The Pope Against Nuremberg

How Vatican officials aided Nazi war criminals and undermined Allied justice after World War II

In the aftermath of World War II, the Nuremberg Trials promised a new era of international justice, holding Nazi leaders to account for their crimes. Yet beyond the courtroom, a very different struggle was unfolding—one that played out behind the walls of the Vatican.

Provocative and meticulously researched, The Pope Against Nuremberg uncovers how the Vatican shielded Nazi war criminals, undermined the principles of the Nuremberg Trials, and ran ratline networks that spirited perpetrators to safety under the cover of Christian mercy. Drawing on newly opened Vatican archives, as well as government and intelligence records from Europe and the Americas, Gerald Steinacher reveals a campaign that would benefit some of the most notorious Nazi perpetrators by helping them avoid prosecution.

Church officials petitioned Allied leaders, including the U.S. president, submitted statements for the defense, coordinated public relations campaigns, resisted extraditions, and, in some cases, sheltered wanted war criminals on Church property. Meanwhile, Pope Pius XII, long criticized for his alleged public silence during the Holocaust, urged the world to "forgive Germany." Steinacher places these actions within the turbulent politics of early Cold War Europe, when fear of communism increasingly outweighed the pursuit of accountability for mass crimes. Combining groundbreaking research and compelling storytelling, The Pope Against Nuremberg provides new answers to decades-old questions about the role and motivations of church officials in the networks that helped Nazis escape justice.