At The Vatican
Kaas, who had played a pivotal role in the concordat negotiations, hoped to head an information office, watching over the implementation in Germany. However, Cardinal Bertram considered Kaas to be the wrong man, given his political past. Also, Kaas's conduct was controversial among his fellow party members, who saw his sudden and lasting move to Rome as an act of defection and his involvement in the concordat negotiations as treason to the party. A prime example of this view is Heinrich Brüning, who denounced Kaas in his own memoirs written in exile and not undisputed among historians.
Cardinal Betram had proposed to elevate Kaas to honours without responsibilities. Accordingly, Kaas was appointed papal protonotary on 20 March 1934 and canon of the Basilica of Saint Peter on 6 April 1935. Meanwhile, The dioceses of Trier stripped Kaas of his position in the cathedral chapter of Trier.
The exiled Kaas suffered from homesickness and from the rejection by his fellow party members and the German episcopate. On 20 August 1936, Kaas was appointed Economicus and Secretary of the Holy Congregation of the fabric of St. Peter's Basilica.
Pacelli was elected Pope Pius XII on March 2, 1939. Late in that year, after the outbreak of World War II, Kaas was one of the key figures for the secret Vatican Exchanges, in which Widerstand circles within the German army tried to negotiate with the Allies through the mediation of the Pope Pius XII. Josef Müller, a Bavarian lawyer, would travel to Rome from Berlin with instructions from Hans Oster or Hans von Dohnanyi and confer with Kaas or the Pope's secretary Pater Robert Leiber, in order to avoid direct contact between Müller and the Pope. These exchanges resumed in 1943 after the Casablanca conference, but neither attempt was successful.
After his election, Pius XII had decided to accelerate the archaeological excavations under St. Peter's Basilica and put Kaas in charge. At the Christmas message of the Holy Year 1950 Pius XII presented the preliminary results, which deemed it likely that the tomb of Saint Peter was resting below the Papal altar of the Basilica. Not all questions were solved, and Kaas continued excavations after 1950, despite an emerging illness.
Ludwig Kaas died in Rome in 1952, aged 70. He was first buried in the cemetery of Campo Santo in the Vatican. Later, Pope Pius XII ordered the body of his friend to be put to rest in the crypt of St. Peter's Basilica. Ludwig Kass is thus the only Monsignor who rests in the vicinity of virtually all Popes of the twentieth century. To succeed him in his work, Pope Pius XII appointed a woman, Professor Margherita Guarducci, another Vatican novelty.
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