Archives: Vatican scholar unearthed a Jesuit's role in informing the Holy See about Nazi crimes
ROME (CNS) -- Back in 2023, a Vatican archivist discovered a letter to Pope Pius XII's personal secretary from a Jesuit priest in Germany, who was active in the resistance against the Nazis, reporting that thousands of Poles and Jews were being incinerated daily in a Polish concentration camp. It was "a unique case" with :tremendous value," Giovanni Coco, the archivist, had told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in an interview published Sept. 17, 2023. The letter is important, Coco then said, because it not only details Nazi crimes at the Belzec extermination camp in 1942, but it refers to other reports and mentions Auschwitz, suggesting that the letter is probably part of much more correspondence between the two priests, said Massimo Franco, the journalist who interviewed the archivist in 2023. "It makes it clear that in reality much more detailed reports about the extermination underway were getting to the Vatican," Franco said in an interview with Radio Radicale Sept. 17, 2023. The other letters have not been found yet, "perhaps they were destroyed or lost," but nonetheless they would have described the Nazis' criminal acts against Catholic clergy, who were part of the resistance, and Jews, he said. The letter Coco discovered had been registered in the archive only in 2019 and was "a bit ruined," Franco added. The letter is "also important because it makes it clear how much pressure the Nazis were putting on Pope Pius XII and, therefore, how terrorized the Catholic Church in Germany and Poland were that any kind of disclosure could in some way worsen Nazi retaliation against Catholics and Jews," Franco then said. The letter, dated Dec. 14, 1942, was from German Jesuit Father Lothar König, based near Munich, who played an active role in organizing people and initiatives against Hitler's campaigns and in acquiring and sharing information about different camps, including Dachau. His letter was to German Jesuit Father Robert Leiber, a key and trusted adviser of Pope Pius for decades, starting with the future pope's time as papal nuncio in Munich, then as Vatican secretary of state, and then as pope from 1939 to 1958. Father König wrote that it seemed that about 6,000 people, especially Poles and Jews, were killed a day in the "blast furnace" at the Nazi concentration camp in Belzec, Poland. That extermination camp had started its operations in March 1942. The letter also made reference to the camp at Auschwitz and an "indirect reference to Dachau," Franco said. "These are some hints that make it clear the so-called 'Final Solution' had already not just begun in 1942, but in some way it is a clear reflection that it was getting (reported) to the Vatican and the pope himself," he said. Materials from the pontificate of Pope Pius XII are pictured in the Vatican Apostolic Archives in this Feb. 27, 2020, file photo. It is strongly believed the pope would have received the news in the letter, Franco said, especially since, just 10 days later, Pope Pius made a strongly worded appeal on Christmas Eve. In that appeal, the pope denounced the fact that hundreds of thousands of people were being "marked down for death or gradual extinction,'' sometimes only by reason of their race; however, he did not explicitly mention the Nazis or Jews by name. It is expected that further discoveries in the Vatican's archives on the pontificate of Pius XII will add to clarifying what the pope knew, what he did and why he did not publicly condemn the atrocities. In 2022, another scholar offered evidence found in the Vatican archives that Pope Pius XII knew early on about the Holocaust and used that knowledge to warn the Allies and to save thousands of Jews. The German historian Michael Feldkamp told Vatican News in 2022 that he found proof that the pope sent a message to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in March 1942 regarding "the systematic extermination of European Jews" and "warned him that something was happening in Europe in the war zones." However, Feldkamp said, "these messages were not considered credible by the Americans." Nonetheless, "it is interesting, however, that the president of the United States or his associates in the State Department repeatedly contacted Pius XII for information on individual cases." "Today we know … that Pius XII was confronted with the persecution of the Jews almost on a daily basis. He had been presented with all the reports and had created his own office within the Second Section of the Secretariat of State, where the staff had to deal exclusively with such matters," he said. "During World War II, these leaders were in very close contact with Pius XII, reporting to him daily on persecution and mass deportations, as well as on the individual fates of the people who came to them," he said. "The exciting thing now is that we can estimate that Pius XII personally saved about 15,000 Jews through his own personal efforts: opening monasteries, raising cloisters so that people could be hidden there, and so on. All of this is a huge sensation! The archival findings I have found now in the Vatican show me how accurately Pacelli was informed," the archivist told Vatican News. A version of this story was originally published in 2023.
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Investigate Vatican’s knowledge of Nazi atrocities during WWII
The available Catholic sources allow a qualified but meaningful reconstruction: the Holy See (especially Pope Pius XII) is presented in Church documents as having been informed about Nazi persecution and its brutal aims, and he is explicitly portrayed as addressing the reality of deportation and extermination of Jews publicly (notably in his Christmas 1942 radio message). At the same time, the Church’s later Shoah reflection acknowledges that some people were unaware of the “final solution” as it was being implemented, which means the precise degree and timing of Vatican knowledge of the full extermination program cannot be established from the provided texts alone.
In a 1945 address, Pope Pius XII describes how he received information about Nazi plans and actions against the Church—information that, in his account, included the use of “refined scientific methods” to torture or suppress persons, often described as innocent. This indicates that at least the brutal character and intent of Nazi repression was known to the papal office during the war.
“...we [during the war] did not cease, especially in our Messages, to set against the ruinous and inexorable applications of National Socialist doctrine—which even used the most refined scientific methods to torture or suppress people, often innocent—the demands and norms that are indispensable to humanity and the Christian faith.”
While this passage focuses on the Church’s persecution, it strongly suggests that the Vatican was not operating in ignorance of Nazi brutality in general.
A further, more direct data-point appears in Pope Benedict XVI’s 2008 address on Pius XII’s memory. Benedict cites Pius XII’s Christmas Radio Message (December 1942), stating that Pius XII deplored “hundreds of thousands” of men and women being “consigned to death or to a slow decline,” and it is described as having a “clear reference to the deportation and extermination of the Jews.”
This is important for “Vatican knowledge” because it links papal communication during the war to the core outcomes of the Holocaust program as they were understood by the Holy See at that time (even if historians debate the exact completeness of the technical details).
An Acta Apostolicae Sedis text from the Holy See (1988) recalls that the Church recognizes “strong, unequivocal efforts” of the Popes against antisemitism and Nazism, and it explicitly expresses conviction that history will show how deeply Pius XII felt the Jewish tragedy and worked to assist Jews during WWII.
The same text also quotes an American bishops’ statement (Nov. 14, 1942) calling the extermination of Jews “premeditated and systematic,” describing “cruel indignities,” and using language of “satanic technique.” That quotation shows that at least some Church leaders and networks publicly denounced the atrocities with a strong level of specificity during the war.
A key nuance comes from We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah (1998, Commission for Relations with Judaism). It states:
However, this reflection does not give a pinpoint claim like “the Vatican definitely knew X on date Y.” Instead, it provides a general framework: awareness varied among “people” and institutions, and responses must be considered case by case.
So, from what is supplied here, the strongest defensible claim is:
You asked about Vatican knowledge, including the broader historical claim that the Vatican had information through documents or networks during WWII. The provided sources do confirm that:
But the specific “letter” or “Jesuit active in resistance informing the Holy See” detail you alluded to is not included verbatim in the provided references, so it cannot be confirmed or analyzed in detail from this dataset.
Based strictly on the Catholic sources supplied here, the Vatican/ Holy See is depicted as having real and actionable awareness of Nazi persecution and (by late 1942) of deportation/extermination of Jews, as reflected in Pope Pius XII’s public moral condemnation and later Church presentations of that message.
At the same time, the Church’s Shoah reflection framework acknowledges that not everyone (in general) knew the “final solution” as it was being implemented, meaning the exact degree and timing of Vatican knowledge of the full program is not conclusively settled by the provided texts alone.