During the Second World War, approximately 1000 Christian chaplains accompanied Wehrmacht forces wherever they went, from Poland to France, Greece, North Africa, and the Soviet Union. Chaplains were witnesses to atrocity and by their presence helped normalize extreme violence and legitimate its perpetrators. Military chaplains played a key role in propagating a narrative of righteousness that erased Germany's victims and transformed the aggressors into noble figures who suffered but triumphed over their foes. Between God and Hitler is the first book to examine Protestant and Catholic military chaplains in Germany from Hitler's rise to power, to defeat, collapse, and Allied occupation. Drawing on a wide array of sources - chaplains' letters and memoirs, military reports, Jewish testimonies, photographs, and popular culture - this book offers insight into how Christian clergy served the cause of genocide, sometimes eagerly, sometimes reluctantly, even unknowingly, but always loyally.

Reveals the history of Protestant pastors and Catholic priests in Hitler's military, and their role in Nazi crimes.

About the Author
Doris L. Bergen is the Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on issues of religion, gender, and ethnicity in the Holocaust and World War II and comparatively in other cases of extreme violence. Her publications include War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust, now going into its fourth edition, with translations into Polish and Ukrainian. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and has taught in Canada, the USA, Germany, Poland, Bosnia, and Kosovo.

Reviews
'Beautifully and absorbingly written, Between God and Hitler draws the reader in, to deliver the gut punch of the role of Wehrmacht chaplains, but also to compellingly explore that shifting role with broad perspective and extraordinary nuance, delivering fresh and important insight into the functioning of Nazism. Worthy of the widest readership.' Belinda Davis, Rutgers University
'Doris Bergen's eagerly-awaited magnum opus draws on searing testimony of Holocaust survivors and the banal homilies of German military chaplains to show us what it meant to preach Christian virtue to the soldiers waging their war of annihilation in the Soviet Union. Far from opening up a fault line between notions of 'just war' and genocide, sermons and spiritual guidance were an essential part of mobilizing Germans and the military chaplains were proud of their service to the very end. This is an extraordinary work. Bergen leads us through some of the most challenging moral issues raised by the Holocaust and she is the most historically and morally enriching of guides.' Nicholas Stargardt, author of The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939-45
'A powerful and sophisticated work by a gifted historian that expertly details how military chaplains embraced martial traditions and the ethics of 'warrior Christianity' to become moral enablers of the Nazi regime. Serving God and Hitler proved a fraught moral battlefield for chaplains whose fealty to their Fuhrer overshadowed principles of faith and conscience.' Edward Westermann, author of Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany
'Bergen conveys her findings with expertise and poignancy, in a way that contributes not only to the study of the history of religion in Nazi Germany, but also, perhaps more implicitly than explicitly, to the growing body of chaplaincy studies: of what it means to work within an organisation whose values are significantly different from the Christian message of peace and love.' Natalie K. Watson, Church Times



Book Information
ISBN 9781108487702
Author Doris L. Bergen
Format Hardback
Page Count 334
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 610g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 159mm * 20mm