Conflicts, compromises and mutual self-interest - how the Nazis and the Catholic and Protestant churches dealt with each other during the Third Reich

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Essay from the year 2008 in the subject History of Germany - National Socialism, World War II, grade: 71 = A, Oxford Brookes University, course: The Nazi Dictatorship, 1933-1945, language: English, abstract: Free from any apologetic or debunking fuss, the essay depicts the complex relationship between the Nazi state and the Catholic and Protestant Churches during the Third Reich. Focussing on three major areas of conflict between the Churches and the Nazis(sychronization ('Gleichschaltung'), the Nazis' anti-church policies, the churches and euthanasia) the essay's argument is that a pragmatic approach by both Churches and the Nazis based on the preservation of mutual self-interest is the key to understand their dealing with each other in each individual case of conflict. In a second part, the essays seeks to explain why both protagonists preferred a pragmatic instead of a more radical and uncompromising approach to each other, stating that three factors are accountable for this: First, mutually shared political views based on anti-liberalism and anti-Marxism; second, a tremendous mispercerption of the regime's nature by both churches; third, the limits of anti-church policies among a population still being deeply Christianized.

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