Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler
About this ebook
“A groundbreaking new history of the Vatican-German Resistance. . . . Writing with the craft of a novelist and the conscience of a meticulous scholar, Riebling has produced a masterly account.” —National Review
The Vatican’s silence in the face of Nazi atrocities remains one of the great controversies of our time. History has accused wartime pontiff Pius the Twelfth of complicity in the Holocaust and dubbed him “Hitler’s Pope.” But a key part of the story has remained untold.
Pope Pius in fact ran the world’s largest church, smallest state, and oldest spy service. Saintly but secretive, he sent birthday cards to Hitler—while secretly plotting to kill him. He skimmed from church charities to pay covert couriers and surreptitiously tape-recorded his meetings with top Nazis. Under his leadership the Vatican spy ring actively plotted against the Third Reich.
Told with heart-pounding suspense and drawing on secret transcripts and unsealed files, Church of Spies throws open the Vatican’s doors to reveal some of the most astonishing events in the history of the papacy. Riebling reveals here how the world’s greatest moral institution met the greatest moral crisis in history.
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About the author
Mark Riebling served as research director in the NYPD Intelligence Division’s Center for Policing Terrorism for a decade after the 9/11 attacks. He is the author of Wedge and The Soldier Spy. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. He lives in New York City.
