The Acts of Pius XII: The "Representative" has abdicated

Two years ago, on March 2, 2020, the Holy See opened its archives for the duration of the entire pontificate of Pius XII.

(1939 to 1958).

There could hardly have been a more symbolic date, because on March 2, 1876 Eugenio Pacelli was born, who was elected Pope on March 2, 1939.

His pontificate was shaped by World War II and the Cold War.

So it is hardly surprising that this pope was exposed to contemporary wartime propaganda and was not only judged to the contrary after his death.

National Socialists and Soviet Russian communists spread the same black legend about him during the war: Pius XII.

remained silent on the German persecution of the Jews in order to support Hitler's war against Bolshevism.

The legend was widely disseminated through Rolf Hochhuth's play "The Deputy" from 1963.

Hochhuth drove several generations of historians before him who endeavored to confirm or refute the legend.

The poet became a "trapper", as the historian Thomas Brechenmacher put it in 2001.

From 1965 to 1981, the Holy See then published more than 7,000 documents from the time of the Second World War in an eleven-volume edition ("Actes et Documents du Saint Siège").

While comparable editions of files from Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, the United States, France or Italy are considered contributions to basic research, the Vatican edition faced the general suspicion that archival materials that Pius XII.

could incriminate, had not been published.

In fact, this edition documents the Pope's countless diplomatic efforts.

According to the internationally standardized edition criteria, private correspondence, including those with persecuted Jews who turned to the Pope for help, did not belong in such an edition of files.

An additional reading room

When, on March 2, 2020, the Vatican Archives received the acts of the pontificate of Pius XII.

made available, historians from all over the world came to see the 16 million sheets in the various archives of the Holy See.

Bishop P. Sergio Pagano, head of the Vatican Apostolic Archives, which was called the Vatican Secret Archives until 2019, had modernized the premises during ongoing operations and had an additional reading room built.

Incidentally, the Holy See is a pioneer of a revolutionary archive policy.

The Historical Archives of the Pontifical Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs offers its users only digitized documents instead of original documents.

Thanks to an electronic inventory, they can be presented to all visitors while preserving the originals.

It may be technically possible to make these digital copies available online outside of Rome, but scientific seriousness dictates that an archive does not give up such sources without further ado.

They must be thoroughly developed and introduced, as the University of Münster has done in an exemplary manner with Pacelli's nunciature reports.

Because of the pandemic, the newly opened holdings were initially only accessible from March 2nd to 10th, 2020.

Nevertheless, "Die Zeit" published an article on April 23, 2020 in which a study group from the University of Münster claimed to present new archive finds on two newspaper pages.

Only one document was really new, the draft of an answer to an American request for verification of information on the Nazi persecution of the Jews, and from a single formulation Hubert Wolf and his collaborators drew far-reaching conclusions about anti-Semitic prejudices in the curial bureaucracy.

However, documents can only be interpreted in context.

That is why the book “Le Bureau.

Les Juifs de Pie XII” by the Vatican archivist Johan Ickx is particularly valuable.

Because of the effects of the pandemic, it is the only publication that presents truly new sources, in the plural and in the sense of a coherent collection.

Ickx made a sensational discovery: Pius XII.

set up its own organizational unit in the State Secretariat at the beginning of the war, which dealt exclusively with inquiries and petitions from persecuted Jews from all over Europe.

In this way, information about deportation trains, raids and finally also systematic extermination in the concentration camps came together in the State Secretariat.