Hitler's Pope : The Secret History of Pius XII
by: Cornwell, John

Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 430 pages. In this book, backed by a wealth of new research, the author tells for the first time the story of the career of Eugenio Pacelli, the man who as Pius XII was Pope during the Second World War and arguably the most powerful churchman in modern history. Adding to the continuing debate about collective guilt and the Holocaust this is an extraordinary and explosive history. In the first decade of the century, as a brilliant young lawyer, Pacelli helped shape an ideology of unprecedented papal power; during the 1920s he employed cunning and moral blackmail to impose that power in Germany. In 1933 Hitler became his perfect negotiating partner and a concordat was established that granted religious and educational advantages to the Catholic Church in exchange for Catholic withdrawal from social and political action. This 'voluntary' abdication of political Catholicism imposed from Rome facilitated the rise of Nazism. Clean copy.