In 1943, as the Second World War consumed Europe, two men stood on opposite sides of a hidden struggle. One sought dominion over the continent. The other was seen by millions as a protector of the innocent. The battlefield between Pius XII and Hitler was Rome, the Eternal City.
The opening of the Vatican archives has revealed much that was hidden for decades. Documents now show a frenetic, worldwide effort by the Pope and his diplomats to save Jews, alongside a darker story of Nazi plots, blackmail, and silence.
When Pacelli was elected Pope in 1939, the German press was openly unhappy. On March 3, 1939, the Berliner Morgenpost made the position clear, stating that Pacelli's election was not welcomed in Germany because he had always been hostile to National Socialism.
Hitler hated the Pope, and the Holy See considered Hitler a devil. Goebbels, the Reich's propaganda minister, wrote in his diary on May 24, 1942, that the Führer was inexorably determined to annihilate the Christian churches after victory.
Hitler explicitly told the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco that Pius XII was his personal enemy. Fascism and Nazism worked hand in hand to fuel a climate of hatred against the Pope.
In July 1943, Italy was exhausted by war. The Allies landed in Sicily on July 10, and Rome suffered a heavy American bombardment on July 19. Civilians were massacred, and the Pope broke protocol to visit the San Lorenzo district, the site of the bombing.
A photograph from that day entered history. It shows Pius XII spreading his arms wide, as if to protect the people of Rome. Meanwhile, Mussolini remained holed up in his palace, his regime's hours numbered.
The bombing of Rome was a turning point. People were losing faith in Mussolini as a leader. He was deposed, and the streets filled with exaltation. But the war continued.
On September 8, 1943, Italy signed the armistice. Romans suddenly understood they were still at war. Italian and German troops tried to hinder the Allied advance from the south.
What emerged was effectively a civil war, with Italians fighting Italians. In the south, Italians fought with the Allied armies. In the north, others remained loyal to the crumbling fascist regime.
People were forced to choose. Many chose the most difficult path, that of fighting Hitler. Then disaster struck Rome. The city fell to the Nazis, and the King of Italy fled in the middle of the night.
The Pope decided to stay in the Vatican. He told his cardinals it would require physical duress to remove him. He remained in the small 100-acre enclave in the heart of Rome.
The Vatican was completely vulnerable. It could have been starved out like a medieval siege if the Germans had cut off supplies. The Pope stayed because he believed his presence could protect the population from German wrath.
Yet the Pope's presence could not save Romans from hunger, suffering, death, and persecution during those 271 days. The Nazis and Mussolini's loyalists set up a ruthless government of brutal repression and violence.
Mussolini's regime became deeply repressive. It persecuted Jews and transported them to the death camps. Fear and hunger made it easier for the occupiers to control the population.
The Nazis' violence did not spare the church. Many priests joined the resistance, hiding Allied prisoners of war who had escaped from camps. They also guarded the weapons of partisans.
Their most serious crime in Nazi eyes was hiding Jews. These priests called themselves the partisans of the gospel. They knew the penalty for hiding Jews was death.
There was much discussion in the Nazi regime about what to do with the Vatican. At certain points, Hitler's government considered simply taking it over. A German plan existed to invade the Vatican, kill the Pope, or take him captive.
Kurbel's reports describe a meeting with Hitler the day after Mussolini's fall on July 26, 1943. That same evening, Hitler said it was enough, that they must invade the Vatican, take the Pope, and arrest the King of Italy.
Cardinal Maglione, the Cardinal Secretary of State, informed colleagues that he knew from Italian sources of a plan to invade Italy and the Vatican. There was also a plan to bring the Pope to Monaco, out of the Vatican, and put him in prison.
Karl Wolff was the military governor and supreme commander of the SS in Italy, in charge of repressing the Italian resistance. He was a Hitler loyalist. The plan was to invade the Vatican, kidnap the Pope, take him to a castle in Germany, and crush all resistance.
Wolff was in an unenviable position. He had to decide whether to disobey Hitler's orders. He took time, claiming he needed competent people to remove the Vatican's treasures and bring them to Germany. The operation, he said, would take four to six weeks.
Hitler was not happy. Through this subterfuge, Wolff managed to reach December without doing anything. In December, he met Himmler and told him the plan was crazy, that Germany was losing, and that resources could not be wasted on such a scheme.
The plan was never implemented. According to Wolff, he convinced Hitler that there were too many logistical difficulties. Hitler also worried about international public opinion.
Hitler may also have been restrained by the fact that he was a Catholic. Suppressing the Vatican meant antagonizing the headquarters of a religion followed by over a billion people. As his regime faltered, that was not a good idea.
Hitler did not occupy Switzerland, Sweden, Portugal, or Spain. He guaranteed the neutrality of these places. Invading the Vatican, a tiny but powerful neutral state, would have risked too much internationally.
Pius XII said he would not leave the Vatican, and even less Rome. He had given instructions and kept a letter in his desk drawer renouncing the papacy. It was signed but not dated.
If the plan had succeeded, the Germans would not have had Pope Pius XII. They would not even have had Cardinal Pacelli. They would have had Archbishop Pacelli as their captive.
The cardinals were instructed to go to Portugal and hold a conclave there to elect a new pope. If the Germans had kidnapped Pius, they would have held a simple priest while a new pope was safe elsewhere.
Vatican documents show the Holy See's extreme concern about a possible kidnapping. But there is little solid evidence from the German side. Plans discussed are not always written down.
Traces of the plan appear in letters exchanged by some fascist hierarchs. But no detailed written document has been found. Colonel Eugen Dollmann, a liaison between the SS and Hitler, said he would have known of such a plan and was skeptical it existed.
Karl Wolff testified about the plan's veracity, but his role is ambiguous. He was a tricky character who often exaggerated facts to be remembered as a reasonable man despite his uniform. He testified under oath in a canonization case and may have been imprecise.
What cannot be doubted is Hitler's pure anger and rage upon Rome. The Eternal City became the battleground between the devil and the Pope.
How do you fight evil? What weapons did the Pope have against Nazism? Pius XII tried to seek dialogue with Hitler. He tried to stop the abomination perpetrated on the Jews.
In the autumn of 1943, the Nuncio in Berlin, Orsenigo, obtained a private meeting with the Führer. When Orsenigo began to talk about the Jews, Hitler turned his back and nervously tapped his fingers against the window.
Finally, Hitler turned to look at Orsenigo. He grabbed a glass of water and furiously threw it on the floor. The Pope's representative had no choice but to leave.
A document records the Berlin Nuncio bitterly confessing the power of Nazism. No one, he wrote, can oppose the unrestrained material strength of the so-called Gestapo.
After 1943, Pius lived as a recluse in the Vatican, surrounded by the enemy at the gates. Yet even then, as persecution of the Jews increased, documents prove he acted.
An unpublished document from 1943 shows the Vatican taking an interest in the fate of a Jewish woman and recommending her to a monastery. The Pope ordered a complete change of policy, telling monasteries to open themselves up and let Jews hide there. The catacombs were opened.
Had the Germans known what he was doing, they would have stepped into the Vatican without hesitation. Castel Gandolfo, the Pope's summer residence, was also opened to the persecuted.
Most people are not aware that 17 Jewish babies were born in the Pope's own bed, the bed where he slept. Contacts in the upper echelons worked to give safe conduct to Rome and to hide people in monasteries and houses.
There is no doubt that priests did what they could. But a written formal order would have created more impact. They never found one.
All these things were possible because there was coordination. People risked their lives because it was a risky business. The Pope did what he could to engineer the situation and save as many Jews as possible.
The shame for the loss of six million Jews does not rest on his shoulders. It rests on those who had armies and did nothing.
Hitler did not succeed in kidnapping the Pope, but he had a terrible revenge in mind. At the end of the 19th century, Jews had an important role in Rome's community. In 1909, Rome even had a Jewish mayor, Ernesto Nathan.
In September 1943, the notorious SS officer Kappler arrived in Rome and ordered the beginning of the roundup of the city's Jews. Before that, he cut a nasty deal.
Kappler told the Jewish community he would save their lives and not deport them if they gave the Nazis 50 kilograms of gold. It was blackmail, the worst kind of cowardly blackmail.
The Jewish community had to decide what to do. Some thought that if they paid, there might be hope. The chief rabbi did not believe it would work and said everyone should get out. The president of the Jewish association said they were safe and could stay.
Not all German authorities favored the roundup. The commander of German armed forces in Rome, General Stahel, and parts of the German diplomatic community were against it. Kappler later claimed he tried to gain time.
Even the Vatican helped raise the gold. In just a few weeks, the money was raised and given to the Nazis. The Jews thought they were safe.
About 8,000 Jews lived in Rome. Hitler let it be known he wanted them all deported to the camps. On October 16, 1943, at 5:30 a.m., German troops entered the Jewish ghetto.
The Germans burst into houses and surprised Jews in their sleep. With weapons in their fists, they shouted orders. Families were given just 20 minutes to leave their homes and pack their belongings.
They were packed into a square. Pius XII was warned as he finished celebrating mass. He immediately ordered Cardinal Maglione to summon the German ambassador, Weizsäcker, who said the directives came from a very high place.
Maglione answered that Providence alone would never be enough. When the roundup happened, the Pope did not say or do anything publicly. There was no official protest and no official reaction.
That may have been the moment to say something that could have made a difference. Instead, the Pope set up underground negotiations and tried to convince the Germans to stop the roundup.
General Stahel was approached. Fearing an uprising by the citizens of Rome, he managed to convince Himmler to stop the roundup. Slightly more than 1,000 people were taken, and each one was a human life.
The chest with 50 kilograms of gold arrived in Berlin. But the pledge of blood was never opened. It remained abandoned in the bunker. Only 16 Roman Jews ever returned from the extermination camps.
The Pope may have helped stop the roundup, but he could not save the deportees. Wars are made of victories and defeats, and Pius XII knew this well.
Another man knew it too. Gino Bartali was a cycling champion, much loved in Italy. He won three Giro d'Italia and two Tour de France races. He was a major sporting figure and a Catholic.
During the war, Bartali used his fame to help Jews. He trained between Florence and Assisi, carrying false documents, passports, and identity papers prepared in Florence for people hiding in Assisi.
At one point, he was stopped and searched. He expressly asked that his bicycle not be touched, claiming its parts had been carefully calibrated for maximum speed. He is recognized by Israel among the Righteous Among the Nations for saving Jewish lives.
In the Vatican archives, researchers discovered many documents showing that Pius XII never stopped fighting Hitler. He fought him not just in Rome and Italy, but all over the world.
With the opening of the archives and the discovery of Hebrew files, something hidden until now is being revealed. A growing relationship between the church, the Vatican, and Jewish authorities is emerging.
The activity of the Pope and the Vatican was frenetic and knew no boundaries. Every diplomatic channel was open to try to save as many Jews as possible.
A network existed in two parts. One was local in Italy. The other spanned the globe. It worked through the nunciatures, the Pope's representatives in various countries, urged to help whenever possible.
One document shows Pius XII intervening with Horthy, the Hungarian regent, who promised to do everything possible. The apostolic nunciature in Budapest was actively dealing with non-Aryans in Hungary.
Horthy assured that he would enforce the demands of humanitarian and Christian principles. Adalbert Tuka was the prime minister of Slovakia, ruled at the time by Jozef Tiso, a priest who had established a pro-Nazi government.
Tuka, Tiso's right-hand man, showed no mercy to the Jews and did not listen to the appeals of the apostolic nuncio. He described Jews as an asocial, unassimilable race and pernicious elements that must be eradicated.
The example of Tuka shows how complicated the role of Catholics and the Vatican was in the Second World War. But the Rabbi of Jerusalem had no doubts about the Pope.
In a never-before-published document, Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog of Jerusalem wrote to Pius XII. He expressed deep appreciation for all the Pope did for their unfortunate brothers and sisters.
The rabbi wrote that the Pope followed the splendid example of His Holiness in realizing the eternal principles of religion. He asked God to reward and bless him, and begged him to do all he could to save the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the most tragic hour of their history.
In 1945, Europe was torn apart by war. The Pope prayed in its ruins. The Soviets were at the gates of Berlin, and Hitler was holed up in his bunker with his mistress.
But there were other rats, and the world wanted to know what would become of them. At Nuremberg, the Hitler gang went on trial. For the first time, criminal war leaders were judged by an international court.
Men who had planned world conquest and the death and enslavement of millions were tried under law. The question of their fate, and of the Pope's contested legacy, would echo for generations.