Of Collapses and Rebirths
This chapter analyses German Catholics’ transitions from war to peace during the mid-1940s. Beginning its analysis in summer 1944, the chapter initially explores Catholics’ attitudes as the Reich collapsed under the weight of Allied offensives, and the theological frameworks employed to understand this devastation and defeat. The chapter then proceeds to examine the reasons behind the Catholic Church’s rising power and influence over the later 1940s during the Allied occupation of the Rhineland and Westphalia, and considers whether this reflected continuity or discontinuity from its position during the Second World War itself. The chapter argues that the Catholic Church’s newfound influence during the early post-war period reflected the peculiar circumstances of foreign occupation, with the clergy emerging as champions of the German population’s grievances vis-à-vis the Allied occupiers in the absence of secular German authorities.