SS General Karl Wolff figures prominently in claimed accounts of the
kidnapping plot.
SS General Karl Wolff claimed while testifying at the Nuremberg Trials
that he had disobeyed an order from Hitler to kidnap the Pope and
instead sneaked into the Vatican to warn the Pontiff. Most other
allegations of a plot to kidnap Pius XII are based on a claimed 1972
document written by Wolff that Avvenire d'Italia published in 1991 and
on personal interviews with Wolff before his death in 1984. Wolff
maintained that Hitler summoned Wolff to his office on September 13,
1943, and that Hitler stated:
I have a special mission for you, Wolff. It will be your duty not to
discuss it with anyone before I give you permission to do so. Only
Reichsfuhrer (Himmler) knows about it. Do you understand? ... I want you
and your troops to occupy Vatican City as soon as possible, secure its
files and art treasures, and take the Pope and Curia to the north. I do
not want him to fall into the hands of the Allies or to be under their
political pressure and influence. The Vatican is already a nest of spies
and a center of anti-National Socialist propaganda. …
Colonel Erwin von Lahousen, in his deposition at the Nuremberg Trials on
February 1, 1946 (Warnreise Testimony 1330-1430), said that Hitler had
ordered the Reichssicherheitshauptamt to devise a plot to punish the
Italian people by kidnapping or murdering Pius XII and the King of
Italy. But, von Lahousen said, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the
German counterintelligence service, informed his Italian counterpart,
General Cesare Amè, during a secret meeting in Venice on July 29–30,
1943. Von Lahousen and Colonel Wessel Freytag von Loringhoven were also
present at this meeting. Amè apparently spread the news and the plot was
dropped. The Colonels were later part of the July 20 plot to assassinate
Hitler, along with Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg.
Niki Freytag Loringhoven, the son of von Loringhoven, gave a
substantially similar account in Munich in 1972 to von Lahousen's
deposition in Nuremberg, according to the Italian Bishops' newspaper
Avvenire …
Kurzman acknowledges that there are no official German documents that
refer to the plot, claiming that Hitler prohibited the plot to be put in
writing, and bases his book on personal interviews with Germans and
Vatican officials. Kurzman's principal source is Wolff, whom he
interviewed only hours after his release from Allied custody; Kurzman
acknowledges that Wolff was demonstrably untruthful in many aspects of
his testimony, but notes that "other key persons" corroborate Wolff's
account. Kurzman's other interviewees include: Rudolph Rahn, German
ambassador to the RSI, Eitel Mollhausen, Rahn's deputy, Albrecht von
Kessel, the deputy of Ernst von Weizsäcker, SS Colonel Eugen Dollman,
Wolff's liaison to Field Marshal Albert Kesselring. Finally, Kurzman
cites a personal interview with Peter Gumpel, the Vatican's advocate for
canonization of Pius XII, who claims that unpublished documents support
the existence of such a plot. Gumpel has also stated that Pius XII made
plans to resign in the event of his kidnapping.”
5-
The affidavit of
General Karl, Wolff German commander in Italy, of the plan he was
ordered to develop by Hitler to kidnap Pope Pius XII.
82. -
Testimony from the Nuremberg trial by Erwin Lahousen Feb 1, 1946 of the
Stars and Stripes article of Hitler's plan to kill Pope Pius XII. Letter
to Italian newspaper and articles.
More Vatican Archives.
Vatican Archives at
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