WORLD WAR II
On 1 September 1939, Germany attacked Poland: this was the date marking the beginning of the Second World War. France and England immediately intervened on the side of the aggrieved power; Italy and Russia, respectively bound to Germany by the so-called Pact of Steel and by a non-aggression treaty, did not move. The German army, having swiftly occupied Poland up to the Vistula and the San, remained inactive during the following winter, then resumed the offensive in the spring of 1940 and occupied Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and France.
After the surrender of the French army (armistice of Compiègne, 21 June 1940) and Italy’s entry into the war alongside Germany (10 June 1940), German military initiative foundered against the resistance of the British Empire. In 1941, the Axis Powers occupied Yugoslavia and Greece and, in June of that year—with the support of Finland, Hungary, and Romania—declared war on Russia. Also in 1941, Japan, allied with Germany and Italy, intervened in Asia against the United States (which then entered the war) and against the democratic Powers, occupying the Philippines, Indonesia, Indochina, the Malay Peninsula, and Burma. When the German attack on Russia failed in 1942, the opponents of the Axis went on the offensive: the battles of El Alamein (October 1942) in Egypt and of Stalingrad (28 July 1942–1 February 1943) in Russia marked the beginning of this new phase of the conflict. The landings in North Africa, Sicily, and the Italian peninsula (July–September 1943), in France (June 1944), and the Russian offensives of 1944 and 1945, together with the systematic bombing of enemy industrial centres by Allied air forces, decided the fate of the Second World War. Germany (Italy had already signed the armistice on 8 September 1943) was compelled to surrender unconditionally on 8 May 1945. In the Far East, the war against Japan continued until 8 August of the same year.
Upon learning of Germany’s denunciation (28 April 1939) of the treaties with Poland and Great Britain, the Holy See launched feverish diplomatic activity in the European capitals in an attempt to persuade the Powers involved to resolve their disputes by mutual agreement and to renounce the scourge of a new world war. Pius XII’s mediation efforts, however, encountered the intransigence of Germany and Poland: the former was determined at all costs to unleash war unless it obtained satisfaction regarding the Danzig question, while the latter was equally unwilling to make any concessions. Thus, the words spoken by the Pope in his radio message of 24 August 1939 fell on deaf ears: “It is with the force of reason, not with that of arms, that justice prevails. And empires not founded on justice are not blessed by God. Politics emancipated from morality betrays even those who so desire... Nothing is lost with peace. Everything may be lost with war. Let men once again understand one another. Let them resume negotiations. By negotiating in good faith and with respect for reciprocal rights, they will find that sincere and effective talks are never barred from honourable success.” All exhortations proved futile. Once war had broken out, the Holy See immediately established an information office on prisoners of war and requested the respective governments to transmit lists of prisoners. Only Germany, citing the fact that such lists were already being communicated to the International Red Cross in Geneva, refused this request. This was one of many indications of the unfavourable policy toward the Holy See pursued by the government of the Third Reich. Between National Socialist ideology and Catholic doctrine there existed an irreconcilable clash of principles, a clash that intensified day by day throughout the conflict. The abandonment of the law of truth and love taught by Jesus Christ, the preference given to religious and moral agnosticism—not only in Germany but throughout the world—were the moral causes of the outbreak of the new war, as analysed by Pius XII in his first encyclical, *Summi Pontificatus*, of 20 October 1939.
Unable to halt the slaughter, the Holy See nevertheless sought to alleviate the plight of peoples and individuals most severely affected. Spiritual and material assistance (the sending of food and medicines) encountered no obstacles. The task was particularly difficult, for, as the Pope remarked in an address to the Sacred College on 2 June 1942, “the prolongation of armed conflict, the feverish growth of weapons of war, and the progressive intensification of warfare methods mean that the Church’s supernatural and pacifying mission encounters opposition, difficulties, and misunderstandings unknown and unsuspected to such an extent in past ages, and which become dangers for her and for her work.” Although relations with Hitler’s Germany grew increasingly strained due to the evident measures of hostility toward the Catholic Church—implemented under the pretext of wartime exigencies—the Holy See never abandoned its strict neutrality. Primarily concerned with its mission of charity, Pius XII warmly welcomed the news of the arrival of a personal envoy of the President of the United States at the Vatican “to foster and direct our joint efforts for peace and for the consolation of the afflicted” (letter from President F. D. Roosevelt to Pius XII, 23 December 1939). Strict neutrality did not, however, exclude fidelity to the doctrines of the Church and Catholicism, and throughout the conflict the Pope never refrained from condemning certain political conceptions contrary to these teachings.
The Italian armistice of 8 September 1943 and the subsequent German occupation of Rome did not alter the international status of the City of the Vatican. Both the Germans and the Allies respected II. Political refugees found secure asylum there, even though on the night of 3–4 February 1944, units of the Republic of Salò forcibly entered the buildings of the Basilica of St Paul and violated the extraterritorial rights guaranteed by the Lateran Treaty. This was an isolated incident, as was the bombing of areas adjacent to the City of the Vatican by an aircraft on 3 March 1944. Meanwhile, the charitable work of the Holy See intensified through the establishment of the Pontifical Commission for Assistance, which extended its activities impartially to all categories of war victims. As during the First World War, so too in this conflict, missions—especially those in East Asia—suffered greatly.
The end of the war left behind an immense field of ruins. Spiritual and material ruins that laid bare in all its starkness the profound crisis of human society: a world awaiting an economic and social renewal that, without a spiritual and religious rebirth, remains but an empty phrase; man standing at a crossroads between spirit and matter, between self-awareness and the dissolution of his own identity in the amorphous mass. This is the present crisis of civilisation, powerfully described by Fr Delp on New Year’s Eve 1944, while awaiting death in a Nazi prison. And at the end of the Second World War, the mission of the Church is that indicated by Fr Delp: to resolve man’s problems concretely, to help all humanity rediscover the path shown by Christ.