“For God and Nation” Catholicism and the Far-Right in the Central European Context (1918–1945)

Abstract

The study deals with the somewhat controversial issue of the so-called "clerical fascism". For this purpose, it summarizes the recent historiographical debates on totalitarianism, in particular on "political religions" or rather politicization of religions in the 20 th century. The special emphasis is laid on individual clerics who sympathized and collaborated with fascist regimes in Nazi Germany and the Slovak state, respectively. In applying Roger Griffin's and Thomas Forstner's typology, two types of attitudes to fascism and National Socialism are discussed: loyalty and active collaboration.

The priest and the state: Clerical fascism in Slovakia and theory

“…While there is some truth to this and the Communist Czechoslovak regime did apply the term "clerical fascism" to Catholic circles in Slovakia, it has much deeper roots. Only recently have scholars of Slovakia, especially historian Miloslav Szabó, attempted to rehabilitate the term and show its applicability to interwar and wartime Slovakia (Szabó, 2017(Szabó, , 2019a. In his latest book, Szabó convincingly demonstrates how some Slovak clergymen were tempted by fascism between the 1920s and 1940s, calling them "clerical fascists" (Szabó, 2019b).…”