Overview

George Bell was one of the most significant British church leaders of the mid-20th century and in many ways he came to define the involvement of British church people with the issues which arose from the Third Reich. Gerhard Leibholz, a brother-in-law of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was one of the most senior German lawyers of the period, a refugee from Nazism who would become a founding father of the new constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. The two figures first encountered each other in the context of dictatorship and exile and in a brilliant, sustained collaboration over many years they fashioned a vigorous moral response to the crises of Nazism, Soviet communism, total war and cold war. This volume contributes fundamentally to our understanding of the ethical, religious, legal and political debates which Hitler’s regime provoked. It also brings to life a vivid picture of the realities of exile and the networks of support which were active internationally in the great refugee crisis of these momentous years. With its wealth of primary source material, previously unavailable in English, this book is an important contribution to the historiography of the Third Reich and will be of great value to scholars and students of Nazism and international history.

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The Bell-Leibholz correspondence, painstakingly and evocatively reconstructed here, is a major contribution to the religious and intellectual history of mid-twentieth century Europe. It provides rich food for thought on a range of issues that still have a contemporary relevance. * Richard Overy, Professor of History, University of Exeter, UK * Admirably edited by Andrew Chandler and Gerhard Ringshausen, this volume provides uniquely personal insights into the burgeoning international ecumenical movement, the nature of Hitler’s racial regime, the struggles of the German resistance and British-German relations during and after WWII. * Matthew Hockenos, Professor of Twentieth Century European History, Skidmore College, USA *

Driven out of Nazi Germany in 1938 because of his Jewish heritage, legal scholar Gerhard Leibholz, found more than just a welcoming hand in the Anglican Bishop of Chichester, George Bell. As their two-decades of correspondence attests, these unlikely comrades established a personal, political, and spiritual kinship analogous to Bell's friendship with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Leibholz's brother-in-law. Admirably edited by Chandler and Ringshausen, The George Bell-Gerhard Leibholz Correspondence provides uniquely personal insights into the burgeoning international ecumenical movement, the nature of Hitler's racial regime, the struggles of the German resistance, and British-German relations during and after WWII. * Matthew Hockenos, Professor of Twentieth Century European History, Skidmore College, USA * The Bell-Leibholz correspondence, painstakingly and evocatively reconstructed here, is a major contribution to the religious and intellectual history of mid-twentieth century Europe. The letters chart the efforts made by two powerful thinkers to challenge the totalitarianism of the age, restore confidence in a world of co-operation and tolerance, and link Christianity more closely with the shifting political and moral landscapes of the interwar and wartime years. The collection provides rich food for thought on a range of issues that still have a contemporary relevance. * Richard Overy, Professor of History, University of Exeter, UK *

The Bell-Leibholz correspondence, painstakingly and evocatively reconstructed here, is a major contribution to the religious and intellectual history of mid-twentieth century Europe. It provides rich food for thought on a range of issues that still have a contemporary relevance. * Richard Overy, Professor of History, University of Exeter, UK * Admirably edited by Andrew Chandler and Gerhard Ringshausen, this volume provides uniquely personal insights into the burgeoning international ecumenical movement, the nature of Hitler's racial regime, the struggles of the German resistance and British-German relations during and after WWII. * Matthew Hockenos, Professor of Twentieth Century European History, Skidmore College, USA *

Admirably edited by Ringshausen and Chandler, this volume provides uniquely personal insights into the burgeoning international ecumenical movement, the nature of Hitler's racial regime, the struggles of the German resistance and British-German relations during and after WWII. * Matthew Hockenos, Professor of Twentieth Century European History, Skidmore College, USA * The Bell-Leibholz correspondence, painstakingly and evocatively reconstructed here, is a major contribution to the religious and intellectual history of mid-twentieth century Europe. It provides rich food for thought on a range of issues that still have a contemporary relevance. * Richard Overy, Professor of History, University of Exeter, UK *

Author Information

Andrew Chandler is Professor of Modern History at the University of Chichester, UK. He is the author of several books, including The Church of England in the Twentieth Century: The Church Commissioners and the Politics of Reform (2005) and George Bell, Bishop of Chichester: Church, State and Resistance in the Age of Dictatorship (2016). Gerhard Ringshausen is Professor Emeritus at the University of Lüneburg, Germany. He is the author of a succession of studies of German church history and has specialized for many years in questions relating to religion and resistance in the Third Reich. He is a longstanding member of the board of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte/Contemporary Church History.

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