Between 1939 and 1945 more than 17,000 Catholic German priests and seminarians were conscripted into Hitler's Wehrmacht. Men who had devoted their lives to God found themselves advancing the cause of an abhorrent regime. Lauren Faulkner Rossi draws on personal correspondence, of…
"Wehrmacht Priests unpacks the complex relationship between the Catholic Church and the Nazi regime, including the Church's fierce but futile attempts to preserve its independence under Hitler's dictatorship, its accommodations with the Nazis regarding spiritual care in the mili…
Lauren Faulkner Rossi plumbs the moral justifications of Catholic priests who served willingly and faithfully in the German army in World War II. She probes the Church's accommodations with Hitler's regime, its fierce but often futile attempts to preserve independence, and the s…