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² Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah,” http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_16031998_shoah_en.html (last accessed 30 Dec. 2019).

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⁴ Brown-Fleming, Suzanne, The Holocaust and Catholic Conscience (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Ericksen, Robert P., Complicity in the Holocaust: Churches and Universities in Nazi Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ericksen, Robert P., “Resistance or Complicity? Balancing Assessments of German Churches under Nazism,” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 28, 2 (2015): 246–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gerlach, Wolfgang, And the Witnesses Were Silent: The Confessing Church and the Persecution of the Jews (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Gutteridge, Richard, Open Thy Mouth for the Dumb! The German Evangelical Church and the Jews, 1879–1950 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1976)Google Scholar; Klee, Ernst, ‘Die SA Jesu Christi’: Die Kirche im Banne Hitlers (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1989)Google Scholar; Phayer, Michael, The Catholic Church and the Holocaust (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

⁵ This was true even for the leadership and clergy of the Confessional Church that split off from the Protestant Church as the Nazi regime sought to create a single Reich Church. See Baranowski, Shelley, The Confessing Church, Conservative Elites, and the Nazi State (Lewiston: Edwin Meilen, 1986)Google Scholar and Barnett, Victoria, For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest against Hitler (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

⁶ Cornwell, John, Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (New York: Viking, 1999)Google Scholar; Fattorini, Emma, Hitler, Mussolini, and the Vatican: Pope Pius XI and the Speech that Was Never Made, Ipsen, Carl, trans. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011)Google Scholar; Kertzer, David I., The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe (New York: Random House, 2014)Google Scholar; Wolf, Hubert, Pope and Devil: The Vatican's Archives and the Third Reich, Kronenbert, Kenneth, trans. (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2012)Google Scholar.

⁷ Steigmann-Gall, Richard, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the reactions compiled in Journal of Contemporary History 42, 1 (2007): 5–78; and Steigmann-Gall's response in the issue that followed (42, 2: 185–211).

⁸ Steigmann-Gall, Holy Reich, 262. On the difficulty of distinguishing between paganism and “Aryan Christianity” in the ideology and membership of the Nazi Party, see Uwe Puschner, “Weltanschauung und Religion, Religion und Weltanschauung: Ideologie und Formen völkischer Religion,” Zeitenblicke 5, 1 (2006), http://www.zeitenblicke.de/2006/1/Puschner; and Koehne, Samuel, “Were the National Socialists a Völkisch Party? Paganism, Christianity, and the Nazi Christmas,” Central European History 47, 4 (2014): 760–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹ Williamson, George S., “A Religious Sonderweg? Reflections on the Sacred and the Secular in the Historiography of Modern Germany,” Church History 75, 1 (2006): 139–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ Bergen, Doris, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

¹¹ Hastings, Derek, Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism: Religious Identity and National Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

¹² Biale, David, Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol between Jews and Christians (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kertzer, David I., The Popes against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism (New York: Knopf, 2001)Google Scholar; Kertzer, David I. and Mokosch, Gunnar, “The Medieval in the Modern: Nazi and Italian Fascist Use of the Ritual Murder Charge,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 33, 2 (2019): 177–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Michael, Robert, Holy Hatred: Christianity, Anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³ Bergen, Doris, “Catholics, Protestants, and Christian Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany,” Central European History 27, 3 (1994): 329–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Gailus, Manfred, Protestantismus und Nationalsozialismus: Studien zur nationalsozialistischen Durchdringung des protestantischen Sozialmilieus in Berlin (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2001)Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Probst, Christopher J., Demonizing the Jews: Luther and the Protestant Church in Nazi Germany (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012), 172Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Heschel, Susannah, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010)Google Scholar. More generally, there is a large literature on the history of the demonization of the Jews by the Christian churches: e.g., Chazan, Robert, Medieval Stereotypes and Modern Anti-Semitism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Cohen, Jeremy, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Antijudaism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Isaac, Jules, The Teaching of Contempt: Christian Roots of Anti-Semitism (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964)Google Scholar; Kauffmann, Thomas, Luther's Jews: A Journey into Anti-Semitism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)Google Scholar; Michael, Robert, A History of Catholic Anti-Semitism: The Dark Side of the Church (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miccoli, Giovanni, “Santa Sede, questione ebraica e anti-Semitismo fra Otto e Novecento,” in Vivanti, Corrado, ed., Storia d'Italia, Annali 11, vol. 2 (Turin: Einaudi, 1997), 1371–1577Google Scholar; Pierrard, Pierre, Juifs et catholiques français (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1997)Google Scholar; Valbousquet, Nina, “Tradition catholique et matrice de l'antisémitisme à l’époque contemporaine,” Revue d'Histoire Moderne & Contemporaine 62, 2/3 (2015): 63–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blaschke, Olaf, Katholizismus und Anti-Semitismus im deutschen Kaiserreich (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁶ Sarfatti, Michele, The Jews in Mussolini's Italy: From Equality to Persecution, John, and Tedeschi, Anne, trans. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Klein, Shira, Italy's Jews from Emancipation to Fascism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Italy's racial laws, see Cavaglion, Alberto and Romagnani, Gian Paolo, Le interdizioni del Duce: Le leggi razziali in Italia (Turin: Claudiana, 2002)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Debates over why Mussolini initiated his anti-Jewish campaign continue. See, for example, Fabre, Giorgio, Mussolini razzista: dal socialismo al fascismo, la formazine di un antisemita (Milan: Garzanti, 2005)Google Scholar; and Matard-Bonucci, Marie-Anne, L'Italie fasciste et la persécution des juifs (Paris: Perrin, 2007)Google Scholar.

¹⁸ On Landra, see Gillette, Aaron, “Guido Landra and the Office of Racial Studies in Fascist Italy,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 16, 3 (2002): 357–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ On La Difesa della razza and its anti-Semitic campaign, see Francesco Cassata, ‘La Difesa della razza’: Politica, ideologia e immagine del razzismo fascista (Turin: Einaudi, 2008); Mariana Aguirre, “La Difesa Della Razza (1938–1943): Primitivism and Classicism in Fascist Italy,” Politics, Religion & Ideology 16, 4 (2015): 370–90, 373; Foro, Philippe, “Racisme fasciste et antiquité: L'exemple de la revue ‘La Difesa della Razza’ (1938–1943),” Vingtième Siècle: Revue d'histoire 78 (2003): 121–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Loré, Michele, Anti-Semitismo e razzismo ne La difesa della razza, 1938–1943 (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2008)Google Scholar; Pisanty, Valentina, ed., Educare all'odio: La difesa della razza, 1938–1943 (Milan: Bompiani, 2006)Google Scholar; Rigano, Gabriele, “Romanità, cattolicità e razzismo: La Santa Sede e La Difesa della razza,” Cristianesimo nella Storia 33, 1 (2012): 45–88Google Scholar; Servi, Sandro, “Building a Racial State: Images of the Jew in the Illustrated Fascist Magazine, La Difesa della Razza, 1938–1943,” in Zimmerman, Joshua D., ed., Jews in Italy under Fascist & Nazi Rule, 1922–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 114–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ “Judgement: Streicher,” http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/judstrei.asp (last accessed 30 Dec. 2019).

²¹ See Kertzer, Popes against the Jews.

²² On the Vatican and the racial laws, see Kertzer, Pope and Mussolini.

²³ Archivio Storico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri (Rome), Ambasciata Italiana presso la Santa Sede, b. 102, no. 2454/923. The Osservatore romano article noted that the question of the propriety of La difesa della razza was of particular concern to the Church since not only state schools but also all Catholic private schools were required to subscribe to the magazine. It ridiculed the publication as resembling a “scientific parody.” It is notable that the Osservatore romano article was immediately republished in Italy's most influential Catholic daily newspaper, L'Avvenire d'Italia (15 Sept. 1938: 6).

²⁴ On 20 March, barely two weeks after Pius XII succeeded Pius XI, the Vatican Secretariat of State sent a direct complaint about La difesa della razza to the Italian government, via Italy's ambassador to the Holy See, Bonifacio Pignatti, a complaint that Pignatti then sent to Galeazzo Ciano, Minister of Foreign Affairs (and Mussolini's son-in-law). The document, bearing the stamp “Visto dal Duce” [seen by the Duce] (Telespresso no. 983/287, Archivio Storico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri [Rome], Affari Politici, 1931–1945, Santa Sede, b. 45), was accompanied by a four-page “Pro-Memoria” detailing the complaints about the departure of the publication from Catholic teachings. It is notable that the Vatican, now under Pius XII, did not make its displeasure public.

²⁵ Giuseppe, Pensabene, “L'evoluzione e la razza: Cinquant'anni di polemiche ne ‘La civiltà cattolica,’” La difesa della razza [henceforth DR] 1, 2 (1938): 33.

²⁶ Giuseppe Pensabene, “‘La Civiltà Cattolica’ e gli ebrei,” DR 1, 3 (1938): 35–36.

²⁷ “‘Santa Cecilia’ di Raffaello,” DR 3, 2 (1939): 11–12; “Politica della famiglia e della razza,” DR, vol. 3, no. 2, (1939) pp. 29–30; “Madri e bambini nell'arte italiana,” DR. 3, 4 (1939): 8–11.

²⁸ Giuseppe Lucidi, “I papi e i medici ebrei,” DR 1, 4 (1938): 14.

²⁹ “Le fonti dell'antigiudaismo italiano. Paolo IV e la carta dei giudei,” DR 2, 10 (1939): 27–28; Paolo Guidotti, “Bolle pontificie contro gli ebrei,” DR 2, 16 (1939): 27–29; Salvatore Costanza, “Gli eterni nemici di Roma,” DR 2, 16 (1939): 30; M. C. Tentoni, “Gli ebrei nello stampo pontificio al tempo della Restaurazione,” DR 4, 23 (1941): 27–29.

³⁰ “L'ebreo nell'arte,” DR 1, 4 (1938): 24.

³¹ Marro, Giovanni, “Giuda ebreo: Giuda negroide,” DR 5, 4 (1941): 16–20Google Scholar.

³² The history of vilification of the Talmud as the epicenter of Jewish evil has been examined by Fausto Parente, “La Chiesa e il Talmud,” in Storia d'Italia, Annali 11, vol. 2, Gli ebrei in Italia, Corrado Vivanti, ed. (Turin: Einaudi, 1997); and Stow, Kenneth, “The Burning of the Talmud in 1553, in the Light of Sixteenth Century Catholic Attitudes toward the Talmud,” Bibliothèque d'humanisme et Renaissance 34, 3 (1972): 435–59Google Scholar.

³³ “Talmud,” DR 1, 4 (1938): 10–11; Bagni, Mario De’, “Luigi Chiarini e la ‘teoria del giudaismo,’” DR 1, 5 (1938): 14Google Scholar; “Le due bocche d'Israele: Da Talmud,” DR 1, 5 (1938): 15–16.

³⁴ Louis Veuillot (1813–1883) was the editor of France's influential ultramontane Catholic journal, L'Univers, and a man much appreciated by Pope Pius IX. For details, see Howard., Thomas AlbertThe Pope and the Professor: Pius IX, Ignaz von Dollinger, and the Quandary of the Modern Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 122CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and O'Malley, John W., Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 61 et passim.

³⁵ Begni, Mario De’, “Cristo e i cristiani nel Talmud,” DR 2, 14 (1939): 8–10Google Scholar; “Come gli ebrei considerano la donna non ebrea,” DR 2, 14 (1939): 22–23.

³⁶ Begni, Mario De’, “Le fonti dell'antigiudaismo italiano, Bernardino da Feltre e i Frati minori,” DR 2, 7 (1939): 35–36Google Scholar; Veltroni, Pietro, “Monte San Savino e la cacciata dei giudei nel 1799,” DR 2, 8 (1939): 15–16Google Scholar; Cioli, M., “Santi della razza italiana. Bernardino da Feltre,” DR 2, 23 (1939): 12–14Google Scholar; Gurrieri, Ottorino, “San Paolo e i giudei,” DR 4, 17 (1941): 10–11Google Scholar.

³⁷ Callari, Francesco, “L'ebreo non si assimila,” DR 1, 6 (1938): 20–21Google Scholar.

³⁸ Sottochiesa, Gino, “Ebrei convertiti,” DR 3, 19 (1940): 18–23Google Scholar. The Civilità cattolica review of Sottochiesa's book is found in 1938, I: 460.

³⁹ “‘L'Arianizzato’ alle porte del paradiso,” DR 6, 3 (1942): 3. The cartoon is taken from a French paper.

⁴⁰ Macri, Filippo, “Come gli ebrei tentarono d'impadronirsi del patrimonio della Chiesa,” DR 2, 5 (1939): 39–40Google Scholar; Trizzino, A., “Battesimi e conversioni di ebrei,” DR 2, 9 (1939): 27–28Google Scholar; “Questionario,” DR 2, 10 (1939): 42; Savelli, Giovanni, “Introduzione: Storia dell'esilio,” DR 6, 1 (1942): 12–13Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Zumaglini, Cesare, “Il sacrilegio dell'ostia,” DR 2, 5 (1939): 24–25Google Scholar; Almirante, Giorgio, “Che la diritta via era smarrita,” DR 5, 13 (1942): 9–11Google Scholar. The many articles found in La difesa devoted to Jewish ritual murder are examined in Kertzer and Mokosch, “Medieval in the Modern.”

⁴² “Invito alla meditazione,” DR 6, 14 (1943): 22. The magazine cover image of the Jew with a knife and a revolver is credited to a 1907 Russian weekly.

⁴³ Steigmann-Gall, Holy Reich, 125–26.

⁴⁴ Philipp Ruprecht, “Schöpfung,” Der Stürmer (1936) 1: 1.

⁴⁵ Julius Streicher, “Der Papst leugnet das Gottesgesetz,” Der Stürmer (1938) 34: 1–2.

⁴⁶ Julius Streicher, “Unser Glaube,” Der Stürmer (1937) 1: 1–2.

⁴⁷ Julius Streicher, “Als Religion getarntes Verbrechertum,” Der Stürmer (1942) 34: 1–2.

⁴⁸ Döblin, best known for his experimental novel Berlin Alexanderplatz, was one of the foremost representatives of modernism in German-language literature, which added to his enemy status in the eyes of the Nazis.

⁴⁹ Julius Streicher, “Die große Täuschung,” Der Stürmer (1940) 37: 1–2.

⁵⁰ “Wofür Katholiken beten sollen,” Der Stürmer (1934) 7: 5.

⁵¹ Philipp Ruprecht, “Preisausschreiben,” Der Stürmer (1935) 34: 1.

⁵² Philipp Ruprecht, “Ostern,” Der Stürmer (1933) 15: 1.

⁵³ Philipp Ruprecht, “Kreuzigung,” Der Stürmer (1939) 4: 1.

⁵⁴ Philipp Ruprecht, “Erlösergeburt,” Der Stürmer (1933) 51: 1.

⁵⁵ “Der Teufel im Priesterrock,” Der Stürmer (1938) 27: 3.

⁵⁶ Christa-Maria Rock, “Juda und christliche Konfessionen,” Der Stürmer (1937) 11: 6.

⁵⁷ “Priester und Pfaffen,” Der Stürmer (1936) 14: 7.

⁵⁸ Ernst Hiemer, “Dem Volke verloren,” Der Stürmer (1936) 30: 1–2.

⁵⁹ L. Franz, “Kirche und Jude,” Der Stürmer (1940) 18: 8.

⁶⁰ Hans Eisenbeiß, “Judenfeindliche Päpste,” Der Stürmer (1942) 35: 6.

⁶¹ Hans Eisenbeiß, “Die Juden unter Papst Paul IV,” Der Stürmer (1943) 49: 4.

⁶² Siegfried Goetze, “Dr. Martin Luther und Juda,” Der Stürmer (1941) 22: 3.

⁶³ Julius Streicher, “Sie hassen das Kreuz,” Der Stürmer (1943) 51: 4.

⁶⁴ “Die Predigt,” Der Stürmer (1935) 49: 8.

⁶⁵ Rosenberg was among the foremost Nazi ideologues. He edited the Nazi Party's newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, from 1923 to 1938, and in his best-selling book, The Myth of the Twentieth Century, he promoted the idea that Christianity in Germany should be replaced by a national, Nordic faith of blood and soil. Steigmann-Gall argues that Rosenberg's influence has been vastly overestimated by Church historians keen to show the Nazi's anti-Christian credentials (Holy Reich, 91). For a contrary opinion, see Hexham, Irving, “Inventing ‘Paganists’: A Close Reading of Richard Steigmann-Gall's The Holy Reich,” Journal of Contemporary History 42, 1 (2007): 59–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁶ Karl Holz, “War Christus Jude?” Der Stürmer (1938) 49: 1–4.

⁶⁷ Julius Streicher, “Der falsche Glaube,” Der Stürmer (1944) 35: 1–2.

⁶⁸ Philipp Ruprecht, “Die ‘Heilige’ Schrift,” Der Stürmer (1936) 44: 1.

⁶⁹ “Das Alte Testament,” Der Stürmer (1940) 46: 5.

⁷⁰ “Kampf des Stürmers,” Der Stürmer (1936) 51: 1.

⁷¹ On Streicher's contempt of intellectuals, and especially university professors, see Roos, Julius Streicher und “Der Stürmer,” 114.

⁷² La Civiltà cattolica helped prepare the way for acceptance of Italy's racial laws a month before they were first enacted by praising the similar, recently announced Hungarian anti-Semitic measures. The Vatican-supervised journal warned readers of the Jews’ “messianic craving for world domination,” contrasting the measures that Hungary was enacting with those of a “vulgar, fanatic … racist” kind (Mario Barbera, “La questione dei giudei in Ungheria,” Civiltà cattolica III [1938]: 146–53). For an examination of how the Catholic press handled this question at the time Italy's racial laws were first announced, see Kertzer, Pope and Mussolini, 316–20.

⁷³ A six-column spread in Mussolini's newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia, the following year (“Pio XII esalta le grandi figure di San Francesco e Santa Caterina,” 6 May 1940: 3) ecstatically described the pope's participation in a church ceremony celebrating the creation of the two new national saints. Proudly sitting in the first row were various Fascist dignitaries along with many cardinals. Following the ceremony, the bigshots of the Fascist regime lined up to kiss the pope's ring. The next year, with the war raging, a similar ceremony was held in Assisi, with Il Popolo d'Italia enthusiastically describing the combination of the church service and the related Fascist gathering immediately following (“Le feste francescane di Assisi: Il solenne rito mistico e guerriero,” 5 Oct. 1941: 3). The marriage of the Fascist regime with the Catholic church through the two new patron saints continued until Mussolini's downfall. As late as May 1943, two months before the Allied landing on Italian territory, the Primate of Venice, Cardinal Adeodato Piazza, used Saint Catherine's day to offer his public blessing to Italy's troops: “All of Italy is proud of you; it knows with what force you are standing in the way of the enemy's arrogance, it knows that out of a sense of duty you will not shirk from supreme sacrifices.” The remarks, quoted on 9 May 1943 in Rome's Catholic daily newspaper, L'Avvenire di Roma, were reported enthusiastically by Italy's ambassador to the Holy See to the propaganda ministry (Archivio Storico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri [Rome], Affari Politici, 1931–1945, Santa Sede, b. 68, tel. 1553). On the fascist use of the new saint days, see also Parsons, Gerald, “A National Saint in a Fascist State,” Journal of Religious History 32, 1 (2008): 76–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁴ Emilio Gentile's work, rooted in his long-term study of the Italian Fascist case, has been particularly influential here: The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy, Keith Botsford, trans. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996); and “Fascism as Political Religion.” Journal of Contemporary History 25, 2 (1990): 229–51. Among other influential works, see Hans Maier, ed., Totalitarianism and Political Religion: Concepts for the Comparison of Dictatorships (London: Routledge, 2004); and Griffin, Roger, Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religion (New York: Routledge, 2005)Google Scholar. For German language works on Nazism as political religion, see Bärsch, Claus-Ekkehard, Die politische Religion des Nationalsozialismus: Die religiöse Dimension Der NS-Ideologie in den Schriften von Dietrich Eckhart, Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg und Adolf Hitler (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1998)Google Scholar; Behrenbeck, Sabine, Der Kult um die toten Helden. Nationalsozialistische Mythen, Riten und Symbole 1923 bis 1945 (Vierow: SH-Verlag, 1996)Google Scholar; Ley, Michael and Schoeps, Julius H., eds., Der Nationalsozialismus als politische Religion (Bodenheim: Philo, 1997)Google Scholar; Vondung, Klaus, Magie und Manipulation: Ideologischer Kult und politische Religion des Nationalsozialismus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971)Google Scholar.

⁷⁵ Adamson, Walter L., “Fascism and Political Religion in Italy: A Reassessment,” Contemporary European History 23, 1 (2014): 43–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 56.

⁷⁶ Gentile, Emilio, “The Sacralisation of Politics: Definitions, Interpretations and Reflections on the Question of Secular Religion and Totalitarianism,” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religion 1, 1 (2000): 18–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 21. In this same piece, Gentile adds something of a softening note: “With the political religion of [Italian] Fascism … it did not attempt to hijack traditional institutionalized religion, but, on the contrary, attempted to establish a form of symbiotic relationship with it, with the aim of incorporating it into the movement's own mythical and symbolic universe, thereby making it a component of secular religion” (ibid.: 23). We would ask, however, what is “secular” about such a “political religion”?

⁷⁷ Pollard, John, “‘Clerical Fascism’: Context, Overview and Conclusion,” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 8, 2 (2007): 433–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 443. See also Valbousquet, Nina, “Race and Faith: The Catholic Church, Clerical Fascism, and the Shaping of Italian Anti-Semitism and Racism,” Modern Italy 23, 4 (2018): 355–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the concept of clerical fascism, also see Feldman, Matthew and Turda, Marius, “‘Clerical Fascism’ in Interwar Europe: An Introduction,” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 8, 2 (2007): 205–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁸ Virtue has recently written of “The Fascist regime's efforts to incorporate Catholicism into its religion”; Virtue, Nicholas G., “Religion, Race, and the Nation in La Tradotta del Fronte Giulio, 1943–1943,” Modern Italy 23, 4 (2018): 373–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 375. However, given the grounding of the concept of “political religion” in secularization theory, this use of the term may be misleading.

⁷⁹ Steigmann-Gall, Richard, “Nazism and the Revival of Political Religion Theory,” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religion 5, 3 (2004): 376–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 392.

⁸⁰ Munson, Henry, “Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust,” Religions 9, 26 (2018): 12–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9010026 (last accessed 14 Jan. 2020).

⁸¹ Here we refer to a search in both the Italian foreign ministry archives, where the papers of the Italian ambassador to the Holy See are housed, and the Central State Archives, where most of the other papers of Mussolini's central government are to be found.

⁸² “Pro-Memoria circa la rivista ‘La difesa della razza,’” Archivio Storico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri (Rome), Ambasciata Italiana presso la Santa Sede, b. 102, no. 2454/923, 20 Mar. 1939.

⁸³ See Roos, Julius Streicher und “Der Stürmer,” 415.

⁸⁴ Lackey, Michael, “Conceptualizing Christianity and Christian Nazis after the Nuremberg Trials,” Cultural Critique 84, 1 (2013): 101–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁵ This is true for the extensive use of Christian symbolism in Der Stürmer more broadly. See, for instance, Przyrembel, ‘Rassenschande’; Roos, Julius Streicher und “Der Stürmer”; and Showalter, Little Man, What Now? Bytwerk discusses the German weekly's attacks against Jewish baptism, the Old Testament, and the idea that Christ was a Jew (Julius Streicher, 110–14).

⁸⁶ Steigmann-Gall, Holy Reich, 125.

⁸⁷ Koehne, “Were the National Socialists a Völkisch Party?” 790.

⁸⁸ The membership of the German Christians reached about six hundred thousand. See Bergen, Twisted Cross, 178. At its peak in 1935, Der Stürmer sold close to half a million copies. See Bytwerk, Julius Streicher, 57. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg concluded that its actual circulation was much higher, since most Germans could freely access the paper via the ubiquitous “Stürmer boxes.” The print run of some of the numerous special issues ran up to two million copies.

⁸⁹ Heschel, Aryan Jesus, 17.

⁹⁰ See Bytwerk, Julius Streicher, 43–44.