ADSS 10.429 Cicognani (USA) to Sec State - Hungarian suffering

10.429 Amleto Cicognani, Ap Del USA to Secretariat of State

Reference: Telegram 2544 (AES 190/45)

Location and date: Washington DC, 02.01.1945 @ 18.14 (Rec’d Rome 03.01.1945 @ 13.00)

Summary statement: North American gov’t is doing everything it can to help relieve the suffering of the Hungarians.

Language: Italian

Text:

Further to my telegram number 2508 (1), the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (2) has replied to me as follows:

“The Department of State shares with the Holy See the same thoughts towards possible measures taken to reduce the suffering civilians caused by military operations.  Given that the Hungarian theatre of the war is a place where the United States of America does not have a representative, we do not have any means of directly controlling the emerging news.  But I assure your Excellency that the Foreign Ministry and the representatives of this Government abroad will do their best to alleviate the suffering of the civilians in Hungary and in other places.” (3)

Notes:

(1) ADSS 10.413.

(2) Edward Stettinius (1900-1949), Secretary of State 1944-45.

(3) Cicognani was asked to try again (Telegram 2076 of 03.01.1945, AES 1057/45): “so that every avenue is tried in order to get civilians evacuated out of Budapest”.  Cicognani was responsible for communication “without delay, in the name of the August Pontiff, to ask the President to intervene, if possible, on behalf of the unarmed civilians exposed to the danger of death.” 

Cicognani (Telegram 2544, 04.01.1945, AES 1058/45) replied: “I have made an immediate appeal”. 

A similar telegram was addressed to Cesare Orsenigo, Nuncio in Germany (Telegram 1128, AES 7056/45) on 03.01.1945 that he should propose “with great urgency this humanitarian project to the [German] Government in order that it be investigated and implemented and save many lives.  As is known evacuations in similar situations were implemented in some cities on the French Atlantic coast.” 

Orsenigo replied on 12.01.1945 (Telegram 407, AES 1059/45): “As I reported in Telegram 1128 of 03.1.1945, the Foreign Ministry pointed out that an identical proposal was made by the International Red Cross to which the German Government has already responded.”

Meanwhile President Roosevelt replied to Cicognani with much the same terms already communicated in documents 10.413 and 429.  (Telegram of Cicognani number 2571 of 31.01.1945, AES 1061/45). 

Finally on 26.02.1945 Cicognani (Report 544/45, AES 2126/45) sent this confidential reply of Joseph Clark Grew (1880-1965), acting Secretary of the Department of State:

“The American ambassador in Moscow has reported that Mr Molotov, when presented with the concerns of the Holy See and the President with regard to the civilian population of Budapest, expressed his full sympathy on the issue but noted that the Germans did not want to discuss affairs of the kind. Mr Molotov believed that the fact that Soviet forces were now occupying three quarters of the city, while the Germans were making stubborn efforts to remain in the rest of the city, any agreement along the lines suggested appeared to late, as he would have drawn the attention of his government to the same problem.”

ADSS 10.386 Cicognani to Secretariat of State - request for Papal intervention

10.386 Amleto Cicognani, Ap Del USA to Secretariat of State

Reference: Telegram 2445 (AES 7184/44)

Location and date: Washington DC, 03.11.1944 @15.28 (Rec’d Rome 04.11.1944 @ 12.00)

Summary statement: Request for papal intervention for Jews in German-occupied territory.

Language: Italian

Text:

Jewish committees once again implore the Holy Father to interceded wit the clergy and Catholic people to intervene with the governments of Germany and Slovakia, both directly that … neutral powers, such as Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, in order to save non-Aryans from death, particularly children, women and elderly, in territory occupied by the Germans.  The conditions are worsening everywhere, especially in Hungary and Slovakia, where they are interned in concentration camps in immanent threat of deportation to Poland and extermination. (1)

Particular assistance is required for 16,000 Jews, among them eminent rabbis, deported from Lithuania to Germany: (2) (it) would not like all the others … they were treated as prisoners of war or civilian internees and helped by the International Red Cross above all with food and clothing.   The frequency of my telegrams for the Jews is occasioned by their incessant urgent and desperate appeals.

Note of Montini:

After audience with His Holiness, 05.11.1944. See what you can do.

Notes:

(1) See ADSS 10.369

(2) See ADSS 10.235. 

The telegrams Cicognani referred to came from Rabbi Avraham Kalmanowitz (1891-1964) of Brooklyn who had been in contact with the Apostolic Delegate since late March 1943. Kalmanowitz was a major conduit of information on the situation of Eastern European Jews.

The following information is taken from Gershon Greenberg American Catholics During the Holocaust, on the Museum of Tolerance website.

On 23.10.1944 Kalmanowitz cabled Cicognani:

“Respectfully call your attention following cable received. Quote: Germans leaving Kaunas took to Germany 16,000 Jews among them Grand Rabbis Eichmnan Wasserman and Abraham Grodzenski implore to do all efforts to save them. Unquote.  We respectfully appeal for intercession of Vatican rescue of these persons doomed to certain death.  Grateful for any information received in matter”. 

Unbeknown to any of those involved in this correspondence Rabbi Wasserman had been murdered on 06.1941 and Rabbi Grodzenski on 13.07.1944.

On 27.10.1944 Kalmanowitz wrote again and added that the group of 16,000 Lithuanian Jews included “the greatest Rabbis and Jewish spiritual and religious leaders”.

Quote latest reliable report from Kaunas following Rabbis living when Germans evacuated city stop were taken by them to unknown destination. Rabbis Abraham Grodzenski [head of Slobodka Yeshivah], Shabsai Wernikowski [Mashgiach of Lomza Yeshivah], Zalman Permut (1890-1943) [leader of Kovno Kollel], Moshe Skaruto [of Slobodka], David Perlman [of Aleksot], Shmuel Aba. Snieg [rabbi with Lithuania's military], Shimon Dubiansky [head of Kaidan Yeshivah], Mordche Shliapoberski, Benjamin Asinsky. Chief Rabbi Cabled Union Orthodox Rabbis do everything discover whereabouts for rescue. Rest not Unquote ...

The shadow is fast falling and we must again appeal to you, as we have appealed to you before, to urge the intervention of the Vatican and we would respectfully suggest the following possible steps in the rescue of these unfortunates.

1) That the Vatican appeal to the Germans on behalf of these 16,000 persons and to urge their treatment as civilian internees and that the Germans permit the International Red Cross contact with these internees and the transport of food and clothing parcels necessary to keep them alive.

2) As a general measure, the Vatican intercede with all the neutral countries such as Spain, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland and others, that they appeal in name of humanity and civilization to the Germans to cease the willful and merciless destruction of the Jews in all the concentration camps and territories under control of the Germans. This unified appeal at this time should be more productive of the desired results than any appeal attempted heretofore.

We shall be grateful for the positive action we feel most certain you will take.

Nazis on the Run - Gerald Steinacher

Gerald Steinacher

I am reading this fascinating book.  Steinacher is an historian who understands the importance of careful study and meticulous attention to detail.  His analysis of the material he worked with, from the many sources he consulted, is of the highest calibre.  I took my time to read the chapter on the Vatican very carefully.  I agree with the author that Pius XII played no role in helping war criminals, German, Croatian, Italian, or their collaborators escape Europe.  What he knew would have been filtered through the curia, and much of what the Roman curia knew was, in turn, filtered through numerous agencies operating throughout Rome and Italy. 

The movement of displaced people, returning POWs, former concentration camp victims and fleeing Nazis, ran into the millions.  There is no way that a completely foolproof screening system could be implemented.  However, as Steinacher points out in his extensive and painstaking research, some systematic checking could have, and should have been done.  The International Committee of the Red Cross has a particularly poor and apathetic history in this regard.  Regrettably, there were more than a few Catholic agencies whose record is as poor, if not worse.

From a teacher's point of view, I would recommend Steinacher's book as an example to students of how to use archives and how to piece together an often patchy and scattered historical puzzle.

Robert Gerwath's review is an accurate synopsis of the book.  I agree with his final statement that Steinacher has set the bar for future research in this area.

This review appeared in the Irish Times and was written by Dr Robert Gerwath the director of the Centre for War Studies at University College Dublin, Ireland.

HISTORY: Nazis on the Run: How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice, By Gerald Steinacher, Oxford University Press, 416pp.

On July 14th, 1950, a German “technician” whose forged papers declared him to be “Ricardo Klement” arrived in Argentina. Despite his disguise, the Argentinean authorities were well aware that “Mr Klement” was, in fact, Adolf Eichmann, the man responsible for coordinating the eastward deportations of millions of European Jews to extermination camps during the second World War. Eichmann was not the only senior Nazi official who managed to escape prosecution by fleeing to South America: several other serious war criminals, including the former Auschwitz camp doctor, Josef Mengele, had similarly evaded justice and left behind their old lives for a fresh, care-free existence in the New World.

The story of fugitive “Nazis on the run” is not really a new one, but it has been subject to numerous elisions and distortions ever since it first came to the world’s attention in the 1960s. According to the most widely known conspiracy theory about the mass escape of Nazis to South America – first circulated by the Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and then popularised by Frederick Forsyth’s best-selling thriller The Odessa File – these flights were organised by a secret society of ex-SS men named ODESSA (Organisation of Former SS Members), which paid for forged visas and travel costs with money stolen from their Jewish victims.

In his new book, Nazis on the Run , the Austrian historian Gerald Steinacher deconstructs this version of events. After six years of intensive research on the subject, Steinacher concludes that ODESSA never really existed as a centrally organised network. Instead, he offers a detailed and chilling analysis of the three organisations that were in fact largely responsible for facilitating the escape of German war criminals: the International Red Cross, the Catholic Church, and the American CIA. Steinacher emphasises from the start that the motivations of this unlikely coalition of escape route facilitators can only be understood against the backdrop of the start of the Cold War, during which Communism seemed a much more pressing problem than prosecuting former Nazis, however implicated they were in the Holocaust.

The CIA’s attitude towards ex-Nazis – and in particular to former SS “intelligence experts” – was essentially pragmatic: after Germany had been defeated and relations with the USSR had begun to deteriorate, the CIA was willing to give exit visas and new identity papers to middle-ranking Nazis in exchange for valuable intelligence information on the new Soviet enemy.

Even more intriguing is the role played by the Red Cross. In a genuinely fresh contribution to the subject, Steinacher establishes that the International Red Cross issued about 25,000 new identity documents to men whose past was often more than dubious. Although this assistance primarily came from individual Nazi sympathisers within the organisation, Steinacher argues that all senior members of the International Red Cross knew about the misappropriation of identity documents. In particular, he demonstrates that the two presidents of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the post-war decades, Carl Jacob Burckhardt, and his successor, Paul Ruegger, consciously decided to turn a blind eye to the frequent abuse of Red Cross identity documentation, largely because of their latent anti-Semitism and anti-Communism.

The Catholic Church’s involvement in the escape of ex-Nazis is, by comparison, well known. It has long been established that individual Nazi sympathisers within the clergy, such as Bishop Alois Hudal in Rome and the Archbishop of Genoa, Giuseppe Siri, actively supported the flight of Nazi war criminals. However, Steinacher disputes the Vatican’s insistence that these men were misguided black sheep within an otherwise unblemished institution.

Instead, Steinacher argues that the “aid programme” for ex-Nazis within the Church was systematic and intentional, and that it has to be understood in the context of the Catholic Church’s post-war crusade for a re-Christianisation of Europe.

Fearing the emergence of a “godless” Europe full of pagans and communists, the Church was willing to help Nazi war criminals – many of them lapsed Protestants who had left their church in the 1930s – if they converted to Catholicism. Steinacher’s argument that the Vatican pursued a systematic policy of “de-Nazification through conversion” to Catholicism is unlikely to gain him many friends in Rome, but he provides plenty of evidence for his theory.

Steinacher’s painstaking reconstruction of the main escape route (which led from Innsbruck across the Alps to Genoa or Rome) underlines the heavy involvement of the Catholic clergy. Along the way, numerous monasteries provided shelter for men on the run and 90 per cent of the Nazis that escaped used that route before they embarked on a passage to South America.

Argentina, in particular, became the preferred destination for Nazi refugees. According to Steinacher’s estimate, at least 350 high-ranking Nazis escaped to Argentina. The Argentinean dictator Juan Perón even hoped to attract up to half a million Germans after the war, notably military experts. New immigrants primarily had to fulfil two qualifications: they had to be skilled labourers or academically trained experts; and they were not allowed to be Communists. Ex-SS officers usually fulfilled both criteria. A Nazi past was not a requirement for an immigration visa to Argentina, but it was certainly no obstacle either.

Steinacher’s book focuses on Argentina, but it also offers intriguing new perspectives on other “safe havens” in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. The post-war journey of former SS colonel Walter Rauff, who invented the mobile gas vans used to kill thousands of Jews along the Eastern front, exemplifies the transnational dimension of Nazi escape routes: after the war, he was first hidden by Bishop Siri of Genoa, before fleeing to Damascus in 1947. In late 1949, he used Red Cross documentation to move to Ecuador, where he worked for Bayer pharmaceutical company. In the early 1960s, Rauff retired to Santiago de Chile, where he died peacefully in 1984.

North Africa and the Middle East also proved to be very popular destinations for ex-Nazis, most notably after the fall of Perón’s regime in 1955, which made Argentina a much less hospitable place for them.

At least three dozen Nazi refugees found a new home in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran, where active participation in the Holocaust was not always seen as a terrible thing. But there were also individuals who were not prominent Nazi perpetrators who found new lives abroad due to employment opportunities; one example being the Austrian engineer, Walter Hassler, presented in the book as an example of a skilled labourer in demand after the second World War.

During the war, the Nazis had established links with influential Muslim circles, including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who actively supported the German crusade against the Jews. After the war, such connections continued. The former Nazi agitator Johann von Leers, for example, was recruited by Nasser to offer his “know-how” for anti-Israel campaigns sponsored by the Arab League.

Although much has been written in the past three or four decades about the escape of senior Nazi personnel from prosecution in post-war Europe, Steinacher’s book stands out as the first “total history” of this complex topic.

He uses a wealth of sources – memoirs, secret service papers, the files of the Red Cross and the Pontifica Comissione Assistenza – in order to substantiate his provocative but ultimately well documented claims. In so doing, he has raised the bar for all future studies on this subject.

Robert Gerwath