Rome, Italy • November 17, 1938 On July 14, 1938, Italy’s Manifesto of Racial Scientists (Manifesto Degli Scienziati Razzisti) laid out a scientific explanation for the politics of biological racism. Signed by 42 eminent Italians, the manifesto, published in Il Giornale d’Italia, a newspaper strongly supporting Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime, declared that Italians belonged to…
Rome, Italy • March 2, 1939 On this date in 1939 in Vatican City, Roman Catholic Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected pope on his sixty-third birthday. His coronation took place ten days later. Son of a Vatican lawyer, Pacelli took the name Pius XII. Pius’ actions during the Holocaust are controversial. Critics have accused him of…
Rome, Italy · November 17, 1938 On July 14, 1938, Italy’s Manifesto of Racial Scientists (Manifesto Degli Scienziati Razzisti) laid out a scientific explanation for the politics of biological racism. Signed by 42 eminent Italians, the manifesto, published in Il Giornale d’Italia, a newspaper strongly supporting Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime, declared that Italians belonged to…
Rome, Italy · July 20, 1933 On this date in 1933 in Rome, representatives of German President Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934) and Pope Pius XI (papacy 1922–1939), among them Vatican Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII), announced that a concordat (treaty) had been forged between the Holy See and the German Reich. The Reichskonkordat…
Rome, Italy · March 2, 1939 On this date in 1939 in Vatican City, Roman Catholic Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected pope on his sixty-third birthday. His coronation took place ten days later. Pacelli took the name Pius XII. Pius’ actions during the Holocaust are controversial. Critics have accused him of everything from anti-Semitism to colluding…
Rome, Italy · November 17, 1938 On July 15, 1938, Italy’s Manifesto of Racial Scientists (Manifesto Degli Scienziati Razzisti) laid out a scientific explanation for the politics of racism. The anonymous authors declared that Italians belonged to the Nordic race and were completely “Aryan,” while Jews, being “Semitic,” “do not belong to the Italian race”…
Rome, Italy · July 20, 1933 On this date in 1933 in Rome, representatives of German President Paul von Hindenburg and Pope Pius XI (1922–1939), among them Vatican Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII), announced that a concordat (treaty) had been forged between the Holy See and the German Reich. The Reichskonkordat was a major…
Rome, Italy · March 2, 1939 On this date in 1939 in Vatican City, Roman Catholic Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected pope on his sixty-third birthday. His coronation took place ten days later. Pacelli took the name Pius XII. Pius’ actions during the Holocaust are controversial. Critics have accused him of everything from anti-Semitism to colluding…