1. Most recently, the criticisms of Goldhagen's, DanielA Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair (New York, 2002)Google Scholar have generated much public discussion, but have added little that is new. The critical reevaluation of the Catholic-Nazi relationship began in earnest with the publicatioin of Böckenförde, Ernst-Wolfgang, “Der deutsche Katholizismus im Jahre 1933,” Hochland 53 (1961): 215–39Google Scholar. Important studies that placed the church in an unflattering light soon followed, including Lewy, Guenter, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (New York, 1964)Google Scholar; Amery, Carl, Die Kapitulation, oder Deutscher Katholizismus heute (Hamburg, 1964)Google Scholar; Zahn, Gordon, German Catholics and Hitler's Wars (New York, 1964)Google Scholar; Breuning, Klaus, Die Vision des Reiches: Deutscher Katholizismus zwischen Demokratie und Diktatur 1929–1934 (Munich, 1969)Google Scholar. Debate on the role of Pius XII first reached a wide public with the appearance of Rolf Hochhuth's controversial play Der Stellvertreter (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1963)Google Scholar. For a more sympathetic general interpretation, see Scholder's, Klaus classic Die Kirchen und das Dritte Reich, 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 1977)Google Scholar.

2. The series Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Zeitgeschichte inaugurated in 1965 by the Catholic publishing house of Grünewald in Mainz and continued by the Schöningh Verlag in Paderborn (which has now reached near-epic proportions — some 140 volumes as of 2002), as well as the activities of the leading German Catholic scholarly society, the Görres-Gesellschaft (which publishes the journal Historisches Jahrbuch), are some of the more visible manifestations of this productive Catholic scholarly climate. For an overview of much of this literature see Hürten, Heinz, Deutsche Katholiken 1918–1945 (Paderborn, 1992)Google Scholar.

3. The definitive study is Falter, Jürgen, Hitlers Wähler (Munich, 1991), esp. 169–93Google Scholar. But see also Hamilton, Richard, Who Voted for Hitler? (Princeton, 1982), 38–43, 382–85Google Scholar; Childers, Thomas, The Nazi Voter: The Social Foundations of Fascism in Germany, 1919–1933 (Chapel Hill, 1983), 112–18, 188–91, 258–61Google Scholar. For an attempt to counter these findings on the basis of an examination of the Black Forest region, see Heilbronner, Oded, Catholicism, Political Culture, and the Countryside: A Social History of the Nazi Party in South Germany (Ann Arbor, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Catholic Bavaria in particular, see Pridham, Geoffrey, Hitler's Rise to Power: The Nazi Movement in Bavaria, 1923–1933 (New York, 1973), 146–83Google Scholar. A critical account that focuses on Munich (although almost entirely on the period after 1933) is Denzler, Georg, “Ein Gebetssturm für den Führer: Münchens Katholizismus und der Nationalsozialismus,” in Irrlicht im leuchtenden München? Der Nationalsozialismus in der “Hauptstadt der Bewegung,” ed. Prinz, F. and Mensing, B. (Regensburg, 1991), 124–53Google Scholar.

4. The term völkisch, which connotes a radical racist-nationalist mentality, has no real English equivalent and so will be left in the German throughout. On the early Nazi Party and the surrounding völkisch milieu, see Franz-Willing, Georg, Die Hitlerbewegung: Der Ursprung 1919–1922 (Hamburg, 1962)Google Scholar; idem, Krisenjahr der Hitlerbewegung 1923 (Preussisch Ohlendorf, 1974); idem, Putsch und Verbotszeit der Hitlerbewegung, November 1923–Februar 1925 (Preussisch Ohlendorf, 1977); Maser, Werner, Frühgeschichte der NSDAP: Hitlers Weg bis 1924 (Frankfurt am Main, 1965)Google Scholar; Phelps, Reginald, “Hitler and the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei,” American Historical Review 68 (1963): 974–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Deuerlein, Ernst, “Hitlers Eintritt in die Politik und die Reichswehr,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitge-schichte 7 (1959): 177–227Google Scholar; Auerbach, Helmuth, “Hitlers politische Lehrjahre und die Münchener Gesellschaft 1919–1923,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 25 (1977): 1–45Google Scholar; and Gordon, Harold J., Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch (Princeton, 1973)Google Scholar. More recently, see Large, David Clay, Where Ghosts Walked: Munich's Road to the Third Reich (New York, 1997), 123–94Google Scholar; Kershaw, Ian, Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris (New York, 1998), 129–219Google Scholar; and Joachimsthaler, Anton, Hitlers Weg begann in München 1913–1923 (Munich, 2000), 250–319Google Scholar.

5. The overt classification of members according to confessional background would likely have run counter to the party's claim to uphold confessional neutrality. For the most comprehensive membership list see the NSDAP-Hauptarchiv (Hoover Institution), Reel 10, folder 215 (hereafter cited as NSDAP-HA 10/fol. 215); see also the lists in NSDAP-HA 2a/fol. 230; NSDAP-HA 8/fol. 171. On the early party membership more generally, see Kater's, Michael seminal article “Zur Soziographie der frühen NSDAP,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 19 (1971): 124–59Google Scholar; idem, The Nazi Party: A Social Profile of Members and Leaders, 1919–1945 (Oxford, 1983), 19–31; Orlow, Dietrich, “The Organizational History and Structure of the NSDAP, 1919–23,” Journal of Modern History 37 (1965): 208–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Douglas, Donald M., “The Parent Cell: Some Computer Notes on the Composition of the First Nazi Party Group in Munich, 1919–21,” Central European History 10 (1977): 55–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Madden, Paul, “Some Social Characteristics of Early Nazi Party Members, 1919–23,” Central European History 15 (1982): 34–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar. But see also Genuneit, Jürgen, “Methodische Probleme der quantitativen Analyse früher NSDAP-Mitglieder,” in Die Nationalsozialisten: Analyse faschistischer Bewegungen, ed. Mann, Reinhard (Stuttgart, 1980), 34–66Google Scholar, on the general difficulties involved in any statistical approach to the early Nazi membership.

6. According to Guenter Lewy: “In the early twenties the Hitler movement was small in numbers and Catholic membership within it was smaller still”; Lewy, , Catholic Church, 7Google Scholar. See also, e.g., Morsey, Rudolf, “Die katholische Volksminderheit und der Aufstieg des Nationalsozialismus,” in Die Katholiken und das Dritte Reich, ed. Gotto, Klaus and Repgen, Konrad (Mainz, 1983), 9–24Google Scholar. Björn Mensing concludes quite simply: “It seems that the majority of Hitler's early supporters in Munich were Protestant”; Mensing, , “Der Münchener Protestantismus,” in München — Hauptstadt der Bewegung: Bayerns Metropole und der Nationalsozialismus, ed. Bauer, Richard et al. (Munich, 1993), 424Google Scholar. Mensing's work on the Protestant clergy in Bavaria, however, notes that it is difficult to estimate the level of participation of Protestants (especially clergy) in the Nazi movement before circa 1925; Mensing, , Pfarrer und Nationalsozialismus: Geschichte einer Verstrickung am Beispiel der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche in Bayern (Göttingen, 1998), 92Google Scholar.

7. The party grew from some 20,000 members in February 1923 to more than 55,000 by November 1923; Maser, , Frühgeschichte, 376Google Scholar. On the origins of the BVP. which split off from the Catholic Center Party in late 1918, see Schwend, Karl, Bayern zwischen Monarchie und Diktatur (Munich, 1955), 58–69Google Scholar; Schönhoven, Klaus, Die Bayerische Volkspartei 1924–1932 (Düsseldorf, 1972), 17–50Google Scholar.

8. Heinrich Held to Faulhaber, 6 October 1923, Erzbistumsarchiv München, Nachlass Faulhaber Nr. 7601; reprinted in Akten Kardinal Michael von Faulhabers 1917–1945, ed. Ludwig Volk, vol. 1 (Mainz, 1975), 314–15.

9. “Bayerische Priester als Hakenkreuzler,” Vorwärts, no. 320 (11 July 1923). White and blue (weissblau) were the traditional patriotic colors of Bavaria.

10. Much of the recent historical and sociological literature on German Catholicism has relied heavily on the concept of the “social-moral milieu,” which came into broader circulation in the 1960s through the work of the political sociologist M. Rainer Lepsius, who posited the existence of four essentially antagonistic milieus within German society (conservative, bourgeois/liberal, socialist, and Catholic); see his “Parteiensystem und Sozialstruktur: Zum Problem der Demo-kratisierung der deutschen Gesellschaft,” in Wirtschaft, Geschichte und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, ed. Abel, Wilhelm (Stuttgart, 1966), 371–93Google Scholar. When applied to the study of German Catholicism especially under the Kaiserreich, the “Catholic milieu” has often been portrayed as a nearly monolithic block within German society, unified across geographical distances by common patterns of ultramontane piety and expressing this unity politically in overwhelming support for the Catholic Center Party. While more recent formulations of the milieu concept have given it much more nuance, the image of a fairly hermetic Catholic (ultramontane) subculture separated from other social groupings by the tenacious walls of the “milieu” has continued to persist. See the collaborative work of the Arbeitskreis für kirchliche Münster, Zeitgeschichte, “Katholiken zwischen Tradition und Moderne: Das katholische Milieu als Forschungsaufgabe,” Westfälische Zeitschrift 43 (1993): 588–654Google Scholar.

11. Pohl, Karl Heinrich, “Katholische Sozialdemokraten oder sozialdemokratische Katholiken in München: Ein Identitätskonflikt?” in Religion im Kaiserreich: Milieus — Mentalitäten — Krisen, ed. Blaschke, Olaf and Kuhlemann, Frank-Michael (Gütersloh, 1996), 252–53Google Scholar. In light of the overwhelming mutual antipathy that typically characterized relations between the socialist and Catholic camps throughout Germany, Pohl declares: “In Munich things were completely different in this regard. To be a ‘Catholic’ and a ‘Social Democrat’ was no contradiction there; on the contrary, the ‘Catholic Social Democrat’ was the rule in Munich” (p. 234). See also Pohl's, more general study Die Münchener Arbeiterbewegung: Sozialdemokratische Partei, Freie Gewerkschaften, Staat und Gesellschaft in München 1890–1914 (Munich, 1992)Google Scholar.

12. Blaschke and Kuhlemann, “Religion in Geschichte und Gesellschaft: Sozialhistorische Perspektiven für die vergleichende Erforschung religiöser Mentalitäten und Milieus,” in idem, ed. Religion im Kaiserreich, 53.

13. A study calculating the percentage of “religiously-practicing” Catholics in 1924 (based on communion statistics from each diocese) found that some 80 percent of Catholics in the archdiocese of Munich-Freising were “religiously-practicing,” compared to 76.8 percent in Cologne and only 53.6 percent in Berlin; Schauff, Johannes, Die deutschen Katholiken und die Zentrumspartei: Eine politisch-statistische Untersuchung der Reichstagswahlen seit 1871 (Cologne, 1928), 178Google Scholar.

14. For a concise overview of Reform Catholicism in Germany see Nipperdey, Thomas, Religion im Umbruch Deutschland 1870–1918 (Munich, 1988), 32–38Google Scholar. Much of the distinction between political and religious Catholicism centered originally around an influential series of articles published in Munich's Allgemeine Zeitung by the Catholic theologian Franz Xaver Kraus under the pen-name “Spectator” between 1895 and 1899; see Hauviller, Ernst, Franz Xaver Kraus: Ein Lebensbild aus der Zeit des Reformkatholizismus (Colmar, 1904)Google Scholar, as well as the insightful introductory remarks of Weber, Christoph in Liberaler Katholizismus: Biographische und kirchenhistorische Essays von Franz Xaver Kraus, ed. Weber, Christoph (Tübingen, 1983), vii–xxxv, 1–31Google Scholar. On the liberal-nationalist orientation of Kraus's followers in Munich, who formed the influential “Kraus Society” and were committed enemies of the Center Party, see Haustein, Jörg, Liberal-katholische Publizistik im späten Kaiserreich: “Das neue Jahrhundert” und die Krausgesellschaft (Göttingen, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. Anti-ultramontane Catholics were typically nationalists who tended not to dispute the religious authority of the pope or the German episcopate and, since they chose deliberately to stay inside the Catholic Church, were often eager to differentiate themselves from adherents of the Old Catholic Church, which had split off from the Catholic Church in the 1870s in opposition to the dogma of papal infallibility. For a preliminary sketch of the phenomenon of Catholic antiultramontanism more generally, see Schlossmacher, Norbert, “Antiultramontanismus im Wilhelminischen Deutschland: Ein Versuch,” in Deutscher Katholizismus im Umbruch zur Moderne, ed. Loth, Wilfried (Stuttgart, 1991), 164–98Google Scholar.

16. Funk, Philipp (pseud. Julius), “München im katholischen Geistesleben der deutschen Gegenwart,” Hochland 19, no. 11 (08 1922): 497–506, esp. 498, 501, 499–500, 503–5Google Scholar.

17. Ibid., 503.

18. Ibid., 503–4. In light of these critical statements toward the BVP and Center Party, it is important to note that Hochland was not only firmly in the maintstream of “loyal” Catholicism but that Funk was himself far from being a marginal figure. After his 1925 habilitation he assumed a Lehrstuhl in Modern History at the University of Freiburg, where for years he played a leading role in shaping Catholic historical scholarship as editor of the journal Historisches Jahrbuch; see Engelhardt, Roland, “Wir schlugen unter Kämpfen und Opfern dem Neuen Bresche”: Philipp Funk (1884–1937) Leben und Werk (Frankfurt am Main, 1996)Google Scholar.

19. In the archdiocese of Munich-Freising, which coincided with much of the political region of Upper Bavaria, Catholics made up nearly 90 percent of the total population during the period under investigation (89.8 percent in 1916, 89 percent in 1925), whereas the population of Munich itself was 80–85 percent Catholic; Seiler, J., “Statistik des Erzbistums München und Freising in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts,” in Das Erzbistum München und Freising in der Zeit der national-sozialistischen Herrschaft, ed. Schwaiger, Georg (Munich, 1984), 1:287Google Scholar.

20. Schauff, , Reichstagswahlen, 174–75Google Scholar. A partial exception to this rule was the predominantly-Polish district of Oppeln (Upper Silesia), which witnessed a dramatic shift in Catholic voter loyalties between 1903, when the Center Party received 66 percent of the Catholic vote, and 1907, when that total dropped to 34.7 percent; this shift was due to the rise of the Polish nationalist party under Wojciech Korfanty. See Smith, Helmut Walser, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics, 1870–1914 (Princeton, 1995), 196–99Google Scholar, and Bjork, James, “Neither German nor Pole: Catholicism and National Ambivalence in Upper Silesia, 1890–1914,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1999), esp. chap. 4Google Scholar.

21. By comparison, Catholic support for the Center Party in Münster remained in the 80–90 percent range before the First World War (90.1 percent in 1903, 83.2 percent in 1912) and was still 73.6 percent in December 1924; in Cologne, the Center Party got 73.8 percent of the Catholic vote in 1903, 70.6 percent in 1912, and still a respectable 55.7 percent in December 1924; Schauff, , Reichstagswahlen, 175Google Scholar. On the quality of Schauff's study, see Sperber, Jonathan, The Kaiser's Voters: Electors and Elections in Imperial Germany (Cambridge, 1997), 16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. Center Party support among “practicing Catholics” in other Catholic cities was typically 20–30 percent higher than in and around Munich; in Münster 87.9 percent of these voted for the Center in 1924, while in Cologne and Berlin the figures were 72.5 percent and 72.8 percent, respectively (Schauff, 178).

23. Thränhardt, Dietrich, Wahlen und politische Strukturen in Bayern 1848–1953 (Düsseldorf, 1973), 173Google Scholar.

24. For the thesis that adherence to political Catholicism had just such an “immunizing” effect more generally, see Burnham, W.D., “Political Immunization and Political Confessionalism: The United States and Weimar Germany,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 3 (1972): 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25. The best account of these events in English is still Mitchell, Allan, Revolution in Bavaria, 1918–1919: The Eisner Regime and the Soviet Republic (Princeton, 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; but see also Bosl, Karl, ed., Bayern im Umbruch, die Revolution von 1918: Ihre Voraussetzungen, ihr Verlauf und ihre Folgen (Munich, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26. Olaf Blaschke has noted that prewar Munich was, alongside Vienna, a traditional “hotbed” of Catholic antisemitism; Blaschke, , Katholizismus und Antisemitismus im Deutschen Kaiserreich (Göttingen, 1997), 131Google Scholar.

27. See Phelps, Reginald, “Hitler and the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei,” American Historical Review 68 (1963): 974–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28. Anton Drexler's 1919 political memoir, however, emphasizes his commitment to a specifically “Christian socialism” as proceeding “in the spirit of Christ, the most magnificent character in the history of the world”; Drexler, , Mein politisches Envachen, 3rd ed. (Munich, 1923), 48Google Scholar.

29. von Sebottendorff, Rudolf, Bevor Hitler kam: Urkundliches aus der Frühzeit der nationalsozialistischen Bewegung (Munich, 1933), 31–42Google Scholar; Goodricke-Clarke, Nicholas, The Occult Roots of Nazism (Wellingborough, 1985), 135–52Google Scholar; see also Mosse, George, The Fascist Revolution: Toward a General Theory of Fascism (New York, 1999), 117–35Google Scholar. More generally, Franz, Georg, “Munich: Birthplace and Center of the National Socialist German Workers' Party,” Journal of Modern History 29 (1957): esp. 326–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Phelps, Reginald, “Before Hitler Came: Thule Gesellschaft and Germanenorden,” Journal of Modern History 35 (1963): 245–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30. See, e.g., Rose, Detlev, Die Thule-Gesellschaft: Legende, Mythos, Wirklichkeit (Tübingen, 1994), 156–60Google Scholar.

31. “Protokoll über die Gründungsversammlung des Bundes der Beobachterfreunde am 28. Juli 1920 im Katholischen Gesellschaftshaus,” NSDAP-HA 83/fol.1691. Hitler (whose name was still unfamiliar enough to be misspelled as “Hittler”) was also quoted as having accused the Bund of “lack[ing] courage”; “Zur Gründungsversammlung des Bundes der Beobachterfreunde,” VB no. 69 (31 July 1920). See also Franz Xaver Eder to Polizeidirektion München, 26 July 1920, NSDAP-HA 89/fol. 1864; Satzungen des Bundes der Beobachterfreunde, 25 July 1920, NSDAP-HA 83/fol. 1691; “Einladung zur Gründungsversammlung des Bundes der Beobachterfreunde,” VB no. 65 (18 July 1920).

32. The latest independent meeting of the Bund for which records have survived was on 17 January 1921; NSDAP-HA 83/fol.1691. In the Munich police files a note from 24 January 1924 states that “nothing has been heard from the association since 1921.” NSDAP-HA 89/fol. 1864.

33. On the VB more generally, see Layton, Roland, “The Völkischer Beobachter, 1920–1933: The Nazi Party Newspaper in the Weimar Era,” Central European History 3 (1970): 353–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Eckart, who at this time was still editing his own antisemitic journal in Munich entitled Auf gut deutsch and who was, in addition to being a professing Catholic, a heavy drinker and probably also a morphine addict, see especially Plewnia, Margarete, Auf dem Weg zu Hitler: Der völkische Publizist Dietrich Eckart (Bremen, 1970)Google Scholar. Eckart put up some of his own funds, but more importantly secured a large sum of money from General Franz von Epp to ensure the purchase of the Beobachter. Epp, who became Nazi governor of Bavaria in 1933, was also a professing Catholic, affectionately known in Nazi circles as the Muttergottesgeneral; see Wächter, Katja-Maria, Die Macht der Ohnmacht: Leben und Politik des Franz Xaver Ritter von Epp 1868–1946 (Frankfurt am Main, 1999), 125–27Google Scholar.

34. While the BVP's strength in Munich was fairly weak in comparison to Catholic support tor political Catholicism elsewhere, this support was considerably larger than the prewar Bavarian Center Party's had been and, with 31.7 percent of the 1920 vote, the BVP constituency was certainly a ripe and inviting target for the NSDAP. This is not to minimize the fact that the Nazis were also in fierce competition with the SPD — which, if Karl Heinrich Pohl is correct, included many believing Catholics (n. 11 above) — and the KPD for the loyalties of workers in Munich; it is, however, primarily in the battle against the BVP that the issue of religion can be traced.

35. Party program reprinted in Ernst Deuerlein, ed., Der Aufstieg der NSDAP in Augenzeugenberichten (Düsseldorf, 1968), 111. It should be noted that the BVP was also technically interconfessional and occasionally referred to its own goals in terms of “positive Christianity.”

36. Lohalm, Uwe, Völkischer Radikalismus: Die Geschichte des Deutschvölkischen Schutz- und Trutz-Bundes 1919–1933 (Hamburg, 1970), esp. 171–75Google Scholar. On Catholic monarchist groups in Bavaria, see Garnett, Robert, Lion, Eagle, and Swastika: Bavarian Monarchism in Weimar Germany, 1918–1933 (New York, 1991)Google Scholar.

37. See, e.g., “Frivoler Missbrauch der Religion,” VB no. 53 (5 July 1922).

38. Miller was referred to in the pages of the VB regularly as a “deutsch-völkischer Catholic and enemy of the Center Party”; see, e.g., the article praising Miller's criticism of Wirth, Chancellor, “Dr. Wirth in katholischer Beleuchtung,” VB no. 99 (22 12 1922)Google Scholar. Miller was also the author of several popular and radically antiultramontane books that aggressively attacked the Center Party, including Ultramontanes Schuldbuch: Eine deutsche Abrechnung mit dem Zentrum und seinen Hintermännern (Breslau, 1922)Google Scholar.

39. Miller, , “Staat, Religion und Kirche,” VB no. 2 (6 01 1921)Google Scholar; Miller, and Maurer, Hansjörg, “An die Adresse des Herrn Trasybulos im Bayer. Kurier,” VB no. 34 (1 05 1921)Google Scholar; Miller, , “Anti-Ultramontaner Reichsverband und Freimaurerei,” VB no. 80 (22 10 1921)Google Scholar.

40. “Das wahre Gesicht des Zentrums” and “Kirchenkonzert” in VB no. 68 (26 August 1922).

41. “Unsere Weihnachtsfeier,” VB no. 101 (20 December 1922). In a similar vein, the Nazi writer Michael Schmitt proclaimed: “The battle, which according to Catholic teaching takes place before the judgment seat of God, between Christianity and anti-Christianity, between idealism and materialism — this is the battle we National Socialists want to wage”; Schmitt, Michael, “Christentum und Nationalsozialismus,” VB no. 98 (9 12 1922)Google Scholar.

42. “Der Bayerischer Kurier der Schutzengel — Erzbergers,” VB no. 46 (12 June 1921). See also, e.g., “Die ‘christliche’ Politik des Bayerischen Kuriers,” VB no. 25 (29 March 1922); “Nach dem Abwerfen der Maske! Eine Abrechnung mit dem Bayer. Kurier,” VB no. 53 (5 July 1922); “Der fromme Betrug,” VB no. 8 (27 January 1923).

43. VB no. 61 (4 August 1921).

44. “Like a flash the vengeful hand of fate sent the pedantic soul of Matthias Erzberger back into the deep. He was undone by his unscrupulous vanity and nothing else … He was a cad (Er war ein Lump)”; Eckart, Dietrich, “Erzberger,” VB no. 69 (1 09 1921)Google Scholar. This tasteless obituary brought about a two-week ban on the VB.

45. Eckart, , “Der Verrat!” VB no. 70/73 (14 09 1921)Google Scholar. In the same issue Alfred Miller lambasted the alleged pharisaism of Wirth and other Center Party politicians who “go around cloaked in the hypocritical mantle of Christianity in order to grab people by their religious convictions” only to make them “bow willingly under the Jewish authority of Berlin” Miller closed by asking “Is there anyone who doesn't gag over this type of Christianity?” Miller, Alfred, “Die göttliche Reichsregierung,” VB no. 70/73 (14 09 1921)Google Scholar. This issue promptly brought about yet another two-week ban.

46. “Verhöhnung des Christentums durch ‘Christen’: Eine Abrechnung mit dem Bayerischen Kurier,” VB no. 22 (18 March 1922).

47. Already in December 1920 the Jesuit Augustin Bea had published an influential article in the Jesuits' Munich-based organ, linking the racial antisemitism of the local völkisch milieu, including the NSDAP, to the Germanic racial and religious ideas of both Fritsch and Dinter through their common condemnation of the Talmud and Old Testament; Bea, , “Antisemitismus, Rassentheorie und Altes Testament,” Stimmen der Zeit 100 (12 1920)Google Scholar.

48. Dietrich, F., “Arisches Glaubenstum,” VB no. 4 (13 01 1921)Google Scholar. Similarly, see the meticulous 2–part rebuttal to the allegations made by Bea, Augustin, “Antisemitismus, Rassentheorie und Altes Testament,” VB no. 31 (17 04 1921)Google Scholar; VB no. 32 (24 April 1921).

49. Rosenberg was frequently allowed in the pages of the VB to present his religious views, which had not yet fully crystallized into the form they would take in his Mythos des 20.Jahrhunderts but were undoubtedly already unattractive enough to Munich Catholics. See esp. “Gedanken zum Katholikentag,” VB no. 69 (30 08 1922)Google Scholar and “Katholikentag und Nationalsozialismus,” VB no. 70 (2 09 1922)Google Scholar. Ernst Hanfstaengl later recalled in his memoirs an occasion in the offices of the Völkischer Beobachter when he and Eckart, both angered in part by the tactlessness of Rosenberg's anti-Catholic articles, discussed Eckart's regret at having brought Rosenberg on board: “Hanfstaengl, if only I had known what I was doing when I introduced Rosenberg into the party … He will make a laughingstock of us all if this goes on.” Hanfstaengl, Ernst, Unheard Witness (Philadelphia, 1957), 84Google Scholar.

50. Schlund, , “Der Münchener Nationalsozialismus und die Religion,” Allgemeine Rundschau 31 (2 08 1923)Google Scholar.

51. For the text of the resolution, see Bayerische Volkspartei Correspondenz [BVC] (28 October 1922).

52. Text of Schweyer speech in BVC (21 November 1922); see also BVC (16 November 1922); BVC (1 December 1922); and “Die Nationalsozialisten und die Bayer. Volkspartei,” BVC (13 December 1922).

53. Wilhelm Vielberth, “Der Nationalsozialismus und die Religion,” originally published in the Augsburger Postzeitung in December 1922, and reprinted months later as “Der Nationalsozialismus,” Politische Zeitfragen 5/6 (May-June 1923). Vielberth's main points were also presented in two-part condensed form for the use of BVP officials as “Der Nationalsozialismus,” BVC (16 January 1923) and BVC (18 January 1923).

54. Vielberth in reality drew all his examples of this anti-Christian pantheism from a recent book by the Bohemian activist Jung, Rudolf, Der nationale Sozialismus (Munich, 1922)Google Scholar. Even the anti-Nazi Erhard Schlund noted that Vielberth missed the boat here in regard to the Munich NSDAP, which had very little to do with the ideas of Jung; Schlund, “Der Münchener Nationalsozialismus und die Religion.”

55. “Nationalsozialismus und Religion,” VB no. 7 (24 January 1923).

56. See “Der fromme Betrug” and “Ängste der Bayerischen Volkspartei,” VB no. 8 (27 01 1923)Google Scholar.

57. See especially “Jüdische Anmassung und bischöfliche Schwäche,” VB no. 99 (13 12 1922)Google Scholar; “Berichtigung” VB no. 7 (24 January 1923). The VB also heavily publicized Haeuser's Wir deutschen Katholiken und die moderne revolutionäre Bewegung: Oder, Los von Opportunismus und zurück zur Prinzipientreue! (Regensburg, 1922)Google Scholar, which was a broadside against the opportunistic betrayal of Catholic principles by the BVP and Center Party. In a glowing review, which noted that the book had gone through several editions in its first few months, the VB extolled Haeuser's personal service to the movement, saying “When the day of the National Socialists has finally arrived, this valiant priest will have to be remembered”: VB no. 8 (27 January 1923).

58. On Roth's career after 1933, see Bleistein SJ, Roman, “Überläufer im Sold der Kirchen-feinde: Joseph Roth und Albert Hartl, Priesterkarrieren im Dritten Reich,” Beiträge zur altbayerischen Kirchengeschichte 42 (1996): 71–111Google Scholar.

59. Hoffmann calls Stempfle a “man of strong personality” but states that “Hitler was originally suspicious of him and thought him a spy of the church party”; Stempfle, however, was soon able to gain Hitler's “full confidence” and advised him regularly to maintain a friendly stance toward the Catholic Church; Hoffmann, Heinrich, Hitler Was My Friend, trans. Stevens, R. H. (London, 1955), 52Google Scholar. Stempfle, who later aided Hitler greatly in the original editing of Mein Kampf, was eventually killed in the Röhm Purge of 1934.

60. Patin recalled in an early 1934 statement that he had attended “numerous [Nazi] gatherings in the Hofbräuhaus” at least a decade earlier; cited in Denzler, “Gebetssturm,” 140. On Patin's relationship to the Nazi Party, which culminated in his being appointed SS-Hauptsturmführer in January 1937, see the correspondence between Patin and Himmler (esp. Patin to Himmler, 3 February 1937); NSDAP-HA 98/fol. 7.

61. Müller, who had first met Hitler in 1919, records in his memoirs that he became acquainted with Schachleiter shortly after the latter's arrival in Munich and that the two met on numerous occasions to discuss politics and Schachleiter's musical fascination with Gregorian chant; von Müller, Karl Alexander, Im Wandel einer Welt: Erinnerungen 1919–1932 (Munich, 1966), 130–31Google Scholar. It is possible that Schachleiter's musical interests were also what brought him into contact with Helene Raff, whose father had been the renowned composer Joachim Raff; on Helene Raff generally, see her memoirs, Blätter vom Lebensbaum (Munich, 1938)Google Scholar.

62. Müller, , Im Wandel einer Welt, 129Google Scholar; Hanfstaengl, , Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus: Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters (Munich, 1970), 107–8Google Scholar. Schachleiter kept in touch over the years (albeit sporadically at times) with Karl Alexander von Müller. In March 1936 Müller, who was by then one of the leading Nazi historians, fondly reminded Schachleiter of their common “circle of friends” and mentioned Helene Raff by name; Müller to Schachleiter, 10 March 1936, NSDAP-HA 55/1330.

63. The official announcement for the upcoming “record level of propagandistic activity” (Höchstleistung an Werbetätigkeit) was initially made in the regular column “An die Ortsgruppen!” VB no. 79 (28 04 1923)Google Scholar. The listing of Sunday masses, which included not only Catholic masses but Old Catholic and Protestant services, began with VB no. 80 (29/30 April 1923). See also, e.g., the notice for the Nazi hiking club outing scheduled for Sunday, 12 August 1923, which emphasized attendance at mass (Kirchgang vorher!); VB no. 161 (12/13 August 1923).

64. VB no. 97 (20/21 May 1923). On the later and quite different phenomenon of Nazism as a “political religion,” one of Eric Voegelin's central insights that has recently come back in vogue, see especially Bärsch, Klaus-Ekkehard, Die politische Religion des Nationalsozialismus (Munich, 1998)Google Scholar, and Burleigh, Michael, The Third Reich: A New History (New York, 2000), esp. 1–23Google Scholar.

65. Kernstock, O., “Das Hakenkreuz,” VB no. 85 (5 05 1923)Google Scholar. A few lines from the first and third stanzas convey the essence of the poem's kitschy, but also catchy and quite effective, lyricism: “Das Hakenkreuz im weissen Feld, auf feuerrotem Grunde / Gibt frei und offen aller Welt die hochgemute Kunde: / Wer sich um dieses Zeichen schart, ist deutsch mit Seele, Sinn und Art / und nicht bloss mit dem Munde … Das Hakenkreuz im weissen Feld, auf feuerrotem Grunde / Hat uns mit stolzem Mut beseelt. Es schlägt in uns'rer Runde / kein Herz, das feig die Treue bricht. Wir fürchten Tod und Teufel nicht! / Mit uns ist Gott im Bunde.” This poem was heavily recirculated by Nazi Catholics after Hitler came to power. Friedrich Heer cites a slightly altered version of the poem that was published in 1933 (as an afterword to Pirchegger, Simon, Hitler und die katholische Kirche [Graz, 1933])Google Scholar, but seems to have been unaware of the poem's 1923 origins and context; Heer, , Der Glaube des Adolf Hitler: Anatomie einer politischen Religiosität (Frankfurt am Main, 1968), 216Google Scholar.

66. On Pieper's activities in his home diocese of Paderborn see Tröster, Father Werner, “Die besondere Eigenart des Herrn Dr. Pieper! Dr. Lorenz Pieper, Priester der Erzdiözese Paderborn, Mitglied der NSDAP Nr. 9740,” in Das Erzbistum Paderborn in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, ed. Wagener, Ulrich (Paderborn, 1993), 45–91Google Scholar; Vogel, Wieland, Katholische Kirche und nationale Kampfverbände in der Weimarer Republik (Mainz, 1989), esp. 56–59Google Scholar.

67. Tröster, “Eigenart,” 54.

68. “Dr. Pieper Nationalsozialist?” VB no. 84 (4 05 1923)Google Scholar.

69. See the VB's regular announcement column “Sektionsversammlungen” between June and August 1923, as well as VB no. 170 (24 August 1923); VB no. 172 (26/27 August 1923); VB no. 173 (28 August 1923).

70. Schlageter had joined the CV originally in early 1919 while studying at the University of Freiburg. See the reports on the CV's ten-year commemoration of Schlageter's death, “Der CV gedenkt seines toten Cartellbruders,” Academia: Monatsschrift des CV der katholischen deutschen Studentenverbindungen 46, no. 3 (07 1933): 69–77Google Scholar.

71. “Schlageter in München,” Academia 46, no. 3 (07 1933): 65Google Scholar. See also Sadowsky, Hans, “Schlageter und die NSDAP,” Hannoverscher Anzeiger no. 122 (25 05 1933)Google Scholar, and the (admittedly sparse) materials in the Nazi party file on Schlageter, NSDAP-HA 53/fol. 1265. For a basic overview of Schlageter's life, and especially on his priviliged position in Nazi mythology after 1933, see Baird, Jay W., To Die for Germany: Heroes in the Nazi Pantheon (Bloomington, Ind., 1990), 13–40Google Scholar. Baird, however, overlooks the larger significance of Schlageter's Catholic faith, mentioning neither Schlageter's important connection with the CV nor the utilization of his religious identity by the NSDAP.

72. The first instance of this commemorative process was a mass meeting at the Circus Krone on 1 June 1923, which Hermann Esser began with the solemn homage: “We National Socialists mourn in Schlageter the loss of our best and most loyal party comrade”; report in VB no. 106 (3/4 June 1923). The advertisements for Schlageter keepsakes ran for weeks on end in the summer of 1923. A copy of the sheet music for the famous “Schlageter-Lied,” which was written by Hanfstaengl, Ernst (Unheard Witness, 87)Google Scholar, can be found in NSDAP-HA 53/fol. 1265. For various activities of the SA, see “Schlageter-Motorradstafette der SA,” VB no. 117 (16 06 1923)Google Scholar; “Schlageterfeier der SA,” VB no. 122 (22 06 1923)Google Scholar; “Schlageter-Abend,” VB no. 128 (29 06 1923)Google Scholar.

73. “Zu Schlageters Hinrichtung,” VB no. 114 (13 06 1923)Google Scholar.

74. “Schlageters letzte Augenblicke,” VB no. 113 (12 06 1923)Google Scholar; “Hochamt für Schlageter,” VB no. 137 (10 07 1923)Google Scholar; “Albert Leo Schlageter zum Gedächtnis,” VB no. 112 (10/11 06 1923)Google Scholar.

75. The Catholic nature of the St. Boniface ceremony contrasted sharply with the Protestant-nationalist orientation of the Königsplatz demonstration organized by Kriebel; significantly, the only clergyman featured as a speaker on the Königsplatz that day was the local Protestant pastor Martin Joch. The St. Boniface mass is mentioned briefly in Baird, , To Die for Germany, 254Google Scholar, n. 56, but Baird confuses the name of Schachleiter the priest with the monastery in Prague he had formerly run, stating erroneously that “a memorial mass for Schlageter was performed by Abbot von Emmaus at the St. Bonfazius Kirche.” Although the NSDAP did participate in the Königsplatz demonstration (and Hitler agreed to be one of the speakers), the leading organizer was Hermann Kriebel, the military head of a loose grouping of radical right-wing organizations known as the Vaterländische Kampfverbände.

76. Hanfstaengl described for Hitler the unforgettable impression made by the funerary ceremonies surrounding the death of Abraham Lincoln (which Hanfstaengl's American mother had witnessed as a girl), and suggested that in this case the memorial for Schlageter could be given “a solemn religious as well as patriotic flavor.” He continued: “I had had the further idea of getting Abbot Schachleiter to bless the standards of the SA formations taking part in the Schlageter demonstration and had been very pleased when I got Hitler to agree to it”; Unheard Witness, 86–87. See also Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, 108. On the May Day “debacle,” in which Hitler was forced publicly to back down from a number of ill-advised political threats, see, e.g., Franz-Willing, , Krisenjahr, 77–85Google Scholar.

77. See the hagiographic reference to Schlageter and other CV students as “the pioneers of National Socialism” in the letter from fellow CV alumnus Fritz Berthold to Schachleiter, 28 January 1934, NSDAP-HA 55/fol. 1327.

78. Hanfstaengl, , Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, 109Google Scholar. The VB noted the important visual role played by the SA standards: “The flag-bearers and standard-bearers stood at attention on both sides of the altar for the duration of the mass … During the transsubstantiation the flags and standards were lowered on both sides of the altar in obedience to the words of the priest… After the ceremony the parade march of the SA took place … a magnificent military spectacle.” VB no. 113 (12 June 1923).

79. Report of Schachleiter's sermon in VB no. 113 (12 June 1923).

80. Hinkel, Hans, Einer unter Hunderttausend (Munich, 1938), 99Google Scholar.

81. See for example Roth's major three-part article series, “Katholizismus und Judentum,” VB no. 108 (6 06 1923), no. 109 (7 06 1923), no. 110 (8 06 1923)Google Scholar. This popular series was quickly expanded and marketed under the same title in book form by the publisher of the Völkischer Beobachter, Franz Eher Nachf. Verlag, in August 1923. See also the advance publicity for the book; e.g., VB no. 151 (1 August 1923).

82. “Nationalsozialismus und Christentum,” VB no. 123 (23 06 1923)Google Scholar.

83. Konrad Heiden notes that “Hitler … as of 1918 certainly still went to confession and communion” and that, after meeting Alban Schachleiter, Hitler also “received the sacraments from this National Socialist abbot”; Heiden, , Der Fuehrer (Boston, 1944), 632Google Scholar. Rudolf Hess represented Hitler's Catholic faith as one of his outstanding qualities when, in attempting to arrange an initial meeting between Hitler and Gustav von Kahr, Hess wrote to Kahr: “[Hitler] is a character of rare decency and sincerity, generous in heart and religious, a good Catholic”; Hess to Kahr, 17 May 1921, cited in Deuerlein, , ed., Augenzeugenberichte, 133Google Scholar. Similarly, Hitler's lawyer Lorenz Roder proclaimed publicly as late as December 1923 that “Herr Hitler is still today a convinced Catholic”; cited in Kern, Erich, Adolf Hitler und seine Bewegung (Göttingen, 1970), 18Google Scholar. There is no question, however, that Hitler's ever-increasing faith in his own messianic political mission inevitably led him into a clearly anti-Christian stance once in power, as perhaps best evidenced by his “table talks” in the early 1940s.

84. Despite Schott's continued profession of Christianity, his ideas overlapped on several fronts with the Germanic religious ideology being developed by Alfred Rosenberg. On Schott, who is best known for his hagiographic Das Volksbuch von Hitler (Munich, 1924)Google Scholar, see Mensing, , Pfarrer und Nationalsozialismus, 274–75Google Scholar.

85. In contrast, a decade later the most thorough attempt to tailor Christian faith to match the imperatives of the Nazi regime in power was carried out by Protestants, most notably those in the “German Christian” movement; see Bergen, Doris, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill, 1996)Google Scholar. Björn Mensing notes the activities of Protestant pastors in Munich like Hermann Lembert, Friedrich Langenfass, and Martin Joch in the DNVP and in local antisemitic and völkisch groups in the early 1920s (Pfarrer, 74–75), but presents no evidence of participation by them or any other pastors in the Munich NSDAP. Mensing later notes that by May 1923 Protestant pastors were playing an important role in the NSDAP in predominantly-Protestant regions in northern Bavaria (pp. 92–93), but again finds nothing like this in the areas around Munich. Though not mentioned by Mensing, Martin Joch was also one of the speakers at the larger Königsplatz demonstration in honor of Schlageter (see VB, no. 113 [12 June 1923]), but was there on behalf of other local völkisch groups, not the NSDAP.

86. The most common reasons given for the rapid growth of the NSDAP in 1923 — nationalist outrage over the French occupation of the Ruhr and despair over the monetary crisis — are of course valid, but do not in themselves explain why many Catholics chose the NSDAP over other radical rightist groups preaching similar nationalistic, economic, and antisemitic messages at the time. On the devastating cultural effects of the inflation, see Geyer, Martin, Verkehrte Welt: Revolution, Inflation und Moderne: München 1914–1924 (Munich, 1998), 319–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

87. “Hochamt für Schlageter,” VB no. 137 (10 07 1923)Google Scholar; “Schlageterfeier in Passau,” VB no. 160 (11 08 1923)Google Scholar; “Die abgelehnte kirchliche Fahnenweihe,” VB no. 161 (12/13 08 1923)Google Scholar; “Deutscher Tag in Ottobeuren,” VB no. 168 (22 08 1923)Google Scholar.

88. “Kann ein Katholik Nationalsozialist sein?” VB no. 170 (24 08 1923)Google Scholar. For a report on the speech of 25 August, see “Aus der Bewegung,” VB no. 173 (28 08 1923)Google Scholar; Pieper's 28 August speech at the Neues Haus was advertised in VB no. 172 (26/27 August 1923).

89. “Bericht des Staatspolizeiamtes Nürnberg-Fürth vom 9.18.1923.” in Deuerlein, Ernst, ed. Der Hitler-Putsch: Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923 (Stuttgart, 1963)Google Scholar, Dok. 6, p. 170. Werner Maser mentions Roth's sermon in passing but does not draw any larger conclusions from it; Maser, , Frühgeschichte, 421Google Scholar.

90. Philipp Haeuser to Hitler, 14 October 1923, NSDAP-HA 53/fol. 1242.

91. Bacharach, Zvi, “Das Bild der Juden in katholischen Predigten des 19. Jahrhunderts,” in Geschichte und Kultur der Juden in Bayern, ed. Tremel, Manfred and Kirmeier, Josef (Munich, 1988), 312–20Google Scholar; Blaschke, , Katholizismus und Antisemitismus, 135–37Google Scholar; Joachimsthaler, , Hitlers Weg, 247–48Google Scholar.

92. Erhard Schlund openly labeled the Jews “racial aliens” (Rassenfremde) and proclaimed that loyal Catholics could in good conscience be “united with the antisemites in distress over the increasing influence of Jewry, especially in Germany, and in the desire to see this influence restricted”; Schlund, , Katholizismus und Vaterland: Eine prinzipielle Untersuchung (Munich, 1923), 33Google Scholar. Typically, however, Schlund prefaced these remarks by distancing himself from “fanatical” racism, warning against an exaggerated “hatred of all that is not German or Aryan”; ibid., 32. Faulhaber, for his part, also spoke out against “racial fanaticism” but generally left undefined the point at which the laudable mission against Jewish influence became fanaticism. In contrast, Faulhaber's famous remarks at the 1922 Katholikentag in Munich were quite clear — labeling the 1918 revolution and the republic it spawned as “perjury and high treason, which will remain throughout history hereditarily defective (erblich belastet) and tainted with the mark of Cain,” while also denouncing the related influence of the “Jewish press in Berlin” in contrast to the nobility of “Catholics of the racially-pure sort” (Katholiken reinrassiger Art). These statements were so extreme that Konrad Adenauer, the president of that year's Katholikentag, was forced publicly to disavow them; see Stehkämper, Hugo, Konrad Adenauer als Katholikentagspräsident 1922 (Mainz, 1977)Google Scholar, and the jubilant coverage of Faulhaber's antisemitic remarks in VB no, 69 (30 August, 1922); VB no. 70 (2 September 1922); “Rom und Juda,” VB no. 76 (23 09 1922)Google Scholar; “Das Zentrum und Juda,” VB no. 79 (4 10 1922)Google Scholar.

93. It should be noted that while the Nazis relentlessly pilloried the alleged opportunism of the BVP and Center Party, the essentially nonpolitical figure of Faulhaber was rarely (if ever) openly disparaged before late 1923.

94. The book was still unfinished at the time of Eckart's death in December 1923 but was completed from his notes and published posthumously in early 1924 as Der Bolschewismus von Moses bis Lenin: Zwiegespräch zwischen Adolf Hitler und mir (Munich, 1924)Google Scholar. Eckart's influence over Hitler up through 1923 is difficult to overstate. Not only was Eckart the bard of the early movement (he also coined the party's catchphrase “Deutschland erwache!”) but Hitler always credited Eckart as his intellectual father and, famously, ended the second volume of Mein Kampf with a dedication to “that man who, as one of the best, by words and by thoughts and finally by deeds, dedicated his life to the awakening of his and our nation, Dietrich Eckart”; Mein Kampf (Boston, 1939), 993Google Scholar.

95. Since the book did not appear until early 1924, at which point Catholic support for the Nazi cause was already dissolving, its importance in this context lies primarily in its revelation of the extent to which a broader Catholic vision, often otherwise unspoken because of its pervasiveness, underlay the early Nazi movement. The work was first recovered from almost complete obscurity by Nolte, Ernst, “Eine frühe Quelle zu Hitlers Antisemitismus,” Historische Zeitschrift 192 (1961): 584–606CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Nolte argues for the authenticity of the text (as Hitler's own words), a view accepted by Heer, Friedrich, Glaube, 204Google Scholar. For a dissenting view, see Plewnia, 101–10. Klaus Scholder mentions the importance of the book but downplays its essentially Catholic nature; Scholder, , Kirchen, 112–13Google Scholar.

96. “Let us take just one example: the selling of indulgences. The very essence of the Jewish spirit. We are both Catholics, but dare we not say it? … We say this precisely because we are Catholics. [The selling of indulgences] had nothing to do with Catholicism. Catholicism itself, we know, would have remained intact even if half the hierarchy had been Jewish”; Bolschewismus, 30.

97. Ibid., 35–36.

98. Ibid., 31. Hildebrand, as Gregory VII, was pope from 1073 to 1085 and presided over a remarkably wide-ranging reform of the church. His apparent strength and decisiveness were immortalized in his dramatic (if temporary) symbolic triumph over the Emperor Henry IV at Canossa in 1076.

99. Ibid., 26–27, 36 (quote from 36).

100. Ibid., 50. It is, as previously noted, quite difficult to divine exactly what Hitler's own personal religious convictions were in these early years; it is also, again, nearly impossible to ascertain the degree to which the words and ideas in Der Bolschewismus were exclusively Hitler's own. What is certain, however, is that Hitler did nothing to distance himself from these ideas when the book was published shortly after Eckart's death. Klaus Scholder, however, interprets Hitler's silence as evidence of possible disagreement with the ideas of Eckart; Kirchen, 112.

101. Dietrich, F., “Arisches Glaubenstum,” VB no. 4 (13 01 1921)Google Scholar.

102. Roth, , “Katholizismus und Judentum,” VB no. 108 (6 06 1923), no. 109 (7 June 1923), no. 110 (8 June 1923)Google Scholar.

103. “Kann ein Katholik Nationalsozialist sein?” VB no. 170 (24 08 1923)Google Scholar. Pieper's 25 August 1923 speech entitled “Nationalsozialismus und Religion” closed with the clarion call: “Volksgenossen (compatriots) must be Blutgenossen (racial comrades), and the Jews are not German Blutgenossen. God himself desired that there be racial differences, or he would not have created them. But since God does desire these differences, it is the duty of each race to keep itself pure from foreign pollutants (von Fremdkörpern rein zu halten). Therefore antisemitism is not un-Christian, but rather a command!” VB no. 173 (28 August 1923).

104. See Franz-Willing, , Putsch und Verbotszeit, 66–131Google Scholar; Gordon, , Putsch, 270–409Google Scholar; Maser, , Frügeschichte, 443–64Google Scholar.

105. Jablonsky, David, The Nazi Party in Dissolution: Hitler and the Verbotszeit, 1923–1925 (London, 1989), 53–128Google Scholar.

106. The NSDAP had, however, participated in a looser grouping of völkisch organizations known as the Arbeitsgemeinschaft earlier in 1923; see Maser, , Frühgeschichte, 377–80Google Scholar.

107. Aside from the NSDAP the leading radical groups in the Kampfbund were Bund Oberland, led by Friednch Weber, and the Reichskriegsflagge under Ernst Röhm (incidentally, both Röhm and Weber were Protestant); see Deuerlein, , Hitlerputsch, 488Google Scholar. The Nazi SA in particular came under the increased control of Hermann Kriebel (also Protestant), who had been appointed overall military leader of the Kampfbund.

108. Thoss, Bruno, Der Ludendorff-Kreis 1919–1923: München als Zentrum der mitteleuropäischen Gegenrevolution zwischen Revolution und Hitler-Putsch (Munich, 1987), 249–61Google Scholar.

109. Dietrich Eckart's name remained on the masthead as editor until late August 1923; he died some 4 months later. Rosenberg had probably taken over most of the editorial duties in spring 1923, at which time Eckart was lying low for health reasons and to evade a warrant for his arrest (on charges of making libelous statements against President Ebert); Plewnia, Eckart, 88. Plewnia, however, also accepts (wrongly, in my opinion) Rosenberg's claim that his own ascendancy at the VB signified the end of Eckart's influence over Hitler and the movement as early as March of 1923. On the contrary, when Hitler took a secluded vacation in early June 1923 he chose Eckart as his companion, and Eckart was centrally involved in the initial planning of the St. Boniface ceremony for Schlageter; see Hanfstaengl, , Unheard Witness, 83–87Google Scholar; Hanfstaengl, , Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, 106–10Google Scholar.

110. “Ludendorffs völkisches Bekenntnis,” VB no. 195 (22 09 1923)Google Scholar. Ludendorff's increased visibility in the VB can also be seen, for example, in the large front-page portrait of Ludendorff, VB no. 202 (30 September 1923); “Die Ludendorffhetze der Bayer. Volkspartei,” and “Ein Hebräer als Verleumder General Ludendorffs,” VB no. 211 (18 10 1923)Google Scholar. It was also, significantly, Ludendorff who wrote the movement's last programmatic ideological statement before the Putsch: “Die völkische Bewegung,” VB no. 223 (1 11 1923)Google Scholar.

111. Schlund, Erhard, Neugermanisches Heidentum im heutigen Deutschland (Munich, 1924), 63Google Scholar.

112. Stempfle's criticism of Ludendorff brought about a loud denunciation from Alfred Rosenberg; see, e.g., “Der Stempfle enthüllt sich!” VB no. 225 (4/5 11 1923)Google Scholar.

113. See Eckart's October 1923 letter to Max Amann, cited in Joachimsthaler, , Hitlers Weg, 279Google Scholar.

114. Tröster, “Eigenart,” 54. Pieper also claimed that a reluctant Hitler encouraged him to follow the directive of his superiors, saying that “a suspended priest is of no use to me anyway.”

115. Kershaw, , Hubris, 199–200Google Scholar; Orlow, Dietrich, The History of the Nazi Party, 1919–1933 (London, 1971), 43–44Google Scholar. Hitler announced his decision to accept the Kampfbund position in “An alle Parteimitglieder!” VB no. 198 (26 09 1923)Google Scholar.

116. Additionally, Hitler had somewhat curiously appointed perhaps the least charismatic figure in the NSDAP, Alfred Rosenberg (who was also one of the least popular among Catholics), to be interim leader of the party in Hitler's absence; Franz-Willing, , Putsch und Verbotszeit, 193Google Scholar. It has often been suggested that Hitler did this to ensure that the movement would essentially die in his absence, thus eliminating potentially dangerous rivals and facilitating the eventual reassertion of Hitler's personal and complete control over the movement after his release from prison; but see also Kershaw, , Hubris, 225Google Scholar.

117. See “Die Novembervorgänge an der Münchener Universität,” Academia: Monatsschrift des CV der katholischen deutschen Studentenverbindungen 36, no. 8 (15 12 1923): 17–18Google Scholar. While this account admits that a Catholic fraternity leader called the rally, it contends that his original plans were altered and that the rally was essentially highjacked by völkisch elements from outside the university. For a Catholic condemnation of the behavior of Catholic fraternity members, see Schlund, Erhard, “Münchener Universitäts-Studenten und der 12. November,” Augsburger Postzeitung, no. 295 (25 12 1923)Google Scholar.

118. Hoffmann, Albrecht, Der 9. November im Lichte der völkischen Freiheitsbewegung: Vortrag gehalten vor Studierenden der Universität München am 21. November 1923 (Munich, 1924), 15Google Scholar.

119. Cited in “Religionskrieg,” Bayerischer Kurier no. 58 (27 02 1924)Google Scholar. This statement was made by a völkisch activist named Born in a speech before a branch of the Evangelischer Bund in Nuremberg on 21 February 1924. On the activities of Born see also the accounts in Bayerische Volkszeitung no. 47 (23 February 1924) and “Kein Born der Weisheit,” Das Bayerische Vaterland no. 54 (4 03 1924)Google Scholar.

120. For Ludendorff's incendiary comments, see Gruchmann, L. and Weber, R., eds., Der Hitler-Prozess 1924: Wortlaut der Hauptverhandlung vor dem Volksgericht München I (Munich, 1997), 262, 1057, 1183–84Google Scholar. Furthering the popular Catholic-Jewish conspiracy theory, the defense lawyer for Friedrich Weber, Dr. Alfred Holl, charged during the trial that the Putsch had been betrayed at least in part by the attempt to establish “the hegemony of the Catholic Church, [which] could only succeed through the support of international Jewry”; ibid., 1314.

121. See “Patriotismus ‘der Tat’,” Bayerischer Kurier no. 48 (18 02 1924)Google Scholar. Special police protection for Faulhaber's residence was ordered by Bavarian Kultusminister Franz Matt; see Matt to Franz Schweyer, 13 February 1924, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv (BHSA) MInn-73548.

122. Johann Rauch to Knilling, 11 December 1923, Staatsarchiv München (SAM), Polizei-direktion-6687. See also Bayerischer Kurier no. 345 (12 December 1923), and “Zurückweisung der Angriffe gegen den Kardinal,” Münchener Neueste Nachrichten no. 28 (29 01 1924)Google Scholar.

123. There are dozens of clippings from this campaign in both the Munich police files (SAM/PD-6687) and in the Nazi party archive (NSDAP-HA 64/fol. 1466) that refer explicitly to völkisch activism in terms of a new Kulturkampf. The most memorable of these articles dramatized its point by featuring a picture of a Nazi dagger, with a swastika on the handle, severing a row of rosary beads and plunging through a Bible; “Sind die Deutschvölkischen kirchenfeindlich?” Bayerischer Kurier, no. 87 (27 03 1924)Google Scholar.

124. “Bericht über die am 10.4.24 stattgefundene Protestkundgebung der Münchener Katholiken,” SAM/PD-6687.

125. This speech was later published under the title Deutsches Ehrgefühl und katholisches Gewissen (Munich, 1925)Google Scholar, quote from p. 13.

126. “Bericht über die am 10.4.24 stattgefundene Protestkundgebung der Münchener Katholiken” SAM/PD-6687.

127. Quotes from a speech by the aforementioned activist Born in “Kein Born der Weisheit,” Das Bayerische Vaterland no. 54 (4 03 1924)Google Scholar, and “Religionskrieg,” Bayerischer Kurier no. 58 (27 02 1924)Google Scholar.

128. See for example the statement of Albrecht Hoffmann that “Hitler … failed because he did not recognize the immense danger of ultramontanism clearly enough;” Hoffmann, , Der 9. November, 8Google Scholar. Hitler's otherwise hagiographic early biographer, the Protestant Georg Schott, agreed openly and, in looking back on NSDAP's more Catholic orientation before the Putsch, stated that “in [Hitler's] soul there was simply no room for consideration of such devilish [Catholic] trickery. He clearly recognized the Jewish treachery, but was not capable of the thought that the devil had crept into the eucharistic vessel (Monstranz) and was deceiving the childishly believing populace. He was not capable, that is, until life taught him this hard lesson. What level of pain this experience caused him, this sincere Catholic and deeply pious man (ehrlichen Katholiken und von Herzen frommen Manne), requires no further discussion”; Schott, , Das Volksbuch von Hitler (Munich, 1924), 165Google Scholar.

129. See especially Probst, Robert, Die NSDAP im Bayerischen Landtag 1924–1933 (Munich, 1998), 23–38Google Scholar; and Jablonsky, , The Nazi Party in Dissolution, 54–57Google Scholar.

130. Pleyer's statements were made in an essay in Deutsche Presse 3 (January 1924) and quoted in “Kulturkampf,” Bayerischer Kurier no. 33 (2 02 1924)Google Scholar. On Pleyer's later career as an historian and leading Nazi figure, see Walter Frank's extended obituary published shortly after Pleyer was killed in action on the eastern front in 1942, “Kleo Pleyer: Ein Kampf um das Reich,” Historische Zeitschrift 166 (1942): 507–53Google Scholar; Frank recounts Pleyer's völkisch student activism at the University of Munich during and following the Putsch in ibid., 525–28.

131. These meetings were heavily covered in the press on all sides: see, e.g., the articles entitled “Kann ein Katholik völkisch sein?” BK no. 112 (25 04 1924)Google Scholar, Augsburger Postzeitung no. 97 (26 April 1924), Münchener Zeitung no. 116 (26 April 1924), Grossdeutsche Zeitung no. 73 (28 April 1924).

132. Überwachung der Versammlung am 25.4.24 im Bürgerbräukeller, Thema: “Kann ein Katholik völkisch sein,” SAM/PD-6687. Ferrari also launched into an extended personal testimonial: “I am a believing Catholic, but I first had much to work through. Events have constantly brought me back to the question: why [am I a Catholic]? I have wrestled with God, but I have persevered to arrive at my positive Catholic faith. Anyone who has to struggle in life will have to struggle with his faith. A doubter who has fought his way through becomes stronger than someone who has always been comfortable”; recounted in Grossdeutsche Zeitung no. 73 (28 April 1924).

133. “We Catholics of Munich (and of all the German-speaking territories) who belong to the völkisch movement are in no way waging a war against the cross, the symbol of Christianity, against the Catholic Church, against the Holy Father, or against our archbishop … We völkisch Catholics venerate in the Holy Father the honored Oberhaupt of our Church, which we esteem as standing above the nations, untroubled by the personal sentiments of individuals. We venerate in his Eminence, the Cardinal-Archbishop Dr. Faulhaber, our honorable shepherd (unseren aufrechten Sprengelhirten), whom we continue to recognize as standing above the parties”; reprinted in “Kann ein Katholik völkisch sein?” Grossdeutsche Zeitung, no. 73 (28 April 1924). The police report, which mentions but does not reproduce the text of the declaration, notes that it was opposed by only five votes, SAM/PD-6687.

134. Völkisch attacks on the Catholic Church continued unabated throughout the year; see the large folder in the Munich police files of related clippings that run into early 1925 entitled “Ludendorffs Einstellung zur katholischen Kirche,” SAM/PD-6687.

135. The bulk of support for the Völkischer Block had come at the expense of the BVP (whose totals dropped from 31.7 percent in the previous Reichstag election [1920] to 21.9 percent in May 1924) and the SPD (which declined even more dramatically, from 39.2 percent in 1920 to 17.1 percent in May 1924). While the BVP losses flowed almost exclusively into the völkisch cause (the Bauernbund vote in Munich remained less than 2 percent and DNVP totals remained virtually constant between 1920 and May 1924), the SPD losses were also responsible for fueling the rapid growth of the KPD, whose vote totals more than doubled (from 7.2 percent in 1920 to 15.1 percent in May 1924); Thränhardt, , Wahlen, 172–73Google Scholar. It would be interesting to speculate as to how many of Karl Heinrich Pohl's “Catholic socialists” (see n. 12 above) may have defected to the Nazi camp not only for its worker-oriented radicality but also for its religious rhetoric.

136. The bitterness felt by many völkisch Catholics toward the disastrous impact of Ludendorff and his followers was expressed quite articulately by Abbot Schachleiter in a letter to Oswald Spengler in late May 1924: “What a disaster for the German Fatherland! One could almost scream over this state of affairs! Haven't we already been brought low enough? Our Volk has never been so leaderless as it is today. Ludendorff has completely thrown away the support of German Catholics … God help us! May he grant us the strength to continue to work for our poor Fatherland”; Schachleiter to Spengler, 31 May 1924, in Spengler, , Briefe: 1913–1936 (Munich, 1963), 325Google Scholar.

137. Thränhardt, , Wahlen, 173Google Scholar. It should also be noted that only a very limited number of Catholic defectors from the Völkischer Block in Munich went back to the BVP, whose mandate increased only slightly (from 21.9 percent in May to 23.7 percent in December). Many seem to have opted for the DNVP, which jumped from 12.3 percent of the Munich vote in May to 21.5 percent in December. Importantly, the DNVP was at this time energetically attempting to lure right-wing Catholics into its own Katholiken-Ausschuss, whose most prominent national figure was the Catholic historian (and later Nazi Reichstag delegate) Martin Spahn: see Clemens, Gabriele, Martin Spahn und der Rechtskatholizismus in der Weimarer Republik (Mainz, 1983)Google Scholar.

138. Despite Hitler's dogged insistence that Munich would always remain the Hauptstadt der Bewegung, from 1924 on this claim was primarily symbolic. Even as late as the elections of March 1933, when the Nazis were riding the wave of nationalistic fervor that accompanied Hitler's appointment as chancellor, electoral support for the NSDAP remained noticeably lower in Munich (37.8%) than in Germany more generally (43.9%); Thränhardt, , Wahlen, 136Google Scholar.

139. Miller, Alfred, Der Jesuitismus als Volksgefahr: Eine Betrachtung zu den Münchener Novem-berereignissen (Munich, 1924), 17Google Scholar. Miller clearly left the Catholic Church following the Putsch, and by the late 1920s was working closely with the antisemitic movement of the overtly anti-Christian Theodor Fritsch and his Hammer-Verlag in Leipzig; see, e.g., Miller's reworking and republication of Fritsch's, famous Geistige Unterjochung (Leipzig, 1929)Google Scholar and Miller's own profoundly anti-Christian manifesto Völkerentartung unter dem Kreuz (Leipzig, 1936)Google Scholar.

140. The only extended account of Himmler's early years remains Smith's, Bradley F. all-too-brief Heinrich Himmler: A Nazi in the Making, 1900–1926 (Stanford, 1971)Google Scholar; Padfield's, Peter more popular Himmler: Reichsführer SS (London, 1990)Google Scholar does not add much to the picture already established by Smith. There is much material on Himmler that is yet to be worked through; the important fragments of Himmler's diaries that were discovered after the Second World War are on deposit at the Hoover Institution in Stanford (see Angress, Werner T. and Smith, Bradley F., “Diaries of Heinrich Himmler's Early Years,” Journal of Modern History 31 [1959]: 206–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Additionally, the Collection Himmler section of the NSDAP Hauptarchiv constitutes a treasure trove of further information on Himmler and his family background; see especially NSDAP-HA 98/fols. 1–9; 99/fols. 9–16; 17a/fol. 1; 18a/fol. 11.

141. Himmler to parents, 29 November 1918, NSDAP-HA 98/fol. 2. This letter is cited in a different context in Smith, , Himmler, 59Google Scholar. Himmler was active in the BVP (even agitating on the party's behalf) at least through 1921.

142. See Smith, , Himmler, 87Google Scholar; Angress and Smith, “Diaries,” 217. On Himmler's religious observance while a student see also Himmler's letter to his parents, 20 March 1920, NSDAP-HA 98/fol. 2.

143. Himmler's partial reading list from 1919 through the early 1930s, containing nearly 350 titles often with brief notes and responses, is contained in NSDAP-HA 18a/fol. 11. On Himmler's increasing involvement in various smaller groups within Munich's völkisch milieu between 1921 and 1923 see Smith, , Himmler, 125–26, 131–33Google Scholar.

144. Several of the patriotic groups of which Himmler was a member, including the comparatively moderate grouping Vereinigte Vaterländische Verbände Bayerns, mandated that their members attend the Schlageter demonstration on the Königsplatz; see VB no. 110 (8 June 1923). Himmler's almost certain attendance at the St. Boniface ceremony and the impact of the figure of Schlageter on his life are indicated by Himmler's central involvement in the völkisch festivities surrounding the one-year anniversary of Schlageter's death in May 1924. For instance, on the back of his personal Ehrenkarte for the largest of these Schlageter ceremonies (in the Bürgerbräukeller on 26 May 1924), Himmler recorded proudly: “Was present in uniform and carried the flag”; NSDAP-HA 98/fol. 1.

145. Bradley Smith misinterprets (in my opinion) Himmler's entrance into the NSDAP in the summer of 1923 as the almost accidental result of simply “stumbl[ing] along” in the wake of the decision of the popular Ernst Röhm, leader of the Reichsflagge (one of several völkisch groups to which Himmler belonged), to join the NSDAP; Smith, , Himmler, 134Google Scholar. On Himmler's (minor) role in the Putsch, see Gordon, , Putsch, 345–46Google Scholar, and Smith, , Himmler, 136Google Scholar.

146. On Himmler's continued attendance at mass, see for example his diary entries for 17–24 February 1924, cf. Angress and Smith, “Diaries,” 217. In his reading list, Himmer noted next to the entry for Der Bolschewismus that he would “read this often” and that “it gives one perspective on all times and places”; NSDAP-HA 18a/fol. 11.

147. Interestingly, Miller's, AlfredUltramontanes Schuldbuch: Eine deutsche Abrechnung mit dem Zentrum und seinen Hintermännern (Breslau, 1922)Google Scholar was the item immediately preceeding Der Bolschewismus in Himmler's reading list; NSDAP-HA 18a/fol. 11. Himmler recorded that he finished Haeckel's, Die Welträtsel (Leipzig, 1919)Google Scholar on 9 February 1924 and was intrigued by it; however, his negative reaction to Haeckel's “denial of a personal God,” which Himmler judged as “simply terrible,” illustrates his continued attempt to hold on to his religious faith. The list also notes, however, that Himmler began reading the scurrilous von Schlichtegroll, Carl Friedrich, Ein Sadist im Priesterrock (Leipzig, 1904)Google Scholar, in late February 1924.

148. Smith, , Himmler, 154Google Scholar; for more detail see, e.g., Stachura, Peter, Gregor Strasser and the Rise of Nazism (London, 1983), 35–37Google Scholar, and Jablonsky, , Nazi Party in Dissolution, 85–92Google Scholar. As Gregor Strasser's personal secretary, Himmler officially came back into the refounded NSDAP in May 1925; Smith, , Himmler, 158Google Scholar.

149. Angress and Smith, “Diaries,” 217; Padfield, , Himmler, 170–74Google Scholar; see also Dierker, Wolfgang, Himmlers Glaubenskrieger: Der Sicherheitsdienst der SS und seine Religionspolitik (Paderborn, 2002), esp. 123–28Google Scholar.

150. For the impact of the Catholic rituals from Hitler's childhood on his aesthetic and political sensibilities, see Heer, , Glaube, 21–24Google Scholar. See also, more generally, Faber, Richard, “Politischer Katholizismus: Die Bewegung von Maria Laach,” in Religions- und Geistesgeschichte der Weímarer Republik, ed. Cancik, Hubert (Düsseldorf, 1982), 136–58Google Scholar.

151. Bärsch, Politische Religion, esp. 26–31; Klaus Breuning, Die Vision des Reiches; Faber, Richard, Lateinischer Faschismus: Über Carl Schmitt, den Römer und Katholiken (Berlin, 2001)Google Scholar.

152. Hitler, , Mein Kampf (Boston, 1939), 829Google Scholar.