The role of the Churches, both Catholic and Protestant, in Nazi Germany has been a source of controversy for seventy years. Critics have spoken of the ‘capitulation of Catholicism’, and the widespread readiness of the Catholic leadership to collaborate, while supporters have made much of the resolute defence of their institutions and doctrines when faced with the massively aggressive campaigns of Nazi propaganda and forceful control. The authors of this collection of essays seek neither to attack nor defend the Churches, but rather to analyse the methods used by the Nazi party and its various agencies, such as the SA, the SS or the Hitler Youth, to infiltrate and subsequently to seek to intimidate the Catholic milieu throughout the country.

As an example, the authors have chosen to study the small provincial town of Eichstätt in northern Bavaria, whose population of some 8,000 was almost wholly Catholic, and which had been a Catholic stronghold for many years. Eichstätt was the seat of a diocesan bishop, as well as of an established theological seminary (now advanced to being the only Catholic University in Germany), and a thriving monastery. It eventually became the site for a heightened civil cold war between a radical party and a conservative Church. The sources for such a study were particularly favourable. The authors were not only able to interview survivors from the Nazi era, but to make use of both state and church local and national records, a full run of the local newspapers and the papers of the post-war Office of the American Military Government and its associated denazification tribunals. After 1945, however, a curtain of silence descended on all publications about the town; any reference to events of the preceding Nazi era were discouraged.

The essays in this collection have been contributed mainly by students at Eichstätt's university, who are young enough to be able to take a balanced view. They readily admit that, to begin with, there was a considerable degree of accommodation to the new Nazi regime, and that many citizens were attracted by the ambitious Nazi ideal of a national Volksgemeinschaft, which seemed entirely compatible with their religious obligations. Many of those who joined the ranks of the Nazi Party in 1933 were public servants or professional people, contradicting later assertions that Nazi recruits only came from the underclass or from among outsiders. As a result, the Nazi penetration of the town progressed smoothly. Nazi spokesmen acknowledged their Catholic identity, while Catholics expressed support for the national resurgence. At the same time, Catholic organisations also experienced a revival. Numerous events and parades in the town's main squares saw much overlap, even collaboration in joint festivities.

Tensions were however subsequently aroused, particularly by the activities of the Gauleiter of neighbouring Nuremberg, Streicher, whose virulently anti-clerical and antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer flooded every newspaper kiosk, was displayed in numerous prominent places and was offensively sold by Nazi party members. In addition a campaign of vilification of the clergy was launched throughout 1936 and 1937 which took especial aim at Catholic charitable organisations which supported overseas missions with accusations of breaches of the currency laws, or which regaled readers with lurid allegations of sexual misconduct in monasteries and nunneries. But the laity loyally supported their clergy, and even young people, subjected to intensive indoctrination in the Hitler Youth, nevertheless adhered to their regular church attendance. The frequent Nazi parades, in celebration of secular festivals such as the summer solstice, were still warmly welcomed by the citizens, but did little to break the influence of the Catholic Church on the wider population.

On the other hand, such overlap and accommodation resulted in the absence of any manifest opposition. The Nazi leadership came to realise that persecution of the clergy could only produce a host of martyrs. A subservient Church would be easier to deal with. When the war broke out in 1939, Hitler ordered a truce, and the Catholic population willingly enough supported the war effort, especially against the Soviet Communists. Catholics also shared anti-Jewish attitudes, but there were only twenty-seven well-integrated Jews in Eichstätt. Nazi boycotts of their businesses led most of them to emigrate as soon as they could. In November 1938, on the occasion of the so-called Kristallnacht pogrom, the only Jews left in town were helped to depart, so that Eichstătt could be declared ‘free of Jews’. Only seventeen elderly former resident Jews are believed to have been victims of the Holocaust. The Catholic Church remained silent.

In summary, the Catholic attitudes towards Nazism must be seen as ambivalent. Despite the outspoken sermons of their bishops against the errors of Nazi ideology, the majority of Catholics were more impressed by Hitler's political and economic, and later military, successes. To the very end, loyalty to the regime remained unbroken. In 1945 Catholics were greatly relieved to be occupied by American rather than Russian troops. Prominent Nazi supporters fled the scene, and the town was handed over peacefully. The incoming Americans quickly reinstalled as officials some of the pre-1933 administrators, and the Catholic Church resumed its previous ascendancy.

These well-researched and well-written essays provide a vivid account of this small town during these dramatic years. As such this local study deserves emulation elsewhere.