Did Hitler consider himself a Christian being that he said that he was a Christian in his 1922 book titled "My New Order?"

In view of the controversy that later surrounded the Concordat, Pacelli always argued that the Church had to accept the lesser of the two evils presented to it. Without the agreement, Catholics would have been left to the mercy of SA, SS and Gestapo hit squads. With the agreement, they at least had legal grounds on which to protest injustices. The Secretary of State was realistic enough to remark to a British Embassy official he understood perfectly that attacks on Catholics would not cease, but "they will hardly break all the articles at the same time." The Nazis may have heard Pacelli's opinions, but if so, paid little attention. An "Editors' Law" promulgated in December 1933 struck directly at free speech. All editors were required to become members of the Literary Chamber of the Third Reich and follow whatever directives might follow. In tandem with this gagging act, government censorship began to tighten relentlessly. Even individual typewriters could be impounded on the whim of local Nazi functionaries and as a result, a partial blackout fell on what was happening inside Germany.

In spite of the growing atmosphere of intimidation and fear, protests were made by senior clerics who challenged the Third Reich and its racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian policies. These included Bishop Clemens Count von Galen of Munster, Archbishop von Preysing of Berlin, Cardinal Bertram of Breslau, Cardinal Schulte of Cologne and possibly the most famous of all, Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Munich. His series of Advent sermons, preached from the pulpit of St. Michael's Church, aroused national and international interest. They proved so popular that thousands listened, with overflows into the streets outside. In the first of the sermons, preached on December 3 1933, Faulhaber defended Christianity by defending the people from whom it sprung: the Jews. He reminded the congregation that Christianity made no racial distinctions but asked only that its adherents should possess faith.

In March 1934, the published edition of his sermons, Judaism, Christianity and 'Germanism' was banned for its so-called outrageous slanders on the State. Faulhaber, undeterred, pressed on with denunciations of Nazi policy on Catholic schools, youth organisations, rigged elections, sterilisation laws, attacks on the Pope and attempts to replace Christianity with what he called 'ersatz' (fake) religious principles.

In another sketch, published by Der Stürmer in 1934, a Jew, standing before a picture of Christ on the cross, says: "We have killed him, we have ridiculed him, but we are still defended by his Church." [...] To give an idea of what the Nazis thought of Catholics, Löw presents an SS report, which states: "It is indisputable that the Catholic Church in Germany is decisively opposed to the governmental policy of opposition to Hebrew power. As a consequence, it carries out work in support of Jews, helps them flee, uses all means to support them in daily life, and facilitates their illegitimate stay in the Reich. The people in charge of this task enjoy the full support of the episcopate and do not hesitate to take away from Germans, including German children, the little food they have, to give it to Jews."

Training guilds, such as the Prussian Master Craftsman Association, announced that from 1935 onwards, only those enrolled in Nazi Party organisations would be accepted as apprentices. German Railways, employing hundreds of thousands, passed a similar ordinance the same year. Even farmers began issuing notices to the same effect, with shops advertising part-time jobs following suit.

"The days of the Cross are counted. We must deliver the German nation from the pernicious influence of Christianity." ~ Ludendorff, 1935

"In a certain sense National Socialism is religion, for it does not require its partisans to be convinced of the rightness of its teachings but to believe in it." - Paul Schnabel, 7/04/1935

The most important strand of Nazi policy was, essentially, to strangle Catholicism by eliminating all organisations supported by the Church, from schools and children's groups to Catholic Trade Unions. (By 1939, this had been largely accomplished.) Replacing them were National Socialist or "Community Schools", the workers Labour Front and the Hitler Youth with its female counterpart, The League of German Girls. One initial campaign against Catholic schools in Munich reduced the percentage of students attending from 84% in 1934 to 65% a year later. (1935)

The Vatican, seeking accurate information, found helpers in unusual quarters. A large and unrecognised army of witnesses passed along secret reports and documents. This ad hoc Catholic intelligence grapevine had, as one of its leaders, Dr. Joseph Mueller, an anti-Nazi Munich lawyer known for his coolness and dependability. As an officer in the Abwehr (Military Counter-Intelligence), he was able to move freely between Munich, Berlin and Rome. In his Abwehr bag he carried sheaves of documents giving a detailed account of the campaign being waged against Catholics inside Germany, and, after the Anschluss of 1938, in Austria. It was clear from Mueller's documentation that clergy were being singled out for ridicule, humiliation and punishment. The famous 'Currency' and 'Immorality' trials which peaked in 1935 and 1936, resulted in the imprisonment and fining of hundreds of clergy.

The 'Immorality' trials sought to destroy the reputation of Catholic religious, aimed in particular at those working in primary and secondary schools. Priests, monks, lay-brothers and nuns were accused of "perverted and immoral" lifestyles — euphemisms for homosexuality and paedophilia. The Gestapo set numerous traps in order to furnish bogus evidence. The New York Times carried a report in May 1936 describing priests who had been summoned to hotel rooms after desperate messages to administer the last sacraments were received. When the priest entered, the 'caller' would turn out to be a prostitute, planted by government agents. Photos would be later produced in court as irrefutable evidence of corruption. One notorious trial in 1936 concerned the Franciscans of the Rhineland town of Waldbreitbach. This was widely publicised and parents were warned in sanctimoniously penned editorials not to allow their children to enter Catholic schools if they wished to avoid corruption of the innocent. Even children themselves were encouraged to read the lurid accounts. In several cities, newspaper stands were purposely lowered so youngsters could read salacious and pornographic stories accompanied by cartoons in the pages of Der Stuermer (the newspaper controlled by Julius Streicher, notorious anti-Semite and anti-Catholic). Witness statements from children were produced in court by secret police whose testimony was not challengeable. Threats, bribes, brutal night-time interrogations and nervous breakdowns of the accused were reported in various newspapers outside Germany. In the USA, protest meetings and marches were organised as news of the trials spread. In June 1936, a petition was signed by 48 clergymen. "We lodge a solemn protest against the almost unique brutality of the attacks launched by the German government charging Catholic clergy with gross immorality," they wrote. "The good name of the Catholic priesthood is to be defamed, in the hope that the ultimate suppression of all Jewish and Christian beliefs by the totalitarian state can be effected." This protest was signed by Rabbis Samuel Abrams of Boston, Philip Bernstein of Rochester and Philip Bookstaber of Harrisburg, along with 18 other Rabbis and 27 Protestant clergymen.

The cumulative effect of these measures hit teachers in some Catholic schools very hard. A councillor of the Bavarian Ministry of Education announced that in 1936 alone, of 1,600 teaching posts formerly awarded to nuns, 600 would be transferred to secular staff. The councillor didn't explain what would happen to the employment prospects of the unfortunate 600. The economic effects of such enforced redundancy caused many religious houses to close down and nuns with academic qualifications were driven into low-paid occupations. Some returned to their parents or moved in with sympathetic relatives. Yet others applied for jobs in industry.

On occasions harassment could be disguised or even halted if a propaganda coup might thus be gained. In August 1936, for example, during the Olympic Games in Berlin, orders were given to stop measures against Jews, Catholics and Protestants and to hide show trials from the eyes of foreign journalists. The pause soon ended once the correspondents left Germany.

"The teaching of mercy and love of one's neighbor is foreign to the German race and the Sermon on the Mount is according to Nordic sentiment an ethic for cowards and idiots.” - Hans Hauptmann, 1937

In 1937, parents were asked to choose their child's school in front of two witnesses, usually SA men in full uniform. Hints would be given of possible future trouble and loss of employment if Catholic schools were chosen. Meetings were regularly held to vote on the issue of Catholic or Community Schools. In Speyer, a town of some 40,000 situated on the Rhine, one working man wrote to his bishop giving details of how his 'vote' had been obtained in 1937: " I was told to go to the Parish Council Offices. On arriving there I declared that I wanted the Roman Catholic school and prepared to leave. The local Nazi cell-leader held me back and wrote a note to my firm stating that because of my declaration I would be dismissed from my job. A police constable then told me if I didn't change my mind I would never obtain public work again."

The New York Times, on June 1, 1937, reported a Hitler speech referring specifically to the young: "We will take away their children. They shall not escape us."

The New York Times reported that Christmas 1937 would see "more than a hundred Protestant pastors and several thousand Catholic clergymen in prison." Although roving SA and Hitler Youth gangs were warned in general against turning prominent clergy into martyrs, threats and violence against priests became common. Sometimes, in the wake of local instructions, senior clergy would be intimidated.

He [Faulhaber] played a considerable role in the writing of the great anti-Nazi encyclical Mit brennender Sorge ('With Burning Anxiety') issued in March 1937. It denounced repeated attacks on the Catholic faith, the breaking of almost every article of the 1933 Concordat, and assailed Nazi ideology and political practice. The encyclical was smuggled into Germany under the eyes of Gestapo agents who had received warnings from Berlin to expect an important anti-Nazi pamphlet. Copies were secretly printed in various parts of the country and the underground Catholic network was engaged in distributing it to parishes throughout Germany. Hundreds of helpers, in cars, on motorbikes or bicycles, handed copies personally to priests, sometimes in the dead of night. The encyclical made it plain that the Nazis were intent on a "war of extermination" against the Catholic Church, and that after numerous rebuffs to diplomatic approaches from Rome, the Pope had decided to make a final stand. The government reaction to the encyclical was immediate. A formal protest was sent from Berlin to Rome, and equally swiftly rejected by Cardinal Pacelli. An enraged Hitler and Goebbels cranked up the propaganda machine and once more dozens of clerics found themselves arraigned on the hoary old charges of immorality and 'slandering' the Nazi state. Gestapo units were mobilised to find which presses had produced the encyclical: 12 were confiscated and the editors arrested. In one parish, Essen in the diocese of Oldenburg, seven girls were arrested inside the church as they handed out copies of Mit brennender Sorge after the Palm Sunday service.

The town of Baden in 1938 saw 41 nuns working in one textile factory, most former teachers. The government, twisting the knife, then announced that all nuns renouncing their vows would be automatically entitled to State employment, with guaranteed salary and pension rights attached. Thus, on October 27, 1938, Adolf Wagner, Bavarian Minister of the Interior stated with pride: "The denominational schools throughout the whole of Bavaria have now been transformed into Community schools."

Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich was shot at and Cardinal Innitzer's residence in Vienna was ransacked in October 1938. There was a notorious incident in the same month when Bishop Sproll of Rottenburg was manhandled and his residence vandalised. He later received an anonymous letter of apology from an SA man, forced to take part in the outrage: "I have always been proud of my country", he wrote, "But last Saturday, I was, for the first time, ashamed to call myself a German."



By January 1939 it was estimated that more than 10,000 Catholic schools had been suppressed and by the end of April that year the London Catholic Herald reported that a further 3,300 schools had been abolished by decree in what was described as "A black day for the Catholic Rhineland." Continued pressure was brought to bear on thousands of Catholic civil servants who were threatened with disciplinary measures or dismissal unless their children were enrolled in the Hitler Youth or German Girls League (BDM).

Matteo Luigi Napolitano, political science professor at the University of Urbino, Italy, told ZENIT that one of the Jan. 9, 1939, letters was even more explicit. It too was sent to over 60 prelates, and the instructions, written in Latin, "leave no room for doubt about the intentions of the Holy See and about Eugenio Pacelli's thoughts," the scholar said. The letter, he reported, reads, "Do not engage in saving only Jewish people but also synagogues, cultural centers and everything that pertains to their faith: the Torah scrolls, libraries, cultural centers, etc.)." The foundation explained that this point is important, because many historians have only acknowledged the efforts of Pius XII to save converted Jews, but the evidence seems to paint a different picture. It continued: "Since many of the critics of this papacy have not yet accepted the proven Nazi threat against the Vatican State and the life of Pope Pius XII directly, they seem not to understand that there was a need for deception sending only encrypted or verbal directives. "In many cases the historians are ignorant of the unique Vatican language sometimes using ancient Latin to express the hidden meaning of these requests." It added that "the terms non-Aryan Catholics, non-Aryans, and Catholic Jews all indeed meant Jews," thus coded so that "if documents were intercepted, this deception would not raise a red flag since the concordat signed in 1933 specifically provided protection for Jews who converted to Christianity." The foundation's president, Gary Krupp, underlined the mission "to identify and eliminate non-theological obstacles between religions," such as the discrepancies regarding the World War II papacy of Pius XII. In this light, he said, the foundation undertook a "document retrieval project of the war time era to publicly post as many documents and eye witness testimonies as possible to bring the truth to light." Elliot Hershberg, the foundation's chairman, stated that the organization "will continue to reveal as many documents as possible since everything we have found thus far seems to indicate the known negative perception of Pope Pius XII is wrong." The foundation has over 40,000 pages of documents on its Web site, along with eyewitness videos available for public perusal. Hershberg affirmed, "We also believe that many Jews who were successful in leaving Europe may not have had any idea that their visas and travel documents were obtained through these Vatican efforts." Ronald Rychlak, author of "Hitler, the War and the Pope," acknowledged that this discovery by the foundation is "another confirmation" of the "good works of Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church." He stated, "The important aspect of this document is that it shows what many of us have been saying all along: Efforts that appear to have been directed to protect only converted Jews actually protected Jews regardless of whether they had converted."

Such persecution was not confined to Germany. The Church in Poland also suffered severely. During the first four months of occupation following the September 1939 invasion, 700 priests were shot and 3,000 were sent to concentration camps (of which 2,600 died). By the end of the war, 3 million Polish Catholics had been killed in concentration camps. How many other Catholics--priests, religious, and laity—in other countries died for the faith during the Nazi era?

After the invasion of Poland in September l939, he [the Pope] denounced the aggression of the Nazis and proposed a peace plan.

"The Fuhrer is deeply religious, though completely anti-Christian. He views Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race... Both Judaism and Christianity have no point of contact to the animal element, and thus, in the end, they will be destroyed." ~ Joseph Goebbels, 12/28/1939

In 1940, he [the Pope] called for the triumph over hatred, mistrust, and the spirit of "cold egoism." The following year, he pleaded for the rights of small nations and national minorities, and condemned total warfare and religious persecution.

To make matters worse, by 1940 Hitler controlled Europe and Northern Africa, and was planning the invasion of Britain. The Vatican, officially a neutral country, was isolated. Hitler had plans to depose Pius XII, appoint his own "puppet" pope, and move the Vatican administration to Germany, plans which would have been executed if the war would have gone in the Nazi's favor. Who then was to come to the aid of the Vatican? Pius XII, who had to insure the survival of the Church, was very much alone. Nevertheless, Pius XII spoke out.

With the coming of war in 1939, Hitler insisted that overt persecution of Christians had to take second place to the effective prosecution of military aims. Others in the party held different views, believing it was a mistake to slow the Kirchenkampf, the battle against the Church. Martin Bormann, 'deputy' Fuhrer, reminded Heinrich Himmler in 1941 that the "influence of the Church must be entirely eliminated." In the event, however, the destruction was to be given a longer time-scale for accomplishment. A clue can be found in the published edition of Hitler's Table Talk, where he stated as part of a lengthy and rambling attack on the Church that: "I have numerous accounts to settle, about which I cannot think today. But that doesn't mean I forget them. I write them down. The time will come to bring out the big book."

“National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things.” - Adolph Hitler, 7/12/1941

A Jewish man is giving testimony to how his father was saved from the Nazis by being hidden in the Vatican by Pope Pius XII. This testimony is the latest collected by Pave the Way Foundation, which has been compiling documents and reports regarding the actions of Pius XII during World War II. Gary Krupp, the foundation's president, announced the latest testimony by Robert Adler, a member of the Alabama Holocaust Commission. Adler recalled how his father, Hugo Adler, was taken into the Vatican in 1941 and was hidden for five weeks. During that time, he met personally with Pope Pius XII on several occasions. Hugo was then sent through a Vatican network through France, into Spain, and then to Sosua, Dominican Republic. Robert said in his testimony that he found through research that the Nazis planned to first annihilate the Jews and then the Catholics. He noted that, due to this fact, the Pontiff conducted the rescue efforts in secret. He concluded that his father would have died if Pius XII had not intervened. Krupp expressed gratitude for Adler's testimony, affirming that "his coming forward with this most revealing recollection, has paid back an enormous debt owed to all of those who risked their lives by reaching out to save the victims to the Shoah."

“The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State.” - Adolf Hitler, 10/14/1941

“The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.” - Adolf Hitler, 10/19/1941

“Religion is in perpetual conflict with the spirit of free research.” - Adolf Hitler, 10/24/1941

“National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable.” - Borman, 1941

"You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"

“National Socialist and Christian concepts are incompatible. The Christian Churches build upon the ignorance of men and strive to keep large portions of the people in ignorance because only in this way can the Christian Churches maintain their power. On the other hand, National Socialism is based on scientific foundations. Christianity's immutable principles, which were laid down almost two thousand years ago, have increasingly stiffened into life-alien dogmas. National Socialism, however, if it wants to fulfill its task further, must always guide itself according to the newest data of scientific researches.” - Martin Bormann, 1942

“It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch Uin the next 200 yearse will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold." - Adolf Hitler, 2/27/1942

Besides these worldwide pleas for peace, the Vatican persistently issued communications to protest to Hitler which were attested to by Von Ribbentrop at the Nuremburg war trials, who said, "I do not recollect [how many] at the moment, but I know we had a whole deskful of protests from the Vatican. There were very many we did not even read or reply to."
Pope Pius XII also acted. According to Israeli archives, papal relief programs saved at least 860,000 Jews, more than any other agency or organization. His Holiness also allowed the Vatican diplomatic corps, which were protected by diplomatic immunity, to carry messages between the allied powers. Vatican Information Services also sent over 5 million messages for soldiers. During the Nazi occupation of Rome (September 1943 to June 1944), Pius XII helped to raise the Gestapo's demand of 50 kilos of gold of the Jewish community for "their safety"; unfortunately, the payment did not prevent the eventual round-up of Jews.
He also lifted cloister restrictions, allowing religious houses to offer refuge for Jews. He allowed the issuance of false baptismal certificates to Jews. These deeds do not even include the general relief efforts and distribution of food coordinated by the Vatican for the city of Rome. We must remember that any defiance of the Nazi regime meant immediate and severe retaliation. Jean Bernard, Bishop of Luxembourg, who has detained at Dachau, later wrote, "The detained priests trembled every time news reached us of some protest by a religious authority, but particularly by the Vatican. We all had the impression that our warders made us atone heavily for the fury these protests evoked."

Cardinal Sapieha, Archbishop of Krakow, wrote to Pius XII in 1942, "We must deplore that we cannot communicate Your Holiness' letter to the faithful, for that would provide a pretext for fresh persecution. We already have many who are victims because they were suspected of being in secret communication with the Apostolic See." Pius XII was burdened with speaking the truth while safeguarding the survival of the Church.

"The attention of the Tribunal is next invited to Document 840-PS, previously introduced into evidence as Exhibit USA-355. The Tribunal will recall that this was a Bormann decree of 14 July 1939, referring with approval to an earlier Bormann decree of 9 February 1937 in which the Defendant Bormann ruled that in the future all Party members who entered the clergy or who undertook the study of theology were to be expelled from the Party. I next offer in evidence Document 107-PS, Exhibit USA-351. This is a circular directive of the Defendant Bormann dated 17 June 1938, addressed to all Reichsleiter and Gauleiter -- top leaders of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party -- transmitting a copy of directions relating to the non-participation of the Reich Labor Service in religious celebrations. The Reich Labor Service, the Tribunal will recall, compulsorily incorporated all Germans within its organization." - 1946

When Pope Pius XII died on October 9, 1958, Golda Meir, then Israeli delegate to the United Nations, sent official condolences: "When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the pope was raised for the victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace." Dr. Raphael Cantoni, a leader in Italy's Jewish Assistance Committee added, "The Church and the papacy have saved Jews as much and insofar as they could Christians. Six million of my co-religionists have been murdered by the Nazis... but there would have been many more victims had it not been for the efficacious intervention of Pius XII."

Eugenio Pacelli - Pope Pius XII
Ronald J. Rychlak

Pope Pius XII, the Church's 262nd Pope, is probably best known today by the moniker originally bestowed upon him in post World War II Soviet propaganda: Hitler’s Pope. Perhaps no other world/religious leader has ever been subject of such a successful disinformation campaign. During and after the war, Pius was known as a champion of the Jews and other victims. That reputation continued through his life and for several years thereafter. Only after a renewed Soviet propaganda campaign in the 1960s did his reputation change. With the facts now available to us, it is time to restore the true picture.

The future Pius XII was born in Rome on March 2, 1876, as Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli. Young Eugenio was accepted into a prestigious seminary in Rome, the Capranica. He excelled in all of his studies, particularly languages; he became fluent in Latin, Greek, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew, and Aramaic. He also took classes at another great seminary, the Gregoriana. His demanding schedule caused him to develop a hacking cough, and the family doctor warned that he was on the brink of tuberculosis. That nearly ended Eugenio's study, but he had been noticed by Pope Leo XIII who permitted young Pacelli to live at home while completing his courses. He was ordained on Easter Sunday, April 2, 1899.

Pope Leo XIII had a program for training exceptional young clerics to serve in the Vatican diplomatic service, and two years after Pacelli was ordained, Pietro Cardinal Gasparri invited him into this program. Leo died in 1903, but the next year, the new Pope Pius X named Pacelli a monsignor and assigned him to a team that was charged with codifying Church canon law. For the next decade and a half, Pacelli served as a research aide in the office of the Congregation of Ecclesiastical Affairs. He also served as the Pope's Minutante, editing and correcting the Pope's speeches and minutes, and as a personal envoy from the Pope to the Austrian Emperor.

In 1914, Pius X named Cardinal Gasparri the new Vatican Secretary of State, and Pacelli was promoted to the post Gasparri vacated, Secretary of the Congregation of Ecclesiastical Affairs. Pope Pius X died later this same year and was replaced by Pope Benedict XV. When World War I broke out, Pacelli and Gasparri were charged with maintaining liaison with the hierarchies on both sides of the conflict, answering appeals for aid from all over Europe, and organizing a war relief program.

In the summer of 1917, Benedict consecrated Pacelli as bishop in a special ceremony in the Sistine Chapel and at the same time elevated him to the rank of Archbishop. Pacelli was then sent off to Munich as the papal representative to Bavaria. He presented the Pope’s peace plan to German leaders and worked to alleviate suffering by distributing food and clothing to the impoverished. He has been credited with helping 65,000 prisoners of war return home. In 1920 he was appointed an Apostolic Nuncio, and he eventually established two nunciatures, one in Munich and one in Berlin.

In 1929, Pacelli was recalled to Rome and elevated to the cardinalate. Early the next year he was made Cardinal Secretary of State. Working with Pope Pius XI, Pacelli opposed the expansion of nationalistic politics, particularly in Italy and Germany. In 1933 he negotiated on behalf of the Vatican for an agreement with Germany (the Concordat). While Hitler immediately used this agreement for propaganda purposes, it ended up being instrumental in protecting Catholics and the Catholic Church from the Nazis. By the 1940s, Hitler vowed to obliterate it.

As Secretary of State, Pacelli also made trips on behalf of the Pope to France, Hungary, the United States, and Buenos Ares. On his trip to the United States he became friends with President Franklin Roosevelt and the two coordinated efforts during the later war. In France, Pacelli made speeches against the racist “blood cult” that had swept across Germany. The Nazi press openly mocked him. In Hungary, Pacelli’s words were twisted by the Fascist press so that his condemnation of Nazism appeared to be a condemnation of the Jews. (The Nazis later did the same thing with Vatican Radio broadcasts.)

On March 2, 1939, Pacelli became first Secretary of State to be elected Pope since Clement IX in 1667. He crusaded for peace before and throughout WWII, and he forcefully denounced the extermination of peoples on account of race. The New York Times praised him as a “lonely voice” crying from the silence of Europe and said that he pointed his finger right at Hitlerism. Through the Pontifical Aid Commission, he operated a vast program of relief for all victims of the war. When Hitler occupied Rome in September 1943, Pius opened Vatican City to Jewish and non-Jewish refugees.

It is commonly estimated that the Church under Pius saved more than half a million Jewish refugees during the war. With his encouragement, a vast underground of priests, religious, and laity throughout Italy and the rest of Europe served as a covert organization dedicated to protecting Jewish and non-Jewish refugees from the Nazis.

When evaluating Pius XII’s actions during the war, many people ask why he did not speak out more directly against the Nazis. Recently opened archives show that the Vatican leadership worked very hard to strike the right balance of making its position clear (with Vatican Radio, its newspaper, and personal directives to Catholic leaders and organizations) without provoking Nazi retaliation. Certainly, during the war, leaders on both sides of the war knew where he stood. (In 1940, Pius cooperated with an attempted anti-Hitler coup, and he also sent the Allies advance information about German troop movements.)

The Pope was influenced by several episodes, including one involving a statement that he had smuggled into occupied Poland. The archbishop wrote back a note of gratitude but declined to have the papal message read publicly because of the retaliation it was certain to provoke against innocent people. As such, Pius let local bishops assess the situation and act or speak as was most appropriate in that locality. Many bishops, notably the future Pope John XXIII, took advantage of the 1933 Concordat by distributing false baptismal certificates and asserting the right to protect these “new Catholics.” The American bishops, who had a free press and did not put their clergy or lay people at risk by speaking out, made a particularly strong statement in late 1942. Pius thanked them for their collaboration.

The end of the war saw Pius XII hailed as "the inspired moral prophet of victory," and he enjoyed near-universal acclaim for aiding European Jews through diplomatic initiatives, thinly veiled public pronouncements, and the unprecedented continent-wide network of sanctuary. With the end of hostilities, the Pope concentrated on trying to help people recover from the ravages of war. Papal money was sent to every war-torn nation and distributed without regard to race, creed, or nationality.

Throughout the war, Pius had feared that a Soviet victory would mean that Eastern Europe would fall to Communism, and after the Allies' victory much of it did. The Soviets established several satellite state governments that were beholden to (if not dominated by) Moscow. Pius actively worked to limit the Communist influence in Western Europe, especially in Italy.
Until failing health forced him to restrict his activities, Pius XII was extraordinarily accessible. He celebrated more public masses and held more private audiences than any of his recent predecessors had, and each week he held a special audience just for newlyweds. He also used television and radio to reach out directly to the people.

In December 1954, Pius fell seriously ill, and his physicians feared for his life, but he recovered his strength and returned to work. During this illness, Pius reported an apparition of the Lord. After this, the crowds drawn to him grew even larger.

During his pontificate, Pius expanded and internationalized the Church by creating 57 new bishoprics, 45 of them in America and Asia. He also caused the percentage of non-Italians in the College of Cardinals to rise above 50 percent, paving the way for the eventual election of a non-Italian Pope. He replaced colonial bishops with native hierarchies, approved the "Dialogue Mass," and relaxed communion fasting rules. In 1950, he issued an ex cathedra proclamation defining the dogma of the Assumption of Mary.

In December 1949, shortly after the formation of the World Council of Churches, Pius formally recognized the ecumenical movement and permitted Catholic scholars to dialogue with non-Catholics on matters of faith. That same year the Holy Office issued a decree, with papal approval, stating that actual incorporation into the Catholic Church was not necessary for salvation. He also encouraged Catholic nuns to study theology, scripture, and psychology. His work encouraged his successor, Pope John XXIII, to convene Vatican II. As others have concluded, without Pacelli Vatican II would have been unthinkable.

During his lifetime, Pius XII’s opposition to Hitler was well known. Nazis condemned him, Jews thanked him, and rescuers cited him as their inspiration. At the time of his death, Israeli representative to the United Nations and future Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, said: “During the ten years of Nazi terror, when our people went through the horrors of martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the persecutors and to commiserate with their victims.” Nahum Goldmann, President of the World Jewish Congress, said: “With special gratitude we remember all he has done for the persecuted Jews during one of the darkest periods of their entire history.” Rabbi Elio Toaff, who would later become Chief Rabbi of Rome, said: “More than anyone else, we have had the opportunity to appreciate the great kindness, filled with compassion and magnanimity, that the Pope displayed during the terrible years of persecution and terror, when it seemed that there was no hope left for us.” More recently, however, some writers have raised questions about how actively he opposed the Nazis.

The serious controversy surrounding Pius XII’s wartime leadership began in 1963, with the publication and production of a play entitled The Deputy. It presented Pius as an unprincipled politician, possessed of an aristocratic coolness and eyes that had an “icy glow.” While there had long been suspicions, only recently was it established that the play was produced as part of a KGB disinformation campaign to discredit the Catholic Church.

In 2007, Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest ranking Soviet bloc officer ever to defect to the West, revealed the plan and his part in it. The order came from Moscow at a time of particular hostility toward the Church. After the war, new Communist regimes had convicted many religious leaders (including leading Catholic bishops in Croatia, Hungary, and Poland) in show trials on the charge of collaboration with the Nazis. By 1960, some of these charades were being exposed, most notably by Hungarian Cardinal Mindszenty, who had escaped imprisonment in 1956 and wrote his memoirs.

Virtually every person who had a significant role in seeing The Deputy published and produced – from the German producer who took orders from the German Communist Party, to the translator who sat on the Spanish Communist Party’s leadership panel, to the American publisher who considered Communism to be his religion - had close ties to the Communist Party, and many had ties to the KGB or its predecessor. They made sure that the play was published, produced, and promoted with an eye toward discrediting not just Pius, but the Catholic Church and Christianity in general. A side benefit – from the anti-Semitic Soviet perspective – was that this effort helped separate Jews from one of their recent close allies.

The Deputy is a seven-hour play, with Pius XII as the central, stationary figure. The Pope is not developed as a tragic figure, since he is neither tragically indecisive nor torn by his alternatives. Not only does this Pius lack Christian charity, but also simple human decency. The Soviets so overplayed their hand that even critics of Pius have called the characterization of Pacelli “so wide of the mark as to be ludicrous.” Nevertheless, with the Soviet propaganda machine behind it, the play reshaped Pius XII’s reputation so that it is now an axiom of popular culture that he was, at the very least, guilty of criminal cowardice and insensitivity in the face of the Holocaust.

Immediately after The Deputy premiered Church officials responded, as did Protestant and Jewish leaders (there were strong currents of anti-Semitism in the play). Jeno Levai, the leading scholar of the Jewish extermination in Hungary observed that it was a “particularly regrettable irony that the one person in all of occupied Europe who did more than anyone else to halt the dreadful crime and alleviate its consequences is today made the scapegoat for the failures of others.” The Pope’s statements, tributes from Jewish victims, news accounts from the time, testimony of those who knew him, and Nazi anger directed at him clearly show where the Pope stood.

In his first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus (Darkness over the Earth), released just weeks after the outbreak of war, Pius condemned the “Godless State” and deplored “the forgetfulness of that law of human solidarity and charity which is dictated and imposed by our common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men, to whatever people they belong.” His reference to an “ever-increasing host of Christ’s enemies” was a clear swipe at both Germany and the Soviet Union. He went on to condemn racists, dictators, and treaty violators (all terms which applied to Hitler and Stalin). Heinrich Mueller, head of the Gestapo, wrote: “This Encyclical is directed exclusively against Germany, both in ideology and in regard to the German-Polish dispute; How dangerous it is for our foreign relations as well as our domestic affairs is beyond dispute.” Allies dropped 80,000 copies of it behind enemy lines as propaganda.

In his 1942 Christmas statement, Pius spoke of the need for mankind to make “a solemn vow never to rest until valiant souls of every people and every nation of the earth arise in their legions, resolved to bring society and to devote themselves to the services of the human person and of a divinely ennobled human society.” Mankind owed this vow to all victims of the war, including “the hundreds of thousands who, through no fault of their own, and solely because of their nation or race, have been condemned to death or progressive extinction.” One Nazi report stated: “The Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order.... His speech is one long attack on everything we stand for... [He] makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals.”

After the liberation of Rome, Pius declared: “For centuries, [Jews] have been most unjustly treated and despised. It is time they were treated with justice and humanity. God wills it and the Church wills it. St. Paul tells us that the Jews are our brothers. Instead of being treated as strangers they should be welcomed as friends.” In an allocution to the sacred College on June 2, 1945, which was also broadcast on Vatican Radio, Pius noted the death of about 2,000 Catholic priests at Dachau and described National Socialism as “the arrogant apostasy from Jesus Christ, the denial of His doctrine and of His work of redemption, the cult of violence, the idolatry of race and blood, the overflow of human liberty and dignity.”
Father Robert Leiber, Pius XII’s private secretary and personal confidant during the war explained: “The Pope sided very unequivocally with the Jews at the time. He spent his entire private fortune on their behalf.... Pius spent what he inherited himself, as a Pacelli, from his family.” At the time, no one doubted his allegiance. Rescuer John Patrick Carroll-Abbing wrote: "Never, in those tragic days, could I have foreseen, even in my wildest imaginings, that the man who, more than any other, had tried to alleviate human suffering, had spent himself day by day in his unceasing efforts for peace, would – twenty-years later – be made the scapegoat for men trying to free themselves from their own responsibilities and from the collective guilt that obviously weighs so heavily upon them."

German foreign secretary Joachim von Ribbentrop testified at Nuremberg that he had a “whole desk full of protests” from Rome, many of which dealt with the treatment of the Jews. The Vatican, in fact, worked with the prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials, as the defendants faced charges stemming from their persecution of the Catholic Church. “Wild Bill” Donovan’s files from the prosecution team were put online by Rutgers University. They clearly show that the Catholic Church was a victim of Nazi persecution, not a co-perpetrator.

Beyond mere words, Pius also undertook actions on behalf of the victims of Nazi terror. The survival rates for Jews in Catholic countries were almost invariably higher than for Jews who found themselves under Nazi occupation elsewhere. During the war, in virtually every occupied nation, Catholic buildings were put into use as shelters for refugees. Church officials freely distributed false Baptismal certificates that could be used to avoid deportation. Numerous protests and objections were filed with the Axis governments.

Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer home, was used to shelter thousands of refugees during the war. A wartime US intelligence document reported that the “bombardment of Castel Gandolfo resulted in the injury of about 1,000 people and the death of about 300 more. The highness of the figures is due to the fact that the area was crammed with refugees.” No one but Pope Pius XII had authority to open these building to outsiders. In fact, his personal bedroom was converted to a nursery and birthing area, and about 40 babies were born there during the war.

The 1943-1944 American Jewish Yearbook reported that Pius XII “took an unequivocal stand against the oppression of Jews throughout Europe.” The head of the Italian Jewish Assistance Committee, Dr. Raffael Cantoni, who subsequently became the President of the Union of all Italian Jewish communities reported: “The Church and the papacy have saved Jews as much and in as far as they could save Christians.... Six millions of my co-religionists have been murdered by the Nazis, but there could have been many more victims, had it not been for the efficacious intervention of Pius XII.”

In 1945, the Chief Rabbi of Romania, Dr. Alexander Safran, expressed the gratitude of the Jewish community for the Vatican’s help and support for prisoners in the concentration camps. Grand Rabbi Isaac Herzog of Jerusalem wrote:

"I well know that His Holiness the Pope is opposed from the depths of his noble soul to all persecution and especially to the persecution... which the Nazis inflict unremittingly on the Jewish people.... I take this opportunity to express... my sincere thanks as well as my deep appreciation... of the invaluable help given by the Catholic Church to the Jewish people in its affliction." After the war, Rabbi Herzog visited the Vatican to thank Pius and the Holy See for “manifold acts of charity” on behalf of the Jews.

Critics of Pope Pius XII often resort to shallow caricatures depicting Pius as cold, aloof, and sometimes evil. This caricature, of course, is ridiculously off of the mark. Monsignor Hugh Montgomery, an English priest who knew Pope Pius XII well, wrote of him: “It must seem absurd to anyone who knew ‘Papa Pacelli’ at all to hear him described as ‘cold.’ He had a boyish eagerness of manner which was most attractive and a radiant smile.” That personality served him well for the 22 years prior to becoming Pope that he spent as an international diplomat in service to the Holy See.

Until failing health forced him to restrict his activities, he was extraordinarily accessible. He celebrated more public masses and held more private audiences than any of his recent predecessors had, and each week he held a special audience just for newlyweds. He shifted the time of certain services, to permit more people to attend. He also used television and radio to reach out directly to the people. As the New York Times reported, he “exchanged views with more laymen of different creeds and nationalities than any pontiff of modern time.” Because of all this, he was known as the “least stuffy” of Popes.

Pius died in 1958. The play that so affected his reputation was first produced in 1963. In 1965, Pope Paul VI proposed that "his great model," Pius XII, be considered for sainthood. For over 40 years, top Vatican scholars studied his life. Even before Pacepa’s revelations about the Soviet plot, they concluded that the allegations against him were part of a false campaign to denigrate his memory. Those who repeat the allegations are either misinformed, or they are intentionally misusing the history of the Holocaust to support a political cause (precisely like the Soviets did).

Pope Benedict XVI has called Pius “one of the great righteous men [who] saved more Jews than anyone else.” He also declared his predecessor “venerable.” The cause of Pius XII’s sainthood is still progressing. If he is eventually canonized, it will reflect a victory of truth both in his battles with Nazism and in the Church’s struggles with the Soviets.