The Pope at War, page 65
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 20
P. Lopinot, Ferramonti-Tarsia, to Borgongini Duca, September 10, 1942, ADSS, vol. 8, n. 471; “Life in Ferramonti,” Italy and the Holocaust Foundation, 2014, http://www.italyandtheholocaust.org/places-life-in-Life-In-Ferramonti-2.aspx.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 21
Montini notes, September 18, 1942, ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte 1, Germania, posiz. 742, f. 12r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 22
American envoy Harold Tittmann reported the new effort to Washington at the end of July. Like the other Allied diplomats, he had been housed since his country’s entry in the war at the Santa Marta guest house in Vatican City. Tittmann recalled that in his previous dispatches, he had repeatedly “called attention to the opinion that the failure of the Holy See to protest publicly against Nazi atrocities is endangering its moral prestige and is undermining faith both in the Church and in the Holy Father Himself.” The answer he and his colleagues always got, he reported, was that the pope had already condemned offenses against morality and that “to be specific now would only make matters worse.” Tittmann expressed his doubt that the letter campaign that the Brazilian ambassador was sponsoring would get the pope to change his mind, but said he thought it could do no harm. A few days later, the American secretary of state sent word of his support for the coordinated appeal. Tittmann to Hull, Washington, July 30, 1942, NARA, RG 59, Entry 1070, box 29, pp. 125–26; Hull to Tittmann, August 4, 1942, FRUS 1942, vol. 3, p. 773.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 23
In a note newly found in the Vatican archives, Tardini’s annoyance with their visit shines through: Belgium’s ambassador proceeded to read at length from the document they had brought, before then passing the sheets over to his Polish colleague. “He, following the same system (but with a voice even more stentorian and with wearisome slowness), read up to page 21.” Tardini note, September 15, 1942, ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte 1, Germania, posiz. 847, f. 29r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 24
Tittmann to secretary of state, Washington, D.C., September 11, 1942, NARA, RG 59, Entry 1070, box 29, pp. 121–22; L’ambassadeur de Belgique Nieuwenhuys et de Pologne Papée au cardinal Maglione, September 12, 1942, L’ambassadeur du Bresil Accioli au cardinal Maglione, September 14, 1942, Osborne to Maglione, September 14, 1942, ADSS, vol. 5, nn. 465–67; Tittmann to Maglione, September 14, 1942; and Tittmann to Hull, September 14, 1942, FRUS 1942, pp. 3:774–75.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 25
Peruvian ambassador to the Holy See, September 17, 1942 (but arriving September 28), ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte 1, Germania, posiz. 847, f. 47r. The additional note is found at f. 52.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 26
Taylor report, September 19, 1942, FDR Library, psfa 494a, pp. 14–24. The pope’s copies of Taylor’s briefs are found at AAV, Segr. Stato, 1942, Stati, posiz. 204, ff. 59r–71r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 27
Taylor memo given to Pius XII, September 22, 1942, FDR Library, psfa 494a, p. 40. The original is found at ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte 1, Germania, posiz. 742, ff. 16r–19r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 28
Taylor memo to Maglione, September 26, 1942, FDR Library, psfa 494a, pp. 138–39. The Italian translation of the memo is found at ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, Parte Extracta, Germania Extracta, posiz. 742, Ebrei, ff. 21r–23r, along with a note “Il Santo Padre ne ha preso visione” (The Holy Father has seen it), f. 14r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 29
If Roosevelt had harbored any hopes that Italy could be separated from its Axis partner, Taylor’s reports from the Vatican doused them. “Over a long period of years,” Taylor told the president, “no authoritative voice has made itself heard publicly against the totalitarian regime.” Any notion that the king might help rid Italy of Mussolini was likewise to be dismissed, for “no hope is to be placed in the Dynasty, which has always shown the most absolute submission to the regime.” Mussolini would be overthrown someday, thought Taylor, but “only when Germany’s defeat has been accomplished.” Indeed, one of the pope’s worries was what would happen in Italy should the Axis be defeated. “It is the opinion in Vatican circles,” Taylor reported, “expressed both by the Pope and the Cardinal, that great disorder will prevail, and both have some doubt as to the ability of the United Nations [i.e., the Allies] or other influences to suppress it.” Taylor to FDR, September 24, 1942, FDR Library, psfa 495, pp. 44–45; Memorandum of Conference between the Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione and Myron Taylor, September 25, 1942, FDR Library, psfa 494a, p. 38.
But Taylor had seen some sign of Italians’ unhappiness with the regime. Giuseppe Dalla Torre, director of the Vatican newspaper, had smuggled a secret memo to him during his stay, offering his analysis of the various Italian groups that opposed the Duce. In addition to the obvious candidates from the anti-Fascist parties that Mussolini had suppressed many years earlier, he named two prominent generals as well as members of what he referred to as the Catholic aristocracy. He also passed on the rumor that Princess Maria José was herself making efforts to get in contact with the aristocrats eager to have Italy exit the war. But Communists were also trying to promote opposition to the regime, he warned, and they were having some success infiltrating the war factories. Giuseppe Dalla Torre, September 26, 1942, NAK, FO 371, 33430, 39.
Taylor left Rome on September 29 and wrote Roosevelt the next day from Madrid. His mission, he reported, had had two main goals: to convince the pope that he should not attempt to broker any peace with the Axis, and to plant the idea that when the Allies were in a position to offer adequate assistance to Italy, it “should in her future interest abandon Hitler.” “This,” wrote Taylor, “impressed the Pope and the Vatican authorities greatly.” Taylor to FDR, September 29, 1942, FDR Library, psfa 494a, p. 184.
Mussolini followed Taylor’s visit with great interest, relying in part on accounts from Guariglia, his ambassador to the Vatican. Guariglia to Ciano, October 2, 1942, DDI, series 9, vol. 9, n. 179. He would hear other accounts of the American’s talks with the pope as well. One came from his ambassador in Madrid in the wake of Taylor’s brief stopover there. Roosevelt’s goal in sending his envoy, reported the ambassador, was to win the pope’s help in getting Italy to agree to a separate peace with the Allies. A report from a police informant in the Vatican added another twist: Taylor had brought with him an additional inducement for the pope to avoid doing anything to alienate the Americans. Archbishop Spellman, Taylor informed the pope, had recently deposited $2 million in an American bank in the pope’s name, the result of a collection taken among New York’s Catholics. L’ambasciatore a Madrid, Lequio, to Ciano, October 2, 1942, DDI, series 9, vol. 9, n. 177; Informativa, Vaticano, October 17, 1942, ACS, DAGR, A5G, IIGM, b. 72. At the same time, the French ambassador in Lisbon was reporting rumors that in an effort to separate the pope from Fascist Italy, Taylor’s mission was aimed at convincing the pope to leave Rome and establish a new base for the Holy See in Spain or Portugal. Gentil, Lisbon, to French Foreign Ministry, October 6, 1942, MAEC, Guerre Vichy, 550, 484–85.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 30
Memo, Segreteria di Stato di Sua Santità, October 1, 1942, ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte 1, Germania, posiz. 742, f. 24r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 31
In their “Introduction” to volume 6 of ADSS, the Jesuit editors identified Monsignor Angelo Dell’Acqua as “the first section of the Secretariat of State’s specialist on all questions concerning the non-Aryans” (p. 25).
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 32
The October 2 memo by Dell’Acqua is found at ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, Parte Extracta, Germania, posiz. 742, Ebrei, f. 25r. For studies of Dell’Acqua, see Melloni 2004.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 33
Report on the stationery of the Polish embassy to the Holy See, datelined Vatican, October 3, 1942, ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte Extracta, Germania, posiz. 742, f. 35r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 34
Relazione di Scavizzi, October 7, 1942, ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte Extracta, Germania, posiz. 742, f. 26r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 35
Tittmann to Hull, October 10, 1942, NARA, RG 59, CDF 1940–44, 740.00116, box 2917, pp. 2, 3; also published in FRUS 1942, vol. 3, pp. 777–78. The Vatican copy is found at ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte Extracta, Germania, posiz. 742, f. 27r. Over the next many months, Monsignor Bernardini, the nuncio in Bern, would pass along to the Vatican a series of documents from Jewish organizations detailing the extermination of the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. AAV, Arch. Nunz. Svizzera, b. 221, fasc. 626, ff. 93r–120r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 36
Chapter 24: Escaping Blame
Gioannini 2012, p. 80.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
Rauscher 2004, pp. 441–42; Davis 2006, pp. 77–78, 138; “75(nz) squadron,” https://75nzsquadron.wordpress.com/october-1942/; “Second Battle of El Alamein,” National Army Museum, https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/battle-alamein.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
In the end, the ambassador thought he had convinced the Duce it would be best not to accuse the Vatican of complicity in the attacks on Italy’s cities. But he was surprised the next day to find Farinacci’s editorial on the front page of Il Regime Fascista containing word for word all the charges Mussolini had leveled. It seems likely that Mussolini himself asked Farinacci to print the piece. Guariglia 1950, pp. 528–29; Ciano 1980, p. 659, diary entry for October 26, 1942.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
“Relazione circa la situazione religiosa in Austria e nel Lussemburgo richiesta dal Santo Padre,” October 7, 1942, ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte 1, Germania, posiz. 854, ff. 31r–36r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
Bergen to Foreign Ministry, Berlin, October 12, 1942, tel. 264, PAAA, GPA, Beschränkung der diplomatischen Beziehungen zwischen dem Reich und dem Vatikan auf das Altreich, R261178, 100–2. While all this was going on, Italians would see little indication that the church was anything other than supportive of the Axis cause. An early October editorial by Father Busti, director of Milan’s Catholic daily, was typical, as he renewed his praise of the Axis war, being fought, he wrote, to bring about “a new order of justice and peace,” and to counter “the politics of hatred introduced by England with the Treaty of Versailles.” D.m.b. (Don Mario Busti), “Ritorno alla tradizione,” L’Italia, October 4, 1942, p. 1.
An editorial later in the month by Father Busti, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Mussolini’s coming to power, recalled an interview the Duce had given a journalist some years earlier, when the subject of religion had come up.
“Recently,” the interviewer said to Mussolini, “you have paid homage to Caesar, but placed Jesus above him, if I am not mistaken.”
“Caesar comes after him—replied the Duce with conviction—Jesus is the greatest!” “1922–28 ottobre–1942 Le Opere del Ventennio,” L’Italia, October 28, 1942, p. 3.
The Duce meanwhile kept up his pressure on the pope. On October 8, he had Buffarini, his undersecretary, summon the nuncio to his office. Mussolini, the undersecretary told him, was “beside himself” with fury, having gotten a report—which Buffarini handed to the nuncio—that Cardinal Salotti had expressed anti-Fascist sentiments at a dinner party two months earlier. “Cardinal or no Cardinal,” said the Duce, “I will have him arrested, and then we’ll see what happens.”
A few days later the nuncio returned and handed Buffarini the cardinal’s lengthy letter of defense. The informant report was a pack of lies and distortions, said Salotti. The only charge that had any truth to it was the claim that he had said “Hitler’s victory would signal an all-out war on the Catholic religion.”
With the pope newly warned, and the cardinal professing his hope for an Axis victory, Mussolini let the matter rest. The series of documents bearing on this dispute is found at AAV, Segr. Stato, 1942, Cardinali, posiz. 51, ff. 1r–19r.
The country’s Catholic press had taken advantage of the recent twentieth anniversary of the Fascist March on Rome, which had brought Mussolini to power, to renew its praise for all that the Duce had accomplished. In reporting this to Ciano, Ambassador Guariglia particularly called his attention to the article that Rome’s Catholic daily had published, written by a prominent Civiltà Cattolica author. “Those who look at the picture of the past two decades,” wrote the Jesuit, “are stupefied by the multiplicity and historical importance of the events that have occurred under the dynamism of the Fascist Regime.” Guariglia to Ministero degli Affari Esteri e Ministero di Cultura Popolare, November 13, 1942, tel. 3436/1339, ASDMAE, APSS, b. 62.
Revealing too was the Vatican’s response to an editorial that appeared in a Fascist newspaper of Salerno, which argued that Fascism was incompatible with Catholicism. The reaction was swift. On November 30, Cardinal Maglione summoned the Italian ambassador, showed him the clipping, and asked to have another Fascist newspaper publish a refutation. There was, insisted the cardinal, no incompatibility between Fascism and Catholicism. Guariglia appunto, November 30, 1942, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 164.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
Bottai 1989, p. 335, diary entry for November 19, 1942.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
“Bombardamento a Torino,” https://www.museotorino.it/view/s/acb7d7d49d6147e188377fb9e9c491ef.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
Osborne to Eden, November 22, 1942, NAK, FO 371, 33412, 157–60. The archbishop’s correspondence with the pope is found at FDR Library, psfc 117, pp. 61–67, and includes materials sent by the Vatican to Archbishop Spellman and from Spellman to FDR.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
Hassell 2011, p. xxi; Herbert 2019, pp. 411–17; Ian Johnson, “Stalingrad: WWII’s Turning Point,” Origins, https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/august-2017-stalingrad-75-turning-point-world-war-ii-europe. A good, concise examination of the turn in the tide on the eastern front is given by Hartmann 2013.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
Clara Petacci diary pages, November 30 and December 2, 1942, ACS, Archivi di famiglie e di persone, Clara Petacci, b. 10, fasc. 157.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
In reporting the conversation to Cardinal Maglione, the nuncio admitted to remaining a bit perplexed by the king’s mention of “Lutherans.” The king’s reference to Jews and Bolsheviks was clear enough, but by Lutherans was he referring to the Germans? Or had he misspoken and meant to say “Anglicans”? With the king, who had a dim view of humanity in general, it was hard to be sure. Borgongini to Maglione, November 27, 1942, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 115.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
Maglione to Cicognani, Washington, December 3, 1942, and Cicognani to Maglione, December 4, 1942, ADSS, vol. 7, nn. 43–44; Trisco 2003, p. 226.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
Following their December 4 meeting, Guariglia prepared a memo for Ciano reporting what Maglione had told him. Curiously, he gave a copy to Maglione, who scribbled a comment at the bottom:
This note of the Ambassador of the Italian Government refers exactly to the conversation he had with me, excepting only the last sentence: “it would be necessary to move at least the principal of these [military] objectives.” I had said “it would be necessary to move the military objectives.” I pointed this out to the Ambassador. He responded that in reality I had spoken “of the military objectives,” of all and not only the principal ones. He added, however, that he had not thought he could cite my phrase as it was, because he did not believe it possible to move all the military objectives and he thought that suggesting moving (all) the military objectives would appear excessive to the Head of the Government (ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte I, Volumi bianchi I, ff. 256r–57v).
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
Guariglia Appunto, December 4, 1942, n. 3650, ASDMAE, Gab., b. 1192, UC-76, fasc. 3; Maglione to Guariglia, December 4, 1942, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 45. Mussolini, in discussing the Vatican request, told his son-in-law he would not want anyone to say he tried to stay “under Catholicism’s umbrella in order to protect himself from the English bombs.” Ciano 1980, p. 674, diary entry for December 5, 1942.
On December 18, Mussolini told his ambassador to the Holy See to inform the Vatican that both the Italian and German military commands would soon leave Rome and that he too would likely join them outside the city. But he made clear his reluctance to appear to be depending on the pope to protect his capital. Adding to his annoyance was the stream of people flooding into Rome, regarding it as the safest place to be as British air attacks threatened the rest of the country. Guariglia to Ciano, December 18, 1942, n. 3797, ASDMAE, Gab., b. 1192, UC-76, fasc. 3.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
The Vatican documents detailing these intense meetings in mid-December 1942 are found in ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte I, Volumi bianchi I, ff. 259r–81r. The excerpt from Osborne’s diary entry for December 14 is found in Chadwick 1986, p. 216.
P. Lopinot, Ferramonti-Tarsia, to Borgongini Duca, September 10, 1942, ADSS, vol. 8, n. 471; “Life in Ferramonti,” Italy and the Holocaust Foundation, 2014, http://www.italyandtheholocaust.org/places-life-in-Life-In-Ferramonti-2.aspx.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 21
Montini notes, September 18, 1942, ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte 1, Germania, posiz. 742, f. 12r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 22
American envoy Harold Tittmann reported the new effort to Washington at the end of July. Like the other Allied diplomats, he had been housed since his country’s entry in the war at the Santa Marta guest house in Vatican City. Tittmann recalled that in his previous dispatches, he had repeatedly “called attention to the opinion that the failure of the Holy See to protest publicly against Nazi atrocities is endangering its moral prestige and is undermining faith both in the Church and in the Holy Father Himself.” The answer he and his colleagues always got, he reported, was that the pope had already condemned offenses against morality and that “to be specific now would only make matters worse.” Tittmann expressed his doubt that the letter campaign that the Brazilian ambassador was sponsoring would get the pope to change his mind, but said he thought it could do no harm. A few days later, the American secretary of state sent word of his support for the coordinated appeal. Tittmann to Hull, Washington, July 30, 1942, NARA, RG 59, Entry 1070, box 29, pp. 125–26; Hull to Tittmann, August 4, 1942, FRUS 1942, vol. 3, p. 773.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 23
In a note newly found in the Vatican archives, Tardini’s annoyance with their visit shines through: Belgium’s ambassador proceeded to read at length from the document they had brought, before then passing the sheets over to his Polish colleague. “He, following the same system (but with a voice even more stentorian and with wearisome slowness), read up to page 21.” Tardini note, September 15, 1942, ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte 1, Germania, posiz. 847, f. 29r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 24
Tittmann to secretary of state, Washington, D.C., September 11, 1942, NARA, RG 59, Entry 1070, box 29, pp. 121–22; L’ambassadeur de Belgique Nieuwenhuys et de Pologne Papée au cardinal Maglione, September 12, 1942, L’ambassadeur du Bresil Accioli au cardinal Maglione, September 14, 1942, Osborne to Maglione, September 14, 1942, ADSS, vol. 5, nn. 465–67; Tittmann to Maglione, September 14, 1942; and Tittmann to Hull, September 14, 1942, FRUS 1942, pp. 3:774–75.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 25
Peruvian ambassador to the Holy See, September 17, 1942 (but arriving September 28), ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte 1, Germania, posiz. 847, f. 47r. The additional note is found at f. 52.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 26
Taylor report, September 19, 1942, FDR Library, psfa 494a, pp. 14–24. The pope’s copies of Taylor’s briefs are found at AAV, Segr. Stato, 1942, Stati, posiz. 204, ff. 59r–71r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 27
Taylor memo given to Pius XII, September 22, 1942, FDR Library, psfa 494a, p. 40. The original is found at ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte 1, Germania, posiz. 742, ff. 16r–19r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 28
Taylor memo to Maglione, September 26, 1942, FDR Library, psfa 494a, pp. 138–39. The Italian translation of the memo is found at ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, Parte Extracta, Germania Extracta, posiz. 742, Ebrei, ff. 21r–23r, along with a note “Il Santo Padre ne ha preso visione” (The Holy Father has seen it), f. 14r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 29
If Roosevelt had harbored any hopes that Italy could be separated from its Axis partner, Taylor’s reports from the Vatican doused them. “Over a long period of years,” Taylor told the president, “no authoritative voice has made itself heard publicly against the totalitarian regime.” Any notion that the king might help rid Italy of Mussolini was likewise to be dismissed, for “no hope is to be placed in the Dynasty, which has always shown the most absolute submission to the regime.” Mussolini would be overthrown someday, thought Taylor, but “only when Germany’s defeat has been accomplished.” Indeed, one of the pope’s worries was what would happen in Italy should the Axis be defeated. “It is the opinion in Vatican circles,” Taylor reported, “expressed both by the Pope and the Cardinal, that great disorder will prevail, and both have some doubt as to the ability of the United Nations [i.e., the Allies] or other influences to suppress it.” Taylor to FDR, September 24, 1942, FDR Library, psfa 495, pp. 44–45; Memorandum of Conference between the Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione and Myron Taylor, September 25, 1942, FDR Library, psfa 494a, p. 38.
But Taylor had seen some sign of Italians’ unhappiness with the regime. Giuseppe Dalla Torre, director of the Vatican newspaper, had smuggled a secret memo to him during his stay, offering his analysis of the various Italian groups that opposed the Duce. In addition to the obvious candidates from the anti-Fascist parties that Mussolini had suppressed many years earlier, he named two prominent generals as well as members of what he referred to as the Catholic aristocracy. He also passed on the rumor that Princess Maria José was herself making efforts to get in contact with the aristocrats eager to have Italy exit the war. But Communists were also trying to promote opposition to the regime, he warned, and they were having some success infiltrating the war factories. Giuseppe Dalla Torre, September 26, 1942, NAK, FO 371, 33430, 39.
Taylor left Rome on September 29 and wrote Roosevelt the next day from Madrid. His mission, he reported, had had two main goals: to convince the pope that he should not attempt to broker any peace with the Axis, and to plant the idea that when the Allies were in a position to offer adequate assistance to Italy, it “should in her future interest abandon Hitler.” “This,” wrote Taylor, “impressed the Pope and the Vatican authorities greatly.” Taylor to FDR, September 29, 1942, FDR Library, psfa 494a, p. 184.
Mussolini followed Taylor’s visit with great interest, relying in part on accounts from Guariglia, his ambassador to the Vatican. Guariglia to Ciano, October 2, 1942, DDI, series 9, vol. 9, n. 179. He would hear other accounts of the American’s talks with the pope as well. One came from his ambassador in Madrid in the wake of Taylor’s brief stopover there. Roosevelt’s goal in sending his envoy, reported the ambassador, was to win the pope’s help in getting Italy to agree to a separate peace with the Allies. A report from a police informant in the Vatican added another twist: Taylor had brought with him an additional inducement for the pope to avoid doing anything to alienate the Americans. Archbishop Spellman, Taylor informed the pope, had recently deposited $2 million in an American bank in the pope’s name, the result of a collection taken among New York’s Catholics. L’ambasciatore a Madrid, Lequio, to Ciano, October 2, 1942, DDI, series 9, vol. 9, n. 177; Informativa, Vaticano, October 17, 1942, ACS, DAGR, A5G, IIGM, b. 72. At the same time, the French ambassador in Lisbon was reporting rumors that in an effort to separate the pope from Fascist Italy, Taylor’s mission was aimed at convincing the pope to leave Rome and establish a new base for the Holy See in Spain or Portugal. Gentil, Lisbon, to French Foreign Ministry, October 6, 1942, MAEC, Guerre Vichy, 550, 484–85.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 30
Memo, Segreteria di Stato di Sua Santità, October 1, 1942, ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte 1, Germania, posiz. 742, f. 24r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 31
In their “Introduction” to volume 6 of ADSS, the Jesuit editors identified Monsignor Angelo Dell’Acqua as “the first section of the Secretariat of State’s specialist on all questions concerning the non-Aryans” (p. 25).
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 32
The October 2 memo by Dell’Acqua is found at ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, Parte Extracta, Germania, posiz. 742, Ebrei, f. 25r. For studies of Dell’Acqua, see Melloni 2004.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 33
Report on the stationery of the Polish embassy to the Holy See, datelined Vatican, October 3, 1942, ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte Extracta, Germania, posiz. 742, f. 35r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 34
Relazione di Scavizzi, October 7, 1942, ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte Extracta, Germania, posiz. 742, f. 26r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 35
Tittmann to Hull, October 10, 1942, NARA, RG 59, CDF 1940–44, 740.00116, box 2917, pp. 2, 3; also published in FRUS 1942, vol. 3, pp. 777–78. The Vatican copy is found at ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte Extracta, Germania, posiz. 742, f. 27r. Over the next many months, Monsignor Bernardini, the nuncio in Bern, would pass along to the Vatican a series of documents from Jewish organizations detailing the extermination of the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. AAV, Arch. Nunz. Svizzera, b. 221, fasc. 626, ff. 93r–120r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 36
Chapter 24: Escaping Blame
Gioannini 2012, p. 80.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
Rauscher 2004, pp. 441–42; Davis 2006, pp. 77–78, 138; “75(nz) squadron,” https://75nzsquadron.wordpress.com/october-1942/; “Second Battle of El Alamein,” National Army Museum, https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/battle-alamein.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
In the end, the ambassador thought he had convinced the Duce it would be best not to accuse the Vatican of complicity in the attacks on Italy’s cities. But he was surprised the next day to find Farinacci’s editorial on the front page of Il Regime Fascista containing word for word all the charges Mussolini had leveled. It seems likely that Mussolini himself asked Farinacci to print the piece. Guariglia 1950, pp. 528–29; Ciano 1980, p. 659, diary entry for October 26, 1942.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
“Relazione circa la situazione religiosa in Austria e nel Lussemburgo richiesta dal Santo Padre,” October 7, 1942, ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte 1, Germania, posiz. 854, ff. 31r–36r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
Bergen to Foreign Ministry, Berlin, October 12, 1942, tel. 264, PAAA, GPA, Beschränkung der diplomatischen Beziehungen zwischen dem Reich und dem Vatikan auf das Altreich, R261178, 100–2. While all this was going on, Italians would see little indication that the church was anything other than supportive of the Axis cause. An early October editorial by Father Busti, director of Milan’s Catholic daily, was typical, as he renewed his praise of the Axis war, being fought, he wrote, to bring about “a new order of justice and peace,” and to counter “the politics of hatred introduced by England with the Treaty of Versailles.” D.m.b. (Don Mario Busti), “Ritorno alla tradizione,” L’Italia, October 4, 1942, p. 1.
An editorial later in the month by Father Busti, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Mussolini’s coming to power, recalled an interview the Duce had given a journalist some years earlier, when the subject of religion had come up.
“Recently,” the interviewer said to Mussolini, “you have paid homage to Caesar, but placed Jesus above him, if I am not mistaken.”
“Caesar comes after him—replied the Duce with conviction—Jesus is the greatest!” “1922–28 ottobre–1942 Le Opere del Ventennio,” L’Italia, October 28, 1942, p. 3.
The Duce meanwhile kept up his pressure on the pope. On October 8, he had Buffarini, his undersecretary, summon the nuncio to his office. Mussolini, the undersecretary told him, was “beside himself” with fury, having gotten a report—which Buffarini handed to the nuncio—that Cardinal Salotti had expressed anti-Fascist sentiments at a dinner party two months earlier. “Cardinal or no Cardinal,” said the Duce, “I will have him arrested, and then we’ll see what happens.”
A few days later the nuncio returned and handed Buffarini the cardinal’s lengthy letter of defense. The informant report was a pack of lies and distortions, said Salotti. The only charge that had any truth to it was the claim that he had said “Hitler’s victory would signal an all-out war on the Catholic religion.”
With the pope newly warned, and the cardinal professing his hope for an Axis victory, Mussolini let the matter rest. The series of documents bearing on this dispute is found at AAV, Segr. Stato, 1942, Cardinali, posiz. 51, ff. 1r–19r.
The country’s Catholic press had taken advantage of the recent twentieth anniversary of the Fascist March on Rome, which had brought Mussolini to power, to renew its praise for all that the Duce had accomplished. In reporting this to Ciano, Ambassador Guariglia particularly called his attention to the article that Rome’s Catholic daily had published, written by a prominent Civiltà Cattolica author. “Those who look at the picture of the past two decades,” wrote the Jesuit, “are stupefied by the multiplicity and historical importance of the events that have occurred under the dynamism of the Fascist Regime.” Guariglia to Ministero degli Affari Esteri e Ministero di Cultura Popolare, November 13, 1942, tel. 3436/1339, ASDMAE, APSS, b. 62.
Revealing too was the Vatican’s response to an editorial that appeared in a Fascist newspaper of Salerno, which argued that Fascism was incompatible with Catholicism. The reaction was swift. On November 30, Cardinal Maglione summoned the Italian ambassador, showed him the clipping, and asked to have another Fascist newspaper publish a refutation. There was, insisted the cardinal, no incompatibility between Fascism and Catholicism. Guariglia appunto, November 30, 1942, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 164.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
Bottai 1989, p. 335, diary entry for November 19, 1942.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
“Bombardamento a Torino,” https://www.museotorino.it/view/s/acb7d7d49d6147e188377fb9e9c491ef.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
Osborne to Eden, November 22, 1942, NAK, FO 371, 33412, 157–60. The archbishop’s correspondence with the pope is found at FDR Library, psfc 117, pp. 61–67, and includes materials sent by the Vatican to Archbishop Spellman and from Spellman to FDR.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
Hassell 2011, p. xxi; Herbert 2019, pp. 411–17; Ian Johnson, “Stalingrad: WWII’s Turning Point,” Origins, https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/august-2017-stalingrad-75-turning-point-world-war-ii-europe. A good, concise examination of the turn in the tide on the eastern front is given by Hartmann 2013.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
Clara Petacci diary pages, November 30 and December 2, 1942, ACS, Archivi di famiglie e di persone, Clara Petacci, b. 10, fasc. 157.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
In reporting the conversation to Cardinal Maglione, the nuncio admitted to remaining a bit perplexed by the king’s mention of “Lutherans.” The king’s reference to Jews and Bolsheviks was clear enough, but by Lutherans was he referring to the Germans? Or had he misspoken and meant to say “Anglicans”? With the king, who had a dim view of humanity in general, it was hard to be sure. Borgongini to Maglione, November 27, 1942, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 115.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
Maglione to Cicognani, Washington, December 3, 1942, and Cicognani to Maglione, December 4, 1942, ADSS, vol. 7, nn. 43–44; Trisco 2003, p. 226.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
Following their December 4 meeting, Guariglia prepared a memo for Ciano reporting what Maglione had told him. Curiously, he gave a copy to Maglione, who scribbled a comment at the bottom:
This note of the Ambassador of the Italian Government refers exactly to the conversation he had with me, excepting only the last sentence: “it would be necessary to move at least the principal of these [military] objectives.” I had said “it would be necessary to move the military objectives.” I pointed this out to the Ambassador. He responded that in reality I had spoken “of the military objectives,” of all and not only the principal ones. He added, however, that he had not thought he could cite my phrase as it was, because he did not believe it possible to move all the military objectives and he thought that suggesting moving (all) the military objectives would appear excessive to the Head of the Government (ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte I, Volumi bianchi I, ff. 256r–57v).
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
Guariglia Appunto, December 4, 1942, n. 3650, ASDMAE, Gab., b. 1192, UC-76, fasc. 3; Maglione to Guariglia, December 4, 1942, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 45. Mussolini, in discussing the Vatican request, told his son-in-law he would not want anyone to say he tried to stay “under Catholicism’s umbrella in order to protect himself from the English bombs.” Ciano 1980, p. 674, diary entry for December 5, 1942.
On December 18, Mussolini told his ambassador to the Holy See to inform the Vatican that both the Italian and German military commands would soon leave Rome and that he too would likely join them outside the city. But he made clear his reluctance to appear to be depending on the pope to protect his capital. Adding to his annoyance was the stream of people flooding into Rome, regarding it as the safest place to be as British air attacks threatened the rest of the country. Guariglia to Ciano, December 18, 1942, n. 3797, ASDMAE, Gab., b. 1192, UC-76, fasc. 3.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
The Vatican documents detailing these intense meetings in mid-December 1942 are found in ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte I, Volumi bianchi I, ff. 259r–81r. The excerpt from Osborne’s diary entry for December 14 is found in Chadwick 1986, p. 216.
