Pavelic, Croatia and the Vatican

Over the last few months I have been reading my way through Volume 8 of ADSS.  It is a selection of documents that deal with the Vatican's attempt to help the victims of the war, especially the Jews.  I have posted a series of documents on the attempts made to stop the deportations from Slovakia.  In these texts we have seen how the Vatican used both its diplomatic efforts alongside the work of its representatives "in the field" combined with local and international influences. 

Between March and October 1942 about 58,000 Slovakian Jews were deported, most were sent to Auschwitz where they were murdered.  Deportations did not resume until September 1944 when the Red Army was approaching the eastern borders.

Slovakia's neighbour, the German-puppet state of Croatia, had many similarities.  Both were ruled by men who claimed legitimacy in part through Catholicism, both sought papal approval for their regimes, both employed German-style antisemitism as government policy, both used police and militia as enforcers of anti-Jewish laws, both exercised state-sanctioned persecution, imprisonment, exclusion, expropriation and extermination of Jews, and both relied in varying measures on the tacit approval of at least some of the Catholic clergy.

Croatia was different in a number of respects - all of them marking the Ustasha regime of Ante Pavelic as one of the most bloody and sadistic episodes not only of World War Two and the Holocaust, but of modern European history.  Not even the Balkan "ethnic cleansing" of the 1990s came close to the horrors of the Ustasha.  One indicator was the revulsion expressed by the different members of the German and Italian military, as well as the Gestapo, to the means by which the Ustasha murdered their victims.  The history of the mass murder of Jews, Orthodox Christian Serbs, and largely Catholic and Orthodox Roma by the Ustasha and their collaborators is by any standards sickening reading.

The Vatican's diplomatic involvement with the Pavelic regime began with the request from Pavelic for a papal representative in Zagreb.  Pavelic visited Rome in May 1941 in part to seek Pius XII's blessing for the new Croatian state as well as score the propaganda coup of having papal recognition done on the world stage.  Pavelic was to be disappointed on both counts. 

Pius has been widely criticised for receiving the dictator; but what choice did he have?  Having proclaimed neutrality at the outbreak of the war, the pope could not very well refuse to receive a head of state, even a Nazi puppet such as Pavelic who made so much of his Catholicism.  Nonetheless, the Vatican did move to ensure that the visit was as low key as possible. 

ADSS provides us with a timeline of how the Holy See saw the Pavelic visit and what was possible, what was probable, and what would certainly not happen.

The references come from Volumes 4: June 1940-June 1941 and 5: July 1941- October 1942.

4.348  16.05.1941  Note of Giovanni Battista Montini, Secretariat of State: Pavelic had requested an audience with the pope.  Pius will grant a private audience. It was standard Vatican diplomatic practice not to grant formal diplomatic recognition to a state created during wartime or to recognise altered borders of a state made during war.  While Pavelic was, as far as the Croatian and German governments concerned, the head of state, the Vatican still recognised the Yugoslavian government in exile in London as the legitimate government and accorded Sorgo Mirosevic (1884-1966) full diplomatic status as its ambassador.  Therefore there would be no discussion of "recognition" of the new Croatian state.

4.351  17.05.1941 Note of Domenico Tardini, Secretariat of State: Making reference to the previous note, Tardini writes that the situation is "delicate".  The question was how to grant the audience - it would be diplomatically foolish to deny one since Pavelic made much of his Catholicism - without it becoming a political spectacle.

4.352  17.05.1941 Note of Tardini:  The pope will receive Pavelic alone in a private meeting.  The diplomatic language was "without delegation".  Pavelic could arrive at the Vatican in whatever way he chose, but once inside, he was going to be treated as a private person, a Catholic meeting with the pope.  There would be no formal agenda, no photos, no exchange of gifts and no reception with honour guards, papal nobility etc.  It would be as plain as possible.

4.356  18.05.1941 Note of Montini:  Pavelic and his entourage were received by the pope in a general audience - ie, as a group of Catholics who have come to Rome to see the pope.

4.357  18.05.1941 Note of Montini: The rector of St Jerome [the Croatian National College in Rome] Monsignor Magjerec will fly the Croatian flag during Pavelic's visit.

4.358  18.05.1941 Note of Montini: Pavelic's audience with the pope.  Pius XII received Pavelic as a "son of the Church".  Any recognition of the new state must wait until the end of the war.

19/20.05.1941 L'Osservatore Romano published a full account of the Pavelic visit.

4.361  18.05.1941 Cardinal Luigi Maglione, Secretary of State to all Nuncios and Apostolic Delegates: Circular emphasising the apolitical nature of Pavelic's visit to the pope. The fact that this was sent to all the papal representatives is very significant.  Rome wanted no misunderstanding about the visit - it was private and was in no way an approval of either Pavelic's regime or the new state.  Diplomatically, this was a very begrudging acceptance of something considered very unpleasant and unwanted.  I have no doubt Pavelic would have been made aware of the circular.

4.364  19.05.1941 Maglione to all Nuncios and Apostolic Delegates: More information on the audience granted to Pavelic.  Pavelic and his entourage were received by the pope.  Pius and Pavelic then went into another room for a private conversation.  At the end of this the pope returned to greet the delegation.  The customary courtesy call to the Secretary of State did not happen.  This reinforces what was mentioned above and also points to the high degree of sensitivity the Vatican knew surrounded the visit.  Pius knew the visit would generate hostility from many quarters.  This is possibly the first recorded "public relations management" exercise by the Vatican.  Misinformation was not slow to appear.  See 4.373, 379,407

4.369  21.05.1941 Note of Montini: Sorgo Mirosevic, the Yugoslav minister, requested L’Osservatore Romano publish the precise details of the audience granted to Pavelic.  Reports from French Radio suggest the Pope gave official recognition to the new state and spoke of a concordat.

4.385  02.06.1941 Note of Tardini:  Sorgo Mirosevic had made a protest at news of a papal representative being appointed for Croatia.  The protest was rejected.

4.386  02.06.1941 Sorgo Mirosevic to Secretariat of State:  Official protest at the news that the Vatican will appoint a papal representative to Croatia. While Mirosevic's protest is understandable, the Vatican's position can not be ignored.  There was no advantage for the pope is he refused the opportunity of having a representative in Croatia.  It was a case of realpolitik.  A diplomat of Mirosevic's experience would certainly understood this.  The protest was a diplomatic formality.

4.392  07.06.1941 Note of Tardini:  The pope has promised the Archbishop of Zagreb, Alojzije Stepinac, that he will appoint a papal representative to Croatia.  I have written about this in an earlier post.

4.400  13.06.1941 Note of Tardini:  Pavelic has expressed dissatisfaction that Croatia is to receive a nunciature while Croatia is to be given an Apostolic Visitor who is only "an observer".  This was not accurate.  Giuseppe Burzio, the papal representative in Slovakia, held the rank of charge d'affaires, which was less than ambassadorial rank.  The nunciature was not restored until after the war.

4.404  14.06.1941 Secretariat of State to Sorgo Mirosevic:  The Vatican's formal response to Mirosevic's protest of 02.06.1941.

ADSS 5.17  22.07.1941 Note of Tardini:  (See to 5 and 9).  The papal representative to Croatia will not have the title of Apostolic Visitor because of papal diplomatic policy regarding states created during war. Evidently there was a change of mind as the title was retained.

5.21  25.07.1941 Maglione to Stepinac:  Abbot Giuseppe Marcone has been appointed as the papal envoy to Croatia.

Marcone's despatches from Croatia mirrored much of what Giuseppe Burzio was reporting from Slovakia, namely a regime with a murderous policy towards Jews and others deemed unworthy of participation in the building of the new Croatia.

Unbelievable, unsubstantiated, unacceptable - Pius XII "undercover".

This very strange article came through the Catholic News Agency last night and was forwarded to me by a colleague in New York.

Before I discuss the article, I will begin with a story from Australian literary history.  In 1995 an unknown first-time author, daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, Helen Demidenko, was awarded Australia's premier literature prize, The Miles Franklin Award.  The Hand that signed the Paper was supposedly the blended account given to Demidenko by her uncle "Uncle Vitaly" and told a shockingly frank tale of a Ukrainian family's life under Stalinist terror through to collaboration with the Nazis.  At the heart of the tale was the revelation that Vitaly and his younger brother, Evheny were intimately involved in the Holocaust.  Vitaly was a guard at Treblinka; Evheny was a member of Einzatsgruppen C and possibly active at Babi Yar.

Demidenko's book sold out in a matter of days.  I bought a copy and found it riveting.  I had been a student of Holocaust history for a number of years by 1995 and appreciated the frank writing that presented a story of collaboration that was consistent with what the historical record had told for several decades.  The Hand the Signed the Paper received considerable acclaim as a searing recount of one of the worst episodes in modern history.

Then ...

Shortly after the Miles Franklin Prize was given to Demidenko it was revealed that the author was really Helen Darville, daughter of English migrants, with no connection to Ukraine at all.  The story was, from beginning to end, the fabrication of an English literature student at the University of Queensland.  Darville initially claimed that she had sourced the material from Ukrainian migrants before finally admitting the story was just based on historical fact.

It would appear that Darville found her ethnic origins rather mundane and decided that adopting a Ukrainian persona would be more exciting.  She has not been the first to do so.  For decades there were people who hoped that Anna Anderson was really the Grand Duchess Anastasia, youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and they refused to believe that she was the daughter of Polish peasants.

In 1995 the startling memoir Stoker was published.  It told the story of Donald Watt, an Australian POW in Poland who claimed he had been sent to Auschwitz where he worked as a stoker in the crematoria alongside the Sonderkommando.  The book was received  with great fanfare and acclaim. Watt was invited by Jewish groups around Australia to tell his story.  It was not long before historians began reading Stoker and asking serious questions.  The summary of the investigation was that the story not only did not happen as Watt described, it could not have happened. (I suggest reading Professor Konrad Kwiet's analysis).

My point is that the creation or invention of a story however positive and edifying, whether done for the noblest of reasons or otherwise, serves only to muddy the waters and create confusion.  When authors write fiction they do so to tell a story for the entertainment of their readers.  They are not required to justify or qualify their writing.  For historians the reading and writing process about the human story demands basic standards of verification, research and corroborative evidence.  David' Kerr's article does not meet this criteria.

If this was a first year university student's essay on an aspect of the life of Pope Pius XII it would fail simply because there are no citations to refer the reader to sources, no corroborating evidence, and selective use of material that can and has been read in a number of ways.  However, David Kerr's greatest omissions are the lack of context and the verification of his material through consultation with scholars.  In less than 24 hours the story has been picked up by conservative Catholic news services around the world.  I fear it will develop a life of its own and become yet another part of the "faction" that is so much apologia for Pius XII.

Just as Dan Brown did when he wrote the Da Vinci Code, certain pro-Pius XII fans have combined a certain amount of historical truth with fantasy to create a story that to the lay audience has all the veneer of accuracy.  Holocaust denialists do the same.

My comments appear in RED.

By David Kerr, Rome, Italy, Nov 4, 2011 / 06:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).

The Jewish New Yorker who has made it his life’s work to clear the name of Pope Pius XII of being anti-Semitic believes the wartime pontiff actually went undercover to save the lives of Jews in Rome.Gary Krupp came across the evidence in a letter from a Jewish woman whose family was rescued thanks to direct Vatican intervention.

Who is this unnamed Jewish woman?  Where did Mr Krupp come across this extraordinary find? Why, after sixty years, has this story finally emerged?

“It is an unusual letter, written by a woman who is alive today in northern Italy, who said she was with her mother, her uncle, and a few other relatives in an audience with Pius XII in 1947.”

Next to Pope Pius during the meeting was his Assistant Secretary of State, Monsignor Giovanni Montini, the future Pope Paul VI. “Her uncle immediately looks at the Pope and he says, ‘You were dressed as a Franciscan,’ and looked at Montini who was standing next to him, ‘and you as a regular priest. You took me out of the ghetto into the Vatican.’ Montini immediately said, ‘Silence, do not ever repeat that story.’”

Giovanni Battista Montini (1897-1978) served in the Secretariat of State from 1922 to 1954.  During the war Montini was one of the closest collaborators of Pius XII.  When the Allies bombed Rome in July 1943 Montini and Pius XII were driven to San Lorenzo fuori le mura.  This is well known.  There is no evidence recorded anywhere, outside of this newly revealed account, that Pius ever left the Vatican in disguise alone or with any one else.  The claim flies in the face of everything known about Pope Pius XII.   

There are questions that come out of this story.  Rome did not have a closed ghetto, unlike cities in Eastern Europe, so assertions of Pius "entering" the ghetto and taking someone "out of the ghetto" do not seem to make sense.  What is meant here?  Why did the Pope and Montini take someone "out of the ghetto" and into the Vatican when it was relatively easy for people to enter the Vatican?  Given that the Jews of Rome were not confined to a ghetto, why was there a need to take someone out?

How was it possible that the Pope and one of his closest collaborators were able to leave the Vatican, cross the Tiber and enter the ghetto and apparently take a Jewish family out and bring them to the Vatican and no one has ever recorded anything about it?

When Montini, as Pope Paul VI, ordered a team of Jesuit historians to examine the files of the Secretariat of State during the war, why was this story not revealed?  Pius had been dead for nearly ten years and Paul had publically defended Pius from accusations of silence.  Why did he not reveal this story then?

Why is there no mention of this event in any of the memoirs of those who worked with Pius on a daily basis and at close quarters: Cardinals Tardini, Tisserant and Mother Pascalina Lehnert?

This story ranks on the same level as the Papal Order to open the convents.  It is a good story, but there is no concrete evidence to support it.

Krupp believes the claim to be true because the personality of the wartime Pope was such that he “needed to see things with his own eyes.”

This seems to contradict what historians know about the pope.  He relied on reports from others and did not need to go out and "see things."  In fact between May 1940 and July 1943 the pope did not leave the Vatican at all.



"He used to take the car out into bombed areas in Rome, and he certainly wasn't afraid of that. I can see him going into the ghetto and seeing what was happening,” says Krupp.

There are two records of Pius going and seeing the damage caused by bombing: July 1943.  Both occasions were spontaneous instances to go and be with the suffering people of his diocese.  There is no record of Pius entering the ghetto - not since he was a boy.  This is the stuff of fantasy.  If there was any evidence of such an unparalleled adventure it would have been revealed well before now.  The pope was such a public figure, even in the little city state of the Vatican that his movements were known at all times by at least a dozen people.  Italian and German spies also kept track of papal movements as part of their work.  If Pius left the Vatican in disguise, someone would have known about it.

Another aspect of this report is Mr Krupp's statement: "I can see him going into the ghetto and seeing what was happening."  What was there to see?  Italy had no closed ghettos - therefore there was nothing to see. 

Krupp and his wife Meredith founded the Pave the Way Foundation in 2002 to “identify and eliminate the non-theological obstacles between religions.” In 2006 he was asked by both Jewish and Catholic leaders to investigate the “stumbling block” of Pope Pius XII’s wartime reputation. Krupp, a very optimistic 64-year-old from Long Island, N.Y., thought he had finally hit a wall.

“We are Jewish. We grew up hating the name Pius XII,” he says. “We believed that he was anti-Semitic, we believed that he was a Nazi collaborator­all of the statements that have been made about him, we believed.”But when he started looking at the documents from the time, he was shocked. And “then it went from shock to anger. I was lied to,” says Krupp.“In Judaism, one of the most important character traits one must have is gratitude, this is very important, it is part of Jewish law. Ingratitude is one of the most terrible traits, and this was ingratitude as far as I was concerned.”

Krupp now firmly agrees with the conclusions of Pinchas Lapide, the late Jewish historian and Israeli diplomat who said the direct actions of Pope Pius XII and the Vatican saved approximately 897,000 Jewish lives during the war. Pave the Way has over 46,000 pages of historical documentation supporting that proposition, which it has posted on its website along with numerous interviews with eye-witnesses and historians.“I believe that it is a moral responsibility, this has nothing to do with the Roman Catholic Church,” says Krupp, “it has only to do with the Jewish responsibility to come to recognize a man who actually acted to save a huge number of Jewish lives throughout the entire world while being surrounded by hostile forces, infiltrated by spies and under the threat of death.”

This is an ahistorical argument.  Pinchas Lapide's assertion is totally unfounded and has no historical foundation at all.  I have written on this before.  Pave The Way has an impressive library but has not demonstrated an ability to critically analysise much of it.  Assertions made regarding the number of Jews supposedly rescued by Pius show a serious lack of scholarship that is not accepted by historians.  Curiously, Lapide's number has risen from 860,000 to 897,000.

Krupp explained that Pope Pius used the Holy See’s global network of embassies to help smuggle Jews out of occupied Europe. In one such instance, the Vatican secretly asked for visas to the Dominican Republic– 800 at a time – to aid Jewish rescue efforts. This one initiative alone is estimated to have saved over 11,000 Jewish lives between 1939 and 1945.

How was Pius XII able to "smuggle Jews out of occupied Europe"?  This is not clear.  German policy towards Jewish emigration changed over the years prior to and during the war.  Emigration was not stopped until July 1941 when the decision to murder all the Jews in the German sphere of influence was made.  Some Jews escaped occupied Europe through one or other of the German allies such as Hungary and Slovakia, but these were very few.  The Dominican Republic issued 5000 visas for Jewish refugees from Europe between 1940 and 1945.  645 Jews made it to the Dominican Republic, but several thousand others survived because they held the visas. 

Closer to home, the convents and monasteries of Rome­ neutral territory during the war­ were used as hiding places for Jews. Krupp speculates that the wartime actions of Pope Pius XII, whose birth name was Eugenio Pacelli, can be further understood in the light of his own personal history. His great boyhood friend was Guido Mendes who hailed from a well-known Jewish family in Rome. Together they learned the Hebrew language and shared Shabbat dinners on the Jewish Sabbath.

There is no evidence that Pacelli knew Hebrew or that he participated in shabbat dinners.  This would have been unthinkable for someone raised in a religiously devout and conservative Tridentine Catholic home. 

Later, upon his election to the papacy in 1939, A.W. Klieforth, the American consul general in Cologne, sent a secret telegram to the U.S. Department of State explaining Pope Pius’s attitude towards Nazism in Germany. The new Pope “opposed unalterably every compromise with National Socialism,” Klieforth wrote, after a private chat with the pontiff in the Vatican. The two men had got to know each other during Archbishop Pacelli’s 12 years as nuncio in Germany. Pope Pius, explained Klieforth, “regarded Hitler not only as an untrustworthy scoundrel but as a fundamentally wicked person,” and “did not believe Hitler capable of moderation.” Hence he “fully supported the German bishops in their anti-Nazi stand.”

This is all well known.

Krupp describes the reputation of the wartime Pope as both glowing and intact until 1963, when German writer Rolf Hochhuth penned his play “The Deputy.” It portrayed Pope Pius as a hypocrite who remained silent about Jewish persecution.

The Pave the Way website carries evidence from a former high-ranking KGB officer, Ion Mihai Pacepa, who claims that the tarnishing of the Pope’s reputation was a Soviet plot. Krupp explains how the communists wanted to “discredit the Pope after his death, to destroy the reputation of the Catholic Church and, more significantly to us, to isolate the Jews from the Catholics. It succeeded very well in all three areas.”But he also firmly believes that a fundamental revision of Pope Pius’s wartime record is now well underway. “The dam is cracking now, without question,” he says.

Ion Mihai Pacepa's story has never been corroborated.  His story ws effectively debunked by Thomas Brechenmacher in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, "Hochhuths Quellen. War der 'Stellvertreter' vom KGB inspiriert?", (April 26, 2007)


Ironically, perhaps, Krupp says he meets more resistance when he speaks at Catholic parishes than in Jewish synagogues. “Many Jews,” he explains, “have been extremely grateful, saying, ‘I’m very happy to hear that. I never wanted to believe this about him,’ especially those of us who knew him, who were old enough to know him.

I do not dispute the noble aim of Pave The Way, but I disagree with the methodology that flies in the face of reliable and reputable scholarship.  The claim that Pius XII disguised himself as a Franciscan friar to leave the Vatican secretly to go to the Rome ghetto to rescue a Jewish family has no substance. 

My response to this article drew on my own research into Pius XII conducted over the last fifteen years and from sources I found in the public domain on the internet.

ADSS 6 The Brazilian Visa Episode Part 1

Brazilian Visas Project 1939-1941



German Catholic refugee agencies had been working since 1933 to help Catholics of “non-Aryan” descent to leave the country. In 1935 the German Catholic bishops made the Raphaelsverein (St Raphael’s Work) the official agency responsible for assisting katholische Nichtarier (Non-Aryan Catholic - using the official government terminology). Based in Hamburg, the Raphaelsverein had been established in 1871 as an agency to help German Catholics emigrants. Its energetic general secretary was Pallotine priest, Max Grösser (1887-1940). With very limited resources at his disposal, Grösser and the Raphaelsverein helped 967 Non-Aryan Catholics leave Germany between April 1937 and March 1938.

One major reason for the relatively low figures was the German government’s deliberate policy of impoverishing Jews. Every effort was made to strip Jews of all assets, including the money spent to fund their emigration from Germany, an “atonement tax” levied per person after the November 1938 pogrom, and the 25% “flight tax” imposed on remaining assets. Jews were only permitted to take RM 10 in cash with them as they left the country.

The total population of Christians (Catholic and Protestant) of Jewish descent was estimated at about 138,500. Using population proportions of one third Catholic to two thirds Protestant to Germany in 1938 (ie before the anchluss with Austria) the number of Catholics of Jewish descent was around 46,000. That number jumped to close to 180,000 after Germany annexed Austria in March 1938.

Catholic agencies, and that included the Vatican, simply did not have the resources to sponsor mass migration of Jews out of the Greater German Reich. Help would have to come from governments. After the Evian Conference in July 1938 it was clear that attempts to help Jews leave Europe were diminishing rapidly.

This sets the scene for arguably, one of the most ambitious projects attempted during the war, and the one that came so close to concrete action. It is also one of the most vivid examples of the activity of the Vatican using all its resources to help Jews escape German persecution. At every stage the pope was actively involved.

It is essential to remember that official German policy towards the Jews until the early summer of 1941 was migration and / or expulsion from the German sphere of influence. The change in policy to extermination sometime around July 1941 marks the end of all migration schemes and also marks the end of the Brazilian visa plan.

What follows is my reconstruction of the visa episode using the material in ADSS volumes 6 and 8. The chronology covers the most important part of the visa episode, from March to December 1939.

The reader can find a summary of the affair in the introductory essay at the beginning of Volume 6, pages 15-21. (The essay is in French.)

ADSS 6


1939

Docs 8-9: 31.03.1939.

Cardinal Michael Faulhaber (1869-1952), Archbishop of Munich wrote to Pius XII asking for the pope’s help in obtaining immigration visas to Brazil. This was based on conversations Faulhaber and Wilhelm Berning (1877-1955), bishop of Osnabrück had with bishops from Argentina and Brazil while they were in Rome for the pope’s coronation earlier that month. Faulhaber writes that the Munich office of the Raphaelsverein has been in contact with Helio Lobo (1883-1960), a Brazilian diplomat in Switzerland who had authority to issue up to 3000 Brazilian visas for German and Austrian Catholic priests and religious refugees. However, Lobo was open to using the visas for Jewish refugees who would work as agricultural labourers. Berning’s letter of the same day supported Faulhaber’s request.


Doc 11: 05.04.1939

Cardinal Luigi Maglione (1877-1944), Secretary of State, wrote to Archbishop Benedetto Aloisi Masella (1879-1970), nuncio to Brazil asking him to convey the wish of the pope that President Getulio Vargas (1882-1954) would grant the 3,000 visas. (This was done on 14.04.1939 and appears as Annexe I on page 100 after Document 35. The date in ADSS is recorded as 1936 – an error.)



Doc 28: 05.06.1939


Pallotine priest Max Grösser (1887-1940), Secretary General of Raphaelsverein wrote to Pius XII asking for his help in assisting Catholics of Jewish descent to immigrate to Brazil.



Doc 30: 06.06.1939

Maglione to Masella. The pope asked for news on the request for the 3,000 visas.


Doc 33: 20.06.1939

Maglione to Masella. President Vargas has granted the 3,000 visas as an act of personal homage to the pope.



Doc 34: 23.06.1939

Maglione to Faulhaber. Maglione informs Faulhaber of the granting of the visas.



Doc 35: 28.06.1939


Masella to Maglione. Masella sends the conditions under which the visas will be granted. Brazil will leave it to the discretion of the Holy See to determine who gets a visa – Germans or other nationalities. (Annexe I is Masella’s request in the name of the pope; Annexe II is the Brazilian response on 24.06.1939 confirming the grant of the visas.)


Conditions for the granting of the visa [sourced from several documents in ADSS]:

a) Applicants must deposit a minimum of 20 Contos di Reis with the Bank of Brazil; (the equivalent of RM 39,000 / 273,000 Italian lire / $US 15,600) A sum that was impossible for most Jewish refugees.


(In 2011 = $US 250,000)


b) Applicants must be Catholics of Jewish descent;


c) Applicants must travel as a family unit (minimum three persons), ie single people will not be issued a visa;


d) Applicants were expected to work in agriculture and farming.



Doc 37: 11.07.1939

Maglione to Masella. Maglione instructs Masella to thank Vargas.



Doc 39: 13.07.1939

The Procurator General of the Pallotines, Fr Franz Xaver Hecht (1885-1953) wrote to Angelo Dell’Acqua (1903-1972) in the Secretariat of State suggesting that it would avoid confusion if the Raphaelsverein was declared the only agency for the distribution of the Brazilian visas. (This request was repeated in a letter from Hecht to Maglione [Doc 41] on 17.07.1939).



Doc 40: 16.07.1939

Maglione to Masella. Maglione asks for the conditions for the granting of the visas.



Doc 42: 20.07.1939.

Berning to Maglione. Responding to the details sent in Document 35, Berning says the financial conditions for the granting of the visas are too heavy. The Holy See should ask for a relaxation of the financial restrictions. The bishop also points out that most of the potential immigrants have no experience as agricultural workers. Berning also suggests Protestant non-Aryans be considered for the Brazilian visas.



Doc 44: 22.07.1939

Masella to Maglione. The visas are directed primarily at non-Aryan German Catholics.



Doc 46: 29.07.1939

Maglione to Masella: Masella asked to approach the Brazilian government and request an ease of restrictions on the visa conditions. Document 47 (31.07.1939) is Masella’s acknowledgement and indication of attempting to seek an ease of visa conditions.



Doc 53: 30.08.1939


Maglione to Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo (1873-1946), Nuncio to Germany: Maglione passes on information about the visas and attempts to have conditions eased.



Germany invaded Poland on 01.09.1939

Doc 57: 02.09.1939

Orsenigo to Maglione: The nuncio sends two letters: the first from Grösser asking the Holy See to intervene with the Brazilian government for the easing of visa conditions; the second proposed Jewish immigration to Argentina.



Doc 61: 11.09.1939

Orsenigo to Maglione: Discussed immigration of non-Aryan Catholic families to Brazil.



Doc 70: 19.09.1939


Maglione to Masella: Maglione repeats his earlier request [Doc 46] that Masella press the Brazilian government to ease visa conditions.




Doc 95: 21.10.1939


Maglione to Masella: Third request – as per docs 47 and 70. Growing urgency.


Doc 96: 24.10.1939

Archbishop Valerio Valeri (1883-1963), Nuncio to France to Domenico Tardini (1888-1961), Secretariat of State: Is there a possibility of using some of the Brazilian visas for Non-Aryan Catholic refugees in France? Document 97 is Maglione’s response.

 Doc 106: 13.11.1939

Masella to Maglione: Brazilian government asks for a tax payment of 20,000 Italian lire per potential immigrant.



Doc 111: 22.11.1939

Secretariat of State to the Brazilian Embassy to the Holy See: Formal request for a mitigation of the conditions attached to the visas.




Doc 120: 14.12.1939


Secretariat of State to the Brazilian Embassy to the Holy See: Formal request to use the 3,000 visas.

Some thoughts from reading ADSS Volume 7

I was emailed earlier today by a colleague who had some questions about how the Vatican Secretariat of State worked and how involved the Holy See was in the collapse of the fascist regime in Italy in 1943.  What follows is the substance of my response. 

The response is based on my reading of ADSS Volume 7 Le Saint-Siège La Première Guerre mondiale et Novembre 1942 - Décembre 1943 (1973).  The volume contains 506 documents with footnotes and index.  It also contains an introductory essay of 67 pages that is, in effect, a summary of the volume.  The volume deals with the "conventional war", not with the atrocities, although there is some mention.


One example is contained in Document 282 (p 473) dated 8 July 1943 of Angelo Roncalli, Apostolic Delegate to Turkey, to Giovanni Montini, Secretariat of State, Rome.  Roncalli relates a private meeting with the German ambassador, Franz von Papen during which mention is made of "the Katyn affair" (discovery by the Germans of the mass graves of Polish officers murdered by the NKVD in 1940 on the orders of Stalin).  von Papen then went on to say:

 ...  with a sad smile that it was necessary first of all to forget the millions of Jews expelled and suppressed in Poland, and that in any case this was a good chance for the Reich to make a change in its treatment of the Poles. (p 474) 

The document was an account of a meeting, written with a minimum of detail, but with what I can only imagine from what we know of Roncalli, an exceedingly heavy heart.  It is also a reminder to see what the document says, not what it does not.  An historical argument cannot hang on one document, however unpleasant.




Now to my thoughts from my reading of ADSS 7.

The daily workings of the Vatican Secretariat of State mirrored any number of other agencies of like nature, with the one glaring exception, it was a supra-national identity that sought to promote its agenda through an extensive, but ultimately powerless, group of diplomats. The powerless aspect was what I believe forced Vatican diplomacy to master the craft of diplomacy to an almost perfect degree. Stalin's remark "how many divisions has the Pope?" sums it up. Pius had not way of enforcing his will - it was done entirely through connections, argument, moral persuasion and old fashioned, gentlemens' agreements.




From what I have read in ADSS follows a familiar pattern. The Cardinal Secretary of State and his office received dozens (probably more) pieces of information throughout the day. Most of the ADSS documents record the form of the information - telegram, letter, memo, diplomatic correspondence, private mail from FDR to Pius (most of which has been published - 1947).




Cardinal Maglione, the Secretary of State, along with Monsignors Domenico Tardini and Giovanni Montini (later Pope Paul VI) sorted through the material, determined which would receive priority and would be shown to the Pope. It goes without saying that anything considered of top priority went to Pius' desk - many of the documents have a note at the end Visto dal Santo Padre or similar (see / shown to the Holy Father).


Often there are other notes with directions given by Pius, such as "instruct Nuncio X to do A, B or C", or "make no reply". There are also notes taken by one or other or the men mentioned, clarifying points of discussion with either the Pope or another figure, such as a representative of a foreign power etc. And there are drafts for letters, telegrams etc.


The footnotes indicate a lot of material that is not included in ADSS because it has been published elsewhere such as in the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS). However, in my own reading I have gone looking for additional material because there has been so much published since the last volume of ADSS was published in 1981. I have found a lot of detail on many of the people mentioned throughout and created an extensive list of names, dates and roles - largely through google searches. The footnotes also indicate that there is material the editors saw but chose not to use - the reasons for this are not clear. However, I am prepared to accept that in choosing documents for publication the editors were keen to get as wide a cross-section of Vatican activity as possible, so space is probably the main reason for leaving some material out. Although having said that I am surprised, (or aghast) that two seminal pieces of Holocaust related documentation never made it into ADSS - the Riegner Report and Richard Vrba's Auschwitz Protocols, both of which were known of. Indeed the Riegner Report is mentioned in footnotes.




My reference to the Vatican "being in the know" refers in this instance to the collapse of Italy from early 1943 onwards. It was an open secret that Galeazzo Ciano commented on in his diary that the Vatican was in league with other anti-fascist groups in Italy trying to find a way of getting Italy out of the war and keeping the Germans out of Italy. From early1943 many of the documents in ADSS 7 are concerned with 1) preventing the bombing of Rome, 2) getting Italy out of the war, 3) having Rome declared "Open City, 4) preserving the fiction of Vatican neutrality (ironic given the above), 5) convincing President Roosevelt (FDR) and, to a lesser extent, Churchill, that bombing Italian cities was counter-productive and only encouraging communist activities, 6) concerns for Sicily after the 9 July invasion and the prospect of an impending invasion of the peninsula, and 7) several other issues, but one that was growing in intensity - the fear of a Soviet dominated Europe.




How involved was Pius in all this? Knowing that no major decision was made without his direct input and often at his explicit direction, the simple answer is - the Pope was involved in every aspect of all the issues mentioned above. ADSS published a lot of the war-time correspondence between FDR and Pius, and much of that includes appeals to spare Rome. And when that did not work as well as the Vatican hoped, they went to the US bishops and appealed to them to whip up support among Catholics. It is also very interesting to note the change in direction in Vatican policy from mid-1941 with regard to the USA. Pius threw in his lot with the US from an earlier date than I suspect was believed in earlier work.


Why?

Pius had met FDR in 1936 and clearly liked the man. The liking was mutual. Both distrusted the politics of the left, although FDR was more pragmatic about it and when one mentions "left" politics in the US case it does mean something quite different to what a conservative Italian/European Catholic understood by the word. In any case, both men respected each other and believed both were working for the good of humanity. I think Pius' positive estimation of FDR convinced him, along with the loyalty of the American bishops who worked tirelessly supporting the Vatican cause (not surprising, many Catholics were horrified at the thought of Rome being bombed, and were more horrified at the thought of the Holy Father being held hostage by Hitler), and the economic and industrial power of America, that the US would be the only force able to defeat Germany. It is important to rremember that until mid-1943 the prospect of a German victory remained a very real possibility. From 1943 onwards Pius' relied more and more on appeals to FDR than to any other Allied leader.



The letters between Pius and FDR.

The published material is general in nature - lots of appeals for common values, respect for America as the guarantor of freedom for Europe etc.

It is the material that was not published that is far more revealing! Memos from Amleto Cicognani, the Apostolic Delegate in Washington to Maglione, Sumner-Wells and others in FDR's administration on issues such as the bombing of Rome and other Italian cities, the desire of Italy to get out of the war, calls for support Rome "Open City", the situation of the monarchy, and urging support for the new government after the deposition of Mussolini, point to a high degree of frank discussion and diplomatic "argy bargy". The amount of tooing and frooing between June and September 1943 is considerable. There is disagreement, frustration and sometimes a sense of desperation from the Vatican side as things appear to be going ahead and then be suddenly derailed.

The second bombing of Rome on 13 August is a case in point. I believe the Vatican had felt it had secured a deal from the US and the UK that Rome would not be bombed again after 16 July. The diplomatic seesaw to have the city declared "Open" took quite a while and then the Allies bombed the city again "striking military targets". On a global scale this might not seem all that much, but for the Vatican it was integral to the policy to preserve Rome and ensure that chaos did not ensue, the communists did not get active and the Germans remained on the sidelines. Of course, we see this with hindsight, but the tenor of many of the documents reveals very real fears.



Volume 7 deals with the "conventional" war, not with victims. At the moment I am up to late August - document 357 out of 506. I will be working on that side once I get through this volume and Volume 11 (which will take me up to the end of the war).

Pius XII - co-workers - Luigi Maglione 1877-1944

The most cursory glance at Actes et Documents will reveal a group of names appearing on a frequent basis. Among them is the name of Cardinal Luigi Maglione, Secretary of State from March 1939 to August 1944. For the first five and half years of Pius XII’s papacy, Maglione was his “right hand man”, but little is known about this very important and pivotal Vatican official.

Maglione was born a day short of one year after Eugenio Pacelli, that is, 2 March 1877, in the town of Casoria near Naples in southern Italy. He studied for the priesthood at the Collegio Capranica in Rome along with Pacelli, and was ordained priest in July 1901 for the archdiocese of Naples. Until 1903 Maglione worked in parishes in Naples.

Following a career trajectory similar to Pacelli, Maglione began studying for the diplomatic corp and attended the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy from 1905 to 1907 before entering papal service in the Secretariat of State in 1908. At the end of World War One he was appointed by Benedict XV as papal representative at the League of Nations before being made Nuncio to Switzerland in September 1920. As was customary, the new nuncio was ordained a bishop and created Titular Archbishop of Caesarea in Palestine. In June 1926 Maglione moved to Paris where he was nuncio until mid-1938. His reception by the French was cold; they considered him pro-German, but he used his considerable personal skills and charm to win over his opponents. Time reported that Maglione was involved in the Hoare-Laval Pact (1935) that attempted to provide an amicable end to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. (Time 20.03.1939) Pius XI elevated him to the College of Cardinals on 16 December 1935.

Maglione was recalled to Rome in July 1938 and appointed Prefect of the Congregation of the Council which was responsible for the diocesan clergy (today known as the Congregation for the Clergy). His time there was short. Pius XI died on 10 February 1939 and his successor, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, was elected Pope on 3 March 1939. A week later, the new Pius XII named his old friend Maglione, Secretary of State. (New York Times 10.03.1939) By this time the new Cardinal Secretary had a reputation for being anti-fascist, and followed the initiatives set out by the pope, namely to steer a course that would do everything possible to avoid another European war.

Pius XII did not want creators of policy. He wanted implementers. Maglione had been trained in the same late-Tridentine understanding of the Catholic Church that Pacelli had. He knew it and understood it. Thinking independently was not part of the practice of a Secretary of State to the Pope, just as independent thinking was not part of the role description of the Secretary of State to the President of the United States of the Foreign Minister to the Australian Prime Minister.

What then do we learn of Maglione’s style? He was an able diplomat, a skilled negotiator, unfailingly polite and reserved, who faithfully implemented papal policy from March 1939 until his death in August 1944. He could also be quite blunt. In January 1943 Maglione wrote to the exiled bishop of Wloclaweck, Charles Radonski defending the pope’s decision not to make his letters to the Polish bishops public:

If you ask why the documents sent by the Pontiff to the Polish bishops haven not been made public, know that it seems better in the Vatican to follow the same norms, the Polish bishops themselves follow...Isn’t this what has to be done? Should the father of Christianity increase the misfortunes of Poles in their own country? (ADSS 3 Part 2 Doc 460, translation from Blet p 84)


On rare occasions, such as in December 1942, we glimpse the man in a slightly unguarded moment, sending New Year greetings to Nuncio Gaetano Cicognani in Spain in an attachment to an official document, marked “Personal”. (ADSS 7.78)

What did Maglione know of the extermination of European Jewry? The simple answer is, “as much as the Pope did, and the Pope knew a lot”. It would have been unthinkable for Maglione not to pass on to Pius anything of significance; and the murder of the Jews was the most significant event occurring in Europe during the war year. Perhaps the most puzzling thing remains the evidence of muddled reactions to the ever-growing reports of German atrocities.

By August 1942 the Vatican, and that included Pius and Maglione, had as clear a picture of the mass-murder of the Jews as did Churchill, Roosevelt and, had he been particularly interested, Stalin. On 26 September 1942, Myron Taylor, the personal representative of President Roosevelt to the Holy See, presented Maglione with an account of atrocities beyond anything heard of before. The document was part of what has become known as the Riegner Telegram. It disclosed in considerable detail what was happening in Poland. Did the Cardinal pass the memorandum from Taylor onto the Pope? I presume he did. If he did not, it would constitute a major breach in policy and behaviour. What happened after? We do not know – yet. Perhaps the Archives will reveal how these men reacted to this news.

Maglione was a heavy smoker which probably hastened his death 22 August 1944 at the age of 67. (New York Times 23.08.1944; Time 04.09.1944). Pius did not replace Maglione, but took on the responsibilities of the Secretariat himself with the assistance of Monsignori Domenico Tardini and Giovanni Battista Montini.