Faith under Fascism

A groundbreaking history that illuminates Catholic sisters at the center of the Catholic Church’s encounter with Nazism.

Faith under Fascism: Catholic Sisters in Nazi Germany reveals the vital role religious women played in confronting, navigating, and ultimately outlasting the Third Reich. Focusing on the School Sisters of Notre Dame, Martina Cucchiara restores nearly 92,000 Catholic sisters—long overshadowed by priests—to the history of Catholicism under Nazism.

As teachers, the sisters encountered the Nazi regime daily in classrooms that became contested sites where Catholic faith, Nazi ideology, and the futures of Catholic and Jewish children intersected. Far from passive victims, the sisters engaged Nazi ideas selectively, creating temporary sanctuaries for Jewish students while also easing Catholic girls’ participation in the Nazi state. Their experiences complicate simple narratives of resistance and collaboration, revealing a history marked by endurance, adaptation, and moral tension.

By tracing the regime’s sustained campaign within and against Catholic schools and religious communities, Cucchiara also intervenes in debates about Nazi intentions toward the churches. Drawing on rich archival sources and the sisters’ lived experience, Faith under Fascism demonstrates that the regime sought not coexistence but the gradual destruction of religious life. Highlighting the sisters’ tenacious perseverance and the ways their everyday actions frustrated the regime’s efforts to suppress Catholic institutions, the book reshapes our understanding of Catholicism and German society under Nazism.