View source for Robert Leiber

{{short description|German Roman Catholic priest (1887–1967)}}
[[File:Nuntius Pacelli und Pater Leiber 1929.jpg|thumb|[[Pope Pius XII|Eugenio Pacelli]] and Robert Leiber (right), 1929]]

'''Robert Leiber, S.J.''' (10 April 1887 – 18 February 1967) was a [[Jesuit]] priest from [[Germany]], Professor for [[Church history|Church History]] at the [[Gregorian University]] in [[Rome]] from 1930 to 1960. 

Leiber was the private secretary to [[Pope Pius XII|Pius XII]] and, according to the pontiff's biographer [[Susan Zuccotti]], he was his closest advisor "throughout his entire papacy".<ref name="zuccotti">Susan Zuccotti. 2000. ''[[Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy]]''. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, pp. 59, 81, 93, 200.</ref>

==Biography==
Before 1924, Leiber worked with [[Ludwig Pastor]] on the publication of his 20-volume ''Papal History''. From 1924 to 1929, he was advisor to [[Eugenio Pacelli]] while he was [[Apostolic Nuncio to Bavaria|Nuncio in Munich]] and [[Apostolic Nuncio to Germany|in Berlin]]. While Professor at the Gregorian, he continued advising Pacelli, who was then [[Cardinal Secretary of State]]. After Pacelli was elected to the papacy as Pope Pius XII in 1939, Leiber helped and advised him until the Pope's death on 9 October 1958. Leiber is described as Pius XII's "most trusted aide".<ref name="Riebling">Mark Riebling. 2015. ''Church of Spies:The Pope's secret War Against Hitler''. New York: Basic Books. p. 9-10.</ref> However he never was  a Vatican official. He was a respected and feared "unofficial official". Known in papal Rome as the "little asthmatic", some described him with a Latin quip: ''Timeo non Petrum sed secretarium eius'' - "I do not fear Peter [the Pope], but his secretary".<ref name="Riebling"/>

He assisted Pius XII in researching the topics for his speeches and radio messages. Leiber was one of an "impromptu band of willing Jesuits" whom Pius XII employed "checking and double-checking every reference" in his written works.<ref name="c349">[[John Cornwell (writer)|John Cornwell]]. 1999. ''[[Hitler's Pope|Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII]]''. Viking Press, p. 149, 349.</ref> Leiber, stationed at the Pontifical Gregorian University, three miles from the [[Vatican City|Vatican]], complained after Pius XII's death that he was often expected to "drop whatever he was doing and hasten to the Vatican", taking public transportation.<ref name="c349" />

As the Pope's trusted Private Secretary, Leiber acted at the intermediary between Pius XII and the [[German resistance to Nazism|German Resistance]]. He met with [[Josef Müller (CSU politician)|Joseph Müller]], who visited Rome in 1939 and 1940 to obtain assistance from the Pope in acting as an intermediary between the Resistance and the Allies in the lead up to a planned coup against Hitler.<ref name="Hoffmann">Peter Hoffmann. 1977. ''The History of the German Resistance 1933-1945''; 3rd edn. (1st English edn); McDonald & Jane's; London, p. 161, 294</ref> Later in the war, Leiber remained the point of contact for communications from Colonel-General [[Ludwig Beck]] in the lead up to the 1944 [[July Plot]].<ref name="Hoffmann"/> Through the German ambassador to the Vatican, [[Ernst von Weizsäcker]], Leiber was informed that [[Apostolic Nuncio to Germany|Nuncio]] [[Cesare Orsenigo]]'s priest assistant was secretly a member of the Nazi party and an informer for the [[RSHA]].<ref name="phayer"/>

After [[World War II]], Pius XII charged Leiber and Bea with investigating the activities of [[Gertrud Luckner]] (later declared [[Righteous among the Nations]]), the pioneer of a German Catholic philo-Semitic and pro-Israel movement.<ref name="phayer">Michael Phayer. 2009. ''The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965''. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, p. xvii, 57, 102, 166-167, 176, 199, 207, 221, 237, 239.</ref> The Holy Office in 1948 issued a monitum (or warning) to the group, due to concerns that the group's pro-[[Zionist]] activities were "encouraging religious indifferentism (the belief that one religion is as good as the next)". Leiber concluded in April 1950 there was nothing theologically wrong with the work of Luckner; Bea went further, actually affirming it.<ref name="phayer"/>

==Last years and death==
In an October 1958 meeting, Leiber turned down a position offered by new [[Pope John XXIII]] in light of his health, suggesting [[Augustin Bea]] instead. He authored several books and articles on [[Church history]] and on the [[Reichskonkordat]]. After suffering acute [[asthma]] attacks for many years, Leiber died in Rome in 1967, aged 79. {{citation needed|date=March 2014}}

==Ratline involvement==
{{main|Ratlines (history)}}
According to [[Michael Phayer]], Leiber "sparked new life" into Austrian bishop [[Alois Hudal]]'s plan to set up a [[ratlines (history)|"ratline"]] — an escape route from Europe for Nazis and fascists, including war criminals. Leiber wrote to Hudal around the time of [[Operation Barbarossa]], telling the latter to "look at the [ratline] mission as a crusade".<ref name="Ratline">Michael Phayer. 2008. ''Pius XII, The Holocaust, and the Cold War'', Indiana University Press, p. 177, 206.</ref>

According to a history professor at the [[Pontifical Gregorian University]]{{who|date=August 2019}}, Leiber had no direct authority to correspond with Hudal but "[his] role as one of Pius XII's closest confidantes allowed the German Jesuit to act as the pope's intermediary and messenger."<ref name="Ratline"/> Hudal maintained contact with Leiber and other Vatican officials during and after the war. Leiber destroyed all his personal papers before his death, rather than leave them for posterity, confirming to van Room that he had destroyed his papers because he feared they "would cast Pius in an unfavorable light".<ref name="phayer"/>

==Statements on Pius XII and the Holocaust==
{{further|Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust}}
After the war, Leiber became actively involved in debates over the legacy of Pius XII during [[the Holocaust]], frequently writing and speaking publicly,<ref name="phayer"/> always as a staunch defender of Pius XII.<ref name="zuccotti"/> Leiber wrote an article, published on 27 March 1963 in the ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'', the main claim of which was that Pius XII had limited and generally unreliable information about the Holocaust.<ref name="zuccotti"/>

As Leiber related to Dutch historian Ger van Roon, Leiber believed that Pius XII chose not to speak out about [[the Holocaust]] because he "wanted to play the peacemaker during the war" by maintaining Vatican neutrality and independence.<ref name="phayer"/> On this point, Leiber and British diplomat [[Francis d'Arcy Osborne]], another contemporary close to Pius XII, were in agreement. During the war, Pius XII surrounded himself with German advisers including Leiber, but also [[Ludwig Kaas]] and [[Pasqualina Lehnert]]. This attracted the attention of [[United States Department of State]] historian George Kent and others, who questioned the pope's neutrality given this apparent Germanophilia.<ref name="phayer"/>

In 1961, Leiber asserted that Pius personally ordered superiors of church properties to open their doors to Jews. If such orders were ever put into writing (which is unlikely, given the situation), no such written order has been found, prompting some historians to deny the orders. Michael Phayer argues that Catholic institutions in Italy and elsewhere that did admit or help Jews did so "independently, without the Vatican's instructions".<ref name="phayer"/><ref>Debórah Dwork and Robert Pelt. 2002. ''Holocaust: a history'', p. 423.</ref> For his statistics on the number of Jews he claimed Pius XII to have saved, Leiber relied on fellow Jesuit [[Beato Ambord]]; the original compilation of the numbers is unknown.<ref name="zuccotti"/>

Above all, Leiber disputed that the disbanding of the German Catholic [[Centre Party (Germany)|Centre Party]] had been a [[quid pro quo]] for the signing of the ''[[Reichskonkordat]]''.<ref name="c349"/> Leiber wrote in 1958 that "[Pacelli] wished that [the party] could have postponed its dissolution until after the signing of the concordat. The mere fact of its existence, he said, might have been of use at the negotiating state".<ref name="c349"/>

==Notes==
{{reflist|2}}

==References==
* [[John Cornwell (writer)|Cornwell, John]]. 1999. ''[[Hitler's Pope|Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII]]''. Viking; {{ISBN|0-670-87620-8}}
* Phayer, Michael. 2000. ''The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965''. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press; {{ISBN|0-253-33725-9}}
* Phayer, Michael. 2008. ''Pius XII, The Holocaust, and the Cold War'', Indiana University Press; {{ISBN|978-0-253-34930-9}}
* Riebling, Mark, 2015. Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler, New York: Basic Books, {{ISBN|978-0-465-02229-8}}.
* Zuccotti, Susan. 2000. ''Under his very Windows. The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy''. New Haven and London: Yale University Press; {{ISBN|0-300-08487-0}}

{{s-start}}
{{s-rel|ca}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Carlo Confalonieri]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=Personal Papal Secretary|years=1939&ndash;1958}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Loris Francesco Capovilla]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{Pope Pius XII}}
{{Post-war flight of Nazi fugitives}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leiber, Robert}}
[[Category:1887 births]]
[[Category:1967 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Bodenseekreis]]
[[Category:20th-century German Catholic theologians]]
[[Category:20th-century German Jesuits]]
[[Category:Pope Pius XII advisers]]
[[Category:German Roman Catholic writers]]
[[Category:Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany]]
[[Category:Deaths from asthma]]
[[Category:Place of birth missing]]
[[Category:Historians of the Catholic Church]]
[[Category:German male non-fiction writers]]