The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany / Guenter Lewy.

Contains a map of 1933 German Diocesan boundaries (page 342).

Includes bibliographical references (pages 345-404), and index.

Part I The course is set -- 1. The encounter with National Socialism before 1933 -- 2. The first one hundred and twenty days of Hitler's rule -- 3. The concordat between Germany and the Holy See of July 20, 1933 -- 4. The great reconciliation.

Part II Modus vivendi -- 5. Tribulations of the Catholic organizations and the press -- 6. The ideological contest -- 7. The Church and Hitler's foreign policy -- 8. 1939 - 1945: The Church goes to war -- 9. The conflict over Nazi eugenic policies -- 10. The Jewish question -- 11. The problem of resistance.

Part III Church and totalitarianism -- 12. Catholic political ideology: the unity of theory and practice.

"Here, closely exploring the period from the collapse of the Weimar Republic to the end of World War II, Guenter Lewy has performed a ruly gigantic labor. He has examined thousands of German diocesan documents and diplomatic papers, Gestapo reports, and Catholic publications of the period. From them he shows the German Catholic Church's congeniality with some of the goals of Natioanl Socialism and its gradual entrapment in Nazi policies and programs. He describes the episcopate's support of Hitler's expansionist policies, and its failures to speak out on the persecution of the Jews or to encourage resistance. The result, an important, thoroughly documented book, set in the framework of a readable narrative, is a work that German authors have not been able to do, perhaps because of too great proximity to the subject. No reader will close this analysis without feeling that he too was an actual participant in the tragic events forced on the world by Nazi Germany, and no reader can help but understand that on him as well lies some share of responsibility." -- from the dust jacket