German Churches and the Holocaust: Betrayal ed. by Robert P. Ericksen and Susannah Heschel (review)

book reviews143 late 1944 and came to the realization that "all governments" were able to read their codes "with great facility" (p. 166). Ironically, this new information has serious ramifications for the argument advanced by Father Graham in the first portion of the book. Specifically, it seems reasonable to conclude that the RSHA might deem it unnecessary to devote valuable human intelligence resources against the Holy See if it were already reading its most sensitive diplomatic cables. Moreover, since the Holy See's military and geo-strategic importance is negligible at best, it is precisely the concession of its diplomatic correspondence that might be considered the "golden nugget" of anti-Vatican intelligence. Most historians of Vatican diplomacy during this era agree that the primary intelligence function of foreign missions to the Vatican was that of the "listening post." Given that the Holy See's codes were "hopelessly compromised" early on, Nazi intelligence efforts against the Vatican might be considered a sound success. Barring these observations , the study remains essential reading for any researcher or graduate student interested in Vatican diplomacy, Nazi intelligence techniques, and broader surveys of church and state during World War II. Charles R. Gallagher Archives Diocese ofSt.Augustine German Churches and the Holocaust: Betrayal. Edited by Robert P. Ericksen and Susannah Heschel. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 1999- Pp. vi, 224. $22.00 paperback.) The essays, each with an excellent scholarly set of endnotes, explore how the Christian Churches betrayed their heritage. Ericksen's and Heschel's introduction offers the reader a good summary of the state of the question. They contend that the German churches, in their support of anti-Semitic values, played a far more important role in the Shoah than has previously been assumed. Since religious leaders supported so many Nazi policies, ordinary Germans seemed to feel that the racist policies of the state did not really violate traditional Christian tenets and actually supported the scholarly attempts of Liberal Protestantism to discover the historical Jesus. Micha Brumlik's concluding essay on postHolocaust theology is, therefore, very important, since he effectively surveys the current attempts to reorient Christian theology back to itsJewish roots. Two essays deal with Catholic attempts to verify their nationalism. Guenter Lewy has contributed a brief analysis of Pius XII and the German Catholic Church, which summarizes the themes of his earlier and seminal scholarship on this issue. Michael Lukens' essay on Joseph Lortz shows how anti-Semitism could be rooted in the nature-supernature tension in Catholic theology. Essays on Protestant theologians also reveal their attachments to nationalism and anti-Semitism. PaulAlthus, Emanuel Hirsch, and Gerhard Kittel, according to 144BOOK REVIEWS Ericksen, articulated the conservative, antidemocratic, and anticommunist views of their contemporaries. All of these "ordinary men" were willing to execute orders from the Nazi leadership. Doris Bergen's essay on the German Christian Movement and Heschel's essay on the 1939 establishment of the antiSemitic Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life support Ericksen's conclusion that many Christians were enthusiastically anti-Semitic and not merely latently attached to this corrupting bias. Shelley Baranowski's essay offers an analysis of the entrenched anti-Semitism in the ranks of the Confessing Church, which helps to clarify why these political resistors never rigorously questioned the racist axioms of the Nazis. These bystanders nurtured Nazi anti-Semitic policies. Additionally, to help illuminate the problem of Christian anti-Semitism, Kenneth Barnes has explored Dietrich Bonhoeffer's varied reactions to the persecution of dieJews. Bonhoeffer's own family utterly disregarded racial origin as long as the Jewish person embraced Christian German culture, and that seems to be part of the general Christian problem during this era. Bonhoeffer initially in 1933 felt that the state had a right to enact measures dealing with the Jews within its political realm, thus seeming to condone the Nuremberg Laws.. From 1935 to 1939, he tried to persuade the Confessing Church to take a strong stand against the persecution of the Jews. Unsuccessful in this approach, Bonhoeffer returned to direct political resistance, but said little explicitly about the Jews. This collection of essays has been designed to illuminate the complexities of the relationship between the Christian...