Overview

The Mark of Cain fleshes out a history of conversations that contributed to Germany's coming to terms with a guilty past. Katharina von Kellenbach draws on letters exchanged between clergy and Nazi perpetrators, written notes of prison chaplains, memoirs, sermons, and prison publications to illuminate the moral and spiritual struggles of perpetrators after World War II. These documents provide intimate insights into the self-reflection and self-perception of perpetrators. As Germany looks back on more than sixty years of passionate debate about political, personal and legal guilt, its ongoing engagement with the legacy of perpetration has transformed German culture and politics.The willingness to forgive and forget displayed by the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son became the paradigm central to Germany's rehabilitation and reintegration of Nazi perpetrators. The problem with Luke's parable in this context is that, unlike the son in the parable, perpetrators did not ask for forgiveness. Most agents of state crimes felt innocent. Von Kellenbach proposes the story of the mark of Cain as a counter narrative. In contrast to the Prodigal Son, who is quickly forgiven and welcomed back into the house of the father, the fratricidal Cain is charged to rebuild his life on the basis of open communication about the past. The story of the Prodigal Son equates forgiveness with forgetting; Cain's story links redemption with remembrance and suggests a strategy of critical engagement with perpetrators.

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9780199937455

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Katharina von Kellenbach's analysis is strong medicine. In this extensive case study she exposes the inability of rank and file Nazi perpetrators to confront their own responsibilities for the crimes they committed serving the Nazi cause. Their own words and denials become a modern day mark of Cain, warning future generations of the compounding power of personal, cultural, religious, and ideological identities to justify unspeakable violence to others. -- Henry F. Knight, Director of the Cohen Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Keene State College Through meticulous archival work and a capacious form of contemporary Midrash, von Kellenbach reimagines the biblical figure of Cain. This extraordinary book on the legacy of Nazi perpetrators manages to breathe new life into such notions as guilt, salvation, and justice not as something accomplished once and for all, but instead as ongoing labors--forms of repentance or penitential practice after genocide. This is a major contribution to Holocaust studies. -- Laura Levitt, Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies, and Gender, Temple University

"""Katharina von Kellenbach's analysis is strong medicine. In this extensive case study she exposes the inability of rank and file Nazi perpetrators to confront their own responsibilities for the crimes they committed serving the Nazi cause. Their own words and denials become a modern day mark of Cain, warning future generations of the compounding power of personal, cultural, religious, and ideological identities to justify unspeakable violence to others."" -- Henry F. Knight, Director of the Cohen Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Keene State College ""Through meticulous archival work and a capacious form of contemporary Midrash, von Kellenbach reimagines the biblical figure of Cain. This extraordinary book on the legacy of Nazi perpetrators manages to breathe new life into such notions as guilt, salvation, and justice not as something accomplished once and for all, but instead as ongoing labors--forms of repentance or penitential practice after genocide. This is a major contribution to Holocaust studies."" -- Laura Levitt, Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies, and Gender, Temple University ""Kellenbach has written an engaging book that reveals new case studies based on previously unpublished archival sources. Her lucid close reading of the biblical parable of Cain and Abel is an important essay on personal and collective ethics in the wake of genocide. As accessible as it is scholarly, The Mark of Cain is a captivating, highly readable academic work.""--HNET"

Katharina von Kellenbach's analysis is strong medicine. In this extensive case study she exposes the inability of rank and file Nazi perpetrators to confront their own responsibilities for the crimes they committed serving the Nazi cause. Their own words and denials become a modern day mark of Cain, warning future generations of the compounding power of personal, cultural, religious, and ideological identities to justify unspeakable violence to others. -- Henry F. Knight, Director of the Cohen Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Keene State College Through meticulous archival work and a capacious form of contemporary Midrash, von Kellenbach reimagines the biblical figure of Cain. This extraordinary book on the legacy of Nazi perpetrators manages to breathe new life into such notions as guilt, salvation, and justice not as something accomplished once and for all, but instead as ongoing labors--forms of repentance or penitential practice after genocide. This is a major contribution to Holocaust studies. -- Laura Levitt, Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies, and Gender, Temple University Kellenbach has written an engaging book that reveals new case studies based on previously unpublished archival sources. Her lucid close reading of the biblical parable of Cain and Abel is an important essay on personal and collective ethics in the wake of genocide. As accessible as it is scholarly, The Mark of Cain is a captivating, highly readable academic work. --HNET

Author Information

Katharina von Kellenbach is Professor of Religious Studies at St. Mary's College of Maryland.

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