Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler
by mark riebling
basic, 375 pages, $29.99
During the Second World War, the Third Reich was opposed by local partisans and ad hoc military and civilian organizations. The Nazi authorities disseminated so-called anti-terrorism propaganda, referring to these small groups of brave individuals as “the army of crime.” Photos of them were displayed on large posters, their names cited as proof that Jews and foreigners were responsible. Among the eighty members of the Franco-Jewish resistance who were caught by the Gestapo, one was an Armenian poet, another a Catholic. Seventy-nine were executed in France. The eightieth, a woman, was beheaded in Berlin.
When I was sixteen, I joined the ranks of these anti-Nazi “terrorists.” I did not throw bombs at German military facilities. My activities were directed at sabotaging factories supplying the German army and at informing Jews and non-Jews about the crimes committed by the Nazis and their collaborators. I would have thrown bombs if called on to do so, seeing no moral basis on which to refuse such a directive. My actions were not a matter of individual choice but the result of collective decisions regarding priorities, the best use of comrades, and the most effective tactics.
