Vatican City under the leadership of Pope Pius XII opted to pursue a policy of neutrality during World War II. Although the city of Rome was occupied by Nazi Germany from September 1943 and the Allies from June 1944, Vatican City itself was not. The actions of Pius and the rest of the Vatican leadership during the war have been closely scrutinized and criticized. Pius's supporters state that Pius employed diplomacy to aid victims of the Nazis and directed his Church to provide discreet aid to Jews and others, thereby saving thousands of lives. Critics, by contrast, have asserted that the Italian Church the Vatican oversaw was overtly pro-Fascist and that Pius's response to the Holocaust and other Axis atrocities was characterized primarily by inaction and silence.
Background
The Lateran Treaty of 1929 with Italy recognized the sovereignty of Vatican City. It declared Vatican City a neutral country in international relations, and required the Pope to abstain from mediation unless requested by all parties. In 1939, the city state was recognized by thirty-eight nations, with a diplomatic corps of thirteen full ambassadors and twenty-five ministers.Morley, 1980, page 8
Foreign relations
Pre-war mediation attempts As early as April 1939, Pius XII announced a plan for peace, hoping to mediate a negotiation between the major European powers on the brink of war.Chadwick, 1988, p. 61 The first leader contacted was Benito Mussolini, via Pius XII's usual go-between, Jesuit Father Tacchi Venturi.Chadwick, 1988, p. 62 With Mussolini's approval, the next day Cardinal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione contacted the nuncios in Paris (Valerio Valeri), Warsaw (Filippo Cortesi), and Berlin (Cesare Orsenigo) and the Apostolic Delegate in London (William Godfrey). The proposed Vatican meeting accomplished very little of substance: if there was any coherent position espoused by the Vatican among its various communications, it was appeasement.Chadwick, 1988, pp. 62-74 In particular, the Pope attempted to get Poland to accept the secession of the Free City of Danzig to Nazi Germany, a position Polish ambassador Kazimierz Papée (the former High Commissioner of Danzig) and the Polish government could not accept.Chadwick, 1988, pp. 75-76
In his 24 August 1939 radio message, just a week before war, Pius warned: "The danger is imminent, but there is still time. Nothing is lost with peace; all can be lost with war!"Vatican Archive – Homily of Benedict XVI, 9 October 2008
British historian Owen Chadwick drew four themes from the Vatican mediation attempts:Chadwick, 1988, pp. 77-78 a particular closeness to Mussolini, to the point of sending correspondence of his drafting, from the period May–August 1939; British and Polish disinterest in Vatican proposals, which were suspected of being pro-Italian and pro-German, respectively; major European powers viewed the Pope as "no minor pawn upon their chessboard"; and, above all, Pius XII wanted to ensure compromise between the Western powers to prevent Soviet territorial gains.
With Poland overrun, but France and the Low Countries yet to be attacked, Pius continued to hope for a negotiated peace to prevent the spread of the conflict. The similarly minded US President Franklin D. Roosevelt re-established unofficial American relations with the Vatican after a seventy-year hiatus and dispatched Myron C. Taylor as his personal representative. Despite the early collapse of peace hopes, the Taylor mission continued at the Vatican.Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum – The Vatican Files
Public statements Pius XII was resolved not to issue any public pronouncement that took sides in the conflict; this first manifested itself in a refusal to explicitly condemn the German invasion of Poland.Chadwick, 1988, pp. 79-81 Early on, Pius XII believed that the "rapid destruction of Poland meant the end of the war".Chadwick, 1988, p. 82
Summi pontificatus
Outbreak of war Summi Pontificatus ("On the Limitations of the Authority of the State"), issued 20 October 1939, was the first papal encyclical issued by Pius XII, and established some of the patterns of his papacy.Encyclopædia Britannica – Reflections on the Holocaust According to Chadwick, Summi Pontificatus exemplified both "the hesitancy and the care" of the pontiff.Chadwick, 1988, p. 83 While the letter was being drafted, the Second World War began after the invasion of Catholic Poland. In the lengthy document - over 10,250 words in the original Latin - Pius included passages interpreted by some as endorsing Catholic resistance and as criticizing the war, racism, antisemitism, the invasion of Poland and the persecutions of the Church.SUMMI PONTIFICATUS – Section 106 With Italy not yet an ally of Germany in the war, Italians were called upon to remain faithful to the Church. Pius avoided naming the belligerent leaders Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin as the evildoers, establishing the "impartial" public tone that was to be a hallmark of his pontificate: "A full statement of the doctrinal stand to be taken in face of the errors of today, if necessary, can be put off to another time unless there is disturbance by calamitous external events; for the moment We limit Ourselves to some fundamental observations."SUMMI PONTIFICATUS – Section 28 The Vatican's newspaper L'Osservatore Romano underscored the favorable response to the encyclical in Germany, quoting extensively from Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung's approving review.
"Anti-Christian movements" The Pope wrote of "anti-Christian movements" bringing forth a crop of "poignant disasters" and called for love, mercy, and compassion against the "deluge of discord". Following themes addressed in Non abbiamo bisogno (1931); Mit brennender Sorge (1937) and Divini redemptoris (1937), Pius wrote of a need to bring back to the Church those who were following "a false standard... misled by error, passion, temptation and prejudice, [who] have strayed away from faith in the true God".SUMMI PONTIFICATUS – Section 6 & 7 He wrote of "Christians unfortunately more in name than in fact" having shown "cowardice" in the face of persecution by these creeds:
Invasion of Poland Pius wrote of a persecuted Church108. "In the midst of this world which today presents such a sharp contrast to "The Peace of Christ in the Reign of Christ," the Church and her faithful are in times and in years of trial such as have rarely been known in her history of struggle and suffering". of a time requiring "charity" for victims who had a "right" to compassion, and of the suffering of the Poles:
Plan to increase "native" clergy; quotation of Biblical passage extolling vision where "there is neither Gentile or Jew" About midway through the encyclical, Pius wrote:
1940 meeting with Ribbentrop In March 1940, the Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop met with Pius. When Ribbentrop asked the Pope why he had sided with the Allies, Pius replied with a list of recent Nazi atrocities and religious persecutions committed against Christians and Jews, in Germany and in Poland. This led The New York Times to headline its report "Jews Rights Defended" and write of the "burning words he spoke to Herr Ribbentrop about religious persecution".
1942 Christmas message In 1942, Pius delivered a Christmas message over Vatican Radio, which voiced concern for the victims of the Nazis' genocidal policies.Encyclopædia Britannica, "World War Two – German-occupied Europe" From May 1942, the Nazis had commenced their industrialized slaughter of the Jews of Europe – the Final Solution. Romani people and others were also marked for extermination. The Pope addressed the racial persecutions in the following terms:
The New York Times called Pius "a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent."
The speech was made in the context of the near total domination of Europe by the armies of Nazi Germany, although the war had turned in favour of the Allies on all fronts. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, Pius refused to say more "fearing that public papal denunciations might provoke the Hitler regime to brutalize further those subject to Nazi terror – as it had when Dutch bishops publicly protested earlier in the year – while jeopardizing the future of the church".
Contacts to the German military opposition
In the winter of 1939/40, the Bavarian lawyer and reserve 'Abwehr' officer Josef Müller, acting as an emissary for the early German military opposition against Hitler then centered around General Franz Halder, the chief of staff of the German army, contacted Monsignore Ludwig Kaas, the exiled leader of the German Catholic Zentrum party, in Rome, hoping to use the Pope as an intermediary to contact the British.Chadwick, 1988, pp. 86-87 Kaas put Müller in contact with Father Robert Leiber, who personally asked the Pope to relay the information about the German resistance to the British.Chadwick, 1988, p. 87 After more than a day of "quiet reflection", Pius XII agreed to pass the information along to the British. However he refused to pass the information along to the French or even to his own Secretariat of State.Chadwick, 1988, p. 88
The Pope's Private Secretary, Robert Leiber, met with Müller, who visited Rome in 1939 and 1940.Peter Hoffmann; The History of the German Resistance 1933–1945; 3rd Edn (First English Edn); McDonald & Jane's; London; 1977; p.161 & 294 The Vatican considered Müller to be a representative of Colonel-General Beck and agreed to offer the machinery for mediation.Peter Hoffmann; The History of the German Resistance 1933–1945; 3rd Edn (First English Edn); McDonald & Jane's; London; 1977; p.160William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; p648-9 Oster, Wilhelm Canaris and Hans von Dohnányi, backed by Beck, told Müller to ask Pius to ascertain whether the British would enter negotiations with the German opposition which wanted to overthrow Hitler. The British agreed to negotiate, provided the Vatican could vouch for the opposition's representative. Pius, communicating with British envoy D'Arcy Osborne, channelled communications back and forth in secrecy. The Vatican agreed to send a letter outlining the bases for peace with Britain, and the participation of the Pope was used to try to persuade senior German Generals Halder and Brauchitsch to act against Hitler.John Toland; Hitler; Wordsworth Editions; 1997 Edn; p.760