In 1999, Cornwell published Hitler's Pope, in which he accuses Pope Pius XII of assisting in the legitimization of the Nazi regime in Germany through the pursuit of a Reichskonkordat in 1933 and of remaining silent, like the Allies, after some information about the Holocaust was released to the public in late 1942 and early 1943.
In 2004, Cornwell stated that Pius XII "had so little scope of action that it is impossible to judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by Germany. ... But even if his prevarications and silences were performed with the best of intentions, he had an obligation in the postwar period to explain those actions". He similarly stated in 2008 that Pius XII's "scope for action was severely limited", but that "evertheless, due to his ineffectual and diplomatic language in respect of the Nazis and the Jews, I still believe that it was incumbent on him to explain his failure to speak out after the war. This he never did."
In his 2009 review of Roman Catholic priest-scholar Kevin P. Spicer's Hitler's Priests: Catholic Clergy and National Socialism, he praises the book's admirable qualities but criticizes the work for its failure to distinguish between the small minority of "brown priests", those priests who unequivocally supported the Nazi regime, with those who whom he considers to be "fellow travellers", i.e. accepting the benefits that came with the Reichskonkordat but who failed to condemn the Nazi regime at the same time. He cites Cardinal Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) as being an example of a "fellow traveller" who was willing to accept the generosity of Hitler in the educational sphere (more schools, teachers and pupil places), so long as the Church withdrew from the social and political sphere, at the same time as Jews were being dismissed from universities and Jewish pupil places were being reduced. For this he considers Pacelli as effectively being in collusion with the Nazi cause, if not by intent. He further argues that Monsignor Kass, who was involved in negotiations for the Reichskonkordat, and at that time the head of the Roman Catholic Centre Party, persuaded his party members, with the acquiescence of Pacelli, in the summer of 1933 to enable Hitler to acquire dictatorial powers. He argues that the Catholic Centre Party vote was decisive in the adoption of dictatorial powers by Hitler and that the party's subsequent dissolution was at Pacelli's prompting.
In 2004, Cornwell followed up Hitler's Pope with Hitler's Scientists.
Read more about this topic: John Cornwell (writer)