The Pope at War, page 66
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
Ministero della Guerra to Ministero dell’Interno, December 3, 1942, ACS, MI, Gab., RSI, b. 51, n.160860; “Solenni riti religiosi in tutta Italia a propiziazione della Vittoria,” AR, December 8, 1942, p. 1; “Patriottico discorso dell’Arcivescovo di Bologna,” PI, December 9, 1942, p. 4. The rites were also covered in Bologna’s Catholic daily: “Riti propiziatori per la patria in Guerra,” AI, December 10, 1942, p. 2. On the pope’s authorization of the masses honoring Arnaldo Mussolini, see AAV, Segr. Stato, 1941, posiz. 1950, ff. 1r–18r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16
Segretariato per la Moralità, ACI, “Relazione sugli Spettacoli di Varietà,” December 8, 1942, ISACEM, PG XII, b. 22.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17
Cardinal Lavitrano to Mussolini, December 19, 1942, ISACEM, PG XII, b. 22.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18
Chapter 25: Papal Premiere
A mid-December 1942 British intelligence report, describing the German influx, concluded that it was now unlikely the Italians “would be in a position to break away from the Axis.” OSS report, “Political Situation in Italy,” December 18, 1942, NARA, RG 165, color 278.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
The anticlerical wing of the National Socialist government was unhappy about the German soldiers’ visits to the pope, not thinking their officers and enlisted men’s interest in the Vatican was healthy and worried that they would be overly impressed by all the majesty that surrounded the pope. Previous decrees notwithstanding, read a December 8, 1942, report from the Nazi Party Chancellery to the German Foreign Ministry, members of the army continued to make visits to the pope. NSDAP Party Chancellery to FO, Legation Councilor Büttner, PAAA, GPA, Vatikan Kirche 3, R98832, 10–11. Three days later Goebbels (1948, p. 246) wrote in his diary, “Visits of German soldiers and officers to the Pope have by no means grown less in number despite his assurances to the contrary. It would be a good thing to bring about a change of personnel there. I am gathering data to take to the Führer.”
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
He was passing this information on, Maglione explained, so that, at opportune moments, the nuncio might cautiously make use of it in conversations with men in the Spanish government and in the “Spanish political-ecclesiastical world.” Maglione to nuncio Madrid, Gaetano Cicognani, December 15, 1942, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 61.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
Underlining is in the original.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
“I fear,” Osborne reported to London, “that the fact is that the Pope is determined not to condemn any specific crime, however monstrous, in order to preserve an appearance of neutrality that will one day enable him to play a part in restoring peace. He does not see that by his silence he is hopelessly prejudicing his prospects of being listened to.” Osborne memo, December 18, 1942, NAK, FO 380/75, no. 21/28/42. The memo Osborne handed Tardini to give the pope was titled, “Persecution of the Jews.” Chadwick 1986, pp. 216–17.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
If the pope were to condemn the Nazi crimes, replied Tardini, he would need to condemn the crimes that the Soviets had committed against the Poles as well. Fine, replied the ambassador. What was important was for the pope’s condemnation to be public and be unequivocal. Libionka 2008, pp. 286–87.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
Guariglia to Ciano, December 18 and 19, 1942, nn. 3796 and 3814, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 194. On the pope’s Christmas 1942 broadcast, see Coco 2020.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
Chadwick 1986, p. 218.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
Ruozzi 2015, pp. 162–64; Osborne annual report for 1942, Osborne to Eden, March 22, 1943, NAK, R 3904/3904/57, p. 2. Among the articles appearing in the Catholic press on the launch of the film, see Enrico Pucci, “La luce del ‘Pastor Angelicus’ s’irradierà propizia sul mondo,” AR, December 18, 1942, p. 3; M.M., “Pio XII: Pastor Angelicus,” L’Italia, December 18, 1942, p. 2; elledici, “Entusiasmo e commozione di popolo alla visione del ‘PASTOR ANGELICUS,’ ” AR, December 20, 1942, p. 3.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
Clara Petacci diary, December 20, 1942, ACS, Archivi di famiglie e di persone, Clara Petacci, b. 10, fasc. 157; Bosworth 2017, p. 167.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
Bosworth 2017, pp. 167–68; Bosworth 2002, pp. 385–89; De Felice 1996b, pp. 1079–85.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
Ciano 1980, p. 679, diary entry for December 24, 1942.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
“Il radiomessaggio del Pontefice,” PI, December 25, 1942, p. 1; Rossi 2005, p. 394. “The Holy Father’s radio Christmas speech,” reported Bologna’s prefect, offering a perspective of the reception of the address outside Rome, “was met by broad consensus.” Loudspeakers had been placed outside parish churches throughout the province so that the faithful could hear the pope’s words. “The fundamental principles of the Pontiff’s speech,” wrote the prefect, were “very cautious, but decisively contrary to the communist ideologies and to the non-Catholic states.” “Attività del Clero,” prefetto, Bologna, January 7, 1943, n. 301, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 130.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
Phayer (2008, pp. 53–56) offers a more balanced examination of the pope’s speech and the motives behind it. The text of the pope’s speech can be found at https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/it/speeches/1942/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19421224_radiomessage-christmas.html.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
Osborne to Eden, December 28, 1942, NAK, FO 371, 37537, 6–16; Osborne annual report for 1942, Osborne to Eden, March 22, 1943, NAK, R 3904/3904/57, p. 2; Friedländer 1966, pp. 130–31; Hennesey 1974, p. 36; Tittmann to Hull, December 30, 1942, NARA, RG 59, Entry 1070, box 29, pp. 5–7. Meanwhile the pleas for the pope to speak out against the slaughter of Europe’s Jews kept coming in. A batch of them, including a plea from a rabbi heading a London-based Jewish organization and another from the leaders of the orthodox rabbis of North America, are found in the newly opened Vatican archives. They are placed in a folder with a note dated Christmas Day recording the pope’s instructions to have the apostolic delegates in Washington and London offer a response orally: “the Holy See is doing what it can.” The same Vatican file has copies of the instructions subsequently sent to the apostolic delegates in London and Washington. ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte 1, Germania, posiz. 742, ff. 52r–59r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
Libionka 2008, p. 288. At his end-of-year audience with the pope, Harold Tittmann also noted the pope’s defensiveness when he told him his Christmas speech was regarded by many as a disappointment for not explicitly condemning the Nazi atrocities. In addition to offering the reason that he could not condemn the Nazis without condemning the “Bolsheviks” or their atrocities, he led Tittmann to believe that, as the American envoy put it, “he felt there had been some exaggeration for purpose of propaganda” in the accounts of Nazi atrocities. Tittmann 2004, pp. 123–24.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16
Friedländer 1966, pp. 175–76.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17
De Felice 1996b, p. 767.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18
Chapter 26: Disaster Foretold
Ciano 1980, pp. 690, 691, diary entries for January 19 and 22, 1943.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
Relazione Triennale 1940–1942, AAV, Arch. Nunz. Italia, b. 13, fasc. 18, ff. 3r–25r. Maglione had requested the report in a letter to Borgongini on June 3, 1942, AAV, Arch. Nunz. Italia, b. 13, fasc. 18, ff. 2rv. For background on the Vatican use of the Fascist government to prevent Protestant proselytizing in Italy, see Madigan 2021.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
“La missione delle classi dirigenti,” AI, January 12, 1943, p. 1. The handwritten comment on Osborne’s report of the event at the Foreign Office was not sympathetic: “Despite the reference to social reform I should call this a thoroughly reactionary speech as out of date as the ceremony itself.” Osborne to Eden, January 12, 1943, NAK, FO 371, 37537.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
Montini notes, January 12, 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 88, Ciano recorded his own account of the meeting in his diary that day, making clear his belief that Monsignor Montini—and not Cardinal Maglione or Monsignor Tardini—was the pope’s closest confidant. “He was prudent, measured, and Italian,” observed Ciano, and while Montini did not express any judgments on the war, he had said that the prelates of the Vatican did not believe it would end anytime soon. “He added that anything that it was possible for him to do on behalf of our country, he was entirely at our disposition.” Ciano 1980, p. 688, diary entry for January 12, 1943.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
Davis 2006, p. 93; Rauscher 2004, p. 452; Di Rienzo 2018, p. 425.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
Libionka 2008, pp. 291–93.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
Hennesey 1974, p. 40.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
Ciano 1980, p. 696, diary entry for February 5, 1943; Edda Ciano 1975, p. 169; De Felice 1996b, pp. 1047–48. Edda was convinced that the decision to dismiss her husband was the work of what she referred to as the Petacci clan, Clara’s family and their clients. They were, Edda believed, angry that she and her husband had been trying to put an end to the growing public scandal about the riches and favors that the Duce was showering on them. Edda Mussolini 1975, p. 171. For the informant report, see Informativa da Roma (n. 484—Nicosia), February 28, 1943, ACS, MI, MAT, b. 239.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
Later that morning Mussolini phoned his son-in-law telling him he decided to hold off on appointing him ambassador to the Holy See. “They will say,” the Duce told him, “that you’ve been pensioned off, and you’re too young to be pensioned off.” It was too late, Ciano replied. The Vatican had already been informed of the decision. Ciano 1980, p. 696, diary entry for February 6, 1943. In his recent biography of Ciano, Di Rienzo (2018, p. 490) disputes Ciano’s account that Mussolini had second thoughts about his appointment to the Vatican. However, it is verified by Guariglia’s (1950, p. 534) own account. At noon that same day, Guariglia recalled, he had gone to assure Ciano that he had notified Cardinal Maglione. “He was very glad,” recalled Guariglia, “because just a half hour earlier Mussolini had telephoned him from Palazzo Venezia to say he had changed his mind and wanted him to go somewhere else. To which Ciano told him that it was no longer possible to make a change, as I had already officially made the request.” Ciano’s account is further confirmed by Pirelli’s (1984, p. 401) February 9, 1943, diary entry.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
Bergen to Foreign Ministry, Berlin, February 7, 1943, PAAA, GBS, 29818, 12, tel. 46; London, Report n. 54450: “Italy,” February 26, 1943, NARA, RG 165, color 279; Pirelli 1984, p. 401, diary entry for February 9, 1943; Tittmann to Hull, Washington, February 9, 1943, NARA, RG 59, CDF 1940–44, 701.6566A, pp. 7–8.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
Montini notes, February 6, 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 105. The nuncio took the opportunity to send Ciano a letter of appreciation, thanking him for his personal courtesies and attentions, “cooperating effectively with Your high authority to maintain the good relations between the Holy See and Italy even when difficult questions have come up.” Borgongini to Ciano, February 8, 1943, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 148.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
Petacci to Mussolini, n.d., ACS, Archivi di famiglie e di persone, Clara Petaccci, b. 4, fasc. 51.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
“L’Annuale dei Patti Lateranensi. Avvenimento storico,” PI, February 12, 1943, p. 1.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
A few days before the Lateran anniversary, Osborne informed London that Soviet military successes were reviving Vatican anxiety about the “Bolshevisation of Europe.” Meeting two days later with Maglione, Osborne found the cardinal preoccupied with the German military’s precarious position in Russia. Osborne to Foreign Office, February 5 and 7, 1943, NAK, FO 371, 37538, 17 and 19. Osborne struck a similar note later in the month: “Vatican alarm as a result of continuing Russian victories seems to be growing.” February 22, 1943, NAK, FO 371, 37538, 47.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
D.m.b., “La diga,” L’Italia, February 21, 1943, p. 1. Three days later the Italian embassy at the Holy See sent it to the Ministry of Popular Culture and the Foreign Ministry, tel. 599, ASDMAE, APSS, b. 68.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
Tittmann to Hull, February 13, 1943, NARA, RG 59, CDF 1940–44, 701.6566A, pp. 9–11. It was not only the Americans who were hearing rumors that Mussolini’s dramatic cabinet overhaul was linked to a secret peace plan involving the Vatican. Ribbentrop unexpectedly arrived in Rome at the end of the month, triggering a wave of speculation as to why he had come. “He wanted to see for himself,” wrote Luca Pietromarchi in his diary, “the significance of the ministerial crisis of three weeks ago. The Germans are always afraid of the possibility that Italy will seek a separate peace. They never know whether the Holy See might lend a hand by becoming a go-between.” Quoted in De Felice 1996b, p. 1050; Pietromarchi 2009.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16
Among those unhappy with the apparently indiscriminate bombing campaign was the British envoy to the Vatican, who found himself in an awkward position having been repeatedly instructed to complain to the pope about German attacks on civilian targets. In early 1943, Osborne’s unhappiness became the subject of a discussion at the highest levels of the British Foreign Office. “There can be no doubt that a large portion of the weight of our attacks,” observed Denis Laskey, one of the foreign secretary’s advisers, “is now directed against centres of towns and not against strictly military objectives such as barracks, factories or railways, the object being to disorganize to the maximum the life of the civilians engaged on war production.” It was a fact that they could never acknowledge publicly, but Laskey advised, “I think it would be more honest to admit, at least among ourselves, that we do try to kill or maim as many civilians as possible and that our attacks are as indiscriminate as any of those carried out by the Germans and Italians against London in 1940–41.” Laskey said all this by way of preface to his argument that the bombing was doing more harm than good. Rather than making Italians more likely to rebel against their leaders and withdraw Italy from the war, which had been its intention, the bombing campaign had simply generated resentment against their tormentors. Much better, he advised, for the British to return to the high ground and limit their raids to military targets.
Responding to these recommendations, the undersecretary of foreign affairs, Orme Sargent, admitted that there was no use in “beating around the bush, for our strategy as regards Italy at present…definitely requires indiscriminate bombing by us in order to achieve the object of bringing about a breakdown of Italian morale without having to resort to actual military invasion of the mainland of Italy.” Although Sargent added his own doubt that the strategy was sound, he said that as it had been decided upon by the military Chiefs of Staff, there was no point voicing Foreign Office objection. At the bottom of the memo, below these comments, was a handwritten note by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden: “I agree with Sir O. Sargent.”
Two weeks later, Eden elaborated on Britain’s strategy in Italy in a letter to President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Hull. “Our aim,” Eden wrote, “must be to knock Italy out of the war as quickly as possible and this could be achieved with almost equal effect whether Italy made a separate peace or whether dissatisfaction and disorder within the country attained such serious proportions that the Germans were forced to establish a full scale occupation.” The latter would have the advantage of forcing Germany to shift much-needed troops to Italy while depriving the Germans of the Italian troops who were fighting with them in Russia and the Balkans. Having Italy switch sides in the war had little appeal, as Britain’s military leaders, the foreign secretary reported, thought little of the value of recruiting the Italian military to fight against the Germans. Rather, the British command thought it was more in the Allies’ interest to have the Italians remain part of the Axis coalition and become “an increasing drain on German strength” (Montgomery to Howard, December 31, 1942, with comments by Laskey, January 20, 1943, D. Howard, January 22, 1943, O.G. Garton, January 25, 1943, and (undated, but following January 25), A.E. [Anthony Eden], NAK, FO 371, 37538; Eden to FDR and Hull, January 14, 1943, conveyed by Matthews, U.S. chargé d’affaires in London, January 15, 1943, FRUS 1943, vol. 2, pp. 318–20).
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17
Notes de Mgr Arborio Mella di S. Elia, February 24, 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 125. Curiously, an American intelligence report, shown to President Roosevelt, told that a “very dependable source believes that the Pope will intercede to have Mussolini retire of his own volition, and also to have the King abdicate in favor of Prince Humbert. He will be supported by an army under the leadership of Badoglio.” OSS report, March 20, 1943, FDR Library, mr 435, p. 199.
Ministero della Guerra to Ministero dell’Interno, December 3, 1942, ACS, MI, Gab., RSI, b. 51, n.160860; “Solenni riti religiosi in tutta Italia a propiziazione della Vittoria,” AR, December 8, 1942, p. 1; “Patriottico discorso dell’Arcivescovo di Bologna,” PI, December 9, 1942, p. 4. The rites were also covered in Bologna’s Catholic daily: “Riti propiziatori per la patria in Guerra,” AI, December 10, 1942, p. 2. On the pope’s authorization of the masses honoring Arnaldo Mussolini, see AAV, Segr. Stato, 1941, posiz. 1950, ff. 1r–18r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16
Segretariato per la Moralità, ACI, “Relazione sugli Spettacoli di Varietà,” December 8, 1942, ISACEM, PG XII, b. 22.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17
Cardinal Lavitrano to Mussolini, December 19, 1942, ISACEM, PG XII, b. 22.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18
Chapter 25: Papal Premiere
A mid-December 1942 British intelligence report, describing the German influx, concluded that it was now unlikely the Italians “would be in a position to break away from the Axis.” OSS report, “Political Situation in Italy,” December 18, 1942, NARA, RG 165, color 278.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
The anticlerical wing of the National Socialist government was unhappy about the German soldiers’ visits to the pope, not thinking their officers and enlisted men’s interest in the Vatican was healthy and worried that they would be overly impressed by all the majesty that surrounded the pope. Previous decrees notwithstanding, read a December 8, 1942, report from the Nazi Party Chancellery to the German Foreign Ministry, members of the army continued to make visits to the pope. NSDAP Party Chancellery to FO, Legation Councilor Büttner, PAAA, GPA, Vatikan Kirche 3, R98832, 10–11. Three days later Goebbels (1948, p. 246) wrote in his diary, “Visits of German soldiers and officers to the Pope have by no means grown less in number despite his assurances to the contrary. It would be a good thing to bring about a change of personnel there. I am gathering data to take to the Führer.”
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
He was passing this information on, Maglione explained, so that, at opportune moments, the nuncio might cautiously make use of it in conversations with men in the Spanish government and in the “Spanish political-ecclesiastical world.” Maglione to nuncio Madrid, Gaetano Cicognani, December 15, 1942, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 61.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
Underlining is in the original.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
“I fear,” Osborne reported to London, “that the fact is that the Pope is determined not to condemn any specific crime, however monstrous, in order to preserve an appearance of neutrality that will one day enable him to play a part in restoring peace. He does not see that by his silence he is hopelessly prejudicing his prospects of being listened to.” Osborne memo, December 18, 1942, NAK, FO 380/75, no. 21/28/42. The memo Osborne handed Tardini to give the pope was titled, “Persecution of the Jews.” Chadwick 1986, pp. 216–17.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
If the pope were to condemn the Nazi crimes, replied Tardini, he would need to condemn the crimes that the Soviets had committed against the Poles as well. Fine, replied the ambassador. What was important was for the pope’s condemnation to be public and be unequivocal. Libionka 2008, pp. 286–87.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
Guariglia to Ciano, December 18 and 19, 1942, nn. 3796 and 3814, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 194. On the pope’s Christmas 1942 broadcast, see Coco 2020.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
Chadwick 1986, p. 218.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
Ruozzi 2015, pp. 162–64; Osborne annual report for 1942, Osborne to Eden, March 22, 1943, NAK, R 3904/3904/57, p. 2. Among the articles appearing in the Catholic press on the launch of the film, see Enrico Pucci, “La luce del ‘Pastor Angelicus’ s’irradierà propizia sul mondo,” AR, December 18, 1942, p. 3; M.M., “Pio XII: Pastor Angelicus,” L’Italia, December 18, 1942, p. 2; elledici, “Entusiasmo e commozione di popolo alla visione del ‘PASTOR ANGELICUS,’ ” AR, December 20, 1942, p. 3.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
Clara Petacci diary, December 20, 1942, ACS, Archivi di famiglie e di persone, Clara Petacci, b. 10, fasc. 157; Bosworth 2017, p. 167.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
Bosworth 2017, pp. 167–68; Bosworth 2002, pp. 385–89; De Felice 1996b, pp. 1079–85.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
Ciano 1980, p. 679, diary entry for December 24, 1942.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
“Il radiomessaggio del Pontefice,” PI, December 25, 1942, p. 1; Rossi 2005, p. 394. “The Holy Father’s radio Christmas speech,” reported Bologna’s prefect, offering a perspective of the reception of the address outside Rome, “was met by broad consensus.” Loudspeakers had been placed outside parish churches throughout the province so that the faithful could hear the pope’s words. “The fundamental principles of the Pontiff’s speech,” wrote the prefect, were “very cautious, but decisively contrary to the communist ideologies and to the non-Catholic states.” “Attività del Clero,” prefetto, Bologna, January 7, 1943, n. 301, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 130.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
Phayer (2008, pp. 53–56) offers a more balanced examination of the pope’s speech and the motives behind it. The text of the pope’s speech can be found at https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/it/speeches/1942/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19421224_radiomessage-christmas.html.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
Osborne to Eden, December 28, 1942, NAK, FO 371, 37537, 6–16; Osborne annual report for 1942, Osborne to Eden, March 22, 1943, NAK, R 3904/3904/57, p. 2; Friedländer 1966, pp. 130–31; Hennesey 1974, p. 36; Tittmann to Hull, December 30, 1942, NARA, RG 59, Entry 1070, box 29, pp. 5–7. Meanwhile the pleas for the pope to speak out against the slaughter of Europe’s Jews kept coming in. A batch of them, including a plea from a rabbi heading a London-based Jewish organization and another from the leaders of the orthodox rabbis of North America, are found in the newly opened Vatican archives. They are placed in a folder with a note dated Christmas Day recording the pope’s instructions to have the apostolic delegates in Washington and London offer a response orally: “the Holy See is doing what it can.” The same Vatican file has copies of the instructions subsequently sent to the apostolic delegates in London and Washington. ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte 1, Germania, posiz. 742, ff. 52r–59r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
Libionka 2008, p. 288. At his end-of-year audience with the pope, Harold Tittmann also noted the pope’s defensiveness when he told him his Christmas speech was regarded by many as a disappointment for not explicitly condemning the Nazi atrocities. In addition to offering the reason that he could not condemn the Nazis without condemning the “Bolsheviks” or their atrocities, he led Tittmann to believe that, as the American envoy put it, “he felt there had been some exaggeration for purpose of propaganda” in the accounts of Nazi atrocities. Tittmann 2004, pp. 123–24.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16
Friedländer 1966, pp. 175–76.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17
De Felice 1996b, p. 767.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18
Chapter 26: Disaster Foretold
Ciano 1980, pp. 690, 691, diary entries for January 19 and 22, 1943.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
Relazione Triennale 1940–1942, AAV, Arch. Nunz. Italia, b. 13, fasc. 18, ff. 3r–25r. Maglione had requested the report in a letter to Borgongini on June 3, 1942, AAV, Arch. Nunz. Italia, b. 13, fasc. 18, ff. 2rv. For background on the Vatican use of the Fascist government to prevent Protestant proselytizing in Italy, see Madigan 2021.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
“La missione delle classi dirigenti,” AI, January 12, 1943, p. 1. The handwritten comment on Osborne’s report of the event at the Foreign Office was not sympathetic: “Despite the reference to social reform I should call this a thoroughly reactionary speech as out of date as the ceremony itself.” Osborne to Eden, January 12, 1943, NAK, FO 371, 37537.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
Montini notes, January 12, 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 88, Ciano recorded his own account of the meeting in his diary that day, making clear his belief that Monsignor Montini—and not Cardinal Maglione or Monsignor Tardini—was the pope’s closest confidant. “He was prudent, measured, and Italian,” observed Ciano, and while Montini did not express any judgments on the war, he had said that the prelates of the Vatican did not believe it would end anytime soon. “He added that anything that it was possible for him to do on behalf of our country, he was entirely at our disposition.” Ciano 1980, p. 688, diary entry for January 12, 1943.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
Davis 2006, p. 93; Rauscher 2004, p. 452; Di Rienzo 2018, p. 425.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
Libionka 2008, pp. 291–93.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
Hennesey 1974, p. 40.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
Ciano 1980, p. 696, diary entry for February 5, 1943; Edda Ciano 1975, p. 169; De Felice 1996b, pp. 1047–48. Edda was convinced that the decision to dismiss her husband was the work of what she referred to as the Petacci clan, Clara’s family and their clients. They were, Edda believed, angry that she and her husband had been trying to put an end to the growing public scandal about the riches and favors that the Duce was showering on them. Edda Mussolini 1975, p. 171. For the informant report, see Informativa da Roma (n. 484—Nicosia), February 28, 1943, ACS, MI, MAT, b. 239.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
Later that morning Mussolini phoned his son-in-law telling him he decided to hold off on appointing him ambassador to the Holy See. “They will say,” the Duce told him, “that you’ve been pensioned off, and you’re too young to be pensioned off.” It was too late, Ciano replied. The Vatican had already been informed of the decision. Ciano 1980, p. 696, diary entry for February 6, 1943. In his recent biography of Ciano, Di Rienzo (2018, p. 490) disputes Ciano’s account that Mussolini had second thoughts about his appointment to the Vatican. However, it is verified by Guariglia’s (1950, p. 534) own account. At noon that same day, Guariglia recalled, he had gone to assure Ciano that he had notified Cardinal Maglione. “He was very glad,” recalled Guariglia, “because just a half hour earlier Mussolini had telephoned him from Palazzo Venezia to say he had changed his mind and wanted him to go somewhere else. To which Ciano told him that it was no longer possible to make a change, as I had already officially made the request.” Ciano’s account is further confirmed by Pirelli’s (1984, p. 401) February 9, 1943, diary entry.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
Bergen to Foreign Ministry, Berlin, February 7, 1943, PAAA, GBS, 29818, 12, tel. 46; London, Report n. 54450: “Italy,” February 26, 1943, NARA, RG 165, color 279; Pirelli 1984, p. 401, diary entry for February 9, 1943; Tittmann to Hull, Washington, February 9, 1943, NARA, RG 59, CDF 1940–44, 701.6566A, pp. 7–8.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
Montini notes, February 6, 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 105. The nuncio took the opportunity to send Ciano a letter of appreciation, thanking him for his personal courtesies and attentions, “cooperating effectively with Your high authority to maintain the good relations between the Holy See and Italy even when difficult questions have come up.” Borgongini to Ciano, February 8, 1943, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 148.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
Petacci to Mussolini, n.d., ACS, Archivi di famiglie e di persone, Clara Petaccci, b. 4, fasc. 51.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
“L’Annuale dei Patti Lateranensi. Avvenimento storico,” PI, February 12, 1943, p. 1.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
A few days before the Lateran anniversary, Osborne informed London that Soviet military successes were reviving Vatican anxiety about the “Bolshevisation of Europe.” Meeting two days later with Maglione, Osborne found the cardinal preoccupied with the German military’s precarious position in Russia. Osborne to Foreign Office, February 5 and 7, 1943, NAK, FO 371, 37538, 17 and 19. Osborne struck a similar note later in the month: “Vatican alarm as a result of continuing Russian victories seems to be growing.” February 22, 1943, NAK, FO 371, 37538, 47.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
D.m.b., “La diga,” L’Italia, February 21, 1943, p. 1. Three days later the Italian embassy at the Holy See sent it to the Ministry of Popular Culture and the Foreign Ministry, tel. 599, ASDMAE, APSS, b. 68.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
Tittmann to Hull, February 13, 1943, NARA, RG 59, CDF 1940–44, 701.6566A, pp. 9–11. It was not only the Americans who were hearing rumors that Mussolini’s dramatic cabinet overhaul was linked to a secret peace plan involving the Vatican. Ribbentrop unexpectedly arrived in Rome at the end of the month, triggering a wave of speculation as to why he had come. “He wanted to see for himself,” wrote Luca Pietromarchi in his diary, “the significance of the ministerial crisis of three weeks ago. The Germans are always afraid of the possibility that Italy will seek a separate peace. They never know whether the Holy See might lend a hand by becoming a go-between.” Quoted in De Felice 1996b, p. 1050; Pietromarchi 2009.
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Among those unhappy with the apparently indiscriminate bombing campaign was the British envoy to the Vatican, who found himself in an awkward position having been repeatedly instructed to complain to the pope about German attacks on civilian targets. In early 1943, Osborne’s unhappiness became the subject of a discussion at the highest levels of the British Foreign Office. “There can be no doubt that a large portion of the weight of our attacks,” observed Denis Laskey, one of the foreign secretary’s advisers, “is now directed against centres of towns and not against strictly military objectives such as barracks, factories or railways, the object being to disorganize to the maximum the life of the civilians engaged on war production.” It was a fact that they could never acknowledge publicly, but Laskey advised, “I think it would be more honest to admit, at least among ourselves, that we do try to kill or maim as many civilians as possible and that our attacks are as indiscriminate as any of those carried out by the Germans and Italians against London in 1940–41.” Laskey said all this by way of preface to his argument that the bombing was doing more harm than good. Rather than making Italians more likely to rebel against their leaders and withdraw Italy from the war, which had been its intention, the bombing campaign had simply generated resentment against their tormentors. Much better, he advised, for the British to return to the high ground and limit their raids to military targets.
Responding to these recommendations, the undersecretary of foreign affairs, Orme Sargent, admitted that there was no use in “beating around the bush, for our strategy as regards Italy at present…definitely requires indiscriminate bombing by us in order to achieve the object of bringing about a breakdown of Italian morale without having to resort to actual military invasion of the mainland of Italy.” Although Sargent added his own doubt that the strategy was sound, he said that as it had been decided upon by the military Chiefs of Staff, there was no point voicing Foreign Office objection. At the bottom of the memo, below these comments, was a handwritten note by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden: “I agree with Sir O. Sargent.”
Two weeks later, Eden elaborated on Britain’s strategy in Italy in a letter to President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Hull. “Our aim,” Eden wrote, “must be to knock Italy out of the war as quickly as possible and this could be achieved with almost equal effect whether Italy made a separate peace or whether dissatisfaction and disorder within the country attained such serious proportions that the Germans were forced to establish a full scale occupation.” The latter would have the advantage of forcing Germany to shift much-needed troops to Italy while depriving the Germans of the Italian troops who were fighting with them in Russia and the Balkans. Having Italy switch sides in the war had little appeal, as Britain’s military leaders, the foreign secretary reported, thought little of the value of recruiting the Italian military to fight against the Germans. Rather, the British command thought it was more in the Allies’ interest to have the Italians remain part of the Axis coalition and become “an increasing drain on German strength” (Montgomery to Howard, December 31, 1942, with comments by Laskey, January 20, 1943, D. Howard, January 22, 1943, O.G. Garton, January 25, 1943, and (undated, but following January 25), A.E. [Anthony Eden], NAK, FO 371, 37538; Eden to FDR and Hull, January 14, 1943, conveyed by Matthews, U.S. chargé d’affaires in London, January 15, 1943, FRUS 1943, vol. 2, pp. 318–20).
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Notes de Mgr Arborio Mella di S. Elia, February 24, 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 125. Curiously, an American intelligence report, shown to President Roosevelt, told that a “very dependable source believes that the Pope will intercede to have Mussolini retire of his own volition, and also to have the King abdicate in favor of Prince Humbert. He will be supported by an army under the leadership of Badoglio.” OSS report, March 20, 1943, FDR Library, mr 435, p. 199.
