Under Pius XI (1930–1939) On 25 April 1930, he became Apostolic Nuncio in Germany, a post previously held by
Eugenio Pacelli (future Pope Pius XII), who had been appointed Cardinal. On 16 February 1933, Orsenigo wrote to Pacelli that it would be "ingenuous and incoherent" to support the newly elected Nazi government, but that he feared open opposition would lead to a new
Kulturkampf. As early as March 1933, Orsenigo concluded that compromise and conciliation was the only option, arguing that earlier condemnations of Nazism by German bishops had concerned only its religious, not political, tenets. Of the 95 documents from the Berlin nunciature in the
Vatican Secret Archives from 1930 to 1938, only four contain references to Jews. Writing on 8 May 1933 about an earlier conversation with Hitler, Orsenigo opined that Hitler saw Christianity as essential to private life and the German state and that without the cooperation of the Nazis the German Church could not hope to defeat liberalism, socialism, communism, anarchism and Bolshevism. Orsenigo reported that Hitler disagree with the neo-pagan wing of the Nazi party, as represented in
Alfred Rosenberg's
The Myth of the Twentieth Century. According to Phayer, "In Orsenigo, Pius had the right man for the job. A pro-German, pro-Nazi, antisemitic fascist, Orsenigo would have no trouble adjusting to the Nazi regime in Berlin. In addition, Orsenigo, who hankered after the cardinal's hat, could be trusted not to interfere with Pius's well-known intention to deal with Germany himself." In a 1940 note to Pius XII, Orsenigo again argued in favor of conciliation, stating his fears of lapsed religiosity among German Catholics unless the clergy appeased the regime and relieved members of the Church of a conflict of conscience. at a reception for foreign press in Berlin On 21 June 1942, he was a consecrator at the Cologne Cathedral for the inauguration of the new
archbishop in
Cologne,
Joseph Frings. In November 1943, he again met with Hitler on behalf of Pius XII. According to Orsenigo's account: :"As soon as I touched upon the question of Jews and Judaism, the serenity of the meeting ended at once. Hitler turned his back on me, went to the window and started drumming his fingers on the pane [...] Still, I went on, voicing our complaints. Hitler suddenly turned around, went to a small table, took a water glass and furiously smashed it on the floor. In the face of such diplomatic behaviour, I had to consider my mission terminated".
The Holocaust Orsenigo, as nuncio, routinely refused to intervene on behalf of Jews and more often than not failed to forward to Rome reports descriptive or critical of the Holocaust. A rare exception, was the Nazi plan to "resettle" Jews married to Christians, although Phayer argues that his concern was primarily with their Catholic spouses. Informed of the purpose of Gerstein's visit, Orsenigo refused to meet with him. Gerstein's message was eventually sent to the Vatican by the auxiliary bishop of Berlin, not the nuncio's office, where the information reached a "dead end." Orsenigo sent word to the Vatican that the protest of the Church had caused the Dutch deportations to end, even though precisely the opposite had occurred, and seizures, murders, and deportations of Catholics of Jewish heritage increased. On 1 November 1939, Orsenigo's authority was formally extended to Poland. A 25 November 1939 dispatch from Orsenigo prompted Pius XII to make "
one of his most controversial decisions." Orsenigo informed the Pope of the situation in the
diocese of Chełmno-Pelpin: the bishop,
Stanisław Wojciech Okoniewski, was in exile; his auxiliary was ill; all but one canon was absent; only 20 of the 500 priests of the diocese had not been forced out, imprisoned, or murdered. Among Polish Catholics, there was a widespread perception that Orsenigo "purposefully minimized their situation in his reports to Rome." According to Alvarez and Graham, this espionage provides "access to the attitudes and intentions of the nuncio." It is unknown whether Orsenigo was aware of his assistant's party membership; however, this fact was certainly known by
Robert Leiber, a German Jesuit who served as one of Pius XII's closest confidants and advisers during the war. On 8 February 1945, after the destruction of the Nunciature due to a bombing, Orsenigo moved to
Eichstätt, in Bavaria. ==Legacy==