Le Fleur de Lys too: Hitler's Plan to Kidnap Pope Puis XII

Spiritual Weapons Are More Powerful Than Material Ones

As soon as Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was ousted from power on July 25, 1943, Adolf Hitler began hatching a plan to kidnap Pope Pius XII and plunder the Vatican. Clearly, the Fuehrer thought, the "Jew-loving" pope had encouraged King Victor Emanuel II and some rival fascist leaders to overthrow his Italian puppet.

The following day Hitler called for an urgent meeting of his military leaders. They must liberate Mussolini and return him to power, he cried. And "we must occupy Rome" and "destroy the Vatican's power, capture the pope, and say that we are protecting him." The pope might even have to be killed.

About six weeks later, on September 13, SS General Karl Wolff, the SS commander in Italy, received a phone call from his boss, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler, orchestrator of the Holocaust. Himmler, Wolff told me, bellowed that the Fuehrer wanted to see him urgently.

Le Fleur de Lys too: Hitler's Plan to Kidnap Pope Puis XII

 Top image of Pius XII at prayer is from, A Catholic Life.