What is the source for the attacks on Pope Pius XII? If he were not guilty of silence, what would be the reason for making such a claim?
The myth of Pius XII began in earnest in 1963 in a drama created for the stage by Rolf Hochhuth, an otherwise obscure German playwright born in 1931. Turgid in length, in 1963s Der Stellvertreter (The Representative or The Deputy) Hochhuth charged through an allegedly documentary presentation that Pius XII maintained an icy, cynical and uncaring silence during the Holocaust. More interested in Vatican investments than human lives, Pius was presented as a cigarette-smoking dandy with Nazi leanings. The Deputy, even to Pius most strenuous detractors, is readily dismissed. John Cornwell in Hitlers Pope describes Der Stellvertreter as historical fiction based on scant documentation(T)he characterization of Pacelli (Pius XII) as a money-grubbing hypocrite is so wide of the mark as to be ludicrous. Importantly, however, Hochhuths play offends the most basic criteria of documentary: that such stories and portrayals are valid only if they are demonstrably true. Yet The Deputy, despite its evid
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