EXC 2060 B3-36 - What did the Germans believe 1933-1945? Religion and faith in the NS-“Volksgemeinschaft“

Period
Funding Source
DFG - Cluster of Excellence
Project Number
EXC 2060/1

  • Description

    The project's goal is to discuss a reassessment of the relationship between religion and faith in the NS-"Volksgemeinschaft" from 1933 to 1945 and to review the field's established perspective on the relationship between the Nazi movement and the two Christian churches. This change of perspective should allow to see religion during the Nazi period not as a factor of "tradition, resilience and resistance" but rather as a "following opportunity", possibly even as a supporting factor. Did the Nazi movement prosper in spite or because of the Christian character of German society? Which areas of consensus existed in the Christian "Volksgemeinschaft" and did it have moments of cohesion? How big was the alleged contradiction between National Socialist and Christian, really? Especially the ordinary German‘s "hybrid patterns of faith", in conflict between church and party membership, between faithfulness to God and fatherland, are debated from a social-, motivation- and discourse-historical point of view, in order to finally get to the bottom of the complex relationship between religion and National Socialism. The project now faces a challenge: namely not to blur the differences and disagreements too much in the desire to highlight areas of consensus. Until now this project has already demonstrated that the National Socialist period was by no means 'godless', as many people falsely assume, but rather a time of plural, variable answers to the transcendent questions of the ultimate justification.

  • Persons