Associate Professor of History Charles Gallagher, S.J., who is writing a book on a World War II Boston-based Nazi conspiracy, will spend the 2016-17 academic year in Washington, DC, finalizing his manuscript with the help of a prestigious fellowship.聽
Fr. Gallagher, a faculty member at Boston College since 2010, was awarded the William J. Lowenberg Memorial Fellowship on America, the Holocaust and the Jews from the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 聽
The fellowship鈥攏amed for philanthropist and Holocaust survivor William J. Lowenberg鈥攕upports endeavors targeted to examining issues connected to the Holocaust and the United States.
鈥淚 feel very humbled to receive this fellowship, and am grateful to the Lowenberg family and the Holocaust Memorial Museum,鈥� said Fr. Gallagher. 鈥淚鈥檓 also grateful to my History Department colleagues who鈥檝e given me support and offered examples of innovative research that provided inspiration.
鈥淎s a Jesuit, it鈥檚 a real honor to use academic and intellectual resources to further interreligious dialogue. This fellowship will be an opportunity to explore issues of mutual concern to many different faiths.鈥�
Fr. Gallagher鈥檚 book project, 鈥淭he Nazis of Copley Square: Catholic Anti-Semitism and Secret Intelligence in Wartime Boston, 1939-1945,鈥� examines efforts by the Nazis to recruit Catholic members of South Boston鈥檚 Christian Front organization鈥攚hich later moved its headquarters to the Copley Square Hotel鈥攖o act as propaganda tools. 聽The research also chronicles a secret British intelligence operation in Boston to suppress the Christian Front.
The FBI arrested the Nazi ringleaders in 1940, but the organization appeared to persist for three more years, said Fr. Gallagher.
聽鈥淭he book will chronicle the espionage dynamics of this multifaceted case, but it also aims to seek answers to questions about the theological context which allowed some ordinary Boston Catholics to bend toward the Nazi line,鈥� said Fr. Gallagher, who used a travel grant from 情色空间鈥檚 Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy to track down correspondence and other materials at archives in Berlin, London, California and Washington, DC, that aided his research.
By Sean Smith | News & Public Affairs