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The Pope and the Jews in 1942

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Owen Chadwick
Owen Chadwick*
Affiliation:
Selwyn College, Cambridge
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Extract

This paper runs from the Wannsee Conference of 20 January 1942 to the Pope’s Christmas message of 1942. The final solution of the Jewish problem was planned at the Wannsee Conference under the chairmanship of Heydrich. On 24 December 1942 the Pope believed that he protested publicly against it. On 20 January no one outside the secret inner Nazi ring knew that such a plan was even contemplated. By Christmas 1942 all the world new in outline what was going on. So this paper is partly a study in information: how much did they know in the Vatican, how soon, and by what means did they know it? And partly it is a study in pressure. As the knowledge grew, so grew the pressure on Pope Pius XII to do something, say something, tell the world, condemn. Naturally the effectiveness of all such pressure depended on the extent of the knowledge, and the belief that the knowledge was reliable.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 21: Persecution and Toleration , 1984 , pp. 435 - 472
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1984

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References

1 Laqueur, W., The Terrible Secret (London 1980) pp 55–6, p 201.Google Scholar

2 Ibid p 57.

3 Falconi, [C.], The Silence of Pius XII (Eng. trans. London 1970)] p 211.Google Scholar

4 Actes et Documents du Saint-Siege relatifs a la Seconde Guerre mondiale [hereafter ADSS] (Vatican City 1965–71) 8 p 416.

5 Ibid pp 453–5, 475, 479. For the story of the girls heard by a Red Cross visitor to Hungary and Rumania in March 1942, see Laqueur The Terrible Secret p 61; so the Vatican was not the only responsible body to believe it. For the evidence of Hans Gmelin, see [Saul] Friedlander, [Pie XII et le IIIe Reich: Documents (Paris 1964)] p 103; for the documents of the Swiss Jews, ibid pp 104–5.

6 ADSS 8 p 519.

7 Idid 3 p 539.

8 So Harold Tittmann’s Mss, s. v. Atrocities p 7; no record in ADSS 3; but ADSS 3 p 572 has a letter from Cardinal Maglione to Orsenigo in Berlin trying to do what he can for Poland.

9 Falconi p 199.

10 ADSS 8 p 598.

11 Ibid p 556 p 560.

12 Ibid pp 569–70.

13 Harold Tittmann’s Mss, s.v. Atrocities p 13.

14 Tittmann, paraphrased in Di Nolfo, Vaticano e Stati Uniti 1939–52 (Milan 1978) p 170. Di Nolfo uses ‘ostrica’ (‘oyster-like policy’).

15 Casimir Papée, Pius XII e Polska; Falconi p 207.

16 Osborne to Howard, 12 July 1942, PRO, FO 371/33426.

17 Report of Lobkowitz to Zagreb, in Falconi pp 315–6; cf pp 306, 308, 312.

18 20 July 1942, ADSS 8 p 604.

19 Ibid 3 pp 604–5.

20 Ibid 3 p 608.

21 Ibid 8 p 664.

22 Maglione to Godfrey, 11 August 1942, ibid 8 p 616 note.

23 Ibid 8 pp 622–3, p 629.

24 Hyde Park, Myron Taylor Papers, Box 10, 31 August 1942.

25 ADSS 8 p 642.

26 Laqueur, The Terrible Secret p 49. Laqueur examined the von Otter file at the Swedish archives.

27 Jeffrey Gerstein (Eng. trans. 1971) pp 169–72. Gerstein apparently gave a report to the legal adviser (Dr Winter) of von Preysing, Catholic Bishop of Berlin. See ‘Augenzeugenbericht zu den Massenvergasungen’ in Viertelsjahrshefte fur Zeitges-chichte, 1 (1953) p 193; Friedlanderp 123.

28 Laqueur, The Terrible Secret p 49. Friedlander p 123 believes that Bishop von Preysing must have sent Gerstein’s report (to his legal counsellor) to Rome at the end of 1942.

29 Ibid 224.

30 Ibid pp 220–1.

31 ADSS 5 p 657.

32 PRO, FO 371/33414; cited [A.] Rhodes, [The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators (London 1973)] p 291.

33 cf Tittmann’s Papers, s. v. Atrocities p 22.

34 ADSS 5 p 676.

35 Ibid p 705.

36 Ibid pp 721–2.

37 Ibid pp 723–4, p 729.

38 Foreign Relations of the United States, 1942, 3 p 775.

39 ADSS 8 p 669.

40 Foreign Relations of the United States, 1942, 3 pp 777–8; Cf ADSS 8 p 679; and Sumner Welles to Myron Taylor, Hyde Park, Myron Taylor Papers, Box 10, 21 October 1942.

41 ADSS 8 p 670.

42 Papée to Foreign Minister of Polish Republic, London, 12 October 1942; Falconi p 163.

43 Reitlinger, G., The Final Solution (London 1953) p 266.Google Scholar

44 ADSS 8 pp 665–6.

45 Ibid p 647.

46 Ibid p 658.

47 Ibid p 659.

48 Ibid 3 p 625.

49 Ibid 8 pp 662–3.

50 Laqueur, The Terrible Secret pp 62–3.

51 Reams, R. B., in Laqueur, The Terrible Secret pp 225–6.Google Scholar

52 Text in ADSS 7, p 161.

53 Ciano’s Diary, ed M. Muggeridge (London 1947) p 538.

54 Ribbentrop to von Bergen, 24 January 1943; von Bergen to Ribbentrop, 26 January 1943, RHSA report on the broadcast; Rhodes pp 272–4.

55 Papée to his government, 24 January 1943, in Falconi p 209.

56 Papée to his government, 30 December 1942; Tittmann to Cordell Hull, 5 January, 1943; in Falconi pp 208–9.

57 5 January 1943, PRO, FO 371/34363; cf Martin Gilbert Auschwitz and the Allies (London 1981) p 105.

58 ADSS 9 p 71; cf B. Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe (Oxford 1979) p 175; S. Friedlander, Pius XII and the Third Reich pp 132–4.

59 Text in ADSS 7 p 179; partly translated in Polish in Papée, Pius XII a Polska 1939–49 pp 63–4, partly translated in Falconi p 218.

60 Tardini’s note, ADSS 7 p 180.

61 Maglione to Godfrey, 3 February 1943, ADSS 7 pp 215–6.