CHAPTER III THE INVASION OF POLAND

CURRICULUM vitae of the new Pope Plus XII. Revealing mask of this”black”-family descendant. Eugenio Pacelli, priest-diplomat. His career at the Congregation of Ecclesiastic Affairs (Foreign Affairs of the Vatican): under-secretary, assistant secretary, secretary. His thirteen years in Germany as Nuncio at Munich and Berlin. The concordat with Hitler: consecration of the Nazi regime. Mgr. Pacelli, Secretary of State. His election at the conclave of 1939, the”conclave of dupes”for the cheated French ministers. The so-called”leftist Pope”, pro-integrist and Germanophile. — Nazi aggressions increase after the election of the Pastor Angelicus. — Poland threatened by the Reich. The Vatican pushes the Government of Warsaw into an agreement with Hitler: the incorporation of several million Poles in the Reich would swell the Catholic ranks by as many. Hitler invades Poland. — Pius XII receives the Poles of Rome but does not condemn the Hitlerist aggression. He prefers to support the Italo-German proposal for peace on the basis of an amputated Poland. — The Catholic populations, flocks which the”pastor”uses at his pleasure. — The Poles'”deadly sin”: to have refused to submit themselves to Hitlerist demands.

ON 10 February 1939, Pius XI died, a little too early to see the outbreak of the most gigantic drama of modern times, which he had so long and so laboriously prepared by opening the road to the conquering dictatorships. On 12 March, it was the turn of his right-hand man—or rather his accursed soul—Mgr. Eugenio Pacelli, to don the tiara, and herein lies one more proof of the continuity of a Vatican policy entirely founded on German hegemony in Europe.. ..

It is not unimportant to know that Eugenio Pacelli was born of a Roman family which included many personalities from the Pontifical States and from the Curia. This readily explains the specifically ecclesiastic character of his looks. Much could be said on this subject, and the photograph here reproduced, or any other as good, is a subject of interest to the amateur ofphysiognomy, that neglected art. But there is no need to vie with a Porta, a Lavater or a Duchenne de Boulogne to discern the narrow link between this mask, strangely imperious and cruel, and what we know — or are about to learn — of its owner.

Georges Goyau recalls his beginnings:

“Barely had Eugenio Pacelu become a priest, than the Vatican diplomacy was claiming his services: the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastic Affairs received him as probationer in its Diplomatic Section. Mgr. Gasparri was Secretary to that congregation. He did not want young Father Pacelli who, already in 1904, as Privy Chamberlain, bore the title of ‘Monseigneur’, and who was, from 1905 onwards, ‘Prelate to His Holiness’—to be deterred from his professional task by any other occupation.

“And, step by step, he became Under-Secretary, Assistant Secretary, then Secretary of the Congregation. Cardinal Merry del Val, Pius X’s Secretary of State, followed the young prelate’s ascent with watchful benevolence. . . .”

We shall not revert to his thirteen-year stay in Germany as Apostolic Nuncio at Munich and Berlin, nor to the concordat concluded with Hitler in 1933. It is well enough known that here was the focal point of many events that were to disrupt Europe—or, if one prefers another picture, the bomb that was to explode a few years later.

“Never will the spiritual have more openly declared that it was to march in the service of the temporal”, wrote Charles Maurras in Action Francaise, on 26 July 1933, the day after the Concordat had been signed between Hitler’s Germany and the Holy See, by Franz von Papen and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli.

Now back in Rome, the happy negotiator was climbing—it may be said—the first step of the pontifical throne, as Charles Pichon3 has pointed out:

“Pius XI has prepared his own succession far in advance by taking for his Secretary of State Cardinal Pacelli (the descendant of an ancient ‘black’ family), after the latter had spent many years as Nuncio at Munich and Berlin.”

Pius XI thus died on 10 February 1939, on the eve of the second world war. As Camille Cianfarra4 has written:

“On 16 February 1939 . . . von Bergen, Ambassador of Germany to the Vatican, pronounced before the Holy College of Cardinals, the address of condolences required by the death of the Pope. … ‘This is one of the most decisive hours of history’, declared von Bergen to the forty cardinals assembled in the Vatican’s vast consistory. ‘We are witnessing the elaboration of a new world seeking to disengage itself from the ruins of a past which, in many cases, has no reason to subsist . . . and the Papacy has, without doubt, an essential role to play in the circumstances. It weighs upon the Holy College, at the moment, we are certain, to have the very delicate responsibility of choosing a worthy successor to Pius XI. . . .’

“Stripped of its diplomatic phraseology, von Bergen’s speech represented Germany’s demand that the cardinals should choose a Pope favourable to Hitler’s expansionist programme. . . .’

Francois Charles-Roux,5 for his part, writes:

“Cardinal Pacelli had in his favour the generals superior of the great religious orders: that of the Jesuits, Ledochowski; that of the Benedictines, the German Stotzingen. . . .”

What Charles-Roux has to add might appear even stranger, if it were forgotten how many a prelate, supposedly French, and especially the following, behaved during the German occupation:

“What followed of my conversation with Cardinal Baudrillart proved to me that he was for Cardinal Pacelli. . . .”

In fact, the candidate of the late Pius XI and of the”black pope” von Ledochowski was everybody’s friend. The key to this enigma is given us by Alexandre Lenotre:

“During the entire inter-war period, Rome’s foreign policy, more and more directly inspired by the Jesuits, is in ahnost all fields opposed to Paris. Indeed, the Vatican thoroughly supports the wars of Italian Fascism against Ethiopia and Republican Spain. . . .

“In 1937, however, a strange campaign develops around the personality of the Pontifical Legate Pacelli, on official mission at Lisieux. The negotiator of the 1933 concordat with Hitler is presented not only as ‘a great friend of France’ but as ‘a leftist’. . . . His election, once achieved, is represented as a success for France. In fact, it is a disaster. The 1939 conclave is the conclave of dupes for the French ministers who were magnificently cheated by the General of the Jesuits Ledochowski. . . .

“Having become Pius XII, Pacelli is seen to be an out and out pro-integrist and Germanophile. He is called the ‘German Pope’. His entourage, his confessor, are German. In his eyes Germany is called upon to play the role of the ‘sword of God’, of the Church’s secular arm. And his entire policy will aim at making this ‘powerful and disciplined’ country with no laic tradition, the great continental Catholic rampart for which Rome has, ever since Otto the Great and the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, a heart-rending nostalgia.

“In 1939, Pius XII tries to negotiate with the American diplomats Sumner Welles and Myron Taylor a stalemate peace in favour of Germany. In 1943, he refuses to condemn publicly the Nazi concentration camps. .. .”

Unfortunately, the increasing Nazi aggressions did not justify the hopes that had been placed in the Pastor Angelicus. Once again, it is Francois Charles-Roux7 who tells us so:

“Ever since Pius XII’s accession, the situation in Europe aud in the world at large had become so serious, that war could be considered more probable than the maintenance of peace. . . . German troops were entering Poland in the very month that Pius XII was crowned. … In eastern Europe, Hitler was at grips with Poland and setting the problem of Danzig, behind which was looming that of the corridor. . . . Italy was throwing herself upon Albania to absorb her. . . .

“On 22 May 1939, at Berlin was signed the treaty of military alliance between Germany and Italy, which was given the spectacular name of ‘The Steel Pact’. …”

This brings us to the ineluctable issue. The dupes of Munich are about to pay for their serious mistakes. Hitler, obviously, had never intended to keep his word; pushed to extremes, the English and the French will retaliate this time; the catastrophe is imminent—but Pius XII utters not a word.

Everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds: events follow one another as foreseen, and the evils are set loose in accordance with pre-established plans.

Whose turn next?

“The European chancelleries”, writes C. Cianfarra,” were still echoing the cries of anguish of the Czech people mourning their independence, when, towards the end of March (1939), Hitler addressed to the Polish Government a note claiming the return of Danzig to the Reich. . . . Now convinced that the Fuhrer’s promises were as ephemeral as snow in the sun. Chamberlain resolved to show, with all the clarity desirable. Great Britain’s detjprmination to put an end to the aggressions of the Axis. He concluded a pact of mutual aid with Joseph Beck, Polish Prime Minister, thus signifying to the German dictator that any attack against Warsaw would automatically entail a war with Great Britain as well as with France, which had just adopted an identical position. . . .

“It is but fair to add that the British Premier sent the same warning to Mussolini as to Hitler, while extending to numerous European nations, including Yugoslavia and Greece, the unilateral guarantee of British intervention, should their frontiers ever be threatened. . . .

“In an inflammatory speech delivered on 28 April, Hitler did not content himself with renewing his demands upon Poland, but simultaneously denounced three treaties: the Germano-Polish pact of non-aggression of 1934; the Anglo-Gennan naval agreement of 1935; and the advisory pact concluded with Chamberlain at Munich in September 1938. . . .”

The same author shows with what perfect sang-froid the Vatican considered the German threat on Poland:

“The Vatican Secretariat of State was daily receiving scores of telegrams and many telephonic communications from all parts. All were in agreement in predicting that Germany was determined in its plan to proceed to the annexation of Danzig, and Poland to oppose it with every means available to it. … The Apostolic Nuncio at Berlin, Monsignor Cesaro Orsenigo held out little hope of an armed conflict between Warsaw and Berlin being avoided. . . . Monsignor Filippo Cortesi, Apostolic Nuncio at Warsaw, reported that the Polish Government, remembering the tragic fate suffered by Czechoslovakia after the Munich agreements, was desperately refusing to study Germany’s demands.

“On 13 June 1939, President Ignaz Mosciki received in Warsaw Monsignor Cortesi, bearer of a message from the Pope. . . . Cortesi urged the Polish President to negotiate directly with Hitler. …”

It may seem strange at first, to the uninitiated, that the Holy Father should have thus taken Hitler’s part against Catholic Poland. But, in the circumstances, it was precisely its belonging to the Roman Church that was against this poor country. Its case was exactly the same as that of Austria a year earlier, and it is fitting here to recall how F. Charles-Roux9 explains the Vatican’s being in favour of the Anschluss:

“It was that perhaps eight million Austrian Catholics, together with the Reich Catholics, would constitute a German Catholic mass better able to make its weight fell. . . .”

Indeed, the reason is a good one, and it applies to Poland as much, and even more, than to Austria, for if the latter represented eight million Catholics, Poland counted twenty-five million. Also one cannot help being amused, despite the tragic aspect of the circumstances, at what Mgr. Cristiani has since written on the Pope’s attitude at that time:

“The Holy See, in the person of Pius XII, was aspiring to express the very depths of human conscience. It was then that one could see what the Vatican’s policy means. …”

This was very clearly seen, indeed. The Vatican took care not to utter the slightest protest when Hitler went into action and invaded the country with forces so very superior that all was over within a few weeks, despite the heroic defence opposed by the Poles.

“On 23 September 1939”, writes P. Charles-Roux,””Mussolini delivered a speech which began with these words: ‘liquidata la Polonia’—Poland is liquidated. . . . On 30 September, there took place, at Castel-Gandolfo, the combined audience of the Poles of Rome, both laymen and ecclesiastics. At their head were Cardinal Hlond, the Polish Ambassador and Mr. Pappee. . . . Pius XII preferred to be the only one to speak. In his speech he avoided politics, but he did not grudge his listeners the expression of his compassion. . . . The Poles were disappointed. They were disappointed because they had come to the pontifical audience expecting precisely a direct and personal protest by the Pope against the Germans. This protest had not been explicit. Their disappointment leaked out.

Once again. Catholics had been treated by their”shepherd”like a flock which is shamelessly traded according to the interest of the moment.

“Vatican diplomacy”, Frederic Hoffet has so excellently said, “is the perfect expression of pure politics, of politics freed of all ideological prejudice and of all sentimental affection.”

Yet the Holy Father did not confine himself to this passive, or perhaps one should say, tacitly approving, attitude. He soon discarded it. Father Duclos13 will tell us how:

“Pius XII… prefers exclusively to promote a ‘just and honourable peace’. . . . Is it a ‘just and honourable peace’ that Hitler seeks in the West, to confirm his conquests? Solicited by Hitler, Mussolini associates himself with his first ‘soundings for peace’.

“In the second half of September 1939 Il Popolo d’ltalia published a series of editorial articles, urging Great Britain and France to accept a peace of compromise, on the basis of an amputated Poland.

“Ciano begs the Nuncio transmit to the Pope a request, addressed to him by the Duce, to exert his influence in London and Paris to facilitate these peace overtures. . . . Pius XII does not refuse his good offices.. . .

“At the end of 1939 and the beginning of 1940, the Vatican accepts, at the request of the political and military circles of the Reich, to transmit, through official channels, several requests to the Allies concerning their war aims and their peace conditions . . . during his long interview with Plus XII, on 11 March 1940, von Ribbentrop submits an offer of peace comprising eleven points, a veritable German seizure of Europe. . . . London coldly rejects it. . . .”

Camille Cianfarra describes this intervention in his book:

“The famous ‘peace offensive’, started by Hitler and Mussolini immediately after the collapse of Poland, aroused considerable interest at the Vatican. . . . Ciano received Mgr. Borgongini Duca at the Palace of Chigi and begged him to transmit to the Sovereign Pontiff the request that Mussolini was making of him to use his influence in London and Paris in favour of these peace overtures. It was soon realized that Pius XII was doing his best to further the Duce’s efforts in this field. On 22 September 1939, for example, the ‘Osservatore Romano’ reproduced an article by ‘ II Popolo d’ltalia” urging England and France to accept a peace of compromise on the basis of a new Poland of reduced dimensions. . ..

“London and Paris replied that their pact with Poland prevented them from concluding any separate peace. . . .”

These efforts, exerted by Pius XII to have Paris and London back the enslavement of his dear Poles, correspond well with his attitude when they are finally liberated.

The Holy See obstinately refused to recognize the new PolishGerman frontier:

“The Adenauer Government and the German revisionists, in their campaigns for the ‘recuperation of the provinces beyond the Oder-Neisse line’, are resorting to the argument that the dioceses of these territories are only provisionally administered by members of the Polish clergy, the Vatican refusing to recognize the definitive character of the change of frontiers.”

Let us recall the skillful camouflage under which the Vatican’s thurifers presented the interview of 11 March 1940 between Pius XII and van Ribbentrop.

A highly edifying version for the Allies was invented in the lobbies of the Holy See, and abundantly spread throughout the press. This is it, described by Charles Pichon:

“On 11 March 1940, the Reich Minister of Foreign Affairs was received by the Pope. … An extraordinary interview, in which the Nazi, following his master’s methods, thought fit to hold forth at length . . . but then, the Pope, drawing towards him a voluminous file, started to enumerate with cold severity all the facts, places, dates and detailed circumstances, duly attested by the ecclesiastical authority, of the tortures that the invader had already imposed upon the Polish people. What could be said in reply? The visitor soon took his leave and went down, as is customary, to the Cardinal Secretary of State: there he found the same icy protocol, the same nightmarish files.”

Mr. Nazareno Padellaro in turn writes:

“On 11 March (1940) von Ribbentrop came to Italy. The German minister’s journey had been kept secret until the very last moment. . . . Everything went wrong with the Pope. At that time, there was a rumour in Rome — and it was never denied—that Ribbentrop, as a result of his interview with the Sovereign Pontiff, fainted and that he recovered on a chair which Cardinal Maglione had offered him.” Thus, in the Allied camp, good Catholics could believe that if Pius XII was abstaining from publicly stigmatizing the German atrocities, he was doing it at least privately with the Fuhrer’s representatives.

But time, which puts everything in its place, was to refute this insidious fable. Already, Father Duclos, iu relating the”long interview”between Pius XII and Ribbentrop, was reducing to nought this invention of a precipitated departure of the Hitlerist minister, described by Mr. Pichon in his book. But the definitive and irretrievable refutation was to come from a better source, from a strictly official document,18 Ribbentrop’s own report to his master:

“After the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Reich had transmitted the Fuhrer’s compliments, the Pope opened the interview by recalling his seventeen years of activity in Germany. He said that those years passed within the orbit of German culture certainly constituted the most pleasant period of his life, and that the Government of the Reich could be assured that his heart beat, and always would, for Germany.”

This is a far cry from the terrible scene completely invented for the worthy flock. One among the many other Vatican impostures constantly encountered throughout this book.