Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII: Amazon.de: John Cornwell: Englische Bücher

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In the early 1990s, John Cornwell undertook a study of one of the most controversial Popes in Catholic history: Pope Pius XII. Known as the "icebox Pope", Pius XII, the Roman born Eugenio Pacelli, was elected Pope on the eve of the Second World War and ruled with unprecedented power and autocracy until his death at the height of the Cold War in 1958. Pacelli refashioned the role of Pope as a position of unrivalled absolutist power, in his papal edicts and dealings with the most influential figures in 20th-century history, from Hitler and Stalin to Roosevelt and Churchill. Most controversially, Pius was accused of contributing to the fate of the Jews under the Nazis in his sympathetic dealings with Hitler as papal nuncio to Germany throughout the 1920s.

The result of Cornwell's decision to write about Pius is his magnificent and shocking book Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII.The author explains that he had initially set out to vindicate Pius's career and as a result obtained access to hitherto restricted documents held at the Vatican. The results of his research, however, left him "in a state I can only describe as moral shock." Cornwell's study "told the story of a bid for unprecedented papal power that by 1933 had drawn the Catholic Church into complicity with the darkest forces of the era ... from an early stage in his career Pacelli betrayed an undeniable antipathy towards the Jews ... his diplomacy in Germany in the 1930s resulted in the betrayal of Catholic political associations that might have challenged Hitler's regime and thwarted the Final Solution." The subsequent account is an engrossing read, revealing a picture of a fascinating but repellent figure, who fashioned an aura of saintliness in the pursuit of ever greater power and authority.

Wherever an authoritarian or reactionary decision was taken by the Church Pacelli was there, signing the Serbian Concordat that aided the onset of the First World War, signing the Reich Concordat with Hitler in 1933, trivialising the Holocaust and even supporting Croatian Fascism throughout the Second World War. Hitler claimed that the Concordat of 1933 would help the Nazis "in the developing struggle against the international Jewry", a situation compounded by Pius's destruction of Catholic opposition to Nazism and refusal to speak out against the Holocaust.

Hitler's Pope brilliantly captures the ascetic, fastidious Pius, from his hypochondria and querulousness to his offhand anti-semitic and racist remarks--such as his request that the Allies should desist from deploying "coloured" soldiers in the relief of Rome in 1944. Cornwell is "convinced that the cumulative verdict of history shows him not to be a saintly exemplar for future generations, but a deeply flawed human being from whom Catholics, and our relations with other religions, can best profit by expressing our sincere regret." -- Jerry Brotton -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

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This devastating account of the ecclesiastical career of Eugenio Pacelli (1876-1958), who became Pope Pius XII in 1939, is all the more powerful because British historian John Cornwell maintains throughout a measured though strongly critical tone. After World War II, murmurs of Pacelli's callous indifference to the plight of Europe's Jews began to be heard. A noted commentator on Catholic issues, Cornwell began research for this book believing that "if his full story were told, Pius XII's pontificate would be exonerated." Instead, he emerged from the Vatican archives in a state of "moral shock," concluding that Pacelli displayed anti-Semitic tendencies early on and that his drive to promote papal absolutism inexorably led him to collaboration with fascist leaders. Cornwell convincingly depicts Cardinal Secretary of State Pacelli pursuing Vatican diplomatic goals that crippled Germany's large Catholic political party, which might otherwise have stymied Hitler's worst excesses. The author's condemnation has special force because he portrays the admittedly eccentric Pacelli not as a monster but as a symptom of a historic wrong turn in the Catholic Church. He meticulously builds his case for the painful conclusion that "Pacelli's failure to respond to the enormity of the Holocaust was more than a personal failure, it was a failure of the papal office itself and the prevailing culture of Catholicism." --Wendy Smith -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

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A conspiracy-driven view of Pius XII 25. Juli 2000

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In reading Cornwall's account of Pius XII's consecration as Titular Archbishop of Sardes, he relates that Achille Ratti, the future Piux XI (he who named Pius XII as Secretary of State in February, 1930) was present at the "secret consecration." The phrase rings of conspiracy and like-mindedness. Ratti could very well have been there, but in May, 1917, he was head of the Vatican Library, not yet a Bishop, and nowhere near the center of power (Ratti rose like lightning between the end of World War I and his election as Pope on Feb. 22, 1922). The consecration was not secret or private, and Ratti, as a middle-level Vatican official, would have been expected to be present. This small piece indicates to me a mentality on the part of the author that all the Vatican officials danced to the beat of the same music in the same step. It makes me ask whether his approach, lacking the subtleties necessary to understand Vatican politics, tells the whole story. We shall need to see the secret archives of Pius XII's time as Secretary of State and Roman Pontiff to arrive at a fair judgment.

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Revisionist account not convincing 16. Januar 2000

I personally could care less whether Pope Pius XII was a good pope or a bad pope. Anyone who knows Vatican history knows that there have been both kinds of popes in the history of the Church... and it's certainly possible that Pius XII was the callous, immoral fraud that Cornwell depicts him as being. But there are two things that have always troubled me about this denunciation of Pius XII plainly also despise the Catholic Church for other reasons; and, more significantly, (2) the people who actually LIVED through World War II (including the former Chief Rabbi of Rome) had only PRAISE for Pius XII's courage when dealing with the Nazis (who were, by the way, stationed with tanks about 100 yards from where the pope slept!). Cornwell fails utterly to explain why, if Pius XII was so bad...

1. Golda Meir, the former prime minister of Israel, said upon Pius XII's death that " During the ten years of Nazi terror, when our people passed through the horrors of martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the persecutors and to commiserate with their victims."

2. Elio Toaff, the Chief Rabbi of Rome during the Nazi terror, said, "More than anyone else, we have had the opportunity to appreciate the great kindness, filled with compassion and magnanimity, that the Pope displayed during the terrible years of persecution and terror."

3. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, said that, "with special gratitude we remember all he has done for the persecuted Jews during one of the darkest periods in their entire history."

4. The Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, Isaac Herzog, sent the Pius XII a personal message of thanks on February 28, 1944, in Holiness and his illustrious delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion which form the very foundations of true civilization, are doing for us unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of divine Providence in this world."

5. The New York Times, in its Christmas editorial of 1941, said of Pius would be expected to express in time of war. Yet his words sound strange and bold in the Europe of today, and we comprehend the complete submergence and enslavement of great nations, the very sources of our civilization, as we realize that he is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all."

6. Former Israeli diplomat and now Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Pinchas Lapide stated that Pius XI "had good reason to make Pacelli the architect of his anti-Nazi policy. Of the forty-four speeches which the Nuncio Pacelli had made on German soil between 1917 and 1929, at least forty contained attacks on Nazism or condemnations of Hitler's doctrines. . . . Pacelli, who never met the Führer, called it 'neo-Paganism.' "

7. Lapide, in his book "Three Popes and the Jews," insisted that the Catholic Church saved more Jewish lives than all other relief efforts (such as those of the International Red Cross, the Haganah, and American Jewish organizations) Catholic Church had been the instrument is thus at least 700,000 souls, but in all probability it is much closer to . . . 860,000."

8. Albert Einstein, again someone who fled Hitler personally and lived through the the Hitlerian onslaught on liberty. Up till then I had not been interested in the Church, but today I feel a great admiration for the Church, which alone has had the courage to struggle for spiritual truth and moral liberty."

In conclusion, it is plainly obvious that Pius XII didn't do enough to save Jewish refugees in Europe -- anyone who has visited Dachau or Yad veh-Shem, as I have, knows that -- as it is obvious that the Allied Forces, the International Red Cross, and American Jewish groups in the U.S. didn't do enough. No one did enough. Eleven million people were murdered in cold blood. But why is the Catholic Church in general, and Pius XII in particular, singled out for attacks? For Cornwell and other critics of Pius XII to be credible, they have to explain, once again, why SO MANY people (including the most prominent Jews who survived) heaped PRAISE on Pius XII for his efforts on behalf of the Jews. Until Cornwell CAN explain this, his book will appear to be yet another screed against the Vatican by a former Catholic. It is scholarship in the service of rage, a sad waste of talent and time. END

Poorly researched book that adds to myth. 21. Oktober 1999

John Cornwell's new book HITLER'S POPE was reviewed by the New York Times Book Review on Sept. 26, 1999. The review predictably and approvingly focused on Cornwell's charge that Pius XII was silent during the Nazi Holocaust. Cornwell and the NYTimes reviewer of his book seem blissfully unaware of the fact that over 59 years ago it was the NYTimes itself which gave credit to the same Pius XII for revealing and condemning the Nazi Holocaust shortly after WW II began. On Jan. 23rd, 1940, for example, a NYTimes article was headlined "Vatican Denounces Atrocities in Poland". In a similar NYTimes article from Jan. 24th 1940 it was said that "Now the Vatican has spoken, with authority that cannot be questioned, and has confirmed the worst intimations of terror which have come out of the Polish darkness." Why doesn't the NYTimes believe their own articles from the past? Everyone who buys Cornwell's book should also buy Pierre Blet's extremely well researched book PIUS XII AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR which, unlike Cornwell's book, actually uses, extensively, the compiled records of the Vatican. Cornwell's book largely ignores entire volumes of the compiled ACTES ET DOCUMENTES series which are essential for a proper understanding of events. It should also be pointed out that Cornwell has a long history of concocting wild stories about the papacy -- hence his strange book about the "murder" of John Paul I. Professional historian Dr. Robert Rychlak of the University of Mississippi, who has been working on a biography of Pius XII for five years has apparently upheld publishing of his book in order to respond to Cornwell's bizarre accusations. One last thing...Cornwell is not a Catholic in good standing as he now claims. He does not believe in Catholic doctrine, or Catholic authority as his previous books clearly show (see THE HIDDEN PLACES OF GOD, 1999)but now that he has come out with an anti-Catholic book he has suddenly become a Catholic again!