Justice & Law Quote by Otto Schily

Schily’s line is a politician’s tightrope walk: praise the uniform, then draw a bright chalk line around it. The opening clause hands the military its flowers - “tremendously important” during “catastrophes,” protector of the public - language that pre-empts the predictable accusation of being soft on security. It’s a rhetorical inoculation before the real point lands: the army’s legitimacy comes from exceptional moments, not everyday governance.

The hinge word is “But.” Schily isn’t debating whether the state should be strong; he’s warning about what kind of strength corrodes a democracy from the inside. “Auxiliary police force” is deliberately bureaucratic, almost bland, which is why it bites. It conjures mission creep: soldiers doing stop-and-search, crowd control, surveillance, the slow normalization of extraordinary powers. In postwar Germany, that’s not an abstract fear but a constitutional reflex. The country’s legal architecture is built around separating internal policing from the military precisely because history showed how easily “order” becomes a pretext.

The subtext is also political: crisis is the best salesman for expanding executive power. By granting the military a heroic past role, Schily acknowledges public anxiety and the appeal of visible force. Then he insists the emergency script can’t become the daily routine. It’s a warning about democratic muscle memory: once citizens get used to soldiers on the street, the definition of “catastrophe” quietly expands to include inconvenience, dissent, and ordinary risk.