This chapter addresses the various strategies by which European intellectuals, both secular and religious, sought to understand the catastrophic events of mid-twentieth-century Europe. It addresses four distinctive genres in the history of thinking about catastrophe: historical, philosophical, literary and theological. Before turning to the substance of the analysis it may seem fitting to offer some preliminary explanation as to why intellectual responses to the war would merit the historian's attention. In the brief survey of various interpretations of the mid-century catastrophe Jonas's lecture is distinguished by its startling, even extravagant suggestion that the horror of the Nazi extermination camps forces us to consider not only our categories of moral and political judgement but also our understanding of the divine. According to Jonas this task is specifically urgent for the Jew rather than the Christian, since for Christianity 'the world is anyway largely of the devil and always an object of suspicion' given the doctrine of original sin.