Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism Religious Identity and National Socialism [Paperback]

Derek Hastings here illuminates an important and largely overlooked aspect of early Nazi history, going back to the years after World War I--when National Socialism first emerged--to reveal its close early ties with Catholicism. Although an antagonistic relationship between the Catholic Church and Hitler's regime developed later during the Third Reich, the early Nazi movement was born in Munich, a city whose population was overwhelmingly Catholic. Focusing on Munich and the surrounding area, Hastings shows how Catholics played a central and hitherto overlooked role in the Nazi movement before the 1923 Beerhall Putsch. He examines the activism of individual Catholic writers, university students, and priests and the striking Catholic-oriented appeals and imagery formulated by the movement. He then discusses why the Nazis embarked on a different path following the party's reconstitution in early 1925, ultimately taking on an increasingly anti-Catholic and anti-Christian identity.

Introduction
1. Ultramontanism and Its Discontents: The Peculiarities of Munich's Prewar Catholic Tradition
2. The Path Toward Positive Christianity: Religious Identity and the Earliest Stages of the Nazi Movement, 1919-20
3. Embodying Positive Christianity in Catholic Munich: The Ideal of Religious Catholicism and Early Nazi Growth, 1920-22
4. A Catholic-Oriented Movement : The Zenith of Catholic-Nazi Activism, 1922-23
5. The Beerhall Putsch and the Transformation of the Nazi Movement After 1923
Conclusion

Sometimes good things come in strange packages. I was looking through Derek Hastings' new book Catholicism & the Roots of Nazism to figure out what his arresting title could possibly mean. Hastings demonstrates beyond doubt that before the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923, significant segments of Catholic clergy and faithful in Munich were among the most important supporters of National Socialism, very much in tune with its increasing emphasislÓ^