Session Abstract

In February 2003, in an unprecedented break with Vatican Secret Archives policy, the Holy See opened those records pertaining to the Munich and Berlin nunciatures (Vatican diplomatic headquarters) for the period 1922 to 1939. During these years, Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), served as nuncio to Bavaria and Germany (1917-1929) and Secretary of State to Pope Pius XI (1930–1939). In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI released approximately 100 thousand additional archival units, each containing up to a thousand pages, when he opened all files in the Vatican secret archive relating to the pontificate of Pope Pius XI (1922-1939). These documents suggest a new reality for scholars studying the Catholic Church and the Holocaust.  Scholars may now look Vatican diplomacy during the Weimar Republic and pre-war Third Reich with fresh eyes, and incorporate their findings into the available evidence regarding the Vatican during World War II, the Holocaust, and the Cold War.