Spies in Surplices

THE VATICAN Spies in Surplies In his bitterly controversial play The Deputy, Germany's Rolf Hochhuth accused Pope Pius XII of doing too little to save the Jews of Europe during World War II. According to Hochhuth's thesis, the Vatican and Berlin were thus, by extension, tacit wartime allies. Writing in the current issue of the scholarly Vatican review La Civilta Cattolica, U.S. Jesuit Robert A. Graham disputes this view. Not only did the Nazis distrust the Vatican, says Graham, but they also flooded Rome with bogus priests and lay spies in an effort to discover whether it was plotting against them.

The Germans were at least astute enough to fathom one thing about the center of Catholicism: it abounds in rumor and thrives on hearsay. "In place of this river of unreliable information, we need authentic news which is really important," read a 1943 report to the foreign ministry in Berlin from Ernst von Weizsacker, who as Ambassador to the Holy See also directed a German spy network. One person assigned to ferret out the authentic news for the Germans was an apostate priest named Georg Elling. who came to Rome ostensibly to study the life of St. Francis of Assisi. What really interested him was the movements of Allied ambassadors at the Vatican. Other spies tapped telephones, monitored Vatican Radio transmissions and intercepted cables. Experts in Hermann Goering's aviation ministry cracked the code by which Rome communicated with Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, its apostolic nuncio in Berlin.

Teutonic Overkill. The Germans were principally interested in two facets of church activity. One was what they referred to as Ostpolitik des Vatikans. Despite the Vatican's obvious hostility to Communism, Hitler was obsessed with the illogical idea that Rome and the Russians were about to form an alliance. Thus when Pius in 1942 ordered two monsignori to study Russian, the order stirred apprehensive speculation in Berlin. Nazi leaders like Martin Bormann and Reinhardt ("The Hangman") Heydrich were also interested in what Heydrich called "political Catholicism." Certain that the church was attempting to establish a political alternative to the Nazi Party in Germany, they monitored all contacts between Rome and the German bishops for signs of scheming.

Graham, who researched U.S., German and Vatican archives for his material, says that the Pope was vaguely aware of what was happening. To thwart the Germans, Pius depended on the loyalty of those around him rather than on counterespionage. As Weizsacker noted, those close to the Pope kept their secrets "in a manner most scrupulous, because they are bound by the faith." As a result, the Germans learned little of consequence. Another reason for the failure of Nazi espionage may well have been Teutonic overkill. No fewer than five separate Nazi agencies had spies in Rome. Much of the information they provided was so contradictory that it was useless.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.