Pius XII and the Second World War

This is the first one-volume history, based on the Vatican archives, of Pope Pius XII and his dealing with the contesting powers and with the Jews during World War II. Criticized after his death for allegedly doing too little to alleviate the plight of the Jews trapped by the war, Pius XII emerges on these pages as far more complex a man and more energetic on work for peace than the record heretofore suggested. The archives of the Vatican Secretariat of State let us follow day-by-day, even hour-by-hour, the work of the pope and his associates. Here we can find both the public statements and the private manoeuvrings of the Holy See to forestall the ruin of Europe and its people. Allegations concerning the so-called "silence" of the pope sprang into public consciousness in the 1960s with the appearance of Rolf Hochhuths' play The Deputy. That drama and other critics maintained that Pius XII, in order to protect the interests of the church, made only ineffective efforts to save European Jews who fell into Nazi hands. The actual record indicates otherwise. Not only did the pontiff intercede frequently with German diplomatic leaders, but Vatican agencies, in response the pope's orders, took active steps to protect Jews and others threatened with deportation. Vatican radio carried the message into Germany itself. The pope's Christmas message in 1942 denounced the cruelty of the conflict in which "hundreds of thousands of people, through no fault of their own and at times only because of their nationality and race, are destined to be killed...." If Pius XII did not use language as strong as some wanted, the author maintains the pope's reserve was far from indifference, but was, in fact, calculated to absorb Nazi brutality to Christians and Jews alike. The Vatican diplomatic archives covering the period of World War II were ordered opened by Pope Paul VI in 1964. Twelve volumes of documents were eventually published. Pierre Blet, S.J., one of the project's editors, gathered the findings in this one-volume history that appeared in France in 1997. "It is not surprising," writes Blet, "that the pope and the Vatican diplomacy, with the resources available to them, obtained only limited results." Nevertheless, "the very mass of documents by itself stands as an eloquent testimony of the intensity of the care that the pope showed on behalf of the human problems that the war brought about...." Pierre Blet, S.J., received his doctorate at the Sorbonne in 1958. In Rome he became professor of modern History at the Pontifical Gregorian University and for seventeen years taught diplomatic history at the Pontificia Accademia Ecclesiatica. In 1985 he was elected a corresponding member of the Institut de France