Nothing Sacred

Nazi Germany considered the Catholic Church to be a serious threat to its domestic security and its international ambitions. In Germany, informants provided intelligence, but in Rome, German attempts to penetrate the Papacy were less successful - except for the codebreaking work.

Nothing Sacred is the first book to document the Nazi espionage campaign against the Vatican in the Second World War. Nazi Germany considered the Catholic Church to be a serious threat to its domestic security and its international ambitions. In Germany, Hitler's agents recruited informants to provide intelligence on Church finances, and on the political views and activities of bishops, priests and lay Catholics. In Rome, however, German attempts to penetrate the Papacy were less successful, with the efforts of the local Gestapo office proving largely futile. For example, a plan to use a Roman seminary as a secret radio station and cover for German intelligence officers masquerading as seminarians had to be abandoned, in part because the first group of officers proved more interested in women than the cloistered life.

The German codebreaking operation on the other hand was highly successful: the Nazis systematically intercepted, decoded and read secret communications between the

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This study describes German intelligence operations against the Vatican and attempts to disprove assertions that the Catholic Church was comfortable with aspects of Nazism and Fascism, that the Vatican accommodated itself to the "New Order," and that Pope Pius implicitly condoned Nazi activities. It also details diplomatic and intelligence relations between the Vatican and most of the minor and major belligerents in the war. Paper edition (unseen), $19.50. Distributed by ISBS. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.