Reading Time: 284 minutes

CHAPTER IV NUREMBERG

THE greatest trial of history. The broad daylight of the hearings and the penumbra of the lobbies. — An unsolved mystery: was Hitler’s anti-Semitism forced upon him? —”Glissez mortels, n’appuyez pas . . .”. — The Wehrmacht takes part in the mass executions. General Ohlendorf: “We had orders to exterminate the Jewish population, children included”. — Soap made from human fat. — Testimony of French deportees. — Prelude to Pius XII’s interventions in favour of the war criminals: Mgr. Faulhaber, notorious ex-Nazi, blesses the church of the former SS at Dachau. — Pity on the Nazi executioners! Strange machinations at Nuremberg. Two of the Holy Father’s proteges: Hans Frank, Arthur Greiser, Poland’s executioners. — The verdict: scandalous acquittals of Franz von Papen, the”man who knew too much”, Schacht and Fritsche. — The reactions of the press:”Nazism absolved”.”A great voice raised in favour of van Papen.””Von Papen’s acquittal is Pius XII’s condemnation”. — Echoing the appeal launched by Plus XII, the Catholic Herald writes:”Should we not let bygones be bygones?”— Pius XII’s telegram to Oswald Pohl, another notorious executioner sentenced to death.”The Holy Father, in his paternal love, sends Oswald Pohl the apostolic benediction to ensure him Heaven’s greatest consolation”.—Ernst von Weiszaecker, an advocate of ‘solving the Jewish problem’ by deportation and massacres, hidden at the Vatican. A document overwhelming for the Holy Father. — The Osservatore Romano protests against the incinerations at Nuremberg, but forgets those of the Nazi camps.

The Holy Father’s intervention in favour of the war criminals

THE trial of Nuremberg will be remembered as the most gigantic — and the most Dantesque (characterized by impressive elevation of style with deep solemnity or somberness of feeling)—of all times; that which saw the worst war criminals the world has ever known. Yet the extent of this manifestation of international justice, the vastness of the material means employed, the thousands of testimonies collected and the many tons of documents brought to the debates cannot hide the disturbing inadequacy of the verdicts returned against the principal offenders. The press almost unanimously reflected the general indignation at this, and at the time certain scandalous acquittals and inexplicable indulgences were severely criticized. But what must we say today, when most of the sentences pronounced, already inadequate in principle, have yet been considerably reduced by premature liberations? In short, apart from a few figures who were a little too representative—the few “tenors” of the Nazi regime who were hanged there and then—Adolf Hitler’s accomplices are faring quite well, and many of them have returned to find enviable positions in Federal Germany. Others have gone abroad and are recommencing careers which are not very different from their earlier activities.

No doubt, this tribunal, though international, was not concerned to lead its investigations into the political field; but, in view of the facts brought before the judges, it is difficult to see how this delimitation could be strictly observed, and it would appear that the members of the tribunal were in constant fear of stepping on dangerous ground.

Because of this, many points have never been clarified, and by no means unimportant points at that. For instance, after so many debates, we might still wonder at the profound reason for the Fuhrer’s frenzied anti-Semitism. How can we reconcile his fierce will to exterminate the Jewish race with what he said in confidence to Hermann Rauschning, President of the Senate of Dantzig?

“My Jews”, said Hitler to Hermann Rauschning, “are the best hostages I have. … If the Jew did not exist, he would have to be invented. . . .”

This was no presage (omen) of genocide; and yet. . . . What were the pressure, the deals and the bargaining that radically transformed the dictator’s attitude? How is it possible in this connection not to be reminded of certain disturbing silhouettes: of Franz von Papen, that Privy Chamberlain to His Holiness, who raised Hitler to power; and of the General of the Jesuits, the “Black Pope” Halke von Ledochowski?

This example is enough to show just how perilous it must have appeared to certain people to delve too deeply at Nuremberg.

Glissez mortels, n’appuyez pas.. .. (French for “Drag deadly, don’t press” ??)

But if the famous tribunal was too discreet, the Holy See’s interventions on behalf of the worst criminals were, on the other hand, astonishingly revealing, as will be seen later.

General Ohlendorf reveals the Wehrmachfs complicity in the mass executions

“The German General Otto Ohlendorf, former Chief of Police, who had been serving in the WafFen SS since his adolescence, was called upon to testify to Kaltenbrunner’s omnipotence in the Nazi poUce organization. The American Deputy Public Prosecutor led him round to the subject of mass executions. ‘Before the attack on the Soviet Union’, he declared, ‘special SS commandos were assigned to the German regular army with the mission to kill all Jews. . . . The Wehrmacht High Command’, stated the witness, ‘was fully aware of these orders.’

“The Einsatzgruppe to which General Ohlendorf belonged and which was attached to the second German army of the Ukraine, alone liquidated 90,000 persons during the first year of the war. Ohlendorf admits having personally ordered mass executions and having attended these executions. He confesses to have frequently been in touch with army commandants on the implementation of Himmler’s orders. The General adds that if his group has massacred 90,000 persons, other units have prize-lists that are infinitely more impressive.

“The local head of the Einsatzgruppe had to assemble all the Jews of a given sector, who were then officered on pretext of a change of residence. Once their names had been taken, they were assembled once more at the execution points, generally near an anti-tank trench or a natural ditch. They were transported in lorries and the killing took place without delay. The corpses were then buried in the trench.

“All the valuable personal effects belonging to the victims, continued General Ohlendorf, were collected and put at the disposal of the Reich Ministry of Finance or of the RSHA (Central Office of the General Staff of the Gestapo and of the State Security Force) whose seat was in Berlin.

“Until the spring of 1942, all executions were effected in the same way. Afterwards, Himmler instructed that women and children should be executed only in gas vans. Once the engine was started, the gas would penetrate the interior of the van and, after fifteen minutes, the occupants were dead. The vans were driven direct to the burial ground, the time required for the journey being sufficiently long for all the passengers to be dead on arrival.

The judge asked the witness why Jewish children were massacred, General Ohlendorf replied: . . . ‘We had instructions to exterminate the Jewish population in its entirety, children included’.”

Soap made from human fat

“‘At Dantzig’, writes Mr. Georges Soria, ‘in the buildings of the “Health Institute”, I saw a laboratory where, right to the last, Germans were making soap from human flesh. On the ground floor of the Institute, the German chemists, directed by Professor Spanner and Dr. Vohlman who had taken refuge in western Germany, were receiving daily, for experimental purposes, four or five kilogrammes of soap made of fats extracted from human bodies.

“When the Red Army, by liberating Dantzig, put an end to these macabre experiments, the Nazis tried on three occasions to set fire to the building in order to wipe out all traces of their ghastly experiments. But the building is intact. And all the proofs are there. . . .

I was able to talk to one of the young German women who used to work in this macabre factory. She is a tall girl with cornflower blue eyes, and a slightly inane smile.

—Did your mother know what you were doing? I asked her.

—Yes. At the beginning she was disgusted. But, afterwards, she was convinced that the soap we were making could be used in the household.

“Looking her straight in the eye, I asked her:

—And the soap was really of good quality?

“Quite unperturbed, as if she were discussing the qualities of any ordinary soap, she merely replied:

—Yes, it lathered.”

Through the mouths of the deported, our martyrs have testified

“The cries of our heroes dying beneath the blows”, writes Madeleine Jacob, “and the monstrous tortures have been heard at the trial of Nuremberg. Of the deported, the most fortunate have been those who have returned from the Nazi convict prisons, because they have within them the strength to will, that strength which drove them to survive so that they might come and proclaim to the world the truth about this Nazified German nation that crucified humanity.

—’Germany needs your labour, you are therefore going to work’, said the SS officer to the convoy of 1,200 men who arrived at Mathausen in the middle of winter after travelling naked from the frontier, like beasts. ‘I must tell you’, continued the officer, ‘that you will never again see your families. The only exit from this camp is the crematorium chimney. . . .’

“This story was told by Maurice Lampe, who, having escaped from this place of no return, had brought away the overwhelming accusation of his companions, hundreds and thousands strong.

The heads of two young Jews on the desk of ‘Herr Doktor’

“He told the horrific story of the two young Dutch Jews whose teeth had caught the fancy of an SS doctor, who decided to ‘experiment’ on the poor wretches. On one he performed an ablation of the kidney, and on the other an ablation of the stomach. A benzine injection in the heart put an end to the experiment. Then he coldly had them decapitated. Their heads, treated according to a method used in the Amazon region, were to grace the Doctor’s desk until the Liberation.

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier

“Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, Member of Parliament for the Seine, saw dead women piled in front of her block. Rats the size of cats were swarming on the heap. Suddenly there would emerge the head or arm of a live woman who had been thrown among the dead and who was trying vainly to get out—defeated in her struggles she would die, crushed by the weight of rotting flesh.

“Then there were the gas chambers and the crematorium ovens. One evening, there was a gas failure. What heart-rending cries she heard that night—the ghastly screams of little children as the Germans threw them on to the stake of petrol-soaked branches. Those screams will always ring in the ears of every mother.

“Suddenly, the voice of Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier faltered. Holding back a sob, she seemed to recite, like a visionary:

—Anaette Espeaux had taken some water to a woman from the extermination block and the guard saw her. Annette was immediately dragged off and thrown into the block too. Never shall I forget the sight of Annette Espeaux, when a few days later, she stood, naked, on the lorry which was taking her and others to the gas chamber and crematorium oven. She was calling out to us ‘Don’t forget my little boy, if ever you get back to France!’ while the SS ran round the lorry and dealt blows to these women on their way to death.

“She then described how the women of the Revier were killed by a poisonous white powder; how they absorbed the powder, some hesitating, some in despair, and others struggling, for the poor wretches knew that it was death that was being thrust down their throats.

Fatigue duty: clearing away the dead women

“And then, in between two columns of fatigue duty, which consisted in gathering up the hundreds of corpses that were daily to be found scattered over the camp, came SS Tauber. Furious, he set his dog on one of the prisoners, goading it to tear her to pieces and to jump at her throat, whilst he beat her bleeding body with his heavy truncheon. …

‘There were the babies that a German midwife was drowning in pails of water in front of the mothers and, at night, in the Tuberculosis wing, the sobs of a little girl calling for her mother. As Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, disquieting and pathetic, imperturbably continues her story, it is almost impossible not to cry out: ‘Stop! Stop This is unbearable!'”

Yet it is in favour of these monsters who dishonoured man’s name that Pius XII, with never a bad word, was to increase his pressing interventions.

But, by way of a prelude to these, it would be as well to recall the edifying ceremony that took place at Dachau, in the former death camp that had now become a place of detention for the SS How touching was the solicitude shown by the Roman Catholic Church towards the imprisoned henchmen, and how great its concern for their precious souls, while their victims had expired by hundreds of thousands in that hell, without any chaplain to offer them the succour of religion.

Mgr. Paulhaber, Cardinal-Archbishop of Munich, in his quality of notorious pro-Nazi and also as a personal friend of Pius XII from the days when the latter was Nuncio at Munich, was obviously the man to preside over this ceremony.

“On Sunday, 23 December 1945, His Eminence Cardinal Faulhaber solemnly inaugurated the church erected for and by the former SS at the SS camp of Dachau. His Eminence made his entry into the camp; accompanied by his coadjutors, he went straight to the church. To the sonorous strains of a virile and powerful choir, His Eminence immediately began to bless the outer walls. Then the portals opened, revealing the sanctuary in all its splendour. . . . The procession, led by the Cardinal and the ecclesiastical authorities, advanced as far as the presbytery, whilst the SS filled every seat in the vast nave. Again, His Eminence blessed the church’s interior and then delivered a moving sermon to the SS, on the theme of the Holy Cross, faithfulness to the Cross and the Cross’s blessing. . . ,

“Father Pfanzelt, parish priest of Dachau, proceeded to the altar to celebrate Mass in this new church of the Holy Cross; this was enhanced by the beautiful harmonies of the excellent SS choir, and the inmates’ orchestra, conducted by Emile Forst. … His Eminence was profoundly impressed by the consecration, and, on Saint Sylvester’s day he told his diocese that ‘he was deeply impressed by fhe highly religious bearing of the SS’.”

Furthermore, at the Nuremberg tribunal an SS named Maier told of the holy examples he had followed by joining this glorious cohort:

“I became an SS because I considered that if the Archbishop of Freiburg {Mgr. Groeber) and his coadjutor were influential members of the party, I also could join.”

Soon after Hitler came to power this prelate declared before the Catholics of Karlsruhe:

“I do not think I am divulging a secret to you, or to the German people, when I say that I unreservedly support the new Government and the new Reich. We know what its aspiration is. . . . One of the Fuhrer’s first manifestations was a Christian manifestation. His hand was raised against all those who attacked the Cross.”

Again, this is a far cry from the “persecutions” which a deceitful propaganda alleged the Roman Catholic Church was suffering in the Reich. But the Nazi prelate’s harangue was obviously not intended for foreign ears.

Juridical quibbling in aid of the war criminals

Father Duclos writes that Father Lener has concluded a series of articles in the Civilta Cattolica by saying that the Nuremberg sentences are political, not juridical. . . .

“The Osservatore Romano of 11 and 14 February 1945 and the Civilta Cattolica of 17 March have replied to the attack made by the Orthodox Council of Moscow against ‘the Vatican, which is trying to unburden Nazi Germany of the responsibility for her crimes‘.”

Pity the Nazi executioners

“At Nuremberg strange machinations are taking place in favour of certain of the accused”, writes Henri Danjou in France-Soir. . . It is almost as if it were intended that they should be freed of the responsibility for their crimes, or commended to the benevolence of the judges. By virtue of the enormity of his crimes, Frank, the famous executioner of Poland, was bound to excite particular compassion at the Vatican.

“Doctor Alfred Seidl, Frank’s lawyer, stated that Pope Plus XII had addressed to the Council of Inter-allied Control an appeal for clemency in favour of Frank. The doctor was informed of this intervention by Cardinal Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich, who transmitted Pope Plus XII’s appeal.”

This time, the tribunal did not feel they could comply with the wish of the Holy Father, since Hans Frank, Governor of Poland, had a few million corpses to his credit.

Undismayed, Plus XII tried at least to save one of his emulators:

La Croix, 15 July 1946:

“Arthur Greiser, former Gauleiter and executioner of Poznan, who was recently condemned to death, has just asked the Pope to be kind enough to intervene on his behalf.”

Official Polish Press Agency, 20 July 1946:

“Plus XII has sent a message to the Polish Government, asking that Greiser be reprieved. Not a single Pole will find an ounce of pity in his heart for the blood-thirsty executioner of the nation. Official circles qualify Plus XII’s intervention as stupefying.”

For our part, we find it rather compromising. But, let us see who this Greiser was that the Pope wanted to save. The review Action will tell us:

“Arthur Greiser is one of those primarily responsible for the extermination of 6 million European Jews. From 1930 he was President of the Senate of Dantzig and had already got his hand in with the Jews of that town. … He was called to the Fuhrer’s headquarters and named Chief of the German Civil Administration for Polish territories annexed to the Reich under the name of ‘Wartheland’. . . . Greiser thus became a despot having the power of life and death over 12 million Poles. . . . The mission that Greiser had received from the Fuhrer was to Germanize the Wartheland— to transform the whole of western Poland into a Germanic march. …

“Greiser organized the census of 9.5 million Poles living in western Poland. … He resolved to prepare the Germanization by systematic extermination of the Poles. Then the terrible tragedy began. The Jews were the first victims. The Jews of the Wartheland were transferred to the camp of Chehno; upon arrival, every convoy was taken to the ‘shower-rooms’ and gassed. A few months later, there were no Jews left in the Wartheland. After the Jews, Greiser’s henchmen attacked all classes of the Polish nation. . . .

“This is the man that impious hands wanted to shield from death.”

What follows will acquaint us with the strange ethics whereby, according to the Holy Father, the author of this great slaughter deserved to save his precious life.

On 20 February 1946, Pope Pius XII said:

“There exist erroneous conceptions which pronounce a man guilty and responsible because he was a member of a community, and no effort is made to ascertain whether he is personally responsible for committing an act or for omitting it.”

The argument is very clear indeed: Arthur Greiser, or any other of his emulators in extermination, was a member of the Nazi “community”. . . . The “community” is guilty, but its “members” are innocent. (Similarly, Nazism was condemned by the Church but “the person of the Fuhrer” was entitled to the most complete submission.)

It is doubtless by virtue of such beautiful casuistry (reasoning intended mislead) that one has been able to see the Sovereign Pontiff fly to the rescue of the most sinister murderers.

On 29 September 1946, Combat wrote:

“One wonders whether van Papen will be saved by the efforts of Rome. …”

Similarly, France-Libre declared:

“It has been confirmed that the Church has weightily intervened in favour of Franz van Papen, the authentic squireen lord who wore with equal elegance the Hohenzollern Eagle and the Nazi uniform. He was a lifelong specialist in plots, and in Germany, such a man was beyond price. . . . Today, the accused does not want to pay and his friends, it said, are urging Rome to act, and it is pleading for him. His defender says to whoever might be interested that his client has nothing to fear. The persistent rumours on the subject of von Papen’s acquittal should no longer surprise us. . . .”

Then came the last hearing.

R. de Saint-Jean indicates how the accused received the verdict

—Ribbentrop appeared, as usual, more arrogant than the rest.
—Keitel remained to attention.
—Kaltenbrunner saluted the Court on arrival and on leaving.
-Frank was the only one to give a sign of assent when he was told that he had been condemned, and he lifted his eyes heavenward.
—Frick wavered slightly, like a man who has just been hit on the head.
—Funck appeared to be sightly deaf and had to be told twice to take off his helmet and leave the room.
—Doenitz, who had appeared the most at ease during the last two days, withdrew with his usual detached expression.

Three of the accused were acquitted: van Papen, Schacht and Fritsche, who listened unflinchingly to the official declaration: “The officer of the tribunal is instructed to liberate you as soon as the present hearing is over”.

President Lawrence rose:

—I have a statement to make, he said.

The President declared:

“The Russian delegation states that it is not in agreement with the acquittal of the three accused. Nor does it agree that the following should be recognized as non-criminal: The Cabinet of the Reich, the Supreme Headquarters and the High Command. Finally, the delegation is of the opinion that Hess should have been sentenced to death.”

Then the President added:

“This official protest has been filed and will be published as soon as possible. . . .”

The American Attorney General Jackson declared for his part: “The sentence of the international military tribunal is highly praiseworthy in that it applies the principle that a war of aggression is a crime for which every statesman must be punished individually. It is a sign full of hope for the peace of the world that the great powers should have agreed to create this principle of law and should have expressed it in a sentence. I regret that the tribunal should have felt bound to acquit von Papen and Schacht.”

The reactions of the press: Nazism absolved

Albert Bayet writes:

“When these lines appear in print, von Papen and Schacht, acquitted, will be freed. . . . A man came forward and said that he was marching with Hitler in the name of Catholicism. This man was von Papen. Through cowardice, he feigned not to hear the immense clamour that rose from the torture chambers and death camps. Nations have seen him as history will see him: an unprecedented monstrosity. …

“The world naively thought it would never see anything worse than Nazism run wild. It now sees worse: Nazism absolved.”

The Eagle and the Cross

Andre Stibio notes the following:

“. . . We find it hard to explain why Schacht and von Papen should have benefited by acquittal pure and simple; why, once freed, they should have been able to reply to journalists the very same evening. . . .

“It is most surprising that the archives of a trial as meticulously conducted as was that of Nuremberg should have borne no trace of the diabolical collaboration which, both before and after the war, wherever crimes against peace were being prepared, used van Papen as its velvet gloved diplomat to flatter the victims. . . . None the less he stands, as white as snow, and one is afraid to guess why von Papen is getting off so easily. These reasons are probably to be sought in the ideas symbolized by his name, in the resonances which it stirs, and in the powerful sympathies which it has aroused.

“‘German conservatism will be Christian or nothing’, wrote von Papen.

“Above all, let us not believe this Christian Germanism to be less of a conqueror than Nazism and let us not forget the peroration of von Papen’s important speech at Munich: ‘The people, the Reich and the States’, he declared, ‘must collaborate; they must reconstruct the new Germany. May the idea of power of the”Sacrum Imperium”, the indestructible idea of the German Holy Empire spread throughout the Germanic countries, from the Alps to Memel!'”

The lofty principles of the Papacy

Robert d’Harcourt rightly discerned the deeper reasons for von Papen’s”luck”:

“By acquitting Franz von Papen, the Tribunal of Nuremberg has acquitted one of the men most responsible for Nazism. Indeed, immense responsibility weighs upon the shoulders of this enigmatic individual.

. . . His masters always placed him in important positions, at crucial junctures, wherever something had to be done or undone. . . . It was to him that Hitler owed his power. . . . Let us reread van Papen’s promises: ‘The Third Reich is the first power in the world, not only to recognize, but to put into practice, the lofty principles of the Papacy’.”

A great voice was raised in von Paperi ‘s favour

“What we did not know”, writes Louis Martin-Chauffier,”but that we know today, now that the judges of Nuremberg have told us, is that it is possible to participate in the conception, the arranging, the application and the execution of history’s most monstrous undertaking of brigandage, and yet be found innocent or only half guilty by those who claim solemnly to found the laws of international justice.

“Von Papen belonged to another international movement: he had connexions. Thirty years of scheming, of ruse, of mediation, of hypocrisy, of back-handed blows and of snares, had brought him timorous friendships, attentive complicities and all-powerful protection. A great voice, it is said, rose in his favour, a voice which we, in the concentration camps, vainly hoped to hear declare its reprobation, denounce our misery and castigate our executioners. But von Papen was far more entitled than we to this intervention. As for us, those of us who were Catholics found greater refuge and put more love into appealing direct to God, who does not bargain. . ..

“History will retain the files. The period records the verdict. I can only call it an imposture. But when it has had its effect, it will be called complicity. …”

Finally, l’Ordre de Paris’ summed up the unanimous verdict of opinion in this concise phrase:

“It is both painful and shameful to have to say it, but van Papen’s acquittal is Pius XII’s condemnation.”

Yet, insensible to this concert of reproof, the Pope continued with apostolic zeal to rescue the “innocent” Nazis.

After Franz van Papen,”the man who knew too much”, how many others successfully resorted to his unending mansuetude? The silence observed by His Holiness during the whole of the war and in face of the most monstrous atrocities, was well and truly at an end! The world could once more hear the great voice of the Vicar of Christ, preaching love and pity … in favour of the executioners, and the pacification of hearts . . . over millions of corpses. But it would be useless to seek among these soothing homilies a word of special compassion for the victims, a word of blame against the murderers. The Pope put them all into the same bag:

“The Church is our Mother”, said Pius XII.”Do not ask a mother to speak for or against the one or other of her sons … in the distress of the present, beside which the painful vicissitudes of the past appear dim. . . . During the long years of the war and afterwards, human nature, a prey to innumerable and unspeakable sufferings, has shown an unbelievable power of resistance. But this power is limited.. . .”

“Let us forget the past”, preached His Holiness; and the pious press abundantly took up this theme.

On 3 January 1947, echoing the appeal launched by Plus XII, the Catholic Herald pleaded that a general amnesty should be granted to all the war criminals, which it called”political prisoners”.”Has not the time come”, it wrote,”to clean the slate?”

If one thinks of the Church’s role before and during these bloody years, one cannot avoid seeing this as a true pro domo appeal for the defence. In fact, it is not a pardon but a tacit approbation that Pius XII sends to the vile Oswald Pohl, imprisoned at Landsberg:

“The Holy Father, in his paternal love, sends to Oswald Pohl the apostolic blessing as a guarantee of the highest celestial consolation.”

“Pohl was condemned to death at the trial of Nuremberg, but so far the ‘law’ has not carried out the sentence. . . . He is responsible for the most atrocious crimes. It was he who ordered the concentration camps to be equipped with gas chambers. . . .”

Was it these noble deeds that brought him the Holy Father’s benevolence? No doubt it was, for it could hardly be more clearly stated than in this telegram: “Unjustly condemned by men, thou shalt find thy reward in Heaven. This I assure thee.’

On 4 September 1945 the Allies addressed a note to .the Vatican requesting that it should hand over to them Baron Ernst von Weiszaecker, war criminal, who had taken refuge there.

Who was this von Weiszaecker? Former Nazi Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and von Ribbentrop’s”permanent representative”, he invented incidents at the Germano-PoIish frontier to justify the German aggression of September 1939, and collaborated in the famous plan for the”solution of the Jewish problem”by deportation and massacre.

He was also a general of the SS and Hitler’s Ambassador to the Vatican.

On 14 April 1949, the last trial of the war criminals was drawing to a close at Nuremberg. Twenty-one accused, who had nearly all belonged to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, were found guilty of war crimes and of crimes against humanity. But there was no sentence of death, and Baron von Weiszaecker, for his part, got away with a sentence of seven years’ imprisonment. A ridiculously light sanction if one considers the indictment against von Weiszaecker for having signed the deportation warrant of French Jews to Auschwitz, for having participated in the conferences which the Gestapo held in order to prepare the extermination of the Jews,and finally for having assured by every means possible the failure of the Swiss effort to save the Jewish children.

Yes, but during his pleading von Weiszaecker’s lawyer had read out a letter from Pius XII in defence of his client.

On 28 October 1943 Ambassador von Weiszaecker sent the following message to von Ribbentrop:

“German Embassy to the Holy See Rome, 28 October 1943.

“Although he has been urged on all sides to do so, the Pope has not been led into making any demonstrative reproof against the deportation of Roman Jews. Despite the fact that he must expect to see this attitude attacked by our enemies and exploited by the Protestant circles of the Anglo-Saxon countries in their antiCatholic propaganda, he has also done a11 he possibly could in this delicate question not to strain relations with the German Government. . . .
Signed; Ernst van Weiszaecker.”

This document is overwhelming evidence against the Holy Father. Is it possible to imagine a more dishonourable justification than that credited him by von Weiszaecker? But we can no longer be surprised, knowing the”delicate questions”on which His Holiness “also”always kept silent.

If we wanted to go into the details of the anticipatory liberations enjoyed by the most sinister criminals of the Nazi epic, we should need volumes.

There was von Neurath, the former”protector”of Bohemia-Moravia, who was hailed at Enzwelhingen, locality of his family seat, to the sound of bells and showered with flowers and congratulatory messages, including those of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Theodor Heuss, President of the Federal Republic.

“At the end of the war criminals trial”(we are told by Match of 9 November 1954)”he was condemned to fifteen years’ imprisonment for ‘having authorized and conducted war crimes and for having participated in them’. But someone was watching for him: his daughter Winifred (widow of Baron von Mackensen, Hitler’s former Ambassador in Rome). Tirelessly she knocked on the doors. … Plus XII granted her an audience and assured her of his support. ..”

There was the SS Daab, of the”Der Fuhrer”regiment, one of the murderers of Oradour. Condemned to life imprisonment by the Tribunal of Bordeaux on 13 February 1953, he was freed in 1956. And for his return, his parish organized a religious ceremony of thanksgiving.

There was Use Koch, nicknamed the”bitch of Buchenwald”, who selected the tattooed skins of dead prisoners for covering lamp-shades.

Finally there was the interminably long procession of monsters whom the astounding weakness of the Law has allowed to save their lives and, shortly afterwards, their liberty.

But we cannot have done with the trials of the war criminals without recalling what La Croix of 20 October 1946 wrote:

“In the name of the Catholic burial rite, the Osservatore Romano protests against the incineration of the bodies of those executed at Nuremberg.””This act”, wrote the Vatican’s official newspaper,”is not only to be criticized in relation to the five Catholics whose will and faith were violated, but with regard to all those who did not explicitly declare their wish to disregard the Catholic rite of burial.”

The Holy Father’s indignation in this matter is most edifying. But let us admit that we are surprised by it. If our memory serves us well, the Roman Catholic Church has not always shown this aversion to burning, to judge from the stakes which for centuries she set up for heretics and similar, in Spain and elsewhere. It is true that these she burned alive. Theologically, there must be a distinction. . . .

But, to keep to more recent references, the Nazis, in their day, did a lot of incinerating. … It was by this means that they were in the habit of dispatching their victims to Heaven, whether Catholic or not, as the latter gave up the ghost in those camps where there were no chaplains.

In those days, so far as is known, Plus XII never protested. Doubtless he did”all he possibly could in this delicate question, not to strain relations with the German Government”, as von Weiszaecker so aptly put it.