ABSTRACT
The foundational document of Vatican II was Lumen Gentium, a statement on a biblically and historically rooted ecclesiology that served to relate the church to the modern world. The theologians during the Third Reich contributed to the conversation that produced this dynamic model of the church. German theologians played leading roles as they began to reflect on a Catholic ecclesiology, i.e., the envisioned and changing “model” of the church, that could help the faithful navigate specific historical cultures. The German theologians during the onslaught of war and the tempestuous peace after 1945 began aggressively to change the Catholic milieu that had already been softened up for this theological metamorphosis earlier in the twentieth century. Sensitive to the historical parameters, German contributions to the theological developments helped to shape Catholic theology in the second half of the twentieth century.
