Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Appendix E: The Role of the Vatican
The implications of a lie on the scale of the Jewish extermination hoax cannot
be constrained to bear on isolated subjects such as Israel or World War II revisionism.
Before not many years, it was realized that, during and after the war,
Pope Pius XII had never spoken out in condemnation of the supposed exterminations
of Jews. This fact naturally raised some problems for the propaganda history
of World War II. The specific event that ignited general controversy was Rolf
Hochhuth’s play Der Stellvertreter (The Deputy). Supposedly based on the “Gerstein
statement,” the play performs a completely unscrupulous job of character assassination
on Pius XII by relating events inconsistent with the “statement,”
thereby piling invention on invention. However, the play was unquestionably the
catalyst for the discussion of a fairly important fact, although the ensuing discussion,
carried on among people who had been completely taken in by the hoax,
never clarified anything and only amplified the confusion.
It is no more necessary, here, to explain why Pius XII did not speak up about
exterminations of Jews than it is necessary to explain why he did not protest the
extermination of Eskimos. However, the role of the Vatican is of some interest to
our subject, so a few words are appropriate.
First a few background remarks. During the period 1920-1945, the Vatican
considered Communism to be the principal menace loose in the world. This being
the case, it was open to friendly relations with the Fascists after their assumption
of power in Italy in 1922 and the Concordat of 1929, reversing the earlier pre-
Fascist anti-clerical policies of Italian Governments. This was the basis for relations
that remained generally good until Mussolini fell from power in 1943.
When Hitler came to power in 1933, the Vatican had similar hopes for an anti-
Communist regime that would make domestic peace with the Church. At first, it
appeared that events would unfold as in Italy, and the Concordat of 1933 with Hitler
(still in force), guaranteeing the church a portion of tax revenues and further
defining the proper spheres of Church and State, reinforced this expectation.
Things did not turn out so well, however. Although the Concordat had defined
the Church’s rights in the sphere of education and youth culture in general to the
satisfaction of the Vatican, the Nazis found it difficult to live with such terms and
found various ways of undercutting the Catholic position without formally repudiating
the terms of the Concordat. For example, the Catholic Youth associations
were forbidden to engage in sport on the shrewd calculation that such restrictions
of such associations to the realm of the truly spiritual would guarantee that they
would wither. There were also various means of intimidation employed against
parents who insisted on sending their children to Catholic schools. Moreover,
Nazi publications such as Das Schwarze Korps (the SS magazine) and Der Stürmer
were openly anti-Christian and constantly heaped abuse on the Pope and the
Catholic clergy in general, favorite charges being that the holy men were homo-
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