Description
Book SynopsisThe Mark of Cain fleshes out a history of conversations that contributed to Germany''s coming to terms with a guilty past. Katharina von Kellenbach draws on letters exchanged between clergy and Nazi perpetrators, written notes of prison chaplains, memoirs, sermons, and prison publications to illuminate the moral and spiritual struggles of perpetrators after the war. These documents provide intimate insights into the self-reflection and self-perception of perpetrators. As Germany looks back on more than sixty years of passionate debate about political, personal and legal guilt, its ongoing engagement with the legacy of perpetration has transformed its culture and politics. In many post-genocidal societies, it falls to clergy and religious officials (in addition to the courts) to negotiate and create a path for individuals beyond the atrocities of the past. German clergy brought the Christian message of guilt and forgiveness into the internment camps where Nazi functionaries awaited pros
Trade ReviewKatharina von Kellenbach's analysis is strong medicine. In this extensive case study she exposes the inability of rank and file Nazi perpetrators to confront their own responsibilities for the crimes they committed serving the Nazi cause. Their own words and denials become a modern day mark of Cain, warning future generations of the compounding power of personal, cultural, religious, and ideological identities to justify unspeakable violence to others. * Henry F. Knight, Director of the Cohen Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Keene State College *
Table of ContentsForeword ; Chapter 1: The Mark of Cain ; Chapter 2: Guilt Confessions and Amnesty Campaigns ; Chapter 3: Faith under the Gallows: Spectacles of Innocence in WCP Landsberg ; Chapter 4: Cleansed by Suffering? The SS General and the Human Beast ; Chapter 5: From Honorable Sacrifices to Lonely Scapegoats ; Chapter 6: "Understand my Boy this Truth about the Mistake": Inheriting Guilt ; Chapter 7: "Naturally I will stand by my husband": Marital Love and Loyalty ; Chapter 8: "Absolved from the Guilt of the Past": Memory as Burden and as Grace ; Biographical Appendix ; Abbreviations of Archives ; Notes ; Bibliography ; Index
