The neo-pagan Adolf Hitler planned to invade the Vatican to kidnap the Pope

The neo-pagan Adolf Hitler planned to invade the Vatican to kidnap the Pope
Source: Guelfo negro channel (Youtube)

Adolf Hitler, in a conversation with Roberto Farinacci, Minister of State of the Kingdom of Italy, threatened to go so far as to destroy the Vatican if it spoke out against the battle of the German people. On the instructions of Pope Pius XII, the Vatican Radio broadcast of January 21, 1940 reported: “The conditions of religious, political and economic life have reduced the noble Polish people, especially in the territories occupied by the Germans, to a state of terror, stupidity and, one might even say, barbarism.
The Germans are using the same means and perhaps even worse than the Soviets”. The Vatican Radio broadcast of October 6th stated: “Hitler's war is not a just war and God's blessing cannot be upon it”. Reinhard Heydrich in his report on the behavior of the Catholic Church in the Second World War to Hans Lammers of August 17, 1940 wrote: “The Catholic hierarchy, firmly believing and hoping that the war would take a favorable course for the Western powers, showed its true face and, from the beginning of the present war, openly allied itself with the enemies of National Socialist Germany.
There can be no clearer evidence of this than the statements of its most influential representatives, who, in their encyclicals, pastoral letters, speeches, etc., not only spoke out against the National Socialist worldview and the National Socialist state, but also, partly secretly and partly openly, attacked the person of the Führer in the vilest way. The Catholic hierarchy, and therefore Catholicism as a whole, therefore bear a significant responsibility for the incitement of the people in the enemy states against Germany and its consequences. On the other hand, it should be noted that the German episcopate did not even try to strengthen the war front in Germany in the opposite direction.
Therefore, it is to be assumed that the German bishops hold the same position on this issue as the other dignitaries of the Catholic hierarchy outside the borders of the Reich, which also corresponds to Catholic universality. Moreover, the course of the war so far, compared with the statements of the Catholic hierarchy beyond the borders of the Reich and the absence of corresponding statements from the German episcopate, has shown that the German people did not and do not demand the strengthening of their war front on the side of the church.
Instead, their exclusive and unified alignment through National Socialism allowed them to achieve the greatest mobilization of their force in history.” Heydrich in his circular letter to the Gauleiters of June 6, 1941 wrote: “On April 20, 1941, Pope Pius XII sent the enclosed letter in German translation to Cardinal Maglione, Secretary of State. In this letter, the Pope deals almost exclusively with the mentality of Germany's enemy. He speaks almost exclusively of the bitter agonies and torments of the current war, the confusion, the reign of injustice and violence, the suffering of the ravages of hostility and the suffering of refugees, exiles, expellees and prisoners, and then calls on children in particular to pray to Mary to dry their many tears, to help them out of the greatest anguish and ease their current pain. The Pope's move, like all his other pronouncements, obviously has the intention of continuing to contribute to paralyzing the united front of the German people through pacifist thinking and inciting the resistance of enemy nations. I have instructed the heads of the State Police Headquarters to prevent the written distribution of this papal declaration.”
On June 9, Alfred von Kageneck, who was in Rome, informed some people that plans against the Vatican were being prepared in Berlin. After Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, Franklin Delano Roosevelt sent Myron Taylor, his personal envoy to the Vatican, to talk to Pius XII about Pope Pius XI's encyclical Divinis Redemptoris, which forbade Catholics to collaborate with the communists: “Communism is intrinsically perverse and collaboration with it cannot be admitted in any field by anyone who wishes to save Christian civilization. And if some, led into error, were to cooperate in the victory of communism in their country, they would be the first to fall victim to their error; and the more the regions where communism manages to penetrate are distinguished by their antiquity and the greatness of their Christian civilization, the more devastating the hatred of the godless manifests itself there.”
Taylor was received in an audience by Pius XII on September 9, 1941 to discuss the matter. At this audience, he handed Pius XII a letter from Roosevelt dated September 3rd which read: “As far as I am informed, the Churches in Russia are open. There is a real possibility that Russia, as a result of this conflict, will recognize freedom of religion.” The solution found by Pius XII was to interpret his predecessor's encyclical Divinis Redemptoris as a condemnation only against communism, not against the Russian people, so that Catholics could support the Russian war effort against the Germans in the Great Patriotic War.
On September 20, Cardinal Luigi Maglione, Secretary of State of the Holy See, in a letter to Archbishop Amleto Cicognani, apostolic delegate of Washington, instructed him to transmit this papal interpretation of the encyclical Divinis Redemptoris to the American episcopate. Archbishop John McNicholas then issued a pastoral letter incorporating this interpretation, which recalled Pius XI's encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, which denounced the suffering of the Church in the Third Reich, and noted that the encyclical Divinis Redemptoris against communism did not prevent Pius XI from sending a relief mission to the Soviet Union, concluding that his condemnation of communism did not constitute a moral direction for governments to help or not help the Soviet Union in a defensive war.
Archbishop McNicholas' pastoral letter was transcribed by the Denver Catholic Register newspaper of the Diocese of Denver. Afterwards, on November 16, the American episcopate issued a statement “warning of the twin evils of Nazism and Communism, but recalling that Pius XI himself, in condemning atheistic Communism, had professed his paternal and compassionate benevolence for the peoples of Russia.” In November 1942, while Operation Torch was being prepared, Pius XII intervened to guarantee the neutrality of General Francisco Franco, who controlled Morocco. The apostolic nuncio in Madrid, Gaetano Cicognani, managed to get the Spanish episcopate to join in the condemnation of National Socialism. On March 12, Bishop Fidel García published his pastoral instruction on some modern errors, which condemned National Socialism. On March 16, 1943, Pius XII reprimanded the Spanish ambassador to the Holy See for the Blue Division, arguing that communism was not the only enemy of Christianity, because the persecution of the National Socialists, more dangerous than any other before, obeyed precise dogmas, which would only be ceded by force.
Then General Franco, who was interested in Pius XII's support to preserve his regime, repatriated the Blue Division on October 10. In January 1943, Léon Degrelle met with Hitler to present him with his plan to kidnap Pius XII. Degrelle told Hitler: “We must convince Pius XII for better or worse”. According to Degrelle's plan, SS soldiers would disguise themselves as Zionist Jews in order to invade the Vatican and kidnap Pius XII in collusion with the communist Partigiani. Then, the Wehrmacht would enter the Vatican to pretend to be saving Pius XII from kidnapping, taking him to a safe place in Germany, such as Silesia or Liechtenstein. There, tortured by the Gestapo, Pius XII would write an encyclical against Judaism in which he would approve of National Socialism. Hitler loved Degrelle's plan, naming it Operation Rabat. On July 26, shortly after midnight, Walther Hewel, Joachim von Ribbentrop's liaison officer with Hitler, wanted to know how to proceed with regard to the Holy See in the plans to re-establish fascism in Rome, so he asked Hitler: “Should we say that the Vatican exits will be occupied?”.
Hitler replied: “It doesn't make any difference. Let's go into the Vatican. Do you think the Vatican embarrasses me? Let's take it right now. First of all, the entire diplomatic corps is inside. It's all the same to me. That rabble is in there. Let's get that stick of pigs out of there. Then we can apologize. It doesn't make any difference. Hewel then says: “We'll find documents in there”. Hitler then replies: “Yes, let's get the documents. The betrayal will come to light. However, at a meeting the following evening, Ribbentrop and Joseph Goebbels managed to convince Hitler to abandon the plan to invade the Vatican. Goebbels recounted in his diary on July 27: “All of us, including the Führer, now agree that the Vatican must be exempted from the measures we are contemplating. The Führer intended to unleash a major coup. This way: a paratroop division based in the south of France would land near Rome. The paratrooper division would occupy Rome, arrest the King and his entire family, as well as Badoglio and his entire family, and airlift them to Germany. According to the reports that have reached us, the Vatican is developing a feverish diplomatic activity. It is undoubtedly guaranteeing the uprising against Mussolini through its major global contacts. Initially, the Führer also intended, by arresting the man responsible in Rome, to seize the Vatican, but Ribbentrop and I emphatically opposed the plan. I didn't believe it was necessary to invade the Vatican and, on the other hand, I considered such measures to be rather unfortunate, because of the negative effect they would have on world public opinion.”
However, Hitler backtracked on this, intending to continue with his plan to invade the Vatican. On September 11, the Vatican received a report stating that the Germans would place the Pope under their “protection”. The information came from Albrecht von Kassel, first secretary of the German embassy in the Vatican, who said that Hitler blamed Pius XII for the fall and imprisonment of Mussolini, because the Pope had been talking to Roosevelt on the phone for a long time. On the morning of September 13th, Karl Wolff, an SS officer, woke up to answer the phone. He had received a call from Hitler, who told him that he wanted to see him immediately. When Wolff arrived at the bunker, Hitler got straight to the point: “I have a special mission for you Wolff. In Rome there is the Vatican and there is the Pope. They must not fall into the hands of the Allies or be influenced by them. That would seriously damage Germany. Your troops must occupy the Vatican as quickly as possible, protect its assets and take the Pope and the Curia to the North. I don't want the Pontiff in the hands of the Allies.
The Vatican is a nest of spies and a center of anti-Nazi propaganda. Get the most important details and report back every two weeks.” But Wolff left the room determined to sabotage Hitler's plan to invade the Vatican and kidnap Pius XII. To do this, Wolff enlisted the help of Rudolf Rahn, the German ambassador to the Italian Social Republic on September 11. Wolff and Rahn then contacted Ernst von Weizsäcker, the German ambassador to the Vatican. They agreed that the kidnapping of the Pope should be canceled, but for that to happen, Pius XII had to be kept quiet, and the best way to do that was to scare him. So they decided to spread the news in the media that Pius XII was going to be kidnapped. On October 7, Radio Monaco of the Italian Social Republic announced: “Accommodations are being prepared for the Pope in Germany”.
The message appeared in some newspapers and reached the ears of Pius XII. As a result, Weizsäcker was summoned to an audience with Pius XII on October 8th. Weizsäcker reports that when he entered Pius XII's office, he noticed his serene gaze. When he broached the subject of the kidnapping, his expression didn't change. Pius XII told him: “I have heard rumors, but I will remain in Rome at all costs.” Weizsäcker, following instructions received from Berlin, asked if he would publicly praise the conduct of the Germans in Rome. Pius XII said yes, as long as the Germans promised not to mess with the Vatican. In other words, if the kidnapping of the Pope was canceled, Pius XII would confirm the good conduct of the Germans. Weizsäcker left the Vatican with the promise that he would contact Berlin about the exchange of favors. Pius XII had all the Vatican archives and documents hidden under false floors.
The members of the Roman Curia prepared their suitcases to accompany Pius XII in case he had to flee the Vatican. On October 16, Pius XII fulfilled his promise to Weizsäcker by publishing a communiqué in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in which he expressed his gratitude that the German troops had respected the Church. Antonio Nogara told L'Osservatore Romano that his father Bartolomeo Nogara, director of the Vatican Museums from 1920 to 1954, was visited one night between January and February 1944 by Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, who worked in the Holy See's Secretariat of State. Nogara recounts: “My father revealed to me that the UK ambassador to the Vatican, Sir Francis d'Arcy Osborne, and the US chargé d'affaires, Harold Tittman, had warned Montini that their respective military intelligence services had learned of an advanced German plan to capture and deport the Pontiff.
The two diplomats assured him of the Allies' willingness to intervene to help Pius XII with an airdrop of troops.” Monsignor Montini and Nogara's father then looked for a suitable place to hide Pius XII. After searching from the Vatican Museums to the Vatican Apostolic Library, they chose the Tower of the Winds. On the evening of May 10, Wolff informed Pius XII of the plan, but the Pope was already aware of it. In a letter from Paolo Porta, federal secretary of the Fascio of Como, to Vincenzo Costa, federal secretary of the Fascio of Milan, dated September 26, the Germans' plan to kidnap Pius XII is mentioned: “An SS division disguised in Italian uniforms that they captured on September 8, together with Italian weapons, would launch an attack on Vatican City at night. Appearing as partigiani determined to free the Pope, they would massacre the clergy.”
According to Porta, the plan was passed on to the command in via Tasso for implementation. Major General Erwin von Lahousen in his testimony at the Nuremberg trials on February 1, 1946 revealed that Hitler had ordered the Reichssicherheitshauptamt to draw up a plan to punish the Italians by kidnapping and assassinating the Pope and the King, only Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Third Reich's counter-intelligence service, informed General Cesare Amè, head of the Kingdom of Italy's military intelligence service, at a secret meeting in Venice between July 29 and 30. Lahousen was also present at this secret meeting, along with Colonel Wessel Freytag von Loringhoven. According to Lahousen, Amè spread the news, which disrupted the plan against the Pope and the King. Rahn sent a letter to Father Robert A. Graham in the early 1970s, which was published by the magazine 30 Giorni in 1991, stating that this plan to kidnap Pius XII existed, but that all the documents relating to it had been lost or destroyed. Wolff wrote a document in 1972 in which he told of Hitler's plan to kidnap Pius XII. Wolff's document was published by the newspaper Avvenire d'Italia in 1991.
REFERENCES: Michael Phayer, The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1965, Indiana University Press, 2000, p. 26. Pierre Blet, Papst Pius XII. und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Aus den Akten des Vatikans. S. 74. David G. Dalin, The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII, Lexington Books, 2010, p. 105. Joseph P. Lash, Roosevelt and Churchill, 1939-1941: The Partnership That Saved the West, Plunkett Lake Press, 2021. Emanuel Huyghues Despointes, «Roosevelt et Pie XII. L'alliance entre les États-Unis et le Vatican», La Nouvelle Revue d'histoire, no 84, mai-juin 2016, p. 31-32. Mark Riebling, O Papa contra Hitler A Guerra Secreta da Igreja contra o Nazismo, LeYa, 2018, p. 188-189.