Among German Hobbists, Carl Schmitt stands out for several reasons. Schmitt identified Hobbes as a major political thinker early in his career and spent the larger part of his very long life thinking and writing about Hobbes. As a political theorist, Schmitt is best known for his definition of the political as the relationship between friends and enemies, a concept that owes much to Hobbes. Schmitt's Hobbist conception of politics in turn influenced the political theory of Hans Morgenthau, who became one of the principal theorists of international relations and the chief proponent of realism in the twentieth century. Those who know Morgenthau only through his American writings may be surprised to hear of his connection to Schmitt. Yet an account of Morgenthau's early, European, intellectual activities reveals a direct connection with Schmitt that is of the highest importance, since it explains, among other things, why Hobbes has come to be considered a key thinker by theorists of international relations.

Schmitt and Morgenthau form part of the tradition of thinkers for whom negative association is an important element of group formation and preservation. What makes them a particularly important part of that tradition, however, is their recognition of Hobbes as its outstanding representative, and their roles in the reintroduction of a Hobbist realism to the English-speaking world.