Synopses & Reviews
The Confessing Church was one of the rare German organizations that opposed Nazism from the very beginning, and in For the Soul of the People, Victoria Barnett delves into the story of the Church's resistance to Hitler. For this remarkable story, Barnett interviewed more than sixty Germans who were active in the Confessing Church, asking them to reflect on their personal experiences under Hitler and how they see themselves, morally and politically, today. She provides a haunting glimpse of the German experience under Hitler, but also gives a provocative look into what it has meant to be a German in the twentieth century.
Review
"The book offers a thorough and insightful picture of the churches in Nazi Germany. Combining the personal memories drawn from oral histories with archival research of church documents, Barnett has written a masterful work of history. Most important, the book is written in a vivid style that brings to life the complex moral dilemmas of the Third Reich."--Susannah Heschel, Case Western Reserve University
"Conveying an accurate portrait and understanding of the German church struggle under National Socialism has proven to be extraordinarily complicated....Victoria Barnett is singularly well prepared to do this. She has written an unusually accurate, sophisticated, and vivid book about the German church struggle...a genuinely absorbing and readable work."--Eberhard Bethge, biographer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
About the Author
Victoria Barnett is a graduate of Union Theological Seminary, New York, and a professional writer whose articles have appeared in
Christianity and Crisis,
The Christian Century,
The Witness, and the news bulletins of
Religious News Service. She lived in Germany for 13 years and now lives in Washington, D.C.