The Pope at War, page 63
It was also important to note, he added, that the major Catholic press was not alone in exalting the Axis war now that it had turned against the USSR. “Even more significant,” he observed, “are all the articles appearing in the minor organs of the religious associations and of Catholic Action, due to the capillarity of their distribution and the particularity of the public to which they are directed, making them, I would say, even more efficient and expressive.” Attolico to Ciano and Ministry of Popular Culture, August 9, 1941, n. 2352/1028, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 193. The monthly reports on church activity in the provinces sent in by the prefects were painting a similar picture. In the past month, read a mid-August report from the prefect of Bologna, “the priests and Catholics in general continued to praise the struggle against Bolshevik Russia and to call ever greater attention to the ideal motives that inspire the peoples of the Axis in the war.” Attività del Clero, prefetto di Bologna, August 12, 1941, n. 388, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 130. Likewise, the following month, the prefect reported, “The local clergy, following the directives of the Curia, has continued to give proof of their orientation in favor of the national goals that the Regime proposes to reach, placing themselves in every circumstance at the side of the Party, to ensure confidence in the victory of our arms among the faithful.” September 8, 1941, n. 388, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 130.
Monsignor Costantini’s blessing for the Axis war attracted the attention of the Germans as well. Fritz Menshausen, Bergen’s number two at the German embassy to the Holy See, sent in his own report on the prelate’s invocation of God’s blessings on the Italian and German armies. Well-informed sources, he told the German state secretary in late August, had told him that by a phrase in a previous radio address, “Pope XII sought to express his hope that the great sacrifices required by the war would not be in vain and that they would lead to victory over Bolshevism in line with the will of Divine Providence.” Menshausen to Weizsäcker, August 23, 1941, PAAA, GBS, R29816, 24–28. The following month a speech by one of the most prominent cardinals of the Curia, Cardinal Camillo Caccia Dominioni, offered additional evidence of the impact that the German attack on the Soviet Union had. “I can confirm,” wrote Attolico in reporting the speech, “that today the entire Italian Catholic world is squarely on the side of the Regime in the battle against Bolshevism.” Attolico to Ciano and Ministry of Popular Culture, September 11, 1941, n. 2655, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 193.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
Osborne to Eden, July 24, 1941, NAK, FO 380/71, n. 60/1/41. Osborne took the opportunity of meeting with Cardinal Maglione in early August to renew the British government’s admonition that the pope not involve himself in any Nazi-sponsored peace effort. The cardinal told him not to worry, reminding the envoy of the “extreme caution” the Vatican had pursued in such matters. Osborne to Eden, August 4, 1941, NAK, FO 380/71, n. 60/3/41. Two months later Osborne reiterated his belief that the pope would not involve himself in a peace initiative that had no chance of success, but he added: “Nevertheless it would be prudent to bear in mind that the Pope’s passionate desire to see peace restored, his undoubted ambition personally to contribute thereto and his susceptibility to pressure from the Italian Government and to appeals to his sentiments for the Italian people would all combine to urge him towards support of any initiative that offered a reasonable prospect of success.” Osborne to Eden, August 25, 1941, NAK, FO 380/71, n. 60/6/41.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
Bérard to French Foreign Ministry, July 19, 1941, MAEC, Guerre Vichy, 551. Further documentation on the pope’s radio message is found at AAV, Segr. Stato, 1941, Sommo Pontefice, posiz. 69, ff. 1r–30r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
Maglione to Mons. Cicognani, Washington, D.C., August 11, 1941, ADSS, vol. 5, n. 41.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
Spellman to Pius XII, September 4, 1941, ADSS, vol. 5, n. 61. On Hurley, see Gallagher 2008.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
Ciano, who had been suffering from months of throat pain and was about to have a tonsillectomy, did not make the trip. On learning of Ciano’s surgery, Borgongini went to the Foreign Ministry to express the Vatican’s well wishes, reporting back to Maglione. The cardinal told him that the pope was following Ciano’s recovery with great interest and wanted the nuncio to convey the pope’s blessing on the Italian foreign minister for a speedy recovery. Borgongini to Maglione, August 29, 1941, and Maglione to Borgongini, August 30, 1941, AAV, Arch. Nunz. Italia, b. 20, fasc. 49, ff. 2r, 5r. That the pope was following Ciano’s illness with great interest is clear from the documentation at AAV, Segr. Stato, 1941, Stati, posiz. 203, ff. 10r–14r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
The war, said Hitler, was now one of annihilation of the enemy, paving the way for a new European order. Once the Russian campaign was completed, the long-delayed invasion of Britain could begin, and with it the war’s final act. After that, he added, he looked forward to spending time in Florence, a city he loved for its remarkable art and beautiful surroundings. Record of Duce’s conversation with Hitler, August 25, 1941, DGFP, series D, vol. 13, n. 242; Corvaja 2008, pp. 186–200.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
This paragraph is based on what Tardini told the French ambassador: Bérard to Darlan, September 4, 1941, MAEN, RSS 576, PO/1, 1183. Tardini would put this in different terms in speaking in early September with Attolico, who was once again pleading to have the pope explicitly bless the Axis war against the Soviet Union. Instead of using the church image of the crusade, as the Italian ambassador suggested, more appropriate, thought Tardini, was another: “un diavolo scaccia l’altro,” “one devil drives out the other” (a pithier version of a line from Matthew 9:34). Tardini notes, September 5, 1941, ADSS, vol. 5, n. 62.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16
Capo di gabinetto, Ministero degli Affari Esteri, to Babuscio Rizzo, September 9, 1941, ASDMAE, AISS, 1947–54, b. 227.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17
Phillips to FDR, March 10, 1941, FDR Library, psfa 401, pp. 100–3; Osborne to Howard, September 25, 1942, NAK, FO 371, 33430, 18–21; Tittmann 2004, p. 129.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18
Taylor to the president and to Secretary Hull, memorandum, September 21, 1941, FDR Library, psfa 394, pp. 68–73; Maglione notes, September 10, 1941, ADSS, vol. 5, n. 69. Maglione’s September 11 notes on the meeting can be found at ADSS, vol. 5, n. 73.
Taylor also gave the pope a separate letter from Roosevelt, dated September 3, 1941, which sought to quell the pope’s worries about the Soviet Union. Roosevelt admitted that the USSR was “governed by a dictatorship as rigid in its manner of being as is the dictatorship in Germany,” but argued that it was Germany that was more dangerous to other nations as, while the USSR worked through propaganda, Germany relied on “military aggression.” He added his belief that Russia was less dangerous to the survival of religion than was Germany. AAV, Segr. Stato, 1941, Stati, posiz. 73, ff. 19rv.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 19
Attolico to Ciano, September 11, 1941, ASDMAE, AISS, 1947–54, b. 227. After receiving Attolico’s detailed report on his conversation with the cardinal, Ciano gave a copy to Otto von Bismarck at the German embassy. Mackensen to German Foreign Ministry, September 13, 1941, DGFP, series D, vol. 13, n. 315.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 20
Tardini notes, September 12, 1941, ADSS, vol. 5, n. 74.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 21
Projet de réponse au Président Roosevelt, September 14, 1941, ADSS, vol. 5, n. 75. The remarks the pope planned to make verbally to Taylor on September 16, 1941, in English, are found at AAV, Segr. Stato, 1941, Stati, posiz. 73, f. 34r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 22
Attolico to Ciano, September 16, 1941, n. 2702, ASDMAE, AISS, 1947–54, b. 227. Within twenty-four hours of receiving Attolico’s report on his meeting with the pope, Ciano again had a copy delivered to Mackensen, with its account of the pope’s fears that after his victory Hitler might move against the Vatican itself. The report also dealt with a matter of great interest to both Mussolini and Hitler, the purpose of Myron Taylor’s visit to the pope. In his meeting with Attolico, the pontiff had downplayed its significance and expressed his belief that American intervention in the war was not imminent. Again, Mackensen was told that the report was highly confidential and that not even the German ambassador to the Holy See was being informed. There was no doubt about Mackensen’s Nazi loyalties. PAAA, GPA, Politische Lage im Vatikan, R261177, 18–24, September 17, 1941. Ciano likewise gave Mackensen a copy of Attolico’s report of the conversation that Taylor had had with Monsignor Tardini, dated September 18, 1939. PAAA, GPA, Politische Lage im Vatikan, R261177, 25–27.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 23
Chenaux 2003, p. 282. Given the distinction being made between Christians and Jews as the basis for selecting who were targets for deportation and death in the Axis-controlled lands, large numbers of Jews were clamoring to be baptized. In December 1941, when the nuncio in Bucharest requested guidance on how to respond to “the huge influx of Jews” in Romania who were asking to be baptized, the Holy Office took up the question. ACDF, DV 1942, n. 10, ff. 41r–43r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 24
Quoted in Chenaux 2003, p. 267. In mid-October, Cardinal Maglione replied to the nuncio in France, who had written him about his recent meeting with the archbishop of Lyon. “It was very opportune,” the secretary of state told the nuncio, “that you reminded [the archbishop] and then also the Spanish ambassador [to France] what goodness and indulgence His Holiness has always shown to Signor Hitler.” Maglione offered as evidence the “benevolent expressions contained in the handwritten letter the Holy Father sent him having barely ascended to Saint Peter’s throne.” To offer the nuncio further ammunition, Maglione recalled that during Ribbentrop’s visit to the pope the previous year, the German foreign minister had been “so impressed by the Holy Father’s benevolent and paternal interest in Germany that, immediately after the audience, he told me these very words: ‘one sees that His Holiness’s heart is always in Germany.’ ” Maglione to Valeri, October 18, 1941, ADSS, vol. 5, n. 121.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 25
Yad Vashem, Zarasai county, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia, https://www.yadvashem.org/YV/en/about/institute/killing_sites_catalog_details_full.asp?region=Zarasai&title=Zarasai%20county. On the activities of the Einsatzgruppen in Poland, see Matthäus, Böhler, and Mallmann 2014 and Herbert 2019, pp. 318–19.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 26
Chenaux 2003, p. 267; Le chargé d’affaires à Presbourg Burzio au cardinal Maglione, October 27, 1941, ADSS, vol. 8, n. 184; fonogramma Questura di Roma alla DGPS e alla prefettura di Roma, October 27, 1941, ACS, MI, DAGRA 41, b. 35, n. 218792; informativa, October 28, 1941, ACS, SPD, CR, b. 328.
A police informant report offered more detail on the pope’s audiences with German soldiers. “His Holiness continues to receive and see, always with pleasure, the German soldiers…. His Holiness often offers each of them words of comfort and of pleasure, saying that he loves their country…. He always gladly agrees to their requests for photographs.” The report concludes, “That the Pope takes much pleasure from receiving such soldiers is demonstrated finally by the fact that contrary to the normal practice of the Vatican, he received some groups of them in the afternoon—dedicated by custom instead only to some private and reserved audiences.” November 1, 1941, ACS, MI, DAGRA 41, b. 35. In a November 26, 1941, police informant report, titled “This morning’s reception at the Vatican,” the informant wrote, “His Holiness this morning in the Vatican, in receiving German officials and other soldiers of undetermined nationality, said, ‘If you have done your duty to your country, be always proud of it.’ ” ACS, SPD, CR, b. 329. According to Herbert (2019, p. 381) the Einsatzgruppen murdered hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews in October and November 1941 alone.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 27
Father Scavizzi’s diary entries and his account of his meetings with the pope are found in Manzo 1997. Quotes are here from pp. 128–31.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 28
Chapter 22: A New Prince
https://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Italia_-_11_dicembre_1941,_Annuncio_della_dichiarazione_di_guerra_agli_Stati_Uniti.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
Informativa, December 8, 1941, ACS, DAGR, A5, G II, GM, b. 72; Phillips to secretary of state, Washington, D.C., December 11, 1941, FDR Library, psfa 401, p. 176; Bottai 1989, p. 292, diary entry for December 11, 1941. The men around the pope were critical of Roosevelt’s decision to throw the United States into the war, reported Attolico. America’s entry, they thought, would only prolong the bloodshed. Attolico to Ciano, December 12, 1941, n. 3681/1561, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 193.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
The French ambassador reported the news along with the Osservatore Romano story to Vichy. Bérard to Darlan, December 16, 1941, MAEN, RSS 576, PO/1, 1183.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
Osborne to Foreign Office, December 17, 1941, NAK, FO 371, 33410, 4–6. What the pope’s true feelings were about the honor are not clear. A police informant reported the common impression that the pope was extremely moved and pleased by the ennobling of his brother’s family and greatly impressed by the Duce’s gesture. Notizia fiduciaria, December 20, 1941, ACS, SPD, CR, b. 329.
For the Fascist government, American entry into the war offered new ways for the Vatican to prove useful. Among the early targets was Latin America, given worries that the Latin American countries, most of which continued to trade with Italy, would follow the U.S. example and break off relations. These fears were magnified when, shortly after Pearl Harbor, Colombia announced that it was doing just that, and word arrived that the foreign ministers of all the Americas had decided to meet the next month to discuss if they should do the same.
When Attolico told Cardinal Maglione that Mussolini hoped to get the Vatican’s help, he was pleased to find him receptive. Attolico to Ciano, December 17 and 20, 1941, DDI, series 9, vol. 8, nn. 36 and 49. Ciano cabled Italy’s ambassadors in the Latin American countries to tell them the news: “I inform you that Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione had, on his own initiative, told the Royal Ambassador to the Holy See that—albeit with the necessary caution—the Vatican had acted and is acting in all of South America in a sense favorable to the maintenance of neutrality.” “This is an area,” explained Ciano, “where our interests and those of the Holy See coincide perfectly and where, as a result, a mutually agreed upon and parallel action of mutual benefit might be taken, aimed at reaching the same results.” At the upcoming foreign ministers’ summit in Rio de Janeiro, the importance of having the South American countries resist U.S. pressure was clear. “In this context,” he instructed, “act also, insofar as it seems opportune and possible, and where the local circumstances permit, in collaboration or in agreement with the local Catholic circles and in particular with the Vatican representatives.” Ciano sent Attolico a copy of his telegram, telling him to let the cardinal know he had sent it. December 29, 1941, tel. 424, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 176. The telegram Ciano sent to the ambassadors in South America can also be found in published form in DDI, series 9, vol. 8, n. 74. While not all the Italian ambassadors in Latin America thought the suggestion worth pursuing, a number did. Italy’s ambassador to Brazil assured Ciano that even before receiving his instructions, he had been in contact with the nuncio there, and the two were already working together to discourage the government from bowing to American pressure. Ambasciatore a Rio de Janeiro, Sola, to Ciano, December 29, 1941, DDI, series 9, vol. 8, n. 77.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
Both the Vatican paper and the major Italian Catholic newspapers published the full text. “Il radiomessaggio natalizio del Sommo Pontefice Pio XII,” OR, December 25, 1941, pp. 1–2; “Il Messaggio Natalizio del Papa al Mondo,” L’Italia, December 25, 1941, p. 1; “I presupposti essenziali dell’ordine internazionale,” AR, December 25, 1941, pp. 1–2.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
Radiomessaggio Pio XII, ISACEM, Bollettino 20, n. 2 (febbraio 1942), pp. 25–29; Bérard to Foreign Ministry, Vichy, December 24, 1941, MAEC, Guerre Vichy, 551.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
“Natale in Vaticano. Il radiomessaggio del Papa,” PI, December 25, 1941, p. 2; “La parola del Papa,” RF, December 25, 1941, p. 1; Bernardini to Maglione, January 11, 1942, AAV, Arch. Nunz. Svizzera, b. 218, fasc. 620, ff. 29r–30r. On the same day the Regime Fascista article appeared, Attolico had a copy sent on to Ciano’s office, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 194.
Farinacci’s true thoughts about the pope come through from the transcript of a wiretapped phone conversation he had with Alessandro Pavolini, minister of popular culture, in early July 1941, which somehow came into possession of the Vatican Secretariat of State. There he complains that Ciano was too soft on the Vatican and its newspaper and asks in addition why the state radio continued to broadcast the pope’s radio addresses. “Conversazione svoltasi il giorno 3/7/1941 ore 10,20 fra Pavolini e Farinacci,” ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte I, Italia, posiz. 1336, f. 304r.
