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Did Pope Pius XII collaborate with Adolf
Hitler?

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Was Pope Pius XII an anti-Semite?

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In an extensive interview with John
Cornwell, author of the year's most

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controversial book, Hitler's Pope,
we find out that the answer is yes.

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Now, for decades there have been
allegations about how Eugenio Pacelli,

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better known as Pope Pius XII,
collaborated with the Nazis behind the

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scenes.

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Both before and during World War II.

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Of course, the Vatican has always denied
these charges, but they've kept their

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records locked up.

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They haven't allowed scholars to truly
investigate the relationship between Pope

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Pius XII and Adolf Hitler.

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Well, all that changed seven years ago,
when Cambridge University historian John

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Cornwell was given access to the secret
Vatican archives.

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Now, Cornwell was a good Catholic.

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He'd written a best-selling book about the
death of Pope John Paul I, and the Vatican

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fully expected him to exonerate Pius XII.

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Indeed, Cornwell himself hoped that the
rumors about Nazi collusion were untrue.

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But to his horror, he found the opposite.

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Document after document proved that
Eugenio Pacelli, the man who became Pope

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in 1939, stands as a monumental moral
failure.

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A man more concerned with centralizing
church authority than with the murder of

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millions of people.

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A man not only complicit with the rise of
the Nazi party, but according to Cornwell,

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a man whose silence about the fate of the
Jews betrayed a deeply embedded

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anti-Semitic attitude.

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Now, Cornwell put all this in his
controversial new book, Hitler's Pope,

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the secret history of Pius XII.

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And naturally, the Roman Catholic Church
has strongly denied the claims of

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anti-Semitism, and some have even
criticized Cornwell's scholarship.

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Well, I spoke to Cornwell recently,
and began by asking him about Pacelli's

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work in the 1930s in Germany, where he
negotiated the now infamous treaty between

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the Vatican and Hitler's regime.

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Well, first of all, why did he go to
Germany?

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Why was he sent there?

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And the reason is, the instrument,
the effective instrument of creating an

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ideology out of the whole idea of papal
primacy, was this new drafting of a code

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of canon law.

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For the first time in the church's
history, we had a code of canon law.

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But they had a problem, and that problem
was Germany, because Germany had one of

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the largest Catholic populations in the
world, 23 million.

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It was wealthy, complex, highly
sophisticated, many Catholic universities,

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publishing houses, 400 Catholic
newspapers, and a really effective

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democratic political party called the
Centre Party.

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So his purpose in Germany was to
renegotiate all these old treaties and

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bring them in line with the new code,
which effectively would submit the German

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Catholic population to a new allegiance to
the Holy See.

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Year after year, he attempted to pursue
this concordat, the right concordat,

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and he was turned down by successive
chancellors, five of whom were Catholics,

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because they thought that the Vatican
attempts were too authoritarian.

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It wasn't until Hitler emerged in power in
January of 1933 that the chance for these

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two supreme authoritarians to come
together and to do a deal came about.

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Now, why would a pope make that deal?

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Why would they withdraw Catholics from the
political field?

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Pacelli, even before he became pope in
relation to Germany, did not trust

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Catholic democracy.

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They did not like Catholic parties,
because they couldn't control them,

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and because they thought that it might
introduce democratization by the backdoor

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into the church itself.

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And what were they afraid of?

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Why was democracy such a thing to fear for
the church?

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Well, they thought that it was
uncontrollable, that's the first thing.

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But secondly, they really did view
democracy as a precursor to socialism,

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which of course was a precursor to
communism.

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Once the concordat is signed, Hitler is
joyous, but so is Pacelli.

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Both think they've won.

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Was Pacelli simply fooled by Hitler,
that Hitler had essentially emasculated

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the church, and then he could have his way
with Germany under the so-called

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protection of the church?

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Was Pacelli simply fooled and
out-negotiated by Adolf Hitler,

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or was he more actively in collusion,
knowing Hitler's agenda at that time?

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Hitler, in his very first public statement
after the concordat, said that this shows

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that the Vatican believes that it can live
comfortably with fascism.

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That it almost blesses the fascist
project?

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That's right.

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Both at home and abroad, so it will lull
Catholics into thinking that there is no

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problem whatsoever with National
Socialism, and it will show the world that

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National Socialism is respectable.

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Now it's interesting that Pacelli was
immediately outraged by this, and that

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does indicate he had no great love of
Hitler, no great love of National

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Socialism, but he was prepared to do deals
with the devil in the interests of what he

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saw to be the only, the best interest of
the Catholic Church, which was the

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centralisation.

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His great statement immediately after
Hitler's, he states quite clearly that the

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triumph is actually the church's,
because what the concordat means is the

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acknowledgement by the German state of the
right of the Holy See to impose canon law

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on all German Catholics.

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So there we see, you know, these
remarkable goals which are quite

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different, but which have disastrous
consequences for the history of the rest

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of this decade.

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We see this powerful Catholic Church
withdrawing from all social and political

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action, which includes the voluntary
disbanding of the Centre Party,

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after having voted for the Enabling Act,
which gave Hitler his dictatorship.

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That was all part of the deal.

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We can now see, as we tell the narrative,
I believe for the first time in a general

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history, work of history, that the price
of this concordat, the price of this deal,

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was that the Catholic Centre Party,
under the encouragement of Pacelli,

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should vote Hitler into his dictatorship
and then voluntarily disband itself with

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the blessing of the Holy See, the Vatican,
which is why so many Catholics after this,

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because they had no political home to go,
went in their hundreds of thousands into

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the Nazi Party.

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Was Pacelli simply blind to the
consequences of making a deal with Hitler?

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Or, more horrifyingly, did he care what
the consequences were for non-Catholics?

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Well, I think he had an extraordinary
ability to blind himself to the

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consequences of his actions all the way
through his life.

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It's interesting that although immediately
after the concordat he said it was a great

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triumph for the imposition of the Code of
Canon Law on German Catholics,

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he actually changed his tune later on.

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He said that he was forced into the
concordat with a gun to his head and that

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some kind of legal agreement was better
than none.

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This shows extraordinary capacity for
self-delusion, I think, and we see this

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actually all through his life.

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Now, one of the claims in this book is
that he's actively anti-Jewish or

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anti-Semitic.

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He wrote the following passage during his
time in Munich when he witnessed the

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Bolshevik uprising.

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Now, the Bolshevik uprising, just to
remind people, many of the leaders were

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Jewish.

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And he wrote about seeing these Jews,
things like this...

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An army of employees were dashing to and
fro, giving out orders.

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And in the midst of all this, a gang of
young women of dubious appearance,

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Jews like all the rest of them,
hanging around in the offices with

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lecherous demeanor and suggestive smiles.

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Throughout it, he calls them pale,
dirty, drugged eyes, vulgar, repulsive,

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with faces that are intelligent and sly.

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Stereotypical anti-Semitic contempt,
as you call it.

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Did this run through his whole life?

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Did he view Jews like that?

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No, it's the only evidence I've found of
that kind of moral and physical disdain

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for Jewish people.

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But people will take this in different
ways.

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I've been told by prominent Catholic
journalists that my interpretation of this

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as anti-Semitic is bizarre.

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I have to say that the immediate parallel
I've found with this kind of language is

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actually in Mein Kampf, talking of the
same group of people during the same

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period of time, between 1919 and 1920.

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We have absolutely no doubt, when we teach
in history class and refer to Mein Kampf

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as a text, that this is typical of
anti-Semitic attitudes.

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Well, when we come back, we'll further
investigate the silence of Pope Pius XII

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during the Holocaust, so stick around.

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Now, Eugenio Pacelli becomes Pope on the
eve of World War II.

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He's essentially spent much of the last
decade negotiating this concorda with Nazi

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Germany, throughout the 30s.

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And people know by the early 40s what
Hitler's up to.

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And yet, throughout the war, Pope Pius XII
never speaks out against the Nazis about

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the killing of the Jews, the Gypsies,
the Poles.

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Why was he silent?

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Well, it's interesting that the view of
Pius XII, the common view before my book,

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is that he was the silent Pope and that
this was the great scandal.

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In fact, it's a pity he wasn't completely
silent, because the fact is that he did

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speak out.

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He spoke out at Christmas 1942,
and this was after six months of

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systematic information coming into the
Vatican about the true extent of the final

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solution.

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I mean, in July 1942, for example,
it was published in the Daily Telegraph in

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London and the New York Times that
millions of Jews were going to their

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deaths.

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All these details were known.

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And it's known, too, that diplomats inside
the Vatican were supplying him with whole

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dossiers of information.

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And in the autumn of 1942, President
Roosevelt actually sent an envoy through

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enemy territory, a man called Myron
Taylor, to plead with him to speak out.

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So finally he speaks, Christmas 1942,
and what does he say?

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Instead of telling the true figures,
the millions that were going to their

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deaths, he scales it down to hundreds of
thousands.

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He doesn't mention the word Jews.

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In fact, he says here, I shall read it,
he says in this, what became known as his

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most clear denunciation, he says,
humanity owes this vow to those hundreds

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of thousands who without any fault of
their own, sometimes only by reason of

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their nationality or race, are marked down
for death or gradual extinction.

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That's right.

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That's all he said throughout the war.

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That is the fullest extent of all his
statements during the war.

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And it is clear to me that that is,
it is a statement, he's saying something,

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he's not being silent.

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But the statement is tantamount to being a
denial of the truth and certainly a

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trivialization of the true holler of the
final solution.

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In this sense, what he said was deeply
scandalous and particularly scandalous to

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all those German Catholics who might have
been moved by what he said, instead of

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which their consciences were placated and
lulled.

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Peter Gumpel again says, in my considered
opinion, a public protest by the Pope

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would not have saved a single Jewish life.

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It would have only aggravated the
persecution of both the Jews and the

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Catholics.

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It was a strategy, therefore, a considered
strategy of this Pope to remain totally

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silent throughout the war.

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Again, is that disingenuous?

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I think it's disingenuous because it
should have been explained to us after the

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war that this is what he was doing.

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What did he say in 1946, before a group of
Arabs visiting the Vatican?

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He boasted that he had spoken out clearly
against the Nazis for their treatment of

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the Jews, when we know that that was
simply not true.

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So he lied.

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Well, what we certainly know is that he
took credit for things he didn't do,

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which means that he's a hypocrite as well.

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Why is he being beatified then?

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Well, the process of beatification and
canonization, the making of saints,

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has become, during the reign of this Pope,
extremely political.

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We're talking about John Paul now.

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We're talking about John Paul II.

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What would be the politics behind the
beatification of Pius XII?

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It would be, surely, that his policies of
extreme centralization, his policies of

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absolutism, his conduct during the war,
would be exonerated, not only exonerated,

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but actually confirmed.

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Knowing about this, and you're a Catholic,
does this shake your faith?

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Does this change your attitudes as a
Catholic towards the institution of the

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Catholic Church?

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Well, I don't regard myself as a
particularly good Catholic.

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I go to church.

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But, you know, there have been bad Popes
in the past, and there will be bad Popes

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in the future.

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And what we're learning from, I hope,
one of the lessons that I've certainly

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carried away from my journey through the
life and career of Pius XII, is that,

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you know, the Catholic Church is not the
Pope.

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The Catholic Church is to be found in all
the people of God, and not just consented

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in this one man.

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Now, John Cornwell's book, Hitler's Pope,
is a well-researched and a thorough

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chronicle of the shameful, the deceitful
acts of a Pope who has, up to this point,

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been very well protected by church
apologists.

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Now, the first half of the book is a bit
dense.

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It focuses on church history before
Pacelli's reign as Pope.

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But this second half of Cornwell's book is
nothing short of a harrowing read.

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Now, it obviously gave Cornwell no
pleasure to expose the Pope, Pius XII,

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as a moral failure and as an anti-Semite,
but to his credit, he does it without

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backing away.

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I would put this book on your must-read
list.

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This is history at its best.

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Investigative, explosive, and finally
revelatory.

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It's published by Viking.

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I'm Evan Solomon, and I'll see you again
in seven.

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Well, 50 years ago this week, Pope Pius
XII died, known as Eugene Pacelli.

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And we want to spend a few moments talking
about this infamous Pope and what your

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thoughts were on him.

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Yeah, exactly 50 years ago, I think it's
this weekend, that Eugene Pacelli,

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a.k.a.

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Pope Pius XII, died.

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I remember it very well.

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I was living in South London at the time.

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I remember my father telling me that the
Pope had died and the Catholic Church

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would never be the same again.

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In some ways, I think he was right,
because the Vatican Council came along and

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turned the whole thing upside down and
pointed in a left-wing direction.

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But, yes, he died 50 years ago this week.

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A very emotional man, so they say.

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He used to have all his meals on his own,
with just a canary for company,

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which is very sad.

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So says Mother Pasqualina, who was his
housekeeper at the Vatican, I think,

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for about 19 years.

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She was also with him in Bavaria.

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Interestingly, I think the day after she
died, she was summoned to one of the

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offices of one of the senior cardinals in
the Vatican.

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I think it's Cardinal Ottaviani,
who said, Your service is no longer

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required, but take the Vatican and take
the bird with you.

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So rather sad for the bird as well.

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He'd probably been quite happy there.

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But in the early days of his death,
I think possibly in the 60s, it was

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rumoured very much so that he would be
made a saint of the Roman Catholic Church.

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Christians believe that we are all saints
when we're born again, but he would be

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confirmed, canonised, as a saint of the
Roman Catholic Church.

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Just explain to us what canonisation
means, please.

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Well, canonisation is when they open up a
file on a prospective candidate who's

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going to be made a pope.

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They appoint a devil's advocate,
as they say, to look at the man,

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to find out all of this, and to
investigate claims that he was a worthy

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man, he was a holy man, and that three or
four miracles are done.

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People say, well, I prayed to such and
such, Padre Pio, whatever it was,

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and my wishes were recurred.

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So that will go on for a few years.

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Then he becomes venerable, and then
eventually passes on and becomes

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canonised, becomes a full-blown saint.

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It didn't happen, of course, because the
rumours were still surfacing that the

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Vatican had been very much involved with
the Nazis.

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The infamous Concordat of 1933,
which he signed not as Pius XII,

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but for Pius XI.

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When he was Secretary of State,
Cardinal Pacelli, was signed in 1933.

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And there's a famous picture, of course,
you can see him at the table signing this.

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Franz von Pappen's there, and we've
written about him on our website,

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and you can read all about this very
distinguished, high-ranking, Masonic,

19:39.230 --> 19:41.850
Catholic gentleman, Franz von Pappen.

19:42.090 --> 19:44.510
You can see Cardinal Ottaviani,
who I've just mentioned there,

19:44.610 --> 19:45.410
he was Monsignor Montini.

19:45.750 --> 19:48.450
And right out of the picture, there's a
little figure standing there, he was

19:48.450 --> 19:51.410
Monsignor Montini, of course, who later
became Pope Paul VI.

19:51.410 --> 19:57.010
But yes, that's when the beginning set,
that the Vatican would recognize the Nazi

19:57.010 --> 20:01.470
government, wouldn't criticize them too
much, and in return, they were able to

20:01.470 --> 20:03.810
practice their beliefs and so forth.

20:04.430 --> 20:08.270
Of course, later on, several books came
out highlighting what had happened.

20:08.510 --> 20:12.290
Certain telegrams came forward that had
been sent to the Vatican, the plight of

20:12.290 --> 20:15.210
the Jews, and to their credit,
certain German bishops saying,

20:15.210 --> 20:18.350
Look, you know, we've got a concentration
camp near us, people are being rounded up

20:18.350 --> 20:19.670
in the night, we're very concerned about
this.

20:19.950 --> 20:23.150
We've been to the Nuncio in Berlin,
I think his name was Orsonego,

20:23.610 --> 20:25.750
Archbishop Orsonego, and nothing much has
been done about it.

20:25.870 --> 20:29.150
So there were people doing something,
by and large, since the Vatican sleptwalk

20:29.150 --> 20:29.730
through this.

20:30.210 --> 20:32.850
And of course, ten years ago, the infamous
book came out, I can't remember the

20:32.850 --> 20:33.910
author, is it Robert Cromwell?

20:33.970 --> 20:34.630
No, Robert Cromwell, yeah.

20:34.730 --> 20:37.790
Cromwell, Hitler's Pope, which you'll
probably see flashing up on the screen

20:37.790 --> 20:38.290
about now.

20:38.290 --> 20:42.490
And there you can see Pacelli winging out
towards this Mercedes-Benz, and there's

20:42.490 --> 20:45.390
German soldiers standing inside saluting
him, Hitler's Pope.

20:45.670 --> 20:46.490
Hasn't that title stuck?

20:46.590 --> 20:50.550
Is it not true that the Catholic bishops
threw parties for Hitler every year when

20:50.550 --> 20:51.030
they were in Germany?

20:51.430 --> 20:52.090
Yes, yes.

20:52.290 --> 20:56.330
On his birthday every year, April the
20th, I believe, there was a big reception

20:56.330 --> 20:57.610
and a party held in Berlin.

20:57.790 --> 21:00.050
And Pius never criticised Hitler,
did he?

21:00.050 --> 21:01.410
Pius never criticised it at all,
no.

21:02.430 --> 21:03.630
Nothing was ever said about that.

21:03.630 --> 21:06.330
And Churchill and Roosevelt couldn't
understand why he wouldn't criticise... he

21:06.330 --> 21:09.710
had Vatican radio, and he never criticised
the Nazis.

21:09.950 --> 21:13.530
We know that priests and nuns were
murdered by the Nazis, but the hierarchy

21:13.530 --> 21:14.050
was safe.

21:14.470 --> 21:18.150
Yeah, priests and nuns were murdered by
the Nazis, and a couple of bishops were

21:18.150 --> 21:22.330
thrown in there as well, but Pius did
nothing about it, turned his back on it,

21:22.410 --> 21:23.310
nothing done at all about it.

21:23.330 --> 21:28.330
And also strong speculation that at the
end of the war, Pius XII actually gave

21:28.330 --> 21:29.270
Hitler a requiem mass.

21:29.890 --> 21:33.770
Rumour is, and I think this may have come
from Malachi Martin, but I can't be too

21:33.770 --> 21:37.370
sure that Pius XII officiated at a requiem
mass.

21:37.470 --> 21:39.010
I mean, Hitler's body wasn't there,
of course.

21:39.130 --> 21:40.450
It was in the bunker of Berlin.

21:40.710 --> 21:43.950
But a requiem mass can be held in any
country, in any cathedral out in the

21:43.950 --> 21:48.790
world, for the soul of Adolf Hitler,
who was born and bred a Catholic in

21:48.790 --> 21:50.110
Austria, as so many of them were.

21:50.130 --> 21:51.130
And died a Catholic as well?

21:51.430 --> 21:53.250
As far as we know, he died a Catholic as
well, yeah.

21:53.350 --> 21:56.550
I mean, he was very close to the Jesuits,
which we'll come to in a minute.

21:56.550 --> 21:59.510
I mean, Mein Kampf, for example,
which was written when Hitler was in

21:59.510 --> 22:04.410
Landsberg prison, one of the editors who
looked at the manuscript when Hess took it

22:04.410 --> 22:06.510
all down, Rudolf Hess took it down,
was a Jesuit.

22:06.670 --> 22:09.470
Father Robert Stempel, I think his name
was, you'll have to pull me up,

22:09.550 --> 22:14.310
but it was Stempel who was anti the Jews,
hated the Jews, you know, and did edit the

22:14.310 --> 22:14.470
book.

22:14.530 --> 22:18.530
And I think in the foreword of the
original Mein Kampf, he does thank Father

22:18.530 --> 22:21.950
Stempel for his input into this book,
for the editing and so forth.

22:22.010 --> 22:23.950
And he had a very painful death,
didn't he, Pius XII?

22:23.950 --> 22:26.310
Like all these popes who had very painful
deaths.

22:26.430 --> 22:29.830
Terrible death, awful death, I wouldn't
wish it on my worst enemy.

22:30.470 --> 22:35.450
But I think a couple of months before he
died, he was struck by an awful illness of

22:35.450 --> 22:36.030
hiccups.

22:36.870 --> 22:40.890
And it went on for something like three or
four days of hiccups, hiccup, all the

22:40.890 --> 22:43.970
time, they could do nothing about it,
and this will weaken anybody's physique.

22:44.130 --> 22:46.270
And of course he died very much alone.

22:46.750 --> 22:50.150
His doctor then sold some awful
photographs of the body lying in the bed,

22:50.630 --> 22:53.050
another count, because he was a count,
Count Pacelli, of course.

22:53.730 --> 22:56.390
So, a lot of these men do have awful
deaths, certainly the popes.

22:56.410 --> 22:59.430
And he rubbished the book of Genesis,
said it was written for primitive people,

22:59.510 --> 22:59.970
I think he said.

23:00.230 --> 23:03.270
Yes, I don't think they've ever been
pro-Genesis in the way that we would be.

23:03.370 --> 23:05.370
I think they sort of think they've given
Darwin...

23:05.370 --> 23:05.710
They've alibrized, they've alibrized.

23:05.710 --> 23:06.510
Yeah, they've alibrized.

23:06.550 --> 23:10.690
I think they've given Darwin the possible
doubt that what Darwin's saying could be

23:10.690 --> 23:11.030
right.

23:11.150 --> 23:14.670
But yes, he rubbished that for idiots,
so you're an idiot and so am I.

23:14.730 --> 23:15.390
Do you think the man's saved?

23:16.030 --> 23:17.030
Absolutely not, no.

23:17.170 --> 23:18.990
No, I don't think... any of those popes
are saved.

23:19.150 --> 23:22.530
And I knew a priest who'd worked in the
Vatican some years ago, and he was

23:22.530 --> 23:26.550
convinced that this pope, Pius XII,
was the last real true Roman Catholic.

23:26.850 --> 23:30.230
Well, if he's the last true Roman Catholic
pope, I think that's what he meant,

23:30.270 --> 23:33.590
the proper traditional pope, then he's
languishing in the fires of hell.

23:34.190 --> 23:38.770
So there you are, 50 years ago this week,
Eugene Bocelli, a.k.a.

23:38.850 --> 23:40.630
Pope Pius XII, passed away.

23:42.410 --> 23:43.950
A very controversial pope.

23:44.010 --> 23:46.810
He hasn't been canonized, because we
believe he was too close to the Nazis.

23:48.410 --> 23:49.530
And that's his stigma.

23:50.090 --> 23:51.090
Yeah, I mean...

23:51.090 --> 23:52.390
That's his legacy, really.

23:52.430 --> 23:55.590
I think the man, what I can make out,
was very highly strung, and I think like

23:55.590 --> 23:58.610
so many of these men who are highly
strung, I think Anthony Eden was as well,

23:58.610 --> 24:02.810
they push the problem to the back of their
mind, and I think they hope that it will

24:02.810 --> 24:03.450
go away.

24:03.770 --> 24:06.250
Well, of course, Anthony Eden was prime
minister, he was dealing with world

24:06.250 --> 24:09.870
events, but Bocelli was dealing with
millions of people, men, women,

24:09.930 --> 24:13.690
and children, who were being shipped off
to the camps every day, for what,

24:13.710 --> 24:17.870
from 1936, when Dachau opened up,
and we went there, and you can look at our

24:17.870 --> 24:20.250
pictures of Dachau, certainly until 1945.

24:20.250 --> 24:26.230
Klaus Barbie was still sending people,
from Jews in Paris, late 1944,

24:26.530 --> 24:31.230
early 1945, with the connivance of the
chief of police, who was a Roman Catholic,

24:31.530 --> 24:36.050
and with the connivance of the bishops,
the French bishops who went along with

24:36.050 --> 24:36.210
this.

24:36.210 --> 24:40.810
And interestingly enough, the man who
became pope after Pius XII, Roncalli,

24:41.170 --> 24:45.690
who was the nuncio, not the nuncio,
they call it apostolic delegate in Turkey,

24:45.930 --> 24:50.610
was the man who was elevated to cardinal,
everybody was surprised, sent to Paris to

24:50.610 --> 24:54.190
weed out these bishops who had been pro
all of this, and to get rid of them,

24:54.230 --> 24:56.370
I think they found about two, became the
next pope.

24:56.590 --> 24:57.390
Talk about him another time.

24:57.710 --> 24:58.410
So there you are.

24:58.830 --> 25:01.530
We're going to do a series of videos in
the coming weeks on Roman Catholicism.

25:01.530 --> 25:04.090
This is the start with Pius XII.

25:04.690 --> 25:07.270
As always, thanks for your videos,
thanks for your comments, thanks for your

25:07.270 --> 25:08.730
thoughts, and Maranatha.

25:09.170 --> 25:10.670
Maranatha from this ministry as well.