Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

As we noted on Monday, Holocaust Remembrance Day at the United Nations featured an event, “Remembering the Holocaust: the Documented Efforts of the Catholic Church to Save Lives.” A summary of the proceedings has been written by University of Mississippi Professor of Law Ronald Rychlak. He was one of the speakers; he is also a member of the Catholic League’s advisory board.

Rychlak’s account makes for an important read. To access it, click here.

Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler
by Mark Riebling
Basic Books, New York, 2015
375 pages, $29.99.

Ronald J. Rychlak

Pope Pius XII and the Nazis: far too many writers have wandered into this fascinating subject without bringing anything new to the table. Many of the late pope’s critics have simply repeated information that appeared in already discredited books and articles, but even some supporters have done little more than parrot earlier accounts. Thus, as one who has read almost all of the books on the topic, I approached Mark Riebling’s Church of Spies cautiously.

The first chapter seemed promising as it covered the outbreak of World War II and the new pope’s first encyclical, Summi Pontifictus and its striking condemnation of racism. Unlike many other writers, Riebling acknowledged Pius XII’s profound and express statement that there was no room for distinction between Gentiles and Jews in the Catholic Church. That was good, but Riebling also wrote about the perception that Pius was insufficiently outspoken and the problems that created between Catholics and Jews. It looked like the book might go either way, but then Riebling came out with a line that smacks the reader upside the head: “The last day during the war when Pius publicly said the word ‘Jew’ is also, in fact, the first day history can document his choice to help kill Adolf Hitler.” Fasten your seatbelt; you’re in for one heck of a ride.

It has long been known that the pope tipped off the Allies about at least one planned coup attempt and certain German troop movements, and other writers have noted that Pius was involved on the periphery with efforts to topple Hitler. Riebling, however, uses documents from German, Italian, Vatican, and other archives to prove that rather than being on the periphery, Pius was deeply involved in the various plots to assassinate Hitler.

The assassination plot began inside the German high command in August 1939. Hitler had already ordered the extermination of those who were mentally or physically defective, he had begun his war against the Jews, and he was just days away from invading Poland. He called together his top generals and admirals to brace them for the invasion, which would be carried out with “merciless severity.” The Führer, who saw Catholicism as incompatible with Nazism and particularly hated Pope Pius XII, capped off his talk by saying that he would “snuff out the least flicker of Polish strength by liquidating thousands of Catholic priests.”

The head of German military intelligence, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, had once admired Hitler. A year earlier, however, he became disillusioned when
Hitler began turning ferociously on Germany’s own citizens, including some German officers. Although he was a Protestant, extermination of Catholic priests was the final straw. Canaris already had a small circle of like-minded friends. Now they made the fateful decision to depose Hitler, even if they had to kill him.

The logistics of any coup would be complicated enough, but the Canaris group was also concerned about how the Allies would respond. They did not want to see a repeat of the Treaty of Versailles, the harshness of which had assisted Hitler’s ascendance to power. They needed to communicate and coordinate with the Allies.

The question was how to make contact with Allied leadership. Canaris determined that the only person with sufficient prestige and freedom to act was the pope. Canaris had known the future pope as a Vatican diplomat in Germany back in the 1920s. He knew about Pius XII’s many talents and his utter disdain for Hitler. He just needed someone to help him make contact.

Munich attorney Josef Müller was a war hero and devout Catholic who had represented the Church against the Reich in legal matters. Riebling described him as “part Oskar Schindler, part Vito Corleone.” In 1934, Müller survived a beating and interrogation at the hands of SS Commander Heinrich Himmler, who asked the lawyer about a controversy that had taken place in Bavaria. Without apology, Müller admitted that he had advised the Bavarian prime minister to have Himmler killed. Impressed by his courage, Himmler invited Müller to join the SS. Müller replied: “I am philosophically opposed to you. I am a practicing Catholic, and my brother is a Catholic priest. Where could I find the possibility of compromise there?” Himmler appreciated this “manly defense,” and let the lawyer go. This made Müller somewhat of a legend even among Hitler loyalists.

Riebling introduces Müller in the prologue to Church of Spies. He is in leg irons at Flossenbürg concentration camp in 1945, hands tied behind his back, and forced to “eat his food like a dog from a plate on the floor.” On the next page, he is being led to the gallows. The chapters that follow explain how and why he got there.

In addition to being an attorney, Müller was a pilot, and he often traveled to Rome on business. So, in 1939, when the conspirators tapped him as their messenger, his trips did not draw undue attention. For his first mission, German intelligence gave him a dossier of Nazi atrocities in Poland. He flew to Rome and asked the pontiff’s top assistants whether Pius would be willing to contact the British government and ask for support.

Not only did Pius XII agree to assist the conspirators, saying “the German opposition must be heard,” he also mobilized Catholic religious orders, especially the Jesuits and Dominicans. These orders did not report to local bishops, who might be susceptible to Nazi pressure, but to leaders of their orders, who reported directly to the pope. The head of the Jesuits in Northern Germany, Augustin Rösch, had been battling the Gestapo since well before World War II, and he became the driving force behind the pope’s team in Germany. Rösch linked his group with the military intelligence unit headed by Canaris and worked on planning the coup.

Müller also built a spy network among “army, college, and law-school friends with access to Nazi officials—a community of the well-informed, who worked in newspapers, banks, and even … the SS itself.” His office soon became a clearinghouse of information for the Vatican.

The issue of a political assassination, even of Hitler, raised many questions. Riebling, however, explained that: “Over the centuries, Catholic theologians had developed a nuanced doctrine of tyrannicide, covering virtually every conceivable context.” After peaceful means had been exhausted, the assassination of a tyrant could be justified if it would improve conditions in a subjugated nation without sparking a civil war. Unfortunately, Lutheran and Calvinist generals were tied to a Protestant theory of state authority, and they had a much harder time justifying such an action.

Although initially suspicious, British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax and Francis D’Arcy Osborne, British ambassador to the Holy See, were won over by the pope’s personal intervention. They would negotiate with “The Decent Germany” if Hitler could be removed. Unfortunately, there were many doubts in high British circles, and the Allies failed to take advantage of much reliable information.

The plotters organized several attempts on Hitler’s life, but he had “the luck of the devil,” surviving repeated assassination attempts. He canceled speeches without knowing that snipers were in position and ready to take him out. He missed parades where bombs were set to explode. Plotters attempted to kill him by blowing up his plane, but the bomb didn’t go off. By shifting a meeting from a concrete bunker to a wooden barracks, Hitler evaded another attempt, memorialized in the movie Valkyrie.

Resistance to the Führer at home began to melt away after his military victories in Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, and France. Outside of Germany, others began to lose patience with the conspirators. Upon becoming prime minister, Winston Churchill put no faith in “decent Germans” taking out Hitler.

German military intelligence eventually learned about Müller’s work with the pope and brought him in for questioning. The lawyer was shocked when they asked him to work with them against Hitler. They gave him a cover story. He was to be a German operative using his contacts with the Vatican to spy on Italians. He would do this by posing as a conspirator seeking out Italians who might rally against Mussolini. “Müller would advance the war effort by pretending to talk peace,” explained Riebling. “But he would only be pretending to be pretending.” He actually was the anti-Axis plotter that he was pretending to be. Müller, of course, informed the Vatican of what was going on. It dramatically escalated the risk and potential reward of the pope’s work with Müller.

At this point, Vatican officials introduced the German lawyer to the concept of Disciplina Arcani—the “way of secrecy.” Those involved in the Vatican spy ring developed code names. Müller was known as “Herr X,” and Pius XII was called “the Chief.” Some high security meetings were held in the most secure place possible, excavation sites under Vatican City.

Plotters from Germany’s intelligence services asked “the Chief” to keep quiet: “Singling out the Nazis,” one later explained, “would have made the German Catholics even more suspected than they were and would have restricted their freedom of action in their work of resistance.” Explaining this to a French diplomat, Pius once said: “You know which side my sympathies lie. But I cannot say so.”

In 1943, as the SS narrowed its focus, a member of German intelligence finally revealed the names of the conspirators. Müller’s dramatic flights across the Alps came to an end, and the Gestapo found his secret files, including the conditions that the plotters had established to kill Hitler, which were printed on Vatican letterhead. This sent Müller into Dachau for the remainder of the war.

When Mussolini was ousted in July 1943, Hitler ordered a division of paratroopers to the borders of St. Peter’s Square. “On one side stood German soldiers in black boots and steel helmets, with carbines on their shoulders and Lugers on their hips. On the other side were the Pope’s Swiss Guards, in ruffled tunics and plumed hats, holding medieval pikes in white gloves.” Fortunately, Hitler’s advisors talked him out of an immediate invasion, though Hitler vowed to finish the job after the war.

Hitler ultimately avoided assassination and died by his own hand, but not before the SS tracked down the resistance. The SS interrogated conspirators, tortured them, and executed or sent them to concentration camps. Some were subjected to show trials before being publicly executed.

Church of Spies reads so well that one is inclined not to reveal what happened to Müller and Rösch (spoiler alert: it’s not as bad as the prologue might suggest). In fact, that aspect of Church of Spies, involving multiple death sentences, paperwork problems, and well-timed favors, could be a book unto itself.

 Church of Spies reads like an adventure novel, but it is documented history. It explains the virtually universal perception of Pius XII during and after the war as a staunch opponent of the Nazis and defender of the Jews. It also reveals Moscow’s perception that Pius was anti-Soviet, which certainly could account for the post-war assault on his reputation. It’s a great read and an enormously important book.

Click here to see the December 17, 2012 Catholic League ad on the op-ed page in the New York Times.

Ronald J. Rychlak

This article will appear in the April 2012 issue of Catalyst:

In the December 2011 issue of Commentary magazine, Kevin Madigan, the Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Divinity School, put forth the false charge that the Vatican under Pope Pius XII intentionally helped Nazi war criminals escape justice and make their way to South America after World War II. He based his article on Gerald Steinacher’s Nazis on the Run: How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice and David Cymet’s History vs. Apologetics: The Holocaust, the Third Reich, and the Catholic Church. The combination of sloppy work and over-the-top charges provides a textbook example of how a verifiably false account can be reported as fact in the mainstream media.

At the heart of the matter are two letters.  Bishop Alois Hudal wrote the first letter on May 5, 1949 [click here], to Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini (the future Pope Paul VI) who was then working in the Vatican Secretary of State’s office. In that letter, Hudal suggests a pardon for political prisoners who have committed no crimes [“ancora sono nelle prigioni incarcerate persone senza un delitto o crime fuori di “quello” che nel campo della politica difendevano”]. Montini’s reply, dated May 12 [click here], says that the Vatican’s Secretary of State was already working with several governments toward such an end.

Steinacher incorrectly dated Hudal’s letter to April 5, 1949. More seriously, in quoting the letter, he said that Hudal wanted amnesty for German soldiers, and elsewhere on the same page he said that Hudal sought pardon for war criminals. Actually, Hudal expressed sympathy for political prisoners who had already spent four years in prison, but he never mentioned nationalities, war criminals, or soldiers.

Steinacher also badly distorted Montini’s reply. He wrote: “Montini replied that the Holy See would welcome an ‘extensive amnesty,’ but that the German clergy had a different attitude.” In fact, nowhere in Montini’s letter was there any mention of the pope, the German clergy, or a difference in their attitudes.

Madigan, who did no original research and did not read Steinacher very carefully, made things even worse. He confounded Steinacher’s points and wrote: Steinacher “reports that the pope favored an ‘extensive amnesty’ for war criminals.” That is not what Steinacher wrote, and nothing could be further from the truth.

In August 1944, Pius XII received Winston Churchill in an audience at which the pontiff expressed his understanding of the justice in punishing war criminals. In that year’s Christmas message, in a section entitled “War Criminals,” Pius wrote that no one “will wish to disarm justice” when it comes to punishing “those who have taken advantage of the war to commit real and proved crimes against the law common to all peoples.” He also told a Swiss reporter: “Not only do we approve of the [Nuremburg] trial, but we desire that the guilty be punished as quickly as possible, and without exception.” Pius even provided evidence to use against Nazi defendants and assigned a Jesuit to assist the prosecution team.

It has long been known that Hudal and a Croatian priest named Krunoslav Draganović helped some former Nazis escape from Europe. Madigan, however, says that they were part of “a sort of papal mercy program for National Socialists and Fascists.” That is far from the truth.

In his memoir, Hudal explained that the assistance he gave to those fleeing justice was done without the pope’s knowledge. He had never agreed with the Vatican’s hostility toward the Nazis. His book, The Foundations of National Socialism, was critical of the hard line that Vatican diplomats took with the Germans. (He once sarcastically asked whether the Church was being directed by the Allies.) In 1949, when Hudal was criticized in the press, he asked the Vatican to defend him. The reply from Montini was: “there is no defense for a Nazi bishop.” That same year, Hudal scheduled a papal audience for a group of Austrian pilgrims. Pius, however, refused to meet with the group as long as Hudal accompanied them. In 1952, Pius demanded that Hudal be removed from his position at Santa Maria dell’Anima, the German national church and college in Rome.

Madigan’s alleged “papal mercy program” was the Pontifical Aid Commission (PAC). This organization coordinated efforts to assist victims of war and helped return displaced persons to their homes. As the PAC helped hundreds of thousands of legitimate refugees start life anew, some Nazi war criminals (Madigan says hundreds) took advantage of it to flee justice. Madigan would have us believe that the Church knowingly sent Nazi officials to safety. It is, however, inconceivable that the Nazis revealed their background to reputable Church officials. It is even less likely that any such information would have reached the Vatican. The logistics of the massive relocation programs simply made it impossible to investigate most individuals who sought help.

Monsignor Karl Bayer, who was liaison chaplain responsible for prisoners of war in the north of Italy, explained:

Well, of course we asked questions…. But at the same time, we hadn’t an earthly chance of checking on the answers. In Rome, at that time, every kind of paper and information could be bought. If a man wanted to tell us he was born in Viareggio – no matter if he was really born in Berlin and couldn’t speak a word of Italian – he only had to go down into the street and he’d find dozens of Italians willing to swear on a stack of Bibles that they knew he was born in Viareggio – for a hundred lire.

The Church was interested in ending suffering. Some Nazis took advantage of these efforts to help dislocated people. So did some Soviet spies. Would Madigan argue that the Vatican wanted to help them? There is no indication that the Holy See intentionally tried to help Nazis escape justice.

Madigan spreads another false charge from Cymet’s book. Often when Jewish parents were deported, they left their children behind with Christian families. The children were still at risk of being uncovered and deported. The surest way to protect them was by indoctrinating them in Christianity. Sometimes over-zealous rescuers would have the children baptized. According to Madigan, Pius refused to let any such child be returned to their Jewish parents. That is nonsense.

In 2004, there was a bit of a dust-up when a document was found that purportedly contained Pope Pius XII’s directives that: “Children who have been baptized must not be entrusted to institutions that cannot ensure their Christian education.” It also said that children whose families survived the Holocaust should be returned, “as long as they had not been baptized.”

It was soon discovered that this controversial document was an incorrect summary of a 1946 letter from the Vatican to the papal nuncio in France. The letter actually said that if institutions (not families) wanted to take those children who had been entrusted to the Church, each case had to be examined individually. The Church would breach its obligation to the parents if it turned the children over to the wrong institution. There were very few facilities fit for children in Palestine or war-torn Europe, and the pope was concerned for their welfare.

These instructions related solely to institutions wanting to relocate orphaned children after the war. It did not relate to children being sought by families. The letter said: “things would be different if the children were requested by their relatives.” Madigan should have done his homework before spreading these malicious charges.

Commentary magazine printed a letter in which I pointed out several of Madigan’s errors, but as is traditional, Madigan was given the last word. In addition to back-tracks and denials, he made a few statements that call for a response. First of all, this is but the most recent in a string of articles that Madigan has written over the past decade highly critical of Pope Pius XII, the Catholic Church, and those who disagree with him. He can’t keep falling back on the argument that he is only repeating charges made by others.

Madigan complained that I referred to Montini as “one of the pope’s top assistants,” not as Secretary of State. I did so because Montini worked in the Secretary of State’s office, but he never held that office or title.

Madigan references a 1947 declassified report that suggested that a Croatian war criminal (Ante Pavelic) was being protected due to his contacts with the Vatican. The report says: “Pavelic’s contacts are so high and his present position so compromising to the Vatican, that any extradition…would deal a staggering blow to the Roman Catholic Church.” Madigan snidely adds that the authors of that report “knew better than Mr. Rychlak.” I have to disagree.

I have written several articles and a book chapter about the post-war situation in Croatia. In fact, the chapter was translated and published in Croatia in 2008. I have studied the topic thoroughly, and I know that Pavelic was offended by how badly he was treated by Pope Pius XII and Croatian Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac.

In 1947, when the intelligence report was written, the Communist government in Croatia (Yugoslavia) was conducting show trials of Catholic officials (including Stepinac) for collaborating with the Nazis. I had the advantage of writing after Communism fell and the new Croatian parliament apologized for those false charges and the bad information that was spread. Agents writing in 1947 Italy had little reason to know that this information was the creation of Soviet disinformation agents. Madigan, however, wrote after the fall of Communism. He could have looked up this history and educated his readers. Instead, he spread false information.

On the last page of Madigan’s article he likened those who defend Pope Pius XII (which would include Pope John Paul II and a slew of reputable historians) to Holocaust deniers. In his reply to my letter, he said that it was not he but Cymet who made this charge. While Cymet did make it, Madigan not only quoted and discussed it at length, he said that Cymet had grounds for making it. This is but one of several issues on which Madigan tried to have it both ways, but careful readers will not let him get away with that.

Finally, Madigan dismisses the post-war Jewish praise for Pius and says it was given to garner good will for the state of Israel. In other words, Jews lied for political reasons. This is an insult not only to Catholics, but to the Jewish leaders who worked so hard to rebuild out of devastation. They were wounded; they had lost most everything, but they did not lose their integrity. They were not lying when they thanked the Catholic Church and praised Pope Pius XII. They knew the truth. Madigan’s claims to the contrary are shameful.

Ronald J. Rychlak is a professor of law at the University of Mississippi. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Catholic League. His latest book is Hitler, the War, and the Pope, (Revised and Expanded, 2010.)

By Sister Margherita Marchione

(June 1, 2007)

As the Vatican moves toward announcing the beatification of Pope Pius XII, some prominent American Jewish leaders continue to insist that the Church should desist from that long-overdue action. They claim that Pius was guilty of not doing enough to prevent Hitler’s genocide of Jews during the Holocaust. Even putting aside the impertinence of people from outside the Catholic faith like Abraham Foxman, executive vice president of the Anti-Defamation League, or Seymour Reich, past chairman of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, presuming to dictate to the Vatican whom the Church can or cannot beatify, the charges they levy against Pius XII are simply untrue. In reality, the wartime pope did far more to save Jews than did other leaders of the day, including people like Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, who, unlike Pius, had enormous military assets at their command. Yet for some incomprehensible reason, it is Pius, the only world leader who made sustained efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust, who is scapegoated for the world’s failure to act forthrightly in the face of evil. In an effort to counteract the inaccuracies of some historians, I have gathered documentation that proves how outrageously incorrect are the misrepresentations about Pope Pius XII’s so-called “silence” and “anti-Semitism.” In my book, Did Pope Pius XII Help the Jews? (Paulist Press, 2007), I proved that Pius XII was neither silent nor anti-Semitic. Just consider the testimonials of Jewish leaders of his day thanking him for his efforts, and the gratitude the 5000 Jews saved during the Nazi occupation of Rome evince for the Pope. They understood that the Pope had to be prudent while moving behind the scenes to protect as many Jews as he possibly could. Had he taken a more public and provocative stand, he would have infuriated Hitler and invited Nazi retaliation against the Vatican; thereby endangering the lives of thousands of Jews who, at his direction, were hidden in 155 convents and monasteries in Rome alone. In reality, Pius XII was a saintly man, a man of peace and compassion. He condemned strongly the anti-Semitic persecutions, the oppression of invaded lands and the inhuman conduct of the Nazis. He was a champion of peace, freedom, human dignity. He encouraged Catholics to look on Christians and Jews as their brothers and sisters, all children of a common Father. For his part, Pius was totally committed to playing the role of universal pastor, the kind and loving father to all victims, regardless of their religious background. Many people who dedicated themselves to the cause of rescuing Jews during those terrible years paid tribute to the efforts of Pius XII. For example, John W. Phele, executive director of the U.S. War Refugee Board, wrote just after the war ended in 1945; “The Catholic clergy saved and protected many thousands and the Vatican rendered invaluable assistance to the Board and to the persecuted in Nazi hands.” Sir Francis Osborne, a non-Catholic British diplomat in the Vatican from 1936 to 1947, had this to say (The Times of London, May 20, 1963): “…Pius XII was the most warmly, humane, kindly, generous, sympathetic and, incidentally, saintly character that it has been my privilege to meet. …Without the slightest doubt, he would have been ready and glad to give his life to redeem humanity from its consequences. And this quite irrespective of nationality or Faith.” Consider Pius’ own words during those terrible days. In response to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s letter of December 31, 1942, the Pope expressed his readiness to collaborate with him to achieve peace and “to do everything in Our power to alleviate the countless sufferings arising from this tragic conflict (January 5, 1943).” President Roosevelt wrote on August 3, 1944, to Myron C. Taylor, his personal representative at the Vatican; “I should like you to take the occasion to express to His Holiness my deeply-felt appreciation of the frequent action which the Holy See has taken on its own initiative in its generous and merciful efforts to render assistance to the victims of racial and religious persecutions.” Or consider that on June 25, 1944, Pius XII telegraphed the following protest message to Admiral Horthy, the pro-Nazi ruler of Hungary in which he spoke of the sufferings endured by hundreds of thousands “on account of their national or racial origin by a great number of unfortunate people belonging to this noble and chivalrous nation. … We appeal to your noble feelings, in the full trust that Your Serene Highness will do everything in your power to save many unfortunate people from further pain and sorrow.” In response to the inaccurate and unjust statement by Shmuley Boteach on April 15, 2007, in the online edition of Jerusalem Post, and that of April 17, 2007, by Etgar Lefkovits, I submit the following testimony published in The Palestine Post, (the present Jerusalem Post), April 28, 1944, headlined “A Papal Audience in Wartime.” It was signed by a “refugee”; a footnote states that the article’s author arrived in Palestine on the ship Nyassa. This article, published by a young German Jew in The Palestine Post, points up Pope Pius XII’s appreciation for the “Chosen People.” It is significant because it shows the attention and great love with which the Pontiff regarded the Jews. During an audience with the Pope, the young Jew told Pius XII about a group of shipwrecked Jewish refugees, who were then starving in a prisoner of war camp on an island in Greece. The Pope listened carefully and then said to him, “You have done well to come and tell me this. Come back tomorrow with a written report and give it to the (Vatican) Secretary of State who is dealing with this question….My son, I hope you will always be proud to be a Jew!”…. Pius XII lifted his hands to bless him, then stopped, smiled, touched the author’s head with his fingers, and lifted him from his kneeling position. Documents show that renowned Jewish contemporaries of Pius XII strongly defended him—among them, Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir: “When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims.” Nor can Albert Einstein’s statement (Time Magazine, 1940) be ignored: “Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing the truth.” Jewish historian Pinchas Lapide tells how Pope Pius XII sent his Papal Nuncio in Berlin to visit Hitler in Berchtesgaden to plead for the Jews. That interview ended when Hitler smashed a glass at the Nuncio’s feet. From Hitler’s reaction, the Pope was convinced that public pronouncements would have sealed the fate of many more Jews. Indeed, after this incident, Hitler, who often raged against the Pope to his henchmen for protecting Jews, conceived a plot—fortunately never realized–to kidnap Pius XII from the Vatican to Germany. Frankly, I am at a loss to understand why modern Jewish leaders like Foxman and Reich are so ready to disregard the testimony of great predecessors like Golda Meir and Einstein, who went out of their way to praise Pope Pius XII. Whatever the reason, I implore Jews of good will and open minds to take another hard look at the evidence concerning the wartime Pope. If they do, I am convinced that they will come to the same conclusion that I have; that Pius XII is blameless of the charges against him. Indeed, Pius deserves to be acclaimed as a “Righteous Gentile” for his courageous efforts that saved thousands of Jews from certain death, rather than being scorned as a moral failure unworthy of beatification. Margherita Marchione, PhD, a resident of the Villa Walsh convent in Morristown for 72 years is author of ten books on Pius XII, including:Yours Is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy; Pius XII: Architect for Peace; and the just released Did Pope Pius XII Help The Jews? Paulist Press, 2007. Her e-mail is Sr.Margherita.Marchione@ATT.NET

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By Dan Kurzman

(Catalyst, June, 2007)

As soon as Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was ousted from power on July 25, 1943, Adolf Hitler began hatching a plan to kidnap Pope Pius XII and plunder the Vatican. Clearly, the Fuehrer thought, the “Jew-loving” pope had encouraged King Victor Emanuel II and some rival fascist leaders to overthrow his Italian puppet.

The following day Hitler called for an urgent meeting of his military leaders. They must liberate Mussolini and return him to power, he cried. And “we must occupy Rome” and “destroy the Vatican’s power, capture the pope, and say that we are protecting him.” The pope might even have to be killed.

About six weeks later, on September 13, SS General Karl Wolff, the SS commander in Italy, received a phone call from his boss, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler, orchestrator of the Holocaust. Himmler, Wolff told me, bellowed that the Fuehrer wanted to see him urgently.

The general, who had previously served as Himmler’s chief of staff, suspected why. Three days earlier, on September 10, German troops had marched into Rome, and German intelligence soon snatched Mussolini from captivity. The Duce was now to regain power in Nazi-occupied northern Italy, and Wolff would be sent to the capital in Fasano, near Salo, primarily to make sure that Mussolini followed the Nazi line. But Himmler had revealed to Wolff that Hitler had an additional secret mission in mind for him.

According to notes that Wolff told me he had taken during and after the meeting, Hitler barked: “I want you and your troops to occupy Vatican City as soon as possible, secure its files and art treasures, and take the pope and the curia to the north,” probably Liechtenstein.

Referring to the threat of an Allied invasion of Italy, he added: “I do not want the pope to fall into the hands of the Allies or to be under their political pressure and influence.”

Wolff promised to do his best but was conflicted, feeling that such an operation could alienate Italy and the entire Catholic world. Besides, he worshipped power, and the pope, like Hitler, was one of the world’s most powerful leaders. The two men, although holding diametrically contrary views, were to the calculating general like earthly gods. Still, he felt, his mission might be useful—if he could sabotage it and obtain a blessing from Pius for saving his life and the Church itself. Wolff could perhaps also save his own life if Germany lost the war and he was tried for his war crimes.

But Wolff, who revered the SS, may have been prompted as well by other more sordid details of the kidnap plot that were later discovered in a letter that one Italian fascist leader wrote to another. It was headed Massacre of Pius XII with the Entire Vatican.

According to this message, which repeated what a high SS official (perhaps Wolff) told the fascist writer, the purpose of the plot was to avenge “the papal protest in favor of the Jews”— apparently referring to an expected papal outcry when the Roman Jews were rounded up.

The plan called for soldiers of the SS Florian Geyer Cavalry, disguised in Italian uniforms, to invade the Vatican shielded by night, kill all members of the curia, and take the pope prisoner. Then troops of the Hermann Goering Panzer Division would surge into the Vatican to “rescue” the pontiff and kill the disguised SS men, assuming they were Italian assassins rather than SS compatriots. Thus, no witnesses.

If the pope tried to escape (or was perceived as trying to), he, too, would be shot. The world, like the panzer soldiers, would be led to believe that the “Italians” were guilty.

Meanwhile, Wolff described Hitler’s order to Rudolf Rahn, the German ambassador to Italy, who was to be transferred from Rome to Fasano as the emissary to Mussolini’s new republic. Rahn then joined in a conspiracy with Wolff and several other like-minded German officials against the plot and went to see Hitler. If the people learned that their pope had been abducted, Rahn told the Fuehrer and his chief lieutenants, they might rise up against the Germans.

Most of Hitler’s men seemed cool to an attack, fearing such a reaction. Even Himmler, who had been meeting secretly with the German Resistance, was uncertain; he had to choose between striking the Church, which he hated, and seeking to improve his image in Allied eyes in case Germany lost the war.

The only one present who strongly supported an attack was Martin Bormann, Hitler’s ruthless secretary, who wanted to replace Christianity with a new religion headed by the Fuehrer. Bormann, Rahn told me, turned beet-red with anger as he, the ambassador, made his plea. But Hitler trusted his secretary most, and it appeared that his advice would be taken.

Meanwhile, General Wolff revealed to the Vatican that Pius was in danger. The pope loathed Hitler. And Hitler loathed him, viewing him as an obstacle to his —and Bormann’s—grandiose plan to capture the minds and souls of much of mankind after a victorious war.

In 1939, realizing what was at stake, Pius had actually joined in a conspiracy by some German generals to overthrow Hitler and, if necessary, a high Vatican official told me, to kill him. The risks, he said, to both the pope personally and the Church were incalculable. But in the end the plot fell through.

In 1943, as the tension between the two men grew, Monsignor Domenica Tardini, the Vatican’s assistant secretary of state, told the cardinals to “keep a suitcase ready because we might be deported at any time.” The pope himself called a meeting of cardinals to choose a possible successor in case he was kidnapped. And friends of the pope prepared a plan for him to flee to Spain if necessary, though he vowed to remain in the Vatican unless he was carried out.

Ernst von Weizsaecker, the German ambassador to the Vatican, another anti-Hitler conspirator, tried to convince Pius that he should remain silent when the Nazis rounded up the Jews of Rome. The Pope, until then, had felt that if he spoke out strongly against the Jewish genocide, Hitler would not only attack the Vatican but would drag out the hundreds of thousands of Jews from the Vatican institutions in which they were hiding throughout occupied Europe, as well as their Christian protectors.

But the German diplomats were afraid that he would nevertheless speak out publicly if the Roman Jews, his neighbors, were deported. If he did, they argued, there was virtually no chance that Hitler would cancel his kidnap plan. And on October 16, the Gestapo in Rome began rounding up the Jews.

That rainy morning, Princess Enza Pignatelli Aragona, a friend of Pius, was awakened by a phone call from a friend, who informed her of the arrests. The princess told me she rushed to the Vatican and, interrupting a papal mass, blurted the news to the pope, crying, “Only you can stop them!”

“But they promised me that they would not touch the Jews in Rome!” Pius exclaimed. He then ordered Cardinal Luigi Maglione, his secretary of state, to summon Ambassador Weizsaecker urgently and protest the action. As the princess departed, the pope promised, “I’ll do all I can.”

When Weizsaecker arrived for a meeting with Maglione, he said he would “try to do something for these poor Jews.” But, he asked, “what would the Holy See do if these things were to continue?”

“The Holy See would not want to be faced with the need to express its disapproval,” the cardinal answered …”If the Holy See were forced to [protest], it would trust the consequences to Divine Providence.” In other words, he would speak out publicly if the roundup of Jews continued.

Shaken, the ambassador responded, “I think of the consequences that a protest by the Holy See might precipitate.”

Clearly, the word “kidnap” was on both their minds.

Meanwhile, other German diplomats—and, the Vatican would say, the pope’s nephew—urged an eminent priest, whom Berlin trusted, to write an urgent note to a cooperative German commander in Italy that was to be wired to Berlin echoing Cardinal Maglione’s warning.

At the same time, in Germany, General Wolff managed to convince Hitler that he would have a hard time suppressing an uprising in Italy if the pope felt forced to speak out and had to be dethroned. So, finally, Himmler ordered that the roundup stop after only about 1,000 of the 8,000 Roman Jews were picked up. And the pope, who had apparently been prepared to publicly condemn the roundup, felt there was no longer a need to do so now.

Several months later, in May 1944, Wolff secretly met with Pius, who, having learned of the general’s role in helping to sabotage the kidnap plot, felt that the man must have some good in him, whatever his background.

Both men agreed that the war would best end in an Allied-German alliance, without Hitler, to halt the Soviet advance on Europe. And Wolff assured the pope that he would try to frustrate any new plot against him.

Wolff was overwhelmed when the pope then blessed him. He now had the full confidence of both the Vicar of Christ and the Antichrist, an incredible interworld feat. The general rose, clicked his heels together—and raised his arm in the Nazi salute! The pope smiled forbearingly. His visitor had simply confused his gods. But he would eventually betray one of them—surrendering the entire German army in Italy, on his own, to the Americans.

The kidnap plot had failed, but it had helped to shape the policies and attitudes of the pope, Hitler, and their subordinates during a most important segment of World War II history.

Award-winning author Dan Kurzman is the only journalist who ever interviewed General Karl Wolff. His newly released book, A Special Mission: Hitler’s Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII, is available from Da Capo Press.

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