Several authors have alleged that there was a plot to kidnap

Pope Pius XII Pope Pius XII ( it, Pio XII), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (; 2 March 18769 October 1958), was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City, Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death in October 1958. ...

by the Nazis when they occupied Rome during World War II. SS General

Karl Wolff Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff (13 May 1900 – 17 July 1984) was a German SS functionary who served as Chief of Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS (Heinrich Himmler) and an SS liaison to Adolf Hitler during World War II. He ended the war as the Supr ...

stated that he had been ordered on September 13, 1943, to kidnap the Pope.

Accounts by former SS and Wehrmacht commanders

In the early 1970s,

, former Supreme SS and Police Leader in Italy, promoted the theory of an alleged plot. Most other allegations of such a plot are based on a 1972 document written by Wolff that '' Avvenire d'Italia'' published in 1991, and on personal interviews with Wolff before his death in 1984. Wolff maintained that on 13 September 1943, Hitler gave the directive to "occupy Vatican City, secure its files and art treasures, and take the Pope and Curia to the north". Hitler allegedly did not want the Pope to "fall into the hands of the Allies". Wolff's reliability has been questioned by Holocaust historians, such as

István Deák István Deák (born 11 May 1926) is a Hungarian-born American historian, author and academic. He is a specialist in modern Europe, with special attention to Germany and Hungary. Life and work Deák was born at Székesfehérvár, Hungary into ...

, a professor of history at Columbia University. Reviewing ''A Special Mission'' by Dan Kurzman, a promoter of the theory, Deák noted Kurzman's "credulity" and that the latter "uncritically accepts the validity of controversial documents and unquestioningly believes in the statements made to him by his principal German interlocutor, the former SS General Karl Wolff". He further criticized the book's "modest documentation" containing "a great number of vague or inaccurate references".''István Deák. 2008, June 12.
Did Hitler Plan to Kidnap the Pope?
Vol. 55. No. 10.'' Erwin Lahousen

Former ''

Generalmajor is the Germanic variant of major general, used in a number of Central and Northern European countries. Austria Belgium Denmark is the second lowest general officer rank in the Royal Danish Army and Royal Danish Air Force. As a two- ...

Erwin von Lahousen Generalmajor Erwin Heinrich René Lahousen, Edler von Vivremont (25 October 1897 – 24 February 1955) was a high-ranking Abwehr official during the Second World War, as well as a member of the German Resistance and a key player in attempts to a ...

, in his deposition at the

Nuremberg Trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded ...

on February 1, 1946 (Warnreise Testimony 1330-1430), said that Hitler had ordered the

Reichssicherheitshauptamt The Reich Security Main Office (german: Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA) was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as ''Chef der Deutschen Polizei'' (Chief of German Police) and ''Reichsführer-SS'', the head of the Nazi ...

to devise a plot to punish the Italian people by kidnapping or murdering Pius XII and the King of Italy.'' Zenit''. June 16, 2009.
More Proof of Hitler's Plot to Kill Pius XII
". But, Lahousen said, Admiral

Wilhelm Canaris Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral and the chief of the '' Abwehr'' (the German military-intelligence service) from 1935 to 1944. Canaris was initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, and the Nazi r ...

, head of the German counterintelligence service, informed his Italian counterpart, General Cesare Amè, during a secret meeting in Venice on July 29–30, 1943. Lahousen and Colonel Wessel Freytag von Loringhoven were also present at this meeting. According to Lahousen, Amè apparently spread the news and the plot was dropped. Rudolf Rahn, the German

Plenipotentiary A ''plenipotentiary'' (from the Latin ''plenus'' "full" and ''potens'' "powerful") is a diplomat who has full powers—authorization to sign a treaty or convention on behalf of his or her sovereign. When used as a noun more generally, the word ...

to the

Italian Social Republic The Italian Social Republic ( it, Repubblica Sociale Italiana, ; RSI), known as the National Republican State of Italy ( it, Stato Nazionale Repubblicano d'Italia, SNRI) prior to December 1943 but more popularly known as the Republic of Salò ...

(RSI), sent a letter to Robert A. Graham (one of the editors of the ADSS) in the 1970s, which was published by Italian magazine '' 30 Giorni'' in 1991, stating that such a plot existed but that all documents relating to it had been destroyed or lost; Rahn died in 1975.

Sources alleging a plot

John Cornwell

John Cornwell's '' Hitler's Pope'' (1999) subscribes to the existence of such a plot. The only source that Cornwell's account cites is "''Teste'' manuscript, 822ff, in the keeping of the Jesuit Curia at the

Borgo Santo Spirito Borgo Santo Spirito is a street in Rome, Italy, important for historical and artistic reasons. From a historical point of view, it is considered the most interesting street in the Borgo district. Of medieval origin, it is linked to the foundation ...

in Rome." Cornwell's version centers on Wolff, but—unlike the account of other secondary authors—does not claim that the matter was not to be put in writing; in fact, Cornwell claims that Wolff "sent in about six to eight personnel reports."Cornwell, 1999, p. 314. As with Wolff's own account, Cornwell casts Wolff as the hero, whose "purpose" was to "impede the deportation of the Pope." According to Cornwell, Wolff was able to persuade Hitler to drop the plan. In Cornwell's view: "all the facts indicate, therefore, that an attempt to invade the Vatican and its properties, or to seize the Pope in response to a papal protest would have seriously hindered the Nazi war effort. And thus even Hitler came to acknowledge what Pacelli appeared to ignore: that the strongest social and political force in Italy in the autumn of 1943 was the Catholic Church, and that its scope for noncompliance with disruption was immense." The historical value of Cornwell's ''Hitler's Pope'' has been questioned in regards to his treatment of the Pope by many other authors. Kenneth L. Woodward wrote that "Errors of fact and ignorance of context appear on almost every page." Dr.Peter Gumpel, S.J., an expert in the wartime period of Pope Pius XII's papacy, published a point-by-point rebuttal, including pointing out that "Before publication of the book Hitler's Pope" an article appeared in the ''Sunday Times'', in which Cornwell (who has no academic degrees in history, law, or theology) said he was the first and only person ever to be granted permission to visit the archive of the Vatican secretariat of state, had worked there for months on end, and discovered an unknown and highly compromising letter written by Pacelli on April 18, 1917, which, according to him, had lain there hidden as a time-bomb. All these statements are false and were declared as such in an official and authoritative statement issued by the Vatican in ''l'Osservatore Romano'' on October 13." Another scholar who addressed Cornwell's publication was Prof. Ronald Rychlak, with his book ''Hitler, the War, and the Pope'' (2010). Rabbi David G. Dalin wrote ''The Myth of Hitler's Pope'', and with Joseph Bottum co-edited ''The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII''.

Dan Kurzman

Dan Kurzman Daniel Halperin Kurzman (27 March 1922, San Francisco – 12 December 2010, Manhattan), was an American journalist and writer of military history books. He studied at the University of California in Berkeley, served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to ...

, a former foreign correspondent for ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', maintains in ''A Special Mission: Hitler's Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII'' (2007) that the planned kidnapping was real and that the interviews he conducted "leave little doubt that the plot was serious".Kurzman, 2007, pp. ix, 12. Kurzman's book has received attention from Catholic and other Christian news sources and advocacy organizations. Kurzman acknowledges that there are no official German documents that refer to the plot, claiming that Hitler prohibited the plot to be put in writing, and bases his book on personal interviews with Germans and Vatican officials. Kurzman's principal source is

, after his release from Allied custody; Kurzman acknowledges that Wolff was demonstrably untruthful in many aspects of his testimony.Kurzman, 2007, pp. x-xi. Kurzman's other interviewees include: Rudolph Rahn, German ambassador to the RSI, Eitel Mollhausen, Rahn's deputy, Albrecht von Kessel, the deputy of

Ernst von Weizsäcker Ernst Heinrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker (25 May 1882 – 4 August 1951) was a German naval officer, diplomat and politician. He served as State Secretary at the Foreign Office of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1943, and as its Ambassador to ...

, SS Colonel Eugen Dollman, Wolff's liaison to Field Marshal

Albert Kesselring Albert Kesselring (30 November 1885 – 16 July 1960) was a German ''Generalfeldmarschall'' of the Luftwaffe during World War II who was subsequently convicted of war crimes. In a military career that spanned both world wars, Kesselring bec ...

, and Peter Gumpel, the Vatican's advocate for

canonization Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of ...

of Pius XII. Gumpel has claimed that Pius XII made plans to resign in the event of his kidnapping.

Sources denying a plot

Owen Chadwick

Owen Chadwick William Owen Chadwick (20 May 1916 – 17 July 2015) was a British Anglican priest, academic, rugby international,D'Arcy Osborne, the British ambassador to the Vatican during the war, argued that the British

Political Warfare Executive During World War II, the Political Warfare Executive (PWE) was a British clandestine body created to produce and disseminate both white and black propaganda, with the aim of damaging enemy morale and sustaining the morale of countries occupie ...

(PWE) "found it excellent propaganda to put it about that Hitler was just about to kidnap the Pope".Chadwick, 1988, p. 275. The British propaganda office fabricated at least two German wireless broadcasts in support of the theory, building upon a pre-existing "rumour". First, on October 9, 1943, the British released a fake German broadcast claiming that all preparations had been made for such a kidnapping. Then, two days later, another falsified transmission stated that the Lichtenstein Castle in

Württemberg Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart. Together with Baden and Hohenzollern, two other historical territories, Württ ...

was ready to imprison the Pope and cardinals. Osborne himself considered the odds of such a kidnapping incredibly unlikely, as the Pope's presence in the Vatican prevented the British from bombing the key communications center of the German army in Southern Italy, which was adjacent. Weizsäcker, the German ambassador, had already ensured that the Vatican itself would not be occupied by the Germans when they occupied Rome after the collapse of Mussolini's government.Chadwick, 1988, p. 276.

Alvarez and Graham

David Alvarez and Robert A. Graham, one of the Jesuit priest-historians chosen by

Pope Paul VI Pope Paul VI ( la, Paulus VI; it, Paolo VI; born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini, ; 26 September 18976 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 to his death in Augu ...

to edit the ADSS, concur with Chadwick, concluding that "the evidence concerning an alleged plot to kidnap the pope is, at best, mixed".Alvarez and Graham, 1997, p. 87. Noting that such a kidnapping would have outraged Catholics around the world and seriously destabilized the Third Reich's occupation of majority Catholic nations, Alvarez and Graham argue that Allied propagandists "did not shrink from the opportunity" to claim such a plot. Alvarez and Graham cite the PWE fabrications mentioned by Chadwick, but also prior PWE propaganda pieces featuring various claims about the Pope contemplating abandoning the Vatican due to Axis threats. Although such rumors were picked up even by German diplomats, Alvarez and Graham conclude that "the clearest evidentiary trail in the tangle of rumor, memory and fiction that surrounds the purported plot to kidnap the Pope is the one that leads back to London instead of Berlin".Alvarez and Graham, 1997, p. 88. Alvarez and Graham go further in indicting the scholarship of those claiming a plot:

Historians have yet to uncover a single piece of contemporary evidence indicating that Hitler, Himmler, Bormann, or any other authority had any serious intention, let alone plan, to invade Vatican City and carry out Pope Pius XII. As for all the smoke, the recollections are post-war and suspiciously self-serving; the rumors and warnings second- and third-hand; the alleged plans and concentration of forces undocumented. The few bits of credible evidence that do exist suggest that, in fact, there was no plan to move against the Pope.Alvarez and Graham, 1997, p. 86.

Notes

References

*Alvarez, David J., and Graham, Robert A. 1997. ''Nothing sacred: Nazi espionage against the Vatican, 1939-1945''. Frank Cass Publishers. * Chadwick, Owen. 1988. ''Britain and the Vatican During the Second World War''.

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pres ...

. * Cornwell, John. 1999. ''Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII''. Viking. * Dalin, David. 2005. '' The Myth of Hitler's Pope''.

Regnery Publishing Regnery Publishing is a politically conservative book publisher based in Washington, D.C. The company was founded by Henry Regnery in 1947, and is now a division of radio broadcaster Salem Media Group. It is led by President & Publisher Thomas ...

. *Kurzman, Dan. 2007. ''A Special Mission: Hitler's Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII''.

Da Capo Press Da Capo Press is an American publishing company with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. It is now an imprint of Hachette Books. History Founded in 1964 as a publisher of music books, as a division of Plenum Publishers, it had additional off ...

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