Otto Kirchheimer – Gesammelte Schriften

The sixth and final volume of this edition of Otto Kirchheimer’s (1905–1965) collected works is titled Politische Analysen für das OSS und Department of State (Political Analyses for the OSS and the Department of State) and consists of 19 reports that Kirchheimer produced for the United States government between 1944 and 1953 and the article A Constitution for the Fourth Republic, which was published in 1947. Most of the works presented in this volume are being made accessible for the first time and provide an insight into the analyses Kirchheimer produced for the US intelligence community. They include a wide range of topics from the immediate abrogation of Nazi laws during the Allied occupation and the developing political life of the young West German democracy to the emerging German Democratic Republic and the communist unions and parties of Western Europe. An elaborate introduction sheds light on the complex institutional structure of the intelligence services within which he conducted his career, and a special bibliography lists his further contributions to the intelligence community. The volume is also accompanied by a comprehensive glossary of key terms and names. It will appeal to scholars and students of political science, law, German history, criminology and sociology.