← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Hilaire Belloc
Thread ID: 10075 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2003-09-27
2003-09-27 17:14 | User Profile
[url]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3144984.stm[/url]
Il Duce 'sought Hitler ban'
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini asked the Pope to excommunicate Adolf Hitler shortly before he went to Rome to seal their alliance in 1938, according to a Vatican document.
Details of Mussolini's secret request were found in the Vatican's recently opened secret archive which forms the basis of a book by Italian historian Emma Fattorini on the last days of Pius XI's papacy.
Ms Fattorini, a university professor in Rome, suggests the demand reflected the Italian leader's anger over Hitler's annexation of Austria in March 1938.
Although she also says Mussolini's actions may have been an attempt to set up the Church, in that if it did not act, he could accuse it of failing to listen to his warnings.
"Despite the many stop and go situations, we are in fact in the middle of full Italian-German accord - and it is this that makes the request for an excommunication so sensational," Ms Fattorini reportedly said.
She said the document - found in the archive opened in February - showed Mussolini was playing a "double game".
'Harsher measures'
Despite being baptised a Catholic by his mother, in his adult life Hitler was not a practicing Catholic.
It is thought however he would have been aware of the significance of an excommunication and would have avoided the ruling at all costs.
The account of the meeting in April 1938 was taken by Holy See representative Pietro Tacchi Venturi.
Mussolini had urged the Vatican to adopt harsher measures against Hitler, according to Mr Venturi's own account of their talks.
"The head of the government told P. Tacchi Venturi in a private meeting that with Hitler it would be advisable to be more energetic, without half measures; not now, not immediately, but waiting for the best time to adopt these more energetic measures, for example excommunication," the record says.
In March 1938, Hitler annexed Austria and became a threat to Italian security - especially in Italy's German-speaking northern region.
However, Mussolini went on to sign a military alliance with Germany in 1939 and joined the war a year later.
It is not clear if the Church ever seriously considered excommunicating Hitler.
The Vatican archives relating to pre-war Germany were opened in a bid to counter charges that the Vatican did not do enough to prevent the Holocaust.
2003-09-29 04:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=AntiYuppie]This is an interesting find.
Most people are unaware of just how cold the relationship between Italian Fascism and the National Socialists was during the 1930's. They actually had very little in common apart from their ceremonial trappings and their anti-Communism (for one thing, Mussolini rejected racialism and regarded the Fascist State as an end in itself rather than a means to an end).
Mussolini was originally a strong backer of Dolfuss's Fascist party in Austria, which was staunchly Catholic and opposed to National Socialism and the Anschluss. Only when it became clear that Italy needed an alliance with Germany (i.e. the anti-Commintern Pact of 1938?) did Mussolini concede Austria to Hitler and refuse to support his former ally Dolfuss.[/QUOTE]
A couple of points:
Even if Adolf Hitler was excommunicated I doubt that it would have changed anything in the course of history. Letââ¬â¢s remember that another man of action, Napoleon Bonaparte, was excommunicated by a desperate and foolhardy Pius VIII and was consequently arrested by Napoleon.
Hitler was not excommunicated, inter alia, because he was seen as the only man in Europe capable of facing down the Bolsheviks. (Eugeno Paciello, the future Pope Pius XII, had an intimate knowledge of what a Bolshevik Europe meant from his days in Bavaria during the ââ¬ÅRed revolutionââ¬Â in Munich, led by the Jew (surprise!) Kurt Eisner. See [url]http://www.cfpeople.org/Books/Pope/POPEp258.htm;[/url])
Pius XII was a Germanophile and romantically linked to a German nun (aka, ââ¬ÅLa Popessaââ¬Â).
Benito Mussolini was a fierce anti-Catholic agitator during his days as a socialist journalist (Mussoliniââ¬â¢s favourite philosopher was the ferociously anti-Christian F.W. Nietzsche). If he wanted to "back-stab" Hitler it was for purely political reasons.
Germans didnââ¬â¢t have to ââ¬Åpushââ¬Â Mussolini in the direction of adopting legislation aimed at Jews. The Fascist regime believed Jews to be guilty of, inter alia, holding Zionist sympathies, championing of "degenerate" avant-garde cultural expressions, and doubtful loyalty to the Fascist regime and its imperial claims. See for e.g. [url]http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/02/03/Marconi190302.html[/url]
Italy was certainly a racialist state in its policies toward Italyââ¬â¢s African colonies; and Mussoliniââ¬â¢s Ethopian imperial adventure had ââ¬Åracistââ¬Â overtones.
The whole thing is frankly puzzling and bizarre.
2003-09-29 18:40 | User Profile
[QUOTE=friedrich braun]A couple of points:
Even if Adolf Hitler was excommunicated I doubt that it would have changed anything in the course of history. Let’s remember that another man of action, Napoleon Bonaparte, was excommunicated by a desperate and foolhardy Pius VII and was consequently arrested by Napoleon.
As much as I'm a man of the faith, I have to agree with you(although probally for different reasons I'm sure). As I know, only a third of Germany's population was actually Catholic(mostly in Bavaria), and Hitler had considerable amount of support among them. Also contrary to popular view, the Catholic Church is not a centralized monolith so to speak. Significant powers are given to the Cardinals and Archbishops and so on. In fact even the recent sex abuse scandals in the Church brought this fact to the forefront.
Also throughout history, Popes excommunicating powerful rulers often would result in the storimg of Rome and the placement of a puppet Pope.
Hell this happens to me all the time whenever I play "Medieval Total War". You'd be suprised how times in a game I'll get excommunicated, which usually results with my armies marching on Rome.
2003-10-07 19:03 | User Profile
Yeah, the so-called "Nazi Pope" was actually at odds with Hitler and only met with Hitler to ensure religious freedom for Catholics in Germany.
Of the Jews have declared that just because the pope sat down with Hitler, he is a "Nazi" and all Catholics are responsible for ficticious slaughters of make believe Jews.