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The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler



The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler PDF

Author: David I. Kertzer

Publisher: Random House

Genres:

Publish Date: June 7, 2022

ISBN-10: 0812989945

Pages: 672

File Type: Epub

Language: English

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Book Preface

THE POPE AND THE CHURCH

PIUS XII (EUGENIO PACELLI) (1876–1958): Son and grandson of lay luminaries of the Vatican, the frail but highly intelligent Pacelli never served as a parish priest or diocesan bishop but, following ordination, immediately joined the Vatican Secretariat of State. In Germany as nuncio from 1917 to 1929, he acquired a deep knowledge of that country before being appointed cardinal secretary of state by Pius XI in 1930. Ever cautious, and never comfortable with multiparty governments, on becoming pope in 1939 he attempted to repair frayed Vatican relations with Mussolini and Hitler.

BORGONGINI DUCA, FRANCESCO (1884–1954): A priest who had lived his entire life in Rome, Borgongini was appointed the Vatican’s first nuncio to Italy following the signing of the Lateran Accords in 1929. He would remain at that post throughout the war and beyond. Although ignorant of the larger world and devoid of intellectual curiosity, Borgongini was one of Pius XII’s key emissaries to the Fascist regime, which he constantly lobbied on behalf of the pope. Along with Father Tacchi Venturi, he repeatedly urged the Fascist authorities to spare baptized Jews from the draconian racial laws.

MAGLIONE, LUIGI (1877–1944): Through his intelligence and drive, Maglione, a Neapolitan from a poor family, made his way up through Rome’s elite church training ground for the Vatican diplomatic service, serving as nuncio in Switzerland and then, from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s, nuncio to France. Made a cardinal in 1935, he was one of the main contenders at the conclave that elected Pacelli pope. Although Pius XII named Maglione as his secretary of state, the two men never developed a warm relationship. Approachable, but careful about what he said, he was popular among the foreign ambassadors to the Vatican who met with him every Friday. Pius XII’s discomfort with having anyone in the role of secretary of state became clear when, following Maglione’s death, he decided not to name a successor.

MONTINI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1897–1978): From a prominent northern Italian Catholic family, his father having served as a member of parliament for the Catholic Popular Party before Mussolini disbanded it, Montini was appointed substitute for ordinary affairs, one of the two deputy positions in the Vatican Secretariat of State in 1937 under Cardinal Pacelli. He remained in that position following Pacelli’s elevation to the papacy. Smart and refined in manner but with little worldly experience, he was a favorite of Pius XII and would himself one day become pope, taking the name Paul VI.

ORSENIGO, CESARE (1873–1946): A priest in Milan with no international experience and little knowledge of the larger world, Orsenigo was appointed nuncio to the Netherlands and then to Hungary in the 1920s before being named to replace Eugenio Pacelli as nuncio to Germany in 1930. A man of limited intelligence and enamored of Hitler, he would try to impress the Nazi officials with his sympathy for their cause, while wishing they treated the church better.

PACELLI, EUGENIO (see Pius XII)

PIUS XI (ACHILLE RATTI) (1857–1939): The then-archbishop of Milan was elected pope in 1922, the same year that the Fascist March on Rome led the king to appoint Mussolini prime minister. Remarking that God works in strange ways, Pius XI found in Mussolini a man who could help restore many of the privileges the church had lost in Italy the previous century. But by the last year of his life Pius XI began to regret all he had done to help the Duce solidify power in Italy, antagonized above all by Mussolini’s embrace of Hitler, a man he despised as an enemy of the church and a proponent of a pagan ideology.

TACCHI VENTURI, PIETRO, S.J. (1861–1956): A prominent Roman Jesuit and from 1918 to 1940 rector of Rome’s major Jesuit church, Tacchi Venturi became Pius XI’s unofficial conduit with Mussolini shortly after Mussolini came to power, meeting with the dictator regularly to convey Pius XI’s requests. Although the Jesuit met with Mussolini less often during the war years, Pius XII would often take advantage of the huge network of contacts Tacchi Venturi had made with the leaders of the Fascist regime to convey papal requests. Among these were repeated attempts to have baptized Jews spared from the country’s antisemitic campaign.

TARDINI, DOMENICO (1888–1961): From a modest Roman family, Tardini served in the Vatican Secretariat of State much of his life. Named substitute for ordinary affairs in 1935 and then secretary for extraordinary ecclesiastical affairs in 1937, he would share, with Giovanni Montini, the two major positions under the secretary of state over the following years. Sharp-tongued and quick-witted, he would regularly be called upon by the pope to prepare briefing papers to lay out his options during the war. Tardini trusted neither the Germans nor the Allies.

MUSSOLINI AND THE FASCIST REGIME

MUSSOLINI, BENITO (1883–1945): Formerly a radical socialist, Mussolini was nothing if not an opportunist and realized that gaining Vatican backing would prove a great boon to his ambitions. Offering a range of benefits to the church, culminating in the Lateran Accords of 1929, which created Vatican City and ended the separation of church and state in Italy, he came to be hailed by the Vatican as the Man of Providence. But his increasing embrace of Nazi Germany in the late 1930s antagonized Pius XI. He would boast to Hitler that he knew how to keep the pope in line, and Pius XII relied on the Italian dictator to help convince the Führer to make peace with the church. As his own troubles mounted during the Second World War, Mussolini placed constant pressure on Pius XII to do nothing to undercut the Axis cause.

ALFIERI, DINO (1886–1966): Elected to parliament on the Fascist ticket in 1924, Alfieri rose through government ranks. In November 1939 Mussolini appointed Alfieri, then in charge of the government propaganda ministry, to replace Bonifacio Pignatti as Italy’s ambassador to the Holy See. A few months later Mussolini would decide he needed an ambassador more kindly disposed to the Nazis to go to Berlin, and so he appointed Alfieri to the German embassy. At his last meeting with Alfieri before he left for Germany, the pope entrusted Alfieri with a message for Hitler, but then thought better of it.

ATTOLICO, BERNARDO (1880–1942): A southerner and career diplomat, Attolico married into the black aristocracy, the Roman elites whose families were closely linked to the popes. Following stints as Italian ambassador to Brazil and the Soviet Union, he was named ambassador to Germany in 1935. No friend of the Nazis, he tried to dissuade Mussolini from joining the Axis war. Switching positions with Alfieri in 1940, he served as the Duce’s loyal ambassador to the Vatican until his death in early 1942. Typical of many men in Italy’s foreign service, Attolico served the Fascist regime loyally and, following Italy’s entry into the war, worked tirelessly to prevent any Vatican criticism of the Axis cause.

BUFFARINI, GUIDO (1895–1945): Perhaps the most intelligent member of Mussolini’s government, the short, fat, ruddy-cheeked Buffarini was also among its most corrupt members. Among other side endeavors, he ran a booming business in falsifying parish records to make Catholics of Jews and so spare them the effects of the racial laws it was his responsibility to oversee. As in practice Mussolini’s minister of internal affairs (a post technically held by the Duce himself), Buffarini greeted Cardinal Pacelli’s election to the papacy by remarking, “He is just the Pope that is needed.” Following Mussolini’s initial fall, Buffarini served as minister of internal affairs in the Nazi-puppet Italian Social Republic.

CIANO, GALEAZZO (1903–44): His father was an early Fascist government minister, whose recently conferred aristocratic title of Count was then passed on to him. Galeazzo rose rapidly to the heights of the Fascist state thanks as well to his 1930 marriage to Mussolini’s daughter, Edda. Appointed foreign minister in 1936 at the age of thirty-three, he remained his father-in-law’s heir apparent for the next several years. Eager to stay on the pope’s good side, he regularly offered professions of his deep Catholic faith to the pope’s emissaries and cast himself as the pope’s ally in trying to prevent Mussolini from joining the war. After briefly serving as the Duce’s ambassador to the Vatican in 1943, he would end up facing a Fascist firing squad.

FARINACCI, ROBERTO (1892–1945): One of the original Fascists, boss of the northern city of Cremona, member of the Grand Council of Fascism from 1922, Farinacci styled himself as the most Fascist of Fascists and the one most devoted to Hitler. Mussolini would frequently use Farinacci and his anticlerical newspaper, Il Regime Fascista, as his stick to keep the pope in line. No one better incarnated what the pope considered the bad wing of the Fascist Party.

GUARIGLIA, RAFFAELE (1889–1970): Cardinal Maglione was delighted to learn of Mussolini’s appointment of Guariglia, formerly ambassador to France, as Italy’s ambassador to the Holy See following Attolico’s death in early 1942. He regarded Guariglia, a fellow Neapolitan, as a friend. Recognizing later in 1942 that the Axis was likely to lose the war, Guariglia hoped to find an escape for himself and for Italy. Sent to serve as Italy’s ambassador to Turkey in early 1943, he returned following Mussolini’s overthrow in July to serve briefly as Italy’s foreign minister, meeting secretly many evenings with Cardinal Maglione as the Italian government faced a terrible dilemma.

MUSSOLINI, EDDA (1910–95): Mussolini’s favorite child, and the one most like him, Edda was headstrong and independent. Initially enthusiastic about Hitler and having Italy join in the Axis war, she would turn against her father following the arrest of her husband, Galeazzo Ciano, and his subsequent execution.

MUSSOLINI, RACHELE (1890–1979): Semiliterate, the child of a poor peasant family, never comfortable around the opulence and pretensions of the Italian elite, her son-in-law included, Mussolini’s wife was, according to her daughter, “the true dictator in the family.” Although she despised her husband’s young lover, she remained his staunch defender.

PETACCI, CLARA (1912–45): Clara was just a schoolgirl, the daughter of a Vatican physician, when she began sending Mussolini letters pledging her devotion. Beginning their affair in earnest in 1936, two years after her marriage, Clara developed an obsession for “Ben,” as she called him. It was an obsession reciprocated by Mussolini, who often phoned her a dozen times a day and awaited her daily visits to the special room reserved for her at Palazzo Venezia. Over time, Clara began to offer her own political advice, reinforcing some of Mussolini’s worst instincts.

PIGNATTI, BONIFACIO (1877–1957): Formerly Italian ambassador to Argentina and France, Pignatti was appointed Italian ambassador to the Holy See in 1935. Typical of many career diplomats, he made the transition from serving a parliamentary democracy to serving a dictatorship without any sign of difficulty and, until his retirement in 1940, would do all he could to ensure the pope’s cooperation with the Fascist regime.

HITLER AND THE THIRD REICH

HITLER, ADOLF (1889–1945): Since Mussolini’s ascension to power in 1922, Hitler had held the Italian dictator up as a role model. That affection would last through the war as the Führer’s troops repeatedly saved the Italian army from catastrophe and then, following Mussolini’s overthrow, rescued the Duce from his mountaintop prison and set him up as puppet leader of a new Fascist regime in the north. While Hitler, a Catholic by birth, had no affection for either the church or the Catholic clergy, he saw an opportunity with the election of Pius XII to ease the tensions that had marked the Third Reich’s relations with Pius XI.

HESSEN, PHILIPP VON (1896–1980): Son of one of Germany’s most prominent aristocratic families, his grandfather a German emperor, his great-grandmother Queen Victoria of Great Britain, Prince von Hessen married Princess Mafalda, King Victor Emmanuel’s daughter, in 1925, and then five years later joined the Nazi Party’s storm troopers. Shortly after Hitler’s ascension to power in 1933, he was named head of his province. One of the people closest to Hitler, von Hessen became the Führer’s personal envoy to Mussolini. Shortly after Pius XII became pope, Hitler, seeking a possible opening, turned to von Hessen to conduct a series of secret meetings with the pontiff in the Vatican, meetings that have only now come to light.

RIBBENTROP, JOACHIM VON (1893–1946): Formerly a wine salesman, and a fanatic Nazi, Ribbentrop was named Germany’s foreign minister in 1938. He would serve in that post until the war’s end. “I have rarely seen a man I disliked more,” said the American undersecretary of state after meeting him in 1940. Constantly promoting the virtue of war, and ever boasting of the inevitability of German victory, he had no affection for the church but nonetheless paid a dramatic visit to the pope only a few months after German troops launched the war.

WEIZSÄCKER, ERNST VON (1882–1951): Judged “a typical example of the German official of the old school of the nineteenth century” by the American undersecretary of state, Weizsäcker, product of an aristocratic German family, was appointed state secretary for international affairs, number two to Ribbentrop in the Third Reich’s Foreign Ministry, in 1938. There he served Hitler efficiently through the first years of the war before being sent in the spring of 1943 to be Germany’s ambassador to the Holy See. Liked by the pope, who, especially during the nine months of German military occupation of Rome, counted on him to help protect the Vatican, he would be viewed at the Vatican as an exemplar of the good side of the Nazi regime. Tried for war crimes at Nuremburg following the end of the war, Weizsäcker would be found guilty despite the Vatican’s pleas on his behalf.

ITALY’S ROYAL FAMILY

VICTOR EMMANUEL III (1869–1947): Named for his grandfather, founder of the Kingdom of Italy, the Savoyard king suffered from a lifelong inferiority complex due to his short stature. Sharing with Mussolini a deep-rooted misanthropy, he was intelligent and well informed but weak-willed and pedantic. Long a willing enabler of the Duce, he would be slow to act when, as the war began to go against the Axis, he fended off increasingly insistent pleas that he replace the Duce as government head and extract Italy from the war.

MAFALDA OF SAVOY (1902–44): Second daughter of King Victor Emmanuel III, Mafalda married the German prince Philipp von Hessen in 1925 and subsequently shuttled between Italy and Germany, where her husband was becoming a prominent Nazi and confidant of Hitler. It would not end well for her.

MARIA JOSÉ OF BELGIUM (1906–2001): Daughter and sister of kings of Belgium, she married the Italian king’s only son, Umberto, in 1930. A strong-minded woman not comfortable with the constraints imposed on her by her position and by her gender, she developed an independent circle of friends among prominent Italian intellectuals, including, increasingly, those displeased with the Fascist regime. She would be among the first influential Italians to seek the Vatican’s help in removing Mussolini from power and extricating Italy from the war, although in this she would have little success.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Maps

List of Illustrations

Cast of Characters

Foreword

Prologue: The Twisted Cross

Part One: War Clouds

Chapter 1: Death of a Pope

Chapter 2: The Conclave

Chapter 3: Appealing to the Führer

Chapter 4: The Peacemaker

Chapter 5: “Please Do Not Talk to Me About Jews”

Chapter 6: The Nazi Prince

Chapter 7: Saving Face

Chapter 8: War Begins

Chapter 9: The Prince Returns

Chapter 10: A Papal Curse

Chapter 11: Man of Steel

Chapter 12: A Problematic Visitor

Part Two: On the Path to Axis Victory

Chapter 13: An Inopportune Time

Chapter 14: An Honorable Death

Chapter 15: A Short War

Chapter 16: Surveillance

Chapter 17: The Feckless Ally

Chapter 18: The Greek Fiasco

Chapter 19: A New World Order

Chapter 20: Hitler to the Rescue

Chapter 21: The Crusade

Chapter 22: A New Prince

Chapter 23: Best to Say Nothing

Part Three: Changing Fortunes

Chapter 24: Escaping Blame

Chapter 25: Papal Premiere

Chapter 26: Disaster Foretold

Chapter 27: A Thorny Problem

Chapter 28: An Awkward Request

Chapter 29: The Good Nazi

Chapter 30: Deposing the Duce

Chapter 31: Musical Chairs

Chapter 32: Betrayal

Part Four: The Sky Turned Black

Chapter 33: Fake News

Chapter 34: The Pope’s Jews

Chapter 35: Baseless Rumors

Chapter 36: Treason

Chapter 37: A Gratifying Sight

Chapter 38: Malevolent Reports

Chapter 39: A Gruesome End

Epilogue

Final Thoughts: The Silence of the Pope

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Archival Sources and Abbreviations

Notes

References

Illustration Credits

Index

Also by David I. Kertzer

About the Author


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