Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust

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The papacy of Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) began on 2 March 1939 and continued to 9 October 1958, covering the period of the Second World War and the Holocaust, during which millions of Jews were murdered by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and its collaborators. Before becoming pope, Cardinal Pacelli was a Vatican diplomat in Germany and then Vatican Secretary of State. His role during the Nazi period has been closely scrutinised and criticised. His supporters state that Pius employed diplomacy to aid the victims of the Nazis during the war and directed his Church to provide discreet aid to Jews and others, thereby saving hundreds of thousands of lives. They also state that the Nazis viewed Pius as an Allied sympathizer who failed to honor his policy of Vatican neutrality. Pius maintained links to the German Resistance and shared intelligence with the Allies of World War II, but also developed alliances with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, even arranging secret negotiations with Hitler's envoys...

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