Letter: Lobkowicz on Stepinac's Second Visit to Rome
In the Spring of 1943, many understood that the NDH had tied it's future to a falling star. Archbishop Stepinac had all along disagreed with some policies of the Ustase - there is little doubt of it - but publicly defended the regime to the very people who could needed to know the truth about the ghastly barbarities of the NDH. In this letter, the new NDH Ambassador to the Holy See recounts the Archbishop's second visit to Rome. Four months later, Stepinac provided Father Krunoslav Draganovic with the Vatican contacts necessary to build the Ratline to smuggle Ustase fugitives out of Europe.
In the Spring of 1943, many understood that the NDH had tied it's future to a falling star. Archbishop Stepinac had all along disagreed with some policies of the Ustase - there is little doubt of it - but publicly defended the regime to the very people who could needed to know the truth about the ghastly barbarities of the NDH. In this letter, the new NDH Ambassador to the Holy See recounts the Archbishop's second visit to Rome. Four months later, Stepinac provided Father Krunoslav Draganovic with the Vatican contacts necessary to build the Ratline to smuggle Ustase fugitives out of Europe.
...He had kept quiet about some things with which he is not at all in agreement in order to be able to show Croatia in the best possible light. He mentioned our laws on abortion, a point very well received in the Vatican. Basing his arguments on these laws, the Archbishop justified in part the measures used against the Jews, who in our country are the greatest defenders of crimes of this kind and the most frequent perpetrators of them.
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| Title: Letter: Lobkowicz on Stepinac's Second Visit to Rome | |
| Source: Letter from Count Erwin Lobkowicz, NDH Ambassador to the Vatican, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zagreb, May 1943. Quoted in Falconi, Carlo. The Silence of Pius XII, p. 315-316. | |
| Date: May 1943 | Added: October 2002 |