Die Reformation In Deutschland [Two Volumes, Signed By Author With Personal Photographs]

Freiburg 1939 And 1940: Herder & Co, 1939. First Edition 1st Printing. Cloth. Near Fine. 436, 332. Very Clean, Solid, Almost Unworn Volumes. With Small Authorial Inscription Dated 1939 In Volume I; A Photo Of Lortz In Front Of His Books, Signed And Dated 1939; Another Photo Signed And Dated 1950; An Announcement Printed On Card, 1972; And A Related Newspaper Clipping, 1948. Joseph (Adam) Lortz (13 December 1887 In Grevenmacher, Luxembourg - 21 February 1975 In Luxembourg) Was A Roman Catholic Church Historian. He Was A Highly Regarded Reformation Historian And Ecumenist. Beginning In The 1940'S, Lortz Made His Ecumenical Views Available To General Readers As Well As To Scholars In Order To Promote Reconciliation Between Catholics And Protestants. His Writings Played A Role In The Thinking That Manifested Itself In The Second Vatican Council's Decree On Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio (21 November 1964). What Was Not Widely Known, However, Was Lortz's Involvement With Nazism From 1933 Until 1937.[1] His Geschichte Der Kirche (1932) (History Of The Church) Portrayed The Church Of The 1800S And The 1900S As The Bastion Of Divine Truth And Moral Values Amid The Decay Of Western Society. After The War He Taught At The University Of Mainz From 1950 Until His Death In 1975. He Was Also Director Of The Institute Of European History In Mainz In The Department Of Western Religious History. His Successor At That Department, Peter Manns (De), Was The Editor Of A Centennial Volume Of Lortz's Writings, Published In 1987, And In His Preface He Touches On Lortz's History With The Nazis. Manns Says That Lortz Attempted To Find A "Legitimate" Way For Catholics To Connect To Nazism, An Attempt He Calls An Error With Grave Consequences For Which Lortz Should Be Held Culpable (And Manns Includes No Writings From That Period In The Volume). However, He Argues That Lortz Was Not A Nazi Himself, And That Such Is Proven By His Friendship With Avowed Opponents Of The Nazis, Including Clemens August Graf Von Galen And Max Josef Metzger.