ADSS 1.239 Micara to Maglione: Belgium fears German invasion

ADSS 1.239 Clemente Micara, Belgium, to Luigi Maglione, Sec State

Reference: Telegram 64 (AES 495/40)

Location and date: 05.01.1940

Summary statement: Belgium fears a possible German invasion and asks the Vatican for information.

Language: Italian

Text:

Belgian Government received serious information according to which Belgium and Holland could in very near future be exposed to German attacks.  Government here would be extremely grateful to receive confidential and secret information as to whether the Holy See has received any intimation of this kind (1). 

Notes: 

(1) Several days later on 10.01.1940, Joseph Berryer (1897-1978), Counsellor of the Belgian Embassy in Berlin (1937-40), handed a verbal note of protest the Head of Political Division II at the Foreign Office, Emil von Rintelen (1897-1981), against German reconnaissance flights over Belgium by the Luftwaffe. DGFP, Series D, Volume 8, n528, pp514-15. At the same time Hitler ordered suspension of invasion plans for the Low Countries and France because sensitive information had been seized in Belgium after a Luftwaffe plan crashed landed.  Belgium formally notified Germany that it had the invasion plans on 17.01.1940.

NB: ADSS records the recipient of the Belgian complaint as Ernst von Weizsäcker.