Bishop von Galen

Bishop von Galen
Author: Beth A. Griech-Polelle
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2008-10-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0300131976

Clemens August Graf von Galen, Bishop of Münster from 1933 until his death in 1946, is renowned for his opposition to Nazism, most notably for his public preaching in 1941 against Hitler’s euthanasia project to rid the country of sick, elderly, mentally retarded, and disabled Germans. This provocative and revisionist biographical study of von Galen views him from a different perspective: as a complex figure who moved between dissent and complicity during the Nazi regime, opposing certain elements of National Socialism while choosing to remain silent on issues concerning discrimination, deportation, and the murder of Jews. Beth Griech-Polelle places von Galen in the context of his times, describing how the Catholic Church reacted to various Nazi policies, how the anti-Catholic legislation of the Kulturkampf shaped the repertoire of resistance tactics of northwestern German Catholics, and how theological interpretations were used to justify resistance and/or collaboration. She discloses the reasons for von Galen’s public denunciation of the euthanasia project and the ramifications of his openly defiant stance. She reveals how the bishop portrayed Jews and what that depiction meant for Jews living in Nazi Germany. Finally she investigates the creation of the image of von Galen as “Grand Churchman-Resister” and discusses the implications of this for the myth of Catholic conservative “resistance” constructed in post-1945 Germany.

The Lion of Münster

The Lion of Münster
Author: Daniel Utrecht
Publisher: Tan Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: Anti-Nazi movement
ISBN: 9781618907646

In this, the definitive English language biography of the great Lion of Münster, readers will encounter the young von Galen as he learns the Catholic faith and love of the fatherland from his family, members of the German aristocracy.

A Lion Among Wolves

A Lion Among Wolves
Author: Mark Rydell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016-01-20
Genre:
ISBN: 9781515209270

The purpose of this small book is to give a concise historical account of the life and work of Clemens August Graf von Galen, Bishop of M�nster, Germany (1933-1946). The focus of the book is primarily on Bishop von Galen's protests of Nazi injustices, the Nazi's response to him, and why the Nazis did not arrest him.

The Battle for the Catholic Past in Germany, 1945–1980

The Battle for the Catholic Past in Germany, 1945–1980
Author: Mark Edward Ruff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2017-07-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 110812139X

Were Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church in Germany unduly singled out after 1945 for their conduct during the National Socialist era? Mark Edward Ruff explores the bitter controversies that broke out in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1945 to 1980 over the Catholic Church's relationship to the Nazis. He explores why these cultural wars consumed such energy, dominated headlines, triggered lawsuits and required the intervention of foreign ministries. He argues that the controversies over the church's relationship to National Socialism were frequently surrogates for conflicts over how the church was to position itself in modern society - in politics, international relations and the media. More often than not, these exchanges centered on problems perceived as arising from the postwar political ascendancy of Roman Catholics and the integration of Catholic citizens into the societal mainstream.

Scapegoat

Scapegoat
Author: Katharine Quarmby
Publisher: Granta Books
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2011-06-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1846273463

Every few months there's a shocking news story about the sustained, and often fatal, abuse of a disabled person. It's easy to write off such cases as bullying that got out of hand, terrible criminal anomalies or regrettable failures of the care system, but in fact they point to a more uncomfortable and fundamental truth about how our society treats its most unequal citizens. In Scapegoat, Katharine Quarmby looks behind the headlines to question and understand our discomfort with disabled people. Combining fascinating examples from history with tenacious investigation and powerful first person interviews, Scapegoat will change the way we think about disability - and about the changes we must make as a society to ensure that disabled people are seen as equal citizens, worthy of respect, not targets for taunting, torture and attack.

Behind Valkyrie

Behind Valkyrie
Author: Peter Hoffmann
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2011-04-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0773587152

While the "Valkyrie" plot by Nazi officers to kill Adolf Hitler is the best known instance of German opposition to his dictatorship, there were many other significant acts of resistance. Behind Valkyrie collects documents, letters, and testimonies of Germans who fought Hitler from within, making many of them available in their entirety and in English for the first time.

Constantine's Sword

Constantine's Sword
Author: James Carroll
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 774
Release: 2002
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780618219087

A rare book that combines searing passion with a subject that has affected all of our lives. "Chicago Tribune" Novelist, cultural critic, and former priest James Carroll marries history with memoir as he maps the two-thousand-year course of the Church s battle against Judaism and faces the crisis of faith it has sparked in his own life. Fascinating, brave, and sometimes infuriating ("Time"), this dark history is more than a chronicle of religion. It is the central tragedy of Western civilization, its fault lines reaching deep into our culture to create a deeply felt work ("San Francisco Chronicle") as Carroll wrangles with centuries of strife and tragedy to reach a courageous and affecting reckoning with difficult truths."

A Moral Reckoning

A Moral Reckoning
Author: Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307424448

With his first book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen dramatically revised our understanding of the role ordinary Germans played in the Holocaust. Now he brings his formidable powers of research and argument to bear on the Catholic Church and its complicity in the destruction of European Jewry. What emerges is a work that goes far beyond the familiar inquiries—most of which focus solely on Pope Pius XII—to address an entire history of hatred and persecution that culminated, in some cases, in an active participation in mass-murder. More than a chronicle, A Moral Reckoning is also an assessment of culpability and a bold attempt at defining what actions the Church must take to repair the harm it did to Jews—and to repair itself. Impressive in its scholarship, rigorous in its ethical focus, the result is a book of lasting importance.

Wehrmacht Priests

Wehrmacht Priests
Author: Lauren Faulkner Rossi
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2015-04-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674598482

Lauren Faulkner Rossi plumbs the moral justifications of Catholic priests who served willingly and faithfully in the German army in World War II. She probes the Church’s accommodations with Hitler’s regime, its fierce but often futile attempts to preserve independence, and the shortcomings of Church doctrine in the face of total war and genocide.

The German War

The German War
Author: Nicholas Stargardt
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 761
Release: 2015-10-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0465073972

A groundbreaking history of what drove the Germans to fight -- and keep fighting -- for a lost cause in World War II In The German War, acclaimed historian Nicholas Stargardt draws on an extraordinary range of firsthand testimony -- personal diaries, court records, and military correspondence -- to explore how the German people experienced the Second World War. When war broke out in September 1939, it was deeply unpopular in Germany. Yet without the active participation and commitment of the German people, it could not have continued for almost six years. What, then, was the war the Germans thought they were fighting? How did the changing course of the conflict -- the victories of the Blitzkrieg, the first defeats in the east, the bombing of German cities -- alter their views and expectations? And when did Germans first realize they were fighting a genocidal war? Told from the perspective of those who lived through it -- soldiers, schoolteachers, and housewives; Nazis, Christians, and Jews -- this masterful historical narrative sheds fresh and disturbing light on the beliefs and fears of a people who embarked on and fought to the end a brutal war of conquest and genocide.