The Place of Catholic Historians and Catholic Historiography in Nazi Germany

Abstract This article examines the neglected subject of the place and role of Catholic historians in Nazi Germany. It argues that the Third Reich provided an opportunity for Catholic historians: first, to express their vision of the Reich within the legitimacy provided by the Nazi state; secondly, to represent themselves as the only experienced force in Germany that could effectively convey the idea of the Reich to the German people; and thirdly, to leave the intellectual ‘ghetto’ in which they had been placed following the creation of the Bismarckian Reich of 1871.