Every translation is a unique journey for those who endeavor to turn an author’s carefully crafted words into another language. Andreas Holzem’s captivating history of Christianity in Germany takes its readers through a rich tapestry of individual fates, illustrating what centuries of religious schisms and rifts meant for people’s experiences and (religious) knowledge while probing deep into an extraordinary number of issues that remain the subject of scholarly dispute to this day. As translators, we thus had the privilege to embark on an incredible journey of learning about more than 300 years of German history and more than 30 years of Confessionalization research. This exercise encompassed a plethora of theological and philosophical movements as well as the internal and external developments of both the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches, and traced the interdependencies between religion, politics, and society.

Translation is so much more than merely exchanging words – it is cultural mediation, aspiring to capture tone, style, register, and the pragmatic effect of the author’s message in every sentence, to name but a few examples. Bearing this in mind, the translator must nonetheless weigh every single word (in both languages). Naturally, in a work spanning more than 1,500 pages, this task would have been insurmountable had it not been for the invaluable exchange with Andreas Holzem, as well as the assistance of Eilidh Harris, Amber Lennox, Aiofe Haberlin, Pete Ross, and the Yale team, who kindly proofread excerpts of the manuscript. In this respect, we are particularly deeply indebted and eternally grateful to Pete Ross for his immense contribution in proofreading and tirelessly discussing the pitfalls and intricacies of the English language.

Although two translators have worked on this project – with Ansgar Hastenpflug being chiefly responsible for volume one and Charlotte Kieslich for volume two – we have of course worked closely together and were in constant exchange on matters of style, vocabulary, and any “technicalities” that translators face. Some of these need mentioning here, as there are no clear-cut rules on how to deal with them. Together with Andreas Holzem, we decided to translate quotes from contemporary source material written in early modern German into contemporary American English. For quotes from German, Latin and Spanish sources and scholarly works, we used authoritative translations where they existed at the time of writing. Similarly, we used the English version or spelling of German names and places if we felt they were sufficiently established in English. For instance, “Karl der Große” became “Charlemagne” and “München” became “Munich” (although we hope that readers will forgive us that in the vast grey area of individuals and places we deemed to be lesser known, we have generally opted for the German). Where German titles of books, treatises, essays and the like were quoted, we provided the German title and the English translation in parentheses. As is the case with any translation, we encountered words and expressions in German that defy translation (or at least we felt they did). In some instances, we decided to introduce loan translations. In others, we decided to leave the German in italics and worked a brief explanation into the text when the word was first mentioned in each chapter. If readers encounter German words in italics without any explanation, the words in question have been introduced earlier in the respective chapter so as to avoid repetition. These words can also be looked up in the glossary at the end of volume two.

Finally, we would like to express our immense gratitude to Andreas Holzem, not only for entrusting us with translating his impressive work and taking us on this fascinating journey, but also for his great commitment to this project and his patience in answering all our questions on the exact meaning of certain words and concepts. We hope that we were able to contribute to making Andreas Holzem’s profound insights accessible to an English-speaking audience and that readers will enjoy exploring the history of Christianity in Germany, 1550–1850, as much as we did.

Frankfurt am Main / Oberhausen, summer 2022

Charlotte P. Kieslich and Ansgar Hastenpflug