Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust

Leading scholars in the field of Holocaust studies place the Nazi era in full historical perspective. This book is a broad overview of the Protestant and Catholic responses, including institutional churches, the theological faculties, and theologians, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Joseph Lortz. Included are assessments of the German Christian movement, the Confessing Church, the German Catholic church, the Vatican, and the free churches. Various responses and individuals—villains, heroes, equivocators—are highlighted.

"The contention of this volume—that the German churches played a far more important role in the Nazi atrocities than has been hitherto realized—is convincingly documented here in a readable and provocative way."
— Marc H. Ellis

"The evidence amassed in this volume, not only of Christian accommodation to Nazism and of Christians' sometimes shared values with Nazism, but indeed of Christians' fervent affirmation of Nazism, should put to rest once and for all the idea that Christian conviction or affiliation was primarily a source of resistance to the National Socialist regime.... Betrayal is an outstanding and a deeply troubling book. Its power is cumulative and relentless, and it is richly deserving of a popular readership."
— Dagmar Herzog, in Tikkun, vol. 16, no. 3