In March 2020, the Vatican opened its archive holdings from the pontificate of Pius XII.

and thus made previously secret files about the war and post-war period accessible to science.

As a result, the debate on the role of the Catholic Church in the Second World War and during the Shoah, which had been very controversial for decades, was revived among historians.

With his book "The Pope at War", the American historian and Pulitzer Prize winner David Kertzer is now presenting a new standard work.

At least since the publication of Rolf Hochhuth's play "The Deputy" in 1963, the Vatican has been accused of never openly condemning the persecution and murder of Jews in Europe during the war.

In addition, the church was regularly accused of being too close to the National Socialist regime in Germany and, above all, to fascism in Italy.

Under sometimes polemical titles - such as "Hitler's Pope" - historians even worked with the term "clerical fascism".

In contrast, however, other researchers also emphasized the merits of Pius XII.

and particularly the salvation of Jews in Roman monasteries and on Vatican territory.

The beatification process for Pius XII has been going on in the Catholic Church since 1965.

This "Nazi prince" was predestined for a mediating role

Against this background, Kertzer attempts to offer the reader a nuanced overall account of the wartime sources.

For this he not only uses documents from the Apostolic Archives, but also from state archives in Germany, Italy and other countries.

Right at the beginning he makes it clear that Eugenio Pacelli had no personal sympathies for Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini.

On the contrary, he looked at both dictators with fear and saw their regimes as a danger to the Church.

He saw anti-Christian neo-paganism in the ideology of National Socialism in particular.

For Kertzer, however, the weakness of Vatican politics lies precisely in the pope's fear of the dictators of Europe: instead of openly opposing the oppression, Pius XII.

above all to preserve the sphere of influence of the church.

In Germany, he was primarily concerned with preserving the Reich Concordat of 1933, which was gradually being undermined in the National Socialist state.

Criticism made under Pius XI.

and in particular in the encyclical "Mit brennender concern" was still openly expressed under the Pacelli pope was no longer as sharp.

Even in the encyclical that Pius XII.

published a month after the start of the war in October 1939, the German attack on Poland was not explicitly condemned.

Ready to negotiate from a position of weakness

In addition to many well-known observations, David Kertzer's book also contains a few surprises.

The role of the National Socialist politician Philipp von Hessen in the diplomatic mediation between Pacelli and Hitler is particularly noteworthy.

As the great-grandson of Queen Victoria and son-in-law of the Italian monarch Vittorio Emanuele III.

this "Nazi prince" was predestined for a discreet diplomatic role as mediator.

Because of his German-Italian connections, Kertzer sees this Protestant as a key figure in the triangular relationship between Hitler, Pius XII.

and Mussolini.