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Hitler's Bavarian Antagonist: Georg Moenius and the Allgemeine Rundschau of Munich, 1929-1933. By Gregory Munro. (Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press. 2006. Pp. xxvi, 510. $139.95.)
Gregory Munro's well-re searched intellectual study of the Allgemeine Rundschau steered under the 1929-33 editorship of Father Georg Moenius, a priest of the Bamberg archdiocese, makes a significant contribution to the literature on Catholic resistance to National Socialism, prior to 1933. Founded in Munich in 1904 by Armin Kausen, the Allgemeine Rundschau was a Catholic weekly that covered German politics, culture, and religion. After acquiring coownership of the journal in 1929, Moenius immediately acted in an editorial direction that placed him in conflict with diocesan authorities, the Catholic Bavarian People's Party, and the National Socialist Party. In part influenced by his colleague Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster, Moenius not only argued for the acceptance of the Versailles Treaty, especially article 231, which placed primary blame for the war on Germany, but also "welcomed the revolution of 1918-19 as a form of providential justice ... to atone for the sins committed by Imperial Germany" (p. 22).This latter view contradicted the stance of his bishop and led for a time to Moenius's suspension from ministry and eventual reassignment to a remote parish. Moenius's Allgemeine...