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The article discusses the shaping of the relation between natural and statutory law in the philosophical, political and legal concepts from the Antiquity until the Middle Ages. Firstly, the author analyzes the views of a sophist – Aristotle, and Stoics – Saint Augustine of Hippo and Saint Thomas Aquinas in order to identify on their basis the main principles concerning the matter at hand. His research permitted him to conclude that during the mentioned period the prevailing conviction was that statutory law (positive law) should not violate natural law (and sometimes simultaneously God`s law) because the latter was perceived as a higher legal order. Statutory law that conflicted with the higher law was usually considered invalid and – as such – not creating the obligation of obedience. It was also considered unjust. For Christian thinkers God himself was the creator of principles of justice; therefore that law which came directly from him was put at the top of the legal structure. Natural law was seen as mirroring this law of God. In turn, statutory law was supposed to reflect the rules of natural law.

THE VIENNESE PERIOD IN ADOLF HITLER'S LIFE AS PRESENTED BY BRIGITTE HAMANN AND AUGUST KUBIZEKThe article discusses the literature and the findings concerning the relatively least explored questions concerning Adolf Hitler, namely those of his youth. As the author stresses, just over a dec­ade ago Polish readers interested in the Hitler phenomenon knew much less than they do now. Thanks to several books recently published in Poland they have had a chance to considerably expand their knowledge. The present author points to two figures, Brigitte Hamann and August Kubizek, focusing on the similarities and differences in their approach to this period of Hitler's life.

THE LEADER, THE NATION AND THE RACE. IDEOLOGICAL PREMISES OF THE NAZI CONCEPT OF LAW The subject matter of the article is devoted to discussing the ideological premises of the con­tent, aims, and functions of Nazi law from the perspective of the legal theoreticians and practition­ers of the Third Reich. Firstly, the significance and role of the supreme leader the Führer of the National Socialists and Germany in asingle person, namely Adolf Hitler, is discussed. The legal doctrine of the Nazi state perceived him — just as he did himself — to be the basic source of law and treated his political decisions as such. In fact, these decisions were even thought to stand above the Weimar Constitution of 1919 which was only formally in force and other pieces of legislation. Hitler was not merely viewed as the supreme legislator, but also as the highest judge, acting by the will of the German nation. Judicial decisions in the Third Reich were issued on his behalf. Accord­ing to Nazi lawyers, Hitler as Führer embodied and articulated the will of the German nation, whose needs, interests, and aspirations were considered the purpose behind the functioning of the state and the Reich's law. Furthermore, the German national community deutsche Volksgemeinaschaft rose to the rank of the near absolute determinant of the law's form and content. It was, in fact, the reference for one of the important principles of Nazi law, i.e. the common good before personal good Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz — hence, anegation of the concepts of individualism, including the unchallengeable nature of private property. In addition, the ideological premises of the Nazi concept of law also comprised racial issues. The Third Reich placed particular emphasis on racial purity and hygiene — which referred predominantly to the Germanic race — as acondition for the German national community's healthy functioning. Nazi law, inter alia, was supposed to serve precisely that end. The legal doctrine in Germany at the time adopted the unequivocal position that the law — together with the administration of justice — should be one of the most important guards of the longevity and purity of the Germanic race sometimes referred to as the Aryan race. This stipulation, which for the most part was consistently implemented, was closely linked to the National Socialists' almost zoological antisemitism. It was reflected in numerous normative acts by the Third Reich's authorities targeting the Jewish population in Germany and the countries it occupied during WWII.

CARL SCHMITT AND LEO STRAUSS ON LEGAL POSITIVISMThe article reviews a monograph autored by Łukasz Święcicki. The book is devoted to the critiques of legal positivism which were put forward by two German conservative thinkers, i.e. a lawyer Carl Schmitt and a philosopher Leo Strauss. The said critique is presented on the backround of the accomplishments of Polish scholarly analyses of Germany, with particular attention being paid to the research on German political and legal thought. The author of the article — referencing the contents of Święcicki's work — discusses the main premises and assumptions of the relevant criticism. While evaluating legal positivism, both Schmitt and Strauss reached similar conclusions even though their personal philosophical positions were vastly different. They both considered the paradigm of legal positivism as an example of modernity in reflection upon law which naturally clashed with the conservative understanding of legal questions.

The origin of universities reaches the period of Ancient Greece when philosophy (sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, stoics and others) – the "Queen of sciences", and the first institutions of higher education (among others, Plato's Academy, Cassiodorus' Vivarium, gymnasia) came into existence. Even before the new era, schools having the nature of universities existed also beyond European borders, including those in China and India. In the early Middle Ages, those types of schools functioned in Northern Africa and in the Near East (Baghdad, Cairo, Constantinople, cities of Southern Spain). The first university in the full meaning of the word was founded at the end of the 11th century in Bologna. It was based on a two-tiered education cycle. Following its creation, soon new universities – at first – in Italy, then (in the 12th and 13th century) in other European cities – were established. The author of the article describes their modes of operation, the methods of conducting research and organizing students' education, the existing student traditions and customs. From the very beginning of the universities' existence the study of law was part of their curricula, based primarily on the teaching of Roman law and – with time – the canon law. The rise of universities can be dated from the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modernity. In the 17th and 18th century they underwent a crisis which was successfully overcome at the end of the 19th century and throughout the following one.

The article deals with the question of the formation – since the end of World War One until the emergence of the Nazi regime – of various conceptions of the political system in influential and widespread intellectual circles of the so-called revolutionary conservatives who represented nationalist, anti-liberal and anti-parliamentarian views. This political ideology adopted a clearly critical position regarding political, constitutional and legal solutions adopted in the Reich after the fall of the Hohenzollern empire in 1918. Criticizing parliamentary democracy, though not necessarily democracy as such, revolutionary conservatives announced the need to establish a system of dictatorial leadership in Germany, modeled after the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, oftentimes seeing the then President of the Reich, Paul von Hindenburg, as a suitable person for this role (they rather sporadically perceived Adolf Hitler in this way). Some of them not only approved of an authoritarian model of government understood as an opposition towards the so-called Weimar system, but also accepted the principles of totalitarianism (e.g., C. Schmitt, E. Jünger, E. Niekisch). Since 1933, the Nazis partly adopted the anti-liberal, anti-parliamentarian and authoritarian conceptions of revolutionary conservatives, reaching for – among others – Carl Schmitt's theory of decisionism or Ernst Jünger's idea of the total mobilization of the nation.