Written with economic system and in chronological order, this publication deals a entire account of the reaction to the Nazi tyranny by way of Pope Pius XII, his envoys, and diverse representatives of the Catholic Church in each nation the place Nazism existed earlier than and through WWII.

Peter Bartley makes wide use of fundamental assets – letters, diaries, memoirs, respectable govt stories, German and British. He glaringly fees the works of numerous popular Nazis, of churchmen, diplomats, contributors of the Resistance, and usual Jews and gentiles who left eye-witness debts of lifestyles below the Nazis, as well as the wartime correspondence among Pius XII and President Roosevelt.

This booklet unearths how resistance to Hitler and rescue paintings engaged many churchmen and laypeople in any respect degrees, and used to be usually undertaken in collaboration with Protestants and Jews. The Church paid a excessive cost in lots of international locations for its resistance, with thousands of church buildings closed down, bishops exiled or martyred, and lots of clergymen shot or despatched to Nazi loss of life camps.

Bartley additionally explores the meant state of being inactive of the German bishops over Hitler's oppression of the Jews, displaying that the Reich Concordat didn't deter the hierarchy and clergy from protesting the regime's iniquities or from rescuing its sufferers. whereas giving transparent proof for Papal condemnation of the Jewish persecution, he additionally explains why Pius XII couldn't thoroughly put aside the language of international relations and be extra overtly vocal in his rebuke of the Nazis.