For the Soul of the People

Organized religion is often justly accused of hypocrisy and complacency, of which there can be no better example than the acquiescence of German Christians in Hitler's genocidal persecution of the Jews. One church, however, has long been explicitly exempted from this charge. The Confessing Church, which broke away from the state church to protest against Nazi interference in church affairs, was labelled a `resistance movement' and produced many examples of moral heroism and not a few martyrs. As the book reveals, however, the `resistance' of the Confessing Church was neither unqualified nor unanimous. Victoria Barnett has interviewed more than sixty Germans who were active in the Confessing Church. They reflect on what happened to them politically and morally during the Third Reich and how those experiences affected their values and politics after 1945. The resulting frank testimony provides the material for an engrossing case-study in moral behaviour that is not only an important contribution to our understanding of German behaviour under Nazism, but a timely addition to the ongoing debate about the proper relation of religion to political belief and action.