The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany: Amazon.ca: Guenter Lewy: Books

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"The tragic failure of the Catholic Church to live up to its moral canons in the confrontation with Nazism is traced in shattering detail in this disturbing book." -- The New York Review of Books

Book Description

”The subject matter of this book is controversial,” Guenter Lewy states plainly in his preface. To show the German Catholic Church’s congeniality with some of the goals of National Socialism and its gradual entrapment in Nazi policies and programs, Lewy describes the episcopate’s support of Hitler’s expansionist policies and its failures to speak out on the persecution of the Jews. To this tragic history Lewy brings new focus and research, illuminating one of the darkest corners of our century with scholarship and intellectual honesty in a riveting, and often painful, narrative.

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6 Reviews

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3.5 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Painfully Fair, May 18 2001

By

Douglas Hyden (Tallahassee, Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (Paperback)

The Christian contribution and response to the actions of Nazi Germany, in particular the Holocaust, is perhaps the most apalling event in the history of Western civilization. One reads Mr. Lewy's contribution to Holocaust scholarship with an ever growing sense of rage. One's rage is not directed at the Catholic Church in particular, because there were no corporate heroes in this tragic episode. There were individual acts of heroism, to be sure, but at best the Church (and by Church, I mean Protestant as well as Catholic)is guilty of massive self-interest and moral cowardice. This book is a case study in the behavior of one group. A sense of fairness and dry scholarship pervades this book. One will not find diatribes here; neither will one find the selective omission of facts favorable to the church mentioned by one reviewer. One will find the facts laid out by someone who has bent over backward to give the benefit of the doubt but who has also laid out the case against the Church with the skill of a brilliant and experienced prosecutor. Only occasionally do his outrage and passion shine through, and then only in summary and conclusion paragraphs. Is the author fair? He is at pains to describe the persecution of the Catholic Church by the Nazis. He leaves no doubt that throughout the Nazi period, the very existence of the Church as a moral force was endangered by Nazi arrogance, contempt, deceit, and betrayal. The Church was, indeed, a wounded church, dealing from a position of weakness, not strength. And yet. In its zeal to protect the institution, the Church abandoned, perhaps forever, any claim it may have ever had to moral legitimacy (my claim, not Lewy's). Better for the German Catholic Church to have died a martyr's death than to live as Hitler's more or less willing pawn. People are more precious in God's sight than institutions.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly Scholarly, Painfully Convincing, Sep 20 2000

By

John Boland - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (Paperback)

Having read, "Hitler's Pope" I eagerly grabbed Lewy's book as it became available. To my mind, it is far more scholarly than the former, and thus more convincing. Many of the criticisms leveled at "Hitler's Pope" will be undone by the new year 2000 release of Gunter Lewy's work. He has done his homework and it is painfully clear that "evil triumphs when good men do nothing." One watches the gradual trend from outright condemnation of Nazism by the German Catholic bishops, such as forbidding mutual membership in both th Nazi party and the Catholic church; forbidding the sacraments to Nazi party members; forbidding the wearing of the Nazi uniform in church, etc., to first softening their views, then allowing their protests to be couched in such ambiguous language as to have little effect, then accomodating portions of the Nazi program, then outright concluding an agreement between the Church and Reich. Pressure of the reality of the growing power of the Nazi regime, the desire of the Catholic laity to be both Catholic and Nazi (after all the Nazi party controlled their jobs and all of the societal institutions, in time), and the timorous hope of the Church that by accomodating the Reich, it might favorably influence the Reich toward a more humane perspective, all combined to give Hitler the sanction of the most widely recognized moral authority in the world. Frightening, to be sure.

One sees similar arguments in the recent agreement between the United States and Communist China. We expect to reform them, by getting into bed with them, so to speak. If "The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany" is any indication of how such accomodations work, they will do more to corrupt us than we do to reform them.

Worth reading. A bit difficult to read because of its very methodical scholarship, but compelling nevertheless.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading, Feb 7 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (Paperback)

A balanced, fair, detailed and scholarly book that could be of interest to all except those who are irrevocably, rigidly and unalterably pro- or anti-Catholic.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading
A balanced, fair, detailed and scholarly book that could be of interest to all except those who are irrevocably, rigidly and unalterably pro- or anti-Catholic.

Published on Feb 7 2002

1.0 out of 5 stars Anti-Catholic bias
Despite the trappings of scholarship, the book is unbalanced. It systematically ignores or downplays the evidence of the Catholic Church's opposition to Nazism. Read more

Published on Oct 1 2000 by Ed Browne