ABSTRACT
The potential influence of the churches in German society raises difficult questions. This chapter describes the structure of the Protestant and Catholic Churches in Nazi Germany and assesses the value of church documents for studying and understanding the Holocaust. In doing so, it will address three source-related issues unique to the Catholic Church: the status of the Vatican Archives; the impact of the play The Deputy on the reputation of Pope Pius XII (an issue that is no less impassioned today than it was when it first burst onto the scene in the early 1960s); and selected documents of Vatican II. The sources discuss the nature of the “faith-chaos” that befell the Protestant and Catholic churches when Nazi ideology—including anti-Christianity—began to seep into the churches, befouling all who were touched by it and who voluntarily, even eagerly, sought ultimately to embrace it.
