Beck, Gottfried: Die Bistumspresse in Hessen und der Nationalsozialismus 1930–1941, Paderborn [u. a.] 1996

Gottfried Beck: Die Bistumspresse in Hessen und der Nationalsozialismus 1930–1941.

Was the Catholic press under National Socialism an »active instrument of Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry«, as the American sociologist Gordon C. Zahn claimed years ago? The present study addresses this question with a view to the weekly press in the Catholic dioceses of Mainz, Fulda, and Limburg.

Besides taking into account diocesan organs (Martinusblatt, Bonifatiusbote, St. Georgsblatt), the author also considers the Mainzer Katholik and the Frankfurter Katholische Kirchenzeitung, newspapers of supraregional significance. Since the study includes the end phase of the Weimar Republic, it highlights both the disruptions effected by the Nazi »seizure of power« as well as those continuities that outlasted this historical »break.« In examining the period of National Socialist rule, Beck identifies various forms of »camouflaged« communication, of »writing between the lines«, but also of accommodating behavior. Relying on church as well as state archival material, Beck places these forms of behavior in the context of relations between the Catholic Church and the Third Reich.