LAUSR

Abstract By retracing the history of the Protestant journal Eckart, this article examines a theological forum in which supporters and opponents of the Nazi movement came into direct contact. Specifically, the article evaluates political ambiguities among religious authors, who had openly rejected Nazism from the 1920s onward but would feel compelled by theological considerations to remain loyal to the regime after 1933. Analyzing contemporary discussions of the Protestant Two Kingdoms Doctrine, for example, puts historiographical distinctions between “resistance” and “collaboration” into question. This study shows that Protestant intellectuals were able to voice a limited degree of public criticism until World War II. Their criticism, however, was often so imbued with nationalism and ideals of loyalty that it effectively helped stabilize the Nazi regime. In Eckart, even critics engaged deeply with völkisch and anti-Semitic ideology. Finally, this article also shows how these authors perpetuated nationalist ideas in West Germany after 1945.