100 books like Faith and Fatherland

This engaging and accessible biography cuts through the mythology surrounding Pastor Martin Niemöller and his famous but often misunderstood confession, “First they came for the Communists….” Despite spending seven years in Nazi concentration camps, Niemöller is presented not as a stalwart opponent of Nazism but as a flawed individual who underwent significant transformation only after World War II, from a nationalistic, anti-democratic, militaristic Protestant elite to an internationalist, ecumenist, and pacifist willing to reckon with Germany’s past. Understanding the well-known statement as a confession is key, for as Hockenos explains, Niemöller did not remain silent about the arrest of socialists, trade unionists, and Jews because he was timid to speak out—he was silent because, at the time, he also disapproved of them. This is a book for those who want to read about individual transformation rather than heroic leaders presented on a pedestal. 

Bergen’s classic study of the German Christian movement explores the origins and influence of this sizable movement within German Protestantism that sought to synthesize Christianity and Nazism. The German Christians’ mission to transform Christianity into a ‘racially pure’ church manifested in practical ways, including denying the Jewishness of Jesus and excluding Christians of Jewish heritage. The book emphasizes the movement’s theological and political foundations, dispelling the myths that the German Christian movement was a purely Nazi creation imposed on the church or that the movement’s adherents were merely opportunistic. A central component of Bergen’s analysis is focused on gender, arguing for the centrality of gendered rhetoric and what would today be recognized as toxic masculinity. The narrative continues into the postwar period, revealing how many German Christians were able to reintegrate into German Protestant life after the war.   

Based largely on interviews conducted by Barnett in the 1980s, this book remains the standard text on the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany. Barnett situates the Confessing Church’s experience within the broader context of the Protestant Churches, which comprised two-thirds of Germany’s population in the Nazi era. Initially formed in response to the German Christian movement’s attempts to Nazify Christianity, the Confessing Church remained committed to the theological integrity and structural independence of the church. Yet Barnett argues that the Confessing Church was not a resistance movement against Nazism itself. Some were arrested and lost their lives, some made compromises with the Nazi regime, and some were antisemitic themselves. Their overlapping and clashing actions complicate the overall portrait of the Confessing Church. A distinctive feature of Barnett’s narrative is the attention given to women—church secretaries, wives of clergy, and the many women who played a greater role in maintaining the… show more.

The collective memory of Mennonites during the Holocaust has long been mythologized or has remained unexamined. A recent renewal of interest from both the Mennonite community itself and scholars of the Holocaust has led to a number of conferences and publications. This collection of essays showcases the latest scholarship and paints a complex portrait of Mennonites in both western and eastern Europe during the Holocaust. The book highlights the many roles that Mennonites played, largely due to their proximity to the events of the Holocaust, including as neighbors, killers, enablers, witnesses, and rescuers. The contributors discuss Mennonite identity, theology, agency, and collective memory, all situating their stories in local, national, and European geopolitical contexts. 

Huener has produced a definitive study of the Catholic Church in western Poland under German occupation. Identified by the Germans as the Reichsgau (district) Wartheland or Warthegau, it encompassed 45,000 square kilometers (roughly the size of Vermont and New Hampshire) with a “population of more than 4.9 million, including approximately 4.2 million Poles, 400,000 Jews, and 325,000 Germans.” Of this demographic, 3.8 million were Catholic and ninety percent were ethnic Poles. The German Reich incorporated the territory even though its borders remained guarded and not easily crossed. It included 1,023 parishes, served by 1,829 diocesan priests, 277 male religious, and 2,666 women religious.

Before World War II ended, the German occupiers would close more than ninety-seven percent of the churches, dissolve all Catholic organizations, deport, or imprison most women religious, and arrest more than 1,500 priests, of whom 815 they murdered directly or indirectly. In eighteen succinct and exceptionally well-written… show more.

Ruff has produced a tour de force examination of the behind-the-scenes historiography of the Catholic Church in Nazi Germany. A deeply and richly researched study, it enables both specialists and non-specialists alike to comprehend the complex and tempestuous writing of the history of the Catholic Church’s choices during Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s years in power. In particular, Ruff delves into the storm over Rolf Hochhuth’s controversial play, The Deputy, to help us understand the current controversies over the choices of Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust.  

Wolf argues that many conclusions that historians have made about Eugenio Pacelli’s conduct during the 1920s and 30s are valid, having confirmed this in his own investigation of the records released by the Vatican Secret Archive from Pius XI’s pontificate. At the same time, Wolf provides much-needed contextualization to trace the debates within the Vatican around central decisions taken by the Church’s hierarchy in the face of authoritarian regimes. Primarily utilizing four archival record groups from the Nunciatures of Munich and Berlin, Papal Secretariat of State, the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Wolf reconstructs Rome’s view of Germany from 1917-1939. He shows clear patterns in the choices that Eugenio Pacelli made as Nuncio in Munich and Berlin and as the Holy See’s Cardinal Secretary of State. Wolf’s writing style – made available in this fine translation – makes this complex history… show more.

Fuzhou serves as a perfect microcosm for examining the rise of Christianity in China. It’s less familiar than Shanghai or Beijing and, as a result, this very accessible history book has a freshness to it. Like Bays, Ryan Dunch, a China scholar at the University of Alberta, is an academic who knows how to make history engaging. The story begins in 1857 after the forced opening of Fuzhou as a treaty port after the First Opium War, and ends with anti-western violence that roiled the city in 1927. I owe Dunch a debt of gratitude. Fuzhou was the birthplace of my grandparents and I discovered on the pages of this book that in 1927, an anti-foreign mob attacked the Rev. Lin Pu-chi—a fact unknown to my family. That event was the key to deciphering the psyche of my grandfather.

Lerone Martin’s book makes a conclusive case for how influential Christian nationalism can be when it is embraced and enforced by a whole institution—like the FBI—but especially when the person leading that institution demands it be so. J. Edgar Hoover is likely one of the most influential purveyors of white Christian nationalism in American history. Some of the accounts are jaw-dropping.

As a lapsed Catholic and quasi-atheist/agnostic college professor studying political polarization, I often think that Christianity has become completely synonymous with white Christian nationalism in the U.S. Alberta’s book chronicles the internal politics within the evangelical church that helps explain this dangerous fusion of evangelicalism with conservative Trumpian politics today.

But, more importantly, his book helped me see that there are still many Christians who reject this version of their faith and who embrace a vision of Jesus more in keeping with the one I grew up loving: gracious, humble, and with unending love for those unlike himself.