Complicity in the Holocaust? A Look at German Churches and Universities

Speaker(s):

Victoria Barnett, Mark Ruff, and Robert P. Ericksen

Date:

March 8, 2012 3:00pm - 4:45pm

Location:

Chris Knutzen Hall, University Center, Pacific Lutheran University

This session will explore the historical and theological dynamics of the complicity of churches and universities in Nazi Germany. How widespread was the complicity in the German churches during the Nazi era? What were the causes? What was the role of the leadership of the churches? How did this history influence postwar discussions in Germany about guilt and responsibility? How has this issue been addressed in the general historiography of the Holocaust?

	The Churches, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Jewish Question by Victoria Barnett, Director of Church Relations, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
	Catholics in Nazi Germany: Competing Versions of the Story by Mark Ruff, Assoc. Prof. of History, St. Louis University
	Churches and Universities in the Denazification of Germany by Robert P. Ericksen, Kurt Mayer Chair in Holocaust Studies, PLU