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' TlfraR Long-buried Vatican files reveal a new anc ; shocking indictment of World War IPs Jj; : - I • • H.t.-,. in n. ; Pius XII: that in pursuit of absolute power he helped destroy German ^ Catholic political opposition, betrayed the Europe, and sealed a deeply cynica pact with a 20th-century devi!. BBI BY

the Final Solution. A young man, a prac was staged on Broadway in 1964. depict UnewheneveningI wasseveralhavingyearsdinnerago ticing Catholic, insisted that the case had ed Pacelli as a ruthless cynic, interested with a group of students, the never been proved. more in the Vatican's stockholdings than topic of the papacy was Raised as a Catholicduring the papacy in the fate of the Jews. Most Catholics dis broached, and the discussion of Pius XII—his picture gazed down from missed Hochhuth's thesis as implausible, quickly boiled over. A young the wall of every classroom during my but the play sparked a controversy which woman asserted that Eugenio Pacelli, Pope childhood—I was only too familiar with Pius XII, the Pope during World War the allegation. It started in 1963 with a play Excerpted from Hitler's Pope: TheSeci-et II, had brought lasting shame on the by a young German named Rolf Hoch- History ofPius XII. bj' John Comwell. to be published this month byViking; © 1999 by failing to denounce huth. DerStellverti-eter (), which by the author.

VANITY FAIR OCTOBER 1999 having reliable knowl- i edge of its true extent. And, worse, that he was a hypocrite, for after the war he had retrospec tively taken undue credit for speaking out boldly against the Nazis' per secution of the Jews. In the "Holy Year" of 1950, a year in which many millions of pil grims flocked to to catch a glimpse of Pacelli, he was at the i zenith of his papacy. This was the Pius that people now in their mid- Eui^nio Paeedi at 63, 50s and older remem on the vvay tb his ber from newsreels and coronation as Pope Pius XII, newspaper photographs. March 12,1939. Behw, He was 74 years old Pacelli aged^, at thetime and still vigorous. Six ofhisordination, 1899. feet tail, stick thin at

n 125 pounds, light on Eugenio Pacelli acted out his feet, regular in his habits, he had hardly has raged to this day. t' the ritual of the Mass,!SS,s, . altered physically from the Disturbed by the •v I day ofhis coronation 11 years anger brought out in dressed in robes t earlier. He had beautiful taper- that dinner altercation, Jm •. ing hands, a plaintive voice, and convinced, as I lvl»'.v,. large dark eyes, and an aura had always been, of ^ ' " of holiness. It was his extreme Pius XII's innocence, ^ pallor that first arrested those 1 decided to write a V-. . who met him. His skin "had neu' defense ofhis rep- ^ a surprisingly transparent ef utation for a younger fect," observed the writer Cor- generation. I believed • the foreign office of the rado Pallenberg, "as if reflecting from the that Pacelli's evident . I also drew on inside a cold, white flame." His charisma holiness was proof of German sources relating to was stunning. "His presence radiated a be his good faith. How Pacelli's activities in Ger nignity, calm and sanctity that I have cer could such a saintly many during the 1920sand tainly never before sensed in any human pope have betrayed the Jews? But was it 1930s, including his dealings with Adolf being," recorded the English writer James possible to find a new and conclusive ap Hitler in 1933. For months on end I ran Lees-Milne. "I immediately fell head over proach to the issue? The arguments had sacked Pacelli's files, which dated back to heels in love with him. I was so affected I so far focused mainly on his wartime con 1912. in a windowless dungeon beneath could scarcely speak without tears and was duct; however, Pacelli's Vatican career had the Borgia Tower in . Later I conscious that my legs were trembling." started 40 years earlier. It seemed to me sat for several weeks in a dusty office in But there was another side to his that a proper investigation into Pacelli's the Jesuit headquarters, close to St. Peter's character, little known to the faithful. record would require a more extensive Square in Rome, mulling over a thousand Although he was a man of selfless, monk chronicle than any attempted in the past. pages of transcribed testimony given under like habits of prayer and simplicity, he So I applied for access to archival ma oath by those who had known Pacelli well was a believer in the absolute-leadership terial in the Vatican, reassuring those who during his lifetime, including his critics. principle. More than any other Vatican had charge of crucial documents that J By the middle of 1997,1 was in a state of official of the century, he had promoted was on the side of my subject. Six years moral shock. The material I had gathered the modern ideology of autocratic papal earlier, in a book entitled A Thief in the amounted not to an exoneration but to an control, the highly centralized, dictatorial Nighi, I had defended the Vatican against indictment more scandalous than Hoch- authority he himself assumed on March charges that Pope John Paul I had been huth's. The evidence was explosive. It 2. 1939, and maintained until his death murdered by his own aides. showed for the first time that Pacelli was in October 1958. patently, and by the proof of his own There was a lime before the advent of Two key ofiicials granted me access to words, anti-Jewish. It revealed that he had modem communications when Catholic secret material; depositions under oath helped Hitler to powerand at the same time authority was widely distributed, in the gathered 30 years ago to support the undermined potential Catholic resistance in collective decisions of the church's coun process for Pacelli's canonization, and the . It showed that he had implicitly cils and in coUegial power-sharing between archive of the Vatican Secretariat of State, denied andtrivialized theHolocaust, despite the Pope and the . The absolutism

VANITY FAIR OCTOBER 1999 of the modern papacy is largely an inven formed the 1870 primacy dogma into an centralized authority of the church. It was tion of the late 19th century. It developed unprecedented principle of papal power. one of the defining moments of the Refor rapidlyin the first decades of this century Eugenio Pacelli, by then a brilliant young mation, which was to divide Western Chris in response to the perception of the cen Vatican lawyer, had a major part in the tendom into Catholics and Protestants. trifugal breakup of the church under an drafting of that instrument, which was array of contemporary pressures: material known as the Code of Law. In May 1917, Pacelli set off for Germany ism, increasing sexual freedom, religious Pacelli had been recruited into the Vati via Switzerland in a private railway com skepticism, and social and political liber can in 1901, at the age of 24, to specialize partment, with an additional wagon con ties. From his young manhood on, Pacelli in international affairs and church law. Pi taining 60 cases of special foods for his played a leading role in shaping the condi ous, slender, with dark luminous eyes, he delicate stomach. The Pope at that time, tions and scope of modem papal power. was an instant favorite. He was invited to Benedict XV, was shocked at this extrava collaborate on the reformulation of church gance, but Pacelli had favored status as the " ugenio Pacelli was born in Rome in law with his immediate superior, Pietro Vatican's best diplomat. Shortlyafter he set - 1876, into a family of church lawyers Gasparri, a world-famous canon lawyer. tled in , he acquired a reputation as . who served the Vatican. He had an older Packaged in a single manual, the Code of a vigorous relief worker. He traveled through sister and brother and a younger sister. His Canon Law was distributed in 1917 to war-weary Germany extending charity to parents, devout Catholics, shared an apart Catholic bishops and cleigythroughout the people of all religions and none. In an early ment in central Rome with his grandfather, world. According to this code, in the fijture letter to the Vatican, however, he revealed who had been a legal adviser to Pius IX, all bishops would be nominated by the himself to be less than enamored of Ger the longest-serving Pope in history. There Pope; doctrinal error would be tantamount many's Jews. On September 4, 1917, Pacelli was only one smaD brazier to supply heat to heresy; priests would be subjected to informed PietroGasparri,whohad become for the whole family, evenin the depths of strictcensorship in their writings; papal let cardinal secretary of state in the Vatican— winter. Eugenio was a modest youth, who ters to the faithful would be regarded as in the equivalent of foreign minister and prime never appeared before his siblings unless fallible (in practiceif not in principle); and minister—thata Dr. Werner, the chief rabbi he was ftiUy dressed in a jacket and tie. He an oath would be taken by .MiiiiiiL- ..Li would always come to the table with a all candidates for the priest book, which he would read after having hood to submit to the sense • pono asked the family's permission. From an as well as the strict wording „ •TPacelli's contempt of Judaism was early age he acted out the ritual of the of doctrine as laid down by hsiCD Mass, dressed in robes supplied by his the Pope. , based on his belief that the mother. He had a gift for languages and a prodigious memory. He was spindly and But there was aproblem. •.rf. were Denind the BO suffered from a "fastidious stomach." He The church had histori- ^ulnt retaiiied a youthful piety aU his life. Politi cally granted the dioce- , cally and legally, howe\'er, he was capable ses in the provincial states of great subtlety and cunning. of Germany a large mea The Pacellis were fiercelj' loyalto the in sure of local discretion and I jured merit of the papacy. From 1848,the independence from Rome. had progressively lost to the emerg Germany had one of the largest Catholic of Munich, had approached the nunciature ing nation-state of their dominions, populations in the worid, and its congre begging a favor. In order to celebrate the which had formed, since time immemori gation was well educated and sophisticat Festival of Tabernacles,beginningon Octo al, the midriff of the Italian peninsula. Six ed, with hundreds of Catholic associations ber 1, the Jews needed palm fronds, which years before Eugenio's birth, the city of and newspapers and many Catholic uni normally came from Italy. But the Italian Rome itself had been seized, leaving the versities and publishing houses. The his government had forbidden the exportation, papacy in crisis. How could the Popes re toric autonomy of Germany's Catholic via Switzerland, of a stock of palms which gard themselves as independent now that Church was enshrined in ancient church- the Jews had purchased and which were they were mere citizens of an upstart king state treaties known as concordats. being held up in Como. "The Israelitic dom? Eugenio's grandfather and father be Aged 41 and already an , Community," continued Pacelli, "are seek lieved passionately that the Popes could Pacelli was dispatched to Munich as pa ing the intervention of the Pope in the once again exert a powerful unilying au pal , or ambassador, to start the hope that he will plead on behalf of the thority overthe church by the application process of eliminating aU existing legal thousands of German Jews." TTie favor in of ecclesiastical and international law. In challenges to the new papal autocracy. At question was no more problematic than the 1870, at a gathering in Rome of a prepon the same time, he was to pursue a Reich transportation of Pacelli's 60 cases of food derance of the worid's bishops, known as Concordat, a treaty between the papacy stuffs had been a few months earlier. the First Vatican Council, the Pope was and Germany as a whole which would su Pacelli informed Gasparri that he had dogmatically declared infallible in matters persede all local agreements and become warned the rabbi that "wartime delays in of faith and morals. He was also declared a model of Catholic church-state relations. communication" would make things diffi the unchallenged primate of the faithful. A Reich Concordat would mean formal cult. He also told Gasparri that he did not The Pope may have lost his temporal do recognition by the German government of think it appropriate for the Vatican "to as minions, but spiritually he was solely in the Pope's right to impose the new Code sist them in the exercise of their Jewish charge of his universal church. of Canon Law on Germany's Catholics. cult." His letter went by the slow route During the first two decades of this Such an arrangement was fraught with overiand in the diplomatic bag. Gasparri century, papal primacy and infallibility significance for a largely Protestant Ger replied by telegram on September 18 that began to creep even beyond the ample many. Nearly 400 years earlier, in Witten he entirely trusted Pacelli's "shrewdness," boundaries set by the First Vatican Coun berg, Martin Luther had publicly burned agreeing that it would not be appropriate cil. A powerful legal instrument trans a copy of Canon Law in defiance of the to help Rabbi Werner. Pacelli wrote back

VANITY FAIR O CT O e ER 19 9 9 on September 28, 1917, informing Gasparri that he had again seen the rabbi, who "was perfectly con vinced of the reasons I had given him and thanked me warmly for all that I had done on his behalf." Pacelli had done nothing except thwart the rabbi's request. The epi sode, small in itself, belies subse quent claims that Pacelli had a great love of the Jewish religion PaceDt, after 13 years and was always motivated by its as papal nuncio in Germany, best interests. leaves Berfin to become cardinal secretary of state in ighteen months later he revealed tlie Vatican, 1929,Be/otr, his antipathy toward the Jews in ^iSster.Pasqualina Lehnert, a more blatantly anti-Semitic fash Jil. ^ 1 ^-''i^^ran Pope Pi^Xli's ion when he found himself at the I household for40.years, center of a local revolution as Bol at his funeral, 1^8.* shevik groups struggled to take advantage of the chaos in postwar Munich. Writing to Gasparri, Pacelli de ifappropriate for fhe Vatican the Vatican in concordats. The scribed the revolutionaries and their chief, German government's official in Eugen Levien, in their headquarters in the to assisfthem in fhe charge of Vatican affairs at one former royal palace. The letter has lain in point recorded the "ill feeling the Vatican secret archive like a time bomb exercise of theirJewish cult f|' prompted by Pacelli's "excessive until now: demands." Both Catholics and Protestants in Germany resisted The sccne that presented itself at the palace reaching an agreement with was indescribable. The confusion to Pacelli on a Reich Concordat be tally chaotic,the filth completely nau cause the nuncio's concept of a seating; soldiers and armed workers coming and going; the building, once church-state relationship was too authori the home of a king, resounding with tarian. In his negotiations, Pacelli was not screams, vile language, profanities. Ab concerned about the fate of non-Catholic solute hell. An army of employees religious communities or institutions, or were dashing to and fro. giving out or about human rights. He was principally ders, waving bits of paper, and in the preoccupied with the interests of the midst of all this, a gang of young wom en, of dubious appearance. Jews like all Holy See. Nothing could have been the rest of them, hanging around in all better designed to deliver Pacelli into the offices with provocative demeanor the hands of Hitler later, when the fu and suggestive smiles. The boss of this fe ture diaator made his move in 1933. male gang was Levien's mistress, a young Russian woman, a Jew and a divorcee, n June 1920, Pacelli became nun who was in charge. And it was to her that .V cio to all of Germany, with head the nunciature was obliged to pay homage in order to proceed. quarters in as well as in Mu This Levien is a young man, about 30 or nich, and immediately acquired a 35,also Russian and a Jew, Pale, dirty, with glittenng reputation in diplomatic circles. vacant eyes, hoarse voice, vulgar, repulsive, legation false. Twenty- He was a favorite at dinner parties and re with a face that is both intelligent and sly. three years later, when the Allies were ceptions, and he was known to ride horses about to enter Rome, he asked the British on the estate of a wealthy German family This association of Jewishness with Bol envoy to the Vatican to request of the His household was run by a pretty young shevism confirms that Pacelli, from hisearly British Foreign Office that no Allied col nun from southern Germany named Sister 40s, nourished a suspicion of and contempt ored troops would be among the small Pasqualina Lehnert, Pacelli's sister Elisa- for the Jews for political reasons. But the re number that might be garrisoned in Rome betta, who battled with the nun for Pacelli's peated references to the Jewishness of these after the occupation. affections, described Pasqualina as "sca/- individuals, along with the catalogue of Pacelli spent 13 years in Germany at rr/ssjina"—extremely cunning. In Munichit stereotypical epithetsdeploring their physi tempting to rewrite the state concordats had been rumored that he cast more than cal and moral repulsiveness, betray a scorn one by one in favor of the power of the priestly eyes on this religious housekeeper. and revulsion consistent with anti-Semitism. Holy See and routinely employing diplo Pacelli insisted that a Vatican investigation Not long after this. Pacelli campaigned matic blackmail, Germany was caught up into this "horrible calumny"be conducted to have black French troops removed in many territorial disputes following the at the highest level, and his reputation from the , convinced that they redrawing of the map of Central Europe emerged unbesmirched. were raping women and abusing chil after the First World War. Pacelli repeat Meanwhile, he had formed a close rela dren—even though an independent in edly traded promises of Vatican support tionship with an individual named Ludwig quiry sponsored by the U.S. Congress, of for German control of disputed regions in Kaas. Kaas was a representative of the which Pacelli was aware, proved this al- return for obtaining terms advantageous to solidly Catholic German Center Party, one

VANITY FAIR OCTOBER 1999 of the largest and most powerful democrat end. A precondition of the negotiations The country was reeling from successive ic parties in Germany. Though it was un had involved the destruction of the parlia economic crises against the background of usual for a full-time politician, he was also mentary Catholic Italian Popular Party. the world slump and reparations payments a Roman Catholic priest. Five years Pacel- Pius XI disliked political Catholicism be to the Allies. In August 1931, Briiningvisit li's junior, dapper, bespectacled, and invari cause he could not control it. Like his pre ed Pacelli in the Vatican, and the two men ably carrying a smart walking stick, Kaas, decessors, he believed that Catholic party quarreled. Briining tells in his memoirs known as "the prelate,'" became an iiiti- politics brought democracy into the church how Pacelli lectured him. the German chan mate collaborator of Pacelli's on every as by the back door. The resuh of the demise cellor, on how he should reach an under pect of Vatican diplomacy in Germany. of the Popular Party was the wholesale standing with the Nazis to "form a right- With Pacelli's encouragement, Kaas eventu drift of Catholics into the Fascist Party and wing administration" in order to help ally became the chairman of the Center the collapse of democracy in Italy. Pius XI achieve a Reich Concordat favorable to the Party, the first priest to do so in the party's and his new secretary of state, Pacelli, were Vatican. When Briiningadvised him not to 60-year history. Yet while Kaas was offi determined that no accommodation be interfere in German politics, Pacelli threw cially a representative of a major democratic reached with Communists anywhere in the a tantrum. Bruning's parting shot that day party, he was increasingly devoted to Pacel- world—this was the time of persecution of was the ironic observation—chilling in hind li, to the point of becoming his alter ego. the church in Russia, Mexico, and later sight—that he trusted that "the Vatican Sister Pasqualina stated after Pacelli's Spain—but totalitarian movements and re would fare better at the hands of Hitler ... death that Kaas, who "regularly accompa gimes of the right werea different matter. than with himself, a devout Catholic." nied Pacelli on holiday," was linked to Bruning was right on one score. Hitler him in "adoration, honest love and uncon Hitler, who had enjoyed his first great proved to be the only chancellor prepared ditional loyalty." There were stories of success in the elections of September to grant Pacelli the sort of authoritarian acute jealousy and high emotion when 1930, was determined to seek a treaty concordat he was seeking. But the price Kaas became conscious of a rival affec with the Vatican similar to that struck by was to be catastrophic for Catholic Ger tion in Pacelli's secretary, the Jesuit Rob Mussolini, which would lead to the dis many and for Germany as a whole. ert Leiber, who was also German. banding of the German Center Party. In his Kaas was a profound believer in the political testament, Mein Kampf, he had After Hitler came to power in January benefits of a Reich Concordat, seeing a recollected that his fear of Catholicism went 1933, he made the concordat negotia parallel between papal absolutism and the back to his vagabond days in Vienna. The tions with Pacelli a priority. The negoti Fiihrerprinzip, the Fascist leadership prin factthat German Catholics, politically unit ations proceeded over six months with ciple. His views coincided perfealy with ed by the Center Party, had defeated Bis constant shuttle diplomacy between the Pacelli's on church-state politics, and their marck's Kulturkampf—^t "culture struggle" Vatican and Berlin. Hitlerspent more time ^Hnnn against the Catholic Church in on this treaty than on any other item of ipS^pj' the 1870s—constantly worried foreign diplomacyduring his dictatorship. ' him. He was convinced that The Reich Concordat granted Pacelli the his movement could succeed right to impose the new Code of Canon only if political Catholicism Law on Catholics in Germany and prom joined the Nazi Party, believlni ;.V and its democratic networks ised a number of measures favorable to were eliminated. Catholic education, including new schools. ithad the support of the Pope Hitler's fear of the Catholic In exchange, Pacelli collaborated in the ^ * Church was well grounded. withdrawal of Catholics from political and social activity. The negotiations were con --L . man Center Party, the German ducted in secret by Pacelli, Kaas, and Catholic bishops, and the Cath Hitler's deputy chancellor, Franz von Pa- aspirations for centralized papal power olic media had been mainly solid in theirre pen, over the heads of German bishops were identical. Kaas's adulation of Pacelli, jection of NationalSocialism. They denied and the faithful. The Catholic Church in whom he put before his party, became a Nazis the sacraments and church burials, Germany had no say in setting the condi crucial element in the betrayal of Catholic and Catholic journalists excoriated Nation tions. In the end, Hitler insisted that his democratic politics in Germany. al Socialism daily in Germany's 400 Cath signature on the concordat would depend In 1929, Pacelli was recalled to Rome to olic newspapers. The hierarchy instructed on the Center Party's voting for the En take over the most important role under the priests to combat National Socialism at a abling Act, the legislation that was to give Pope, cardinal secretaryof state. SisterPas local level whenever it attacked Christianity. him dictatorial powers. It was Kaas, chair qualinaarrived uninvited and cunningly, ac The Munich-based weekly Der Gerade Weg man of the party but completely in thrall cording to Pacelli's sister, and along with (The Straight Path) told its readers, "Adolf to PaceUi, who bullied the delegates into two German nuns to assist her, took over Hitler preaches the law of lies. You who acceptance. Next, Hitler insisted on the the management of his Vatican residence. have fallen victim to the deceptions of one "voluntary" disbanding of the Center Par Almost immediately Kaas,althoughhe was obsessed with despotism, wake up!" ty, the last truly parliamentary force in still head of the German Center Party, start The vehement front of the Catholic Germany. Again, Pacelli was the prime ed to spend long periods—months at a time Church in Germany against Hitler, however, mover in this tragic Catholic surrender. —in Pacelli's Vatican apartments. was not at one with the view from inside The fact that the partyvoluntarily disband Shortly before Pacelli's return to Rome, the Vatican—a view that was now being ed itself, rather than go down lighting, had his brother, Francesco, hadsuccessfully ne shaped and promoted by Eugenio Pacelli. a profound psychological effect, depriving gotiated on behalf of Pius XI, the current In 1930 the influential Catholic politi Germany of the last democratic focus of Pope, a concordat with Mussolini as part cian Heinrich Briining, a First World War potential noncompliance and resistance. of an agreement known as the Lateran veteran, became the leader of a brief new In the political vacuum created by its sur Treaty. The rancor between the Vatican government coahtion, dominated by the render, Catholics in the millions joinedthe and the state of Italy was officially at an majority Socialists and the Center Party. Nazi Party, believing that it had the sup-

VANITY FAIR OCTOBER 1999 gent struggle against interna- man cardinals and two influential bishops I tional Jewry." He was claiming arrived at the Vatican to plead for a vigor I that the Catholic Church had ous protest over Nazi persecution of the ' '* ••'"• »«i,. I publicly given its blessing, at CatholicChurch, which had been deprived I home and abroad, to the poli- of all forms of activit>' beyond church ser I cies of National Socialism, in- vices. Pius XI at last decided to issue an I eluding its anti-Semitic stand. At encyclical, a letter addressed to all the •"'-«• .....J" "* *'"••• »•"•.« 1,'"" / til® same time, under the terms Catholic faithful of the world. Written un r"-*•"* f of the concordat, Catholic criti- der Pacelli's direction, it was called Mil *" «—»ui. £ cism of acts deemed political by BivnnenderSoi-ge (With Deep Anxiety),and

♦"••Uu it was a forthright statement of the plight «»Mr»• •^*«««^ ••'N-/..#I.. .» . * _ Vr,ijj f Nazis could now be regarded XV*.*** f "foreign interference." The great of the church in Germany. But there was "•-«• ' ' "" I German Catholic Church, at the no explicit condemnation of anti-Semitism, '*"'** *•' *"* *** «.!- "" " * I insistence of Rome, fell silent. In even in relation to Jews who had con "LZT" 1 future all complaints against the verted to Catholicism. Worse still, the sub I Nazis would be channeled through text against (National Socialism f Pacelli. There were some notable and Hitler were not mentioned by name) was blunted by the publication five days later of an even more con demnatory encyclical by Pius XI jfi against Communism. 6 Iv :'

1 *• L T" he encyclical Mil Brennender 1 I Sorge, though too little and too I late, revealed that the Catholic p: Church all along had the power Above, a signed letter from f1 to shake the regime. A few days Pacelli to the Vatican identifying h later, Hermann Goring, one of Bolshevik revolutionaries in W Hitler's closest aides and his com- Munich as Jews, 1919. Right, mander of the Luftwaffe, delivered Hitler salutes supporters • atwo-hour harangue to aNazi as in Weimar, 1930. sembly against the Catholic cler- gy. However, Roman centralizing jpPPP had paralyzed the German Cath olic Church and its powerful web "A gang of young womenS^^P V exceptions, for example the of associations. Unlike the courageous grass ^ . sermons preached in 1933 roots activism that had combated Bismarck's all the rest of them, hung, t :-; 'I by Cardinal Michael von persecutions in the 1870s, German Ca Faulhaber, the Archbishop tholicism now looked obediently to Rome around the oificj^ wp provoi^^^3uV6 "''5 of Munich, in which he de- forguidance. Although Pacelli collaborated j ^ nounced the Nazis for their in the writing and the distribution of the en demeanor," Pacelii iwote.> - ^,js rejection of the Old Testa- cyclical, he quickly undermined its effects I ment as a Jewish text. by reassuring the Reich's ambassador in 5 The concordat immediate- J Rome. "Pacelli received me with decided i ly drew the German church friendliness " the diplomat reported back • into complicity with the to Berlin, "and emphatically assured me Nazis. Even as Pacelli was during the conversation that normal and port of the Pope.The German bishops ca granted special advantages in the concor friendly relationswith us would be restored pitulated to Pacelli's policy of centraliza dat for German Catholic education. Hitler as soon as possible." tion, and German Catholic democrats was trampling on the education rights of In the summer of 1938. as Pius XI lay found themselves politically leaderless. Jews throughout the country. At the same dying, he became belatedly anxious about After the Reich Concordat was signed, time. Catholic priests were being drawn anti-Semitism throughout Europe. He com Pacelli declared it an unparalleled triumph into Nazi collaboration with the attesta missioned another encyclical, to be written for the Holy See. In an article in L 'Ossena- tion bureaucracy, which established Jew exclusively on the Jewish question. The lore Romano, theVatican-controUed newspa ish ancestry. Pacelli, despite the immense text, which never saw the light of day. has per, he announced that the treatyindicated centralized power he now wielded through only recently been discovered. It was writ the total recognition and acceptance of the the Code of Canon Law, said and did noth ten by three Jesuit scholars, but Pacelli church's law by the German state. ing. The attestation machinery would lead presumably had charge of the project. It inexorably to the selection of millions des was to be called Unitas But Hitler was the true victor, and the tined for the death camps. (The Unity of the Human Race). For all Jews were the concordat"s first victims. As Nazi anti-Semitism mounted in Ger its good intentions and its repudiation of On July 14, 1933. after the initialing of many during the 1930s, PaceUi failed to violent anti-Semitism, the document is re the treaty, the Cabinet minutes record complain, even on behalf of Jews who had plete with the anti-Jewishness that Pacelli Hitler as saying that the concordat had becomeCatholics, acknowledging that the had displayed in his early period in Ger created an atmosphere of confidence that issue was a matter of German internal pol many. The Jews, the text claims, were re would be "especially significant in the ur- icy. Eventually, in January 1937. three Ger- sponsible for their own fate. God had cho- I VANITY FAIR OCTOBER 1999 senthemto make way for Christ's redemp make concessions over Germany's territo hacked to death with axes. The local priest tion, but they denied and killed him. And rial claims. After Hitler's invasion of Po- wasforced forcec to recite the prayers for the dy now, "blinded by their dream of worldly land, on September 1, 1939, he declined toing while his son was chopped to pieces gain and material success," they deser\'ed condemn Germany, to the baffiement of before his eyes. Then the priest was tor the "worldly and spiritual ruin" that they the Allies. His first public statement, the tured. His hair and beard were torn off, had brought down upon themselves. encyclical known in the English-speakinghis eyes werew gouged out. Finally he was The document warns that to defend the world as Darkness over the Earih, was full skinned alive.al The very next month Pacel Jews as "Christian principles and humani of papal rhetoric and equivocations. li greeted ' Pavelic at the Vatican. ty" demand could involve the unaccept ThrougThroughout the war, the Croat atroci able risk of being ensnared by secular hen something extraordinary occurred, ties contircontinued. By the most recent schol politics—not least an association with Bol revealing that whatever had motivated arly reckoning,recko 487,000 Orthodox Serbs shevism. The encyclical was delivered in Pacelli in his equivocal approach to the and 27,0027,000 Gypsies were massacred; in the fall of 1938 to the Jesuits in Rome, Nazi onslaught in did not betoken addition, : approximately 30,000 out of a who sat on it. To this day we do not know cowardice or a liking for Hitler. In Novem- populationpopulatioi of 45,000 Jews were killed. why it was not completed and handed to ber 1939, in deepest secrecy, Pacelli be- Despite a close relationship between the Pius XI. For all its drawbacks, it was a came intimately and dangerously involved Ustashe reregime and the Catholic bishops, clear protest against Nazi attacks on Jews and a constant flow of and so might have done some good. But ^~ ;. | information about the it appears likely that the Jesuits, and Pa- |f0 .• massacres, Pacelli said celli, whose influence as secretary of state Pacelli campaigned to remove black• '; and did nothing. In faa, of the Vatican was paramount since the Pope was moribund, were reluctant to in French froops from the Rhineland,',.43nd' •'' I warmcontinuedwishes totheto extendUs- flame the Nazis by its publication. Pacelli, when he became Pope, would bury the convinced they were raping womenl/VOmCn I- leadership.explana-The document deep in the secret archives. and abusing children. • I tion for Pacelli's silence was his perception of On February' 10, 1939. Pius XI died, at ^ Croatia as a Catholic the age of 81. Pacelli, then 63, was « bridgehead into the elected Pope by the College of Cardi East. The Vatican and nals in just three ballots, on March 2. He the local bishops ap was crowned on March 12. on the eve of in what was probably the most viable plot proved of mass conversionin Croatia (even Hitler's march into Prague. Between his to depose Hitler during the war. though it was the result of fear rather election and his coronation he held a cru The plot centered on a group of anti- than conviction), because they believed cial meeting with the German cardinals. Nazi generals committed to returning Ger that this could spell the beginning of a Keen to affirm Hitler publicly, he showed many to democracy.The coup might spark return of the Orthodox Christians there them a letter of good wishes which began, a chdlwar,and they wanted assurancesthat to papal allegiance. Pacelli was not a man "To the Illustrious Herr Adolf Hitler." the West would not take advantage of the to condone mass murder, but he evidently Should he, he asked them. st>'le the Fiihrer ensuing chaos. PiusXII agreed to act as go- chose to turn a blind eye on Ustashe atroc "Most Illustrious"? He decided that that betweenfor the plottersand the Allies. Had ities rather than hinder a unique opportu might be going too far. He told the cardi his complicity in the plot been discovered it nity to extend the power of the papacy. nals that Pius XI had said that keeping a might haveproved disastrous for the Vatican papal nuncio in Berlin "conflicts with our and for manythousands of German clergy. Dacelli came to leam of the Nazi plans honor." But his predecessor, he said, had As it happened, leaders in London dragged to exterminate the Jews of Europe been mistaken. He was going to maintain their feet, and the plotters eventually fell si shortly after they were laid in Janu normal diplomatic relations with Hitler. lent. The episode demonstrates that, while ary 1942. The deportations to the death The following month, at Pacelli's express Pacelli seemed weak to some, pusillanimity camps had begun in December 1941 and wish, Archbishop . the Ber and indecisiveness were hardly in hisnature. would continue through 1944. All during linnuncio, hosted a gala reception in hon PaceUi's first wartime act of reticence in 1942, Pacelli received reliable informa or of Hitler's 50th birthday. A birthday failing to speak outagainst Fascist brutality tion on the details of the Final Solution, greeting to the Fiihrer from the bishops of occurred in the summerof 1941, following much of it supplied by the British, Germany would become an annual tradi Hitler's invasion of Yugoslavia and the for French, and American representatives resi tion until the war's end. mation of the Catholic and Fascist state of dent in the Vatican. On March 17, 1942, Pacelli's coronation was the most tri- Croatia. In a wave of appalling ethnic representatives of Jewish organizations umphaiist in a hundred years. His style of cleansing, the Croat Fascist separatists, assembled in Switzerland sent a memo papacy, for all his personal humility, was known as the Ustashe, under the leader randum to Pacelli via the papal nuncio unprecedentedly pompous. He always ate ship of Ante Pavelic, the Croat Fiihrer, in Bern, cataloguing violent anti-Semitic alone. Vatican bureaucrats were obliged to embarked on a campaign of enforced con measures in Germany and in its allied take phone calls from him on their l^ees. versions. deportations, and mass extermina and conquered territories. Their plea fo When he took his afternoon walk, the gar tion targeting a population of 2.2 million cused attention on Slovakia, Croatia, Hun deners had to hide in the bushes. Senior Serb Orthodox Christians and a smaller gary, and unoccupied France, where, they officials were not allowed to ask him ques number of Jews and Gypsies. According to believed, thePope's intervention might yet tions or present a point of view. the Italian writer Carlo Falconi, as early as be effective. Apart from an intervention As Europe plunged toward war. Pacelli April, ina typical actof atrocity, a band of in the case of Slovakia, where the presi cast himself inthe role ofjudge ofjudges. Ustashe had rounded up 331 Serbs in a dent was Josef Tiso, a Catholic But hecontinued to seek to appease Hitler place called Otocac. The victims were by attempting to persuade the Poles to priest, no papal initiatives resulted. During forced to dig their own graves before being the same month, continli;i) on pacf. i89 I VANITY FAIR OCTOBER 1999 CONTINUED KROM l-ACr. U: d Stream Of marked down for death or gradual ex and trivialization. He had scaled down the dispatches describing the fate of some tinction." That was the strongest public doomed millions to "hundreds of thou 90,000 Jews reached the Vatican from denunciation of the Final Solution that sands" without uttering the word "Jews," various sources in Eastern Europe. The Pacelli would make in the whole course while making the pointed qualification Jewish organizations' long memorandum of the war. "sometimes only by reason of their nation would be excluded from the wartime doc It was not merely a paltry statement. ality or race." Nowhere was the term "Na uments published by the Vaticanbetween The chasm between the enormity of the zi" mentioned. Hitler himself could not 1965 and 1981. liquidation of the Jewish people and this have wished for a more convoluted and in On June 16, 1942, Harold Tittmann, the form of evasive language was profoundly nocuous reaction from the Vicar of Christ US. representative to the Vatican, told scandalous. He might have been referring to the greatestcrime in history. Washington that Pacelli was diverting him to many categories of victims at the hands self, ostrichlike, into purely religious con of various belligerents in the conflict. But what was Pacelli's principal moti cerns and that the moral authority won for Clearly the choice of ambiguous wording vation for this trivialization and de the papacy by Pius XI was being eroded. was intended to placate those who urged nial? The Allies' diplomats in the Vat At the end of that month, the London Dai him to protest, while avoiding offense to ican believed that he was remaining ly Telegraph announced that more than a the Nazi regime. But these considerations impartial in order to earn a crucial role in million Jews had been killed in Europe and are overshadowed by the implicit denial future peace negotiations. In that it was the aim of the Nazis "to wipe the race from the European 1 gree of truth. But a recapit continent." The article was re- ulation of new evidence I printedin Vie New York Times. II thishavetheregatheredwas clearlyshowsa thatde- On July 21 there was a protest L Pacelli saw the Jews as alien rally on behalf ofEurope's Jews L-" Tj • and undeserving of his re- in New York's Madison Square ^ I spect and compassion. He Garden. In the following weeks B felt no sense of moral out- the British, American, and BrazQ- B rage at their plight. The doc- ian representatives to the Vatican B uments showthat: tried to persuade Pacelli to speak ^ B I He had nourished a out against the Nazi atrocities. H striking antipathy toward the Jews as early as 1917 But still he said nothing. 3| in Germany, which con- In September 1942. President yB tradicts later claims that Franidin Roosevelt sent his per- omissions were per- sonal representative, the former •B formed in sood faith and head of U.S. Steel Myron Taylor, /ak to plead with Pacelli to make a statement about the extermination Hitler said tKeimofdat if of the Jews. Taylor traveled haz Papal nuncio Cesare Orsenigo ardously through enen'y territory to reach with Hitler at a New Year's reception created an atnidsphere that the Vatican. Still Pacelli refused to speak. in Berlin, 1935. Below, Pacelli, Pacelli's excuse was that he must rise above with and Hitler's would be "significant in the belligerent parties. As late as Decem deputy chancellor ber 18, Francis d'Arcy Osborne, Britain's seated on his right, at the the urgent stru^le against envoy in the Vatican, handed Cardinal siting of the Reich Concordat , Pacelli's deputy secre at the Vatican, 1933. international JewiV." tary of state,a dossier replete with informa tion on the Jewish deporta- tions and mass killings in hopes that the Pope would denounce the Nazi regime in a Christmas message. On December 24, 1942, having made draft after draf^, Pacelli at last said something. In his Christmas Eve broad- cast to the world on Vatican ^ Radio, he said that men of goodwill owed a vow to bring society "back to its immov- able center of gravity in divine law." He went on: "Humanity owes this vow to those hun- dreds of thousands who, with- out any fault of their own, ^^1|||||||| sometimes only by reason of R ,. their nationality or race, are

OCTOBER 1999 that he "loved" the Jews and respected intervention on their behalf could only entered the Roman ghetto area and round their religion. draw the church into alliances with forces ed up more than 1,000 Jews, imprisoning 2. From the end of the First World inimical to Cathohcism. them in the very shadow of the Vatican. War to the lost encyclical of 1938, Pacel- Pacelli's failure to utter a candid word How did Pacelli acquit himself? li betrayed a fear and contempt of Ju on the Final Solution proclaimed to the On the morning of the roundup, which daism based on his belief that the Jews world that the Vicar of Christ was not had been prompted by Adolf Eichmann, were behind the Bolshevik plot to de roused to pity or anger. From this point of who was in charge of the organization of stroy Christendom. nPHH the Final Solution from his head- 3. Pacelli acknowledged to rep- quarters in Berlin, the German resentatives of the Third Reich •yg ambassador in Rome pleaded that the regime's anti-Semitic pjacelll^ failure to utter acandid « with the Vatican to issue a public policies were a matter of Ger- protest. By this stage of the war, many's internal politics. The on Uie Final^lLition told ^9 Mussolini had been deposed and Reich Concordat between Hitler fl rescued by Adolf Hitler to run and the Vatican, as Hitler was the world that the Vicar ofChrist the puppet Salo regime in the quick to grasp, created an ideal ^ North of Italy. The German au- climate for Jewish persecution. was nol^u^d to pity or anger, ' 13 thorities in Rome, both diplo 4. Pacelli failed to sanction pro- g ma mats and military commanders, test by German Catholic bishops I fearing a backlash of the Italian against anti-Semitism, and he did M sMi populace, hoped that an immedi not attempt to intervene in the ate and vigorous papal denuncia process by which Catholic clergy collabo view, he was the ideal Pope for Hitler's un tion might stop the SS in their tracks and rated in racial certification to identify Jews. speakable plan. His denial and minimiza prevent further arrests. Pacelli refused. In 5. After Pius XI's , tion of were all the more the end, the German diplomats drafted a denouncing the Nazi regime (ahhough scandalous in that they were uttered from letter of protest on the Pope's behalf and not by name), Pacelli attempted to miti a seemingly impartial moral high ground. prevailed on a resident German to gate the effect of the encyclical by giving sign it for benefit. Meanwhile, the private diplomatic reassurances to Berlin There was another, more immediate indi deportation of the imprisoned Jews went despite his awareness of widespread Nazi cation of Pacelli's moral dislocation. It ahead on October 18. persecution of Jews. occurred before the liberation of Rome, When US. charge d'affaires HaroldTin- 6. Pacelli was convinced that the Jews when he was the sole Italian authority in mann visited Pacelli that day, he found had broughtmisfortune on their own heads; the city. On October 16, 1943, SS troops the pontiffanxious that the "Communist" solidarity with the Jews of Rome either partisanswouldtakeadvantageofa cycle him wouldbenefitonly the Communists. His silenceon the deportation of Rome's during their terrible ordeal or after their of papal protest,followedbySSreprisals, deaths.Thisspirimalsilenceinthe faceof followed by a civilian backlash. As a con Jews, in other words, was not an act of cowardice or fear of the Germans. He an atrocity committed at the heart of sequence,he wasnot inclinedtolift a fin Christendom, in the shadow of the shrine ger for Jewish who were wanted to maintain the Nazi-occupation the deportees, of the first apostle, persiststo this day and nowtravelingin cattle carsto the Austrian statusquo untilsuchtimeas thecitycould be liberated by the Allies. implicates all Catholics. This silence pro border, bound for Auschwitz. Church offi claims that Pacelli had no genuine spiritu cials reported on the desperateplightof But what of the deported Jews? Five days after the train had set off from the al sympathyeven for the Jewsof Rome, the deportees as they passed slowly who were members of the community of throughcity after city.StillPacellirefused Tiburtina station in Rome, an estimated 1,060had been gassedat Auschwitzand his birth. Andyet,on learningofthedeath to intervene. of Adolf Hitler, Archbishop In the Jesuit archives in Rome, I found Birkenau; 149 men and 47 women were of Berlin ordered all the priests of his a secret document sworn to under oath detained for slave labor, but only 15 sur vived the war, and only one of those was archdiocese "to hold a solemn Requiem by Karl Wolff,the SS commander in in memory of the Fiihrer." Italy. The text reveals that Hitler had a woman,SettimiaSpizzichino,who had servedas a humanguineapigof Dr. Josef There were nevertheless Jews who gave asked Wolff in the fall of 1943 to prepare Pacellithe benefit of the doubt. On Thurs a planto evacuatethe Popeand theVati Mengele,the Nazi medicaldoctor who performedatrociousexperimentson hu day,November29. 1945.Pacellimet some can treasures to Liechtenstein. After sev 80 representativesofJewishrefugeeswho eral weeks of investigation, Wolff conclud man victims. After the liberation, she was found alive in a heap of corpses. expressedtheir thanks"for hisgenerosity ed that an attempt to invade the Vatican towardthose persecutedduring the Nazi- and its properties, or to seize the Pope Fascistperiod."One mustrespecta trib in response to a papal protest, would Buttherewasamoreprofoundfailure ute made by peoplewhohad sufferedand prompt Italythat than Pacelli's unwillingnessto help the a backlashthroughout survived, and we cannot belittle Pacelli's would war Jews of Rome rounded up on October seriously hinder the Nazi ef efforts on the levelof charitable relief, no fort. Hitler therefore dropped his plan to 16. Pacelli's reticence was not just a diplo matic silence in response to the political tably his directivethat enclosedreligious kidnap Pacelli, acknowledgingwhat Pa houses in Rome should take in Jews hid celli appeared to ignore,that thestrongest pressuresofthe moment,notjust a failure to be morallyoutraged. It wasa stunning ing from the SS. social and political force in Italy in late By the same token, we must respect 1943 was the Catholic Church, and that religious and ritualistic silence, To my the voice of Settimia Spizzichino, the sole its potential for thwarting the SS was knowledge,there is no record of a single public papal prayer, lit votive candle, Roman Jewish woman survivor from the immense. death camps. Speaking in a BBC inter- Pacelliwas concerned that a protestby psalm,lamentation,orMasscelebratedin

iSK'GOLb Hampton'" miixbs*

MARSHALL 80a-29'2:-24Sa i •-..r view in 1995 she said, "I came back from just as we condemned on various occa corruption of his mortal remains a symbol Auschwitz on my own. I lost my mother, sions in the past the persecutions that a of the absolute corruption of his papacy, two sisters, a niece, and one brother, Pius fanatical anti-Semitism inflicted on the XII could have warned us about what Hebrew People." His grandiloquent self- " he Second Vatican Council was caDed was going to happen. We might have es exculpation a year after the war had end by John XXIII, who succeeded Pacel- caped from Rome and joined the parti ed showed him to be not only an ideal h in 1958. precisely to reject Pacelli's sans. He played right into the Germans' Pope for the Nazis' Final Solution but monolith in preference for a collegial, de hands. It all happened right under his also a hypocrite. centralized. human, Christian community nose. But he was an anti-Semitic Pope, a The postwar period of Pacelli's papacy, on the move. There was a new emphasis pro-German Pope, He didn't take a sin through the 1950s, saw the apotheosis of on history, accessible liturgy, community, gle risk. And when they say the Pope is like Jesus Christ, it 3 guiding metaphor ofthechurch is not true. He did not save a ^ of the future was of a "pilgrim single child. Nothing." people of God." Expectations We are obliged to accept that ran high, but there was no lack these contrasting views of Pacel- IjM|> ofthecontentionHoly Spirit,andandanxietylove.asTheold li are not mutually exclusive. habits and disciplines died hard. There were signs from the very t gives a Catholic no satis P outset that papal and Vatican faction to accuse a Pope of IK hegemony would not easily ac- acquiescing in the plans of quiesce, that the Old Guard Hitler. But one of the saddest Ik" would attempt a comeback, ironies of Pacelli's papacj' cen jji' As we approach the end of ters on the implications of his c', this century, the hopeful energy own pastoral self-image. At Rj' of the Second Vatican Council, the beginning of a promotion Qj' or Vatican II, as it came to be al film he commissioned about 2 called, appears to many a spent himself during the war, called S force. The church of Pius XII is The AngelicPastor, the camera jP reasserting itself in confirmation frequently focuses on the stat Q of a pyramidal church model; ue of the Good Shepherd in Q faith in the primacy of the man H in the white robe dictating in H solitude from the pinnacle. In I the tu'ilight years of John Paul According to the sole Roman fi II's long reign, the Catholic Jewish woman survivor • Church gives apervasive im pression of dysfunction despite Ms historic influence on the col from the death camps, Pius Xl| lapse of Communist tyranny in Poland and the Vatican's enthu "was an anti-Semitic Pope, the ideology of papal power as siasm for entering its third millennium he presided over a monolithic, with a cleansed conscience. a pro-German Pope." triumphalist Catholic Church in As the theologian Professor Adrian open confrontation with Com- Hastings comments, "The great tide pow ered by Vatican II has, at least institution HiPlP But it could not hold. The ally,spent its force. The old landscape has internal structures and morale once more emerged and Vatican II is now the Vatican gardens. The parable of the of the church in Pacelli's final years be being read in Rome far more in the spirit good shepherd tells of the pastor who so gan to show signs of fragmentation and of the First Vatican Council and within loves each of his sheep that he will do all, decay, leading to a yearning for reassess the context of Pius XII's model of Ca risk all, go to any pains, to save one mem ment and renewal. In old age he became tholicism." A future titanic struggle be ber of his flock that is lost or in danger. increasingly narrow-minded, eccentric, tween the progressives and the traditional To his everlasting shame, and to the shame and hypochondriacal. He experienced ists is in prospect, with the potentialfor a of the Catholic Church, Pacelli disdained religious visions, suffered from chronic cataclysmic schism, especially in North to recognize the Jews of Rome as mem hiccups, and received monkey-brain-cell America, where a split has opened up be bers of his Roman flock, even though injections for longevity. He had no love tween bishops compliant with Rome and they had dwelled in the Eternal City since for, or trust in, those who had to follow academic Catholicism, which is increas before the birth of Christ. him. He failed to replace his secretary of ingly independent and dissident. And yet there was still something worse. stale when he died, and for years he de Pacelli, whose canonization process is After the liberation of Rome, when every clined to appoint a full complement of now well advanced, has become the icon, perception of restraint on his freedom was cardinals. He died at the age of 82 on 40 years after his death, of those tradi lifted, he claimed retrospective moral su October 9, 1958. His corpse decomposed tionalists who read and revise the provi periority' for having spoken and acted on rapidly in the autumnal Roman heat. At sions of the Second Vatican Council from behalf of the Jews. Addressing a Palestin his lying-in-state, a guard fainted from the viewpoint of Pacelli's ideology of pa ian group on August 3, 1946, he said, the stench. Later, his nose turned black pal power—an ideology that has proved "We disapprove of all recourse to force ... and fell off. Some saw in this sudden disastrous in the century's history. •

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