Review
"A superb lesson in Catholic Church politics." -- San Francisco Chronicle, August 26, 1999
"Cornwell's valuable book is extremely timely." -- Chicago Sun-Times, October 3, 1999
By combining the painstaking research of other scholars with his own new documentation ... Cambridge makes a case in Hitler's Pope that is very difficult to refute. -- The New York Times Book Review, V.R. Berghahn
In May 1940, some 14 months after the election to the papacy of Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who took the name Pius Xii, the French cardinal, Eugene Tisserant, wrote privately to the cardinal archbishop of Paris, Emmanuel Suhard: "I fear that history will reproach the Holy See for having practiced a policy of selfish convenience and little else." Among Catholics, Tisserant's dim view of Pius XII was that of a small minority only, at least until the pope's death in October 1958. Since the early 1960's, however, when Rolf Hochhuth's play "The Deputy" caused a worldwide scandal and triggered passionate debate, the controversy regarding Pius XII's attitude toward Nazi Germany, and particularly his silence in the face of the extermination of the Jews, has sporadically erupted among Catholics and in the Christians world. For Jews, the subject has remained of major importance, linked as it is not only to the past but also to ongoing relations between the two faiths. John Cornwell's book is illuminating in the analysis of Pacelli's formative years, in the assessment of his personality, in the discussion of German political Catholicism for the sake of the concordat with Hitler and in the description of Pacelli's unrelenting efforts to centralize all major initiatives in the pope's hands. In dealing with the war years and particularly with Pius XII's silence in the face of extermination of the Jews. It is the section of Cornwell's book dealing with the war period that will certainly rekindle the strongest controversy. -- Los Angeles Times, October 10, 1999
About the Author
John Cornwell is in the department of history and philosophy of science at Cambridge University. He is a regular feature writer at the Sunday Times (London) and the author and editor of four books on science, including Power to Harm, on the Louisville Prozac trial, as well as Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII and Breaking Faith: Can the Catholic Church Save Itself?
From The Washington Post
The title tells the tale. And a chilling tale it is: Eugenio Paceli, then the Vatican's all-powerful secretary of state, made it possible for Adolf Hitler to achieve total power in Germany and, as Pope Pius XII, went on to appease him, maintaining inexplicable public silence as the Nazis destroyed and massacred millions of European Jews before and during World War II. In other words, the pro-Germany and "anti-Judaic" Pacelli-who had spent 13 years in Munich and Berlin as papal nuncio-bears, according to this most important book, awesome personal responsibility for the evil of Hitler ... and the Holocaust. Had Pius XII publicly condemned Hitler's acts-and even top Germany military commanders in Italy secretly urged him to do so toward the end of the war-many millions of lives might have been saved. The conclusions and revelations presented by John Cornwell in his meticulously researched Hitler's Pope, many of them based on materials from heretofore closed Vatican, Italians, German, British, and French archives and other unimpeachable sources, leave not doubt that Eugenio Pacelli was the Fuhrer's best imaginable ally.
