The Pope at War
The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler
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Narrated by:
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Arthur Morey
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By:
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David I. Kertzer
About this listen
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER •
“The most important book ever written about the Catholic Church and its conduct during World War II.”—Daniel Silva
“Kertzer brings all of his usual detective and narrative skills to [The Pope at War] . . . the most comprehensive account of the Vatican’s relations to the Nazi and fascist regimes before and during the war.”—The Washington Post
“Tolstoyan.”—Cynthia Ozick
Based on newly opened Vatican archives, a groundbreaking, explosive, and riveting book about Pope Pius XII and his actions during World War II, including how he responded to the Holocaust, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Pope and Mussolini
WINNER OF THE JULIA WARD HOWE AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/JACQUELINE BOGRAD WELD AWARD • A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, his papers were sealed in the Vatican Secret Archives, leaving unanswered questions about what he knew and did during World War II. Those questions have only grown and festered, making Pius XII one of the most controversial popes in Church history, especially now as the Vatican prepares to canonize him.
In 2020, Pius XII’s archives were finally opened, and David I. Kertzer—widely recognized as one of the world’s leading Vatican scholars—has been mining this new material ever since, revealing how the pope came to set aside moral leadership in order to preserve his church’s power.
Based on thousands of never-before-seen documents not only from the Vatican, but from archives in Italy, Germany, France, Britain, and the United States, The Pope at War paints a new, dramatic portrait of what the pope did and did not do as war enveloped the continent and as the Nazis began their systematic mass murder of Europe’s Jews. The book clears away the myths and sheer falsehoods surrounding the pope’s actions from 1939 to 1945, showing why the pope repeatedly bent to the wills of Hitler and Mussolini.
Just as Kertzer’s Pulitzer Prize–winning The Pope and Mussolini became the definitive book on Pope Pius XI and the Fascist regime, The Pope at War is destined to become the most influential account of his successor, Pius XII, and his relations with Mussolini and Hitler. Kertzer shows why no full understanding of the course of World War II is complete without knowledge of the dramatic, behind-the-scenes role played by the pope. “This remarkably researched book is replete with revelations that deserve the adjective ‘explosive,’” says Kevin Madigan, Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard University. “The Pope at War is a masterpiece.”
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Critic reviews
“A masterly character study of a flawed, tormented leader and a cautionary tale about the perils of both-sides-ism.”—The New Yorker
“Kertzer brings all of his usual detective and narrative skills to [The Pope at War] . . . the most comprehensive account of the Vatican’s relations to the Nazi and fascist regimes before and during the war.”—The Washington Post
“Kertzer has spent decades excavating the Vatican’s hidden history . . . [His] new book . . . documents the private decision-making that led Pope Pius XII to stay essentially silent about Hitler’s genocide and argues that the pontiff’s impact on the war is underestimated. And not in a good way.”—The New York Times
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In a definitive biography of the mythic general who refused to accept Nazi domination of France, Julian Jackson captures this titanic figure as never before. Drawing on unpublished letters, memoirs, and resources of the recently opened de Gaulle archive, he reveals how this volatile visionary put a broken France back at the center of world affairs.
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Extremely British approach to de Gaulle
- By Keith on 05-31-19
By: Julian Jackson
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Hitler
- Ascent 1889-1939
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- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 34 hrs and 46 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For all the literature about Adolf Hitler, there have been just four seminal biographies; this is the fifth, a landmark work that sheds important new light on Hitler himself. Drawing on previously unseen papers and a wealth of recent scholarly research, Volker Ullrich reveals the man behind the public persona, from Hitler's childhood, to his failures as a young man in Vienna, to his experiences during the First World War, to his rise as a far-right party leader.
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Worthwhile if you haven't read a Hitler biography
- By Joshua on 11-03-16
By: Volker Ullrich
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Yalta
- The Price of Peace
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- Length: 22 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Award-winning Harvard historian S.M. Plokhy delivers a “convincing revisionist analysis” ( Publishers Weekly) of the February 1945 Yalta conference. Bolstered by Soviet wiretaps, Plokhy’s engrossing narrative of Stalin, Churchill, and FDR’s negotiations reveals the West did better than previously thought.
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The depth and breadth of understanding
- By Robin LaCorte on 06-27-19
By: S. M. Plokhy
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The Last Days of Stalin
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Joshua Rubenstein's riveting account takes us back to the second half of 1952, when no one could foresee an end to Joseph Stalin's murderous regime. He was poised to challenge the newly elected US president Dwight Eisenhower with armed force and was also broadening a vicious campaign against Soviet Jews. Stalin's sudden collapse and death in March 1953 was as dramatic and mysterious as his life. It is no overstatement to say that his passing marked a major turning point in the 20th century.
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JUST A LITTLE TOO DULL
- By Count B on 08-06-16
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The Empire Must Die
- Russia's Revolutionary Collapse, 1900 - 1917
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The window between two equally stifling autocracies - the imperial family and the communists - was open only briefly, in the last couple of years of the 19th century until the end of WWI, by which time the revolution was in full fury. From the last years of Tolstoy until the death of the Tsar and his family, however, Russia experimented with liberalism and cultural openness. Novelists and playwrights blossomed and political ideas were swapped in coffee houses.
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An excellent look at an interesting history.
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The Balfour Declaration
- The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
- By: Jonathan Schneer
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 18 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Issued in London in 1917, the Balfour Declaration was one of the key documents of the 20th century. It committed Britain to supporting the establishment in Palestine of "a National Home for the Jewish people", and its reverberations continue to be felt to this day. Now the entire fascinating story of the document is revealed in this impressive work of modern history.
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From the Zionist Point of View
- By Sam Peter on 10-11-19
By: Jonathan Schneer
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Munich, 1938
- Appeasement and World War II
- By: David Faber
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 19 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew back to London from his meeting at Munich with the German chancellor Adolf Hitler and was greeted with a hero's welcome. As he paused on the aircraft steps, he held aloft the piece of paper, bearing both his and the Fuhrer's signatures, that contained the promise that Britain and Germany would never go to war with each other again.
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Great insight into the events of 1938
- By Carolyn on 05-18-13
By: David Faber
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Prague Winter
- A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948
- By: Madeleine Albright
- Narrated by: Madeleine Albright
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Before Madeleine Albright turned twelve, her life was shaken by the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia—the country where she was born—the Battle of Britain, the near total destruction of European Jewry, the Allied victory in World War II, the rise of communism, and the onset of the Cold War. Albright's experiences, and those of her family, provide a lens through which to view the most tumultuous dozen years in modern history.
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History from a Personal Perspective
- By Jeanette Finan on 02-22-13
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Adolf Hitler
- By: John Toland
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 44 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Based on previously unpublished documents, diaries, notes, photographs, and dramatic interviews with Hitler's colleagues and associates, this is the definitive biography of one of the most despised yet fascinating figures of the 20th century. Painstakingly documented, it is a work that will not soon be forgotten.
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Strange Person
- By Mark on 11-25-14
By: John Toland
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Lioness
- Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel
- By: Francine Klagsbrun
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 32 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Golda Meir was a world figure unlike any other. Born in tsarist Russia in 1898, she immigrated to America in 1906 and grew up in Milwaukee, where from her earliest years she displayed the political consciousness and organizational skills that would eventually catapult her into the inner circles of Israel's founding generation. Moving to mandatory Palestine in 1921 with her husband, the passionate socialist joined a kibbutz but soon left and was hired at a public works office by the man who would become the great love of her life.
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The persistent mispronunciations of Hebrew and Yiddish words ruined this performance
- By YH-O on 12-30-18
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Stalin, Volume I
- Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
- By: Stephen Kotkin
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 38 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Volume One of Stalin begins and ends in January 1928 as Stalin boards a train bound for Siberia, about to embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He is now the ruler of the largest country in the world, but a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. In Siberia, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted.
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Excellent Book But First Time Listener Beware
- By Nostromo on 03-23-15
By: Stephen Kotkin
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The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Volume I: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
- By: William Manchester
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 41 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Winston Churchill is perhaps the most important political figure of the 20th century. His great oratory and leadership during the Second World War were only part of his huge breadth of experience and achievement. Studying his life is a fascinating way to imbibe the history of his era and gain insight into key events that have shaped our time.
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Superb - Review of Both Volume I & Volume II
- By Wolfpacker on 01-23-09
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Goebbels: A Biography
- By: Peter Longerich, Alan Bance - translator, Jeremy Noakes - translator, and others
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 28 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In life and in his grisly family suicide, Goebbels was one of Hitler's most loyal acolytes. Though powerful in the party and in wartime Germany, Longerich's Goebbels is a man dogged by insecurities and consumed by his fierce adherence to the Nazi cause. Longerich engages and challenges the careful self-portrait that Goebbels left behind in his diaries, and, as he delves deep into the mind of Hitler's master propagandist, Longerich discovers firsthand how the Nazi message was conceived. This complete portrait of the man behind the message is sure to become a standard for historians and students of the Holocaust for years to come.
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Excellent Account of the Private Goebbels, But...
- By Derek on 05-29-15
By: Peter Longerich, and others
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Thirteen Days in September
- Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David
- By: Lawrence Wright
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall, Lawrence Wright
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A gripping day-by-day account of the 1978 Camp David conference, when President Jimmy Carter persuaded Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to sign the first peace treaty in the modern Middle East, one which endures to this day.
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Lessons in Negotiation
- By David on 06-18-15
By: Lawrence Wright
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The Devils' Alliance
- Hitler's Pact With Stalin, 1939-1941
- By: Roger Moorhouse
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
History remembers the Soviets and the Nazis as bitter enemies and ideological rivals - the two opposing totalitarian regimes of World War II whose conflict would be the defining and deciding clash of the war. Yet for nearly a third of the conflict's entire timespan, Hitler and Stalin stood side by side as partners.
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Fascinating look at much neglected peiod
- By Mike From Mesa on 07-11-15
By: Roger Moorhouse
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Edda Mussolini was the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s oldest and favorite child. At 19, she was married to Count Galleazzo Ciano, Il Duce’s Minister for Foreign Affairs during the 1930s, the most turbulent decade in Italy’s fascist history. In the years preceding World War II, Edda ruled over Italy’s aristocratic families and the cultured and middle classes while selling Fascism on the international stage. How a young woman wielded such control is the heart of Moorehead’s fascinating history.
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Mind Blowing
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In 1939, a team of workers beneath the Vatican unearthed an early Christian grave. This surprising discovery launched a secret quest that would last decades a quest to discover the long-lost burial place of the Apostle Peter. From earliest times, Christian tradition held that Peter, a lowly fisherman from Galilee, whom Christ made leader of his church was executed in Rome by Emperor Nero and buried on Vatican Hill. But his tomb had been lost to history. Now, funded anonymously by a wealthy American, a small army of workers embarked on the dig of a lifetime.
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2,000 Years of Papal History: The History of the Popes, the Papacy, and the Catholic Church
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Internationally best-selling author, renowned professor, and the dean of American Catholic Historians, Fr. John O’Malley presents his monumental course on the papacy. This masterpiece series covers the most fascinating history in the Western world. Now, you can trace the amazing history of the papacy, the oldest still-functioning institution of any kind in the Western world in 36 erudite lectures.
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Wonderful Narration!
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A complex and contradictory figure, Mussolini won the fascination of many statesmen and writers, and their wives. From his early years raised in the traditions of revolutionary Italian Socialism, to his violent execution by Communist partisans at the end of World War II, we watch Mussolini's power ambitions erode his political ideals, as he evolves from brilliant orator and journalist to empire-building dictator enforcing his authority by death squads.
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What listeners say about The Pope at War
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Hebern
- 09-05-22
Interesting history
This is about Pope Pius XII during WW2. It’s based on a lot of new material. The Vatican had sealed Pius XII’s papers from this period until Pope Francis released them in 2020.
Pope Pius XI was very much against the racism and Anti Semitism of Hitler and Mussolini. He was prepared to release an encyclical saying so in 1939, but died just before delivering it. His top assistant was selected to be the new Pope and in honor of his boss took the name Pius XII. He did not however take his former boss’s stance against the Fascists.
Throughout WW2, Pius XII would never denounce Hitler or Mussolini or their actions even after it became known that Hitler was exterminating the Jews. The question is why? The book does not have a smoking gun, definitive answer. The reader is allowed to look at the actions of Pope Pius XII and come to his or her own conclusions. Did Pius XII agree with the Hitler? Doubtful. Was he afraid for his own safety? Maybe. Was he afraid for the fate of the Catholic Church? Possibly. Was he hoping by staying neutral to broker a peace at the end of the war and increase his own power as a result? That’s an option. In fact there are numerous potential reasons and the true reason probably consisted of several of them. The only thing that is certain is that Pius XII’s silence was noticeable to all and history has judged him harshly for it.
I picked this one because of my recent visit to the Vatican. WW2 buffs would probably find it more enjoyable than I did. For me it was a little more detail than I wanted, but I did learn a lot.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Michal
- 12-15-22
Important book
This was absolutely fantastic book. Last thoughts however were somewhat odd given the clear and detailed account
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- Fernando J. Trejo
- 06-25-22
Excelente
Un libro muy interesante. Permite entender las presiones políticas y los cuidados que debió tomar Pio XII para cuidar la religión católica aun a cambio de no tomar partido con ningún país en la segunda Guerra mundial.
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- A Reader
- 11-15-24
Meticulously documented
The narrative is a good deal faster-paced and more exciting then the average thriller. You hear the actual words of the protagonists, quoted from primary sources. The amount of research is staggering, the author’s command of the material unmatched. The author is scrupulously even-handed throughout - it was not a simple time! - and his “final thoughts” are fair and well-supported by the evidence of the primary sources he quotes. The pope cared very deeply about the church, its buildings and authority, and his actions and especially his inaction during the war must be seen in that light. He seems otherwise to have been entirely without a moral sense, viewing events of the war, including the mass murder of non-combatants (which he definitely knew about), entirely in tactical, diplomatic terms, at every turn asking only what he judged best for the church as an institution. Unfortunately, his judgment was relentlessly flawed. He was timid and easily manipulated, not least by the weaselly German ambassador Weizsacker (from a long line of weasels, still going strong in Germany), and altogether a tragically inadequate rather than evil man.
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- Rocco Priore
- 07-13-22
I didin't LOVE it
Excellent commentary on the Popes. Too bad some of them are not as kind as their religion purports them to be!
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2 people found this helpful
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- JHerring
- 12-10-23
Read this book before...
This is a well written book with more information recently released. Nothing shocking for those that have been paying attention for decades. A must read for all, especially catholics. Read or better yet, buy a physical copy before the Vatican buys the rights to this book and buries it alongside Penn and Teller's B.S. two episodes "Holier-than-thou" and "The Vatican".
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-21-23
Excellent book!
The book was well written and thoroughly researched. In addition to revealing new details on the church during WWII, it provides immersive details on the impact of the war on Italy and the world.
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- Christine
- 10-22-23
Captivating
I loved this book. It was so well written that it was entertaining. The subject was disturbing, but it was presented in a balanced way.
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- Glenn J Wojcik
- 04-28-24
Wolf in Sheeps clothing
At the end of The Godfather PT 1, during the baptism, the priest asks Michael, "Do you reject Satan," Michael "I do." Pius XII was the Vicar of the Church, the Rock, Petra, a beacon for the weak, and he did nothing. I was hoping to find clear evidence that he opposed evil. I didn't find Christ within him.
His silence condemns him and those who say, he did righteousness in secret, well that doesn't hold water in my opinion. It was a burning building and he kept silent.
He knew about the camps, he knew. I am surprised he didn't end up like Mussolini.
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- BARBARA SHAW GIFTS
- 06-30-22
A remarkable book. Incredibly important. Should be read by every Catholic and everyone
The material presented in the book is very uncomfortable but so important. Pope pious the 12th, is exposed on the basis of facts that have been hidden in the archives for 70 years. Silence was a misnomer for moral bankruptcy.
Thousands of lives could have been saved but for the silence of the Pope and church.
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4 people found this helpful