The Germans in Oklahoma

The Germans in Oklahoma

Author: Richard C. Rohrs

Publisher:

Published: 1980

Total Pages: 86

ISBN-13:

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In 1980, the University of Oklahoma Press published a ten-book series titled Newcomers to a New Land that described and analyzed the role of the major ethnic groups that have contributed to the history of Oklahoma. The series was part of Oklahoma Image, a project sponsored by the Oklahoma Department of Libraries and the Oklahoma Library Association and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In response to numerous requests, the University of Oklahoma Press has reissued all ten volumes in the series. Published unaltered from the original editions, these books continue to have both historical and cultural value for reasons the series editorial committee stated as well. "Though not large in number as compared to those in some states, immigrants from various European nations left a marked impact on Oklahoma's history. As in the larger United States, they worked in many economic and social roles that enriched the state's life. Indians have played a crucial part in Oklahoma's history, even to giving the state her name. Blacks and Mexicans have also fulfilled a special set of roles, and will continue to affect Oklahoma's future. The history of each of these groups is unique, well worth remembering to both their heirs and to other people in the state and nation. Their stories come from the past, but continue on the future."


Book Synopsis The Germans in Oklahoma by : Richard C. Rohrs

Download or read book The Germans in Oklahoma written by Richard C. Rohrs and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1980, the University of Oklahoma Press published a ten-book series titled Newcomers to a New Land that described and analyzed the role of the major ethnic groups that have contributed to the history of Oklahoma. The series was part of Oklahoma Image, a project sponsored by the Oklahoma Department of Libraries and the Oklahoma Library Association and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In response to numerous requests, the University of Oklahoma Press has reissued all ten volumes in the series. Published unaltered from the original editions, these books continue to have both historical and cultural value for reasons the series editorial committee stated as well. "Though not large in number as compared to those in some states, immigrants from various European nations left a marked impact on Oklahoma's history. As in the larger United States, they worked in many economic and social roles that enriched the state's life. Indians have played a crucial part in Oklahoma's history, even to giving the state her name. Blacks and Mexicans have also fulfilled a special set of roles, and will continue to affect Oklahoma's future. The history of each of these groups is unique, well worth remembering to both their heirs and to other people in the state and nation. Their stories come from the past, but continue on the future."

The Germans from Russia in Oklahoma

The Germans from Russia in Oklahoma

Author: Douglas Hale

Publisher:

Published: 1980

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Book Synopsis The Germans from Russia in Oklahoma by : Douglas Hale

Download or read book The Germans from Russia in Oklahoma written by Douglas Hale and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Germans from Russia in Oklahoma

The Germans from Russia in Oklahoma

Author: Douglas Hale

Publisher:

Published: 1980

Total Pages: 102

ISBN-13:

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Analyzes the role of the Germans from Russia in the new land of Oklahoma and the contributions that they made to Oklahoma history.


Book Synopsis The Germans from Russia in Oklahoma by : Douglas Hale

Download or read book The Germans from Russia in Oklahoma written by Douglas Hale and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzes the role of the Germans from Russia in the new land of Oklahoma and the contributions that they made to Oklahoma history.

German American Settlement in an Oklahoma Town

German American Settlement in an Oklahoma Town

Author: Terry James Prewitt

Publisher:

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13:

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Book Synopsis German American Settlement in an Oklahoma Town by : Terry James Prewitt

Download or read book German American Settlement in an Oklahoma Town written by Terry James Prewitt and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Boom Town

Boom Town

Author: Sam Anderson

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2018-08-21

Total Pages: 513

ISBN-13: 0804137323

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A brilliant, kaleidoscopic narrative of Oklahoma City—a great American story of civics, basketball, and destiny, from award-winning journalist Sam Anderson NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Chicago Tribune • San Francisco Chronicle • The Economist • Deadspin Oklahoma City was born from chaos. It was founded in a bizarre but momentous “Land Run” in 1889, when thousands of people lined up along the borders of Oklahoma Territory and rushed in at noon to stake their claims. Since then, it has been a city torn between the wild energy that drives its outsized ambitions, and the forces of order that seek sustainable progress. Nowhere was this dynamic better realized than in the drama of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team’s 2012-13 season, when the Thunder’s brilliant general manager, Sam Presti, ignited a firestorm by trading future superstar James Harden just days before the first game. Presti’s all-in gamble on “the Process”—the patient, methodical management style that dictated the trade as the team’s best hope for long-term greatness—kicked off a pivotal year in the city’s history, one that would include pitched battles over urban planning, a series of cataclysmic tornadoes, and the frenzied hope that an NBA championship might finally deliver the glory of which the city had always dreamed. Boom Town announces the arrival of an exciting literary voice. Sam Anderson, former book critic for New York magazine and now a staff writer at the New York Times magazine, unfolds an idiosyncratic mix of American history, sports reporting, urban studies, gonzo memoir, and much more to tell the strange but compelling story of an American city whose unique mix of geography and history make it a fascinating microcosm of the democratic experiment. Filled with characters ranging from NBA superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook; to Flaming Lips oddball frontman Wayne Coyne; to legendary Great Plains meteorologist Gary England; to Stanley Draper, Oklahoma City's would-be Robert Moses; to civil rights activist Clara Luper; to the citizens and public servants who survived the notorious 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, Boom Town offers a remarkable look at the urban tapestry woven from control and chaos, sports and civics.


Book Synopsis Boom Town by : Sam Anderson

Download or read book Boom Town written by Sam Anderson and published by Crown. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant, kaleidoscopic narrative of Oklahoma City—a great American story of civics, basketball, and destiny, from award-winning journalist Sam Anderson NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Chicago Tribune • San Francisco Chronicle • The Economist • Deadspin Oklahoma City was born from chaos. It was founded in a bizarre but momentous “Land Run” in 1889, when thousands of people lined up along the borders of Oklahoma Territory and rushed in at noon to stake their claims. Since then, it has been a city torn between the wild energy that drives its outsized ambitions, and the forces of order that seek sustainable progress. Nowhere was this dynamic better realized than in the drama of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team’s 2012-13 season, when the Thunder’s brilliant general manager, Sam Presti, ignited a firestorm by trading future superstar James Harden just days before the first game. Presti’s all-in gamble on “the Process”—the patient, methodical management style that dictated the trade as the team’s best hope for long-term greatness—kicked off a pivotal year in the city’s history, one that would include pitched battles over urban planning, a series of cataclysmic tornadoes, and the frenzied hope that an NBA championship might finally deliver the glory of which the city had always dreamed. Boom Town announces the arrival of an exciting literary voice. Sam Anderson, former book critic for New York magazine and now a staff writer at the New York Times magazine, unfolds an idiosyncratic mix of American history, sports reporting, urban studies, gonzo memoir, and much more to tell the strange but compelling story of an American city whose unique mix of geography and history make it a fascinating microcosm of the democratic experiment. Filled with characters ranging from NBA superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook; to Flaming Lips oddball frontman Wayne Coyne; to legendary Great Plains meteorologist Gary England; to Stanley Draper, Oklahoma City's would-be Robert Moses; to civil rights activist Clara Luper; to the citizens and public servants who survived the notorious 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, Boom Town offers a remarkable look at the urban tapestry woven from control and chaos, sports and civics.

So They Remember

So They Remember

Author: Maksim Goldenshteyn

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2022-01-23

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 0806190582

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When we think of Nazi camps, names such as Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, and Dachau come instantly to mind. Yet the history of the Holocaust extends beyond those notorious sites. In the former territory of Transnistria, located in occupied Soviet Ukraine and governed by Nazi Germany’s Romanian allies, many Jews perished due to disease, starvation, and other horrific conditions. Through an intimate blending of memoir, history, and reportage, So They Remember illuminates this oft-overlooked chapter of the Holocaust. In December 1941, with the German-led invasion of the Soviet Union in its sixth month, a twelve-year-old Jewish boy named Motl Braverman, along with family members, was uprooted from his Ukrainian hometown and herded to the remote village of Pechera, the site of a Romanian death camp. Author Maksim Goldenshteyn, the grandson of Motl, first learned of his family’s wartime experiences in 2012. Through tireless research, Goldenshteyn spent years unraveling the story of Motl, his family members, and their fellow prisoners. The author here renders their story through the eyes of Motl and other children, who decades later would bear witness to the traumas they suffered. Until now, Romanian historians and survivors have served as almost the only chroniclers of the Holocaust in Transnistria. Goldenshteyn’s account, based on interviews with Soviet-born relatives and other survivors, archival documents, and memoirs, is among the first full-length books to spotlight the Pechera camp, ominously known by its prisoners as Mertvaya Petlya, or the “Death Noose.” Unfortunately, as the author explains, the Pechera camp was only one of some two hundred concentration sites spread across Transnistria, where local Ukrainian policemen often conspired with Romanian guards to brutalize the prisoners. In March 1944, the Red Army liberated Motl’s family and fellow captives. Yet for decades, according to the author, they were silenced by Soviet policies enacted to erase all memory of Jewish wartime suffering. So They Remember gives voice to this long-repressed history and documents how the events at Pechera and other surrounding camps and ghettos would continue to shape remaining survivors and their descendants.


Book Synopsis So They Remember by : Maksim Goldenshteyn

Download or read book So They Remember written by Maksim Goldenshteyn and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2022-01-23 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When we think of Nazi camps, names such as Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, and Dachau come instantly to mind. Yet the history of the Holocaust extends beyond those notorious sites. In the former territory of Transnistria, located in occupied Soviet Ukraine and governed by Nazi Germany’s Romanian allies, many Jews perished due to disease, starvation, and other horrific conditions. Through an intimate blending of memoir, history, and reportage, So They Remember illuminates this oft-overlooked chapter of the Holocaust. In December 1941, with the German-led invasion of the Soviet Union in its sixth month, a twelve-year-old Jewish boy named Motl Braverman, along with family members, was uprooted from his Ukrainian hometown and herded to the remote village of Pechera, the site of a Romanian death camp. Author Maksim Goldenshteyn, the grandson of Motl, first learned of his family’s wartime experiences in 2012. Through tireless research, Goldenshteyn spent years unraveling the story of Motl, his family members, and their fellow prisoners. The author here renders their story through the eyes of Motl and other children, who decades later would bear witness to the traumas they suffered. Until now, Romanian historians and survivors have served as almost the only chroniclers of the Holocaust in Transnistria. Goldenshteyn’s account, based on interviews with Soviet-born relatives and other survivors, archival documents, and memoirs, is among the first full-length books to spotlight the Pechera camp, ominously known by its prisoners as Mertvaya Petlya, or the “Death Noose.” Unfortunately, as the author explains, the Pechera camp was only one of some two hundred concentration sites spread across Transnistria, where local Ukrainian policemen often conspired with Romanian guards to brutalize the prisoners. In March 1944, the Red Army liberated Motl’s family and fellow captives. Yet for decades, according to the author, they were silenced by Soviet policies enacted to erase all memory of Jewish wartime suffering. So They Remember gives voice to this long-repressed history and documents how the events at Pechera and other surrounding camps and ghettos would continue to shape remaining survivors and their descendants.

Hitler's Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars

Hitler's Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars

Author: Edward B. Westermann

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2016-10-13

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0806157135

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As he prepared to wage his war of annihilation on the Eastern Front, Adolf Hitler repeatedly drew parallels between the Nazi quest for Lebensraum, or living space, in Eastern Europe and the United States’s westward expansion under the banner of Manifest Destiny. The peoples of Eastern Europe were, he said, his “redskins,” and for his colonial fantasy of a “German East” he claimed a historical precedent in the United States’s displacement and killing of the native population. Edward B. Westermann examines the validity, and value, of this claim in Hitler's Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars. The book takes an empirical approach that highlights areas of similarity and continuity, but also explores key distinctions and differences between these two national projects. The westward march of American empire and the Nazi conquest of the East offer clear parallels, not least that both cases fused a sense of national purpose with racial stereotypes that aided in the exclusion, expropriation, and killing of peoples. Westermann evaluates the philosophies of Manifest Destiny and Lebensraum that justified both conquests, the national and administrative policies that framed Nazi and U.S. governmental involvement in these efforts, the military strategies that supported each nation’s political goals, and the role of massacre and atrocity in both processes. Important differences emerge: a goal of annihilation versus one of assimilation and acculturation; a planned military campaign versus a confused strategy of pacification and punishment; large-scale atrocity as routine versus massacre as exception. Comparative history at its best, Westermann’s assessment of these two national projects provides crucial insights into not only their rhetoric and pronouncements but also the application of policy and ideology “on the ground.” His sophisticated and nuanced revelations of the similarities and dissimilarities between these two cases will inform further study of genocide, as well as our understanding of the Nazi conquest of the East and the American conquest of the West.


Book Synopsis Hitler's Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars by : Edward B. Westermann

Download or read book Hitler's Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars written by Edward B. Westermann and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2016-10-13 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As he prepared to wage his war of annihilation on the Eastern Front, Adolf Hitler repeatedly drew parallels between the Nazi quest for Lebensraum, or living space, in Eastern Europe and the United States’s westward expansion under the banner of Manifest Destiny. The peoples of Eastern Europe were, he said, his “redskins,” and for his colonial fantasy of a “German East” he claimed a historical precedent in the United States’s displacement and killing of the native population. Edward B. Westermann examines the validity, and value, of this claim in Hitler's Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars. The book takes an empirical approach that highlights areas of similarity and continuity, but also explores key distinctions and differences between these two national projects. The westward march of American empire and the Nazi conquest of the East offer clear parallels, not least that both cases fused a sense of national purpose with racial stereotypes that aided in the exclusion, expropriation, and killing of peoples. Westermann evaluates the philosophies of Manifest Destiny and Lebensraum that justified both conquests, the national and administrative policies that framed Nazi and U.S. governmental involvement in these efforts, the military strategies that supported each nation’s political goals, and the role of massacre and atrocity in both processes. Important differences emerge: a goal of annihilation versus one of assimilation and acculturation; a planned military campaign versus a confused strategy of pacification and punishment; large-scale atrocity as routine versus massacre as exception. Comparative history at its best, Westermann’s assessment of these two national projects provides crucial insights into not only their rhetoric and pronouncements but also the application of policy and ideology “on the ground.” His sophisticated and nuanced revelations of the similarities and dissimilarities between these two cases will inform further study of genocide, as well as our understanding of the Nazi conquest of the East and the American conquest of the West.

They Thought They Were Free

They Thought They Were Free

Author: Milton Mayer

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-11-28

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 022652597X

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National Book Award Finalist: Never before has the mentality of the average German under the Nazi regime been made as intelligible to the outsider.” —The New York TImes They Thought They Were Free is an eloquent and provocative examination of the development of fascism in Germany. Milton Mayer’s book is a study of ten Germans and their lives from 1933-45, based on interviews he conducted after the war when he lived in Germany. Mayer had a position as a research professor at the University of Frankfurt and lived in a nearby small Hessian town which he disguised with the name “Kronenberg.” These ten men were not men of distinction, according to Mayer, but they had been members of the Nazi Party; Mayer wanted to discover what had made them Nazis. His discussions with them of Nazism, the rise of the Reich, and mass complicity with evil became the backbone of this book, an indictment of the ordinary German that is all the more powerful for its refusal to let the rest of us pretend that our moment, our society, our country are fundamentally immune. A new foreword to this edition by eminent historian of the Reich Richard J. Evans puts the book in historical and contemporary context. We live in an age of fervid politics and hyperbolic rhetoric. They Thought They Were Free cuts through that, revealing instead the slow, quiet accretions of change, complicity, and abdication of moral authority that quietly mark the rise of evil.


Book Synopsis They Thought They Were Free by : Milton Mayer

Download or read book They Thought They Were Free written by Milton Mayer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Book Award Finalist: Never before has the mentality of the average German under the Nazi regime been made as intelligible to the outsider.” —The New York TImes They Thought They Were Free is an eloquent and provocative examination of the development of fascism in Germany. Milton Mayer’s book is a study of ten Germans and their lives from 1933-45, based on interviews he conducted after the war when he lived in Germany. Mayer had a position as a research professor at the University of Frankfurt and lived in a nearby small Hessian town which he disguised with the name “Kronenberg.” These ten men were not men of distinction, according to Mayer, but they had been members of the Nazi Party; Mayer wanted to discover what had made them Nazis. His discussions with them of Nazism, the rise of the Reich, and mass complicity with evil became the backbone of this book, an indictment of the ordinary German that is all the more powerful for its refusal to let the rest of us pretend that our moment, our society, our country are fundamentally immune. A new foreword to this edition by eminent historian of the Reich Richard J. Evans puts the book in historical and contemporary context. We live in an age of fervid politics and hyperbolic rhetoric. They Thought They Were Free cuts through that, revealing instead the slow, quiet accretions of change, complicity, and abdication of moral authority that quietly mark the rise of evil.

Going for Broke

Going for Broke

Author: James M. McCaffrey

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2013-04-30

Total Pages: 478

ISBN-13: 0806189088

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When Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Americans reacted with revulsion and horror. In the patriotic war fever that followed, thousands of volunteers—including Japanese Americans—rushed to military recruitment centers. Except for those in the Hawaii National Guard, who made up the 100th Infantry Battalion, the U.S. Army initially turned Japanese American prospects away. Then, as a result of anti-Japanese fearmongering on the West Coast, more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent were sent to confinement in inland “relocation centers.” Most were natural-born citizens, their only “crime” their ethnicity. After the army eventually decided it would admit the second-generation Japanese American (Nisei) volunteers, it complemented the 100th Infantry Battalion by creating the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. This mostly Japanese American unit consisted of soldiers drafted before Pearl Harbor, volunteers from Hawaii, and even recruits from the relocation centers. In Going for Broke, historian James M. McCaffrey traces these men’s experiences in World War II, from training to some of the deadliest combat in Europe. Weaving together the voices of numerous soldiers, McCaffrey tells of the men’s frustrations and achievements on the U.S. mainland and abroad. Training in Mississippi, the recruits from Hawaii and the mainland have their first encounter with southern-style black-white segregation. Once in action, they helped push the Germans out of Italy and France. The 442nd would go on to become one of the most highly decorated units in the U.S. Army. McCaffrey’s account makes clear that like other American soldiers in World War II, the Nisei relied on their personal determination, social values, and training to “go for broke”—to bet everything, even their lives. Ultimately, their bravery and patriotism in the face of prejudice advanced racial harmony and opportunities for Japanese Americans after the war.


Book Synopsis Going for Broke by : James M. McCaffrey

Download or read book Going for Broke written by James M. McCaffrey and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Americans reacted with revulsion and horror. In the patriotic war fever that followed, thousands of volunteers—including Japanese Americans—rushed to military recruitment centers. Except for those in the Hawaii National Guard, who made up the 100th Infantry Battalion, the U.S. Army initially turned Japanese American prospects away. Then, as a result of anti-Japanese fearmongering on the West Coast, more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent were sent to confinement in inland “relocation centers.” Most were natural-born citizens, their only “crime” their ethnicity. After the army eventually decided it would admit the second-generation Japanese American (Nisei) volunteers, it complemented the 100th Infantry Battalion by creating the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. This mostly Japanese American unit consisted of soldiers drafted before Pearl Harbor, volunteers from Hawaii, and even recruits from the relocation centers. In Going for Broke, historian James M. McCaffrey traces these men’s experiences in World War II, from training to some of the deadliest combat in Europe. Weaving together the voices of numerous soldiers, McCaffrey tells of the men’s frustrations and achievements on the U.S. mainland and abroad. Training in Mississippi, the recruits from Hawaii and the mainland have their first encounter with southern-style black-white segregation. Once in action, they helped push the Germans out of Italy and France. The 442nd would go on to become one of the most highly decorated units in the U.S. Army. McCaffrey’s account makes clear that like other American soldiers in World War II, the Nisei relied on their personal determination, social values, and training to “go for broke”—to bet everything, even their lives. Ultimately, their bravery and patriotism in the face of prejudice advanced racial harmony and opportunities for Japanese Americans after the war.

Moroni and the Swastika

Moroni and the Swastika

Author: David Conley Nelson

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2015-03-02

Total Pages: 532

ISBN-13: 0806149744

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While Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist government was persecuting Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses and driving forty-two small German religious sects underground, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continued to practice unhindered. How some fourteen thousand Mormons not only survived but thrived in Nazi Germany is a story little known, rarely told, and occasionally rewritten within the confines of the Church’s history—for good reason, as we see in David Conley Nelson’s Moroni and the Swastika. A page-turning historical narrative, this book is the first full account of how Mormons avoided Nazi persecution through skilled collaboration with Hitler’s regime, and then eschewed postwar shame by constructing an alternative history of wartime suffering and resistance. The Twelfth Article of Faith and parts of the 134th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants function as Mormonism’s equivalent of the biblical admonition to “render unto Caesar,” a charge to cooperate with civil government, no matter how onerous doing so may be. Resurrecting this often-violated doctrinal edict, ecclesiastical leaders at the time developed a strategy that protected Mormons within Nazi Germany. Furthermore, as Nelson shows, many Mormon officials strove to fit into the Third Reich by exploiting commonalities with the Nazi state. German Mormons emphasized a mutual interest in genealogy and a passion for sports. They sent husbands into the Wehrmacht and sons into the Hitler Youth, and they prayed for a German victory when the war began. They also purged Jewish references from hymnals, lesson plans, and liturgical practices. One American mission president even wrote an article for the official Nazi Party newspaper, extolling parallels between Utah Mormon and German Nazi society. Nelson documents this collaboration, as well as subsequent efforts to suppress it by fashioning a new collective memory of ordinary German Mormons’ courage and travails during the war. Recovering this inconvenient past, Moroni and the Swastika restores a complex and difficult chapter to the history of Nazi Germany and the Mormon Church in the twentieth century—and offers new insight into the construction of historical truth.


Book Synopsis Moroni and the Swastika by : David Conley Nelson

Download or read book Moroni and the Swastika written by David Conley Nelson and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2015-03-02 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist government was persecuting Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses and driving forty-two small German religious sects underground, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continued to practice unhindered. How some fourteen thousand Mormons not only survived but thrived in Nazi Germany is a story little known, rarely told, and occasionally rewritten within the confines of the Church’s history—for good reason, as we see in David Conley Nelson’s Moroni and the Swastika. A page-turning historical narrative, this book is the first full account of how Mormons avoided Nazi persecution through skilled collaboration with Hitler’s regime, and then eschewed postwar shame by constructing an alternative history of wartime suffering and resistance. The Twelfth Article of Faith and parts of the 134th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants function as Mormonism’s equivalent of the biblical admonition to “render unto Caesar,” a charge to cooperate with civil government, no matter how onerous doing so may be. Resurrecting this often-violated doctrinal edict, ecclesiastical leaders at the time developed a strategy that protected Mormons within Nazi Germany. Furthermore, as Nelson shows, many Mormon officials strove to fit into the Third Reich by exploiting commonalities with the Nazi state. German Mormons emphasized a mutual interest in genealogy and a passion for sports. They sent husbands into the Wehrmacht and sons into the Hitler Youth, and they prayed for a German victory when the war began. They also purged Jewish references from hymnals, lesson plans, and liturgical practices. One American mission president even wrote an article for the official Nazi Party newspaper, extolling parallels between Utah Mormon and German Nazi society. Nelson documents this collaboration, as well as subsequent efforts to suppress it by fashioning a new collective memory of ordinary German Mormons’ courage and travails during the war. Recovering this inconvenient past, Moroni and the Swastika restores a complex and difficult chapter to the history of Nazi Germany and the Mormon Church in the twentieth century—and offers new insight into the construction of historical truth.