”The subject matter of this book is controversial,” Guenter Lewy states plainly in his preface. To show the German Catholic Church’s congeniality with some of the goals of National Socialism and its gradual entrapment in Nazi policies and programs, Lewy describes the episcopate’s support of Hitler’s expansionist policies and its failures to speak out on the persecution of the Jews. To this tragic history Lewy brings new focus and research, illuminating one of the darkest corners of our century with scholarship and intellectual honesty in a riveting, and often painful, narrative.

Written with economy and in chronological order, this book offers a comprehensive account of the response to the Nazi tyranny by Pope Pius XII, his envoys, and various representatives of the Catholic Church in every country where Nazism existed before and during WWII. Peter Bartley makes extensive use of primary sources letters, diaries, memoirs, official government reports, German and British. He manifestly quotes the works of several prominent Nazis, of churchmen, diplomats, members of the Resistance, and ordinary Jews and gentiles who left eye-witness accounts of life under the Nazis, in addition to the wartime correspondence between Pius XII and President Roosevelt. This book reveals how resistance to Hitler and rescue work engaged many churchmen and laypeople at all levels, and was often undertaken in collaboration with Protestants and Jews. The Church paid a high price in many countries for its resistance, with hundreds of churches closed down, bishops exiled or martyred, and many priests shot or sent to Nazi death camps. Bartley also explores the supposed inaction of the German bishops over Hitler's oppression of the Jews, showing that the Reich Concordat did not deter the hierarchy and clergy from protesting the regime's iniquities or from rescuing its victims. While giving clear evidence for Papal condemnation of the Jewish persecution, he also explains why Pius XII could not completely set aside the language of diplomacy and be more openly vocal in his rebuke of the Nazis.

Discusses a range of religious scholars, but focuses on five major theologians who were born during the Kulturkampf, came to maturity and international recognition during the Hitler era, and had an influence on Catholicism in the English-speaking world. While three were sympathetic to the Third Reich in varying degrees and the other two were publicly critical of the new regime, the book takes a look of each of their stances regarding the Third Reich's anti-Jewish propaganda.

Prior to the outbreak of World War II, nearly forty thousand German Catholics were involved in the German Catholic Peace League, a movement that caused many people in various countries to seriously reconsider the dimension of pacifism in their faith. During the course of the War, however, many of these same German Catholics raised no serious objection to serving in Germany's armies or swearing allegiance to Adolph Hitler. First published in 1962, German Catholics and Hitler's Wars created a furor, ultimately causing a serious reevaluation of church-state relationships and, in particular, of the morality of war. This work began as an attempt to understand the demise of the German Catholic Peace League. But because of various factors, including the destruction of vital records, Gordon C. Zahn began to consider the behavior of German Catholics in general and the evidence of their almost total conformity to the war demands of the Nazi regime. Using sociological analysis, he argues convincingly for the existence of a super-effective system of social controls, and of a selection between the competing values of Catholicism and nationalism. Although Zahn never speculates, conclusions are inescapable, chief among them that the traditional Catholic doctrine of the "just war" has ceased to be operative for Catholics in the modern world.

For years, the policies of the Catholic Church during the rise and terribly destructive rule of the Nazis have been controversial. Pope Pius XII has been attacked as "Hitler's Pope," an anti-Semitic enabler who refused to condemn Nazism, much less urge Catholics to resist the German regime. The Church has been accused of standing by while the Nazis steadily revealed their evil designs. Yet all such arguments have been based only on sketchy evidence. The Vatican has kept its internal workings secret and locked away from scrutiny. Until now. In February 2003, the Vatican opened its archives for the crucial years of the Nazi consolidation of power, up until 1939. Peter Godman, thanks to his long experience in Vatican sources and his reputation as an impartial, non-Catholic historian of the Church, was one of the first scholars to explore the new documents. The story they tell is revelatory and surprising and forces a major revision of the history of the 1930s. It is a story that reveals the innermost workings of the Vatican, an institution far more fractured than monolithic, one that allowed legalism to trump moral outrage. Godman's narrative is doubly shocking: At first, the Church planned to condemn Nazism as heretical, and drafted several variations of its charges in the mid-1930s. However, as Mussolini drew close to Hitler, and Pope Pius XI grew more concerned about communism than fascism, the charge was reduced to a denunciation only of bolshevism. The Church abandoned its moral attack on the Nazis and retreated to diplomacy, complaining about treaty violations and delivering weak protests while the horrors of religious persecution mounted. As Godman demonstrates, the policies of Pius XII were all determined by his predecessor, Pius XI. The Church was misled not so much by "Hitler's Pope" as by a tragic miscalculation and a special relationship with the Italian government. Mussolini toyed with the Church, even proposing that Hitler be excommunicated. Yet in the end, when presented with further evidence of Nazi depredations, Pius XI could only comment, "Kindly God, who has allowed all this to happen at present, undoubtedly has His purpose." Reproducing the key Church documents in full and quoting verbatim conversations between Pius XI and his bishops, Hitler and the Vatican is the most extraordinary look inside the secretive Vatican ever written.

The “explosive” (The New York Times) bestseller that “redefined the history of the twentieth century” (The Washington Post ) This shocking book was the first account to tell the whole truth about Pope Pius XII's actions during World War II, and it remains the definitive account of that era. It sparked a firestorm of controversy both inside and outside the Catholic Church. Award-winning journalist John Cornwell has also included in this seminal work of history an introduction that both answers his critics and reaffirms his overall thesis that Pius XII fatally weakened the Catholic Church with his endorsement of Hitler—and sealed the fate of the Jews in Europe.

In one of the darker aspects of Nazi Germany, churches and universities - generally respected institutions - grew to accept and support Nazi ideology. Complicity in the Holocaust describes how the state's intellectual and spiritual leaders enthusiastically partnered with Hitler's regime, becoming active participants in the persecution of Jews, effectively giving Germans permission to participate in the Nazi regime. Ericksen also examines Germany's deeply flawed yet successful postwar policy of denazification in these institutions.