The Pope at War, page 54
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
Malgeri 2006; Tittmann 2004, p. 87. “Il Cardinal Maglione nuovo Segretario di Stato di S. Santità,” L’Italia, March 12, 1939, p. 3; Ciano 1980, p. 268, diary entry for March 18, 1939. The unsigned, undated Italian Foreign Ministry profile of Maglione is found at ASDMAE, AISS, b. 143. In its enthusiastic front-page announcement of the appointment, Mussolini’s newspaper asserted that it would be “greeted everywhere with sincere pleasure and great sympathy.” “Il Card. Maglione nominato Segretario di Stato,” PI, March 12, 1939, p. 1.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
“Il popolo verso la Basilica” and “Il rito al cospetto della moltitudine,” PI, March 13, 1939, p. 1.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
Phillips to FDR, March 12, 1939, FDR Library, psfa 400, p. 128; Phillips 1952, pp. 252–54; Ciano 1980, p. 263; Charles-Roux to Paris, March 12, 1939, MAEN, RSS 576, PO/1, 1031–33; “Promemoria,” March 12, 1939, ACS, DAGRA, b. 39a; Baudrillart 1996, pp. 988–89, diary entry for March 12, 1939; Lehnert 1984, pp. 85, 96.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
Doyle 1950; Chadwick 1986, p. 130; Papin 1977, pp. 66–67; Chenaux 2003, pp. 231–32; Lehnert 1984, pp. 86–87, 104, 119; Cianfarra 1944, pp. 87–93; Tardini 1961, pp. 142–43; Baudrillart 1996, p. 986, diary entry for March 10, 1939.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
“Of all the ‘facts’ that took place in these fatal years,” Dino Grandi, one of Italy’s most prominent Fascist leaders, recalled after the war, “this was the determining one.” Grandi 1985, p. 459.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
Bergen to Foreign Ministry, Berlin, March 22, 1939, DGFP, series D, vol. 6, n. 65.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
Pollard (2005, p. 125) documents the Vatican’s heavy dependence on American Catholics “to keep it afloat” from the time Pius XI became pope in 1922.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
Charles-Roux to foreign minister, Paris, March 4, 1939, MAEN, RSS 576, PO/1, 1031; “La prima giornata del nuovo Papa,” PI, March 4, 1939, p. 1; “Pio XII invoca la pace nella carità, nella giustizia, nell’ordine,” RF, March 4, 1939, p. 1; “Un grande evento degradato a speculazione politica,” CS, March 4, 1939, p. 2. Italy’s Catholic dailies followed suit. Rome’s L’Avvenire ran a front-page editorial by its director featuring the pope’s watchword of “peace with justice” and using the opportunity to give vent to an anti-British screed. Novus, “Auspicio e promessa di una pace con giustizia,” AR, March 7, 1939, p. 1.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
François-Poncet 1961, pp. 14, 113–16; Moseley 1999, pp. 4–32; Bastianini 2005, pp. 253–72; Di Rienzo 2018, pp. 64, 161–62; Innocenti 1992, p. 16.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
Ciano 1980, p. 268, diary entry for March 18, 1939; “Pio XII riceve S. E. Ciano,” L’Italia, March 19, 1939, p. 1; “Il Ministro Ciano ricevuto da Pio XII,” PI, March 19, 1939, p. 1; Kertzer 2014, pp. 55–56. “Pius XII had no hesitation in leading that organization in an opposite direction,” observed the ambassador. Pignatti to Ciano, April 5, 1939, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 116. Pizzardo’s official title was President of the Central Office of Catholic Action. Trionfini 2015.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
Farinacci, “Uomo singolare,” RF, December 15, 1939, p. 1.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
The fact that Father Tacchi Venturi had at least seven meetings with the pope in 1939 alone offers strong evidence of the value that Pius XII saw in making use of the Jesuit’s high-level contacts with the leaders of the Fascist regime. AAV, Prefettura Casa Pontif., Udienze, b. 38–41.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
The official appointment schedule for Pius XII shows that he met with Tacchi Venturi on March 22, 1939. AAV, Prefettura Casa Pontif., Udienze, b. 38.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16
Tacchi Venturi to Maglione, March 28, 1939, ADSS, vol. 6, n. 5. The text of the document the Jesuit envoy left with Mussolini is also found there. Tacchi Venturi’s own notes on the meeting, dated March 27, 1939, are found at ARSI, Fondo Tacchi Venturi, Miscellanea, b. 11, fasc. 33, carte non numerate.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17
“Pio XII benedice la Spagna,” L’Italia, April 2, 1939, p. 1; Fattorini 2007, p. 104; Halls 1995, p. 33. On the exchange of messages between Pius XII and Franco, and on the special Mass held on April 13, 1939, at the Church of the Gesù, see AAV, Segr. Stato, 1939, Stati, posiz. 27, ff. 1r–28r. Pignatti sent the text of the pope’s April 18 radio broadcast to Ciano, judging it to be “very satisfactory.” Pignatti to Ciano, April 18, 1939, n. 1312/378, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 125. A large folder of Vatican documentation on the pope’s telegram congratulating Franco on his victory and the organization of the special Mass held celebrating Franco’s victory at Rome’s Church of Gesù is found at AAV, Segr. Stato, 1939, Stati, posiz. 27.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18
Raul Hilberg (1961, p. 5) published a useful chart setting Nazi anti-Jewish measures alongside their Canonical counterparts. See also Kertzer 2001.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 19
D. Mondrone, S.I., “Passio Christi: Passio Ecclesiae,” CC 90, no. 2, Quaderno 2131 (April 1939), pp. 3–15. For other examples of the pope’s emissaries’ efforts in these months on behalf of baptized Jews, see ADSS, vol. 6. For more on the Fascist regime’s use of church authority to encourage popular support for its antisemitic campaign, see Kertzer and Benedetti 2021 and Kertzer and Mokosch 2019, 2020.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 20
Riccardo Di Segni (2015, pp. 27–28), chief rabbi of Rome, documented the sharp rise in baptism among Rome’s Jews with the introduction of the new “racial” policies. While in the two years preceding the new policy an average of 32 Roman Jews were baptized each year, in 1938, 412 Roman Jews were baptized. He found, as well, that the Jews who succeeded in getting baptized were much more likely to survive the Shoah (pp. 45–46).
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 21
“Shoah, lettera ai figli di papà Emilio,” Report 6, no. 22 (January 27, 2017), https://www.reportpistoia.com/archivio/agora/item/44653-shoah-lettera-ai-figli-di-papa-emilio.html. The rush to the baptismal font in the wake of the racial laws is one of the embarrassing, if perhaps understandable, facts of Italian Jewish history. From the time Mussolini announced the racial campaign in mid-1938 through the first four months of Pius XII’s papacy the following year, four thousand Jews—close to a tenth of all the Jews in the country—succeeded in getting baptized. The converts were not simply those on the fringes of the Jewish community but included some of its most prominent members, as the case of Dr. Pio Tagliacozzo, former president of Rome’s Jewish community, and his family illustrates. Michaelis 1978, pp. 238–39.
Even if the baptisms were too recent for the state to recognize their effect in purging Jews of their non-Aryan identity, they gave the newly baptized a source of support they were otherwise lacking. Such converts could now appeal for help to the country’s most influential institution outside the state itself, the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, the Vatican’s recently opened archives are filled with such appeals. They contain, too, thousands of pages of documents detailing Vatican efforts to convince the Fascist authorities not to treat such converts as Jews. Minerbi 2010, p. 409.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 22
Chapter 4: The Peacemaker
Report of March 31, 1939, MAEC, Papiers Chauvel, vol. 121; Phillips to FDR, March 17, 1939, FDR Library, psfa 400, p. 129.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
François-Poncet 1961, pp. 101–2; MAEC, Papiers Chauvel, vol. 121, 875; Cannistraro 1982, pp. 9–10; Ciano 1980, pp. 284–85, diary entry for April 16, 1939. In Grandi’s (1985, pp. 463–64) later account, which must be read with a critical eye, it was Ciano who had pushed for the invasion of Albania, while Mussolini had to be convinced.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
“Tutti i principali centri dell’Albania, occupati dalle magnifiche truppe italiane” and “L’Albania liberata da una indegna schiavitù,” L’Italia, April 11, 1939, p. 2; “Omaggio al Duce del Vescovo di Coriza,” AR, April 21, 1939, p. 1; Phillips to FDR, April 14, 1939, FDR Library, psfa 400, pp. 134–35.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
Pignatti to Ciano, April 14, 1939, DDI, series 8, vol. 11, n. 543; Pignatti to Ciano, May 2, 1939, DDI, series 8, vol. 11, n. 623; Phillips to FDR, April 14, 1939, FDR Library, psfa 400, pp. 132–36.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
Tacchi Venturi’s notes on his May 1 and May 2, 1939, meetings with Mussolini are found at ARSI, Fondo Tacchi Venturi, Miscellanea, b. 11, fasc. 33, carte non numerate. Maglione asked the Vatican envoys to bring the pope’s proposal to the government ministers and cable back their replies. Maglione to the nuncios in Paris, Berlin, and Warsaw, and to the apostolic delegate in London, May 3, 1939, ADSS, vol. 1, n. 19.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
Orsenigo, Berlin, to Maglione, May 6, 1939, ADSS, vol. 1, n. 29; Memorandum Foreign Minister’s Personal Staff, Munich, May 10, 1939, DGFP, series D, vol. 6, n. 331; Kershaw 2000, p. 25.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
The records of the French Foreign Ministry discussions, dated May 7, 1939, are found at MAEN, RSS 576, PO/1, 1108.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
As for the future, Ciano quoted, in French, what Mussolini had told him: The Axis motto should be “toujours parler de la paix et préparer la guerre,” always speak of peace and prepare for war. Discussions of Ribbentrop and Ciano in Milan, May 6–7, memorandum dated May 18, 1939, DGFP, series D, vol. 6, n. 341; Hassell 2011, p. xix. Milan’s Catholic newspaper heralded the outcome of the meeting of the two foreign ministers with a front-page headline: “The Axis, instrument of peace and not a supporter of war, leaves further strengthened by the discussions at Milan.” “L’Asse, strumento di pace e non fautore di guerra, esce ulteriormente rafforzato dai colloqui di Milano,” L’Italia, May 7, 1939, p. 1.
Pignatti, charged with letting the pope know of Mussolini’s rejection of his peace proposal, had barely begun to raise the subject with Cardinal Maglione when the cardinal told him how pleased the pope had been by what he had heard about Hitler’s reaction to his peace proposal from the nuncio in Berlin. “The Cardinal,” the ambassador reported, “did not hide from me that His Holiness had received an excellent impression of Signor Hitler’s meeting with Mons. Orsenigo.” Pignatti to Ciano, May 9, 1939, tel. 85, ASDMAE, Gab., b. 1125.
Once the pope learned of Mussolini’s opposition to his plan, however, he had Maglione inform the nuncios in Berlin, Warsaw, and Paris, and the papal delegate in London that a peace conference under papal sponsorship was not feasible at the moment. But as Maglione explained in his message, the initiative had borne some fruit, for “the Holy See has received assurances of the goodwill and the intention of the various governments of keeping the peace.” Maglione notes, May 9, 1939, ADSS, vol. 1, n. 36; Maglione to the nuncios, ADSS, vol. 1, n. 38.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
Weizsäcker to Ribbentrop, May 12, 1939, DGFP, series D, vol. 6, n. 372. The original is found at PAAA, GRk, R29814, 94–96. Knowledge of the Polish reaction to the pope’s proposal comes from France’s ambassador in Warsaw, who discussed it with Poland’s foreign minister. Besides rejecting the notion that the Italians should be part of any discussion of Poland’s differences with Germany, the Polish foreign minister suspected the pope’s motives in making the proposal. Knowing that Italian public opinion was decidedly against war, the minister speculated, the pope no doubt thought that casting himself as a peacemaker would win him great popularity at the start of his papacy and, at the same time, inspire the Fascist government to take more favorable measures in dealing with the church in Italy. Leon Nobel, French ambassador to Poland, Warsaw, to French Foreign Ministry, May 13, 1939, MAEC, Papiers Duparc, 30-31.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
It might have been worse, the ambassador reported, for they had succeeded in preventing the pope from stopping along the way at the Campidoglio, Rome’s ancient hilltop capital. “He wanted to reevoke,” observed Pignatti, “a scene from past times, when Rome was under papal rule.” Fortunately, the day had gone without mishap, “but I hope,” wrote the ambassador, “the pope never repeats the experience of traversing the city in an open car, at walking speed, accompanied only by a handful of motorcycle police.” It was the pope himself, he had learned, who had at the last minute decided on using the open car and directed it to go at such slow speed. The ambassador’s concern was not simply with the question of security. “I don’t think that the Pope can be allowed to travel through the city outside of the precise agreements taken with the Royal authorities, just as I suppose it is not in the intentions of the Fascist government to tolerate demonstrations of this kind on Italian soil.” Pignatti to Ciano and to Direzione Generale Culti, Ministero Interno, May 20, 1939, tel. 1650/493, ASDMAE, APSS, b. 49. The initial request made by the nuncio is found in Borgongini Duca to Ufficio Cerimoniale, Ministero degli Affari Esteri, May 13, 1939, AAV, Arch. Nunz. Italia, b. 20, fasc. 47, ff. 2r–3r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
Heinrich Brüning, former German chancellor and prominent Catholic dissident, commented that Orsenigo “never stops working for Mr. Hitler.” Biffi 1997, pp. 74–96. Corbin, ambassadeur de France, to Delbos, ministre des affaires étrangères, Paris, July 21, 1937, DDF, series 2, vol. 6, n. 257. Word soon reached Mussolini that the Nazis might be responding positively to the pope’s efforts. Two German newspapers had recently published articles praising Pius XII for his congratulatory message to Franco. With international tensions now so great, thought the Duce’s ambassador in Berlin, the Nazis might find themselves in need of Vatican support. Attolico to Ciano, April 18, 1939, tel. 2972/911, DDI, series 8, vol. 11, n. 572; Conway 1968, p. 229.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
The unsigned memo was clearly written by Bergen, May 16, 1939, DGFP, series D, vol. 6, n. 395. Mussolini and his son-in-law were meanwhile doing what they could to encourage their Nazi partners to find a path to peace with the pope, and Ciano saw some signs they were succeeding. During a visit to Berlin in late May, he spoke at length with Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, about the German government’s relations with the church. Himmler remarked that he and his colleagues found the new pope sympathetic and thought it possible to reach a modus vivendi with him. “I encouraged him in pursuing this path,” Ciano confided that day to his diary, “saying that an agreement between the Reich and the Vatican would also be useful in promoting the popularity of the Axis.” Ciano 1980, pp. 299–300, diary entry for May 21, 1939.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
Fritz Menshausen, second-in-command of the German embassy to the Holy See, sent the Foreign Ministry in Berlin a long critique of Bottai’s Easter speech and his subsequent audience with the pope, May 25, 1939, PAAA, GARV, R711.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
Bottai 1989, p. 148, diary entry for May 19, 1939.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
Among the valuable sources of insight into the pope’s character, see Tardini 1961; Baudrillart 1998, pp. 94–96; Cianfarra 1944, pp. 81–85; Charles-Roux 1947, pp. 74–75; Rhodes 1974, p. 222; O’Connell 1958, p. 366; Katz 2003, p. 54. Following a dinner together on January 24, 1940, as he walked outside the Apostolic Palace just before midnight with his two companions, Monsignor Montini pointed out the light illuminating the fourth-floor window of the pope’s study. It was never switched off, said Montini, before two a.m. (Mazzei 2021, p. 221).
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
Phillips himself was fast souring on Mussolini, offended most recently by his offhanded remark at a dinner that the United States was being run by Jews. But he still viewed the Italian dictator as one of the only people in the world who could dissuade Hitler from embarking on a horrific war. To encourage the Duce to follow such a course, Phillips, at his frequent meetings with Ciano, kept repeating the same mantra: while he had little confidence in the German dictator, he “had confidence in Mussolini” and trusted “that he would apply the brakes on Hitler.” “Personally,” the ambassador told the president, “I believe that Mussolini is so anxious to avoid war that we may hope for his calming influence on Hitler.” Phillips to FDR, May 26, 1939, FDR Library, psfa 401, pp. 4–8. On Mussolini’s communicative powers, see Bollone 2007, pp. 43–44.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16
Cardinal Maglione notes, May 29, 1939, ADSS, vol. 1, n. 160.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17
That did not mean, suggested Mussolini, that they needed to wait until then before striking against the enemy. He offered Hitler various ideas as to how they might in the meantime soften the enemy up, suggesting that they foster antisemitic campaigns worldwide, promote separatist movements in Alsace, Brittany, Corsica, and Ireland, and incite revolt among Britain’s and France’s colonial subjects. Ciano to Ribbentrop, May 31, 1939, with enclosure, Mussolini to Hitler, May 30, DGFP, series D, vol. 6, n. 459.
