Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums (In English Criminal History of Christianity) is the main work of the author and church critic Karlheinz Deschner.
He describes the many death penalties the Torah stipulates for religious offences, King David's policy of conquest, the ruling and corruption of the priests, and finally the decline of the state of Israel in Roman times.
Based on selected quotations, Deschner demonstrates the antisemitism of the Doctors of the Church Ephrem, John Chrysostom, Jerome and Hilary of Poitiers.
Julian's attempt to re-legitimate Pagan religions is commented as follows: Vielleicht, wer weiß, wäre eine nichtchristliche Welt in genauso viele Kriege gestürzt – obwohl die nichtchristliche Welt seit siebzehn Jahrhunderten weniger Kriege führt als die christliche!
Und noch schwerer denkbar deren religiöse Intoleranz.The volume closes with an evaluation of the Church Fathers Athanasius, Ambrose and Augustine.
Deschner writes, the "conditions as in ancient Rome" (German "Zustände wie im alten Rom" is a proverb meaning decadent, chaotic, irresponsible, violent etc.
Deschner considers pope Gregor I as a man of double morale, who consistently called to repentance and preached the close apocalypse, but himself pursued the extension of his power at any cost, recommending dungeon, torture, hostage-taking and pillaging, and also knew using bribery well.
In the end of the volume, Charlemagne is accused of opportunistic relations to the popes, as well as blamed for his excessively bloody "sword mission" with the Saxons and his annihilation of the kingdoms of the Lombards and of the Avars.
Under the Ottonian dynasty, the Church in the Holy Roman Empire was completely militarised; dioceses and abbeys controlled a major military potential.
This volume covers emperor Henry II the Holy, who, in alliance with Pagans, fought three wars against Catholic Poland, the momentous pontificate of Gregory VII, an "aggressive Satan", who led the Holy See to victory over the emperor's throne in the Investiture Controversy (Canossa), the East-West Schism, the First Crusade with the massacre of Jerusalem's inhabitants as well as the Second and Third Crusade.
Deschner writes about the Staufer-emperor Henry VI, who aimed for global dominance even without papal blessing, and about the most powerful pope of history, Innocent III.
Deschner describes the beginning witch-hunt, the Western Schism, the Renaissance popes, the fight against intra-Christian opposition (Wycliffe, Hus and the Council of Constance, Luther and the German Peasants' War).
Horst Herrmann, from 1970 til 1975 professor of church law at the Catholic theological faculty of Münster University, who left the Catholic church in 1981, praised Deschner in 1989 in an article in Der Spiegel[5] as a moralist asking the question: Wie viele Ermordete müssen denn noch her, bis Reue einsetzt und Abkehr?
5), that only few symposium participants "abstained at least from personal revilement", mentioning four speakers by name - Ulrich Faust, Theofried Baumeister, Erich Feldmann und Gert Haendler - and thanking them for their fairness in Deschner's name.
When Deschner's Criminal History (volumes 1 to 8) was published digitally as CD ROM in 2005, Giesbert Damaschke wrote in his recension:[7] Wenn hierzulande das Stichwort "Kirchenkritik" fällt, dann kann man sicher sein, dass es [...] fast ausschließlich um das Werk eines einzelnen Mannes geht: Um Karlheinz Deschner [...].
So umfassend und omnipräsent ist sein Schaffen, [...] dass anderes daneben nur wie eine fade Wiederholung wirkt.