German Military Chaplains in World War II – Review
I am obviously interested in the Second World War, since I host a podcast on the subject. I also am an army chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces and so am deeply interested in chaplaincy. It is only logical that I also be interested in chaplaincy during the Second World war.
While I have some knowledge of Canadian chaplains during the war, I have always been intrigued about the experience of German chaplains. I recently had the opportunity to read German Military Chaplains in World War II by Mark Hayden. (Amazon affiliate link)
The first thing I want to say about this book is that it is a rich source of photographs of German chaplains in action. This book includes far more pictures on the subject than I ever imagined existed.
The book gives a short overview of the religious landscape in Germany at the beginning of the war. Germans tended to be Roman Catholic or Lutheran.
While Hitler was happy to use religion for his purposes, he had no love for Christianity. His long term plan was to eventually replace Christianity with a new Aryan religion. But he would take advantage of the churches before that happened.
German clergy became chaplains for numerous reasons. Some did it for patriotism and some believed in what Hitler was doing. But there was also the opportunity to avoid combat roles by becoming a chaplain.
Chaplains did what many chaplains have done and continue to do. They did weddings and funerals. They supported soldiers through severe trauma.
However, the freedom of German chaplains was extremely limited. They could never be seen to be questioning the Nazi regime. Their job was to help German soldiers fight better.
Hayden’s book gives the reader a good sense of the experience of German chaplains. There are details about rank and uniform that I found interesting.
What is lack is any deep reflection of how German chaplains dealt with the war crimes of the German army. While the chaplains served with the Wehrmacht and not the SS, chaplains would have still witnessed atrocities.
There are hints at the struggles that German chaplains had but I was left with many unanswered questions. I will look for other books on this topic.
