The obvious powers that would have had knowledge of the events would be those directly involved in the war, they include the American Army, who towards the end of the war freed the survivors of the Nazi ‘death’ camps. The Germans of course and the other countries who were directly involved in the infiltration of Germany as the war came to a close. For the most part those countries withheld judgment on the Germans, in fact, all but the Americans classified the information gathered as “top secret”. This left the Americans alone to find the truth about what actually happened in Germany. They alone gathered information and actually discovered the truth about the events which led to many German war powers being prosecuted for the war crimes they had committed.
Of all the powers that had knowledge of the events, very few had any idea while the war was still raging. One power that knew exactly what was happening to the Jews was the Catholic Church. The bishops of Germany wrote and contacted the pope more than 12 times between 1942 and 1944 when the persecution on the Jews met a new high with the establishment of “death” camps. The bishops’ letters and contact efforts went unanswered until late 1944. The Pope of the time was Pope Pius XIII, he didn’t respond to the German bishops pleas until finally he attempted to confront Hitler himself, not after more than 5,000,000 Jewish people were slaughtered, many of which belonged to his own church.
The link between the Jewish race and the Catholic Church is a very strong one, their beliefs are centered on Jesus Christ who was born to Jews, raised by Jews and eventually sent to his death by the Jews (Judas Escariot). The reasoning behind the Catholic Churches actions and stance cannot be found nor is any explanation obvious. They knew almost exactly what was happening to innocent people and due to Germany having strong Catholic ties would have possessed some degree of power, which could have been used to end the bloodshed of these innocent people. The Catholics stance towards the Jews was as it was to any other culture or race, they never admitted any disfavor towards the people nor their beliefs as doing so would weaken their own religious beliefs as the link shared between the two religions is and was so close.
It wasn’t until the Pope was under tremendous pressure did he even address the issue of the holocaust, and even after he had made the effort of getting into talks with Hitler the mass slaughter of the Jewish people continued, and at an even more rapid rate than previously. Many see the visitation between Hitler and Pope Pius XIII as more an effort to ease pressure than to save the lives of Jews. The Pope had ample information to warrant intervention, at least according to many informed views. The reason behind him choosing not to intervene at an earlier stage is unknown, except for that he “didn’t want to get the Church involved in the conflict”. He never realized that the Church was already involved to a great extent with many of its own followers fighting and dying on both sides. Even this didn’t sway his stance, and for him to not have realized this basic fact is unreasonable and unlikely.
