Pope Pius XII
and the Attitude of the Catholic Church During World War II
Interview with Fr. Peter Gumpel, S.J., the relator of the cause of Pope Pius XII. A German by birth, he relates his own personal history and life under the Nazi regime. More importantly, however, he shares his decades of research into the life and pontificate of Pope Pius XII, especially as it relates to the history of the Second World War. This is the first part in a series.
Fr. Gumpel, first of all I’d like to thank you very much for giving us the time in describing your personal experience so that we can further clarify the papacy of Pope Pius XII in the eyes of the world. Could you give us a brief history of your personal experience under Nazi rule in Germany? I think this is very significant.
Frankly, I am not very eager to talk about this awful time. I lived through the Nazi period, I was exiled twice to save my own life. I am especially sad, even now when I think about it, that they killed my good grandfather. We had a very good relationship; I was destined to become his direct successor, and he took a very active hand in my instruction, formation and education.
Unfortunately, before World War II began, suddenly some people appeared at his villa and asked him to accompany them. Since then, we know nothing about him. The only thing that ever came to light was one of his gold cuff-links with our coat of arms; this was the only thing we ever found. We don’t know where or how he was killed or where he is buried. Nothing whatsoever. This is one of the memories which I do not like to recall, as you can well understand.
Second, I remember a message I received when I was between 14 and 15 years old from my uncle, my mother’s brother. He told me, “Peter, you are getting older now and you are no longer a small child. I can tell you very frankly that a very serious thing has happened to your mother.” So I asked what happened. He said, “Well, your mother went for a long walk and had a very bad accident and it is extremely serious.” So I asked if she was in the hospital. He answered, “No, it is much worse.” So I asked if she were dead. And he said: “Yes.” And then he said he was leaving immediately to try at least to get permission to bring her mortal remains home.
So there you are. I was between 14 and 15 years old. I knew why my mother had left Berlin. Word had reached us that my grandfather’s house—a rather splendid piece of property which he had bequeathed to me—had been invaded by the Nazis and that they had destroyed everything. My mother wanted to go there so that one day, when Hitler’s terrible period was over, she could put in a claim of reparation to the next government. Unfortunately, the photographer she had approached denounced her to the Nazis. She was arrested, and then I received the message above.
This is a thing that might be difficult to understand from a psychological point of view. I believed what my uncle had told me. He was a trustworthy man, an engineer, a cool-headed person. I sat down and wondered what I should do about it. And then, thanks be to God, I remembered that once, in my presence, a general—a friend of the family—had told my mother to get in touch with him if there was ever any serious crisis. I knew that he had left his telephone number, albeit ciphered, but I knew how to decipher it by reading it backwards, etc.
So I went to the street telephone since I couldn’t use our telephone; it was wiretapped. I called him from the public telephone and, thanks be to God, he was in his office. I asked if I could see him. He said yes and gave me a place to meet. I explained the situation, and he said, “Time is running short because I understand the idea is your mother has not been killed. But there is an order by Himmler himself and Hitler that she is to be shot tomorrow morning at 5am. I know this.” I asked if there was anything we could do. He said he would speak to one of the most important military officers, his superior, another general. He asked me to call him at the same number in an hour.
He arranged for me to meet this general in a very dark street in Berlin in the middle of the night in the hope that it would be successful. But he told me not to have too much hope. So I went and met this officer, who was in civilian clothes, a hat, and dark glasses. I had prepared what I had wanted to say but when I actually arrived, I had forgotten every word. I simply looked at him. And I said: “General, you know exactly what is going to happen. Now I ask you: What are you and your colleagues doing?” He removed his spectacles and looked at me—I don’t think he had ever been spoken to like that by a boy—and said: “You know, from your eyes speaks the conscience of your nation. I will do a very risky thing. Hitler always goes to sleep very late. I will go to him and threaten him.” And he did.
However, I didn’t notice, but when I got home, it was 3am. There was an SS officer standing in front of my home. My first reaction was that Hitler was probably enraged when he found out what I had done and now I would be killed as well. But it wasn’t like that. He told me that Hitler sent him to get my mother back by plane the same day. He said: “I am telling you that out of human consideration, but if it ever becomes known that I paid you a visit, I will have to pay for it.”
Later they killed a nephew of mine for the simple reason that he was a good Catholic and didn’t do what they asked him to do; he refused point blank to do a treacherous thing. And for this they shot him from behind.
I was personally exiled twice. In 1934, the situation for my family became dangerous, with people assembling in front of our villa in Hanover, shouting, etc. It was decided that, since I was the future heir of the entire property—a huge concern–I should be sent to France for two years. So I went without knowing a single word of French, learning in a French school, and so on. This was my first exile. Later, when I returned to Berlin, we were given the assurance that they would not try to do anything against us, but could you trust Hitler’s word?
In 1938, when the situation arose again, after other similar experiences, they sent me to Holland for a definite period, where I went for my second exile.
From your research, I’m interested in Eugenio Pacelli’s personal experience with Jewish people–with his friends, for example. Can you tell me anything about his childhood with Jewish friends?
Definitely, yes. His very best friend was Jewish, Guido Mendes, who eventually became a famous surgeon and went to Israel. During the Jewish persecution, Pope Pius XII saw to it that he could leave Switzerland. Mendes became, later, in Israel, a famous surgeon and professor of medicine. These two were close friends; he was really young Pacelli’s best friend. They visited one another at their respective homes. It has been said, with some humor, that Pacelli was probably the only Pope who ever partook of a kosher meal! When he went to his friend’s house, he obviously ate what was offered.
They were truly best friends, had discussions, exchanged books, etc. When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, Guido Mendes went on record to recall his memories of his former classmate, and he said that not only were they personally friends, but that Pacelli had been friendly with all their Jewish classmates, polite, always correct, and the very best student among all of us.
Do you have any examples from when he was Apostolic Nuncio in Germany of his intervention to help save Jewish lives?
Certainly there are a few incidents. For example, when he first arrived in Berlin he became very friendly with a Jewish conductor, Bruno Walter, because Pacelli loved music. He personally played the violin well although he eventually gave it up for lack of time. At the time, this conductor was directing the Royal Opera in Berlin. It so happened that one of the people playing in the orchestra, also a Jewish gentleman by the name of Gribilowski, was arrested in an anti-Semitic movement. Bruno Walter did everything to free him, without success. So he went to Pacelli, the Apostolic Nuncio, his friend, who immediately took action. The next morning the man was free. This is a typical example.
An even greater example of what he did regards a person named Walter Rathenau. He, a Jew, was Germany’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, similar to America’s Foreign Secretary. At some point, Pacelli received a priest who said, “Your Excellency, I feel it my duty to inform you that people are planning to kill Rathenau. This is serious information.” So Pacelli called for an immediate audience with Germany’s Chancellor, Dr. Joseph Wirth, explained it to him, and it was taken seriously. He called in Wirth and gave him a significant police escort since his life was in danger. And Rathenau laughed it off and thought it impossible. A few weeks later, on June 22nd, he was effectively assassinated.
There are other examples, but if you consider these facts, can you say that Pius XII was anti-Semitic? I think this is downright foolish. He did whatever he could, at this time and later on, to help Jews and many other people wherever he could.
You mentioned before that some of the time that you spent in exile was spent in Holland. Would you mind relating to us the story when they began arresting the Dutch Jews? By this time, Eugenio Pacelli was Pope, and I believe that he made a statement through the Nuncio and other diplomatic channels.
Of course, you have to understand that this was 1942. Holland was invaded by the German army on May 10, 1940. One of the very first things they did was to expel the Apostolic Nuncio. Thus, in 1942, there was no Apostolic Nuncio.
However, I think that you are referring to something which happened on the last Sunday of July in 1942. Being a good Catholic boy, on Sunday I went to church to fulfill my obligation; I liked going to church anyway. This particular Sunday, there was no sermon. The priest approached the pulpit and said, “There is no sermon today. Instead, I am going to read a Pastoral Letter from the Archbishop of Utrecht (the only Archbishop in Holland).” And he did. To my great surprise, there was a very strong protest against the deportation of Jewish and young men to be forced to work for the German armament industry in Germany. There was also a flaming protest against another thing, in the strongest possible terms. And this was a protest against the forced deportation of Jewish Dutch citizens. This was extremely strong.
At this time, I was 18 years old and had just completed my first year of philosophical studies, on my way to a Master’s degree in philosophy. So I was no longer a child. My reaction was twofold: One, I had great admiration for the courage and noble gesture of the Archbishop for people who did not belong to his flock. In Holland, the relationship between Jews and Catholics was normal. They were not particularly intimate, but they were polite. However, the fact that he, as a Catholic Archbishop, during the Nazi occupation, would have the courage to come out with such a strong statement in defense of people who did not belong to the Catholic Church caused my greatest admiration. This was my first reaction.
At the same time, my second reaction was “My good Archbishop, do you know what you are doing!” I had experience with the Nazis and knew how they would react—and they did. A few days later, one of the top officials in the Nazi government of Holland gave a speech in the capital saying, “If the Roman Catholic Church thinks that they can behave as this gentleman has done, they are seriously mistaken. Number one, this action will not cause a single Jew to be saved; on the contrary, we will accelerate the deportation of the Jewish people. Number two, we had not decided to deport Jews who had been baptized into the Catholic Church. But now, in response to this Archbishop, they will be the first to be deported.” And they were.
Later on, when Dr. Robert Kemptner put on trial those who were responsible for the deportation of these 600 Jews, he condemned them in the strongest possible terms and praised the courage of this Archbishop while at the same time making it clear that it was a total disaster.
This fact was immediately reported to Pope Pius XII. It induced him even further not to come out with flaming protests because he was convinced—and rightly so—that any public pronouncement would not help anything; on the contrary, it would aggravate the situation. He said he would not put this on his conscience. He recognized that he could make large gestures and be congratulated—but, at the same time, how many Jews would pay with their lives for this kind of gesture? He would not burden his conscience with this kind of stupidity.
Would you say that this Archbishop’s position reflected that of the Catholic Church?
Well, he knew perfectly well. All the bishops knew in Germany with the exception of one Nazi bishop who had been imposed on them, the bishop of the army. It was a choice between him and not giving spiritual care to those in the army. We were practically forced. But he was excluded from the German episcopal conference.
With this exception, all the bishops knew—in Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, all the occupied countries—perfectly well the position of the Pope. He wanted them to do everything possible to save all persecuted persons—not only the Jews, but especially the Jews because they were more persecuted than anybody else.
Later the Pope sent a private messenger, Fr. Smulders, a Dutch Jesuit whom I knew well personally. The message said to do what we could to help the Jews. And these messages were sent all over. There was no doubt what the Pope wanted. Wherever there was an Apostolic Nuncio—in Hungary, Slovakia, etc.—they were instructed to do this and to communicate it to the bishops. If not, personal messages were sent all over to inform bishops to do what they could.
If you look at the writings of Pius XII to the German bishops, it is all carefully worded because you never knew if they would fall into the hands of people who should not see them. But for anyone who knows the time and style of Pius XII, it is obvious that he encouraged them to help.
I’d like to read a few quotes to you because I believe they’re very significant. This was one thing, first of all, that was to give an example of the Pope’s opinion of the Nazis. Joseph Lichten, who was the Anti-Defamation League director when he was discussing the election of Pope Pius XII when he was a cardinal, said that the election of Cardinal Pacelli is not accepted with favor in Germany because he was always opposed to Nazism and practically determined the policies of the Vatican under his predecessor. So Joseph Lichten, who was very prominently a Jewish leader certainly, made this statement. I was wondering if you could comment on this statement made by Joseph Lichten?
Well, this statement is not new to me. Of course, I’ve come across it many times in my studies of the cause of Pius XII, of which I am in charge of the investigation. I know this statement, and his is not the only one. There were very many others, even scores of statements to the same effect from all kinds of Jewish organizations, even political people. Golda Meir, the Prime Minister Moshe Sharett, Einstein, and so many others. There were many people with regard to the statement that the election of Cardinal Pacelli to be the successor of Pope Pius XI was not well seen in Germany–obviously not. They knew perfectly well from the very beginning that he had been hostile to them. You see, when Pacelli left Germany in 1929, he warned German politicians to beware of Hitler. He said, “Well, you see, I have read this terrible book he has written. That is a man who will tear down anything that stands in his way. He is a man capable of walking over corpses!” He warned them, but of course, what could he do? These things became known to the Nazis.
It was also, as Lichten rightly said, perfectly true that Pacelli was instrumental even in a determining way in drafting the famous Encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge. This was published in Germany. It’s the only encyclical ever written in German. It was smuggled into Germany by a diplomatic pouch, distributed by persons on motor bicycles or cars to the individual bishops, printed in hundreds of thousands of copies, read out from all the pulpits in Germany on a given day; and of course the Nazis were furious because there are statements about extolling race above everything else, etc. Therefore it is a total condemnation of the racist ideology of the Nazis.
Whenever they could get hold of a printed copy of this, the man went to prison. They couldn’t keep it from being read in all the churches because only on the Saturday evening before were they informed by a traitor, an employee of a printing establishment who had printed these things, who went to the Gestapo; but they couldn’t do anything because they couldn’t get hold of this thing. I know because every precaution was taken. Even I was commanding officer as a boy officer in a Catholic school in Berlin in 1937. My boys and I went around to parishes with copies under our coats. Ostensibly, we were going to confession because in the confessional people couldn’t see what we were doing. We knew exactly to whom we were supposed to go because not all the priests were equally safe. Then we handed them over, and a number of them locked them in the tabernacle and only took them out shortly before the service began the next Sunday. So they were furious.
But there was one more thing that people overlook at times. You see, I have read dozens and dozens of books about Pius XII and his attitude toward Nazism, etc. Why on earth did people not take the precautions that I have taken in my investigations of Pius XII? There are two reasons. One: what did Jewish people write and say during the Second World War? I asked one of my collaborators to go to the New York Public Library, which is the best place to research what was said in Jewish newspapers, Jewish reviews, publications, etc., and not only of American origin, but from England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc. In the entire free world there is nothing but praise about Pius XII in the Jewish publications of that period. That is point one. You can take a similar endeavor in this regard, seeing what was published in Nazi Germany and in countries occupied by the Nazis where the Nazis dictated what should be written about: You get the totally opposite picture. There is nothing but attacks on Pius XII. He is ridiculed; he is smeared with all kinds of things; there are pictures with him in the middle of swine–it is just awful. Now, that is typical of the attitude for these two sets of people: the Jewish people at that time and the Nazis. The Jewish people praised Pius XII for what he did, the others attack him and call him “a Jew-boy, a Jew-Pope, a Jew-Cardinal,” etc. They say he is defending the Jewish warmongers, etc. So it couldn’t be worse. Now this is revealing, and it is very strange to me that trained historians, as I am, never undertook this effort.
This was after he passed away. There is a quote from Golda Meir, who was at that time the Israeli representative to the UN and the future prime minister of Israel. Upon receiving the news of the death of Pope Pius XII she said, “We share the grief of the world over the death of his holiness, Pope Pius XII. During the ten years of Nazi terror when our people passed through the horrors of martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the persecutors and to commiserate with their victims.” This is very substantial–this is Golda Meir. If I may continue, Mr. Nahum Goldman, who at that time was president of the World Jewish Congress said, “It is with special gratitude that we remember all he has done for the persecuted Jews during one of the darkest periods of their entire history.” And to further this, Rabbi Elio Toaff, who was the chief rabbi of Rome, stated, “More than anyone else we have had the opportunity to appreciate the kindness filled with compassion and magnanimity that the Pope displayed during the terrible years of the persecution and terror.” And I’d like to read one more, from Albert Einstein: “Only the Catholic Church protested against the Hitlerian onslaught on liberty. Until then, I had not been interested in the Church. But today I feel great admiration for the Church, which alone has had the courage to struggle for the spiritual truth and moral liberty.” Now these are very decisive statements. What I’d like to ask you is: In light of the obviously positive influence of all these facts on the Jewish people, why do you think this changed? What happened to cause this to change suddenly?
To tell the truth, it has always been in a sense mysterious to me how this was possible. But the immediate occasion, to answer your question very directly, is, of course, the play written by a man named Rolf Hochhuth that attacked Pius XII. It is not an historical kind of work at all. It is pure fantasy, even though he claims it is historically accurate. It is not. It is simply an effort to attack and denigrate Pius XII–to calumniate him, to put it very bluntly. And, of course, who was this Rolf Hochhuth when he wrote it? He was a young man just over 30 years old.
What was the name of the play?
In German it’s called Der Stellvertreter. In English-speaking countries it has two names: some call it The Vicar, and some call it The Deputy. I believe that in America the more common name is The Deputy; in England, it’s The Vicar. So he was a young man when he wrote this kind of thing. He was so inept that if this thing had been produced as he had written it, it would have lasted seven or eight hours. You can well imagine: endless monologues, etc. It would have been boring. He had, however, the good fortune that this play came into the hands of a very famous director and producer by the name of Erwin Piscator. This man had already joined the German Communist party in 1918. He was a dyed-in-the-wool communist.
When Hitler came to power, [Piscator] went to Moscow, and from that moment on he continued to receive his instructions and orders from Moscow. That was the man who put this thing into shape. And being a very able director, he used all kinds of effects that could create an impression in listeners who were not familiar with the real history. And it did, unfortunately. The book he published simultaneously under the direction of Erwin Piscator is absolutely worthless from an historical point of view. I don’t know any serious historians nowadays who pay any attention to it. But this is one thing.
The other thing is its effect on the public mind. That is why when this play was produced, they changed it in different countries–in the United States, for example; and they changed it again for production in England, etc. But the communists and left-wing people altogether promoted it the best possible way they could. For example, in the Russian-occupied, Communist-occupied countries until 1989 it had to be produced at least once a year in all the major cities. And Erwin Piscator remained a communist until the end of his life. He also spent a period in a tiny college in the US, but a very left-wing college. That is the point: he was an able man.
So there is one thing I think people should not forget: Hochhuth did not only write this play with the help of Piscator, he wrote another play, this time not against a man of the Church, but against Winston Churchill. And he denigrated Winston Churchill, accused him point blank of being the murderer of the Polish general Sikorsky, who was at that time the head of the Polish government in exile. Now the curious thing is, in English law at least–and I studied four years in England so I know a good deal about English law–only the person who has been calumniated can react against this. Churchill was dead, Pius XII was dead, so Hochhuth could do whatever he wanted without being punished. He made a huge mistake: he thought the pilot had been killed because Sikorsky was killed in a plane crash close to Gibraltar. But the pilot was still alive. The pilot was a high-ranking officer in the RAF, but now in retirement. He was born Czech, but he had gone to California for his retirement. He read about it in the newspapers and said, “What?” He made an inquiry and, having been accused of being the pilot who caused this accident in which Sikorsky was killed, he took Hochhuth to court.
He did this because they had started to perform the play which in German is called Die Soldaten and in English The Soldiers. So he took the producer and Hochhuth and everybody else connected to this to court, and they were very severely condemned for slander. I myself listened to one of the final meetings, and I am accustomed to what British lawyers do. Usually they are very cold, but in this particular instance they were ice cold and cuttingly sharp. And the defendant Hochhuth didn’t appear, which was good for him or he would’ve been arrested on the spot, you see, because there was a public outcry after this happened. So here you have two parallel cases, two people who have died. Both are denigrated, calumniated without any cause whatsoever. In one case, well, it’s a pope–it’s a man of the Church. The Church did not take him to court, etc.; the other party did. This play, The Soldier, has completely disappeared everywhere. It is never performed, cannot be performed. It is punishable to perform it. With Pius XII things are different. But to answer your question, to return to the starting point, the turnover in public opinion is due to Rolf Hochhuth’s scandalous play.
We discussed earlier the fact that the Pope actually was working behind the scenes in a very dangerous way as a go-between between the British and the German generals. Would you elaborate on this?
Certainly. This happened in the last months of 1939 and the first months of 1940. To put this thing into a proper historical setting, the war in Poland is over, but a big offensive against the west–Holland, Belgium, France, etc.–has not yet begun. There was always a group of German generals who were utterly opposed to Hitler, led by a famous general by the name of Ludwig Beck, who was head of the General Staff of the German army and who resigned in protest against Hitler’s policy. So he was put in retirement–he wanted to be put into retirement, he didn’t want anything to do with it. But he was the one behind the scenes who continued to act against Hitler, trying to remove him–not to kill him. He was a good Christian–not a Catholic, a Protestant. There were two possibilities: Either to put him in front of a German tribunal or to shut him up in a lunatic asylum. That was the idea.
The German generals’ problem was this: we are at war with France and England. If we remove Hitler, there will be the possibility of a civil war because there are still many people who are in favor of Hitler–the army was questionable. It will be a very uncertain situation. Our enemies could make use of this opportunity, invade us, and defeat us like that. So we will try to remove Hitler, but we want to have the assurance that neither France nor England will attack us at this particular very delicate and dangerous moment. How could this be effected? They had no direct contact, of course, with Great Britain, but Beck had known Pius XII when he was apostolic nuncio, so he got the idea to send somebody, a certain Dr. Josef Muller, who later became minister of state after the war in Bavaria, to Rome. He was incorporated into the German counter-espionage. He went to Rome and through an intermediary put this proposal to Pius XII.
Now, this was a highly dangerous thing to do. Pius XII said, “Well, I must do everything I can, because if the war continues it may cost millions of human lives, and this would also be an opportunity to stop this madman and his killing of innocent people all over: the Jews and others.” So he decided to go ahead with it. He approached the British ambassador, who was living in the Vatican at the time, and the ambassador transmitted it. All the documents are in the British archive in Kew; I’ve seen them there myself. This is not something that was made up, no. Certain people argue that all the documents are not in the Vatican. You won’t find a scrap of paper in the Vatican archives about it because it was too dangerous. If there were ever an invasion by the Fascists, the Nazis would have found it; it would have been a terrible thing for the Catholic Church. But the whole correspondence going back and forth is in the British archives in Kew, Great Britain’s central archives. And they say it very clearly.
Now, this thing went back and forth. The German generals continued to put pressure on the Pope. The English were hesitant, and they said, “Well, who are these generals?” But the Pope said, “I can’t give you the names because giving out names like that could mean that somebody by indiscretion or spying would find out, and these people would be shot on the spot. But I assure you that the persons who are heading this group are honest, very serious people.”
In the end, the generals did not succeed in overthrowing Hitler, so the whole thing fell flat. But the fact remains that in a critical situation like this, the Pope had the courage to undertake something that might have caused absolute, disastrous damage to the Catholic Church had Hitler ever come to know about this endeavor. Thanks be to God, people kept their mouths shut. The English had promised to keep this secret, and they kept their promise. And, of course, the Pope was the last person to be interested in divulging it. Hardly anybody in his immediate surrounding knew about it, not even the secretary of state.
Current Issue
