Pius XII.
Pius XII. (real name Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli ; * March 2, 1876 in Rome , † October 9, 1958 in Castel Gandolfo ) was Pope from March 2, 1939 until his death .
Origin and education
Eugenio Pacelli was born in Rome on March 2, 1876 and two days later he was baptized by his uncle Don Giuseppe Pacelli in the parish church of San Celso e Giuliano in Rome. His family had for generations with the Vatican connected: His grandfather Marcantonio Pacelli was (1804-1902) founder of the Osservatore Romano and 1850-1870 Vice-Minister of the Interior in the Papal States . His father Filippo Pacelli (1837-1916) was a lawyer for the Holy See during the unresolved " Roman question " and involved in the codification of canon law . Pacelli's mother was Virginia Pacelli, née Grazioso (1844–1920). Eugenio was her second son after Francesco and had two younger sisters, Giuseppa Mengarini and Elisabetta Rossignani. His older brother Francesco (1872–1935), as a papal diplomat, was instrumental in the negotiations on the Lateran Treaty ; In 1939, at Mussolini's suggestion, his family was elevated to the hereditary Italian prince status.
Eugenio Pacelli attended the state high school Liceo Ennio Quirino Visconti in Rome, was always top of the class there and was then promoted as a gifted student by Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli , a friend of his father's. His preferences included horse riding, swimming, and classical music; he played the violone . After graduating from school in 1894, he first studied philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University and at the Capranica College , then Catholic theology at the Pontifical Institute of Sant'Apollinare . For a year he was a guest student at the state university La Sapienza , among others with the German ancient historian Karl Julius Beloch . Since the second semester he was allowed to live at home with special papal permission due to health problems until his exam in 1899.
On April 2, 1899, an Easter Sunday , Francesco di Paola Cassetta , the representative of the Cardinal Vicar of Rome and Latin Patriarch of Antioch, ordained Pacelli as a priest . In 1901 Pacelli was promoted to Dr. theol. PhD . In the same year he entered the service of the Vatican Cardinal Secretary of State Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro on Vannutelli's recommendation . In 1902 he was promoted to Dr. iur. can. PhD. With that he decided to pursue a career as a church diplomat in his family tradition. On October 3, 1903 he became a minutant (clerk) in the newly created Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs under Pietro Gasparri , with whom he drafted the Codex Iuris Canonici approved in 1917 , the first universal ecclesiastical code. In 1908 Pacelli refused an appointment to the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC at the request of the Pope . In 1909 he became a professor at the Pontifical Diplomatic Academy in Rome. From 1909 to 1914 he was also professor of canon law at the Institut Sant'Apollinare.
On March 7, 1911, he became Gasparri's Undersecretary, and on February 1, 1914, he was Secretary to succeed Umberto Benigni . Whether he was also involved in its secret service Sodalitium Pianum is controversial.
From 1912 Pacelli was consultor to the Holy Office . In June 1914 he reached a concordat with the then Kingdom of Serbia and thus acquired the reputation of a specialist for such contracts.
Apostolic Nuncio
With the beginning of the First World War in 1914, Pope Benedict XV. Pacelli headed the Vatican's humanitarian work. Until the end of the war he collected information on prisoners of war from all warring parties and prepared their exchange.
On April 20, 1917, the Pope appointed him Nuncio to the Apostolic Nunciature in Munich and consecrated him on May 13 as Titular Archbishop of Sardis . Since there was no nuncio in Prussia at that time , he represented the Vatican throughout the German Empire . Since June 1917 he was supposed to advertise a papal peace initiative with the German government. From June 26th to 28th, he negotiated with Reich Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg , and on June 29th, Kaiser Wilhelm II received him for 30 minutes. On July 24th, Pacelli submitted a mediation draft with seven peace conditions to the emperor and answered his objections. Assuming that the emperor was ready to compromise, supported by his report, the Pope published his peace appeal Dès le début on August 1, 1917 . But all warring parties rejected the proposals contained therein. Pacelli then refrained from Benedict's line that the Vatican must actively campaign for peace through its own initiatives and henceforth advocated strict neutrality on political issues.
On April 29, 1919, the Nunciature in Munich was occupied by supporters of the Munich Soviet Republic , especially the Pongratz group, which was subordinate to Eugen Leviné . Pacelli was threatened with a revolver and his company car was confiscated, but after several protests, it was returned damaged a few days later. Pacelli, however, attached “no anti-religious character” to this process and viewed it as a trifle.
In his reports to the Vatican, Pacelli adopted polemics against the Soviet republic, especially among the protagonists Eugen Leviné and Max Levien, as "very harsh Russian-Jewish revolutionary tyranny". Hubert Wolf therefore comes to the conclusion: “The idea of the Jewish-Bolshevik world conspiracy was propagated by the German right with a completely different intensity and with completely different goals; But the nuncio was not completely unaffected by such slogans. "
Michael F. Feldkamp assesses Pacelli's attitude towards the Soviet Republic: “Although the course of the revolutionary months [...] gave the anti-communist and - because of the participation of Jewish-Russian revolutionaries - the anti-Semitic propaganda in Bavaria a strong boost, the personal modesty, patience and to want [...] credible expose restraint Pacelli than trying to become Pope in the first years of his Munich stay as early anti-Semites. "Feldkamp underlines this, among others, with Pacelli's intervention on behalf of the Jewish community in Munich, the ban on imports of much needed palm fronds for to bypass the feast of tabernacles from Italy - also contrary to canon law.
On June 22, 1920 Pacelli was appointed nuncio for the Weimar Republic . Since March 1923 he observed with concern the anti-Catholic tendencies of right-wing Protestants who viewed and fought against the Jesuits and Jews as common enemies of Germanness , and therefore warned against ecumenical rapprochement. He experienced the Hitler-Ludendorff putsch on 8/9. November 1923 in Munich, reported directly to the Vatican and emphasized its anti-Catholic character. In May 1924 he called National Socialism “perhaps the most dangerous heresy of our time”.
On August 18, 1925, he moved his official residence to the new palace of the Reichsnunciature in Berlin-Tiergarten . He now spoke fluent German and employed German staff who stayed with him until the end of his life. From 1918 to 1930 he spent his summer holidays in the Swiss town of Rorschach on Lake Constance with the Menzing Sisters of Education from the Holy Cross . His lifelong housekeeper and secretary Pascalina Lehnert came from this congregation .
After the new Pope Pius XI took office. he negotiated for this concordat between the Vatican and the states of Bavaria (1924) and Prussia (1929). He prepared a concordat with Baden ; the desired Concordat with the German Reich did not materialize. In August 1929 he sent the Vienna Nuncio a detailed report on Adolf Hitler , whom he portrayed as a "notorious political agitator" whose attempted coup rightly failed. According to Pascalina Lehnert's memory , Pacelli is said to have said about Hitler in 1929:
“This person is completely obsessed with himself, everything that does not serve him, he rejects what he says and writes, bears the stamp of his selfishness, this person walks over corpses and kicks whatever is in his way - I can only do not understand that even so many of the best in Germany do not see this or at least draw a lesson from what he writes and says. - Who of all these has even read the hair-raising book ' Mein Kampf '? "
On December 9, 1929, Pacelli was recalled from Germany and passed by President Paul von Hindenburg . On December 16, the Pope appointed him cardinal at the titular church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo . He asked the Pope several times in vain to be allowed to become diocesan bishop of an Italian diocese.
Cardinal Secretary of State
After Gasparri's resignation, the Pope appointed Pacelli as cardinal secretary of state on February 7, 1930 , and on March 25 also as archpriest and asset manager of St. Peter's Basilica . From then on, Pacelli was the Pope's most important foreign policy advisor and collaborator. Throughout the year he met the Pope about every two days for an audience on all current questions, the results of which he noted, as well as his answers to diplomatic inquiries for private use. These notes, which have been accessible since 2003, allow insights into his administration and decisions. His office was given additional weight because the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs , which was responsible for special foreign policy events, was hardly convened from 1930 to 1939.
Concordat Policy
Pacelli signed the Concordat with Baden on October 12, 1932, the Concordat with the Republic of Austria on June 5, 1933, and the Reich Concordat with the National Socialist government on July 8, which came into force on July 20. This was preceded by Hitler's church-friendly government declaration (March 23, 1933), the withdrawal of the decrees of the German bishops who had declared the incompatibility of Catholicism and National Socialism (March 28), the approval of the Catholic Center Party to the Enabling Act (March 23), its self-dissolution (July 5, 1933) and the foreseeable conformity of the Catholic associations. That is why Pius XI. and Pacelli now state guarantees for the practice of Catholic religion: as in the case of the Italian Concordat with Benito Mussolini in 1929 , the Vatican committed itself to political neutrality. This met Hitler's intention to legally prevent political activities of the German dioceses, Catholic orders and associations and to gain international prestige.
Before 1933 Pacelli had advocated a coalition of the Center Party with the DNVP , which then formed a coalition with the NSDAP.
After the so-called Anschluss of Austria on March 12, 1938, Austria's Catholic bishops assured Hitler of their unconditional loyalty to Hitler on March 18. They hoped that this would keep the Austrian Concordat. Thereupon Pacelli published a correction in the Osservatore Romano on April 6, 1938 : The Vatican had not authorized the Austrian bishop's declaration. In addition, he declared US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a secret memorandum on April 19, 1938: The Vatican will never be ready to approve an agreement between bishops and / or governments that “contradicts divine commandments and freedom and the Rights of the Church ”. The German government continuously disregarded the Reich Concordat and the efforts of the Vatican to balance interests. In the months that followed, Hitler did not keep his promise to respect the Austrian Concordat and did not extend the Reich Concordat to Austria. Pacelli's negotiations with Gauleiter Josef Bürckel , in which the legal status of the Austrian episcopate was to be clarified, finally failed in August 1938.
By 1939 Pacelli toured many countries in Europe and America, including South America in 1934 and the United States in October and November 1936 . This is how he became internationally known. Pacelli also mediated in the conflict between the Roman Catholic Church and the government of Mexico (1934) and in the Spanish Civil War (1936). The murder of thousands of Catholic priests in the course of this increased fear of Bolshevism in the Vatican . On March 19, 1937, the encyclical Divini redemptoris was published , which condemned “atheist Soviet communism” and named states where Christians were persecuted on the basis of communist ideology.
"With burning concern"
Pacelli had often sent papal protest notes to the Reich government against frequent attacks by the SA and Gestapo on Catholic groups. In July 1936 he informed the German Bishops' Conference of the Pope's intention to issue a pastoral letter on these violations of law. In a preliminary meeting, however, the German bishops asked for an encyclical . Pacelli wanted to prevent any official condemnation of National Socialism that could act as a unilateral political statement, and only consented to this request after the Pope had decided on a corresponding condemnation of communism. He then prepared the final version of the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge , which appeared on March 21, 1937.
He revised the preliminary draft of Cardinal Michael Faulhaber with the help of an expert opinion available to him, in which the Holy Office defined National Socialist ideologies as false doctrines and rejected them. This secret syllabus was only discovered in 2004 through the opening of the Vatican archives from the time of the pontificate of Pius XI. (until 1939) known.
Pacelli preceded Faulhaber's draft with an introduction complaining about the Nazi regime's violations of the Reich Concordat. Faulhaber's introduction spoke of “great concern” about “the development of ecclesiastical religious life” in Germany; Pacelli changed this to "burning concern and increasing alienation" about "the ordeal of the Church, the growing distress of the confessors who remain faithful in their thoughts and deeds".
In order not to give the Nazi regime an excuse to terminate the Concordat, Pacelli's introduction emphasized that it came about at his request. The government alone is responsible for the breaches of contract:
“If the tree of peace that We have sunk into the German soil with pure intentions has not produced the fruits that We longed for in the interests of your people, then nobody in the wide world who has eyes to see and ears to hear will today can still say that the guilt lies on the part of the church and its leader. The object lessons of the past few years clarify the responsibilities. "
In contrast to the encyclical against communism, however, specific crimes against Christians and non-Christians remained unnamed.
In the second, theological part, Pacelli added a passage on Catholic Church Doctrine that began with the sentence:
"The Church founded by the Savior is one - for all peoples and nations."
In it there is space for the development of the special characteristics of every national community , the diversity of which the Church welcomes and promotes. God's law of unity set a limit to the separation of nations in the church. This highlighted the Catholic alternative to the National Socialist racial doctrine , which denied the unity of humanity and divided it into hostile races and peoples.
He also added the following sentence:
"Whoever makes the race or the people or the state or the form of government [...] the highest norm of all, including religious values, and idolizes them with idol worship, perverts and falsifies the God-made and God-commanded order of things."
Pacelli did not mention National Socialism by name, but referred to the idea of a "national God" and a "national religion" as heresy. Pacelli left out the fact that the church's claim to authority also extended to the validity and preservation of human rights , as emphasized in the Office's report, and noted:
"The Pope does not want to rule out the hope, however small it may be, that the situation could improve."
Church historians assess Pacelli's revision differently: According to Johanna Schmid , Pacelli tightened Faulhaber's draft and emphasized the magisterial criticism of the ideology of National Socialism more precisely. According to Gerhard Besier , a Protestant theologian, he had weakened the opinion of the Office, which explicitly and precisely stated the incompatibility of Catholic teaching with Nazi ideology, to a cautious diplomatic compromise. Besier agreed with Peter Godman , who had described the encyclical as marking "a retreat". However, the encyclical was secretly brought into the German Reich under the strictest of secrecy and with great probability also with the approval and support of Pacelli, copied at night in darkened printing works and read out in all Catholic parishes on March 21, 1937. The National Socialists reacted with house searches, arrests, closings of Catholic schools and faculties, expropriations and further dissolution of Catholic organizations and associations.
Attitude towards the persecution of the Jews until 1939
Ambassadors, bishops and nuncios kept Pacelli continuously, early and in detail informed about the situation in Germany, especially about the intensifying persecution of Jews. Since January 1933, many prominent people asked him to influence the Pope in order to publicly denounce the persecution of the Jews. But Pacelli spoke on this subject in his regular audiences with Pius XI. 1933–1939, according to the files, almost never responded and left all but one of the petition letters unanswered.
On April 1, 1933 - the day of the boycott of the Jews - the Pope instructed him to sound out “whether and if so what” the Holy See could do against “anti-Semitic excesses in Germany”. Pacelli noted: “There could come days in which one has to be able to say that something has been done in this matter.” In response to his inquiry, Nuncio Cesare Orsenigo pointed out the “ Law to Restore the Professional Civil Service ” on April 8th : henceforth advocating for the Jews is identical to protesting against a state law. The Vatican could not possibly interfere in internal state affairs, especially since it had not previously protested against "anti-German propaganda". He had to stay out of the way and leave positions on the “ Jewish question ” to the German bishops. Pacelli followed suit, although the German bishops did not protest against violations of human and civil rights either, but at best stood up for baptized Jews .
On April 9, 1933, the Viennese rabbi and Hebraist Arthur Zacharias Schwarz, who had been friends with the Pope since 1920, appealed to Pius XI through Pacelli.
"If it were possible for Your Holiness to say that the injustice done against the Jews remains an injustice , such a word would increase the courage and morale of millions of my Jewish brothers."
On April 22nd, New York Rabbi William Margolis telegraphed to him:
“In the name of all that is sacred to Christianity, I beg you to raise your voice to clearly condemn Hitler's persecution. Your criticism will have far-reaching influence on the German government [...] and lead to a change in policy. "
According to his notes, Pacelli did not make any of these requests to the Pope, only those of Edith Stein . The Catholic woman of Jewish origin, who was unknown in the Vatican at the time, described the persecution of the Jews with great depth and blamed the Nazi government for many suicides among those persecuted. This responsibility also falls “on those who keep silent”. Not only Jews, but also thousands of Catholics have been waiting for weeks for “the Church of Jesus Christ to raise their voices” in order to “put a stop” to the persecution of Jews by a government calling itself Christian. Archabbot Raphael Walzer personally delivered her letter to Pacelli on April 12, 1933. On April 20 he replied to Walzer that he had "dutifully submitted this letter to His Holiness"; He prayed with the Pope for the protection of the Church and the courage of all Catholics to overcome the current problems. He did not comment on the persecution of the Jews or the request for a papal protest.
Pacelli's reaction, neither internal nor public, to the Nuremberg Laws and the November pogroms of 1938 , who was well informed about the events and no conversation with the Pope, is documented. At a meeting with German cardinals in March 1939, he declared this by adhering to the Reich Concordat:
"The world should see that we have tried everything to live in peace with Germany."
However, he tried in vain on the papal mandate to accept persecuted, specially baptized Jews in non-European countries.
Pius XI. Since the summer of 1938 he was planning a teaching letter against racism and anti-Semitism, for which he commissioned neither the responsible Holy Office nor Pacelli. He also wanted to publicly denounce the National Socialist persecution of Jews in the Italian press and the Italian race laws of July 1938 as a breach of the Italian Concordat on February 11, 1939, the tenth anniversary of the Lateran Treaty . Pacelli, on the other hand, wanted to avoid this course of confrontation in order not to endanger the Concordat and to keep Mussolini as mediator against Hitler. As Pius XI. died on February 10, 1939, Pacelli had the already printed copies of the planned papal speech destroyed, as was his job as Camerlengo .
pontificate
choice
Pacelli was elected Pope on March 2, 1939, his 63rd birthday, in the third ballot of the conclave , and was crowned on March 12 in the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica. He was the third Cardinal Secretary of State to be elected Pope after 1655 and 1667, and the first Pope born in Rome since Innocent XIII. (1721-1724). His election was welcomed worldwide. The New York Times saw him as the desired successor of his predecessor "side by side with the democratic peoples to defend the independence of the human spirit and the brotherhood of humanity against the unspiritual methods of modern barbarism".
The Nazi regime was one of the very few governments that did not send a delegation to the inauguration of the new Pope. In the Völkischer Beobachter it was stated on March 3, 1939:
“We in Germany have nothing to expect from this Pope! […] The church under Pius XII. will do more politics than usual, but not as raw and rumbling as under Pius XI., finer, more discreet and steeper. "
In a private audience, Pius XII assured. the German ambassador to the Vatican , Diego von Bergen , on March 3, 1939, of his "ardent wish for peace between church and state". The form of government of the dictatorship will not interfere with this, since the church is not called to choose between political systems.
Attempts to prevent war
Right at the beginning of his pontificate Pius XII. faced with the threat of war. On March 15, 1939, Hitler broke the Munich Agreement and had the " remaining Czech Republic " occupied. As a result, representatives of the Western powers, including the Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Gordon Lang , called on Pius to lead an international protest by all churches against the dictatorships of Europe. The Catholic bishops of France had also been expecting a papal condemnation of Hitler's aggressive policy since June 1939 . When this did not materialize, Catholic newspapers there openly criticized his administration.
After Hitler had canceled the German-Polish non-aggression pact and the German-British naval agreement on April 28, 1939 , Pius proposed a European five-power conference to settle the conflicts. Also because of its previous passivity, none of the governments addressed responded positively. Pius continued to try to exert influence through the nunciatures and learned in May that the United Kingdom would definitely assist Poland if Hitler occupied Danzig . From August 24th to 28th, France's ambassador to the Vatican demanded three times that the Pope condemn the impending German invasion of Poland , a Catholic country.
Pius, on the other hand, adhered to political neutrality and left it open on which side would be law and morality in the event of war. Accordingly, he declared in a radio speech on August 24th: Nothing is lost with peace, but everything can be lost with war. Behind the scenes, he urged Mussolini to act moderately on Hitler. On August 31, he considered going directly to Berlin and Warsaw, but then from Rome appealed to the German and Polish governments not to provoke incidents and not to worsen tensions. Too late - because both sides had already started mobilizing their armies.
Bishop of Rome in World War II
During the Second World War, the Romans expected and received help from “papa” (in a double sense, as pope and as “father” of their city) than from the state authorities. Funds made available by the Vatican enabled the Roman parishes to distribute food. Pius arranged for humanitarian aid for war victims; Giovanni Battista Montini, a substitute in the State Secretariat , who later became Pope Paul VI , headed his aid organization . When the Allies bombed Rome for the first time on July 19, 1943, especially the working-class neighborhoods of the San Lorenzo district , Pope Pius and Montini rushed to the victims and their families. When Allied troops approached the city in May 1944 and the Romans feared that there would be a second Monte Cassino , it was largely the Pope who made the all-round declaration of Rome an " open city ". The Romans honored him after the war as "Defensor Urbis" (patron of the city).
Statements on German wars of aggression
Like his predecessor Benedict XV. in the first , as published by Pius XII. General appeals for peace in the Second World War , whereby he consistently avoided assigning blame and did not name any warring party. On September 14, 1939, he complained for the first time in the Vatican about the outbreak of war and declared his intention to mediate an honorable peace for all concerned. He repeated this several times until the end of the war.
On September 26, 1939, he called the war a "terrible scourge of God" and hoped for peace through a "reconciling settlement", which in future would also give the Catholic Church "greater freedom". On September 30th, after the surrender of most of the Polish troops, he praised the “great deeds” of the Poles and hoped that, despite the known intentions of the “enemies of God”, the “Catholic life” of Poland would continue.
His first encyclical Summi pontificatus was published on October 20, 1939 . She condemned the idolatry of the state, the loss of moral norms and religious emptiness and explained these as the worldwide disregard for Christianity. She emphasized the equality of all people, exhorted states to negotiate and treaties and campaigned for global compassion for the Poles, whose blood sacrifices are bringing a "shocking indictment". Only this time did he name a people and thus implicitly condemn the German war of aggression and the occupation of Poland.
On November 10, 1939, the Nazi regime did not prohibit the reading of the encyclical, but it did prohibit the distribution and discussion of it. French planes dropped 88,000 leaflets with the text over German cities, while the Germans distributed a fake version in Poland in which "Germany" replaced "Poland" in the text. On January 21, 1940, on the papal orders, Vatican Radio broadcast :
“The conditions of religious, political and economic life have put the noble Polish people, especially in the areas occupied by the Germans, into a state of terror, numbness and, we would even like to say: of barbarism […] The Germans use the same means and maybe even worse than the Soviets. "
On May 10, 1940, Pius XII sent After the German invasion of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, telegrams of sympathy to their monarchs. The following day he noted the content of a conversation with the Italian consul who had returned from Warsaw for his staff :
On May 12, 1940, he defended his sympathy telegrams to the Italian ambassador Alfieri and addressed the situation in Poland:
“You know exactly and completely the terrible things that are going on in Poland. We should raise fiery protests against it, and the only thing stopping Us is knowing that our speaking would only worsen the condition of these unfortunate ones. "
On the anti-Hitler coalition between the United States and the Soviet Union
In view of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Pius XII. the encyclical Divini Redemptoris of his predecessor Pius XI. New. In it the Pope had forbidden Catholics to cooperate with communism. New to the interpretation of Pius XII. was that he strictly differentiated between a people and its respective government. This new interpretation made Pius XII. via diplomatic channels to the American bishops, with the result that they now accepted the aid they had long rejected from the United States for the beleaguered Soviet Union and supported the American arms and equipment deliveries. An internal document reveals the hopes the Vatican had attached to it: shortly after the attack began, the Pope expected that Hitler could quickly defeat Stalin, as the lightning war tactic seemed to work again. Such a development could not mean anything good for the church, since National Socialism wanted to displace Christianity after the final victory. Pius did not want to influence the war in favor of Stalin either, because church persecution can be expected from this dictator too if he has brought other European countries under his control. The development hoped for in the Vatican was that American arms aid for Stalin would only be so timid that both the German Empire and the Soviet Union would exhaust their forces in a long war. Communism was to be defeated, National Socialism was to emerge from the conflict, greatly weakened, and then "hunted down".
The National Socialists saw in Pius XII. one of their opponents. Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary on January 9, 1945: “'Pravda' is once again making a strong attack against the Pope. It seems downright humorous that the Pope is denounced here as a fascist who was in league with us to save Germany from the difficult situation. "
Attitude to Nazi crimes
On Nazi murders of the sick and disabled
On November 27, 1940, the Holy Office published a draft decree which condemned " Aktion T4 " , which had been running since January 1940 - the murder of the sick and disabled, ordered by the Nazi regime - as an "inhuman and outrageous crime". Pius XII. deleted these four words, as they seemed too polemical to him, although justified, and called the murders "not allowed". They are violations of the "natural and positive divine law". On December 2nd the decree appeared in its toned down version.
Clemens August Graf von Galen , the Bishop of Munster, proved with three sermons in July / August 1941 against the so-called euthanasia that resolute advocacy for the threatened sick and handicapped could compel the German government . The Nazi regime then stopped these murders - at least temporarily - even though the German episcopate did not actively support von Galen's position. Pius XII. had voted in 1933 as cardinal state secretary against the election of Galens as Bishop of Munster, but now welcomed his public protest in a letter to Bishop Konrad von Preysing dated September 30, 1941 as proof of “how much can be achieved through open and manly behavior within the Reich can still be achieved ”. At the same time he declared that he himself would not protest as well:
"We emphasize this because the Church in Germany is all the more dependent on your public action as the general political situation [...] imposes dutiful restraint on the head of the universal Church in his public rallies."
In 1946 Pius XII appointed von Galen also because of his proxy protests to the cardinal.
Knowledge of the Holocaust
The Vatican first received reports of the deportation of Jews to the East from Cardinal Theodor Innitzer of Vienna in early 1941. Later the Vatican received similar reports from nunciatures or apostolic embassies from other countries. BBC reports were also regularly given to the Vatican. The memorandum from Gerhart Riegner , who headed the office of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva, deserves special mention . In the memorandum of spring 1942, he and his colleague Lichtheim summarized reports on mass deportations to the East and spoke of evidence of the murder of numerous deportees. The memorandum was given to the Allies and the Bern nuncio. In August 1942, Riegner sent the Allies a telegram in which he summarized new alarming reports about the brutal circumstances during the deportations and about a planned program for the dissolution (liquidation) of ghettos. The Vatican was informed of the Riegner Telegram by the US Ambassador to the Vatican, Myron Charles Taylor . On behalf of his skeptical government, Taylor asked if the Vatican had any reports that could confirm the information. Cardinal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione thanked the report, but said the Vatican could not currently verify this and other news about tough measures against non-Aryans for accuracy. The Slovak nuncio Giuseppe Burzio also agreed with this assessment in reports of October 27, 1941 and March 9, 1942 about the shootings of Jews in the East. Burzio had only passed on hearsay information. Neither he nor the Vatican verified these reports.
The privileged secret archives researchers (Vatican) Pierre Blet, Robert Graham and Peter Gumpel SJ unanimously testify that the Holy See did not have any reliable information on the Nazi genocide of European Jewry during the war. The two historians Blet and Graham contributed significantly to the eleven-volume Vatican file edition on the Second World War ( ADSS ) and P. Gumpel was the postulator in the beatification process of Pius XII.
“As long as the war lasted, darkness lay over the fate of the deportees. The murderous conditions under which the transports took place were known. There was no doubt that malnutrition, forced labor and epidemics resulted in thousands upon thousands of victims in the overpopulated camps. Reports of massacres in Poland, Russia and elsewhere were taken seriously. But over these clear facts and the reports of a few who had escaped about the death camps lay a thick veil of fog that even the relatives and the Jewish fellow believers of the victims could not or would not penetrate. "
“Did the Pope know about the Auschwitz drama? He knew no more than the Jews of America and Great Britain, and he knew as much as the governments. Graham points out that the reports of mass murder of Jews were very 'ambivalent'. No reliable information was available in Washington or London, or from newspapers or Jewish organizations. Even the prosecutors at the Nuremberg war crimes trials (namely the later chief prosecutor Telford Taylor) were surprised by the extent of the extermination of the Jews during their research. "
“It was known that large numbers of Jews were being deported 'east,' but even the American government asked the Vatican in late 1942 if he could confirm these figures. She didn't believe it either. [...] Nobody knew anything more precise then, not even the Americans, let alone about 6 million Jews who were to be exterminated. "
The historian José Sánchez also advises in his study: Pius XII. and the Holocaust as a precaution when assessing the Vatican's knowledge of the extent of the murder of Jews. The Holy See's sources of information were not good. Also, after the experiences in World War I, there was every reason to be very careful when assessing atrocity news.
In addition, at that time one could hardly distinguish the killing of Jews from the killing of numerous other innocent people in the war zones.
Comments from 1942
In December the Vatican received many urgent appeals to stand up for Jews in Eastern Europe . Then Pius XII decided. for the first time to take a clearer personal position instead of acting through his nuncios. In his Christmas address of December 24, 1942, he expressed his concern for the
"Hundreds of thousands who, through no fault of their own, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, are subjected to death or progressive extermination."
He deliberately did not explicitly name either the National Socialists or certain groups of victims.
On June 2, 1943, Pius mentioned this to the cardinals
“Prayer of those who turn to Us with fearful hearts. These are those who, because of their nationality or because of their race, are tormented by greater calamities and severe pain and who, even through no fault of their own, are sometimes subjected to restrictions that mean their extermination . "
The Western press, especially the New York Times , followed closely the statements of the Holy See. The New York Times reported in 1940 of an audience with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop , after which the Foreign Minister accused the Pope of being on the side of the Allies and that Pius XII. should have responded with a list of Nazi atrocities:
"In the fiery words with which the Pope addressed Mr. von Ribbentrop, the Holy Father defended the Jews in Germany and Poland."
The New York Times responded to his Christmas address in 1941 :
“The voice of Pius XII. is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness that embraced Europe this Christmas. He is pretty much the only ruler on the European continent who dares to raise his voice. [...] By calling for a 'really new order', the Pope stood in the way of Hitlerism . He left no doubt that the goals of the Nazis are incompatible with his conception of the peace of Christ. "
Likewise, the New York Times wrote on Christmas 1942:
“This Christmas he [the Pope] is more than ever the lonely, rebellious voice in the silence of a continent ... Pope Pius expresses himself as passionately as any ruler by our side, stating that those who want to build a new world order to stand up for the free choice of government and religion. They would have to defend themselves against the fact that the state turns individuals into a herd, which it then has at its disposal like inanimate things. "
In his correspondence with the German bishops, Pius XII. It is clear that he assumed he had delivered an understandable message:
“We said a word in our Christmas message about what is currently going on against the non-Aryans in the German power area. It was short, but was well understood. "
According to the correspondence between Franklin D. Roosevelt and his personal ambassador Myron C. Taylor and his colleague Harold Tittmann, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom would have asked for a clearer statement from the Pope. As stated by the British envoy to the Holy See, Sir Francis D'Arcy Osborne:
"[...] that such a comprehensive condemnation, which could just as well have meant the bombing of German cities, does not correspond to what the English government has requested"
Franklin D. Roosevelt's special envoy reported on a visibly astonished Pope who did not share these reproaches:
“As for the Christmas message, the Pope gave me the impression that he sincerely believes that he has spoken clearly enough to satisfy all who have insisted in the past that he should say a few words condemning the Nazi atrocities. He seemed surprised when I told him that not all people felt the same way. He told me that he thought it was clear to the world that he meant the Poles, the Jews and the hostages when he spoke of hundreds of thousands of people killed or tortured without being able to blame them, yes sometimes only on the basis of their race or nationality. [...] By and large, he felt that his message must be well received by the American people, and I told him I agreed with him. "
The National Socialists had also followed his Christmas address and interpreted it in their favor. The security service of the Reichsführer SS commented on the Christmas speech in 1942 as follows:
“… A single attack on everything we stand for. The Pope says that God regards all peoples and races equally. Here he speaks clearly in favor of the Jews ... He accuses the German people of committing injustices against the Jews and makes himself the spokesman for the Jewish war criminals. "
Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop thereupon ordered the ambassador to the Vatican, Diego von Bergen , to threaten the Vatican with retaliatory measures in response to the Christmas address in 1942. The envoy, who followed the instructions of his superior in Berlin, reported that the Pope had initially listened to the German envoy in silence. Then he calmly said that he was not worried about what would happen to him. But if there were to be a conflict between the church and the German state, the state would lose out. Comment from Bergen:
"The Pope is as little influenced by threats as we are."
The behavior of Pius was also recognized by the Jewish side:
“The people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness is doing for our unhappy brothers and sisters at this most tragic hour in our history. This is a living testimony of Divine Providence in this world. - Isaak HaLevy Herzog "
Intervention with Hitler
On June 21, 1943, Pius sent his nuncio, Cesare Orsenigo , to Hitler in Berlin . This reported:
“I flew to Berchtesgaden a few days ago on the highest order. I was received by the Fiihrer and Chancellor Hitler, but as soon as I broached the subject of Jews and Judaism… Hitler turned away, went to the window and drummed his fingers on the pane. You can imagine how embarrassing it was to present my plan to the person I was speaking to. I did it anyway. Then suddenly Hitler turned around, went to a table where there was a glass of water, grabbed it and angrily threw it on the floor. With this highly diplomatic […] gesture, I was allowed to regard my mission as finished and at the same time, unfortunately, as rejected. "
On the deportation of Roman Jews in 1943
Immediately after he came to power in Italy ( Axis case ) and Mussolini's liberation (September 12, 1943), Hitler ordered the deportation of all Jews from Rome. The order was given orally and in writing to SS-Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler , the local chief of the Sipo and the SD, in mid-September. The Commander-in-Chief South, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring , the City Commander General Reiner Stahel , the SS and Police Chief in Italy, Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff , and the two German embassies in Rome became aware of this project . Robert Katz claims that Pius XII. had been informed by the German Vatican embassy.
Because of the tense situation in Rome, all German agencies were against the implementation of the measure - or at least against rapid action. That is why Adolf Eichmann ordered a special task force with full powers to Rome under the leadership of the tried and tested SS Sturmbannführer Theodor Dannecker . The command arrived in Rome in the first week of October. Within two weeks, Dannecker and his staff worked out a plan for a comprehensive raid.
In the early morning of Shabbat day on October 16, 1943, the so-called “Judenaktion” began with the cordoning off and systematic combing of the old ghetto. At the same time, small commandos drove all over Rome to addresses where Jews were registered. A total of 1259 people of all ages were arrested and collected in the empty Collegio Militare near the Vatican. There, in the late afternoon, after a closer examination of their identities, 236 people were released because they were not considered Jews under the Italian race laws as “ Jewish mixed race ”.
Immediately after the action began, the Catholic princess Enza Aragona Cortes was alerted by telephone. Since they Pius XII. know personally, she should ask the Pope for help. Principessa Aragona immediately drove to the Apostolic Palace and informed Pius of the arrests of Jews on the other side of the Tiber. The Pope rejected their urgent request for local intervention. Instead, he instructed his state secretary, Cardinal Luigi Maglione , to appoint the Vatican ambassador Ernst von Weizsäcker and to demand an end to the raid. Pius did not receive the ambassador personally.
In the minutes, Cardinal Maglione noted what he said verbatim to the Ambassador:
"It is painful for the Holy Father, hardly to say how painful, that especially in Rome so many people have to suffer under the eyes of the Father of all, just because they belong to a certain race."
Weizsäcker replied that he could not do anything himself, since the instructions for the raid had come from "the very highest authority". He strongly advised against a protest by the Holy See; that would only provoke consequences for the church. The conversation ended with no tangible result.
After this unsuccessful advance at the diplomatic level, Pius XII tried. over the city command to stop the raid. In the afternoon he sent his liaison man to the German offices, the superior general of the Salvatorians, Father Pankratius Pfeiffer , to the German offices and to General Stahel. But Stahel also rejected the suggestion with the remark that he had nothing to do with it; the action was solely a matter for the SS. Pius made no further attempts at other offices. Contact was not made with the local SD headquarters in Via Tasso, Field Marshal Kesselring, the highest SS police chief in charge, Wolff, or his own nuncio in Berlin ( Cesare Orsenigo ). The Holy See also refrained from a press release.
Whether Pius sent his nephew Carlo Pacelli to the bishop of the German community in Rome, Alois Hudal , in the afternoon to use his contacts is controversial. On October 16, Hudal wrote in a letter to city commandant Stahel that a papal protest was threatened if the raid continued. Bishop Hudal later noted in a brief note that General Stahel had called him on Sunday evening (October 17) and said that the raid would be stopped. He had phoned Heinrich Himmler ( Reichsführer SS ) and explained the tense situation in Rome to him, whereupon he had the raid broken off. Historical research still considers the whole process of the Hudal letter to be nebulous. The true authorship of the letter, its purpose and its effect are still unclear.
After two days of internment, the arrested Jews from Rome were deported directly to Auschwitz in eighteen cattle wagons from the Tiburtina loading station in Rome on Monday, October 18 (transport number: X70469). They arrived there on Friday evening. On Saturday morning, October 23, the transport was “selected” by Josef Mengele . He classified 184 people as fit for work, and immediately sent the remaining 839 people to the gas chamber of the Birkenau concentration camp . 15 of the “able to work” survived the concentration camp. The only surviving woman, Signora Settimia Spizzichino, later raised allegations against Pius XII: He had failed to save even one child - he could have done so without his own risk.
A few days after the raid, Pius XII decided. by virtue of his office, general church asylum for all Jews who have now gone into hiding or fleeing in Rome and in occupied Italy. The places of asylum included the monasteries, other church houses and institutes, the patriarchal basilicas, the papal summer residence Castel Gandolfo and the Vatican itself. According to reliable estimates, around 4500 Jews were hidden in at least 150 institutions in Rome alone until the liberation on June 4, 1944 hold.
It is now almost indisputable in research that the momentous asylum order of Pius XII. came personally. There are occasional contradictions: Susan Zucchotti denies a connection to the Pope and justifies this with the fact that supporting documents are missing. The occasional admission of Jews seeking protection was made by monasteries on their own initiative.
The asylum action was seen as an open provocation in Berlin. In 2008, Klaus Kühlwein , in his book Why the Pope was silent, interpreted the surprising asylum decree as an abrupt turnaround in Vatican politics and wrote pointedly of a "Damascus experience" with Pius XII. In 2015, Kühlwein published an open letter to Pope Francis , in which he asked him to add the "Vatican-supported myth about Pius XII. as the savior of the Jews during the raid ”. This myth suppresses the truth and prevents reconciling memory.
During the German occupation of Rome, Pius effectively undermined the wave of arrests by issuing direct orders to Father Pankratius Pfeiffer as to whom he was to stand up for in detail with the occupation or with the SS. This enabled many people who had already been imprisoned by the occupiers to be liberated, including communists, royalists and Jews. With Pankratius Pfeiffer, who was soon known as the “Angel of Rome”, many Italian families made petitions for their imprisoned relatives. 90 percent of the initiatives later known as the “Pfeiffer's List” are based on the direct order of Pius XII. back.
It should be mentioned that during this time Pius XII. was himself a prisoner in the Vatican. Even at the beginning of the rise to power in Rome, Hitler planned the kidnapping of the Pope and his internment in Germany. He gave SS General Wolff a corresponding order to prepare for the action. However, Hitler hesitated so long with the final deployment order that the action could no longer be carried out in the end. Pius himself seriously expected an occupation of the Vatican and the arrest of himself. For this case he had prepared a written resignation from office.
After the liberation of Rome by the Allies, Pius received numerous visits and letters of thanks from Jewish organizations and individual representatives for his rescue operation through church asylum . The then Grand Rabbi of Rome Israel Zolli , who also survived the persecution through church asylum, was baptized Catholic in 1945 and adopted the name Eugenio Pio , the real name and the Pope's name Pius XII. Currently even among the critics of Pius XII. the voices to honor this Pope as "a righteous among the peoples ".
To Slovak Jews 1943
In the spring of 1943, Pius XII prevented. the continuation of the deportations of Jews operated by the collaborating Slovak government through diplomatic channels. This step is occasionally placed under the suspicion that the Pope primarily wanted to help the reputation of the Church. For in Slovakia the priest Jozef Tiso , cf. also clerical fascism , held the office of president, and other high state offices were held by clergymen. The "Foreign Minister" of the Vatican, Domenico Tardini , stated that the Slovak participation in the deportations of Jews could seriously damage the reputation of the church. On the assumption that the Jews would stand on the side of the victors after the end of the war, the Pope then advised action. Another view of things also allows the conclusion that Pius XII. It was particularly easy in this individual case, since the President of Slovakia was a priest. Further diplomatic petitions of similar intent to other governments did not have the same success.
To Polish Jews
The Vatican refused to recognize the German conquests ( attack on Poland ) and annexations in Poland ( Generalgouvernement Poland ) as long as appropriate peace treaties were not signed. Hitler responded by saying that from now on he would apply the Reich Concordat exclusively to the territory of the old Reich. This meant a narrowing of the area of responsibility of the Vatican nuncio in Germany to this very area. If the Vatican did not recognize the German presence in these occupied and conquered territories, so Hitler said, then Germany did not recognize the right of the Holy See to discuss with it any problem concerning this area. In the German-occupied territories, for example, the Reich government brought about a “state of affairs without a contract”, that is, a status without a concordat. From that moment on, the German Foreign Ministry had a slight pretext to dismiss the appeals and protests of the Holy See relating to incidents in those areas. Entries of this content were partly returned in original form to the bearers and therefore did not find their way into the corresponding archives or remained in the register cabinets of the Foreign Office.
In addition, around 2,000 priests and religious, including four bishops, were murdered in Poland alone. The structure of the Catholic Church in Poland was so destroyed that the remaining one no longer allowed any centrally controlled measures. Vatican diplomatic traffic in the Generalgouvernement was only possible to a very limited extent due to the aforementioned attitude of the Reich government. From mid-1943 there was practically no contact between the Vatican and the Polish Church.
Weighing up the consequences of protests
The behavior of Pius XII. was based on the assumption that a public protest would not induce the National Socialists to change their attitude, but on the contrary would provoke them to take even stricter measures, despite the experience of the protest Clemens August Graf von Galens, Bishop of Munster , which resulted in the at least temporary cessation of euthanasia. The events in the Netherlands prove that loud public protests could lead to targeted repression . There, the Catholic bishops protested against the imminent deportations, whereupon the German occupying power deliberately arrested and deported Catholics of Jewish descent at the end of 1942. Arthur Seyß-Inquart described the deportation of Catholic Jews in a statement on August 3 as a "countermeasure against the pastoral letter of July 26". Pope Pius was therefore forced to weigh up:
“We leave it to the senior shepherds working on the spot to weigh up whether and to what extent the risk of retaliation and pressure in the event of episcopal rallies and other circumstances caused by the length and psychology of the war make it advisable, despite the above , motivations ad majora mala vitanda to exercise restraint. Here lies one of the reasons why We impose limitations on ourselves in Our manifestations; the experience that We made in 1942 with papal documents that were exempted from us for disclosure to the faithful justifies, as far as we can see, our attitude. "
To German bishops
Pius XII. did not fail to encourage the bishops in Germany to stand up for humanity on their part and not to be deterred by the thought of "treason of the fatherland". He even encouraged her to raise her voice on specific issues. This stepped Pius XII. openly opposed to the line of the German Bishops' Conference aimed at appeasement and non-confrontation. This line, represented by a majority in the German Bishops' Conference, was given above all by its chairman Cardinal Bertram , the Archbishop of Wroclaw. Essentially only Clemens August Graf von Galen , Joannes Baptista Sproll , Konrad von Preysing and Cardinal Faulhaber opposed it .
"Do not object that episcopal rallies bravely stand up to their own government for the rights of religion, the church, the human personality, for the defenseless, for those who have been raped by public power, regardless of whether the affected are children of the church or outsiders - that such manifestations harm your fatherland in the world public. That courageous stand up for justice and humanity does not expose your fatherland, it will rather create respect for you and it in the world public and can work very much for its good in the future. […] We were comforted, to take an obvious example, to hear that the Catholics, especially the Berlin Catholics, showed a lot of love for the so-called non-Aryans in their distress, and in this context we say a special word more paternal Recognition as well as deep compassion for the captive Prelate Lichtenberg . "
From the condemnations of National Socialism that his predecessor Pius XI. had spoken publicly during his tenure, Pius XII took. never turned back, nor did he ever put it into perspective.
Teaching post
Pius XII. issued 40 encyclicals , making him one of the most active popes with regard to doctrinal decisions. Besides Summi pontificatus, special attention was paid to this
- Mystici Corporis (June 29, 1943): With this he tried for the first timeto formulatethe modern Roman Catholic ecclesiology , which the First Vatican Council had left open. The Second Vatican Council followed on from this.
- Divino afflante Spiritu (September 30, 1943): With this, the Vatican gave historical-critical biblical studies greater leeway in relation to dogma.
- Provida Mater (February 2, 1947): With this he allowed the so-called secular institutes alongside the order and enabled laypeople to have an independent Christian form of coexistence.
- Mediator Dei (November 20, 1947): With this he recognized the liturgical movement , emphasizing the authority of the priests over the laity.
- Humani generis (August 12, 1950): With this he set himself apart from attempts by the neo-modernist “Nouvelle Théologie” in France to take up scholastic categories but to fill them with new content. In contrast, he held fast to the immovable primacy of the papal magisterium.
- Haurietis aquas (May 15, 1956): an encyclical on the cult of the Sacred Heart .
The most important doctrinal decision of this Pope is the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus of November 1, 1950, which proclaimed the bodily acceptance of Mary into heaven as a dogma . This was the first time since the First Vatican Council in 1870 - and to date the only time - that a Pope made use of his infallibility in matters of doctrine. This was followed on October 11, 1954 by the encyclical Ad caeli reginam , which began the feast of the Kingdom of Mary.
For social doctrine and many social and political questions, Pius XII. position in the form of numerous lectures, speeches and radio messages, including 1944 on forms of government: Christian refined parliamentary democracy is to be preferred to authoritarian systems today. Traditionally, the Catholic Church tended to prefer monarchy because of its own monarchical structure . The records of his utterances on social doctrine are over 4000 pages.
The encyclical on anti-Semitism begun by his predecessor Pius XII. not finished and never mentioned them. The draft was only published in 2003 when the archive from the reign of Pius XI. known. The church historian Hubert Wolf attributes his successor's decision not to an approval of anti-Semitism, but to his understanding of office: For Pius XII. As the head of all Catholics, the Holy See should maintain strict neutrality on political issues, including the “Jewish question”. Important statements about the unity of the human race have, however, been adopted in his inaugural encyclical Summi pontificatus .
The decree of the Holy Office of July 1, 1949, which threatened excommunication for every Catholic who joins a communist party, publishes, reads or writes communist books and magazines, had considerable consequences, particularly in Italy . Pope Pius XII promulgated this decree on July 13, 1949.
Pius XII. also changed the procedure for the exceptional admission of married, formerly Protestant pastors as priests in the Roman Catholic Church. Until then, this had only been possible - if the marriage remained intact - if the woman also entered a monastery.
post war period
Whether it was the actions of individual representatives of the Vatican or an organized action for the National Socialists who were wanted as war criminals to flee and how much Pope Pius XII. knew about it is controversial (see rat lines ).
The Allies rejected the Pope's wish to take part in the peace negotiations with the “little losers” of World War II.
In two consistories in 1946 and 1953 Pius XII appointed a total of 56 new cardinals. He expanded and internationalized the Holy College so that since then it has included representatives from almost all continents (Africa only got its first cardinal in 1960 under John XXIII). He concluded further concordats (state church treaties) with Portugal (1940), Spain (1953), the Dominican Republic (1954) and Bolivia (1957). He promoted the development of an indigenous church hierarchy in states of the " Third World " in order to emphasize their autonomy and independence (including 1946 Republic of China , 1951 South Africa , 1955 Burma ).
Pius XII. performed 33 canonizations , including that of his early patron Pius X. Before the cardinals, the Pope spoke on June 2, 1945 in retrospect about National Socialism and the situation in Germany. In his Christmas message in 1950, he publicly announced that the tomb of the Apostle Peter had been found in a Roman necropolis during excavation work that he had commissioned Prelate Ludwig Kaas to carry out under the high altar of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Late phase and death
Pius XII. In the post-war years, he tailored his administration in the Vatican so much to his person that for contemporaries he became the epitome of papacy in general. After Luigi Maglione's death in 1944, he no longer appointed a cardinal secretary of state, but from then on held this office in personal union. In 1952 he appointed two pro-state secretaries instead in his second and last consistory . Domenico Tardini held office until 1958 and next to him from 1952 to 1954 Giovanni Battista Montini (who later became Pope Paul VI ); both had rejected the cardinal's hat and were therefore only accepted by Pope John XXIII. elevated to cardinals in December 1958 . Pius XII. In 1941, when Lorenzo Lauri died, he no longer appointed a Camerlengo . The office remained vacant until 1958, i.e. until the beginning of the pontificate of John XXIII., And consequently Benedetto Aloisi Masella was appointed by the cardinals when the vacancy occurred on October 9, 1958, whereas Cardinal Tisserant, as cardinal dean, was responsible for sealing the private rooms and breaking the ring .
Since Pius XII. Seriously ill in the spring of 1954, Paul Niehans was called in to treat him . The bulletin of the papal physician Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi of February 5, 1954 expressed no hope of improvement. In the representations of the doctor Niehans, called by Sister Pascalina Lehnert , it is mentioned that the Pope became very emaciated as a result of gastritis and suffered from hiccups for weeks . This is believed to be the result of the Pope's sometimes 20-hour working day. He was able to cure the Pope through cell therapy. Before Christmas that same year, Pius suffered a herniated diaphragm with gastric bleeding and renewed hiccups, which in turn were cured by Niehans.
From 1954 onwards, the aging Pope's creativity began to decline. The French philosopher Jean Guitton testified that Pius XII. Given the circumstances of the time, had a clear premonition that he would be the last Pope in typical Roman tradition ("Il disait lui-même qu'il était 'le dernier pape', ultime chaînon d'une longue dynastie"), so his successors before new questions would arise. According to the testimony of Domenico Cardinal Tardinis and the Jesuit Riccardo Lombardi, the Pope already foresaw that his successor would convene a council; he himself had already carried out extensive preparatory work in the 1940s, but had it interrupted again because of his deteriorating health. They were later by John XXIII. in preparation for the Second Vatican Council , whose documents often refer to the extensive teaching post of Pius XII. Referring to it and citing it over a thousand times, and therefore most often (according to Scripture). These quotes are based on the words of Pope Benedict XVI. "Not just notes to reinforce what has been said in the text, but they provide a key to interpreting it," which is why the teaching of the Pacelli Pope is of the greatest importance to the Catholic Church today.
In December 1956, Pius XII condemned the approach of Italian Catholics, according to which communism is to be regarded as an inevitable stage in historical development and the dialogue with communists is therefore justified. In the opinion of the Holy Office under Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani , this approach was capable of causing considerable confusion among believers in communist-ruled states.
Pope Pius XII died after more than four years of increasing health problems, which made it difficult for the curia, who was strongly focused on himself, to guarantee church government. On October 5, 1958, he celebrated his last Holy Mass and then made the statement “Adesso non posso più” (“I can no longer”). Pius XII. suffered two strokes on October 6 and another one on October 8, as a result of which he passed away in Castel Gandolfo at the age of 82 . Even more than that of his predecessor, his death was accompanied by worldwide appreciation and sympathy.
The personal physician of Pius XII, Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, on the other hand, caused a scandal by offering tabloids details from the medical history and secretly taken photos of the Pope for sale. The conservation process used by Galeazzi-Lisi also turned out to be very poorly executed. Pius XII found his final resting place. in the crypt of St. Peter's Basilica, only six meters from St. Peter's tomb, which is probably his contribution to the archaeological excavations in Alt-St. Peter and the Capella Clementina should be honored.
In his last encyclical Meminisse iuvat , Pius wrote:
“Be gracious to me, O Lord, according to your great mercy. The visualization of the shortcomings and mistakes that were committed during such a long pontificate and in such a difficult time made my inadequacy clear to me. "
Honors and beatification procedures
After Pius XII. in 1949, that is still alive, by decision of the Magistrate of Greater Berlin , the Pacelliallee in Berlin-Dahlem named because on this street the Episcopal Ordinariate was the Catholic Church. Other streets named after him are Pacelliallee in Fulda and Pacellistraße in Munich . The city of Trier named 1957 on the 30th anniversary of the visit of Pius XII. as nuncio in 1927, part of the Moselstrasse was converted into Pacelliufer .
Pope Paul VI opened the process of beatification for Pius XII in 1965. As a prerequisite for his beatification , the responsible Congregation for the beatification and canonization processes voted in May 2007 in favor of the heroic degree of virtue of the Pope.
Pope Benedict XVI honored his predecessor on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death on October 9, 2008 with a solemn mass among the participants in the Synod of Bishops . In the sermon Benedict XVI. the achievements of Pius XII. and openly defended him against criticism.
The beatification process for Pius XII. took another important hurdle on December 19, 2009. Pope Benedict XVI on that day awarded his predecessor the heroic degree of virtue. The beatification process has thus entered the decisive phase. For the beatification of the Pacelli Pope, proof of a miracle healing is still required.
Historical debate
swell
The judgment of Pius XII. is made more difficult by the source situation: the church archives for his tenure as nuncio, cardinal secretary of state and pope are partly closed to this day. In 1966 the Vatican archives were released until 1933, in 2003 the Vatican archives until 1939. The remaining files from 1939 to 1945 have not yet been published. Many other archives were destroyed in the war, including those of the Apostolic Nunciature in Berlin, which was burned out in a bombing raid.
In the wake of his confession of guilt for Catholic anti-Judaism, Pope John Paul II expressed the wishes of Jewish historians for a joint research into the attitude of Pius XII. for the National Socialist persecution of the Jews. As a result, a Jewish-Catholic historians commission was set up in September 1999 to review the previous editions of the files on Pius XII. to check.
In the course of the evaluation of the Vatican files released in 2003, the Vatican criticized the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in April 2007 : It was incorrect to state the attitude of Pope Pius XII. to mark the extermination of the Jews as “controversial” in a portrait signature. After the management of the memorial had promised to check the text, the Apostolic Nuncio in Jerusalem took part in the Holocaust Remembrance Day, contrary to his refusal. The Israeli ambassador to the Vatican, Oded Ben-Hur, stated that the role of the Pope in the Nazi era could only be finally clarified by opening the locked files of the Vatican secret archive .
An eleven-volume selection of documents by the Jesuits covers the years 1938 to 1945. However, the Jewish commission members consider it inadequate; the selection criteria are also questioned as not being transparent. 12 of their questions about this remained unanswered. The Vatican has promised further publications in six to ten years, but wants to organize and catalog the files consisting of several million sheets first internally. Because of this delay in the release of papal secret archives, the Jewish historians withdrew from the commission for the first time in 2001 and finally in 2008.
In October 2008, the Vatican's Commission of Historians published a traveling exhibition that included the negative image of Pius XII with original documents. should correct. For this purpose, the book Opus Iustitiae Pax was published.
On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the election of the Italian Eugenio Pacelli as Pope, Pope Francis announced on March 4, 2019 at an audience in front of employees of the Vatican Secret Archives that the secret archives for the pontificate of Pius XII. will be accessible to researchers from March 2, 2020 during the Second World War.
Criticisms
The attitude of Pope Pius XII. During the Nazi era, Rolf Hochhuth's drama Der Stellvertreter was published in 1963 and has been the subject of controversy. The main accusation since then has been: Pius XII. I remained silent about the Holocaust despite numerous requests for public protest, be it out of indifference, German friendliness or fear of communists.
The criticism of the attitude of Pius XII. during the Nazi era includes the following items:
- He preferred Germany, the Germans and the Nazi regime because of his long tenure as nuncio.
- With the Reich Concordat he legitimized the Nazi regime internationally and accepted the elimination of the Center Party as a price, or even planned it secretly.
- In 1939 he did not protest against the German attack on Poland , but urged the Poles to respond to Hitler's unlawful demands. Later he did not protest against the campaign in the west either.
- In the air war he had unilaterally taken sides against the Allies by expressing his condolences to the German but not to the British bishops.
- He did not rebuke the anti-Semites among the German bishops and gave insufficient support to the regime critics among them.
- He did not condemn the anti-Semitic laws of the Vichy government, but approved them to Léon Bérard .
- He supported the dictator of Croatia , Ante Pavelić , in the persecution of Serbs and Jews, as he had given the Catholic Church more rights.
- He did not admonish or punish the Catholic priest Jozef Tiso as regent of Slovakia for persecuting the Jews.
- He did not prevent the raid to apprehend Roman Jews in October 1943 by protesting in good time. Italian Catholics would have helped the persecuted Jews without the approval of the Vatican.
- He had helped National Socialists and other war criminals to escape and to obtain amnesty after the end of the war.
- He had taken a public position against communism and even threatened Italian Catholics for the election of communists with excommunication, while he had failed to do so with the National Socialists.
- Even after 1945, he pretended that the Roman Catholic Church had not made any mistakes during the Nazi era, thereby preventing the German bishops from admitting guilt for church failure, as the EKD pronounced it in the Stuttgart confession of guilt in 1945.
Due to the gradual improvement of the sources, many of Hochhuth's criticisms were refuted or relativized. But Hochhuth's work continues to determine the moral and historical questions: What attitude did this Pope have towards Nazi ideology and politics? What knowledge did he have about the persecution of the Jews, especially the Holocaust, and since when? What room for maneuver did he have and what did he use in relation to the Nazi regime and its helpers? What alternatives were there to his attitude?
development
In an article in 1950, the Jewish historian Léon Poliakov criticized Pius XII. I kept silent about the anti-Semitic laws of the Vichy government and thereby approved them. Overall, he said, he was not as “frank” as his predecessor, but rather exercised “excessive caution” towards the Nazi regime because of the expectation that Hitler would eventually defeat Stalin. On the other hand, Poliakov praised the Pope's concrete help for persecuted Jews.
Since Rolf Hochhuth relied on his own research in Vatican files and personal conversations with employees of the Pope, but often did not specify the locations, historians examined many files available at the time in more detail for the first time. Alberto Giovannetti assessed the Vatican diplomacy in the run-up to the Second World War in 1963 positively, Guenter Lewy arrived at a moderate papal criticism based on the archives of German dioceses. Saul Friedländer concluded in 1964 from diplomatic files from the state, mostly the German embassies at the Vatican and Italy: on the one hand, Pius had a fondness for Germany until 1944, on the other hand, he was terrified of a communist conquest of Europe. He had long hoped for a reconciliation between the Allies and Hitler as a bulwark against Stalin. In 1966 he saw this assessment confirmed by newly published files. The journalist Carlo Falconi concluded in 1965 from previously unexplored files in Poland and Croatia: Pius had kept silent about the crimes of the National Socialists and their helpers known to him “for respectable, if not sufficient reasons”. This criticism does not preclude recognition of his indisputable attempts to prevent the war and to help the victims of the war.
In 1967 the American journalist Robert Katz published the book Death in Rome on the events during the German occupation of Rome in 1943/44. In it he accused Pius XII of knowing in good time about a planned massacre by the Germans on March 24, 1944, but of not having done anything about it. The book was filmed under the title La Rappresaglia . The niece of Pius XII, Elena Pacelli Rossigniani, filed charges in 1974 against Katz and the director and producer of the film for “insulting the Vatican in the highest degree”. After the defendants were sentenced in the first instance to a total of 28 months in prison because Pius XII. could not have known anything about the massacre, the appellate body acquitted them on July 1, 1978, because they had contributed to historical research, exercised their right to freedom of expression and Pius XII. as a historical figure is no longer a "private personality" to be slandered. In the renewed appeal process, a document from the Vatican archives emerged that the Vatican State Secretariat had prior knowledge of the massacre. As a result, the charges against the film producers were dropped and the charges against Katz were shortened to the "intention to badmouth the Pope" and the "defamatory tone" of his script. On this basis, he was sentenced again. The Italian Supreme Court of Cassation annulled this judgment and finally dismissed the action in 1984. A legal basis for this never existed.
Robert Graham explained the attitude of Pius XII in 1977. on the extermination of Jews in Poland as follows:
“It wasn't lack of compassion or lack of knowledge, but the presence of violence, ruthless violence that shut his mouth. The likelihood that a formal condemnation of the Nazi atrocities by the Pope would have eased the situation of the victims was very small; on the other hand, it was possible that an interest shown by the Pope in this way would have caused even greater atrocities. The Pope would have been made responsible for that ... "
In 1969 and again in 1984, Victor Conzemius published an overview of the research problems relating to Pius XII.
A new phase of research began in the late 1980s. While many critics of Pius often relied on Saul Friedländer without examining the primary sources, John S. Conway complained in 1987 that Friedländer had overlooked or arbitrarily ignored the most important papal protests. Giorgio Angelozzi Gariboldi was one of the first to research the partially open Vatican files until 1939. Emma Fattorini published documents from the Pacellis Nunciature in Munich that were approved for the first time in 1992. The Jesuit editor of the Vatican files, Pierre Blet, offered for the first time a comprehensive account of the Vatican policy from 1939 to 1945, but without exact references.
John Cornwell used Hitler's Pope for his 1999 book . The secret history of Pius XII documents from the Nunciature in Munich as well as unpublished testimonies for the process of beatification of Pius XII. He went beyond Hochhuth's criticism by explaining the behavior of this Pope from papal centralism since the First Vatican Council. In order to enforce its claim to supremacy against the local churches, the Vatican had worked towards concordats with undemocratic states and tolerated their criminal policies. Cornwell threw Pius XII. in addition to complicity in the Second World War, intellectual closeness to National Socialism, racism and anti-Semitism and approval of the deportations, especially of the Roman Jews.
This thesis, its source selection and its interpretation met with a lot of criticism. Subsequently, further publications appeared in quick succession. Michael Phayer noted the behavior of Pius XII. in the context of the behavior of the entire Catholic clergy, which he divided into helpers and non-helpers of the Jews, and their internal church processing up to the Second Vatican Council. Susan Zuccotti questioned the Pope's aid to Roman Jews in 1943. Giovanni Miccoli tried to use the secondary literature to prove that the appellative form of Vatican protests had been outdated since the Middle Ages because it was too general and therefore ineffective.
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen published his indictment against the behavior of the Roman Catholic Church towards the Jews in 2002. You have supported anti-Semitism since 1860 and shared it during the Nazi era.
The American historian and political scientist David G. Dalin countered Cornwell's criticism in 2005: Pius XII. saved hundreds of thousands of Jews from death in the concentration camp and should therefore receive the Jewish honorary title “ Righteous Among the Nations ”. Dalin's numbers are based on indirect estimates, not primary evidence. So had Pinchas Lapide , an Israeli diplomat and scholar of religion, in 1967 two shared the 2.3 million of the Holocaust surviving Jews of Europe in 1967 and attributed 860,000 of them Catholic bailouts.
On the 50th anniversary of the death of Pius XII. On October 9, 2008, the historian Michael Hesemann published extensive material, primarily to refute the accusation that Pius was indifferent and cold-hearted towards the persecuted Jews. An open, loud protest would have provoked acts of revenge against Catholics and Jews and thus caused far greater damage. The Pope was only able to help the persecuted Jews effectively through quiet and covert diplomacy.
Klaus Kühlwein tried to prove that Pius had been tormented by a great moral uncertainty in his weighing of interests between “silence” and “protesting”. The raid and deportation of over a thousand Jews from Rome had shaken him so much that he initiated a radical change of course: That is why shortly afterwards he lifted the cloister of the monasteries and thus a kind of church asylum for fugitive Jews in Rome, which had not yet been liberated Italy allows.
At the beginning of March 2017, the Prefect of the Apostolic Signature, Dominique Cardinal Mamberti , declared that “the true face of the Pacelli Pope” was very different from “the one that the 'Black Legend' wanted to spread about him.” Michael Hesemann described the claim, Pius XII. I made a pact against communism with Hitler, in October 2018 as "fake news". According to Hesemann, the Pope had already approved plans of the German resistance to murder Hitler in October 1939.
On March 2, 2020, the Vatican archives from the time of Pope Pius XII will be opened. When presenting the planned opening for scientists, the Prefect of the former Vatican Secret Archives, Bishop Sergio Pagano , emphasized that the first admitted researchers come from the Jewish world. The President of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), Ronald Lauder , called the move a "key moment in the history of Catholic-Jewish relations."
In August 2020, the historians Ralf Balke and Julien Reitzenstein started a petition to name Pacelliallee in Berlin after the former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir . In addition to the appreciation of Meir Pacelli's position on National Socialism, as well as anti-Semitic and misogynistic remarks are given as reasons. In September 2020, the German government's anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein , expressed his support for the matter. Meir himself paid tribute to Pius on the occasion of his death as someone "who raised his voice for our people in the hour of need and persecution".
Works and documents
- Eugenio Pacelli: Collected Speeches. Selected and introduced by Ludwig Kaas , Berlin 1930.
- Eugenio Pacelli: Discorsi e Panegirici. (1931–1938), Città del Vaticano 1939.
- Eugenio Pacelli: Discorsi e Radiomessaggi di Sua Santità Pio XII. 20 volumes, Città del Vaticano 1941–1959.
- Arthur Fridolin Utz, Joseph Fulko Groner (Hrsg.): Structure and development of social life. Social sum of Pius XII. Three volumes. Freiburg i. Ue. 1954-1961.
- Burkhart Schneider (Ed.): The letters of Pius XII. to the German bishops 1939–1944. Schöningh, Paderborn 1966, ISBN 3-506-79844-8 .
- Pierre Blet, Robert A. Graham, Angelo Martini, Burkhart Schneider (eds.): Actes et documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre mondiale . Vatican City, 1965–1983 (12 volumes).
- Robert A. Graham, Joseph L. Lichten, John C. Pantuso, Virgil C. Blum (Eds.): Pius XII and the Holocaust: A Reader. Catholic League for Religious & Civil Rights, New York 1988, ISBN 0-945775-01-6 .
- Hubert Gruber (Ed.): Catholic Church and National Socialism 1933–1945. A report in sources. Schöningh, Paderborn 2005, ISBN 3-506-73443-1 .
literature
Biographies
- Hugo Altmann: Pius XII., Pope. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 7, Bautz, Herzberg 1994, ISBN 3-88309-048-4 , Sp. 682-699.
- Constantine Prince of Bavaria : Pope Pius XII. - A picture of life. Christiana, Stein am Rhein 1980, ISBN 3-7171-0780-1 .
- Philippe Chenaux: Pie XII, diplomate et pasteur. Cerf, Paris 2003, ISBN 2-204-07197-8 (French).
- Wilhelm Sandfuchs : Pope Pius XII. (= Karlsruhe Hefte, Biographical Series. Vol. 1). 1st edition. Badenia Verlag, Karlsruhe 1946.
- Johanna Schmid : Pope Pius XII. to encounter. Sankt Ulrich, Augsburg 2001, ISBN 3-929246-62-7 .
- Burkhart Schneider: Pius XII. - Peace, the work of justice (= personality and history. Vol. 47). Musterschmidt, Göttingen 1968.
- Robert Serrou: Pie XII, le pape-roi. Perrin, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-262-00683-0 (French).
- Domenico Tardini , Franz Johna: Pius XII. as shepherd, priest and person. 2nd Edition. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau et al. 1961.
- Otto Walter: Pius XII - life and personality. Otto Walter, Olten (CH) 1939.
- Michael F. Feldkamp : Pius XII. - A Pope for Germany, Europe and the world. Patrimonium , Aachen 2018, ISBN 978-3-86417-114-7 .
Testimonies
- Graham Greene : Pius the Twelfth . In: Graham Greene: Vom Paradox des Christianentums (= Herder Library 31), Herder Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 1958, pp. 41–62. [Essay]
- Ilse-Lore Konopatzki: Eugenio Pacelli, Pius XII .: Childhood and youth in documents. Canisius-Werk, Ruppichteroth 2001, ISBN 3-934692-04-4 .
- Pascalina Lehnert : I was allowed to serve him. Memories of Pope Pius XII. Naumann, Würzburg 1983, ISBN 3-88567-041-0 .
- Markus Schmitt: The “silence” of Pius XII. on the persecution of Jews in the mirror of self-testimonies and statements by his colleagues and confidants. Benedetto, Aadorf 2008, ISBN 978-3-9523314-7-7 .
Attitude in World War II
- Lutz Klinkhammer : Pius XII., Rome and the Holocaust. In: Sources and research from Italian archives and libraries . Vol. 80, 2000, pp. 668-678 ( online ).
- Gabriele Rigano: Beyond the “black and white legend”. A discussion about Pius XII. and the deportation of the Roman Jews. In: Sources and research from Italian archives and libraries. Vol. 94, 2014, pp. 311-337 ( online ).
- Thomas Brechenmacher : The "suppressed encyclical" Societatis Unio and Pius XII. In: Roman quarterly for Christian antiquity and church history . Volume 109/1, 2014, pp. 119-133.
- Dieter Albrecht : The Holy See and the Third Reich. In: Klaus Gotto , Konrad Repgen : The Catholics and the Third Reich. 3rd expanded and revised edition, Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, Mainz 1990, ISBN 3-7867-1498-3 , pp. 25-48.
- Gerhard Besier : The Holy See and Hitler's Germany. The fascination of the totalitarian. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-421-05814-8 .
- Pierre Blet: Pope Pius XII. and the Second World War. From the files of the Vatican. Translated from the French by Birgit Martens-Schöne. Schöningh, Paderborn 2000, ISBN 3-506-71903-3 .
- Leonardo Ciampa : Pope Pius XII. A Dialogue. AuthorHouse, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4670-8539-7 .
- John Cornwell : Pius XII. - The Pope who was silent . Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-45472-0 .
- David G. Dalin: The myth of Hitler's Pope. How Pope Pius XII rescued Jews from the Nazis. Regnery Publishers, Washington 2005, ISBN 0-89526-034-4 .
- Michael F. Feldkamp : Pius XII. and Germany. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525-34026-5 .
- Peter Godman: The Vatican and Hitler. The secret archives. Knaur Taschenbuch, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-426-77810-6 .
-
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen : The Catholic Church and the Holocaust. Siedler, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-88680-770-3 .
- on this: Michael F. Feldkamp: Goldhagen's unwilling church. Old and new forgeries about the Church and the Pope during the Nazi regime. Olzog, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7892-8127-1 .
- Robert A. Graham: The Vatican and Communism during World War II. What Really Happened? Ignatius Press, San Francisco 1996, ISBN 0-89870-549-5 (English).
- Michael Hesemann : The Pope Who Defied Hitler - The Truth About Pius XII. Sankt-Ulrich-Verlag, Augsburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-86744-064-6 .
- Jobst etiquette : the ambassador and the pope. Weizsäcker and Pius XII. The German Vatican Embassy 1943–1945. Kovac, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8300-3467-4 .
- Klaus Kühlwein : "The poor Jews" - as Pope Pius XII. cried. In: TD Wabbel (ed.): The sacred nothing. God after the holocaust. Patmos, Düsseldorf 2007, ISBN 978-3-491-72510-2 , pp. 122-135.
- Klaus Kühlwein: Why the Pope was silent. Pius XII. and the Holocaust. Patmos, Düsseldorf 2008, ISBN 978-3-491-72527-0 .
- Klaus Kühlwein: Pius XII. and the raid on the Jews in Rome. 2nd edition, epubli, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-8442-7035-8 .
- Pinchas Lapide : Rome and the Jews. Herder, Freiburg i. Br. Et al. 1967 (third, improved and revised edition, Hess, Ulm 2005, ISBN 3-87336-241-4 ).
- Hanspeter Oschwald : Pius XII. - The last deputy: the Pope who divides church and society. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2008, ISBN 978-3-579-06986-9 .
- Ronald J. Rychlak: Hitler, the War, and the Pope. Our Sunday Visitor, Huntington IND 2000, ISBN 0-87973-217-2 (English).
- José Sánchez: Pius XII. and the Holocaust. Schöningh, Paderborn 2002, ISBN 3-506-77553-7 .
- Hubert Wolf : Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. 2nd edition, Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-86744-016-5 .
- Jean Chelini: L'Église sous Pie XII. Fayard, Paris 1983, ISBN 2-213-01595-3 (French).
- Philippe Chenaux, Giovanni Morello, Massimiliano Malente; on behalf of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Studies (Ed.): Opus Iustitiae Pax: Eugenio Pacelli - Pius XII. (1876-1958). 2nd Edition. Regensburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7954-2197-7 .
- Henri Fabre: L'Église catholique face au fascisme et au nazisme, Les outrages à la vérité. EPO, Bruxelles 1995 (French).
- Uki Goñi: The Real Odessa: how Perón brought the Nazi war criminals to Argentina. Granta Books, London 2002, ISBN 1-86207-403-8 (English; on the "rat line").
- JR Grigulevic: The Popes of the XX. Century. Urania-Verlag, Leipzig / Jena / Berlin 1984.
- Robert Katz: Rome 1943–1944: Occupiers, Liberators, Partisans and the Pope. Magnus, Essen 2006, ISBN 3-88400-438-7 .
- David I. Kertzer: The Popes against the Jews. The Vatican and the rise of modern anti-Semitism. List, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-548-60386-6 .
- Annie Lacroix-Riz: Le Vatican, l'Europe et le Reich de la Première Guerre Mondiale à la Guerre Froide (1914–1955). Armand Colin, Paris 1996, ISBN 2-200-21641-6 (French).
- Guenter Lewy : The Catholic Church and the Third Reich. [From d. American. by Hildegard Schulz] Piper, Munich 1965.
- Yves Marchasson: Les Papes du XXe siècle. Desclée, Paris 1990, ISBN 2-7189-0525-5 (French).
- John Francis Morley: Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews during the Holocaust, 1939-1943. (= The Historical Journal. Vol. 23, No. 04) Ktav Publishing House, New York 1980 (English).
- Michael Phayer: "Helping the Jews is not an easy thing to do." Vatican Holocaust Policy: Continuity or Change? In: Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Vol. 21, No. 3, 2007, ISSN 8756-6583 , pp. 421-453.
- Carol Rittner, Stephen D. Smith, Irena Steinfeldt (Eds.): The Holocaust and the Christian World: Reflections on the Past, Challenges for the Future. Continuum, New York 2000, ISBN 0-8264-1299-8 (English).
- Georges Roche, Philippe Saint Germain: Pie XII devant l'Histoire. R. Laffont, Paris 1972 (French).
- Jean Mathieu-Rosay: The Popes in the 20th Century. Primus-Verlag, Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-89678-531-1 .
- Georg Schwaiger : Papacy and Popes in the 20th Century. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-44892-5 .
- Dirk Verhofstadt: Pius XII. and the annihilation of the Jews , Alibri Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3865690760
- Ludwig Volk: Catholic Church and National Socialism (selected essays, edited by Dieter Albrecht). Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 1987, ISBN 3-7867-1297-2 .
Commemoration
- Karl Braun : Pius XII. Encounter in words and pictures. Fe-Medien, Kisslegg 2008, ISBN 978-3-939684-37-4 .
- Herbert Schambeck (Ed.): Pius XII. to memory. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-04050-3 (anthology on the occasion of the 100th birthday).
- Herbert Schambeck (Ed.): Pius XII. - Peace through justice. Butzon & Bercker, Kevelaer 1986, ISBN 3-7666-9473-1 .
Others
- José Antonio Almeida: The human problem of nuclear war: Pius XII. and the nuclear weapons. Driewer, Essen 1961.
- Thomas Brechenmacher : Johannes XXIII., Pacem in Terris and the legacy of Pius XII. In: Roman quarterly for Christian antiquity and church history . Volume 112 / 3–4, 2017, pp. 230–244.
- Bernhard Hülsebuch: A forgotten inscription by Theodor Heuss for Pope Pius XII. How did the German "thank you donation" come about in the Roman church of Sant'Eugenio? In: Roman quarterly for Christian antiquity and church history 114 (2019), pp. 134–147.
Web links
- Literature by and about Pius XII. in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by and about Pius XII. in the German Digital Library
- Newspaper article about Pius XII. in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
- Critical online edition of the nunciature reports Eugenio Pacellis (1917–1929)
Biographies
- Daniel Schmiedke: Pius XII. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
- Pius XII. Zukunft-brauch-erinnerung.de
- Pius XII. Vatican
Historical controversy
- Vatican and Pius XII .: The Pope Who Was Silent , documentation on haGalil.com. Jewish Life Online , January 25, 2009, accessed December 24, 2019.
- The Vatican is silent and special discounts for 70 years right after ( Memento from May 29, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ). In: News Directory of May 7, 2015.
- The Vatican newspaper savages clumsy film defending Pius XII . In: Catholic Herold, May 4, 2015.
- Klaus Kühlwein: A confession of guilt is overdue. In: Frankfurter Rundschau from April 15, 2015.
- Klaus Kühlwein: Jewish raid in Rome. The mute Pope. one day on: Spiegel online from October 15, 2013.
- Andreas M. Jarach: And Pius remained silent. 70 years ago more than 1000 Jews were deported from Rome to Auschwitz. A cry for help remained unanswered. In: Jüdische Allgemeine . of October 17, 2013, No. 42.
- Josef Kirchengast: A cry for help that went unanswered. In: the standard . from October 14, 2013.
- Klaus Kühlwein: The legend of the savior of the Jews. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . dated December 14, 2010, No. 291, p. 32 f. (online at imdialog.org ).
- Benno Kirsch: Adversary of Hitler or fickle failure? Double review on Hesemann: The Pope who defied Hitler and Kühlwein: Why the Pope was silent . On: literaturkritik.de from September 2009.
- Rainer Blasius: Expelling the devil from afar: Pius XII., The National Socialist persecution of the Jews and the Christmas address of 1942 . In: FAZ . of January 29, 2009, No. 24.
- Sergio I. Minerbi: Sacrificing the Jews for Christianity. In: Haaretz . dated November 14, 2008.
- René Schlott: The bizarre death of the deputy. On: einestages .spiegel.de from October 8, 2008.
- Werner Kaltefleiter: Pius XII. - A pope as an enemy. ( PDF file; 553 kB ) On: kath.de from February 7, 2007.
- Heribert Smolinsky: Persecution and Rescue of Jews. The policy of the Vatican during the Nazi era. (PDF 261 kB) In: Wolfram Wette (Ed.): Silent Heroes. Rescuers of Jews in the border triangle during the Second World War. Herder spectrum, Freiburg 2005. On: Forum School Foundation
- Rainer Decker: John Cornwell: Pius XII. The Pope who was silent (review). H-Soz-u-Kult , February 22, 2000.
- Robert Katz: Robert Katz: Pius XII Protests the Holocaust. Could the wartime pope have prevented the Final Solution? TheBoot.it, Robert Katz's History of Modern Italy, 2001.
- Rainer Decker: Pierre Blet: Pope Pius XII. and the Second World War and Michael F. Feldkamp: Pius XII. and Germany (collective review). H-Soz-u-Kult, February 22, 2000.
- Dominik Burkard: Pius XII. - the "silent Pope"? Plea for a differentiated view In: Dominik Burkard - Erich Garhammer (Ed.): Christian-Jewish conversation - again in crisis? Echter, Würzburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-429-03423-8 , pp. 11-75.
- Norbert Göttler : The Pacelli files. Documentary, Bavarian Television 2004.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Georg Schwaiger : "Peace is the work of justice". In: Papacy and Popes in the 20th Century. Munich 1999, p. 272.
- ↑ Hubert Wolf : Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, pp. 42–47.
- ↑ Georg Schwaiger: "Peace is the work of justice". In: Papacy and Popes in the 20th Century. Munich 1999, p. 273 f.
- ↑ Thomas Brechenmacher : The Vatican and the Jews. Munich 2005, p. 167.
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, p. 52 ff.
- ↑ Pulpit address of the Apostolic Nuncio in Germany, Archbishop Dr. Jean-Claude Périsset, February 21, 2010, online ( Memento of March 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ a b Michael F. Feldkamp : Pius XII. and Germany. Göttingen 2000, p. 35.
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, p. 90.
- ↑ a b Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, p. 93.
- ↑ Michael F. Feldkamp: Pius XII. and Germany. Göttingen 2000, p. 35.
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, p. 92.
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, p. 154.
- ↑ Georg Schwaiger: "Peace is the work of justice". In: Papacy and Popes in the 20th Century. Munich 1999, p. 275 f.
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, p. 155.
- ↑ Georg Schwaiger: "Peace is the work of justice". In: Papacy and Popes in the 20th Century. Munich 1999, p. 279.
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, p. 148 ff.
- ↑ Thomas Brechenmacher: The Vatican and the Jews. Story of an unholy relationship. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52903-8 , p. 169.
- ↑ Gerhard Besier : The Holy See and Hitler Germany. The fascination of the totalitarian. Munich 2004, pp. 274–281.
- ↑ Avro Manhattan: The Vatican and the XX. Century . Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin 1958. p. 378 (on the trip to South America in 1934) and p. 367 (on the trip to the USA in 1936).
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. In: Papacy and Popes in the 20th Century. Munich 1999, p. 153.
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, p. 300.
- ↑ a b Johanna Schmid: Pope Pius XII. to encounter. Augsburg 2001, p. 42.
- ↑ Gerhard Besier: The Holy See and Hitler Germany. The fascination of the totalitarian. Munich 2004, p. 263 f.
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, p. 301 f.
- ↑ Gerhard Besier: The Holy See and Hitler Germany. The fascination of the totalitarian. Munich 2004, p. 264.
- ↑ Quoted from Gerhard Besier: The Holy See and Hitler Germany. The fascination of the totalitarian. Munich 2004, p. 265.
- ↑ Peter Godman: The Vatican and Hitler - the secret archives Droemer Knaur, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-426-27308-X
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, p. 217.
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, pp. 205–208.
- ↑ Quoted from Hubert Wolf: Pope and Devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, p. 222.
- ↑ Quoted from Hubert Wolf: Pope and Devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, p. 223.
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, pp. 208-216.
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, p. 149.
- ↑ Gerhard Besier: The Holy See and Hitler Germany. The fascination of the totalitarian. Munich 2004, p. 293 f.
- ↑ Gerhard Besier: The Holy See and Hitler Germany. The fascination of the totalitarian. Munich 2004, p. 286.
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, pp. 234-237.
- ↑ Gerhard Besier: The Holy See and Hitler Germany. The fascination of the totalitarian. Munich 2004, p. 298.
- ↑ Gerhard Besier: The Holy See and Hitler Germany. The fascination of the totalitarian. Munich 2004, p. 299.
- ↑ Gerhard Besier: The Holy See and Hitler Germany. The fascination of the totalitarian. Munich 2004, p. 301.
- ↑ Emilia Hrabovec: The Vatican, Czechoslovakia and the European Powers in the Political Crisis of the late 1930s . In: Maddalena Guiotto, Wolfgang Wohnout (ed.): Italy and Austria in Central Europe of the Interwar Period / Italia e Austria nella Mitteleuropa tra le due guerre mondiali . Böhlau, Vienna 2018, ISBN 978-3-205-20269-1 , pp. 310 f .
- ↑ Gerhard Besier : The Holy See and Hitler Germany. The fascination of the totalitarian. Munich 2004, pp. 301-304.
- ^ Heinz-Joachim Fischer : Between Rome and Mecca . Bertelsmann, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-570-01077-8 , p. 61.
- ↑ Michael Feldkamp: Pius XII. and Germany . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525-34026-5 , p. 145.
- ↑ Gustav Seibt : Rome or death. The fight for the Italian capital . Siedler, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-88680-726-6 , p. 303.
- ↑ Bruna Bocchini Camaiani: Il clero e la guerra: le Fonti ecclesiastiche . In: Anna Lisa Carlotti (ed.): Italia 1939–1945. Storia e memoria . Vita e pensiero, Milano 1996, ISBN 88-343-2458-7 , pp. 127-144, here p. 130.
- ^ José M. Sánchez: Pius XII. and the Holocaust. Paderborn 2003, pp. 30-33.
- ↑ Pierre Blet: Pope Pius XII. and the Second World War. From the files of the Vatican. P. 74.
- ↑ Actes et documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre mondiale , Vol. 3/1, No. 138.
- ↑ Actes et documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la seconde Guerre Mondiale, Vol. 1 No. 313.
- ^ Actes et documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre mondiale , September 15, 1941; Pierre Blet: From the files of the Vatican , p. 125 f.
- ↑ Pierre Blet: Pope Pius XII. and the Second World War. From the files of the Vatican. P. 126.
- ↑ The diaries of Joseph Goebbels. On behalf of the Institute for Contemporary History ed. by Elke Fröhlich, Part II, Volume 15, p. 93.
- ↑ Martina Ahmann: What remains of human life inviolable? Lit, Münster / Hamburg / London 2001, ISBN 3-8258-5333-0 , p. 204, note 102 ( online excerpt ).
- ^ Decree of the Holy Office, December 2, 1940; Acta Ap. Sedis, Volume 32 (1940), pp. 553-554.
- ↑ Quoted from Hubert Wolf: Pope and Devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, p. 251.
- ^ Letter to Pius XII. of February 4, 1941, in: ADSS VIII, pp. 90-92.
- ^ For example, nunciatures / embassies in Preßburg (Slovakia); Vichy (France), Bucharest (Romania); Zagreb (Croatia), see Pierre Blet: Pope Pius XII. and the Second World War. From the files of the Vatican, 2nd through. Ed., Paderborn 2000, p. 165 (orig. In French, Paris 2007).
- ↑ The British envoy to the Vatican, Francis Osborne , regularly summarized the BBC and translated them into Italian for the Pope. (Cf. Sánchez: Pius XII. And the Holocaust. Paderborn 2003, p. 27.)
- ↑ Memorandum docu. in: Friedländer: Pius XII. and the Third Reich. A documentation, Munich 2011, new edition with an epilogue, (first edition: Reinbek 1965 / Paris 1964), p. 102ff.
- ↑ Sent to the Vatican by Bernardini on March 19, 1942 (ADSS VIII, p. 466).
- ^ Raya Cohen: The Riegner Telegram - Text, Context and Subtext . In: Tel Aviver Yearbook for German History , 23, 1994, pp. 301–324.
- ↑ ADSS VIII, p. 679.
- ↑ ADSS ibid., Pp. 327f and 456.
- ↑ Pierre Blet: Pope Pius XII. and the Second World War. From the files of the Vatican. P. 170.
- ^ Robert A. Graham: Pius XII: Years of Praise Years of Blame. In: Suppl. Catholic League Newsletter. 11, Vol. 16, No. 2, 1989. See also AR Butz: Robert Graham and Revisionism. In: The Journal of Historical Review. March / April 1988, pp. 24-25.
- ↑ Who received more thanks from the Jewish side? Interview by Jens Mersch with Peter Gumpel. In: Kirchliche Umschau, No. 11 November 2000, accessed on 14 December 2013 .
- ↑ José Sánchez: Pius XII. and the Holocaust. Anatomy of a Debate , Paderborn 2003, p. 26 ff.
- ↑ José Sánchez: Pius XII. and the Holocaust. Anatomy of a debate. Paderborn 2003, pp. 28-29 (orig. In American, Washington 2002).
- ↑ Discourses Radiomessaggi di SS Pio XII. Vol. 4, Città del Vaticano 1960.
- ↑ Address to the College of Cardinals on June 2, 1943; Acta Apostolicae Sedis , Volume 35, pp. 165 ff.
- ↑ a b Stephen M. DiGiovanni: Pius XII and the Jews: The War Years - as Reported by the New York Times. Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion Volume 3, No. 2, Art. 8.
- ^ New York Times, December 25, 1941 (late edition), p. 24; quoted from: Stephen M. DiGiovanni: Pius XII and the Jews: The War Years - as Reported by the New York Times. Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, Volume 3, No. 2, Art. 8.
- ^ New York Times, December 25, 1942 (late edition), p. 16; quoted from: Stephen M. DiGiovanni: Pius XII and the Jews: The War Years - as Reported by the New York Times. Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, Volume 3, No. 2, Art. 8.
- ↑ a b c d Letter from Pius XII. of April 30, 1943 to the Berlin bishop Graf von Preysing, published in "Documentation catholique" of February 2, 1964.
- ↑ Document CCXVIII-78 of the Center de Documentation Juive Contemporaine .
- ^ Telegram from Harold Tittmann to the State Department of January 5, 1943; Foreign Relations of the United States 1943 II, p. 911 ff.
- ↑ Political Archive of the Foreign Office, Inland ID / Church 17/9 (R 98833); Partial reprint (with the wrong date) by Anthony Rhodes: The Pope and the Dictators. Cologne et al. 1980 (first English 1975), pp. 233-235.
- ↑ Quoted from: Victor Conzemius: Screaming or Silence? A Pope's dilemma. In: Vaterland , No. 209, September 9, 1988.
- ↑ Isaak HaLevy Herzog on February 28, 1944 in Actes et documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre mondiale , Vol. X, p. 292.
- ↑ Statement from Msgr. Orsenigos to Professor Edoardo Senatra a few days after the intervention, reproduced in the Petrus Blatt, the organ of the Diocese of Berlin, from April 7, 1963, there with the obviously incorrect date November 1943 (at the time Hitler was on Wolfsschanze and not in Berchtesgaden). The Record of Pius XII's Opposition to Hitler calls it June 21, 1943.
- ^ M. Tagliacozzo: La Communità di Roma sotto l'incubo della svastica - La grande razzia del 16 ottobre 1943. In: Gli ebrei in Italia durante il Fascismo ; Quaderni del Centro di Docum. Ebraica Contemporanea, No. 3, Milan, 1963, p. 9. See also Kappler's testimony during his trial; documented in: The Nizkor Project
- ↑ Black Sabbath. London 1969, p. 139; (most recently also in: Rome 1943–1944. Essen 2006; p. 106 = NY 2003). Katz derives his thesis from an interview statement by Eitel F. Möllhausen (German Embassy, Rome). But there is no further confirmation.
- ↑ See the famous Möllhausen telegrams to the Ribbentrop office on October 6th and 7th, 1943: Files on German Foreign Policy , ed. von Bußmann, W. et al., Series E: 1941–1945, Vol. VII. Likewise: Möllhausen, E .: The broken axis. Alfeld 1949, p. 112 f.
- ↑ On Dannecker's mission with evidence from trial files: Steur, C., Theodor Dannecker: A functionary of the final solution. Tub. 1997, p. 116 ff.
- ↑ For example: M. Tagliacozzo: La persecuzione degli ebrei a Roma. In: Picciotto Fargion, L .: L'occupazione tedesca e gli ebrei di Roma. Documenti e fatti. Milan 1979; F. Coen: 16 ottobre 1943. La grande Razzia degli ebrei di Roma. Florence 1993.
- ↑ L. Picciotto Fargion: Il libro della memoria. Gli Ebrei deportati dall'Italia (1943–1945). 2nd Edition. Milan 2002; P. 881 f.
- ↑ Interview on June 9, 1969 in: Graham, RA: La strana condotta di E. von Weizsäcker, Ambasciatore del Reich in Vaticano. In: La Civiltà Cattolica 121 (1970), p. 466; also: TV interview in: Pius XII - the Pope, the Jews and the Nazis (BBC, 1995).
- ↑ Protocol documented in: ADSS IX, Doc. 368, p. 505 f.
- ^ ADSS IX, Doc. 383, p. 519 (Note d'office).
- ^ The Hudalbrief documents, for example, ADSS IX, Doc. 373, p. 509 f., Corrected version.
- ↑ In a footnote in Doc. 373 (note 4): ADSS IX, p. 510.
- ^ Graham, RA: La strana condotta di E. von Weizsäcker, Ambasciatore del Reich in Vaticano. In: La Civiltà Cattolica 121 (1970), p. 469 f .; LE Hill: The Vatican Embassy of Ernst von Weizsäcker. In: Journal of Modern History. 39 (1967), p. 148 ff .; M. Phayer: Pius XII. The Holocaust and the cold War. Indiana University Press, 2008, p. 76 f.
- ^ F. Coen: 16 October 1943. La grande Razzia degli ebrei di Roma. Florence 1993 p. 103 ff .; Black Sabbath. London 1969, p. 260 ff.
- ↑ See her autobiography: Gli anni rubati. 2nd Edition. Cava de 'Tirreni 2001.
- ↑ Exemplary for the numerous documents: A. Gaspari: Gli ebrei salvati da Pio XII ; Rome 2001. G. Loparco: Gli Ebrei negli istituti religiosi a Roma (1943-1944). Dall'arrivo alla partenza. In: Rivista di storia della chiesa in Italia 58 (2004), pp. 107-210. A. Riccardi: L'inverno più lungo 1943–1944: Pio XII, gli ebrei ei nazisti a Roma ; Rome 2008.
- ^ Pius XII and the Rescue of Jews in Italy: Evidence of Papal Directive? In: Joshua D. Zimmerman (Ed.): Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi Rule . Cambridge Press / NY 2005, p. 287 ff.
- ↑ Why the Pope was silent. Düsseldorf 2008, p. 56. Also wrote Kühlwein, Pius XII. lived through a “ Jacob's Night” that initiated the change of heart (p. 212 f.). The reason was the shock of the deportation of Jews in his episcopal city and his inability to save those arrested.
- ^ Klaus Kühlwein: Pius XII. and the raid on the Jews in Rome. , Düsseldorf 2008, p. 328 f.
- ↑ Stefan Samerski: In the service of the church constantly striving to save people. In memory of Father Pankratius Pfeiffer SDS (1872–1945). In: L'Osservatore Romano, weekly edition. in German Language, Vol. 35 (2005) p. 5. A book by Samerski was announced for December 5, 2012; it appeared in August 2013: Pancratius Pfeiffer, the extended arm of Pius XII. Schöningh-Verlag, 978-3506767264
- ↑ Cf. D. Kurzman: A Special Mission, Hitler's Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII. Cambridge / MA 2007.
- ↑ Biography of Eugenio Zolli on santiebeati.it
- ^ For example: Rabbi David Dalin: The Mythe of Hitler's pope. How pope Pius XII rescued jews from the Nazis. Washington 2005, p. 69 ff .; R. Ryschlak: Righteous Gentilies. How Pius XII and the Catholic Church Saved Half a Million Jews from the Nazis. Dallas 2005, pp. 252 ff .; M. Hesemann: The Pope who defied Hitler. The truth about Pius XII Augsburg 2008, p. 172 ff.
- ^ Robert Graham: Pope Pius XII. and his attitude to the forces of war. In: Pius XII. in memory. Schambeck, Berlin 1977, 161.
- ^ Dieter Albrecht: Exchange of notes between the Holy See and the German Reich Government. Vol. 2 Doc. 15 *, pp. 235/37, and Vol. 3, Doc. 934, pp. 657/58; Albrecht: Church in the German Empire. P. 164. Goebbels-Tagebücher , Vol. 2/6, p. 181.
- ^ Dieter Albrecht: Exchange of notes between the Holy See and the German Reich Government. Vol. 3, p. XXXII, and in Doc. 1000, p. 695/97; also in Friedländer: Pius XII. P. 122/23; Albrecht: Church in the German Empire. P. 168/69; Pierre Blet: Pope Pius XII. and the Second World War. From the files of the Vatican. P. 90; Falconi: silence. P. 242.
- ↑ This was the result of the interrogation of Joachim von Ribbentrop in the Nuremberg Trial of the Major War Criminals : The Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal. Official text in German. Vol. X, p. 162.
- ↑ Pierre Blet: Pope Pius XII. and the Second World War. From the files of the Vatican. P. 70.
- ↑ Pierre Blet: Pope Pius XII. and the Second World War. From the files of the Vatican. P. 87.
- ↑ Pierre Blet: Pope Pius XII. and the Second World War. From the files of the Vatican. P. 85 ff.
- ↑ Quoted from: Schmid: Pope Pius XII. to encounter. Augsburg, 2001, p. 96. See also Hesemann: The Pope who defied Hitler. P. 176.
- ↑ Lat. 'To prevent worse things'. Trans. D. Author
- ↑ Antonia Leugers in: Against a wall of episcopal silence. The Committee for Religious Affairs and its Resistance Concept 1941–1945. Knecht, Frankfurt am Main, 1996.
- ↑ Gottfried Maron: Pius XII. In: Theological Real Encyclopedia. Volume 26, 4th edition. 1996, p. 675 f.
- ↑ Arthur Fridolin Utz, Joseph Fulko Groner (ed.): Structure and development of social life. Social sum of Pius XII. Three volumes, Freiburg i. Ue. 1954-1961
- ↑ Georges Passelecq, Bernard Suchecky: The misappropriated encyclical. The Vatican and the persecution of the Jews. Hanser Verlag, Munich / Vienna 1997. (French original edition: L'encyclique cachée de Pie XI. Une occasion manquée de l'Église face à l'antisemitisme. Paris 1995.)
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2009, pp. 205-240.
- ↑ Dieter Bänsch: The fifties. Narr Francke Attempto, Tübingen 1985, ISBN 978-3-87808-725-0 , p. 415. (Google Books, accessed March 11, 2012)
- ↑ Hannah Wunsch: Good advice is expensive for chronic complaints . In: Der Tagesspiegel , July 31, 1999.
- ↑ Ampoules from Heidelberg . In: Der Spiegel . No. 52 , 1954 ( online ).
- ^ Benedict XVI .: Address to the participants of the congress “The legacy of the Magisterium of Pius XII. and the Second Vatican Council. ” On the Vatican website, November 8, 2008.
- ↑ VATICAN - DER SPIEGEL 50/1956. Der Spiegel , December 12, 1956, accessed on July 16, 2016 .
- ^ Ingo Langner: Pope Pius XII. and Berlin. In: Exhibition catalog Eugenio Pacelli - Pope Pius XII. / The Pope Exhibition (January 23 to March 7, 2009, Charlottenburg Palace ), pp. 66–73.
- ^ Heroic degree of virtue of John Paul II and Pius XII. accepted! kath.net , December 19, 2009.
- ↑ Vatican: Gumpel defends nuncio in Israel. Vatican Radio, April 13, 2007.
- ^ Israel / Vatican: Further dispute about Pius XII. Vatican Radio, April 14, 2007.
- ^ Daniel Gerster: Pope Pius XII - The work of justice is peace (exhibition review). H-Soz-u-Kult, February 28, 2009.
- ^ Website of the Pope's exhibition .
- ^ Opus iustitiae pax: Eugenio Pacelli - Pius XII. (1876-1958) . 2nd Edition. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7954-2197-7 .
- ^ Pope Francis opens archives on Pius XII. , kathisch.de, March 4, 2019.
- ^ Karl Otmar von Aretin, Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 7, 1981; based on Gottfried Maron: Pius XII. In: Theological Real Encyclopedia. Volume 26, 4th edition. 1996, p. 675.
- ^ José M. Sánchez: Pius XII. and the Holocaust. Paderborn 2003, p. 8 ff.
- ^ Léon Poliakov: The Vatican and the "Jewish Question". The Record of the Hitler Period - and After. In: Commentary 10/1950, pp. 439–449, reported by José Sánchez: Pius XII. and the Holocaust. Anatomy of a Debate , Paderborn 2003, p. 10.
- ^ Alberto Giovannetti: L'action du Vatican pour la Paix. Paris 1963.
- ^ Guenter Lewy: The Catholic Church and the Third Reich (English first edition New York 1964), Munich 1965.
- ^ Saul Friedländer: Pie XII et le IIIe Reich. Paris 1964; German: Pius XII. and the Third Reich. A documentation , Reinbek 1965; Foreword to the English edition Pius XII and the Third Reich , New York 1966.
- ^ Carlo Falcone: Il silenzio di Pio XII. Milan 1965; German: The Pope's silence. A documentation. Munich 1966.
- ^ Robert Katz: Death in Rome. First edition 1967; second edition under the title: Black Sabbath. A Journey through a Crime against Humanity. New York 1969.
- ^ Robert Katz: Rome 1943-1944. Essen 2006, p. 415 f.
- ^ Robert Graham: Pope Pius XII. and his attitude to the forces of war. Pius XII. in memory. Schambeck, Berlin 1977, p. 157.
- ^ Victor Conzemius: Eglises chrétiennes e totalitarisme national-socialiste. Un bilan historiographique. Louvain 1969; Le Saint-Siège pendant la IIe Guerre mondiale. In: Miscellanea Historiae Ecclesiasticae 9/1984, pp. 471-475.
- ^ John S. Conway: Catholicism and the Jews during the Nazi Period and After. In: Otto Dov Kulka et al. (Ed.): Judaism and Christianity under the Impact of National Socialism. Jerusalem 1987, pp. 435-451.
- ↑ Giorgio Angelozzi Gariboldi: Pio XII, Hitler e Mussolini. Milan 1988; Il Vaticano nella seconda guerra mondiale. Milan 1992.
- ^ Emma Fattorini: Germania e Santa Sede. Le nunziature di Pacelli fra la Grande guerra e la Repubblica di Weimar. Bologna 1992.
- ↑ Pierre Blet: Pope Pius XII. and the Second World War. First edition Paris 1996, German edition, 2nd edition, Paderborn 2001.
- ^ John Cornwell: Pius XII. - The Pope who was silent , German edition Munich 1999, for example pp. 101 and 369.
- ↑ Michael Phayer: The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1965. Bloomington 2000.
- ^ Susan Zuccotti: Under His very Windows. The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy. New Haven 2000.
- ↑ Giovanni Miccoli: I dilemmi e silenzi di Pio XII. Milan 2000.
- ^ Daniel Jonah Goldhagen: The Catholic Church and the Holocaust. An Inquiry into Guilt and Atonement. Siedler Verlag, Berlin 2002.
- ↑ David G. Dalin: The Myth of Hitler's Pope. Regnery, 2005.
- ↑ Michael Hesemann: The Pope who defied Hitler: The truth about Pius XII. Sankt Ulrich Verlag, Augsburg 2008.
- ↑ Klaus Kühlwein: Why the Pope was silent. Pius XII. and the Holocaust. Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf 2008, ISBN 978-3-491-72527-0 .
- ^ Pacelli Committee: Important documents on Pius XII. rediscovered , kath.net , March 6, 2017
- ↑ Michael Hesemann: Pius XII. had approved the murder of Hitler
- ↑ World Jewish Congress welcomes opening of the Vatican archives , Jüdische Allgemeine, February 26, 2020. Retrieved February 27, 2020.
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung: The next dispute about renaming the street is imminent. Retrieved September 16, 2020 .
- ↑ Anti-Semitism officer for the renaming of Pacelliallee to berlin.de
- ↑ Vatican Embassy speaks up . Domradio, September 15, 2020, accessed on September 16, 2020.
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Pius XI. |
 Pope 1939-1958 |
John XXIII |
| Pope Pius XI |
 Grand Master of the Order of Knights of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem 1939–1940 |
Nicola Canali |
| Pietro Cardinal Gasparri |
.svg){kind=small} Cardinal Chamberlain 1935–1939 |
Lorenzo Cardinal Lauri |
| Pietro Cardinal Gasparri |
Cardinal Secretary of State 1930–1939 |
Cardinal Luigi Maglione |
| Cardinal Luigi Maglione |
Cardinal Secretary of State de facto 1944–1952 |
Domenico Tardini |
| Lorenzo Cardinal Lauri |
Chamberlain of the Holy College of Cardinals 1937–1939 |
Federico Cardinal Tedeschini |
| Office newly created |
Apostolic Nuncio to the German Empire 1920–1929 |
Cesare Orsenigo |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pius XII. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pacelli, Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni (maiden name) |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Italian clergyman, 260th Pope, Bishop of Rome, Head of State of the Vatican |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 2, 1876 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rome |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 9, 1958 |
| Place of death | Castel Gandolfo |