The Myth: The story goes that Hitler and the Pope were secretly allies and that the pope was hoping for a Nazi Victory believing the church would do well in a fascist Europe. One claim made against Pope Pius is that he, Like Hitler, was an anti-Semite who associated Jews with the Bolshevik revolution and saw allying with Hitler as a way of fighting the rising communist threat.

The two are said to have collaborated first via the signing of the Lateran treaty which the Pope signed with Mussolini and then secondly by the Reichskonkordat which he signed directly with Hitler.

The two are also said to have made a deal which increased funding to catholic schools and other institutions in exchange for pro democracy Catholics withdrawing from public life.

They condemn the Popes perceived silence and say he should have done more for the Jewish people during the holocaust.





The Reality: Those who argue that Hitler and Pope Pius XII were friends or allies not only make false assertions about the two’s relationship, they also ignore the vast amount of evidence which suggests that in fact Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church actually were one of the few institutions to stand up to Hitler and the Nazi party.

For one the idea the pope was secretly a Pro-Nazi fascist is absurd. The Pope continually spoke out against National Socialism through the 1930’s which annoyed Hitler immensely. His animosity was so great that he even considered having the Pope kidnapped. Under Hitler hundreds of priests and Bishops were killed and the churches ability to operate freely was severely hindered. It’s highly unlikely any catholic would have seen this as a favorable situation for the church.

Secondly the notion that Pius was anti-Semitic is absurd. Historians note that Pius actually had a keen interest in Jewish culture and there is no historical record of him making anti Semitic remarks. Under his leadership, the church in-fact managed to rescue thousands of Jews from the Gas chambers with many Jewish scholars noting that no one did more for the Jewish people than the Catholic Church during the war.

Thirdly the treaties signed by the Vatican with Hitler and Mussolini were a necessity to protect Catholics and the church in Germany and Italy. Vatican officials saw signing them as distasteful but necessary. They were signed before the beginning of the War and were not dissimilar to those signed by the UK and other allied countries.

Finally Pope Pius stayed silent during WW2 because he knew his words would only make things worse. Not only would Catholics be targeted if he did speak out but it would also likely increase Hitler’s aggression against the Jews. This was seen in the Netherlands when the pope did speak out against The Nazi party via a Papal letter, hundreds of Catholics were rounded up the next day and shipped off to concentration camps. By making themselves itself target of the Nazi regime the church would not have been able to help as many Jews as it did. What’s more any public statement made against Germany could be then used as propaganda to turn average Germans against the church and into Nazi supporters.





Where did the Myth come from?: Surprisingly this myth is actually rather modern with no real criticisms of the church surfacing until 20 years after WW2. In fact immediately after the War most Jewish leaders were full of praise for Pope Pius and the church with the Chief Rabbi of Rome even converting because he believed Pius’s actions could only have been inspired by God. The first time the idea arose was from a soviet play in the 1960’s called The Deputy which showed the church as being complicit with the Nazi regime and deafeningly silent about atrocities. The play was essentially a soviet piece of Soviet propaganda but many started using it as an actual historical source.

The Myth was more recently perpetuated by the Holocaust museum in Israel which used to have an exhibit on Pope Pius XII which accused him of not intervening to stop the deportation of Jews. The exhibit drew criticism from historians around the world, many of the Jewish, which eventually lead the exhibit to be changed to present both sides of the argument.

The most recent source of this myth is a book written by John Cornwall which claimed that Pius XII was anti-Semitic and complicit with the Nazi regime. The book drew criticism from every side with many historians claiming it was just inaccurate. The books evidence that the Pope was anti-Semitic, for example, comes from a letter he supposedly wrote which describes communist Jews in a derogatory way. The letter was actually written by one of his assistants and even then needs to be looked at in the context of the church and the Bolshevik Revolution. The criticisms of his book were so great that the author now admits that the Pope Pius was severely limited and has withdrawn much of what he wrote.











