Overview

Preaching to Nazi Germany explores the history of Confessing Church preachers' engagement with the Nazi regime through an analysis of their sermons. William Skiles argues that clergy expressed various messages that aimed to limit Nazi interference in church affairs and at times even to undermine the Nazi state and its leaders and policies. Skiles demonstrates that pastors had limited freedom to publicly criticize the Nazi regime, its leaders, and its ideology, and that pastors often used Christian symbols to code their criticisms to remain inconspicuous to the Gestapo or Nazi informants. This book demonstrates how pastors used a sacred text and applied it to the problems of the churches in Nazi Germany.

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9781978700635

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By sifting through and analyzing all the sermons of Confessing Church pastors during the Nazi regime that he could find—about 900 in all—William Skiles has provided us an interesting and nuanced understanding of the Confessing Church. He brilliantly explains the position the Confessing Church took vis-à-vis both the Nazi regime and the Jews. Anyone wanting to understand the response of the churches to Nazism needs to read this book. -- Richard Weikart, California State University, Stanislaus

Author Information

William Skiles is associate professor of history and chair of General Education at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

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