In this revised dissertation, Maximilian Künster analyses the travails of the diocesan seminary in Mainz during the Nazi era. In the first half of the text, he summarises the seminary’s history and its institutional history from 1933 to 1945. In the second half, he analyses the correspondence between the seminarians serving in the Wehrmacht, the rector of the seminary and the bishop of Mainz.

Künster explains that the seminary, established in the chaos of the early nineteenth century, was deeply rooted in ultramontane neo-Thomism. It was proud of its character as a ‘Tridentine seminary’, which adhered strictly to the curricular mandates of the Tridentine decrees. It emphasised Greek, Latin and Hebrew, philosophy and theology. It became known for dogmatic orthodoxy and a strictly regimented schedule. The students spent much time in silent personal prayer. The author claims the seminary’s relative seclusion from the secular world made it difficult, after 1933, for the regime to grapple with an institution that was not a regular university but which still awarded degrees and whose students would not be part of the Hitler Youth or any other party formation. For its part, the seminary emphasised its Tridentine and apolitical traditions and sought to accommodate the regime where possible by introducing physical education to fulfil its demands to prepare young men for military service. In some cases, it collaborated with other seminaries, for example, by simply ignoring the National Socialist Students’ League’s demand that the seminarians join and pay dues. While the seminaries included required ideological indoctrination in their official curriculum, it is doubtful that National Socialism featured prominently in lectures. None the less, like most Catholic institutions in Germany, the seminary suffered increasing levels of repression. It could delay the effect of some measures, but eventually had to submit. At that point, it sought to retain the loyalty of seminarians in the hope of better times. For example, most seminarians avoided the Reich Labour Service but could not avoid military service. Approximately one-third of all Mainz seminarians were drafted. Most served as medics. The seminary did not permit those who served in combat roles to take higher vows during their military service.

During the war, the seminary itself suffered little, except for a brief interlude when Mainz seminarians had to study in Fulda. Eventually, the Wehrmacht requisitioned part of the seminary building as a military hospital, but relations between military and seminary authorities were cordial. Künster argues that the seminary’s roots in Tridentine orthodoxy and the self-imposed seclusion from the world provided the flexibility needed to survive the Nazi era.

One wishes Künster had explained in greater detail how the sources of the seminary’s flexibility became irrelevant when, after the war, Bishop Stohr, himself a former seminary professor, transferred its theological studies to the Catholic philosophical-theological faculty at the newly founded Johannes-Gutenberg University of Mainz.

After explaining the seminary’s development since 1933, Künster analyses the 867 letters sent by 107 drafted seminarians to the seminary rector and periodic circulars sent to them by the seminary rector and Bishop Stohr. Most letters were written during the period 1940–2. After that, the number of letters received in Mainz declined dramatically. The author discusses the difficulties in accurately analysing these missives. For one, military censors reviewed letters from the front. While Künster does not mention this, the seminary’s address surely increased the censors’ interest in these letters, as the drafted seminarians would have known. The same would be true of seminary or diocese circulars. Künster also explains that seminarians found excerpts from their letters, primarily from seminarians killed in action, published in the church circulars. This coloured the letters’ content. In the seminarians’ letters, they mentioned that they previously had chafed against the strict environment of the seminary; now, they complained about the lack of intellectual challenge and the dull routine. They particularly missed daily mass, which they considered crucial to their development as future priests. They cherished opportunities to meet and exchange accounts of their experiences because of their common frame of reference and because they kept one another disciplined and committed to their vocation. As the war continued, however, the seminarians no longer emphasised the spiritual and intellectual community of the seminary. As the war progressed, it became difficult for the seminarians to identify with the seminary, both because of their war experiences and the reports of the destruction of Mainz by air raids.

In the seminarians’ front-line service, their most significant challenge was to gain the respect and trust of their comrades. Many seminarians kept their vocation a secret until they had become ‘one of the mates’. During unit celebrations, they were often assigned to guard duty to keep them from the alcohol-driven festivities.

After the war, a number of seminarians reported having witnessed crimes against humanity during their service, but no protests by seminarians are on record. Instead, the seminarians saw themselves as victims of the war and the Nazi regime. In this context, Doris Bergen’s recent work, Between God and Hitler: military chaplains in Nazi Germany would have been a useful resource. Still, it was published after the manuscript was completed. Künster makes good use of the relevant works of Lauren Faulkner Rossi and Martin Röw. The seminarians never described the war as just. Antisemitism and racism influenced a number of seminarians. Most seminarians never questioned the morality of the German war effort. They obeyed their bishops.

Küstner’s perhaps most valuable contribution is his analysis of how the seminarians sought to explain the war. Beyond the defence against Bolshevism, they saw themselves laying the foundation for a post-war Germany based on Christian morality, which justified sacrificing their lives. In contrast to World War One-era moral rationalisation for the war, such as sacrifice, penance and service, many seminarians now considered the war a trial to endure before becoming priests.

This consoled the seminary rectors and bishops, who worried about their seminarians’ moral challenges and sought to retain as many seminarians as possible. In a helpful table, Künster shows that of 102 seminarians, seventeen eventually left the seminary without vows, and eighteen were killed in action, which left sixty-five drafted seminarians to become priests after the war.

This useful study begs for comparable studies of other German Catholic seminaries at that time. While the seminary’s history confirms existing scholarship, the letters paint a more complex picture of the seminarians’ wartime experience. While ethics and morality featured heavily in seminary education, the absence of any related discussion in the wartime letters is problematic. While criticism of the war or even doubts might have led to charges of defeatism, the seminarians’ diaries and post-war accounts Künster mentions would have been a helpful corrective to the careful wording of letters and circulars. The author provides a solid foundation for future research.