Overview

Why did some German Catholics support and others oppose the police state that was the Third Reich? In this insightful analysis, Donald Dietrich explores the social-psychological dynamics behind the religious reactions of German Catholics to political and moral issues during the late Weimar and Third Reich eras. Along with many other Germans, Catholics were enmeshed in a cruel dilemma. Assenting to Nazi ideals would mean a loss of moral credibility; opposing them would result in persecution. Dietrich shows how Catholics accommodated and sometimes resisted totalitarianism and the Final Solution. Three groups of Catholics are examined: the hierarchy, the theologians, and the laity. The literature on Nazi Germany is enormous. But this is the first analysis of the dynamics shaping individual motivations and group response to Nazi ideals. This comprehensive work fuses results derived from social science research with the massive amount of historical data available. It is an interdisciplinary study relating religious values to patterns of behavior, an issue that retains its significance today.

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9780887381317

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Reviews

Dietrich offers a careful reconstruction of the psychological dynamics that may have undergirded the apparent cultural captivity of most Catholics in the Third Reich. . . . His book not only offers a balanced synthesis of earlier scholarship but also suggests new ways of thinking about familiar issues. As such, it constitutes a worthy addition to the ever-growing list of major works on the church struggle. --David J. Diephouse, American Historical Review

Dietrich finds that the German Catholic Church courageously resisted the Nazi practice of exterminating physically and mentally deficient people but that it compromised most of the time with Nazi racial practices, largely out of concern for survival... [T]he author is applying the perspectives of social psychology to the period under study. He seeks to explain why people act as they do... Most appropriate for upper-division undergraduate and graduate students. --P. J. Bock, Choice

<p> Dietrich finds that the German Catholic Church courageously resisted the Nazi practice of exterminating physically and mentally deficient people but that it compromised most of the time with Nazi racial practices, largely out of concern for survival... [T]he author is applying the perspectives of social psychology to the period under study. He seeks to explain why people act as they do... Most appropriate for upper-division undergraduate and graduate students. <p> --P. J. Bock, Choice

-Dietrich offers a careful reconstruction of the psychological dynamics that may have undergirded the apparent cultural captivity of most Catholics in the Third Reich. . . . His book not only offers a balanced synthesis of earlier scholarship but also suggests new ways of thinking about familiar issues. As such, it constitutes a worthy addition to the ever-growing list of major works on the church struggle.- --David J. Diephouse, American Historical Review -Dietrich has given us a readable and convincing account... His methodology is suggestive and his explanations enable us to understand better the interaction of the different groups in the Catholic community of Germany as well as the interaction of politics and religion in a society under totalitarian stress.- --George P. Blum, Holocaust and Genocide Studies -Dietrich finds that the German Catholic Church courageously resisted the Nazi practice of exterminating physically and mentally deficient people but that it compromised most of the time with Nazi racial practices, largely out of concern for survival... [T]he author is applying the perspectives of social psychology to the period under study. He seeks to explain why people act as they do... Most appropriate for upper-division undergraduate and graduate students.- --P. J. Bock, Choice Dietrich offers a careful reconstruction of the psychological dynamics that may have undergirded the apparent cultural captivity of most Catholics in the Third Reich. . . . His book not only offers a balanced synthesis of earlier scholarship but also suggests new ways of thinking about familiar issues. As such, it constitutes a worthy addition to the ever-growing list of major works on the church struggle. --David J. Diephouse, American Historical Review Dietrich has given us a readable and convincing account... His methodology is suggestive and his explanations enable us to understand better the interaction of the different groups in the Catholic community of Germany as well as the interaction of politics and religion in a society under totalitarian stress. --George P. Blum, Holocaust and Genocide Studies Dietrich finds that the German Catholic Church courageously resisted the Nazi practice of exterminating physically and mentally deficient people but that it compromised most of the time with Nazi racial practices, largely out of concern for survival... [T]he author is applying the perspectives of social psychology to the period under study. He seeks to explain why people act as they do... Most appropriate for upper-division undergraduate and graduate students. --P. J. Bock, Choice Dietrich offers a careful reconstruction of the psychological dynamics that may have undergirded the apparent cultural captivity of most Catholics in the Third Reich. . . . His book not only offers a balanced synthesis of earlier scholarship but also suggests new ways of thinking about familiar issues. As such, it constitutes a worthy addition to the ever-growing list of major works on the church struggle. --David J. Diephouse, American Historical Review Dietrich has given us a readable and convincing account... His methodology is suggestive and his explanations enable us to understand better the interaction of the different groups in the Catholic community of Germany as well as the interaction of politics and religion in a society under totalitarian stress. --George P. Blum, Holocaust and Genocide Studies Dietrich finds that the German Catholic Church courageously resisted the Nazi practice of exterminating physically and mentally deficient people but that it compromised most of the time with Nazi racial practices, largely out of concern for survival... [T]he author is applying the perspectives of social psychology to the period under study. He seeks to explain why people act as they do... Most appropriate for upper-division undergraduate and graduate students. --P. J. Bock, Choice Dietrich offers a careful reconstruction of the psychological dynamics that may have undergirded the apparent cultural captivity of most Catholics in the Third Reich. . . . His book not only offers a balanced synthesis of earlier scholarship but also suggests new ways of thinking about familiar issues. As such, it constitutes a worthy addition to the ever-growing list of major works on the church struggle. --David J. Diephouse, American Historical Review Dietrich finds that the German Catholic Church courageously resisted the Nazi practice of exterminating physically and mentally deficient people but that it compromised most of the time with Nazi racial practices, largely out of concern for survival... [T]he author is applying the perspectives of social psychology to the period under study. He seeks to explain why people act as they do... Most appropriate for upper-division undergraduate and graduate students. --P. J. Bock, Choice

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