Protestants, Catholics, Mennonites and Jews: identities and institutions in Holocaust studies

As a category of privilege, the notion of 'Volksdeutschen' or ethnic Germans, created a sense of impunity for certain people. It hardened some bonds and shattered others; military chaplains provided a Christian narrative to soothe the consciences of German soldiers, their families and themselves. This facilitated a kind of moral inversion that turned perpetrators, accomplices and beneficiaries of destruction into victims, at least in their own perceptions