The Churches and National Socialism in the Thought of Eric Voegelin

Abstract

This work explores Eric Voegelin’s assessment of the churches during the Nazi period. Focusing on Voegelin’s ideas as expressed in lectures published under the title Hitler and the Germans, the work first details Voegelin’s critique of the Catholic Church in Germany during the period of the National Socialists. The work then develops an interpretation of the actions of the Catholic Church that undermines the contention, advanced by Voegelin as by many later writers, that the Catholic Church in Germany acted only as a self-interested group unconcerned with common humanity. The piece also works to clarify the status of the important theological concept of the Mystical Body of Christ, and the role that concept played during the period the Nazis held power. The work argues against the idea that the Mystical Body was illegitimately construed by Church leaders in the 1930s and 1940s, as alleged by Voegelin and later scholars. The work concludes by developing lessons for the ongoing debate over the role of the Catholic Church in Nazi Germany that can be gleaned from the failure of Voegelin’s critique.