Overview

Derek Hastings here illuminates an important and largely overlooked aspect of early Nazi history, going back to the years after World War I--when National Socialism first emerged--to reveal its close early ties with Catholicism. Although an antagonistic relationship between the Catholic Church and Hitler's regime developed later during the Third Reich, the early Nazi movement was born in Munich, a city whose population was overwhelmingly Catholic. Focusing on Munich and the surrounding area, Hastings shows how Catholics played a central and hitherto overlooked role in the Nazi movement before the 1923 Beerhall Putsch. He examines the activism of individual Catholic writers, university students, and priests and the striking Catholic-oriented appeals and imagery formulated by the movement. He then discusses why the Nazis embarked on a different path following the party's reconstitution in early 1925, ultimately taking on an increasingly anti-Catholic and anti-Christian identity.

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9780195390247

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Reviews

<br> Sometimes good things come in strange packages. I was looking through Derek Hastings' new book Catholicism & the Roots of Nazism to figure out what his arresting title could possibly mean. Hastings demonstrates beyond doubt that before the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923, significant segments of Catholic clergy and faithful in Munich were among the most important supporters of National Socialism, very much in tune with its increasing emphasis on Aryan racial supremacy and its contempt for Jews. <br>...a sound scholarly account of the links between Modernist Catholicism and National Socialism up until 1923. Though the book is provocatively titled, Hastings knows the difference between orthodoxy and Modernism. Specialists will find his work valuable. --CatholicCulture.org <br> Hastings's scholarly narrative...connects historic anti-Semitic ideology to the empire that implemented the Final Solution. -- ForeWord Reviews<br> The interpretation of early Nazism is quite in

Author Information

Derek Hastings is Assistant Professor of History at Oakland University.

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