Germany’s Catholic Fraternities and the Weimar Republic

Jeremy Stephen Roethler received his PhD from the University of Washington. Currently he is Senior Lecturer and Program Coordinator in the General Studies Program at Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas. He is also an active member of the American Catholic Historical Association and the German Studies Association.

• Contents: List of Illustrations – Introduction: Germany’s Catholic Fraternities – Catholic Fraternities and Confessional Conflict – Catholic Fraternities at War – A Republic in Crisis – Catholic Parties and Fraternity Politics – The Ethos of Catholic Community – A Catholic Commentary on German Nationalism – The Catholic Fraternities and National Socialism – Accommodation, Dissolution and Revival – Conclusion: The Significance of the Catholic Fraternities in German History.

«Any student or scholar of twentieth-century German Catholicism will have to read this book. It is part of a new wave of scholarship in the field that effectively disproves the social scientists’ insistence that religion no longer played a social or political role in the twentieth century. In addition, Jeremy Stephen Roethler’s work is a model of clarity and insight that ties his work on Catholic fraternities to larger questions of culture, religion, and politics. He ties the specifics of his archival study to important intellectual trends. Roethler’s work is especially important because it creates a foundation of understanding for the Catholic genesis of Germany’s postwar Christian Democratic leaders.»(Martin Menke, Professor of History, Rivier University, Nashua, New Hampshire)