Catholic Church - Hide & Seek: the Irish Priest in the Vatican Who Defied the Nazi Command

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In memory of my mother
Josephine Walker 19232011

A UGUST 14, 1977

A T THE MILITARY HOSPITAL EVERYTHING WAS QUIET. I N THE small hours those tasked with watching the patients had little to do. During the day the building was a different place. Then the corridors and rooms that looked out toward the Coliseum were alive with the sound of people. At night the atmosphere seemed almost reverential, and for those watching the clock until the sun rose, the pace of life was slow.

It was a holiday week in August. From the windows of the complex on the Caelian Hill, night staff could look down on the lights of Rome. The city beneath was asleep, unaware of the drama that was about to unfold.

After midnight, in a room on the third floor, Anneliese, a blonde-haired woman, was spending time with her elderly husband, who was being treated for cancer. The pair were about to embark on the most dramatic hours of their married lives.

For a few moments they stood by the open window. Outside, apart from the sound of an occasional passing car, the night was still. Then the plan began in earnest. Carefully Anneliese maneuvered her frail husband, dressed in his best suit, toward the doorway. He was skeletal, weighing not much more than one hundred pounds.

Gently she shuffled him across the floor, holding his arm as they moved toward the landing. Weeks of planning were now at risk as she made her way down to the ground floor. Holding him close, Anneliese helped her husband negotiate each step. On the ground floor the guard was not around, so they quickly made their way outside and to a rental car that had been parked close to the building. She told him to get into the back of the car and lie down, and when he was inside she covered him with a blanket.

She put her bags in the car alongside some fresh flowers, turned on the car stereo, lit a cigarette, and drove slowly to the main gate. With her passenger well hidden, she approached the security barrier, the sounds of the radio filling the air. Her early-morning departure did little to raise suspicions. The staff were used to seeing her coming and going at all hours, and she had built up a friendly rapport with most of the hospital workers. She had planned everything and as usual had left a bottle of good German wine for one of the guards. She had also told the gate staff what time she would be leaving. If she could make her visit seem normal, she knew her plan had a good chance of succeeding.

In her husbands empty bed a pillow had been placed strategically to fool anyone who might casually glance through the window of his room. A note handwritten in Italian, saying Please do not disturb me before 10 a.m., was stuck on his door. The instruction was intended to ward off inquiring nurses and buy much-needed escape time. A friendly guard approached the car, as he often did when he saw Frau Kappler. He stopped to practice his German, smiled, and began talking. Another soldier, keen to while away the boredom of night duty, sauntered over for a chat.

On any other night the visitor would have relished the conversation. Tonight was different. Even though she was in a hurry and nervous, she knew she had to remain calm. However, the guards were in no hurry to wave her on. Had they spotted something? Would they suddenly decide to search the car? Had someone seen her husband escape and tipped them off?

Anneliese desperately wanted to leave quickly and told the guards she was in a hurry because she needed to get some medicine. At last the barrier was opened. She drove away from the hospital along Via Druso and past the ruins of the ancient baths. Rome was quiet. She stopped briefly and asked her husband if he was all right. Yes, everything is fine, came the muffled reply. There was little traffic and she quickly made for the Grand Hotel. There she met her son. She led him to the back of the car, and for the first time in his life, he saw his stepfather as a free man.

Hours later, when Rome awoke, the citys most notorious prisoner was declared missing. By then Herbert Kappler had been driven out of the country by car. His driver was his German wife, Anneliese, who had married him in prison and had now helped him to freedom. By mid-morning the most wanted man in Italy was heading for a safe house in West Germany. After over thirty years in custody, the former Nazi officer was free. Defying life imprisonment for war crimes, he had masterminded a great escape, from the very city he had terrorized as a Gestapo chief some three decades earlier. The hunter was now the hunted.

I dont want to see him alive again.

H ERBERT K APPLER PLOTS TO KILL H UGH OF LAHERTY

R OME , 1944

S TANDING ALONE, SIX FEET TWO INCHES TALL, WEIGHING JUST OVER two hundred pounds, and dressed in his distinctive black and red clerical vestmentsmost other priests wore only blackMonsignor Hugh OFlaherty was easy to spot. Every day the bespectacled Irishman stood and surveyed the evening scene as Romans went about their daily business. Around him, people made their way to and from work. Some chatted in a leisurely fashion with friends; others, maybe late for appointments, hurried along looking anxious. From his vantage point on the top step that led to St. Peters Basilica, the monsignor could look out over St. Peters Square. When the weather was good, it was a perfect place to watch the day end.

Cradling his breviary, OFlaherty would read and occasionally look up and watch as the Vatican buzzed with life. His daily devotion was an act of faith, but it was also a display of defiance. And across the piazza his behavior was being watched carefully. Beyond the white line that had been painted around the cobbled square to mark the Holy Sees neutral territory, Romes rulers looked on. Through field binoculars, armed German paratroopers studied the priest. They were tasked to watch his every move. Each day the routine continued. OFlaherty stood and looked out at his observers, who in turn carefully noted all his movements.