Galeazzo Ciano’s Vatican Embassy

ABSTRACT

As the war was going badly in early 1943, Mussolini took the dramatic step of replacing most of his government ministers. Of the men sacked, none drew more attention than Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law, who had served as minister of foreign affairs since 1936. The announcement that Ciano would immediately be appointed as Italy’s ambassador to the Holy See sparked much speculation in the diplomatic community, where it was viewed as a possible move by Mussolini to employ the Vatican to broker an Italian exit from the war. Others saw the appointment as a desperate move by Ciano himself to find a way out of the war. The recently opened Vatican archives for these years, along with archival evidence from Germany, Britain, the U.S., France, and Italy, offer new insight both into Ciano’s attempts to ingratiate himself with Pope Pius XII and to how he in fact operated in his role as Italian ambassador to the Holy See in the months preceding the collapse of the Fascist regime.

RIASSUNTO

A causa dell’andamento fallimentare della guerra, all'inizio del 1943 Mussolini prese la drammatica decisione di sostituire la maggior parte dei ministri del suo governo. Tra tutti, nessuno attirò maggiormente l’attenzione di Galeazzo Ciano, genero di Mussolini e ministro degli affari esteri dal 1936. L'annuncio che Ciano sarebbe stato immediatamente nominato ambasciatore d'Italia presso la Santa Sede accese numerose speculazioni nella comunità diplomatica internazionale, dove questa scelta fu vista come un tentativo di Mussolini di servirsi del Vaticano per mediare una possibile uscita dell’Italia dalla guerra. Altri hanno visto la nomina come una mossa disperata dello stesso Ciano per trovare una via d’uscita dalla guerra. La recente apertura degli archivi vaticani per gli anni del pontificato di Pio XII, insieme alle prove d'archivio provenienti da Germania, Gran Bretagna, Stati Uniti, Francia e Italia, offrono nuove informazioni sia sui tentativi di Ciano di ingraziarsi papa Pio XII sia su come egli abbia effettivamente operato nel suo ruolo di Ambasciatore d'Italia presso la Santa Sede, nei mesi che precedettero il crollo del regime fascista.

KEYWORDS:

• Ciano
• Mussolini
• Pius XII
• Second World War
• Vatican

PAROLE CHIAVE:

•  Ciano; Mussolini; Pio XII; Vaticano; Seconda Guerra Mondiale

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

^1. A recent exception is Guerri’s (2019) biography, which devotes a chapter to the subject.

^2. Milza (2000, 737), François-Poncet (1961, 113), Chadwick (1986, 121). Ciano is a fascist, wrote the French ambassador to Italy, André François-Poncet (1961, 116), but ‘He detests the ultras,” the fanatics, of the Starace and Farinacci kind.’ Di Rienzo (2018, 64) offers a similar view.

^3. For example, following Ciano’s return in mid-August 1939 from meetings with Ribbentrop and Hitler in Salzburg, Dino Grandi (1985, 523–525) recorded in his diary: ‘I found a Ciano completely different from the one he has been up to now … worried, nervous.’ ‘Ciano,’ reported Grandi, ‘is indignant. He has entirely lost his past swagger and confidence and does not hesitate to tell me he had suggested breaking with the Germans to the Duce’. It was hard to believe, wrote Grandi, ‘that the Ciano that I have in front of me is the same person who to a large extent was the crafter of the Rome-Berlin Axis and who just a few months ago had solemnly signed the treaty of alliance with Nazi Germany’. In his diary entry a few days after Germany’s invasion of Poland, the industrialist Alberto Pirelli (1984, 230), who knew Ciano well, wrote: ‘Ciano is completely changed. His resentment toward the Germans is becoming ever clearer.’

^4. William Phillips, American ambassador to Rome, wrote President Roosevelt on 24 December 1939: ‘Since the Berlin-Moscow deal, Ciano himself and the more important members of the present Government are clearly sympathetic to the allied cause, but … Mussolini’s leanings are towards Nazism, although not necessarily towards Hitler’ (FDR Presidential Library, psfa 401, 52–54). In his memoirs, François-Poncet (1961, 119–121) remarked that initially it was Ciano who was more convinced of the value of an alliance with the Third Reich, and Mussolini more doubtful, while beginning with Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, their positions reversed.

^5. A photographer for the Vatican newspaper captured the image of the two men, which can now be found in the Vatican Apostolic Archive with a note recording a request by the Italian government that it not be published (Archivio Apostolico Vaticano (=AAV), Segr. Stato, anno 1939, Stati, posiz. 60, ff. 5rv).

^6. “Lo Speron d’Oro al conte Ciano,” L’Avvenire d’Italia, 27 December 1939, 2; Annuario pontificio per l’anno 1943 (Vatican City: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1943), 727. Ciano expressed his own pleasure on receipt of the award in his diary (Ciano 1990, 378).

^7. Ciano (1990, 268). Also see Kertzer (2014, 383–384).

^8. Borgongini to Cardinal Luigi Maglione, 14 June 1939, Actes et Documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (ADSS), vol. 1, n. 62.

^9. AAV, Arch. Nunz. Italia, b. 13, fasc. 18, ff. 3–25.

^10. Pirelli 1984, 254, diary entry for 15 March 1940. That Hitler would have been aware of Ciano’s reported attempts to discourage Mussolini from joining the Germans in the war is evident from a report that a German spy in the U.S. state department conveyed to the German foreign ministry in Berlin on 3 April 1940: ‘Phillips reports a dispute between Mussolini and Ciano. Ciano, who made no secret of his pro-Allied sympathies, had been sharply reprimanded by Mussolini. Mussolini had declared that he would not dream of ever being disloyal to the Führer’ (Thomsen, German chargé d’affaires, Washington, D.C., to Foreign Ministry, 3 April 1940, Documents of German Foreign Policy (DGFP), series D, vol. 9, n. 44). However, the German ambassador to Rome expressed his doubts about these reports: ‘Certain rumors of differences of opinion between Mussolini and Count Ciano have recently been circulating in Rome … The sufficiently well-known assertion that Count Ciano was advocating a more conciliatory policy toward England and France in opposition to the views of the Duce was dished up again.’ He concluded: ‘It is also difficult to imagine Count Ciano daring to attempt opposition or not carrying out the Duce’s instructions faithfully. There is also no doubt that he submits completely to the Duce on every question involving a decision … The above-mentioned rumors are therefore in my opinion devoid of foundation’ (Mackensen to Foreign Ministry, Berlin, 26 April 1940, DGFP, series D, vol. 9, n. 170).

^11. Sumner Welles to FDR, 19 March 1939, FDR Presidential Library, psfa 72, 18–23.

^12. Pirelli 1984, 262–263, diary entry for 28 May 1940. Further confirmation of this reversal comes from the conversation Hans von Mackensen, Germany’s ambassador to Italy, had with Ciano. Ciano boasted that he hoped personally to take part as a pilot in the military campaign (Rauscher 2004, 353).

^13. See Bastianini (2005, 286). Bastianini’s account is supported by that given by France’s then new ambassador to the Holy See, Vladimir d’Ormesson, who quoted Ciano in early August as saying that ‘the attack against England was imminent and that all would be over within a few days’ (d’Ormesson to Charles Roux, 1 October 1940, Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, La Corneuve, France, Guerre Vichy 551).

^14. See Kertzer (2022, 174-175).

^15. Among the indications of this unpopularity is a report at the time from the U.S. military attaché in Rome (18 January 1941, National Archive and Record Administration, College Park, Maryland (NARA), RG 165, 2062, 716, color 125, 8–9): ‘A few days ago it was announced that Count Ciano would visit the wounded [soldiers returned from Albania]. The reaction on the part of the patients was so violent that the proposed visit had to be canceled.’ A similar note was struck in Ambassador Phillips letter to Roosevelt on 21 January (FDR Presidential Library, psfa 394, 13–14).

^16. Alexander Kirk to President Roosevelt (via Sumner Welles), 15 December 1940 (FDR Presidential Library, psfa 394, 3–5).

^17. Mackensen to Ribbentrop, 31 December 1940, DGFP, series D, vol. 11, n. 589.

^18. Mackensen to German Foreign Ministry, 8 February 1941, DGFP, series D, vol. 12, n. 31.

^19. Borgongini to Maglione, 25 September 1941, AAV, Arch. Nunz. Italia, b. 20, fasc. 49, ff. 9rv.

^20. In his biography of Ciano, Di Rienzo (2018, 414) wrote that Ciano and his entourage ‘never doubted … that the demographic, financial, industrial weight of the U.S. would in the end reverse the balance to the disadvantage of the Tripartite’.

^21. See Pirelli (1984, 348–349), diary entry for 6 October 1942.

^22. Myron Taylor, October 1942, FDR Presidential Library, psfa 495, 43.

^23. Borgongini to Maglione, 18 November 1942, AAV, Arch. Nunz. Italia, b. 31, fasc. 3, ff. 23r-24v.

^24. See Ciano (1990, 686).

^25. See De Felice (1996, 1047).

^26. When Cesare De Vecchi, Mussolini’s first ambassador to the Holy See, was about to be replaced in 1935, he urged the Duce to appoint Ciano as his replacement, believing that Ciano was well regarded in the Vatican and would prove valuable in the role given his close ties to Mussolini (Coco 2019, 424).

^27. See Ciano (1990, 696), diary entry for 5 February 1943.

^28. Di Rienzo (2018, 490) disputes the account that Mussolini had second thoughts about Ciano’s Vatican appointment, writing that it was ‘attested to only by [Ciano’s] diary’. But, in fact, both Guariglia’s memoir and Pirelli’s (1984, 401) diary entry for 9 February 1943, offer evidence supporting Ciano’s account.

^29. Tittmann was technically serving as assistant to Myron Taylor, President Roosevelt’s personal envoy to the Pope, the U.S. having no embassy to the Holy See. However, in these months Tittmann was the only member of the American diplomatic service residing in Vatican City.

^30. Tittmann to Cordell Hull, 9 February 1943, NARA, RG 59, CDF 1940–44, 701.6566A, 7–8. The following day Tittmann offered Hull another possible explanation he had heard: ‘By appointment Mussolini not only gives Ciano a post which in eyes of Italian people makes him almost a church dignitary and thereby tends to counteract unpopularity which he has been enjoying but also places Ciano in position to save family fortune. In event of a revolution in Italy Ciano as Ambassador to Vatican would have no trouble in obtaining the Pope’s protection of his property along with church property in country. As head of a family and father of Edda Mussolini wishes to preserve family fortune. Ciano’s fortune in particular has increased tremendously in recent years’ (NARA, RG 59, CDF 1940–44, 701.6566A, 6).

^31. In Hennesey (1974, 39–40). McCormick had formerly been rector of Rome’s Gregorian University. Robert Lieber, a German Jesuit, was one of Pius XII’s closest advisors. Mussolini’s spies in the Vatican reported on a similar discomfort with the appointment of Ciano given his personal reputation (e.g. Archivio di Stato di Roma (ASR), CAP, Sezione istruttoria, b. 1669, fasc. 1010 Troiani; Informativa da Roma, n. 590, 15 February 1943, Archivio Centrale dello Stato (ACS), Ministero dell’Interno, Direzione Generale Pubblica Sicurezza, Divisione Polizia Politica, fascicoli per materia (MAT), b. 239).

^32. Informativa da Roma, n. 288, 20 February 1943, ACS, Ministero dell’Interno, MAT, b. 239.

^33. Informativa da Roma, n. 776, 27 February 1943, ACS, Ministero dell’Interno, MAT, b. 239.

^34. Tittmann to Hull, 13 February 1943, NARA, RG 59, CDF 1940–44, 701.6566a.

^35. Tittmann to Hull, 15 February 1943, NARA, RG 59, CDF 1940–44, 701.6566a. Tittmann had in the meantime raised the possibility that while Mussolini was ‘still determined to continue the war as heretofore,’ he had ‘sent Ciano to the Holy See to be on the spot in case an emergency should arise’ (Tittmann to Hull, 15 February 1943, NARA, RG 59, CDF 1940–44, 701.6566a).

^36. Matthews to Hull, 18 February 1943, NARA, RG 59, CDF 1940–44, 701.6566a.

^37. M.A. London, OSS Report No. 54450, 26 February 1943, NARA, RG 165, color 279. The German foreign office likewise received a report claiming that, although ‘Ciano’s personal reputation in the Vatican is not great … his presence at the Holy See is welcomed because he leads the disgruntled elements of the Fascist party to the Vatican.’ This, the report indicated, had led to ‘suspicion that the appointment of Count Ciano is preparation for an escape of the Mussolini family’ (n.d. but mid-March 1943, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin (PAAA), Politische Abteilung (GPA), Politische Lage im Vatikan, R261177, ff. 168-70). Later, Diego von Bergen, Germany’s ambassador to the Vatican, ever eager to avoid possible conflict between the Vatican and his government, expressed the opinion that the report was based on ‘intelligence from paid agents who create the appearance of being well-informed based on a superficial knowledge of the milieu; (Bergen, Rome, to Auswärtige Amt, Berlin, 4 May 1943, PAAA, GPA, Politische Lage im Vatikan, R261177, ff. 189–190).

^38. According to Edda, who accompanied her husband with her three children, the papal audience did not go well. As she described the scene, her smallest child, Marzio, fascinated by the golden telephone on the Pope’s desk, jumped out of her lap and made his way to it. At the same time, the Pope ‘leapt, with a no less rapid motion, to defend his equipment. For some moments a six-year-old boy and a pope battled with one another, each gripping the telephone’. Eager to end the scene, the Pope, saying ‘Well, well, well,’ indicated that his guests should now genuflect as he gave them his blessing and sent them off (Edda Mussolini 1975, 173). Ciano made no mention of the contretemps in his account of the papal audience sent to the foreign ministry (1 March 1943, Archivio Storico Diplomatico Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Rome (ASDMAE), Affari Politici, 1931–1945, Santa Sede, b. 66, tel. 1299).

^39. Colonna was one of the two ‘Prince Assistants to the (Papal) Throne’, the Roman aristocrats who stood, literally, closest to the Pope (Annuario Pontificio per l’anno 1943 [Vatican City: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1943], 678).

^40. Ciano (1990, 688) himself, in his diary entry for the day, explained, ‘Monsignor Montini, it is said, is the true and intimate collaborator of the Holy Father.’

^41. For a detailed analysis of the speech, see Coco (2020).

^42. See Ciano (1990, 688).

^43. Montini notes, 12 January 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 88.

^44. The telegram, dated 12 February 1943, on the stationary of the Italian embassy to the Holy See, was signed by d’Ajeta but bore as well the stamp ‘Ciano’ (ASDMAE, Affari Politici, Santa Sede, b. 68, tel. 459). On the Italian Church hierarchy support for the Axis war, see Kertzer and Benedetti 2020.

^45. Ciano note, 17 February 1943, ASDMAE, Ambasciata Italiana Santa Sede (AISS), b. 193, n. 61156. On the negotiations via Italy’s Vatican embassy leading to the Vatican’s success in obtaining a visa for Spellman to enter the country and stay in lodging outside Vatican City, see the documentation found in AAV, Segr. Stato, Diocesi, anno 1943, pos. 8.

^46. 10 March 1943, ACS, Segretaria Particolare del Duce (SPD), Carteggio Riservato (CR), b. 126.

^47. Ciano to Esteri, 25 February 1943, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 193, n. 111. For Ciano’s lengthy report on the visit following Spellman’s departure, see his telegram 724/290, dated 5 March 1943, ASDMAE, Affari Politici, Stati Uniti, b. 87.

^48. The reference here was to the mass executions of Polish nationals carried out by Soviet forces at Katyn in April and May 1940. Ciano to Mussolini, 4 June 1943, Documenti Diplomatici Italiani (DDI), series 9, vol. 10, n. 392.

^49. See Pighin (2010, 161), Costantini diary entry for 30 March 1943.

^50. See Pirelli (1984, 432), diary entry for 7 May 1943.

^51. Report dated 21 May 1943, n. 828409, ACS, SPD, CR, b. 115.

^52. Troiani headed a large network of informants, of which the Vatican served as one node (Canali 2004, 260–272).

^53. ASR,, CAP, Sezione Istruttoria, b. 1669, fasc. 1010 Troiani.

^54. See Kertzer (2022, 281–282).

^55. Pius XII message to Mussolini, 12 May 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 185. Ciano’s rendition of the letter is found at ASDMAE, AISS 1929–1946, b. 176. For the Vatican secretariat of state file on the Pope’s message to Mussolini and Ciano’s role, see ASRS, AA.EE.SS., Pio XII, Parte I, Italia IV, Pos. 1333a, ff. 3–36.

^56. Maglione notes, 12 May 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 186.

^57. Mussolini to Pius XII, 12 May 1943, ASDMAE, Gabinetto, b. 1189.

^58. Maglione notes, 13 May 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 190. Underlining is in the original.

^59. Guariglia to foreign ministry, 1 March 1943, n. 674, and Capo di S.M. Generale, Comando Supremo, appunto per il Duce, 5 March 1943, ASDMAE, Gabinetto, b. 1193, UC-77.

^60. Tardini notes, 17 May 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 197.

^61. Ciano to Mussolini, 1 June 1943, DDI, series 9, vol. 10, n. 382.

^62. Maglione notes, 3 June 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 226.

^63. Weizsäcker to Berlin foreign ministry, 14 July 1943, telegram n. 289, PAAA, GBS, 19.

^64. Curiously, in a later effort to downplay Ciano’s treachery at that fateful Fascist Grand Council meeting, Mussolini characterized his son-in-law’s contribution to the discussion as aimed solely at eliminating from the motion any critical reference to the Vatican (Di Rienzo 2018, 569).

^65. See Di Rienzo (2018, 515).

^66. See Di Rienzo (2018, 470–471). Gentile (2018) has devoted a book to trying to piece together the story of the historic Fascist Grand Council meeting. On Tamaro, see Rossi (2021). For a discussion of whether the members of the Grand Council knew that the king already had a plan in place to replace Mussolini, see Cacace (2021, 242–251).

^67. See Guariglia (1950, 739–740). In the chaos surrounding the arrest of Mussolini and the naming of a new government, the king appears to have initially been unsure about having Ciano replaced as ambassador to the Holy See, but any such uncertainty was soon extinguished. See Di Rienzo (2018, 569).

^68. Maglione notes, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 316.

^69. Moseley (1999, 178) cites the account given by Fabrizio Ciano (1993, 69–70). We have so far found no evidence of such an attempt by Edda Mussolini in the newly opened Vatican archives.

^70. See Di Rienzo (2018, 536).

^71. Osborne to Maglione, 4 August 1943, ADSS, vol. 7, n. 328.

^72. Among the police informant reports at the time describing these widespread rumors of the corruption of Ciano and Edda Mussolini, see two from 9 August 1943, from informants in Milan (informants n. 52 and 351), ACS, MIFP (Divisione Polizia Politica, Fascicoli personali), b. 298. Reflective of Vatican concerns for how the history of its relations with the Fascist regime might be written is the interest taken in the first publication in the Italian press of pages from Ciano’s diary in the fall of 1945. A folder in the Vatican secretariat of state files includes copies of a series of issues of the daily Il Tempo containing extracts from that diary. A note accompanying them, dated 3 November 1945, reads: ‘Ciano’s Diary – gather together the passages that refer to the Holy See, to show what the feelings of Fascism toward the Church were and what were the relations between the Vatican and Mussolini’ (ASRS, AA.EE.SS, Periodo V, Parte I, Italia, Pos. 1312, ff. 755–760).

^73. 28 August 1943, ASRS, AA.EE.SS, Pio XII, Parte I, Italia, Pos. 1336, ff. 250r–251r.

^74. Weizsäcker to the Reich Foreign Minister and the State Secretary, 23 September 1943, n. 65, PAAA, GBS, 29818, 44. It is possible that the fact that Ciano and his family had escaped the previous day (27 August) on a plane bound for Germany led to the omission of his name on the Vatican list. However, a number of the Mussolini kinspeople on the list were themselves in Germany at the time, as was noted on the sheets.

^75. See Zangrandi (1964, 127), quoted in Di Rienzo (2018, 518).

^76. On the origins of Ciano’s diary and speculation as to his motives in writing it, see Ansaldo (2005, 66–71), Di Rienzo (2018, 9–20), and Pighin (2010, 161).

^77. See Hof (2021, 124–126).

^78. Copies of Ciano’s letters to his mother and wife are found at AAV, Arch. Nunz. Svizzera, b. 225, fasc. 631, ff. 196r–197r.

^79. This account comes from the chaplain’s letter to Edda Mussolini, apparently dated 3 February 1944, found in AAV, Arch. Nunz. Svizzera, b. 224, fasc. 631, ff. 198rv.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David I. Kertzer

David I. Kertzer, Paul Dupee University Professor of Social Science at Brown University, was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for The Pope and Mussolini (2014). His book The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (1997), published in seventeen languages, was a finalist for the 1997 National Book Award for Nonfiction. His most recent book is The Pope at War (2022).

Roberto Benedetti

Roberto Benedetti received his PhD in modern and contemporary Italian history at the University of Rome, La Sapienza. He is the director and cofounder of the online history journal HYPERLINK ”http://www.giornaledistoria.net” www.giornaledistoria.net. Among his publications are “Il ‘gran teatro’ della giustizia penale: i luoghi della pubblicità della pena nella Roma del XVIII secolo,” in I luoghi della città. Roma moderna e contemporanea, eds. M. Boiteux, M. Caffiero, and B. Marin, (Rome: École Française de Rome, 2010), 153–197; and “Dell’Ergarstolo o Pia Casa di Penitenza e Correzione in Corneto,” Giornale di Storia (2022).