The editors and contributors to this volume offer a timely update on research into German conservative Catholicism. These scholars complicate the view of a monolithic German political Catholicism, showing that even among politically conservative Catholics, significant differences in opinions existed. While scholars acknowledge the distinct values of Bavarian political Catholicism, the divisions within German political Catholicism more broadly warrant greater attention.

In the introduction, Olaf Blaschke, a scholar critical of defensive post-war Catholic historiography, analyses Weimar right-wing Catholicism. He carefully distinguishes between different political factions. He cites Elke Seefried, who distinguishes between democratically committed Catholics, such as Erzberger, Wirth, Ulitzka, Teusch and Joos, among others, ‘republicans by reason’, or Vernunftrepublikaner, including Fehrenbach, Marx, Trimborn and Gruber, and those ambivalent about the republic, such as Stegerwald, Brüningand Kaas. Blaschke adopts Gabriele Clemens’s definition of right-wing Catholicism as Prussian-nationalistic, rejecting the Centre Party’s role in the Weimar Republic (pp. 21–2). Blaschke argues that German right-wing Catholics were loyal to the papacy but critical of the German episcopate and clergy (p. 5).

In the second essay, ‘Die Rechtskatholiken als politisches Phänomen in der Weimarer Republik: Ursprünge – Strukturen – Entwicklungen’, Christoph Hübner explains that right-wing Catholics rejected the Centre’s commingling of religion and politics because of the potential danger for the Church. Right-wing Catholics considered the Centre Party illegitimate and a power base for low-level clergy. Right-wing Catholics opposed the Weimar coalition that included the SPD (pp. 24–6). According to Hübner, some Catholics managed to identify both as observant Catholics and as National Socialists. According to the authors’ biographies at the end of the volume, Hübner has left academia. Given the comprehensive and insightful analysis in this essay, one hopes Hübner finds time for continued research.

In Manfred Gailus’ essay, ‘Existierte in der Weimarer Republik neben dem Nationalprotestantismus auch expliziter “Rechtsprotestantismus?”’ he analyses elements of right-wing Protestantism. German Protestantism was too divided to form a single movement. He notes the persisting differences between Lutherans and Reformed Protestants. The Protestant Churches of the German states guarded their autonomy and remained anti-Prussian. Nationalist Protestants such as Otto Dibelius opposed the Weimar Republic and its modernism (p. 93). Gailus explains that right-wing Protestants, Rechtsprotestanten, evolved from nationalist Protestantism. He argues that the new form of Protestantism ‘differed from nationalist Protestantism in its radical commitment to the völkisch ideology, its emphasis on forming a coherent movement, and its aggressive manner’ (p. 100).

In the article, ‘“Rechtskatholizismus” in der Weimarer Republik: zur Karriere eines 68-er Begriffs und zur Frage, was Zeitgenossen dazu sagten’, Blaschke argues that the term ‘Rechtskatholizismus’ is problematic because it suggests a unity among right-wing Catholics that did not exist. Furthermore, the term suggests that the majority of Weimar Catholics were neither antisemitic nor politically conservative. It was first used sixty years after the Weimar Republic was founded, and then with a politically laden connotation when it appeared in a 1968 East German reference work (p. 100). It did not enter general usage until Gabriele Clemens used it in her biography of Martin Spahn, a Centre Party Reichstag deputy who joined the DNVP. Mainstream Weimar Catholics referred to Spahn and those like him as ‘National- oder Staatskatholiken’, in a pejorative sense (p. 118). Blaschke concludes that Rechtskatholizismus is not valid when discussing Weimar Catholicism (p. 133).

In perhaps the most controversial essay of the volume, ‘Die römische Kurie, Nuntius Eugenio Pacelli und der deutsche Rechtskatholizmus’, Klaus Unterberger argues, without new evidence, that ‘further research has led to the collapse of Ludwig Volk’s apologetic construct’ of the Centre Party’s vote for the Enabling Act of 1933 (p. 139). He cites Klaus Scholder’s controversial 1978 article in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, which sparked the Scholder-Repgen controversy. Scholder claimed that, in March 1933, Nuncio Orsenigo informed Kaas that the Holy See recommended the Centre Party support the Enabling Act (p. 164). This presumes both that the Centre Party deputies would heed the demands of the Holy See and Kaas, neither of which is true.

Guido Hitze, biographer of the Silesian Centre Party leader Monsignor Carl Ulitzka, contributes ‘Kardinal Bertram, das katholische Adelsnetwerk Schlesiens und der Rechtskatholizismus’. The Silesian nobles opposed Ulitzka, whose politics clashed with their conservative, patriarchal views. They rejected parliamentary democracy in favour of an authoritarian state and a strict social hierarchy. None the less, Count Ballestrem and other Silesian nobles remained in the Centre Party for fear of losing influence on German politics. Unusual is Hitze’s claim that Ulitzka was a serious contender for the party leadership at the 1928 Centre Party Congress (pp. 182–3).

In ‘Martin Spahn und die Netzwerke des Rechtskatholizismus im Rheinland und Westfalen’, Gabriele Clemens summarises her work on the Centre Party leader Martin Spahn, who moved to the DNVP in 1921. Spahn sought the integration of German Catholics into the Wilhelmine Empire and later into National Socialist Germany. In the Weimar Republic, he sought a non-denominational Christian conservative party opposed to Matthias Erzberger and Ultramontanism (p. 204). Clemens emphasises that Westphalian Catholics were few in number, but their influence helped undermine the Weimar Republic.

Josephine von Weyhe summarises her recent biography of Franz von Galen in her essay ‘Zwischen Rechtskatholizismus und Zentrumspartei: das Beispiel Franz von Galens’. Galen, brother of Clemens Graf von Galen, the famous bishop of Münster, remained a member of the Centre Party but rejected Weimar while opposing the trend of Catholic nobles aligning with the National Socialist movement. Unlike many of the conservatives discussed in this volume, Galen wanted to strengthen the hierarchy as a means to eliminate political Catholicism (p. 221). As the republic faltered, he hoped to strengthen Catholic influence in the National Socialist movement. One wishes Weyhe had explained the contradiction between Galen’s desire to retain Catholic nobles in the Centre Party and the desire to influence National Socialism.

In ‘Katholisches Denken in der Krise: das Denken rechter katholischer Intellektueller zwischen 1918 and 1939 in England, Deutschland und Österreich im Vergleich’, Johannes Tröger notes that right-wing Catholic intellectuals rejected secularism, individualism and modernity and were sceptical of capitalism. Modern errors originated in the Renaissance and Reformation. Conservatives idealised medieval religion and culture and preferred a corporate state (p. 237). Some embraced National Socialism while others condemned fascism, Communism and liberalism as different versions of the same errors (p. 244). Additional exploration of the differences between English conservative thinkers, such as Belloc and Chesterton, and their continental counterparts would have been beneficial.

Christoph Kösters, a scholar at the Catholic Kommission für Zeitgeschichte, contributes ‘Volkstum, Glaube und Rechtskatholizismus? Katholische Minderheitendiskurse zwischen Politik und Religion, 1918–1934’. Focusing on the Reichsverband für katholische Auslandsdeutsche, Kösters shows how little völkisch ideology influenced Centre Party care for ethnic Germans abroad. The Centre Party leader Georg Schreiber advocated fostering German culture wherever German Catholics lived abroad, rather than encouraging their return to Germany. In 1926, Schreiber drew a line against anyone who sought to exploit German Catholics abroad for racist or irredentist reasons (p. 267). Only after the National Socialist seizure of power did the Reichsverband have to accommodate the demands of the new regime (p. 284). Köster’s essay strengthens recent research on the German Catholic definition of the nation as a non-exclusive cultural community that rejected all chauvinism.

In ‘Der italienische Faschismus im Urteil des politischen Katholizismus der Weimarer Republik’, Wolfgang Schieder explains that Centre Party leaders neither endorsed Italian fascism nor manifested a particular Catholic affinity for fascism. Schieder emphasises the non-ideological nature of Mussolini’s regime, which published no comprehensive doctrinal statement until 1932 (p. 289). In this brief essay, Schieder notes that German Catholics resented Italy’s measures in South Tyrol and its harassment of the Church before the Lateran Accords. Schieder corrects Klaus Scholder’s misinterpretation of an article Ludwig Kaas wrote in 1932. Scholder argued it proved an affinity for fascism, while in fact, Kaas insisted Italian fascism would never succeed elsewhere (p. 297). Additional analysis of this fact would clarify the role Kaas played in the passage of the Enabling Act.

The last section of this volume is less successful than the preceding chapters. Perhaps motivated by the rise of the AfD, the editors included two essays on Catholics in contemporary far-right movements. Andreas Püttmann argues that conservative German Catholics rejected the Second Vatican Council and considered the attacks of 9/11 as divine wrath against America’s feminism, materialism and individualism (p. 306). Frightening is their effort to minimise German guilt for the Holocaust and the revival of antisemitic tropes concerning the role of Jews in the Bolshevik movement and German Communism (pp. 307–8). One wishes Püttmann had compared Catholics in the AfD to the Weimar right-wing Catholics. Sonja Angelika Strube fills some of this gap by identifying a common rejection of modernity and democracy (p. 338). Fortunately Püttmann shows the AfD enjoys less support among German Catholics than among other groups.

The volume lacks an analysis of lasting commonalities in right-wing German Catholicism. The articles by Blaschke and Hübner offer new scholarly insights, while other authors remind scholars of what constituted right-wing Catholicism. Scholars affiliated with the Kommission für Zeitgeschichte, which has historically defended German Catholicism against its critics, publishing alongside critical scholars such as Olaf Blaschke signifies scholarly progress. Most importantly, the volume warns that the supporters of right-wing political Catholicism, few in number, have none the less wielded significant influence.