In April, 2008, Fortress Press (Minneapolis, USA) released Faith and Fatherland: Parish Politics in Hitler's Germany. It was Ambrose History Professor Kyle Jantzen's first book, and the culmination of many years of research in a variety of German church and state archives.

As Fortress Press reports, Faith and Fatherland is:

"An informative glimpse into the world of German Protestants in the difficult Hitler era, Faith and Fatherland approaches the history of the Church Struggle from the "bottom up," using sources like pastors' correspondence, parish newsletters, local newspaper accounts, district superintendents' reports, and local church statistics.

"While Jantzen confirms the general understanding that German Protestants failed to resist or even critique the Nazi regime, he reveals a surprising diversity of opinion and variety of action, including the successful efforts of some Lutheran pastors and parishioners to resist the nazification of their churches."

As Dr. Jantzen puts it, "What I'm trying to do is understand the relationship between religion and nationalism in National Socialist Germany 'from the bottom up,' through the eyes of pastors and parishioners. And I'm analyzing the situation in a comparative way, by examining three different regions of the country. Doing that meant focusing on some different events and issues than normally considered in the history of this period: pastors and German nationalism, parish life under National Socialism, pastoral appointments as a battleground in the so-called "German Church Struggle," church responses to Nazi racial policy, and the ins and outs of local church politics during the time of the Third Reich."

The book is available through Amazon and other online booksellers, or from Fortress Press, at Faith and Fatherland: Parish Politics in Hitler's Germany. An early review in the Association of Contemporary Church Historians newsletter was very positive, describing the book as a valuable contribution to the field. You can find the review at http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/akz/akz2806.htm.