From German unification in 1871 through the early 1960s, confessional tensions between Catholics and Protestants were a source of deep division in German society. Engaging this period of historic strife, Germany and the Confessional Divide focuses on three traumatic episodes: the Kulturkampf waged against the Catholic Church in the 1870s, the collapse of the Hohenzollern monarchy and state-supported Protestantism after World War I, and the Nazi persecution of the churches. It argues that memories of these traumatic experiences regularly reignited confessional tensions. Only as German society became increasingly secular did these memories fade and tensions ease.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the western and southern regions of Germany were home to intensely devout Roman Catholic communities. By the late 1950s, however, this Catholic subculture could not withstand the onslaught of a culture of consumption--motorcycles, Hollywood films, and vacations abroad. In The Wayward Flock, Mark Edward Ruff analyzes why the strategy of using modern means to fight modern society--which had worked so successfully from the 1870s to the 1920s--did not succeed in the postwar era. Ruff examines the vast network of Catholic youth organizations in West Germany that had traditionally served as a source for future youth leaders and a means by which the church could resist the changes of modern society. But organization membership dwindled from nearly 1.5 million in the 1920s to 600,000 by the early 1960s, due in large part, Ruff argues, to generational differences, an emerging ethic of consumption, and changes in West Germany's political makeup. Ultimately, Ruff demonstrates, church leaders were unable to provide viable alternatives to the antimodern and antiliberal ideologies of the past.

Were Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church in Germany unduly singled out after 1945 for their conduct during the National Socialist era? Mark Edward Ruff explores the bitter controversies that broke out in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1945 to 1980 over the Catholic Church's relationship to the Nazis. He explores why these cultural wars consumed such energy, dominated headlines, triggered lawsuits and required the intervention of foreign ministries. He argues that the controversies over the church's relationship to National Socialism were frequently surrogates for conflicts over how the church was to position itself in modern society - in politics, international relations and the media. More often than not, these exchanges centered on problems perceived as arising from the postwar political ascendancy of Roman Catholics and the integration of Catholic citizens into the societal mainstream.