Cooper's Hill

With a tip of the petasus to the University of Toronto (www.rpo.library.utoronto.ca).

Sure we have poets that did never dream
Upon Parnassus, nor did taste the stream
Of Helicon, and therefore I suppose
Those made not poets, but the poets those.
And as Courts make not Kings, but Kings the Court,
So where the Muses and their troops resort,
Parnassus stands, if I can be to thee
A poet, thou Parnassus art to me.
Nor wonder, if (advantag'd in my flight
Through untrac'd ways and airy paths I fly,
More boundless in my fancy than my eye.
Exalted to this height, I first look down
On Paul's, as men from thence upon the town
Paul's, the late theme of such a muse whose flight
Has bravely reach'd and soar'd above thy height:
Now shalt thou stand, through time, or sword, or fire,
Or zeal (more fierce than they) thy fall conspire,
Secure, whilst thee the best of poets sings,
Preserv'd from ruin by the best of kings.
As those who rais'd in body, or in thought
Above the earth, or in the air's middle vault,
Behold how winds, and storms and meteors grow,
How clouds condense to rain, congeal to snow,
And see the thunder form'd, before it tear
The air, secure from danger and from fear,
So rais'd above the tumult and the crowd
I see the city, in a thicker cloud
Of business, than of smoke, where men like ants
Toil to prevent imaginary wants;
Yet all in vain, increasing with their store,
Their vast desires, but make their wants the more.
As food to unsound bodies, though it please
The appetite, feeds only the disease.
Where, with like haste, though several ways they run,
Some to undo, and some to be undone;
While luxury, and wealth, like war and peace,
Are each the other's ruin, and increase;
As rivers lost in seas, some secret vein
Thence reconveys, there to be lost again.
Some study plots, and some those plots t' undo,
Others to make 'em, and undo 'em too,
False to their hopes, afraid to be secure,
Those mischiefs only which they make, endure,
Blinded with light, and sick of being well,
In tumults seek their peace, their Heaven in Hell.
Th' happiness of sweet retir'd content!
To be at once secure, and innocent.
Windsor the next (where Mars with Venus dwells,
Beauty with strength) above the valley swells
Into my eye, as the late married dame
(Who proud, yet seems to make that pride her shame)
When nature quickens in her pregnant womb
Her wishes past, and now her hopes to come;
With such an easy, and unforc'd ascent,
Windsor her gentle bosom doth present;
Where no stupendious cliff, no threat'ning heights
Access deny, no horrid steep affrights,
But such a rise, as doth at once invite
A pleasure, and a reverence from the sight.
Thy master's emblem, in whose face I saw
A friend-like sweetness, and a king-like awe,
Where majesty, and love so mix'd appear,
Both gently kind, both royally severe.
So Windsor, humble in itself, seems proud,
To be the base of that majestic load,
Than which no hill a nobler burden bears,
But Atlas only, that supports the spheres.
Nature this mount so fitly did advance,
We might conclude, that nothing is by chance
So plac'd, as if she did on purpose raise
The hill, to rob the builder of his praise.
For none commends his judgment, that doth choose
That which a blind man only could refuse;
Such are the towers which th' hoary temples grac'd
Of Cybele, when all her heavenly race
Do homage to her, yet she cannot boast
Amongst that numerous, and celestial host
More heroes than can Windsor, nor doth fame's
Immortal book record more noble names.
Nor to look back so far, to whom this isle
Must owe the glory of so brave a pile,
Whether to Caesar, Albanact, or Brute,
The British Arthur, or the Danish Knute,
(Though this of old no less contest did move,
Than when for Homer's birth seven cities strove)
(Like him in birth, thou shoulds't be like in fame,
As thine his fate, if mine had been his flame)
But whosoever it was, nature design'd
First a brave place, and then as brave a mind.
No to recount those several kings, to whom
It gave a cradle, or to whom a tomb,
But thee (great Edward) and thy greater son,
He that the lillies wore, and he that won,
And thy Bellons who deserves her share
In all thy glories, of that royal pair
Which waited on thy triumph, she brought one.
Thy son the other brought, and she that son
Nor of less hopes could her great off-spring prove;
A royal eagle cannot breed a dove.
Then didst thou found that order, whether love
Or victory thy royal thoughts did move,
Each was a noble cause, nor was it less
I' th' institution, than the great success
Whilst every part conspires to give it grace,
The King, the cause, the patron, and the place,
Which foreign kings, and emperors esteem
The second honour to their diadem.
Had thy great destiny but giv'n thee skill,
To know as well, as power to act her will,
That from those kings, who then thy captives were,
In after-times should spring a royal pair
Who should possess all that thy mighty power,
Or thy desires more mighty, did devour;
To whom their better fate reserves whate'er
The victor hopes for, or the vanquish'd fear;
That blood, which thou and thy great grandsire shed,
And all that since these sister nations bled,
Had been unspilt, had happy Edward known
That all the blood he spill'd, had been his own,
Thine, and the Christian name, and made them blest
To serve thee, while that loss this gain would bring,
Christ for their God, and Edward for their king;
When thou that saint thy patron didst design,
In whom the martyr and the soldier join;
And when thou didst with the azure round,
(Who evil thinks may evil him confound)
The English arms encircle, thou didst seem
But to foretell, and prophesy of him
Who has within that azure round confin'd
These realms, which nature for their bound design'd,
That bound, which to the world's extremest ends,
Endless herself, her liquid arms extends;
In whose heroic face I see the saint
Better express'd than in the liveliest paint,
That fortitude, which made him famous here,
That heavenly piety, which saints him there.
Who when this order he forsakes, may he
Companion of that sacred order be.
Here could I fix my wonder, but our eyes,
Nice as our tastes, affect varieties;
And though one please him most, the hungry guest
Tastes every dish, and runs through all the feast;
So having tasted Windsor, casting round
My wandering eye, an emulous hill doth bound
My more contracted sight, whose top of late
A chapel crown'd, till in the common fate,
Th' adjoining abbey fell:  (may no such storm
Fall on our times, where ruin must reform)
Tell me, (my muse) what monstrous dire offense,
What crime could any Christian king incense
To such a rage?  Was't luxury, or lust?
Was he so temperate, so chaste, so just?
Where these their crimes?  they were his own, much more;
But they (alas) were rich, and he was poor;
And having spent the treasures of his crowns,
Condemns their luxury to feed his own;
And yet this act, to varnish o'er the shame
Of sacrilege, must bear devotion's name.
And he might think it just, the cause and time
Considered well, for none commits a crime
Appearing such, but as 'tis understood,
A real, or at least a seeming good.
While for the Church his learned pen disputes
His much more learned sword his pen confutes,
Thus to the ages past he makes amends,
Their charity destroys, their faith defends.
Then did religion in a lazy cell,
In empty, airy contemplation dwell;
And like the block unmoved lay:  but ours,
As much too active like the stock devours.
Is there no temperate region can be known.
Betwixt their frigid, and our torrid zone?
Could we not wake from that lethargic dream,
But to be restless in a worse extreme?
And for that lethargy was there no cure,
But to be cast into a calenture?
Can knowledge have no bound, but must advance
So far, to make us wish for ignorance?
And rather in the dark to grope our way,
Than led by a false guide to err by day?
Parting from thence 'twixt anger, shame and fear,
Those for what's past, and this for what's too near:
My eye descending from the hill, surveys
Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays.
Thames, the most lov'd of all the ocean's sons,
By his old sire to his embraces runs,
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity.
Though with such streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold;
His genuine, and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore;
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring.
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil
The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil:
But God-like his unwearied bounty flows;
First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confin'd,
But free, and common, as the sea or wind;
When he to boast, or to disperse his stores
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying towers
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants.
So that to us no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.
O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without o'er flowing full.
Heaven her Eridanus no more shall boast,
Whose fame in thine, like lesser currents lost,
Thy nobler streams shall visit Jove's abodes,
To shine amongst the stars, and bathe the gods.
Here nature, whether more intent to please
Us or herself, with strange varieties,
(For things of wonder give no less delight
To the wise maker's, than beholders' sight.
Though these delights from several causes move,
For so our children, thus our friends we love)
Wisely she knew, the harmony of things,
As well as that of sounds, from discords springs.
Such was the discord, which did first disperse
Form, order, beauty through the universe;
While dryness moisture, coldness heat resists,
All that we have, and that we are, subsists.
While the steep horrid roughness of the wood
Strives with the gentle calmness of the wood
Such huge extremes when Nature doth unite,
Wonder from thence results, from thence delight.
The stream is so transparent, pure, and clear,
That had the self-enamour'd youth gaz'd here,
So fatally deceiv'd he had not been,
While he the bottom, not his face had seen.
But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds;  his shoulders, and his sides
A shady mantle clothes;  his curled brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows,
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat:
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is plac'd,
Between the mountain and the stream embrac'd:
Which shade and shelter from the hill derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives;
And in the mixture of all these appears
Variety, which all the rest endears.
This scene had some bold Greek, or British bard
Beheld of old, what stories had we heard,
Of fairies, satyrs, and the nymphs their dames,
Their feats, their revels, and their amorous flames?
'Tis still the same, although their airy shape
All but a quick poetic sight escape.
There Faunus and Silvanus keep their courts,
And thither all the horned host resorts
To graze the ranker mead, that noble herd,
On whose sublime and shady fronts is rear'd
Nature's great master-piece;  to show how soon
Great things are made, but sooner are undone.
Here have I seen the King, when great affairs
Give leave to slacken, and unbend his cares,
Attended to the chase by all the flower
Of youth, whose hopes a nobler prey devour:
Pleasure with praise, and danger, they would buy,
And with a foe that would not only fly.
The stag now conscious of his fatal growth,
At once indulgent to his fear and sloth,
To some dark covert his retreat had made,
Where nor man's eye, nor Heaven's should invade
His soft repose;  when th' illusions of his fear
Had given this false alarm, but straight his view
Confirms, that more than all he fears is true.
Betray'd in all his strengths, the wood beset,
All instruments, all arts of ruin met;
He calls to mind his strength, and then his speed,
His winged heels, and then his armed head;
With these t' avoid, with that his fate to meet:
But fear prevails, and bids him trust his feet.
So fast he flies, that his reviewing eye
Has lost the chasers, and his ear the cry;
Exulting, till he finds, their nobler sense
Their disproportion'd speed does recompense.
Then curses his conspiring feet, whose scent
Betrays that safety which their swiftness lent.
Then tries his friends, among the baser herd,
Where he so lately was obey'd, and fear'd,
His safety seeks:  the herd, unkindly wise,
Or chases him from thence, or from him flies.
Like a declining statesman, left forlorn
To his friends' pity, and pursuers' scorn,
With shame remembers, while himself was one
Of the same herd, himself the same had done.
Thence to the coverts, and the conscious groves,
The scenes of his past triumphs, and his loves;
Sadly surveying where he rang'd alone
Prince of the soil, and all the herd his own;
And like a bold knight errant did proclaim
Combat to all, and bore away the dame;
And taught the woods to echo to the stream
His dreadful challenge, and his clashing beam.
Yet faintly now declines the fatal strife;
So much his love was dearer than his life.
Now every leaf, and every moving breath
Presents a foe, and every foe a death.
Wearied, forsaken, and pursu'd, at last
All safety in despair of safety plac'd,
Courage he thence resumes, resolv'd to bear
All their assaults, since it was vain to fear.
And now too late he wishes for the fight
That strength he wasted in ignoble flight:
But when he sees the eager chase renew'd,
Himself by dogs, the dogs by men pursu'd:
He straight revokes his bold resolve, and more
Repents his courage, then his fear before; 
Finds that uncertain ways unsafest are,
And doubt a greater mischief than despair.
Then to the stream, when neither friends, nor force,
Nor speed, nor art avail, he shapes his course;
Thinks not their rage so desperate t' assay
An element more merciless than they.
But fearless they pursue, nor can the flood
Quench their dire thirst; alas, they thirst for blood.
So towards a ship the oarfinn'd galleys ply,
Which wanting sea to ride, or wind to fly,
Stands but to fall reveng'd on those that dare
Tempt the last fury of extreme despair.
So fares the stag among th' enraged hounds,
Repels their force, and wounded returns for wounds.
And as a hero, whom his baser foes
In troops surround, now these assails, now those,
Though prodigal of life, disdains to die
By common hands;  but if he can descry
Some nobler foe's approach, to him he calls,
And begs his fate, and then contented falls.
So when the King a mortal shaft lets fly
From his unerring hand, then glad to die,
Proud of the wound, to it resigns his blood,
And stains the crystal with a purple flood.
This a more innocent, and happy chase,
Than when of old, but in the selfsame place,
Fair liberty pursu'd, and meant a prey
To lawless power, here turn'd, and stood at bay.
When in that remedy all hope was plac'd
Which was, or should have been at least, the last.
Here was that charter seal'd, wherein the Crown
All marks of arbitrary power lays down:
Tyrant and slave, those names of hate and fear,
The happier style of king and subject bear:
Happy, when both to the same centre move,
When kings give liberty, and subjects love.
Therefore not long in force this charter stood;
Wanting that seal, it must be seal'd in blood.
The subjects arm'd, the more their princes gave,
Th' advantage only took the more to crave:
Till kings by giving, give themselves away.
And even that power, that should deny, betray.
"Who gives constrain'd, but his own fear reviles
Not thank'd, but scorn'd;  nor are they gifts, but spoils. . . ."
Thus kings, by grasping more than they could hold,
First made, their subjects by oppression bold:
And popular sway, by forcing kings to give
More than was fit for subjects to recieve,
Ran to the same extremes;  and one excess
Made both, by striving to be greater, less.
When a calm river rais'd with sudden rains,
Or snows dissolv'd, o'erflows the adjoining plains,
The husbandman with high-raised banks secure
Their greedy hopes, and this he can endure.
But if with buys and dams they strive to force
His channel to a new, or narrow course;
No longer then within his banks he dwells,
First to a torrent, then a deluge swells:
Stronger, and fiercer by restraint he roars,
And knows no bound, but makes power his shores.

by Sir John Denham

 

The Roundup, Part One

       "In the warmth of early afternoon Rosina Sorani was replacing a book on its shelf in the synagogue library after noting its title and subject matter in her notebook when she realized she was not alone.  Standing in the doorway were two men in gray suits.  One was bald and wore spectacles.  His companion was younger with a brush mustache who apologized if they had startled her.  The older man said they were looking for President Foa.  Rosina explained he was not there, but could she help?  The men stepped into the library and said they would like to look around.  Rosina asked if there was any particular book or subject they would like to see, remembring Foa had told her that in 1939, Fascists in Turin had forced their way into the Jewish community library, seized almost all its collection, and used the books to fuel a bonfire in the city's Piazza Carlina.
       Perhaps, sensing her concern, the older man said they were professors from the Einsatzstab Rosenberg Institute, ERR, claiming it was linked to the great universities of Europe, including the Sorbonne in Paris.  The ERR was dedicated to the study of academic fields which until now had not been fully exploited.   They were in Rome purely to assess the role the synagogue library could have as part of that program.  The younger man added that under no circumstances was she to confuse them with the SS or any other military organization.
       Somewhat reassured Rosina escorted them around the library, pointing out books produced by the earliest printers and documents handed down through the centuries.  She decided their polite questions were those of cultured men who had spent their lives in scholarly pursuits, and far removed from the coarse-voiced soldiers who walked the streets of Rome.  The older man revealed he was an Orientalist and had spent time in libraries in Palestine and other Middle East countries.  His colleague said he was a specialist in Jewish literature and his language teacher had been a rabbi in Berlin before the war.  He had spoken to Rosina in Hebrew and she was impressed.  From time to time as she pointed out a book the two men spoke to each other in German.
       After shaking her hand they left.
       The ERR was a specialist unit formed in July 1940 by the official theoritician of the Nazi Party, Alfred Rosenberg, to assemble a library for the new educational and research institute for the party, the Hohe Schule, to be located at the Chiemsee in Bavaria.  It would contain half a million volumes and would have an auditorium for three thousand people.
       Rosenberg had laid down a rule for what ERR acquired for the institute:  'If the desired object belongs to foreign 'Aryans' the owners are compelled to sell it;  if it belongs to Jews it is confiscated.  Material of no use is to be destroyed.'
       The Jewish library at Lublin in Poland was one of the first to be burnt;  Joseph Goebbels had sent a journalist from the Ministry of Propaganda to report the event.
       'We brought the books to the marketplace where we set fire to them.  The fire lasted twenty hours.  The Jews assembled around wept bitterly, almost silencing us with their cries.  We summoned the military band and with joyful shouts the soldiers drowned out the sounds of the Jewish cries.'
       A different fate had been earmarked for the Rome ghetto synagogue library.\
       In London, Simonds's report on Hitler's threat to kidnap the pope reached Stewart Menzies.  The MI6 chief sent for Sefton Delmer.  The former foreign correspondent for Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express had interviewed Hitler before the war and had developed important connections across Europe.  In his office on Fleet Street he had written newsbreaking stories few other reporters could equal.  He spoke several languages and Beaverbrook called him 'my source in the world.'
       He had arranged in 1942 for Delmer to join the Foreign Office political warfare department.  It was there that Delmer picked up his first news of a plot to overthrow Hitler.  It had been leaked to him by a long-standing source, who Delmer suspected was an opponent of the Nazi regime.  In his diary Delmer would write:  'Whether successful or not, even the suspicion of an anti-Hitler coup would help to hasten his defeat.'
       The story normally would have guaranteed Delmer the front page of the Daily Express.  But he was told by Beaverbrook that he should hold it for a 'more opportune time.'
       By October 1943 Delmer knew that moment had come, when he had been transferred from the Foreign Office to MI6.  Menzies told him his new task 'is to foment the maximum suspicion between Hitler and his generals.'
       Delmer was to head a unique intelligence operation.  Using his journalistic skills he produced radio programs that supposedly originated from an undercover station in Germany.  In reality they came from a country house outside London.  Delmer had picked his team of German-speaking broadcasters with care.  He described each one as a 'loyal German dedicated to the fatherland but disturbed by the fanatical policies of Hitler.'  A number were Jews who had fled to England before the war.  Others were students from German universities.  All were told their broadcasts were not designed to attack Britain but to provide their listeners with news not broadcast to German audiences.  To emphasize its role Delmer called the station Free Fascist Republican Radio (FFRR).
       Menzies had shown Simonds's report to Delmer and told him to create a broadcast aimed at the Third Reich's Catholic populations.
       On October 7, the station announced that 'quarters have been prepared in Germany for Pope Pius where he will be taken and remain.'
       Pius was quoted as telling Secretary of State Maglione that 'I was placed by the will of God here and therefore shall not leave.  THey would have to tie me up and carry me out because I intend to remain here!'  The words were written by Sefton Delmer.  The threat to the pope and his response was published in newspapers around the world, creating outrage in Catholic countries.  Hitler's plot, which he had intended to remain secret until the last moment, was now in the public domain."  The Pope's Jews by Gordon Thomas pgs. 162-164
      

Kidnapping the Pope

       "O'Flaherty had put together the Vatican network with the speed and skill for which he was known.  He had first spoken to Irish priests working in the Vatican to check their Gaelic language skills.  Priests who spoke their native language had played an important role in those harsh years in Irish history in the 1920s when they had used it to help Republicans fight the English Black and Tans who were seen by Catholics as 'terrorists of the King.'  O'Flaherty said the priests he chose would use Gaelic to outwit the Germans.
       Among the first recruits was Father Sean Quinlan, whose family were neighbors of the O'Flahertys in County Kerry.  Another was Monsignor Thomas Ryan who said, 'It's going to be more fun than saying morning Mass.'  Father Owen Sneddon worked for Vatican Radio.  O'Flaherty already knew he frequently slipped in messages during his broadcasts for families of Allied prisoners.
       Within days a dozen other priests had been recruited and Sneddon--a lover of spy stories--suggested they should all have code names.  O'Flaherty became 'Golf;' Sneddon chose to be known by his father's name, 'Horace;' Quinlan 'Kerry;'  and Ryan 'Rinso.'  Others were assigned names which could have come from one of the prison camp stage reviews O'Flaherty had watched.  There was 'Eyerish,'  'Fanny,' 'Emma,' and 'Whitebows,'  a priest in the De La Salle teaching order.
       All were graduates of Ireland's Maynooth seminary, the largest in the Catholic world.  They would act as couriers between safe houses.  For the most part he had decided they would be convents.  But on Princess Pallavicini's suggestion he had agreed she should negotiate for apartments to rent whose occupants had fled.  They could be used to hide Allied soldiers who might find it 'a little uncomfortable being tucked away in a convent of nuns,' she had told him.
       One of his recruit's tasks would be to provide details of the network to rural priests who had parishes close to prisoner-of-war camps from where Allied prisoners had escaped and were heading for Rome.
       O'Flaherty had made several visits over the years to the ghetto, attracted by its history and lifestyle.  There was a poverty of centuries of difficult times but also a strong sense of spirituality that centered on the tempio magiore, the synagogue.  He had learned that their culture was as deeply rooted as that of Ireland's.  His latest visit had been to meet Settimio Sorani, an introduction effected by Father Weber who had said after O'Flaherty had been appointed by the pope to head the Vatican network it would be good if it worked with Delasem.
       Settimio had shown him evidence Delasem had received which confirmed the latest reports from nuncios of Nazi atrocities.  They included grainy photographs of roundups in Lithuania, Latvia, and the Ukraine.
       Through Rosina, O'Flaherty had met with Ugo Foa, Dante Almansi, Renzo Levi, and Israel Zolli.
       It was the first time he had been inside a synagogue and Foa had shown him around, taking him to the library and explaining its importance in Jewish history before leading him to his office where the others were waiting.  They greeted O'Flaherty warmly and listened intently when he told them of the pope's plans to help the Jews of Rome.  O'Flaherty noticed everyone except Zolli expressed their satisfaction after O'Flaherty finished outlining Pius's intentions.  The chief rabbi said if the Allies did not arrive there soon there would be a bloodbath.  According to Zolli, Almansi said to him, 'How can a mind as clear as yours make such a prediction which can only disrupt the lives of our people?  The Germans have not shown any sign yet of making a move against us!'  The chief rabbi had shrugged and took no further part in the conversation.

       The pope sent his congratulations to O'Flaherty when he learned the Vatican network had begun to work closely with Delasem and the Pallotine fathers to help the refugees.  Pius arranged for Settimio Sorani to use church buildings to set up secret offices in towns and cities across Italy which operated with the support of archbishops in Genoa, Turin, Florence, and Milan.  He ordered diocese bank accounts to be used to distribute money Delasem received from Jewish relief organizations in the United States to provide documents and clothes for the fugitive Jews.  Clearly identified Vatican trucks supplied food to convents and monasteries where the refugees sheltered.
       Delasem had started to send small groups of Jews across the border into Switzerland.  Some of the priests who had volunteered to act as guides were Pallotine fathers, and carried Vatican-stamped papers to show the Swiss border guards they were escorting home pilgrims from Rome.  Jewish men were dressed with robes provided by religious orders.  The women wore nun's habits and the children were listed as orphans from a Catholic home.  If the guards suspected anything an envelope of money settled matters.  Sorani had already arranged for members of the Swiss branch of Delasem to be waiting at the nearest border town to organize new lives in a neutral country for the refugees.  Pius had sent several nuns and priests to Switzerland to assist with the resettlement.
       Many of those waiting to make the journey there were moved from one religious house to another.  Gisela Birach would remember that 'nuns were kind, but they expected us to follow their work ethics.  We had to wash and wax the corridor floors and our men would work in the fields.  In some convents they had long periods of silence during which we had to remain in our rooms and not talk.'
       Ester Braunstein worked in a convent kitchen.  'I was in charge of peeling potatoes and everyone was counted.  Hunger defined our existence.  While the sisters shared with us, there was never enough to meet our hunger.  Unless you have chewed potato peel or radish leaves you don't know what hunger is.'

Since the fuhrer ranted in July 1943 that he intended to go into the Vatican and 'clean out that gang of swine,' he had remained obsessed with kidnapping the pope and bringing him to Germany.  It was fuelled by his belief that Pius had been responsible for persuading King Victor Emmanuel III and Badoglio to abandon the Axis and join the Allies.
       Hitler also believed the abduction would enable him to persuade Britain and the United States they were fighting the wrong war;  that together they should join Germany and defeat the Soviet Union.
       By September 13, Hitler's plot to kidnap the pope had reached the stage he decided it should be implemented.  He had summoned to his headquarters--the Wolfsschanze, the Wolf's Lair near Rastenburg in East Prussia--General Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff.  The steel-eyed and handsome forty-three-year-old had served as Himmler's chief of staff before becoming the SS liason officer to Hitler.  His anti-Semetic credentials were gilt-edged and he had played his part in ensuring that the SS dealt efficiently with the Jews.  A month ago Hitler had bestowed on Wolff a unique title--general of the Waffen SS, and police leader of all Italy.  Within the paranoid inner circle at the Wolf's Lair Hitler trusted Wolff completely.
       But there was another side to the smiling, courteous, heel-clicking, and confident-sounding Wolff.  He knew the war was lost.  He had seen it on the faces of Hitler's top military advisers:  Field Marshal Alfred Jodl and General Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel.  Even bombastic Luftwaffe minister, Hermann Goering, could not quite conceal that defeat was only a matter of time.  His air force could do little to stop the Allies from bombing Germany day and night and the Red Army was racing westward and threatening to communize all of Europe. 
       But none of this was to be discussed on that Monday morning in Hitler's office.  He had stood behind his desk, palms pressed down on its top, and told Wolff why he had sent for him.  The general would later write in his diary the conversation which followed:
                                    Wolff, I have a special mission for you.  It will be your duty not to discuss it 
                                     with anyone before I give you permission to do so.  I want you and your troops
                                      to occupy Vatican City as soon as possible, secure its files and art treasures,
                                      and bring the pope to Germany.  I do not want him to fall into the hands of
                                     the Allies, or to be under their political pressure and influence.  When is the
                                     earliest you think you will be able to fulfill this mission?
       Wolff sat stunned into silence as his mind raced.  He had renounced his Protestant faith upon joining the SS and his knowledge about Catholicism had been confined to listening to the ravings of Himmler.  But what he did know was that the pope was the most powerful religious leader in the world.  Wolff realized the kidnapping would guarantee he would be condemned for posterity.  But to even give so much as a hint of refusal to Hitler would be fatal.
       Wolff's response was calm.  He could fulfill the mission--but he needed time to prepare it.  Hitler asked how long Wolff needed.  Wolff said four to six weeks.
       The fuhrer's eyes stared into Wolff's face.  'Too long,' he rasped.
       Wolff's voice grew in confidence.  He would need additional SS and police units transferred to Rome.  Specialists in identifying precious art treasures.  Translators in Latin and Greek to authenticate the documents in the Secret Archives of the Vatican.
       Hitler had stopped Wolff with a wave of his hand.  He could have whatever he wanted but the mission must be completed in a month.
       Wolff stood up, clicked his heels, saluted, and left the office.
       By the time he reached his headquarters on Lake Garda in the Alps Wolff saw what he must do.
       Until now he would have carried out any order for Hitler;  if he had been told to devise a plan to murder Stalin in Moscow or kill Churchill in London, he would have done so.  That was his strength:  The impossible was possible he had learned at military school.  But kidnapping the pope and looting the Vatican was madness beyond anything he had envisaged.
       From that conclusion he began to see how he could use the mission to win the gratitude of the pope and save his own life when the Allies won the war.  It would mean delaying and sabotaging the kidnapping plan.  To do so would have to involve the German ambassador to the Holy See, Baron Ernst von Weizsacker.

        Days after he had met Hitler, General Wolff flew to Rome in a Luftwaffe transport.  During the flight he had devised a plan to show Hitler how he would kidnap the pope.
       It called for two thousand Waffen SS soldiers to arrive in Rome and seal off the Vatican.  A squad would then occupy Vatican Radio and take it off the air.  Other squads would enter the Apostolic Palace and arrest the pope and his entourage.  They would be taken to Rome's airport and flown to Munich.  In the meantime another unit of experts would assess the Vatican's paintings and sculptures.  Truckloads of books and documents would be removed from the Secret Archives.  Together with the treasures they would be sent to Germany.
       Wolff knew the plan would satisfy, even excite Hitler, but was determined it would never happen.  The Waffen SS was already committed on all fronts and to find experts to evaluate the Vatican treasures would take considerable time to locate.  By then the Allies could be close to Rome, forcing the Germans to withdraw and leaving the Vatican safe.  To the Catholics he would be a hero and the Jews would see how sabotaging the plot helped to save the lives of those in Rome. 
       Wolff would give Hitler sufficient details to convince him preparations were underway and sent a coded message to that effect from the German embassy.  Then he went to the Villa Napoleon to see Weizsacker.
       He had already studied the ambassador's file.  He came from a prominent Wurttemberg family who included Ribbentrop in its circle.  The foreign minister had found a place in his office for Weizsacker and guided his career up through the ministry.  Wolff also knew of the ambassador's growing relationship with Admiral Canaris.  Since Hitler's rages that he was surrounded by traitors, Wolff had come to wonder if they included the head of the Abwehr.  If so, could Weizsacker have been sent to Rome to become involved in his machinations?  Was that why Hitler wanted the pope kidnapped--to use him as a weapon against his enemies?  Wolff later admitted those were the questions which still preoccupy him as he walked into Weizsacker's office.
       The ambassador and Kessel, his deputy, were waiting and Wolff sensed their tension.  Weizsacker wasted no time in explaining why.  He had seen a copy of Kappler's Judenaktion order and asked if that was why Wolff was in Rome.  If so, he should be aware that the pope was bound to protest and that could be the prelude to a popular uprising led by the Resistance, one possibly supported by the Allied escaped prisoners of war hiding in the city.
       Wolff had not hesitated:  He told the two diplomats of Hitler's order to kidnap the pope--and of his own intention to stop it.
       Weizsacker had thanked him.  Wolff explained he must continue with its preparation so as not to arouse Hitler's suspicion.
       Weizsacker pressed, 'But what if you fail?'
       Wolff replied, 'Then we are all finished.'  The Pope's Jews by Gordon Thomas pgs. 129-30, 146-48, and 150-51.
                   

Ural I've Got Tonight

        Estase (as long-term readers recollect) works in a restaurant.  Today he overheard an elderly couple discussing their big plans for the afternoon-- watching closing arguments in the Jodi Arias trial.  Estase felt like saying that the Kermit Gosnell trial is more important.  A doctor runs an abortion clinic/live infant murder center that makes a Vincent Price movie look tame and unoffensive.  Meanwhile, what are Americans encouraged by CNN/Headline News to obsess over?  Some bimbo who offed her husband.  And pro-abort Dr. Drew Pinsky is on hand to analyze the day's events!  Reminds me of "The Wizard of Oz."  "Don't look at the man behind the curtain."   Estase is unsure whether to believe Google Blogger stats which indicate Russia is where most of my readers originate.

       Kudos to Murphysboro Representative Mike Bost, who, unlike many Republicans, actually showed he has a pair of testicles when he exploded on the floor of the General Assembly when Chicago Democrats eviscerated the Concealed Carry Bill under consideration.  The Dems made an amendment that would have given the county sheriffs and state police veto power over concealed carries, a move that makes the bill meaningless.  The juxtoposition with the Plan B abortifacient being made available (without parental permission) to 15 year old girls shows the hypocrisy.  Make it easy to abort a embryo, but give your local sheriff the option to deny your gun rights (which they always will).  The president says "God bless you" to the godless zealots of Moloch known as Planned Parenthood.

Dealing With the Devil, Part Two

       "{Stewart} Menzies decided to bring {D'Arcy} Osborne to London to brief him as the plotters moved their plan along.  It was vital to know which of the Italian generals could be trusted when the time came.  Osborne was instructed to consult the Vatican doctor 'about my health.'  The physician recommended that Osborne should be given permission by the Italian government to fly to Switzerland to consult a specialist.   {Vatican Secretary of State} Maglione had informed the Italian foreign ministry, that under the Lateran Treaty, Osborne's medical condition permitted him to travel to a neutral country on the understanding he would return.
       Inside a week Osborne was in London.  He briefed Menzies who gave him a letter from a Swiss doctor confirming he had examined Osborne and was treating him for stress.  The doctor was an MI6 contact in Geneva.  Osborne was then driven to Buckingham Palace and privately knighted by King George VI.  He would become the Duke of Leeds, a title he could not use until after the war.  Before he returned to Rome he had spent a day with an instructor at the MI6 Cipher School to learn how to use the latest codes.
       Over dinner with Menzies, Osborne had told him about Hugh O'Flaherty and his visits to see Allied prisoners.
      'An useful-sounding chap--even if he is a little anti-British,' Menzies said.

       Baron Ernst von Weizsacker, a former German naval officer, had replaced Diego von Bergen as ambassador to the Holy See.  He had finally been recalled to Berlin by the foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop for 'poor quality of reports.'  Weizsacker had spent five years at the foreign ministry, and risen to be undersecretary.
       His journey to the upper echelon of the ministry had included reading the daily reports from the Einsatzgruppen, the special SS units systematically murdering Polish and Russian Jews.  He had attended the Wannsee Conference in Berlin to finalize 'the Final Solution of the Jewish Question' and had signed a copy of the minutes.  On his desk came the railway schedules from Adolf Eichmann's office for deportations to the death camps.  At some point, he later insisted, 'I became sickened of what was being done in the name of the German people.'
       He had persuaded Ribbentrop to allow him to take charge of a less odorous task--analyzing the intercepted traffic by the Forschungsamt, the German code-breaking unit.  It included messages between the Holy See and its nunciatures.  By 1943 the German cryptologists had managed to break some of the Vatican codes, but the success did little to add to Germany's war effort.  Nevertheless, Weizsacker had to present his analysis to Admiral Canaris.
       At first their meetings were no more than briefing the spy chief in his office and answering a few questions.  But gradually Canaris had begun to explore Weizsacker's attitude to the war.  Though he realized the risk he was taking, Ribbentrop's deputy had said its continuation could only result in Germany's defeat and dismemberment.  A negotiated settlement was the only hope.  Weizsacker would recall how Canaris had 'sat perfectly still, his eyes fixed on me.  When he spoke his question was simple.  Did I believe that the Vatican could act as a mediator?  I replied that Hitler would only accept papal mediation if he was satisfied of the Pope's sympathy for Germany.'
       There were further meetings in which Weizsacker was encouraged to criticize von Bergen's reports to Ribbentrop.  In the meantime Canaris had told the foreign minister of the importance of having Weizsacker in Rome.  In a memo dated May 8, 1943, which would surface at the Nuremberg Trials, Canaris wrote to Ribbentrop:  'Weizsacker is one of the most interesting phenomena of the time, a type brought to light and perfected through disinterested idealism and shrewdness, such as is particularly rare in Germany.  I strongly urge he should be posted to Rome where he can most usefully serve our nation.'
       On July 10 Weizsacker presented his credentials to Pope Pius XII.  Canaris had briefed the new ambassador on what he expected from him.

       {Bishop Alois} Hudal was the rector of the pan-Germanic college of Santa Maria dell'Anima, the main training center in Rome for German priests.  He had become a member of the Nazi Party after Hitler had thanked him for a telegram supporting the annexation of Austria.  In 1937 Hudal had sent a copy of his book The Foundations of National Socialism to Hitler and with a letter of thanks from the fuhrer came a golden Nazi Party membership badge.  The book was published in the same year that the papal encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge openly attacked National Socialism.  While Hudal continued in his post, his steady rise in the Vatican had stopped as his pro-Nazi views became known.
       By 1943 Hudal had found a new outlet.  He became an informer for the RSHA--Reichs-sicherheitshaptamt--Reich Security Main Office.  Its chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner saw Hudal's recruitment as an intelligence triumph at a time when Germany was trying to establish a rapproachment between the Holy See and the Third Reich.
       Hudal regarded himself as providing important information.  His RSHA controller, Waldemar Meyer, who regularly travelled secretly to Rome, saw Hudal as the eminence grise of the Vatican.  'He knows everybody and everybody respects him.'
       Hudal had also aligned himself with Giovanni Preziose, a rabidly anti-Semetic former priest who edited La Vita Italiana , the Jew-baiting Rome newspaper patterned on Der Sturmer .  He was also in touch with a Benedictine monk, Prior Hermann Keller, who Kessel called 'an agent of the gestapo.'  Kessel described them to Weizsacker as 'our pro-Nazis in the Vatican.'

       Throughout the summer of 1943 Pope Pius had continued to express his horror over the fate of the Jews.  On June 2 he had used Vatican Radio to warn that 'any man who makes a distinction between Jews and other men is unfaithful to God.'  In a direct warning to Hitler Pius said:  'He who guides the fate of nations should not forget that he who bears the sword is not the master over life and death.'  Seven days later, after Goebbels boasted that Berlin 'was now free of Jews,'  the pope had written a long text in German on the rights of Jews which Vatican Radio broadcast.  In July the pope broadcast to Yugoslav Jews that he would continue to pray for them because 'every man has the stamp of God.'
       In between he had written letters to nuncios and bishops asking them to urge their host countries to do everything possible to save the Jews and 'replace the hatred with charity.'  In his speeches and sermons Pius constantly called for help 'for the hundreds of thousands who because of their race are condemned to die.'   More than once he had quoted the Apostle Saint Paul--'there is neither Gentile nor Jew'--adding he used the word Jew as a call to reject racial ideology.  He had gone so far as to say he was 'ready to let himself be deported to a concentration camp rather than do anything against his conscience,' Pascalina would recall.
       He had also turned Vatican Radio into a powerful weapon which, despite attempts to jam it had become a success in attacking the Nazis.

       Pius turned to another matter.  Earlier that morning he had received a telephone call from Count de Salis.  The Red Cross director estimated that soon there could be up to four thousand Allied troops hiding in the city who, having walked out of their prison camps, would be waiting for British and American armies to reach Rome.
       The pope turned to Father Weber.  He said that during the summer hundreds of Jews had been provided with travel documents and smuggled across the Austrian and Slovenian borders into Italy.  But many had been caught by German forces and either had been shot or rounded up for transportation to the concentration camps.   Survivors were fleeing to Rome.
       It was for that reason Pius said he had convened the meeting.  In his view there was a very limited chance of moving those Jews farther south.  They would be entering a war zone and would either be shot by the Germans or left to fend for themselves by the Allies.  The only solution was for the Vatican to prepare to accept them.  That itself would have its own problems.  Reports from nuncios in the Third Reich indicated its ghettos had been systematically emptied of their Jews.  There was no guarantee that would not happen in Rome, despite assurances form von Weizsacker, the German ambassador, that its Jewish population would be allowed to continue their normal lives.
       What was needed, continued Pius, was a properly organized system of safe places which were under the protection of the Lateran Treaty.  In Germany and other parts of the Third Reich the Nazis had not respected church property.  In Vienna troops had been billeted in a convent and the St. Francis deSales girls' school turned into a barracks.  It was all part of the Nazis' systematic war against the church.  The pope said that daily he recieved reports of priests and nuns in Poland and elsewhere being sent to concentration camps.  They had all been accused of helping the Jews and speaking out against Nazism.  More than ever the Vatican had a duty to protect the Jews on its doorstep.  Just as the Nazis had taken over Catholic institutions in the Third Reich so the Vatican must turn every possible convent, monastery, and institution in Rome into a secret refuge for the Jews and escaped prisoners of war.
       To provide such assistance would be difficult, even dangerous as the Germans would regard it as a breach of the Lateran Treaty.  But it was a risk that must be taken.
       The pope turned to Ottaviani and said that given {Monsignor Hugh} O'Flaherty's experience in visiting prisoner-of-war camps he wanted him relieved of all but essential duties in the Holy Office and to concentrate on organizing a plan to provide sanctuary for both the Jews of Rome and the soldiers." The Pope's Jews by Gordon Thomas pgs.92-93,94-95,96-97,100 and115-116.

Coming Soon: Infanticide!

       In a particularly acrimonious exchange in a history seminar at a state university, Estase made the prediction (this was in 2008) that abortion was no longer sufficient for the pro-choice movement.  Based on the votes (including that of then-Senator Obama) against the Born Alive Infant Protection Bill, Estase submitted to his classmates that within the next ten years, mainstream politicians would support infanticide.  After all, ethicist Peter Singer supports infanticide.  What's more, Roe v. Wade used as part of its argument that abortion was legal in ancient Rome.  Infanticide was legal and widely practiced in ancient Greece, vide Sophocles' Oedipus Rex ,where the title character survived an infanticide attempt.  If ancient Roman attitudes are a basis for Constitutional law, then ancient Greek attitudes are a basis for Constitutional law.  The high court is entirely likely to create a ruling authorizing infanticide, especially in light of the fact that the Journal of Medical Ethics published an article by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva called for infanticide for babies with Down's Syndrome.  The deadly duo wrote a follow-up to their original article recently (with a petasus tip to www.savingdowns.com) where they opined that we hoi polloi must be eased into baby killing.  They say, "Second, issues in bioethics deal with topics, such as life, death, the moral status of human beings (and many others) that touch upon people's most profound and personal values.  For this reason, very often ideas which go against traditional values are perceived with an immediate feeling of shock and an immediate impulse to rebut the proposition, prior to any rational, cold reflection.  And the problem is that such reactions cannot be easily dismissed as a sign of irrationality of people who cannot fully appreciate the opportunities of new biotechnologies or the freedom and well-being that some medical options can promote."  Come again?  Reminds me of that brilliant asshole, Jonathan Swift, and his unfortunately prophetic "A Modest Proposal."  Dean Swift parodied the Whig spirit of projects.  In this, he proposes a novel solution to Ireland's poverty.  If they lack animal protein and cannot feed their kids, why not encourage the Irish to eat their babies?  After all, it is nothing but "an immediate feeling of shock and an immediate impulse to rebut the proposition, prior to any rational, cold reflection."  Why yes, maybe eating babies is a good solution to poverty!  After all, it would be sad if we couldn't "fully appreciate the opportunities or the freedom and well being" that eating babies might offer.

Dealing With the Devil

       "On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland.
       In the early hours of that first day in the month, his bedside telephone woke Luigi Maglione.  The caller sas Archbishop Giulo Pacini, the papal nuncio in Warsaw to report German forces had begun invading Poland by land and air.  Maglione ordered the nuncio to prepare to destroy confidential papers and to 'look after the code book and seek a place less immediately threatened by the advancing German armies.'  The cardinal ended with the benediction, 'May the Lord protect you.'
       Maglione dialed the Vatican switchboard and the night-duty nun connected him to the pope's bedroom.  When Pius heard the news he went to his chapel to pray.  Meanwhile, Pascalina had aroused the other nuns in their rooms on the floor below to join her in the apartment's kitchen and told them 'our world, the whole world, is changing' and asked them to pray.
       Father Leiber was the first to arrive in the apartment having heard the Vatican Radio announcement that war had broken out.  He joined the pope at prayer in the chapel.  Maglione appeared shortly afterward.  He had already sent his aides, Tardini and Montini, to their offices in the secretariat of state to begin telephoning members of the diplomatic corps with the news.
        The secretary of state went with the pope and Father Leiber to the dining room where Pascalina served them breakfast.  While the pope sipped his warm milk he began to issue his first orders.  Maglione was to send a GREEN code message to Pacini to start organizing Poland's Jews into hiding in every available shelter.  A second similarly encoded order was to go to the Istanbul nuncio, Monsignor Angelo Guiseppe Roncali (the future Pope John XXIII) to 'prepare thousands of baptismal certificates to give to Jews which will allow them passage through Turkey to the Holy Land.'
        Other messages were to be sent to all other nuncios and bishops in neutral countries ordering them to increase 'all pressure you can' on their host governments to provide visas for Polish Jews. 
        Pope Pius had also asked Father Leiber to contact the head of the Pallotine fathers in Rome, Father Anton Weber.  The religious order was founded in Rome in 1835 by Vincent Pallotti, an Italian priest, to send missionaries across the world to set up schools and clinics.  A month ago Father Weber had telephoned from the order's General House on Rome's Pettinari Street and asked Pascalina to arrange an audience.  When he explained the reason she had quickly found a place for him on the pope's daily schedule.  Pius had asked Father Leiber to attend.
       The pope's secretary recalled, 'Weber asked His Holiness to approve the Pallotines be allowed to set up a network to bring German Jews to Rome where they would be safe.'  On that September morning Father Leiber had been ordered to tell Weber he should start his clandestine network.
        Two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany.
       In his office in midtown Rome the representative of the Red Cross, Count Alexander de Salis, held a meeting to discuss events with Ugo Foa.  With them was a slim elegantly dressed woman, Princess Enza Pignatelli Cortes, the daughter of one of Rome's Black Nobility families, aristocrats who had supported the Vatican following the seizure of the papal states.  She was respected for organizing fund-raising events for Catholic charities and her friendship with Pius XII dated since he was secretary of state and she had invited him to address the girl's private school where she once was a pupil.  Since then Pius had been a regular guest at her palace near the Arch of Constantine.
        Seated beside Princess Cortes was Dante Almansi.  The barrel-chested forty year old came from modest origins in Trastevere and was the only Jew appointed deputy chief of the Rome police force.  He had been dismissed under the racial laws and Foa had made him his deputy on the Jewish community committee.  Both were very different personalities.  Almansi had not quite lost his streetwise stare that suggested he often did not believe what he heard.  Foa had the self-control of a judge.
       Beside Almansi set Renzo Levi, a short, stocky man who was a wealthy Jewish industrialist.  The group was completed by lawyer Settimio Sorani.  Where Levi was forceful and decisive, Sorani was gentle and persuasive and Foa had appointed him as legal counsel to the community's committee.  He lived with his sister, Rosina, who was Foa's secretary.
         His minutes of the meeting included Foa's figures for 3.5 million Jews living in the Soviet Union;  3 million in Poland;  360,000 in Germany;  500,000 in Hungary;  300,000 in Czechoslovakia;  over 250,000 in France;  almost 200,000 in the Netherlands;  and 100,000 in Belgium.  Including Spain and Portugal and smaller nations like Sweden and Switzerland, Foa said close to 10 million Jews lived on the European continent.  All were now at risk.
       Almansi asked his first question:  What could the Red Cross do to help them?  De Salis explained it would use its influence with all governments to help the Jews.  But the organization must respect the Vatican's neutrality.  The day after the invasion of Poland de Salis said he was telephoned by D'Arcy Osborne.  The diplomat had told him that both himself and Charles-Roux, the French ambassador, had made a joint approach to Cardinal Magione to get the pope to condemn the invasion.  The secretary of state had refused, saying that 'the whole world will condemn the Germans without the Vatican's intervention.' 
       Princess Cortes said she was certain that 'Italy does not want to be in this war.  But His Holiness cannot say much, if anything at all.  Yet his silence must not be misunderstood.  I know he will do everything to help the Jews.'
       
       Pucci's account of the pope fleeing to America had created consternation at the Foreign Office;  its two diplomatic sources of information in Rome were clearly out of kilter.  At Loraine's meeting with Osborne was the local MI6 station chief.  He told Osborne Pucci was a German informer and his story was 'totally untrue and created in Berlin for its man in the Vatican to pass on to Pucci.'  The intelligence officer had asked to see any further information Pucci offered.  A dismayed Osborne has agreed.
        Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the director of the Abwehr, had spent another weekend in his office at 76/78 Tiritzaufer, two former town houses, overlooking the beautiful chesnut and lime trees in Berlin's Tiergarten.  Since dawn he had read the reports that came from his chiefs of intelligence throughout the world.  That afternoon he had gone for a stroll in the Tiergarten with his deputy, Colonel Hans Oster, walking along the bridle paths where they passed several members of the German general staff taking afternoon rides.  Canaris let his dachshund, Seppel, off its lead, watching the dog run in and of the bushes, as he told Oster that the Abwehr must do nothing to prolong the war by a war by a day, that while a defeat for Germany would be a disaster, a victory for Hitler would be a catastrophe.
        Therefore he was ready to make a new move to once more try and involve Pope Pius XII in the plot to overthrow the fuhrer.  He was sending to Rome Josef Mueller, a Bavarian lawyer, who had joined the Abwehr at the outset of war.  His well-tanned face, reddish-brown hair, and customized black suit was a familiar sight around the Munich diocese in the building's courtrooms.  Mueller's success had given him connections in the Vatican where he was respected in the Holy Office and the secretariat of state for winning cases for the church.
         Canaris has told Mueller that the the first visit first visit to Rome by Colonel Oster and his co-conspirators had failed because they had asked 'too much too soon' in their meeting with the pope's secretary, Robert Leiber.
        Mueller's own brief in Rome would be to try and once more persuade Father Leiber to get the pope to support 'negotiations with Britain and a new and honorable government in Berlin after Hitler had been overthrown.'  Once contact had been made with Father Leiber and he agreed to present the proposal to Pius, the pope should send for D'Arcy Osborne who would act in the intial stage as the go-between with the Holy See and the British government.  If the discussion continued to move forward more senior diplomats would be called in to carry the plan to conclusion--the removal of Hitler.
       His legal skills had taught Mueller to take his time in preparing a brief.  He had studied the Abwehr file on Pope Pius XII and read his speeches. He concluded that the pope shared his own pro-Jewish sentiments.  When the time came he would use that as part of his argument tha a new German government would guarantee that Jews would no longer be persecuted.  He had also decided he would not go to Leiber at once, but approach him through another German in a powerful position in the Vatican.  Monsignor Ludwig Kaas had been a contact of Pius since his days as a nuncio in Germany and Kaas had represented the Catholic Center Party in the Reichstag.  When Hitler came to power Kaas had moved to Rome to become secretary of the congregation in charge of St. Peter's Basilica.
       On May 10, 1940--the day Neville Chamberlain resigned and Winston Churchill became Britain's Prime Minister--Mueller arranged to meet Leiber.  While no record exists of their meeting, later the widow of one of the principal conspirators, Hans von Dohnanyi, revealed that her husband, a lawyer, had drafted articles of peace terms for the pope to review.  According to Frau Dohnanyi, Leiber had taken them to Pope Pius XII, who had told the secretary to inform Osborne that the German opposition to Hitler continued to gather momentum.
       Two days after meeting the pope's secretary,  Mueller had flown to Berlin to brief Canaris.  The spymaster doubted the peace initiative would succeed with Churchill now in office.

       The day after Mussolini delivered his declaration of war the pope asked Father Leiber to find space in his audience schedule for him to see Ugo Foa.  He told his secretary he would meet the Jewish community leader in the papal apartment 'as an old friend.'  It was the signal that Pius wanted no note taker present to keep a record of the meeting.
      It was late afternoon when Foa was escorted into the pope's study.  It would be their first meeting since Mussolini had introduced the Nazi-inspired racial laws.  Since then Rome's Fascist press had continued its attacks on the pope for his criticism of the anti-Semetic legislation.  Foa had brought with him a letter from Dr. Nahum Goldmann, the president of the World Zionist Organization thanking the pope for his 'unflinching support of the Jews.'
       There were now over four thousand Italian Jews--army officers, civil servants, academics, and journalists--who were still unemployed as a result of the racial laws. 
       The pope began by saying that as well as helping them, he had not forgotten his 'near neighbors,'  the Jews of Rome's ghetto.  If any were experiencing problems he had arranged for the papal nuncio to Italy, Monsignor Borgongini Duca to deal with the matter 'loud and clearly' with the Fascist authorities.
       Foa would recall how the pope had spoken with 'quiet passion as he said he would lay to rest any thought he would follow a plan more conciliatory to the totalitarian states than his predecessor.  He made it clear that the safety of the Jews was growing more intense and was one of the gravest of the many other serious problems he now faced.'
       Pius had said he would employ all the weapons in his power:  prayer, liturgy, and international law to confront the Nazis, who for all their technical skill were filled with a spritual emptiness, in what the pope defined as the 'Age of Agnosticism driven by anti-Semitism.'
       In the meantime if any member of the Jewish community wished to leave Rome he had arranged with the Pallotine fathers to assist them in obtaining foreign visas.  It may take a little while to obtain the documents but they would be forthcoming.
       Finally Pius had said he wanted to assure the community that he would continue to attack anti-Semitism and protect the Jews.  He handed Foa a bound copy of Summi Pontificatus , with the words 'where there is a question of saving souls, we feel the courage to deal with the Devil in person.'
       Foa had responded with a Hebrew saying.  'A man is compared to the stars in Heaven and to the dust of the earth.  He can soar to heights.'

       A few months ago the pope had reluctantly received Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's foreign minister, with one purpose.  He was determined to express his condemnation of Nazi atrocities and its anti-Semetic policies.  When von Ribbentrop had tried to dismiss the charges as 'Allied propaganda,' Pius had quoted from a file of reports sent by nuncios and bishops across Europe detailing evidence of atrocities.  The New York Times reported that the foreign minister had left the Vatican looking crestfallen.
       Since then the pope had ordered Vatican Radio to broadcast the evidence and L' Osservatore Romano to continue to publish it.  The New York Times had editorialized, 'The Vatican has spoken with authority that cannot be questioned and has confirmed the worst intimidation on Jews.'
       But the reports of atrocities had increased along with the attacks by Goebbels's propaganda machine on Pius as 'the Jew lover.'  The pope had countered by asking all Catholic bishops in Nazi Germany to sign a protest against the Nazi Pary plan to extend the wearing of the Star of David to include the offspring of mixed marriages.  The Nazi response was to seize convents, Catholic hospitals, and other church property throughout Germany;  Catholic organizations were closed down and religious images removed from schools.  The Pope's Jews  by Gordon Thomas pgs.49-51, 59-61,66-68, and 72