Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism

Derek Hastings illuminates an important and largely overlooked aspect of early Nazi history, going back to the years after World War I--when National Socialism first emerged--to reveal its close early ties with Catholicism. Focusing on Munich and the surrounding area, Hastings shows how Catholics played a central and hitherto overlooked role in the Nazi movement before the 1923 Beerhall Putsch, shedding light on the activism of individual Catholic writers, university students, and priests and describing the striking Catholic-oriented appeals and imagery formulated by the movement.