Volume 14, 2009
Sr. Mary Gloria Chang, OP
Pages 385-406
The Vatican and the German Resistance During World War II: 1939-1940
Critics of Pope Pius XII usually fail to account for the dangerous role he took as mediator in a conspiracy against Hitler at the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Peace negotiations between German military rebels and the British government flowed through the Vatican as a secret conduit. First-hand testimonies by German conspirators, and secondary studies by historians of the German Resistance and British-Vatican relations, all give evidence of the Pope’s heroic courage in the face of grave threats to himself and the Catholic Church.