Cesare Vincenzo Orsenigo was Apostolic Nuncio to Germany from 1930 to 1945, during the rise of Nazi Germany and World War II. Along with the German ambassador to the Vatican, Diego von Bergen and later Ernst von Weizsäcker, Orsenigo was the direct diplomatic link between Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII and the Nazi regime, meeting several times with Adolf Hitler directly and frequently with other high-ranking officials and diplomats.
Orsenigo with Hitler and Joachim von Ribbentrop, January 1939
Pope Pius XI, a friend of Orsenigo in Milan who appointed him to all three of his nunciatures
Orsenigo shaking hands with Joseph Goebbels
Goebbels, Hitler, Orsenigo, and Italian ambassador Vittorio Cerruti at a reception for foreign press in Berlin
Apostolic Nunciature to Germany
The Apostolic Nunciature to Germany is an ecclesiastical office of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. It is a diplomatic post of the Holy See, whose representative is called the Apostolic Nuncio to Germany with the rank of an ambassador. The office of the nunciature has been located in Berlin since 1925, in union with the new Apostolic Nuncio to Prussia until 1934. Between 1920 and 1925 the nunciature was held in personal union by the Apostolic Nuncio to Bavaria, seated in Munich. With the unconditional surrender of Germany in 1945 the diplomatic ties were interrupted and reestablished for West Germany only in 1951, then in Bonn. In 2001 the nunciature moved again to Berlin.
Apostolic Nunciature to Germany
Lorenzo Campeggio, the first nuncio in the territory of modern-day Germany
Pacelli, Nuncio to Germany, with Wilhelm von Opel and others in Rüsselsheim, Hesse, 1 October 1928.
Cesare Orsenigo, nuncio to Germany during World War II, with Hitler and Joachim von Ribbentrop.