PIUS XII° (1876–1958), pope from 1939. Born Eugenio Maria
Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli, in Rome, he entered the Secretariat
of State in 1901, was professor of ecclesiastical diplomacy at
the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy from 1909 to 1914,
undersecretary of state in 1911, archbishop of Sardes and
apostolic nuncio to the Bavarian court in Munich in 1917, and
nuncio to Germany in 1920 but moving to Berlin only in 1925. In
1929 Pacelli concluded a concordat with the State of Prussia. He
became cardinal in 1929 and secretary of state in 1930. Cardinal
Pacelli was instrumental in negotiating the concordat between
the Holy See and the Third Reich, which was signed on July 20,
1933, by him and Vice Chancellor von Papen. His ambivalent
stance during the Nazi period subsequently gave rise to
considerable controversy (much of it engendered by Rolf
*Hochhuth's play The Deputy; for a full analysis see *Holocaust
and the Christian Churches). On April 10, 1945, he received
Moshe *Sharett, director of the Political Departm