The Pope at War, page 43
Tardini agreed to do what he could and gave Pancino an embossed card of the Vatican Secretariat of State with a simple, if purposely vague, message for the nuncio: “The priest Giusto Pancino is coming to Switzerland for a work of charity, which he will explain to you orally. Try to help him.”
Tardini took advantage of the priest’s visit to ask him to bring Mussolini a message on his way to Switzerland: He wanted Mussolini to know that the Holy See, too, had been concerned for Edda’s welfare. They knew she had succeeded in entering Switzerland but did not know her exact address. He also wanted Mussolini to know that the Vatican had taken an interest in the welfare of his other family members in the weeks following his arrest the previous summer. But while apparently trying to win goodwill from Mussolini, Tardini could not resist adding a barb. Tell him, said the monsignor, that if he had only heeded Pius XI’s warning, when the previous pope urged him not to tie Italy’s fate to the Nazis, the country would not now find itself in such a sad situation. And while Mussolini might be able to convince his daughter he was not to blame for her husband’s execution, Tardini added, no one else in Italy would believe it.[17]
Thanks to the help of Monsignor Tardini and Nuncio Bernardini in Switzerland, Father Pancino was able to complete his mission for the Duce. Mussolini’s goal in sending him to Switzerland, Pancino told the nuncio, was to achieve a “rapprochement” with his daughter who, “following the death of her husband, nourishes a hatred for all of her family.” In the end, the mission would bring the fallen Duce little satisfaction. Edda took advantage of the visit to give the priest a letter for her mother-in-law, asking her to arrange to have her son buried near his father’s tomb and to ensure that fresh flowers be regularly placed there. The message she asked the priest to give her father was brief: “Tell him that I feel sorry for him and that he should leave the position he holds which is without either any authority or prestige.”[18]
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On January 21, 1944, a new Allied assault began. Twenty-eight destroyers, 103 other warships, and 241 landing craft left Naples harbor headed north and arrived at Anzio beachhead, sixty kilometers south of Rome, shortly after midnight. Allied planes flew 1,200 sorties to protect the landing beaches as over 36,000 men and 3,000 vehicles made their way onto shore that first day. The Germans were initially caught off guard, the area lightly defended. Some say that if the Allies had been more aggressive, they could have quickly seized the Alban Hills to the north, cut off the German lines, and then rapidly driven the Germans from Rome. But the commander was cautious, finding it hard to believe the area was as poorly defended as it was. While the Allied troops dug in at the beachhead over the next two days, the Germans rushed in reinforcements, taking up positions in the hills overlooking Anzio and aiming their deadly artillery fire on the troops below. Seven thousand Allied bodies would soon fill a large cemetery adjacent to the beach, its vast sea of white crosses, sprinkled with stars of David, still attracting visitors today.[19]
Although the Anzio landing offered the Vatican hope that Rome might soon be liberated, it also brought with it a variety of fears. Most unwelcome was the Allies’ plea that the Romans do all they could to weaken the German occupation army: “The hour has arrived for Rome and all Italians to fight in every possible way with all forces…. Sabotage the enemy. Block his roads of retreat. Destroy his communications…. Strike against him everywhere continuing the fight indefatigably.” As the men of the Vatican kept assuring the German occupiers, they were urging the Italians to reject the Allies’ entreaties, arguing that such resistance led only to more violence. Whether they were influenced by the church’s advice or simply because of their own inclinations, only a modest number of brave Romans would be involved in the resistance that the Allies were recommending, and of the insurrection that the Allies hoped to trigger, there was no sign.[20]
The Allied advance raised another fear in the pope’s mind. Four days after the landing at Anzio, he had Cardinal Maglione give Osborne an urgent message. The British envoy in turn sent it on the same day to London: “Cardinal Secretary of State sent for me today to say that the Pope hoped that no Allied coloured troops would be amongst the small number that might be garrisoned at Rome after the occupation. He hastened to add that the Holy See did not draw colour line but it was hoped that it would be found possible to meet this request.” That the pope’s appeal attracted high-level attention we know from the records of the Foreign Office: it reached Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. He then sent a copy to Lord Halifax, the British ambassador in Washington, with the request to alert the Americans.[21]
The situation of Italy’s Jews, already dire, was becoming worse, as increasing numbers were being rounded up, in no small part by Italian police and militias, and sent north to the Nazi death camps. In February the recently appointed head of Rome’s police, Pietro Caruso, launched a new Jew-hunt that would ensnare several hundred victims. They could take little comfort from the fact that in January Badoglio’s government in the south had finally gotten around to striking down the racial laws.[22]
It was a cold winter. Lacking coal, the marble-floored halls of the Vatican were frigid, and on rainy days life there was miserable. “We are dying of cold,” complained the Brazilian ambassador. The pope thought it important that he should suffer along with the rest of Rome, and so he forbade the use of heaters. When he was out of his rooms, Sister Pascalina, observing that the pope’s slender hands seemed practically frozen, would sometimes sneak in an electric stove, taking care to remove it before he returned. Outside the walls of the Vatican, food was critically short; the Fascist police scoured the streets searching for those suspected of conspiring against the regime; and German soldiers dragooned men to send north for forced labor. “To add to these immediate troubles,” Osborne reported to London in early February, “hopes of early relief by Allied landing forces are weakening.”[23]
As the front neared Rome, Allied planes began attacking German convoys in the Alban Hills to the south of the city. On February 1 one of the bombs landed on a convent adjacent to the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo, killing seventeen nuns. The next day bombs fell inside the papal estate itself, causing another fatality. It seemed a miracle that more were not killed, as thousands had taken refuge in and around the papal grounds, thinking themselves safe from Allied and German attack. That good fortune ran out on February 11, when a third Allied bombing hit the papal property, killing hundreds of refugees. Osborne had alerted London immediately after the first bombing and urged that the military avoid future such incidents. Ian Eaker, the British general in charge of the air assault, responded to the Foreign Office justifying the campaign. “This area,” he wrote the day after the first attack, “is now in the midst of the battle area and contains essential road communications. I have discussed this matter with Alexander[*] who feels that we cannot prejudice the success of the Rome operations by providing in the middle of the battle a sanctuary for the opposing Germans.”[24]
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On the night of February 3, Republican Fascist policemen dressed in civilian clothes surrounded the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, located near the Tiber River in the southern part of the city. Originally built in the fourth century as a shrine over the grave of Saint Paul, it was one of Rome’s four major basilicas, exceeded in size only by St. Peter’s. At eleven-thirty p.m., while most inside slept, an advance party climbed the wall at the back of the complex and dropped into the garden below. The Lateran Accords had granted the basilica extraterritorial status, and it was protected by members of the Palatine Guard. On seeing the first black-shirted figures clambering over the wall, a guardsman fired his rifle into the air and ran to alert his sergeant. When the sergeant confronted the intruders, they quickly disarmed him.
At the same time, the bell inside the front entrance of the basilica began to ring, and the porter came to the door. Without opening it, he asked who was there. A voice responded that they were two monks from Florence seeking shelter for the night. When, after a moment’s hesitation, the porter unlatched the door, a crowd of pistol-wielding men burst in, one of them exclaiming, enigmatically, “We know everything!” Throwing another Palatine Guard to the ground and taking his rifle, the men, now a hundred strong, began banging on the doors where people slept. Striking some of the refugees in the stomach with the butts of their rifles, firing into the air to intimidate them further, and roughing up others with their fists, they herded their terrorized victims into two large rooms for interrogation, while hurling insults at the monks who tried to block their way. Squad members tore through the refugees’ belongings, eagerly dividing up their booty, from watches and coats to sugar and coffee.
“You’ve disgraced your dignity as a priest,” one of the policemen told the Benedictine abbot in charge of the basilica, “hiding Jews, draft dodgers and military officers, allowing subversive newspapers to circulate.” When, many hours later, the intruders left, they led out scores of people who had been hiding there. Some were Jews, many others were men seeking to escape service in the Fascist army, and one, their prize catch, was an Italian air force general unsuccessfully disguised as a monk.
Present for the whole operation, although trying to remain at a comfortable distance from the scene, was Rome’s chief of police, Pietro Caruso. The infamous Pietro Koch, the man who ran the show, was inside the basilica directing the action. Ardent Fascist and leader of a violent squad that specialized in intimidation, torture, and murder, Koch was known for the special delight he took in helping the Germans round up Italy’s Jews.[25]
Learning early that morning of the assault on the basilica, the pope was outraged. The Vatican Secretariat of State staff worked all day on a protest note to give the German ambassador. At eight-thirty p.m. Father Pfeiffer, the Vatican’s intermediary with the German military authorities, ever eager to smooth relations, telephoned the Secretariat of State office. The German military command denied having anything to do with the raid, he told them. Indeed, they were indignant at the very suggestion and speculated that the desecration of the basilica might well have been an act of sabotage aimed at discrediting them.[26]
The next morning Cardinal Maglione met with the pope to review the final draft of the letter of protest for the German ambassador. They also reviewed statements on the basilica assault to be published in L’Osservatore Romano, broadcast on Vatican radio, and sent to the members of the foreign diplomatic corps at the Vatican. Shortly after noon Ambassador Weizsäcker arrived. He insisted the Germans had known nothing about the assault on the basilica, saying it was all the work of the Italian republican police. He cautioned the cardinal against putting out any statement on what had happened. It might, he feared, leave the impression the Germans bore some responsibility for the attack.[27]
Maglione found himself on the defensive. If anyone were mistakenly to interpret the planned statement on the invasion of the basilica as casting aspersions on the Germans, he told the ambassador, “I would be ready to offer my apologies…. But I don’t believe I have been unclear, and I am sure I have not allowed responsibility for what happened to be attributed to the Germans, even though I was earlier informed that a certain Koch, who accompanied Police Chief Caruso in the much deplored undertaking, had stated in the presence of both Caruso himself and Vatican functionaries that the German authorities were aware of it.”
The cardinal then showed Weizsäcker the letter addressed to him that the pope had approved. It named Rome’s police chief as leader of the expedition and made no mention of any German involvement. Nodding his approval, the ambassador nonetheless suggested it would be better if the cardinal did not insist that he take it. Now that he had read the letter, what was the point? It would only mean he would need to communicate it to Berlin, and this, he suggested, did not seem a good time to do anything that might upset the harmonious relations between the Vatican and the Reich.
Maglione agreed to bury the letter but asked that Weizsäcker note its request for the German authorities to reimburse the Vatican for the damage caused by the attack and to take steps to ensure that nothing like it happened again. Even admitting that Italians and not Germans were behind the assault, Germany, as the occupying power, was responsible for maintaining public order and ensuring that the Holy See’s rights were respected.
Before Weizsäcker left, he made a request of his own. He wanted Maglione to tell the ambassadors from neutral countries that the Vatican thought the Germans had nothing to do with the raid. “I have no problem doing so,” the cardinal replied, “if Your Excellency agrees that I can inform them of the assurances you have given me.” Weizsäcker signaled his approval.[28]
A few days later, the cardinal received a report confirming his suspicions. It came from Giovanni Gangemi, a general in the Fascist militia. Characterized in the Vatican’s notes as a practicing Catholic and the nephew of a prominent nun, Gangemi told of a conversation he had with Pietro Caruso on the day following the basilica assault. The general knew Rome’s police chief well, for Caruso had served under his command until only a few months earlier. When the general told Caruso how unfortunate he thought the attack on the basilica had been, Caruso gave this response:
They made me. Already when I had barely been named police chief I was called by [Eugen] Dollmann [head of the German SS in Rome,] who instructed me, “You will keep this position of trust if you know how to be remorseless toward the Jews, Communists, and deserters!” And a few days ago I was called by Dollmann again, who forced me and planned the details for raiding San Paolo and, to be sure of me and my agents, placed one of the men of his confidence, Koch, at my side.[29]
Although the pope had every reason to find this report credible, he deemed it unwise to call attention to German responsibility for the assault on the basilica.[30]
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The invasion of the basilica left Pius XII nervous about the continued concealment in church institutions of Jews, Italian military officers, and others fleeing the Nazi and Fascist authorities.[31] Rome’s major newspaper, Il Messaggero, had reported that those seized in the St. Paul raid included, in addition to the air force general, four other Italian military officers, nine Jews, two police functionaries, and forty-eight young men fleeing conscription.[32] Of special concern to the pope was the presence of such refugees in Vatican City itself. Shortly after the incursion, the three cardinals composing the Pontifical Commission overseeing Vatican City summoned the three canons of St. Peter’s Basilica. The priests were known to be sheltering refugees at the Canonica, their residence adjacent to the basilica. Cardinal Rossi, known for his strong Fascist sympathies, presided over the commission. He ordered them to eject the refugees.
A few days later the papal chaplain prepared a report addressed to Pius XII listing the people sheltered at the canons’ residence. He began with those he was housing in his own rooms: “Signor A. and his family…who, while of Catholic religion do not have what is necessary to be considered Aryan [i.e., they were baptized Jews] and for that reason are actively being sought to be sent to Poland.” He listed by name eight other priests living at the Canonica who were sheltering refugees, some of whom were there “because lacking in the Aryan requisites,” as he put it, and many others for political reasons or because they were fleeing military service. Last on his list, he noted: “On the ground floor with the custodians and the sacristans, various people have been taken in, mostly Jews who had been baptized several years earlier.” In summary, he concluded, the priests were sheltering “about fifty individuals in grave danger of being arrested and shot or deported. Those facing the least danger have already spontaneously left; those remaining prefer to face any danger in the Canonica in the shadow of the Father’s house to whom they address the anguished invocation: salva nos, perimus!”[33]
In his brief account of these events, Monsignor Tardini noted that the cardinal’s order to evict the refugees had produced considerable unhappiness among Vatican clergy, and on February 10, at the gathering of cardinals at St. Peter’s marking the fifth anniversary of Pius XI’s death, a number of cardinals urged Cardinal Rossi and his two colleagues of the Pontifical Commission to relent. Rossi initially refused, saying he was merely implementing an order from a “higher” authority, the pope. According to Tardini, the other cardinals then prevailed on Cardinal Maglione to speak with Pius XII and convince him to rescind the order, which he had given in a moment of nervousness about the basilica raid. This, in the end, he did.[34]
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On February 12, 1944, bombs again began to fall on Rome, with an initial series of Allied bombing raids lasting three days. Again the local officials—most notably General Domenico Chirieleison, Italian commissioner for the administration of Rome—looked to the Vatican to use its influence to stop them. The pope once more had Cardinal Maglione appeal to Washington and London for an end to their assault on the world center of Catholicism. Although the pleas made repeated reference to Rome as an “open city,” the pope knew it was being used as a major transit point for German troops. The fact that London was itself suffering from heavy German bombing raids at the time did nothing to help the pope win British sympathy for his plea.[35]
It was farther south that Allied bombs would cause the greatest damage to the church, and with it offer the Germans and their Fascist partners a propaganda bonanza. The Allied efforts to move up the peninsula had bogged down at what became known as the Gustav line, in the rugged Apennines between Naples and Rome. Taking advantage of the high ground, the Germans had repeatedly foiled Allied assaults, at great loss of life. At the center of the Gustav line stood the sixth-century mountaintop monastery of Montecassino. On February 15, suspecting that the Germans were using the ancient monastery as a base of military operations, American bombers dropped over a thousand tons of bombs on it. Little but rubble remained. As it turned out, the only people in the complex were monks and refugees. It had never been used by the German army.[36]
