Between God and Hitler
Between God and Hitler
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During the Second World War, approximately 1000 Christian chaplains accompanied Wehrmacht forces wherever they went, from Poland to France, Greece, North Africa, and the Soviet Union. Chaplains were witnesses to atrocity and by their presence helped normalize extreme violence and legitimate its perpetrators. Military chaplains played a key role in propagating a narrative of righteousness that erased Germany's victims and transformed the aggressors into noble figures who suffered but triumphed over their foes. Between God and Hitler is the first book to examine Protestant and Catholic military chaplains in Germany from Hitler's rise to power, to defeat, collapse, and Allied occupation. Drawing on a wide array of sources – chaplains' letters and memoirs, military reports, Jewish testimonies, photographs, and popular culture – this book offers insight into how Christian clergy served the cause of genocide, sometimes eagerly, sometimes reluctantly, even unknowingly, but always loyally.
- Draws on extensive, original research in German military, political, and church archives plus Jewish sources
- Foregrounds individual stories of many kinds of people in every chapter
- Helps to explain how the Holocaust was possible and how Christians became killers
Reviews & endorsements
‘Beautifully and absorbingly written, Between God and Hitler draws the reader in, to deliver the gut punch of the role of Wehrmacht chaplains, but also to compellingly explore that shifting role with broad perspective and extraordinary nuance, delivering fresh and important insight into the functioning of Nazism. Worthy of the widest readership.’ Belinda Davis, Rutgers University
‘Doris Bergen’s eagerly-awaited magnum opus draws on searing testimony of Holocaust survivors and the banal homilies of German military chaplains to show us what it meant to preach Christian virtue to the soldiers waging their war of annihilation in the Soviet Union. Far from opening up a fault line between notions of ‘just war’ and genocide, sermons and spiritual guidance were an essential part of mobilizing Germans and the military chaplains were proud of their service to the very end. This is an extraordinary work. Bergen leads us through some of the most challenging moral issues raised by the Holocaust and she is the most historically and morally enriching of guides.’ Nicholas Stargardt, author of The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939–45
‘A powerful and sophisticated work by a gifted historian that expertly details how military chaplains embraced martial traditions and the ethics of ‘warrior Christianity’ to become moral enablers of the Nazi regime. Serving God and Hitler proved a fraught moral battlefield for chaplains whose fealty to their Führer overshadowed principles of faith and conscience.’ Edward Westermann, author of Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany
‘Bergen conveys her findings with expertise and poignancy, in a way that contributes not only to the study of the history of religion in Nazi Germany, but also, perhaps more implicitly than explicitly, to the growing body of chaplaincy studies: of what it means to work within an organisation whose values are significantly different from the Christian message of peace and love.’ Natalie K. Watson, Church Times
‘… the author's expertise … flows profitably into the work. What makes the book particularly appealing is that it combines various research fields in an extremely productive way; in addition to historical research into violence and genocide, this also includes the history of the Christian churches during National Socialism as well as women's and gender history.’ Markus Thurau, H-Soz-Kult
Product details
June 2025Paperback
9781108720823
346 pages
229 × 152 × 18 mm
0.504kg
Available
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Table of Contents
- Introduction: an incongruous institution
- 1. 'We will not let our swords get rusty!: On the cusp of 1933
- 2. 1In times of peace the church arms herself for war1:
- 1933–1939
- 3. 1Gott mit uns1: Blitzkrieg, 1939–1941
- 4. Saving Christianity, killing Jews: June–December 1941
- 5. 1The power of Christian truth and Christian faith1: genocidal culture, 1942–1943
- 6. 1What should we preach now?1:
- 1944–1945
- 7. From Nazi past to Christian future:
- 1945 and beyond
- Conclusion:
- 1With what face should I remember this?.
