Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII [Hardcover]

John Cornwell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1999

The explosive untold story of the most dangerous churchman in modern history--drawn from secret archives by an award-winning Roman Catholic journalist

Eugenio Pacelli, Pius XII--a man with unprecedented power for good and evil--was pope from 1939 to 1958. Today, still shadowed by his failure to condemn Hitler's Final Solution, he is at the same time nearing canonization. Backed by new research and exclusive access to a wealth of Vatican and Jesuit archives, John Cornwell tells for the first time, in depth, the truth about Pacelli's long career as a Vatican diplomat and the accord between Pacelli and Hitler that helped sweep the Nazis to unhindered power.

Hitler's Pope shows how Pacelli's entire life and career led to this, from a brilliant young Vatican lawyer drafting new papal power for the twentieth century to his 1933 Concordat with Hitler that muzzled protest by Germany's Catholic community, the most powerful in the world. Cornwell's explosive conclusion is that without Pacelli's contribution, Hitler might never have come to power or been able to press forward with the Holocaust.

As searing and provocative as David Wyman's The Abandonment of the Jews or Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners, Hitler's Pope conclusively documents Pius XII's anti-Semitism, narcissism, and calamitous mix of political and spiritual ambition--and it shows how many of Pacelli's policies are reasserting themselves today under the reign of John Paul II. It will surely spark a worldwide furor of controversy, both inside and outside the Catholic Church.

"Eugenio Pacelli was not a monster; his case is far more complex, more tragic than that. The interest of his story depends on a fatal combination of high spiritual aspirations in conflict with soaring ambitions for unprecedented power and control."--from the Preface

"Pius XII and the Jews . . . the whole thing is too sad and serious for bitterness."--Thomas Merton

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This devastating account of the ecclesiastical career of Eugenio Pacelli (1876-1958), who became Pope Pius XII in 1939, is all the more powerful because British historian John Cornwell maintains throughout a measured though strongly critical tone. After World War II, murmurs of Pacelli's callous indifference to the plight of Europe's Jews began to be heard. A noted commentator on Catholic issues, Cornwell began research for this book believing that "if his full story were told, Pius XII's pontificate would be exonerated." Instead, he emerged from the Vatican archives in a state of "moral shock," concluding that Pacelli displayed anti-Semitic tendencies early on and that his drive to promote papal absolutism inexorably led him to collaboration with fascist leaders. Cornwell convincingly depicts Cardinal Secretary of State Pacelli pursuing Vatican diplomatic goals that crippled Germany's large Catholic political party, which might otherwise have stymied Hitler's worst excesses. The author's condemnation has special force because he portrays the admittedly eccentric Pacelli not as a monster but as a symptom of a historic wrong turn in the Catholic Church. He meticulously builds his case for the painful conclusion that "Pacelli's failure to respond to the enormity of the Holocaust was more than a personal failure, it was a failure of the papal office itself and the prevailing culture of Catholicism." --Wendy Smith

From Library Journal

Relying on exclusive access to Vatican and Jesuit archives, an award-winning Roman Catholic journalist argues that through a 1933 Concordat with Hitler, Pope Pius XII facilitated the dictator's riseAand, ultimately, the Holocaust.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First edition edition (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670886939
• ISBN-13: 978-0670886937
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (269 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #340,035 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #32 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Catholicism > Popes
  • #74 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > Holocaust

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60 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Scandal Sells, May 31, 2000

By 

gary d wentz (seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (Hardcover)

I was fascinated by this book and went on to do some more digging. I found so much material contrary to Cornwell's account that I keep asking myself why an historian would go to such efforts to smear a man who, it seems, saved so many lives. I can only assume that marketing considerations determined the tone of this book.

A few quotes: "When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for it's victims." Golda Meir

"He (Pope Pius)is the only ruler left on the continent of Europe who dares raise his voice at all." New York Times editorial Dec. 25, 1942

"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign." Albert Einstein (Time magazine 1944)

It is a "regretable irony that the one person in all of occupied Europe who did more than anyone else to halt the dreadful crime...is today made the scapegoat for the failures of others." Jeno Levai (Jewish historian specializing in the Holocaust in Hungary)

"The Catholic Church under Pius XII was instumental in saving the lives of as many as 860,000 Jews" Pinchas Lapide (Israeli diplomat)

25 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too biased, October 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (Hardcover)

I don't like this book because I think that it is bad research, and even worse targetting at misleading the masses. BTW I am not Catholic, so I have no interest or particular reason to defend Pius XII. The argumentation of the book is poor and the evidence very selective. Cornwell ignored the mass of evidence that sustained the contrary thesis, and the reasons that led Pius to use a soft policy for helping the Jews (Hitler reacting with more persecution when the pope would condemn antisemitism strongly, and Hitler's becoming full of hate just by hearing the word "Jew".) For those who are interested in a much better book on the same topic, I definitely recommend Pierre Blet's book on Pius XII. (Pius XII and the Second World War : According to the Archives of the Vatican)

51 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating new information, but overwrought, November 22, 1999

By 

Gregory E. Graham (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (Hardcover)

The principal strength of this book lies in its source material, not all of which has been available previously. However, it is also packaged with a fair amount of invective against Pius XII and the institution of the papacy itself. Yet, there is enough there so that a discerning reader can pick out the important details and ignore the fluff. It is unfortunate that Cornwell was not more professional in his treatment; it could have been a much more powerful indictment.

For example, Cornwell strongly implies that Pius XII's extravagant coronation is evidence of his autocratic tendencies. But this is taken out of context; Pius XII quite obviously was trying to boost morale of Catholics around the world during very trying times. Cornwell unfortunately, here as in many places in Hitler's Pope, simply squeezes too many biased conclusions out of innocuous data. Also, Cornwell's use of pictures taken out of context to bolster his case does show a lack of professionalism.

That being said, there is also enough raw information provided that can enable the discerning reader to reach valuable conclusions about the role of the papacy in the context of WWII. There is ample evidence provided in the book to support the conclusion that the papacy undermined local Catholic resistance to Hitler and that Pacelli in his role of nuncio to Germany played a large role in bringing that about. There is also ample evidence presented of the casual anti-Judiasm that pervaded the church at the time. And where I feel that Cornwell is strongest is in arguing for the capacity of the Catholic Church and its members to do good : particularly in presenting cases where Catholic opposition to barbarity during WWII did in fact bring about change; both in Germany and in other fascist regimes in eastern Europe. Finally, Cornwell is also strong in showing that Pius XII knew what was happening to the Jews in Nazi Germany and yet said nothing. Cornwell's book, despite the sometimes obviuos bias of the author, shows that the silence was indeed deafening. At the very least, Pius XII was inept on the scale of Neville Chamberlain, largely (perhaps willingly) blind to the plight of the Jews during the Holocaust, and certainly unwilling to spend any political capital to join the fight against one of the most evil regimes in history.

Apologists continue to defend Pius XII as defending the church from being stamped out in Germany and its conquered regions during WWII. However, in light of Cornwell's work, this can no longer be considered justification, but only perhaps an excuse. Also it is evidence of the lengths that high ranking officials of the Catholic Church went during WWII to sacrifice principle in favor of themselves and their institution : which I painfully view as an astounding lack of Faith in the triumph of the Church by its very own leader.