https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jan/17/secondworldwar.germany
Hitler plot to kidnap the pope revealed
John Hooper in Rome
Sun 16 Jan 2005 19.03 EST
Weeks before Nazi troops abandoned Rome, Adolf Hitler personally ordered the SS to kidnap the then pope so he could be brought back to Germany and locked up in a castle, according to previously unpublished testimony made available at the weekend.
The newspaper Avvenire, which is owned by the Catholic church in Italy, suggested the kidnap plot was part of a wider plan to "abolish" Christianity and replace it with a religion in which Hitler would be worshipped as the saviour of humankind.
It said that, instead of carrying out the Führer's orders, the head of the SS in Italy, General Karl Wolff, went to the Vatican to warn Pope Pius XII of the danger he was in.
Avvenire said Wolff had revealed details of the affair in a written statement to Vatican officials weighing the case for setting Pope Pius on the road to sainthood. The paper said he had given his testimony in Munich on March 24 1972.
Like other papers relating to the intensely controversial issue of Pope Pius's possible beatification, it had been kept secret until now.
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