The Pope at War, page 13
As 1940 began, the tension that had marred Fascist-papal relations in the last days of Pius XI was a distant memory. A stream of police informant reports told Mussolini of the popular enthusiasm generated by Pius XII’s exchange of visits with the king, and of the widespread belief that the combined efforts of the Duce and the pope would keep Italy out of a war that no one wanted.[1]
At the same time, the pope continued his efforts to improve relations with Hitler’s regime. In his New Year’s audience with the German mission to the Vatican, the pope denied he had any objection to the totalitarian states. Indeed, he pointed out, the Vatican’s harmonious relations with the Italian regime proved the opposite. Fritz Menshausen, the German embassy’s number-two man, complained to the pope that the western democracies were casting the pope’s speeches as critical of the totalitarian regimes. Surely, replied the pope, the same thing happened on the other side, with the press in the totalitarian countries citing his words to show he opposed the democracies. “The Pope further explained,” Menshausen reported to Berlin, “that his speeches were of a general nature as a matter of course and he deliberately composed them in a way that they could not be interpreted by Germany as directed against it.”[2]
On the morning of February 10, Pius XII marked the first anniversary of his predecessor’s death with a brief ceremony in St. Peter’s. The following day the anniversary of the 1929 Lateran Accords provided the occasion for the Fascist regime to show its solidarity with the Vatican. Italian flags hung from all public buildings, and special lights illuminated their facades at night to mark the day that Mussolini put an end to the decades-long conflict between church and state. Italy’s new ambassador to the Vatican, Dino Alfieri, hosted a reception at the embassy, standing under a large portrait of Pius XII. Seventeen cardinals attended, including Secretary of State Maglione and his two deputies, Montini and Tardini. Present too were all the foreign diplomats accredited to the Holy See, together with a bevy of government officials, Fascist Party leaders, and a flock of Rome’s aristocracy. Each scarlet-robed cardinal made a separate ceremonial entrance, accompanied by four footmen carrying large lighted candles.[3]
At the dinner, Cardinal Maglione pressed Italy’s foreign minister for news of Hitler’s intentions. Again, Ciano cast himself as the peacemaker, telling the cardinal that in signing the military pact with Germany the previous spring, he had made clear that Danzig should not constitute a reason to go to war. While it was true that Mussolini had a more favorable view of Germany than his own, said Ciano, his father-in-law recognized that it was in Italy’s interest to stay out of the conflict.[4]
A few days later the pope met with one of the men whose views of the military situation he most valued. Enrico Caviglia, seventy-seven-year-old hero of the Great War, held the title of Marshal of Italy, the highest rank of the Italian military. He was a member of the Senate as well. Caviglia had never been enamored of Mussolini and opposed involving Italy in a war at Germany’s side.
Given his rank, the marshal received a full-scale ceremonial welcome when he arrived at the Apostolic Palace for his noon audience with the pope. Swiss Guards, Palatine Guards, Noble Guards, and assorted footmen in red damask uniforms all stood at attention, lining the frescoed hallways as he passed through. Arriving at the ornate Small Throne Room, Caviglia was met by the pope’s maestro di camera, who then led him to the adjoining door of the pope’s study. The pope, seated at his table, greeted him warmly.
Caviglia was struck by how emaciated the pope looked, his spectacles standing out on his face. “A sweet voice, affable, simpatico,” observed the general, contrasting Pius XII with his predecessor, who had been more likely to lecture his visitors than to listen to them.
The two men spoke of the difficulty of forging a lasting peace deal. “It is not possible,” said the pope, “to trust a man who goes back on the word he has given,” referring, without naming him, to Germany’s leader.
At his recent meeting with Mussolini, said the marshal, he had urged him to keep Italy out of the war, appealing to the Duce’s vanity by telling him that in doing so he would come to be looked upon as a truly great man.
“God bless you,” replied the pope, urging the marshal to keep repeating that message. “Not all men are advising Mussolini in this sense.”[5]
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Among those most worried about where the European war was heading was the American president, who was facing reelection in the fall. In late February, Roosevelt sent his undersecretary of state, Sumner Welles, to Europe to sound out leaders on both sides of the conflict. In Rome, his first appointment was with Italy’s foreign minister. The American entered the meeting with low expectations, having heard that the Duce’s son-in-law radiated a sense of self-importance. Welles was pleasantly surprised. “His manner was cordial and quite unaffected, and he could not have been simpler nor more frank in the expression of his views.” It no doubt helped that Ciano spoke English. It also helped that, in Welles’s words, “he spoke with no effort at concealment of his hearty dislike of Ribbentrop.”
It was only at the end of their meeting, when photographers were called in, that Welles saw the Ciano he had been expecting: “That was the only time I saw the ‘chest out, chin up’ Ciano of which I had heard. Until the cameras began clicking, he could not have been more human, more simple, nor more seemingly frank in everything he said.”[6]
Welles’s impression of the Duce, whom he met later that day at Palazzo Venezia, was very different.
Ciano accompanied Welles along with Ambassador Phillips to Mussolini’s office. There Welles was struck, as all were, by the grandeur of the cavernous room, but also by how sparsely furnished it was. The Duce greeted Welles at the door and walked him the length of the largely empty space to his desk on the other side. Ciano, Welles, and Phillips sat in the three chairs arranged in front of the desk.
The American visitor was shocked by Mussolini’s appearance. He looked, he thought, fifteen years older than his fifty-eight years: “He moved with elephantine motion. Every step appeared an effort. He is very heavy for his height, and his face in repose falls into rolls of flesh. His close-clipped hair is snow white. During our long and rapid interchange of views, he kept his eyes shut a considerable part of the time, opening them with his dynamic and oft-described wide-open stare only when he desired particularly to underline some remark.” Phillips had thought the conversation would take place in French, which both Welles and Mussolini spoke, but the Duce said he preferred speaking in Italian and had Ciano translate. Asked by Welles if he still rode a horse every morning, the Duce said he did, proudly adding he had recently taken up tennis and was now, he boasted, regularly beating the pro who played with him. Welles presumably regarded both claims as implausible.[7]
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While the American undersecretary of state was meeting with the Duce, Pius XII was preparing to receive another American, a man who would play an important role in the years to come. Two months earlier, President Roosevelt had notified the pope of his intention to send his own personal representative to the pontiff. At the time, the United States had no diplomatic relations with the Holy See—Protestants in Congress adamantly opposed the idea—and thus no ambassador. Roosevelt appointed the envoy in the hope that Pius XII might play a role in bringing peace to Europe and, in any case, as a way of solidifying his support among America’s large Catholic population in the lead-up to the fall 1940 presidential elections.
Myron Taylor, the man Roosevelt chose for the role, had until recently been president of U.S. Steel, the largest producer of steel and one of the largest corporations in the country. A sixty-six-year-old Episcopalian—appointing a Catholic to the position would have been politically impossible—Taylor owned a villa outside Florence where he often vacationed. With combed-back gray hair he had an unmistakably distinguished appearance, comfortable in his dark three-piece suit or in the white bow tie and tails he wore to papal audiences. He had, as well, an additional qualification that recommended him for the post. He was a man of great wealth, and Roosevelt did not want to have to ask Congress to fund a mission that was bound to provoke much unhappiness among the country’s Protestants.[8]
Mussolini at his desk, Palazzo Venezia, February 1, 1940
Taylor arrived in Rome on February 20, 1940, and moved into a large suite in the luxurious Excelsior Hotel on the fashionable Via Veneto. At his first meeting with Taylor a week later, the pope, speaking in English, offered his view of the European crisis. The German people had not wanted war, he said, but intimidated by the Gestapo, they were powerless. The German generals likewise were not eager for war, but they too were not prepared to voice their opposition. As for Italy, said the pontiff, Ciano was opposed to the war, as were most Italians, but the Duce, it seemed, was wavering.[9]
Although unhappy about Mussolini’s embrace of Hitler, Myron Taylor, like most of the American business elite, had previously been an admirer of the Duce. He had, they thought, crushed the socialists, ended labor unrest, and brought a sense of order to a country viewed in the United States as poorly governed and chaotic. The day after his first meeting with the pope, Taylor had dinner with Mussolini’s justice minister. There, the Fascist minister recalled, Roosevelt’s envoy “declared with great emotion that the Duce is the arbiter of the situation in Europe and that his intervention can be decisive. During the meeting, Signor Taylor expressed himself in very deferential and admiring terms toward the Duce. He recalled with evident pleasure having been received by Him four times.”[10]
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Following his third secret meeting with the pope the previous October, Prince von Hessen had returned to Germany and briefed Hitler. Thinking the time had come for discussions to move to the next level, the Führer decided to send Foreign Minister Ribbentrop to meet with the pontiff. He said the pope could choose the format for that meeting. If it were to be an official one, Hitler would have his ambassador to the Holy See make the formal request. Should the pope prefer the meeting to remain secret, they could continue to use the von Hessen-Travaglini-Cardinal Lauri channel to arrange it.
At the end of December, Hitler sent von Hessen back to Rome to discuss these arrangements with the pope. Since his last meeting with the pontiff, von Hessen had also had a number of conversations with the Duce and his son-in-law. Following the Führer’s instructions, he had asked for their support in helping establish amicable relations between the Reich and the Holy See. Both Mussolini and Ciano had readily offered to do whatever they could.
Von Hessen’s message to the pope, sent through Travaglini on the first day of 1940, informed him of these conversations and concluded with what appeared to be a promising sign. Hitler and Ribbentrop “would be pleased to know immediately, through the usual channel, which problems most urgently concerned His Holiness, so that they could be resolved before the above-cited visit [by Ribbentrop]…and that with the goal of creating in these days an atmosphere of trust and hope.” The prince asked the pope to meet with him to discuss next steps, saying he would soon have to return to Germany.[11]
Following their now familiar path, Travaglini, the Order of Malta go-between, took his written account of what von Hessen had told him to Cardinal Lauri. The cardinal then sent it on to the pope on January 2, 1940, with a cover letter urging the pontiff to quickly let him know how to respond to the prince. A separate typed note on a plain sheet of paper, found together with the cardinal’s letter in the recently opened Vatican’s secretary of state archive, shows how quickly the pope agreed to the meeting and gives a flavor of its cloak and dagger nature: “January 3, 1940 (12:15 p.m.). The Most Eminent Cardinal Lauri informs that ‘the noted person’ returned this morning in Rome and appropriately advised, will come this evening at the agreed-upon time.”[12]
In preparing for the meeting, Pius XII hastily assembled a document listing five requests for the Führer. He gave it to von Hessen when the prince, using his alias, appeared that evening at the Apostolic Palace.
The pope prefaced his five points by expressing his pleasure in seeing that “some of the propagandistic publications against the Church or Church organizations [in Germany] have been withdrawn.” However, other signs were less encouraging, for reports of anticlerical and anti-Christian propaganda in Germany kept coming in. “We continue to perceive that there are those in the Party—especially in those circles that regard themselves as the foremost representatives of today’s Germany such as in the SS, the SA, the Labor Front, the Hitler Youth, the Federation of German Girls—who seek to separate Catholics spiritually and, if possible, visibly from their Church. For example, one cannot advance in the SS without having discarded one’s membership in the Church.” To “detoxify the public atmosphere before any talks begin,” suggested the pope, it would be important for the German government to take certain measures. He then listed the five steps he urged Hitler to take:
Ending the attacks against Christianity and the Church in Party and State publications, and the withdrawal of particularly offensive past publications. Some of the worst publications against the Church have indeed been withdrawn from the market, but far from all….
Cessation of anti-Christian and anti-Church propaganda targeted at youth, in the school and beyond….
Restoration of religious education in schools in accordance with the principles of the Catholic Church and led by Church-approved teachers, in most cases Catholic clergy.
Restoration of the Church’s freedom to defend itself publicly against public attacks against Church doctrine and Church organizations….
Cessation of further sequestrations of Church property, in anticipation of the mutual examination of past measures.[13]
The morning after meeting with the pope, von Hessen, using a prearranged code, briefed Ribbentrop by phone on what Pius XII had told him. The Nazi foreign minister asked for further clarification, and so the prince summoned Travaglini to pass on the German foreign minister’s question: Did the pope regard his five points as an “absolute condition” for holding their meeting? That same day Cardinal Lauri transmitted Ribbentrop’s query to the pontiff, adding that, should the pope desire it, von Hessen was willing to return the following evening for further discussion.[14]
The pope did not think it necessary to meet again with von Hessen so soon and instead sent him a note, in German, responding to Ribbentrop’s question. “His Holiness,” the reply explained, had offered the five points “to give the Reich Foreign Minister some indication of what the Church considers to be beneficial for the creation of a propitious atmosphere for visits and negotiations. In doing so, the Holy Father merely sought to make sure, as far as he can, that the prospects of success of the prospective, strictly confidential visit by the Reich Foreign Minister are as great as possible.” Three days later, on January 8, Cardinal Lauri telephoned with the news that “the noted person was pleased with the response received and wanted to be sure the Holy Father was immediately informed of this.”[15]
On his return to Germany in early January, von Hessen briefed Hitler and gave him the five-point German-language memo Pius XII had prepared. Sent back to Rome early the next month to continue the negotiations, von Hessen summoned Travaglini to the royal residence with a new message for the pontiff. After Hitler had read the pope’s memo, he had discussed next steps with Ribbentrop and agreed in principle with the terms the pope had set out. He had decided that it would be best if the upcoming meeting of his foreign minister with the pope be an official one and so not remain secret. It should be billed as a discussion of the points of tension between the Reich and the Vatican.
Curiously, in advising Pius XII on the planned meeting with Ribbentrop, von Hessen conveyed Hitler’s wish that the pope flatter his foreign minister as much as possible: “During the meeting that von Ribbentrop will have with the Holy Father—perhaps a decisive one for the relations between the Church and the Reich—the Führer would like the Holy Father to employ many, many sweet words in regards to his Minister of Foreign Affairs, as he is very susceptible to such expressions, and as von Ribbentrop is the executor of future oversight in this area.” Hitler, said the German prince, “is expecting much from this audience.”[16]
While the pope was eager for the meeting with the Nazi foreign minister, Hitler’s decision that the encounter should receive wide publicity made him nervous. Given the delicate dance he was engaged in with the Poles and others who were calling on him to denounce the Reich, being seen in collegial conversation with Ribbentrop could have unpleasant consequences. On February 8 the pope had a new German-language note prepared for von Hessen:
The news we have received up to the beginning of the current month on the Church’s situation in Germany does not indicate the beginning of a détente in line with the five mentioned points.
Under these circumstances His Holiness believes that it remains more beneficial to make the first encounter between him and the Reich Foreign Minister a confidential one, to permit an open discussion without interference about the necessary…points for the agreement.
