often only subject to indirect public control (see also transparency (politics) ). The groups of people mentioned can easily be accused of acting in their own interests rather than in the interests of the state and of forming a state within the state. For example, Bernt Engelmann sees civil service as a state within a state.

Interest Groups

Interest groups (primarily "(big) capital" and "the trade unions") are often ascribed to being a state within a state. In 1903, the US trade unionist Daniel de Leon described the railway company as imperium in imperio .

For example, Hans Stadler believes that he recognizes the trade unions as a state within a state that is reaching for power.

Manuela Maschke describes the history of the Israeli trade union Histadrut as the initial state within the state.

In many Central and South American states , the United Fruit Company was considered a state within a state because of its monopoly- like position and its economic power, which was often greater than that of the countries in which it was active.

Examples by country

Germany

At the beginning of the 20th century, Prussia and the German Empire , which was politically dominated by it, were regarded in the international consciousness as the refuge and epitome of militarism , i.e. as a state in which the military assumed an autocratic and special role largely freed from bourgeois control. Then took Karl Liebknecht in his work militarism and anti-militarism with special emphasis on international youth movement (Leipzig, 1907) with respect when he said:

“Just as no one has supposedly - to speak to Bismarck - imitated the Prussian lieutenant, so in fact no one has yet been able to imitate the Prussian-German militarism completely, which is not only a state within a state, but actually a state above Has become a state. "

The politically questionable special position of the military as an “internal power instrument to maintain the system” and the “abuse of the military as a domestic instrument of combat”, which Stig Förster describes as the essence of “conservative militarism”, was also the subject of contemporary discussions, such as those discussed on the occasion of the episode at the captain von Köpenick (1906) or the Zabern affair (1913/14) were led in public about the question of how it could happen and how it could be justified that the Prussian military could usurp political and administrative powers over the civil state administration.

A distanced special position vis-à-vis the state can also be stated for the Reichswehr during the Weimar Republic . Due to the Ebert-Groener Pact , the army was able to secure extensive internal autonomy. They used this to help the government - e.g. B. during the Kapp Putsch - to refuse to obey. Their soldiers were not fully integrated into the republic, as they had no right to vote and were subject to the isolated jurisdiction under the Reich President. The head of the Army Command, Hans von Seeckt, refused to give politics priority over the troops on the grounds that it was part of the state because it was the state. The Internal Leadership of the Bundeswehr should from 1956 to ensure that they, otherwise, are not designed to be the Army into a state within a state.

Lebanon

From the mid-1970s to 1990, Lebanon was ravaged by civil war. The open fighting between the Maronite Phalange militia and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was preceded by a series of reciprocal attacks and minor massacres between these groups. The cause of the civil war was the loss of ethnic equilibrium after the arrival of the PLO armed forces expelled from Jordan in September 1970. With the approval of Muslim Lebanese groups, these established an armed state within the state .

Pakistan

In Pakistan, the armed forces and their military intelligence service ISI are considered a state within a state. They have a major impact on politics, the judiciary and the economy.

Russia

Since the 1870s , in the reign of Alexander II , the Jews in Russia were accused by representatives of the Slavophile movement, such as Konstantin Aksakov and Fyodor Dostoyevsky , of forming a state within a state . This accusation can already be found in the publication Kniga Kagala (“The Book of the Kahal”) published in 1869 by the originally Jewish convert Jakow Brafman .

Turkey

In the Turkish language, the term Tiefer Staat ( derin devlet ) is used for this. The deep state is understood to mean the interdependence of security forces, politics, justice, administration and organized crime (in particular killer squads). The discussion sparked particularly around the so-called Susurluk scandal in 1996, but was already conducted in the 1970s with terms such as counter-guerrilla or the office for special warfare ( Özel Harp Dairesi ). In recent years the secret service of the gendarmerie with its abbreviation JITEM has appeared more frequently as the unofficial organization of measures against the opposition (including political murders, also known as extra-legal or extrajudicial executions). An example of this is an incident in Şemdinli ( Hakkâri province ) on November 10, 2005, in which a defector from the PKK and two members of the gendarmerie were involved.

Since the English deep state is largely used synonymously with state within a state , the term Tiefer Staat is increasingly being used in German for other states.

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: State within the state  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Baruch de Spinoza : Political Treatise , chap. II, § 6.
  2. ^ Ralf Klausnitzer: Poetry and conspiracy. Relationship Sense and Sign Economy of Conspiracy Scenarios in Journalism, Literature and Science 1750–1850 . De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-097332-7 , pp. 278 f. (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  3. ↑ E.g. Kamil Krofta: The Germans in the Czechoslovak State. Prague 1937.
  4. ^ Georgij K. Popov: Cheka, the state within the state: Experiences u. Experience with d. Russian extraordinary Commission. Frankfurt a. M. 1925.
  5. ↑ Christina Wilkening: State within the State: Information from former Stasi employees. Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-351-01814-2 .
  6. ↑ Bernt Engelmann: The officials: our state within the state. Göttingen 1994, ISBN 3-88243-236-5 .
  7. ^ "Imperium in imperio" in "Daily People" of June 4, 1903 (PDF file; 99 kB)
  8. ^ Hans Stadler: The trade unions: A state in the state. Munich 1965.
  9. ↑ Hans Stadler: The trade unions take hold of power: a red state within a state. Munich 1969.
  10. ↑ Manuela Maschke: The Israeli workers' organization Histadrut: from the state within the state to the independent trade union. Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-89846-251-X .
  11. ^ Gordon A. Craig, The Prussian-German Army 1640-1945: State in the State , Königstein / Ts. 1980, ISBN 3-7610-7231-7
  12. ↑ Quoted from Volker R. Berghahn (Ed.): Militarismus . Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1975. p. 91.
  13. ↑ Cf. Stig Förster: Military and Citizenship Participation. General conscription in the German Empire 1871–1914. In: Roland G. Foerster (ed.): The conscription. Origin, manifestations and politico-military effect. Munich, 1994. p. 58
  14. ^ Hans-Joachim Reeb , Peter Többicke: Lexicon of inner guidance. All aspects of Inner Leadership at a glance . 4th edition, Walhalla Fachverlag, Regensburg 2014, p. 245, sv Staat im Staate .
  15. ^ Carl-Gero von Ilsemann : The inner leadership in the armed forces . Walhalla and Praetoria-Verlag, Regensburg 1981, p. 55 u.ö.
  16. ↑ Ernst Eggers: The "deep" state. In: FAZ . September 7, 2014, accessed August 2, 2017 .