Meet the author (online in English)

Nazism contained, from its inception and in its scope, a religious objective which was in fact to bring about the disappearance of traditional Christianity to replace it with “Positive Christianity”, a Nazi version to serve as the spiritual guiding light of The Third Reich. Furthermore, actual physical proof exists in Germany today. Who knew and understood this? Where is the proof that this is true? Who fought against it? Who was defeated in their attempts? Who feigned attempts? Who brought victories in the end? Why are their victories as yet unknown? Why is it relevant today? Dr. Kathleen Burton aims to elucidate this in her book, Nazism as Religion: Four Theologians Decipher the Nazi Religious Code (1932-1945). Join us for a discussion as Dr. Burton is interviewed by Ruth Koizim.

Dr. Kathleen Burton has a Ph.D. in theology from Laval University (L’Université Laval, in Québec, Canada), which she earned on a full-tuition scholarship. She also has a Master of Arts degree in French; she studied international law at the Sorbonne University in Paris; she has a Bachelor of Arts degree from UCLA; and she studied in Bordeaux, France during her undergraduate years at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Bordeaux. She has just recently retired in 2022 from the French department at Yale University where she taught for over fifteen years.

This book is based on her doctoral thesis, which she wrote in French and which was published in 2006 by Laval University Press. The title (in English) is Nazism as Religion: Four Theologians Decipher the Nazi Religious Code (1932-1945). Because English is Dr. Burton’s first language, she has translated the work herself and is revising it for an English-speaking audience, targeting specifically the general educated public.

Ruth Koizim earned her BA in French at Douglass College of Rutgers University where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received her MA and MPhil degrees in French from Yale. Koizim was on the French faculty at Harvard from 1980-1982 after which she returned to New Haven (and to Yale). Koizim taught French at all levels with a primary concentration on intermediate/ advanced language and culture courses. She served two terms as Language Program Director in French and was twice elected to the Yale Faculty of Arts and Sciences Faculty Senate. In 2013, Koizim was named a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes académiques by the French Government. Koizim has given numerous presentations on teaching the German Occupation period and the Shoah through the use of literature, film and period documents in French.

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