The Pope at War, page 70
Gemelli’s request shows how the Vatican could in these months make use of the ambiguous position of Babuscio, in charge of Italy’s embassy to the Holy See. As long as neither Babuscio nor the pope wanted to force the issue, each of the two competing governments could claim that the embassy represented it. “I asked His Excellency Babuscio,” wrote Montini, “to confidentially recommend to the Minister of National Education (new Government!) not to place the Catholic University in the necessity of declaring itself for or against.” As for Gemelli, he was instructed to keep the university open but do all possible to avoid any events that could have a political connotation. In a confidential note of October 12, Montini let the rector know that they had received “a good assurance that, given the current state of things, this Fascist Republican Government will not require the Catholic University to give it any official recognition, nor impose any compromising actions on it.” At this time too the pope sent instructions to all members of the Vatican Secretariat of State: when speaking of the current political situation, the less they said the better. The documentation involving Gemelli’s requests and the response from the Vatican Secretariat of State in September and October 1943 are found at AAV, Segr. Stato, 1943, Seminari e Università, posiz. 35, ff. 2r–14r; Maglione notes, September 27, 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 415. The pope’s October 4 instructions are found at AAV, Segr. Stato, 1943, Curia Romana, posiz. 95, f. 2r. As a report from the French embassy to the Vatican put it in October: “Vatican Secretary of State hopes to avoid having to recognize the fascist, republican pseudo-government without at the same time having to formally refuse a request from Mussolini.” MAEN, RSS 576, PO/1, 1183; Malgeri 1986, p. 314.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18
Macmillan and Murphy to FDR, September 20, 1943, FDR Library, mr 855, pp. 212–15.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 19
Press department, Foreign Ministry, Berlin, October 6, 1943, PAAA, GPA Inland ID—Kirchenpolitik “Vatikan,” Heft 1, R98841, 09–15. Kurzman (2007) devoted a book to promoting this story, which the prominent European historian István Deák (2008), in his review, poked holes in. It has been denied as well by Moellhausen (1948, pp. 157–58), who was in a good position to know.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 20
Chadwick 1986, p. 275. Weizsäcker offered a further report to Berlin on October 12 on the British propaganda effort portraying a German plot to kidnap the pope, then being spread by the Reuters news agency; PAAA, GBS, 29818, 76. Perhaps as a result of Allied efforts, the rumors that the Germans were planning to kidnap the pope made their way as well into Italian police informant reports. “It is said that General Stahel has a plan to have German troops invade Vatican City” read one such report in the fall of 1943. It went on to say that the plan included kidnapping the pope. “Informazione dal Ministro dell’Interno,” October–November 1943, AAV, Segr. Stato, Commissione Soccorsi, b. 328, fasc. 227, ff. 65r–84r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 21
Weizsäcker to Berlin, October 9, 1943, PAAA, GBS, 29818, 58–59 and 71–74.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 22
Maglione notes, October 14, 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 435; Weizsäcker to Berlin, October 14, 1943, PAAA, GBS, 29818, 78; Maglione to Cicognani, Washington, D.C., October 12, 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 433; Cicognani cover letter, October 12, 1943, FDR Library, psfa 495, p. 165.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 23
The intercepted telegram, from (Albert) Reissmann, Berlin, to Rome, is found at NAK, HW, 19/238. For background on Prinzing, see Hausmann 2002. Prinzing was also responsible for aligning the German Cultural Institutes in Italy with Nazi policies. On Nazi intelligence services in Italy, see Paehler 2017.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 24
Weizsäcker to Foreign Ministry, Berlin, October 9, 1943, tel. 115, PAAA, GBS, 60–62.
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Chapter 34: The Pope’s Jews
Picciotto Fargion 2002, p. 878.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
The German use of mobile gas vans for killing Jews had begun in late 1941, after Einsatzgruppe members complained of fatigue and discomfort at having to shoot large numbers of women and children. Only in 1942, however, were stationary gas chambers first established in concentration camps located in Poland. See “Gassing Operations,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/gassing-operations. For a timeline of events, see also https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1942-1945.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
Klinkhammer 2016, p. 49; Sarfatti 2000, pp. 238–39; Picciotto Fargion 1994, p. 159; Katz 2003, p. 55. The size of the Jewish population in Italy at this date (even aside from the issue of how to count the thousands of Jews who had converted to Catholicism in an effort to escape persecution) is not known precisely. Since the imposition of the racial laws in 1938, many Italian Jews had fled the country, but many Jews escaping persecution in central Europe had come into Italy.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
Coen 1993, pp. 432–45. Zolli’s conversion to Catholicism in January 1945 would create a great scandal in the Jewish world. There is now a rather large literature on him, e.g., Rigano 2006; Weisbord and Sillanpoa 1992.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
See Kertzer 2001.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
Moellhausen 1948, pp. 112–17; Breitman and Wolfe 2005, pp. 79–80; Chadwick 1977, p. 187; Rigano 2016, p. 72; Klinkhammer 2016, p. 52. A typed note in the Vatican Secretariat of State files, dated September 27, 1943, reads, “Mons. Arata reports: Doctor Foà, Grand Rabbi of Rome, was summoned by the German police, which commanded him to deliver 50 kilograms of gold by tomorrow at 11 a.m.” AAV, Segr. Stato, Commissione Soccorsi, b. 326, fasc. 216, f. 108r. An account of these events from the diary of Rosina Sorani, a staff member of Rome’s Jewish community, is found in Avagliano and Palmieri 2011, pp. 177–79.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
The report of this incident to the Vatican Secretariat of State office came from Marchese Serlupi, October 19, 1943, AAV, Segr. Stato, Commissione Soccorsi, b. 326, fasc. 216, ff. 110rv.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
Coen 1993, pp. 64–85; Debenedetti 2001, pp. 40–46; Klinkhammer 2016, pp. 56–61; Osti Guerazzi 2017, pp. 82–83, 209–10; Chadwick 1977, pp. 190–91; Hudal to Stahel, October 16, 1943, ADSS, vol. 9, n. 373.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
The German Jesuit Father Peter Gumpel has offered this account of the princess’s hurried visit to the pope that morning. It might profit from some further confirmation, although it has been widely used by those promoting sainthood for Pius XII. Emanuele D’Onofrio, “Pio XII e la Shoah: ecco cosa raccontano i documenti dell’Archivio segreto,” Aleteria, January 27, 2014, https://it.aleteia.org/2014/01/27/pio-xii-e-la-shoah-ecco-cosa-raccontano-i-documenti-dellarchivio-segreto/2/; Blet 1999, p. 215.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
Susan Zuccotti (2000) aptly titled her excellent study of these events Under His Very Windows, referring to the imprisonment of the thousand Jews of Rome so close to Vatican City.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
The pope’s decision not to take any action that might stop the deportation of Rome’s Jews, or even that might publicly show his displeasure, was no doubt due in part to his eagerness not to upset the harmonious relations he had established with the occupying German military. It is revealing that the one action taken by the papal nuncio to Italy on the day Rome’s Jews were being rounded up had nothing to do with protecting the Jews. He wrote Mussolini’s minister of war, Rodolfo Graziani, with a request that the Vatican be allowed to augment its Palatine Guard force to protect papal properties and the Vatican City from “disturbing elements.” La Nonciature en Italie aux Autorités militaires italiennes, October 16, 1943, ADSS, vol. 9, n. 371. It is perhaps also revealing that the dramatic roundup of Rome’s Jews did not distract one of the national leaders of the university branch of Catholic Action from taking time that day in Rome to write Monsignor Montini to warn of a different threat he thought required the Vatican’s attention: the appearance of “Catholic communists.” The writer, Giulio Andreotti, would later go on to serve three terms as Italy’s Christian Democratic prime minister. AAV, Segr. Stato, 1943, Popolazioni, posiz. 18, ff. 1r–2r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
Chadwick 1977, p. 194.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
Osti Guerrazzi 2017, pp. 209–10; Mme X au cardinal Maglione, October 17, 1943, ADSS, vol. 9, n. 375; Montini notes, October 18, 1943, ADSS, vol. 9, n. 376. These appeals to the pope are also discussed in Kühlwein’s (2019) recent book examining Pius XII’s reaction to the October 16 roundup of Rome’s Jews.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
The report was by Don Igino Quadraroli, October 17, 1943, AAV, Segr. Stato, Commissione Soccorsi, b. 326, fasc. 216, f. 109. It is reproduced in ADSS, vol. 9, n. 374.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
Ciro Giannelli to Montini, October 16, 1943, AAV, Segr. Stato, Commissione Soccorsi, b. 326, fasc. 216, ff. 453r–55r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
Montini notes, October 16, 1943, n. 369; Montini notes, October 18, 1943, ADSS, vol. 9, nn. 376 and 377. The correspondence from the Legazione del Sovrano Militare Ordine di Malta is found at AAV, Segr. Stato, Commissione Soccorsi, b. 326, fasc. 216, ff. 444r–49r. A list of baptized Jews on whose behalf the Vatican Secretariat of State asked the German embassy to arrange their release, dated October 23, 1943, is found at AAV, Segr. Stato,Commissione Soccorsi, b. 326, fasc. 216, ff. 530r–40r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16
Coen 1993, pp. 89–93.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17
Montini notes, October 18, 1943, ADSS, vol. 9, n. 376; Klinkhammer 1993, p. 404.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18
Secretariat of State notes, October 19 and 21, 1943, AAV, Segr. Stato, Commissione Soccorsi, b. 326, fasc. 216, ff. 86r–88v.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 19
Osti Guerrazzi 2017, p. 82; Coen 1993, pp. 103–5; Breitman and Wolfe 2005, p. 81; Katz 2003, p. 114; Calimani 2015, p. 613.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 20
Osborne to Foreign Office, London, October 18, 1943, NAK, CAB, 122/866, 9. Oddly, Osborne made only indirect reference to the roundup of Rome’s Jews in his report. He said he told the pope “it was the opinion of a number of people that he underestimated his own moral authority and the reluctant respect in which it was held by the Nazis because of the Catholic population in Germany; I added that I was inclined to share this opinion.” On October 28, Giuseppe Dalla Torre offered the pope further reason to believe that the German command intended to leave Rome intact, sending Cardinal Maglione a report he had gotten from a member of the German embassy in Rome. It stated that an earlier German military plan to blow up Rome’s bridges and other structures of military importance when they eventually retreated from the city had been disapproved by Berlin. Dalla Torre ended his report, “Therefore, although it seems incredible, we can conclude that the destruction that the Germans will wreak in Rome in the days of their evacuation will be minimal.” Dalla Torre to Maglione, October 28, 1943, ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte I, Italia, posiz. 1336, ff. 292r–93v.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 21
Tittmann to secretary of state, Washington, D.C., October 19, 1943, FDR Library, psfa 495, p. 106.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 22
Pighin 2010, pp. 216–17.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 23
These documents are found at AAV, Segr. Stato, Commissione Soccorsi, b. 326, fasc. 216, ff. 530r–40r.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 24
Panzieri to Pius XII, October 27, 1943, ADSS, vol. 9, n. 394; Secrétairerie d’État à Ambassade d’Allemagne, October 29, 1943, ADSS, vol. 9, n. 397; Maglione to Weizsäcker, November 6, 1943, ADSS, vol. 9, n. 416.
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Oddly, given the continuing roundup of Jews that would take place over the following months in Rome, Weizsäcker added, perhaps in a fit of wishful thinking, “Since no more German measures towards the Jewish question can be expected to be carried out here in Rome, one could expect that this issue, which is rather unpleasant for German-Vatican relations, is gone.” Weizsäcker to Berlin, October 28, 1943, PAAA, GPA, Inland ID—Kirchenpolitik “Vatikan,” Heft 2, R98842, 02–03.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 26
AAV, Segr. Stato, Commissione Soccorsi, b. 326, fasc. 216, f. 119, reproduced in ADSS, vol. 9, n. 388.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 27
The documentation on this case, beginning with the October 22, 1943, letter from Ugo Di Nola to Pius XII, is found at AAV, Segr. Stato, Commissione Soccorsi, b. 326, fasc. 216, ff. 399r–415r. Marina and Claudio, born in Rome in 1937 and 1939 respectively, were both baptized on October 2, 1940. On the deaths of Nella, Marina, and Claudio, see Picciotto Fargion 2002.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 28
Chapter 35: Baseless Rumors
Tardini notes, undated but written after the fact in 1944, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 453; Bérard to Vichy, November 10, 1943, MAEC, Guerre Vichy, 544; Tittmann to Hull, November 6, 1943, FDR Library, mr 303, p. 58; Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Appunto per il Duce, November 7, 1943, n. 096686, ASDMAE, RSI, Gab., b. 23.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
Eden to Halifax (copy of telegram sent to Algiers), November 6, 1943, NAK, CAB, 122/865, 1; AGWAR Surles to Eisenhower, November 6, 1943, NARA, RG 84, box 5, p. 26.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
Text Rome radio, November 6, 1943, NAK, FO 371, 37548; McGoldrick 2016, p. 777; “La Città del Vaticano bombardato,” RF, November 7, 1943, p. 1. Subsequent articles told of the Catholic world’s indignation at the Anglo-American assault on the Vatican. In his editorials, Farinacci suggested that the king and Badoglio might also have been involved in planning the attack, as they were, he claimed, notorious Freemasons and enemies of the Catholic Church. Roberto Farinacci, “Le bombe sul Vaticano,” November 9, 1943, p. 1; “Anglicani e Badogliani contro il Vaticano,” RF, November 13, 1943, p. 1.
In replying to the Vatican request for an investigation, Osborne reminded Cardinal Maglione of his oft-repeated warning that the Germans were holding captured Allied planes ready to employ them at an opportune time to bomb the Vatican in an effort to discredit the Allies. “There is also the possibility,” he reported back to London, “that some Fascists might have executed the attack without German knowledge or approval and that the Germans are now making the best propaganda use of it.” Osborne to Foreign Office, London, November 6 and 7, 1943, tel. 409, 411, NAK, FO 371, 37548.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
Eisenhower for Arnold and Surles, November 7, 1943. Eisenhower followed this up by sending Washington additional details. On the night in question, nine Allied planes had been flying in the vicinity of Rome, but visibility had been good and none reported bombing anywhere near Vatican City. “The advantage to the Germans of such a bombing,” Eisenhower added, “is of course obvious. The same night it should be noted that German aircraft bombed Naples.” November 7, 1943, FDR Library, mr 303, pp. 54–55, 57.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
Conclusions of meeting of War Cabinet, 10 Downing Street, November 8, 1943, NAK, CAB, 65, 1943, p. 145.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
On November 12 the Foreign Office sent a telegram to Osborne informing him that it had replied to the Apostolic Delegate in London’s request by drawing his attention to Eisenhower’s November 7 statement affirming that no Allied plane dropped bombs on the Vatican. Resident minister, Algiers, to Foreign Office, November 8, 1943, NAK, FO 371, 37548; U.S. State Department press release, November 9, 1943, n. 469, and Foreign Office to Osborne, November 12, 1943, tel. 275, NAK, FO, 371, 37548.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
Tardini notes, undated but written after the fact in 1944, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 453. Documentation on the Vatican’s own investigation of the bombing is found at ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, parte I, Stati Ecclesiastici, posiz. 755, ff. 48r–76r. Further complicating the story, a Rome police intercept recorded a November 8 phone call made by a priest, Father Giuseppe, to Father Tacchi Venturi. He had recently returned from Viterbo, where a witness at the city’s airport had told him that the bombing of the Vatican had been carried out by Farinacci himself, on board a plane with a Roman pilot. The transcript is reproduced in Guspini 1973, p. 249. The recent opening of the Vatican archives now introduces yet another twist in the story. The secretary of state files contains the presumed transcript of a November 7, 1943, telephone conversation in which Francesco Barracu, undersecretary to Mussolini, sent word to him that “the Vatican affair is going well, we have succeeded in misdirecting the investigations.” Tardini’s note on the transcript reads “Bombing of 5-XI-43” and recounts that it was taken directly to the pope. ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, Parte I, Italia, posiz. 1336, ff. 298r–303r.
