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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on April 22, 2026 at 12:10 am
On April 12, President Donald Trump wrote on X: “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. We don’t like a pope who says it’s OK to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
Despite his escalating attacks on Pope Leo XIV over the pontiff’s opposition to the Iran war, Trump’s approval rating among Republicans has climbed to 86%. The poll was conducted by The Economist and YouGov on April 15.
This includes high-ranking Republican leaders like Speaker of the House Mike Johnson: “A pontiff or any religious leader can say anything they want, but obviously, if you wade into political waters, I think you should expect some political response, and I think the pope’s received some of that.”
Mike Johnson
And not to be outdone, Vice President JD Vance-–a Catholic convert who often calls himself deeply religious—said: “I think it’s very, very important for the Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
So much for the current actions of a Right-wing dictator. Now for those of a past one.
In 2005, Avvenire (“Future”), a daily newspaper which is affiliated with the Catholic Church and based in Milan, Italy, carried a story about Adolf Hitler’s plots to kidnap Pope Pius XII in 1943 and 1944.
The plots were part of a wider plan to “abolish” Christianity and replace it with a religion in which Hitler would be worshipped as the savior of humankind.
But instead of kidnapping the Pope, SS General Karl Wolff, in charge of the SS in Italy, went to the Vatican to warn Pope Pius XII of the danger he faced.
Wolff, who survived World War II, revealed the affair in a March 24, 1972 written statement to Vatican officials weighing the case for setting Pope Pius on the road to sainthood.
Karl Wolff
Jmac66999, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Previously, Wolff testified at the Nuremberg trials that Hitler had talked of seizing the Pope in 1943. With Italy in ruins from Allied bombings and Italian armies defeated or in retreat everywhere, Italians were desperate for peace.
On July 25, Hitler’s fellow Fascist, Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini—who had held power since 1922—was overthrown. Summoned to the royal palace by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, he was arrested and taken to a police station in an ambulance.
He was eventually transferred to the Hotel Campo Imperatore, in Italy’s Gran Sasso mountain range.
On September 12, 1943, he was rescued through a daring German airborne operation. German paratroopers and Waffen-SS special forces landed to free him from his imprisonment.
Although he was officially restored to power, he remained strictly a puppet of Hitler. His symbolic reign came to an end on April 28, 1945, when he was executed by Italian partisans.
Benito Mussolini
Hitler exploded in rage at the news of Mussolini’s arrest—and ordered German troops in Italy to take over the country: “Drive into Rome and arrest the whole Italian government! Get the King and the whole bunch right away! Arrest the Crown Prince and the whole gang! Pack them into a plane and off with them!”
Several generals asked what should be done with the Vatican.
Hitler replied: “I’ll go right into the Vatican! Do you think the Vatican embarrasses me? We’ll take that over right away. The entire diplomatic corps are in there. That rabble! We’ll get that bunch of swine out of there! Later we can make apologies!”
In September, 1943, Hitler decided to occupy the Vatican, “secure the archives and the art treasures, which have a unique value, and transfer the pope, together with the curia [the papal bureaucracy], for their protection, so that they cannot fall into the hands of the allies and exert a political influence.”
Hitler feared the Pope would speak out against the Nazis’ deportation of Jews, and wanted to eliminate the Church as a political force in Italy.
Pope Pius XII
The plan allegedly involved 2,000 SS troops blocking all Vatican exits to seize the Pope and cardinals. Proposed destinations for the kidnapped Pope included Liechtenstein or Lichtenstein Castle in Württemberg, Germany.
Wolff talked the Fuhrer out of the scheme, warning that it would prove an international political disaster. But in 1944, Hitler returned to the subject.
By May, 1944, American forces were advancing northwards through Italy, so Wolff had to shed his SS uniform when appearing in public.
On May 10, Wolff, wearing civilian clothes, met with Pope Pius XII in secret and warned him that he was in danger. He also assured the pontiff that he would not carry out the order.
Pius asked Wolf to save the lives of two condemned prisoners, and this was arranged.
Nevertheless, fearing abduction, Pope Pius XII prepared a resignation letter to take effect immediately upon his arrest. The College of Cardinals would flee to neutral Portugal to elect a successor.
The Germans evacuated Rome on the night of June 4-5, 1944.
Eighty-two years after Pope Pius XII faced the threat of terror by Adolf Hitler, an American-born Pope—Leo XIV—faces the threat of terror by Donald Trump.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on April 21, 2026 at 12:10 am
It’s become commonplace for liberals to attack President Donald Trump as a reincarnated Adolf Hitler—and Republicans as Nazis.
And Republicans furiously deny this, even as they embrace many of the same tactics—if not the goals—of Nazi Germany’s onetime rulers.
Throughout his first term as President, Trump adopted Hitler’s method of “negotiation” “Do what I want—or I’ll destroy you!” And it has remained so since his re-taking office on January 20, 2025.
On February 28, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched a series of devastating, unprovoked airstrikes against Iran.
Asked by a reporter how long the war would last, Trump arrogantly replied: “Any time I want it to end, it will end.”
But then Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% to 30% of the world’s total daily oil supply passes.
Gas prices in the United States immediately rose. Analysts warned that if the disruption continued, gasoline prices could exceed $5 per gallon.
Strait of Hormuz
Facing an apparently unwinnable war that he had started, Trump found himself facing an unexpected opponent: Pope Leo X1V.
According to Christopher Hale, a political consultant and the editor of the popular Letters from Leo newsletter: Trump’s Pentagon has threatened to declare war on the Vatican.
“In January [2026], behind closed doors at the Pentagon, Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre—-Pope Leo XIV’s then-ambassador to the United States—and delivered a lecture,” said Hale in an interview.
“America has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world,” Colby and his associates told the cardinal. “The Catholic Church had better take its side.”
One American official “reached for a fourteenth-century weapon and invoked the Avignon Papacy, the period when the French Crown used military force to bend the bishop of Rome to its will.”
Two weeks after the confrontation, the Vatican declined Trump’s invitation to host Pope Leo for the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary in July, 2026.
The Vatican obelisk in St. Paul’s Square
Livioandronico2013, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
According to sources in the Vatican and Americans briefed on the Pentagon meeting: Colby’s team studied the Pope’s January state-of-the-world address. They decided it was an attack on Trump.
What “enraged them most” was Leo’s line: “A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force.”
“The Pentagon read that sentence as a frontal challenge to the so-called ‘Donroe Doctrine’”— Trump’s self-named update of the Monroe Doctrine.
Issued by President James Monroe on December 2, 1823, it officially prohibited European colonization and interference in the Western Hemisphere. And it was backed by the threat of an armed response to any such attempt.
On April 12, 2026, Pope Leo said that praying for peace was a way to “break the demonic cycle of evil” to build instead the Kingdom of God where there are no swords, drones or “unjust profit.
Pope Leo XIV
“It is here that we find a bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive,” he said. “Even the holy Name of God, the God of life, is being dragged into discourses of death.”
On April 12, in talking to reporters, Trump furiously attacked the Pope: “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo.” He charged that the Pope was not “doing a very good job” and that “he’s a very liberal person.” He suggested that the pontiff should “stop catering to the Radical Left.”
On X, Trump wrote: “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. We don’t like a pope who says it’s OK to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
This from a man who was convicted of 34 felonies on May 30, 2024. A New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree to conceal hush-money payments made to porn “star” Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
And he continued:
“Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States.
Donald Trump
“I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.
“Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”
Just as the majority of Nazis rallied around Adolf Hitler, so have Republicans rallied around Donald Trump.
Despite his escalating attacks on Pope Leo X1V over the pontiff’s opposition to the Iran war, Trump’s approval rating among Republicans climbed to 86%. The poll was conducted by The Economist and YouGov on April 15.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 20, 2026 at 12:05 am
The “negotiating” methods of German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler serve as a useful guide to what domestic and world leaders can expect from trying to reach an agreement with President Donald Trump.
In September, 1938, seven months after seizing Austria, Hitler gave another exhibition of his “negotiating” methods.
This time, the target of his aggression was Czechoslovakia. Once again, he opened “negotiations” with a lie: The Czechoslovak government was trying to exterminate 3.5 million Germans living in the “Sudetenland.”
Then he threatened war: Germany would protect its citizens and halt such “oppression.”
For British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the thought of another European war erupting less than 20 years after the end of World War I was simply unthinkable.
He quickly sent Hitler a telegram, offering to help resolve the crisis: “I could come to you by air and am ready to leave tomorrow. Please inform me of earliest time you can receive me, and tell me the place of the meeting. I should be grateful for a very early reply.”
[Mistake #1: Showing his willingness to placate a brutal dictator. Such men see any concessions as weakness—leading to only greater demands. Trump, like Hitler, relishes attacking those weaker than himself.]
The two European leaders met in Berchtesgaden, Germany, on September 15, 1938.
Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler
Hitler denied that he had threatened war: “Force? Who speaks of force?“
Then, suddenly, he accused the Czechs of having mobilized their army in May. They had mobilized—in response to the mobilization of the German army.
“I shall not put up with this any longer,” shouted Hitler. “I shall settle this question in one way or another. I shall take matters in my own hands!”
Suddenly, Chamberlain seemed alarmed: “If I understood you right, you are determined to proceed against Czechoslovakia in any case. In the circumstances, it is best for me to return at once. Anything else now seems pointless.”
Hitler, taken aback, softened his tone and said they should consider the Sudetenland according to the principle of self-determination.
Chamberlain agreed to the cession of the Sudetenland. Three days later, French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier did the same. No Czechoslovak representative was invited to these discussions.
[Mistake #2: Instead of conceding to Hitler, which emboldened the dictator, Chamberlain should have pressed his advantage. When Hitler faced an opponent he couldn’t bribe or cow—such as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill or Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin—he raged and sulked.
[When Trump faces an opponent he can’t buy or intimidate—such as Special Counsels Robert Mueller and Jack Smith—he does the same.]
Chamberlain met Hitler again in Godesberg, Germany, on September 22 to confirm the agreements. But Hitler aimed to use the crisis as a pretext for war.
He now demanded not only the annexation of the Sudetenland but the immediate military occupation of the territories. This would give the Czechoslovak army no time to adapt their defense measures to the new borders.
To achieve a solution, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini suggested a conference of the major powers in Munich.
On September 29, Hitler, Daladier and Chamberlain met and agreed to Mussolini’s proposal. They signed the Munich Agreement, which accepted the immediate occupation of the Sudetenland.
The Czechoslovak government had not been a party to the talks. Nevertheless, it promised to abide by the agreement on September 30.
It actually had no choice. It faced the threat of an immediate German invasion after being deserted by its pledged allies: Britain, France and the Soviet Union.
[Mistake #3: Selling out an ally and making a concession to an insatiable dictator—and believing that Hitler could be trusted to keep his word.
[Just as Chamberlain sold out Czechoslovakia, Trump plans on selling out Ukraine to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. He’s blamed Ukraine for starting the 2022 war—even though Russia invaded Ukraine.
[He’s also attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—and repeatedly praised Putin. And he’s unilaterally announced that he will begin directing “peace talks” with Putin to end his war on Ukraine.]
Chamberlain returned to England a hero. Holding aloft a copy of the worthless agreement he had signed with Hitler, he told cheering crowds in London: “I believe it is peace for our time.”
Neville Chamberlain
Hitler—still planning more conquests—knew better. In March, 1939, the German army occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia.
Chamberlain would soon be seen as a naive weakling—even before bombs started falling on London.
Believing himself invincible, Hitler turned his attention—and demands—to Poland.
Adolf Hitler and his generals
Believing himself invincible, Trump threatened violence against Canada, Greenland and Cuba.
Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. To his surprise, France and England honored their pledges to support Poland—triggering World War II.
On February 28, 2026, Trump—in concert with Israel–attacked Iran without warning. To his surprise, the Iranians closed the Straight of Hormuz, through which 20-30% of the world’s oil total daily oil supply passes.
Hitler couldn’t “turn off” the war he had started. He could only lash out as his enemies multiplied.
The same has proven true for Trump.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 17, 2026 at 12:10 am
To understand the “negotiating” style of Donald Trump, it’s essential to study that of Adolf Hitler.
Both men, dictatorial by nature, did/do not believe in compromise. Their idea of “compromise” was/is: “You do what I want—or I’ll destroy you.”
In Hitler’s case, his mania for absolute control began with the Nazi party and eventually extended to Germany. Then it reached to Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, France, Greece, Yugoslavia and Russia. At least 50 million men, women and children perished in the wars he unleashed from 1939 to 1945.
Adolf Hitler
Similarly, Trump’s mania for control started with building a real estate empire. Then it encompassed his “reality TV” show, The Apprentice—and finally politics.
He began dominating the Republican party by winning a series of Presidential primaries—and then the White House. Then came asserting control over the Justice Department and the judiciary—up to the Supreme Court.
Re-elected in 2024, he now seeks to dominate Americans, demands military control over Iran, threatens Mexico and Canada with trade wars, and Greenland and Panama with invasion.
Much can be learned about Trump’s “negotiating” methods—and what it takes to counter them—by studying those of Germany’s Fuhrer.
Robert Payne, author of the bestselling biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (1973), described Hitler’s “negotiating” style thus:
“Although Hitler prized his own talents as a negotiator, a man always capable of striking a good bargain, he was totally lacking in finesse.
Donald Trump
“He was incapable of bargaining. He was like a man who goes up to a fruit peddler and threatens to blow his brains out if he does not sell his applies at the lowest possible price.”
What Payne writes about Hitler applies equally well to Trump.
Hitler revealed his “bargaining style” in 1938, when he invited Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to his mountaintop retreat in Obersalzberg, Germany.
Hitler, an Austrian by birth, intended to annex his native land to Germany. Schuschnigg was aware of this, but felt secure in accepting the invitation. He had been assured that the question of Austrian sovereignty would not arise.
The meeting occurred on February 12, 1938.
Shuschnigg opened the discussion with a friendly compliment. Walking over to a large window, he admired the breathtaking view of the mountains.
HITLER: We haven’t come here to talk about the lovely view or the weather!
Austria has anyway never done anything which was of help to the German Reich….I am resolutely determined to make an end to all this business. The German Reich is a great power. Nobody can and nobody will interfere if it restores order on its frontiers.
[Like Hitler, Trump relies on insults and anger to put his victims on the defense.]
Kurt von Schuschnigg
SCHUSCHNIGG: We simply have to go on living alongside one another, the little state next to the big one. We have no other choice.
And that is why I ask you to tell me what your concrete complaints are. We will do all in our power to sort things out and establish a friendly relationship, as far as it is possible to do so.
HITLER: That’s what you say, Herr Schuschnigg. And I am telling you that I intend to clear up the whole of the so-called Austrian question—one way or another. Do you think I don’t know that you are fortifying Austria’s border with the Reich?
SCHUSCHNIGG: There can be no suggestion at all of that—
HITLER: Ridiculous explosive chambers are being built under bridges and roads—
This was a lie, and Hitler knew it was a lie. But it gave him an excuse to threaten to destroy Austria.
[For Trump, winning—not truth—is all that matters. During his first term as President, he told 30,573 lies.]
HITLER: I have only to give one command and all this comic stuff on the border will be blown to pieces overnight. You don’t seriously think you could hold me up, even for half an hour, do you?
The S.A. [Hitler’s private army of Stormtroopers] and the [Condor] lLegion [which had bombed much of Spain into rubble during the Spanish Civil War] would come in after the troops and nobody—not even I—could stop them from wreaking vengeance.
Schnuschigg made a cardinal mistake in dealing with Hitler: He showed fear. And this was precisely what the Nazi dictator looked for in an opponent.
[Like Hitler, Trump relies on fear: “Real power is—I don’t even want to use the word—fear,” he said in March 2016 when still only a candidate for President.]
Contrary to popular belief, Hitler did not constantly rage at everyone. He used rage as a weapon, knowing that most people feel intimidated by it.
In the case of Schuschnigg, Hitler opened with insults and threats at the outset of their discussion. Then there was a period of calm, to convince the Austrian chancellor the worst was over.
Finally, he once again attacked—this time with so much fury that Schuschnigg was terrified into submission.
With one stroke of a pen, Austria became a vassal-state to Nazi Germany.
[Like Hitler, Trump threatens only those he feels are weak—thus his threats to use military force against Canada, Greenland and Panama.]
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 16, 2026 at 12:17 am
Throughout his first term as President, “Do what I want—or I’ll destroy you!” proved Donald Trump’s go-to method of “negotiation.” And it has remained so since re-taking office on January 20, 2025.
On February 28, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched a series of devastating, unprovoked airstrikes against Iran.
Asked by a reporter how long the war would last, Trump arrogantly replied: “Any time I want it to end, it will end.”
But then Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% to 30% of the world’s total daily oil supply passes.
Gas prices in the United States immediately rose. Analysts warned that if the disruption continued, gasoline prices could exceed $5 per gallon.
Fearing this posed a direct threat to Repbublicans’ holding control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections, on Easter Sunday Trump posted on his website, Truth Social:
“Tuesday [April 7] will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, of you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
Legal experts and international organizations such as Amnesty International warned that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.
In less than 24 hours, American pilots would be forced to decide: “Do we want to become war criminals?”
But there are humane ways to wield power, and these usually leave feelings of lasting gratitude—if not reverence—for those who do.
Two examples follow.
Lesson #!: In Book Three, Chapter 22 of his classic masterwork, The Discourses, Niccolo Machiavelli offers the following: “An Act of Humanity Prevailed More With the Falacians Than All the Power of Rome.”
Marcus Furius Camillus, a Roman general, was besieging the city of the Faliscians, and had surrounded it. A teacher charged with educating the children of some of the city’s noblest families decided to ingratiate himself with Camillus by leading them into the Roman camp.
As Roman hostages, they could be used to compel the city to surrender.
Camillus not only declined the offer but went one step further. He ordered the teacher stripped and his hands tied behind his back. Then Camillus had a rod put into the hands of each of the children and directed them to whip the teacher all the way back to the city.
Upon learning this, the citizens of Faliscia were so much touched by the humanity and integrity of Camillus, that they surrendered the place to him without any further defense.
Summing up the meaning of this, Machiavelli writes: “This example shows that an act of humanity and benevolence will at all times have more influence over the minds of men than violence and ferocity. It also proves that provinces and cities which no armies…could conquer, have yielded to an act of humanity, benevolence, chastity or generosity.
“…History also shows us how much the people desire to find such virtues in great men, and how much they are extolled by historians and biographers of princes….Amongst these, Xenophon takes great pains to show how many victories, how much honor and fame, Cyrus gained by his humanity and affability, and by his not having exhibited a single instance of pride, cruelty or luxuriousness, nor of any of the other vices that are apt to stain the lives of men.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
This lesson—recorded by a master political scientist and practitioner of Realpolitik—remains highly relevant today.
Lesson #2: On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a black unemployed restaurant security guard, was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer. While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Chauvin kept his knee on the right side of Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds.
Cities across the United States erupted in mass protests over Floyd’s death—and police killings of black victims generally. Most of these demonstrations proved peaceful.
But cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City saw stores looted, vandalized and/or burned.
In response, President Donald Trump called for harsh policing, telling governors in a nationwide conference call that they must “dominate” protesters or be seen as “weak.”
To drive home his point, Trump ordered police and National Guard troops to violently remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, which borders St. John’s Church near the White House.
The purpose of the removal: To allow Trump to have a photo opportunity outside the church.
Contrast that with the example of Sheriff Christopher Swanson of Genesee County, Michigan.
Sheriff Christopher Swanson
Confronting a mass of aroused demonstrators in Flint Township on May 30, Swanson responded: “We want to be with you all for real.”
So Swanson took his helmet off. His deputies laid their batons down.
“I want to make this a parade, not a protest. So, you tell us what you need to do.”
“Walk with us!” the protesters shouted.
“Let’s walk, let’s walk,” said Swanson.
Cheering and applause resounded.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Swanson said as he and the cheering crowd proceeded. “Where do you want to walk? We’ll walk all night.”
And Swanson and his fellow officers walked in sympathy with the protesters.
No rioting followed.
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In Business, Entertainment, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 15, 2026 at 12:11 am
Facing an apparently unwinnable war with Iran that he had started, President Donald Trump found himself facing an unexpected opponent: Pope Leo X1V.
“Come back to the table,” said Leo. “Let’s talk, let’s look for solutions in a peaceful way and let’s remember especially the innocent children, the elderly, sick, so many people who have already become or will become victims of this continued warfare.”
On April 12 Trump posted on Truth Social: “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
“I’m not afraid of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the church is here to do,” replied the Pope.
American bishops rallied behind him, describing Leo not as a political opponent but as a “vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel.”
So, with the world holding its breath at what disaster might follow, Trump clearly felt that the time had come to remind people of his divine presence—and mission.
On April 13 he posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus healing a stricken man in a hospital bed.
If he assumed that his Religious Right followers would gaze at it in awe, Trump quickly learned otherwise: They were outraged by what they saw as his blasphemous comparison of himself to Jesus.
“Is he looking for a response? Does he actually think this? Either way, two things are true. 1) a little humility would serve him well 2) God shall not be mocked,” Riley Gaines, a Fox News host and conservative commentator, wrote on X.
“OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy,” Megan Basham, a writer at the conservative Daily Wire, said of the post.
“Nothing matters more than Jesus,” wrote Isabel Brown, a host on the same outlet. “This post is, frankly, disgusting and unacceptable, but also a profound misreading of the American people experiencing a true and beautiful revival of faith in Christ.”
Reporters asked Trump whether he posted a picture depicting himself as Jesus Christ. Trump replied with typical lack of humility: “It wasn’t a depiction, it was me, It’s supposed to be me as a doctor making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better,”
Aside from the religious reasons for being outraged at Trump’s self-depiction, there are genuine secular ones. Such as: Is it wise to entrust a nuclear arsenal to a man so unstable as to believe himself divine?
Trump has often worn a red MAGA hat bearing the inscription: “TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING.”
No one is ever right about everything. And those who believed they were usually discovered they weren’t.
A classic example of this was the Roman emperor Gaius Caligula (August 31, 12 A.D. to January 24, 41 A.D).
Gaius Caligula
Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
It was Caligula who, as “the Mad Emperor” of Rome, once said: “Bear in mind that I can treat anyone exactly as I please.”
And he did. He began laying claim to divine majesty, and killing or exiling anyone he saw as a threat. He ordered a tribune to murder his brother Tiberius, and drove his father-in‑law Silanus to cut his throat with a razor.
Caligula’s favorite method of execution was to have a victim tortured with many slight wounds. His infamous order for this: “Strike so that he may feel that he is dying.”
According to his biographer, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus: “He forced parents to attend the executions of their sons, sending a litter for one man who pleaded ill health, and inviting another to dinner immediately after witnessing the death, and trying to rouse him to gaiety and jesting by a great show of affability.”
Anyone who has ever seen the Biblical epics “The Robe” (1953) and “Demetrius and the Gladiators” (1954) remembers Jay Robinson’s chilling performance as Caligula. His face a perpetual sneer, he revels in wanton cruelty and megalomania. Ultimately, he comes to believe he’s a god.
Jay Robinson as Gaius Caligula in “The Robe”
In one scene, Caligula confronts his paternal uncle, Claudius, and asks: “Do you see her Claudius? The Goddess Diana. Every night she comes to me. My arms. There….there she goes. Now do you see her?”
Claudius replies: “No, sire.”
“Why not?” demands Caligula.
“Only you gods are privileged to see each other,” says Claudius—which instantly satisfies Caligula.
In “Demetrius”—as in history—Caligula, to his surprise, finds there are people willing to end his reign of evil.
In “Demetrius” it comes with a single spear thrown by one of his guards in a gladiatorial arena. In reality, it happened in an underground corridor where he was stabbed to death by officers of the Praetorian Guard.
Trump, like Caligula, revels in the destruction he wields. And, as with Caligula, there are clearly no limits to his megalomania.
The only question that remains to be answered: Will Trump’s reign—like Caligula’s-–end before he can destroy everyone within reach?
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In Business, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 14, 2026 at 12:10 am
And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men. Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever.
—Plutarch, “Life of Alexander”
“A matter of less moment, an expression or a jest” occurred on the morning of April 13: A President of the United States informed the public that he was divine.
In 2025, Donald Trump signed legislation that will strip medical coverage of nearly 12 million Americans by gutting Medicaid. The goal: To provide his wealthy donors with huge tax breaks.
On April 13, he posted an AI-generated image of himself to Truth Social depicting himself as Jesus, healing a man in a hospital bed. Light shines from his hands while a demon flies away in the background.
On Easter Sunday—along with Christmas, the holiest day of the year for Christians—he posted: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open up the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”
Donald Trump
Over a month earlier—on February 28–-Trump had, along with Israel, launched a series of brutal, unprovoked airstrikes against Iran. Tactically, the strikes were a success, leaving countless dead Iranians and destroyed buildings in their wake.
But then—to Trump’s surprise and fury—Iran closed the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s total liquid petroleum consumption (about 20–21 million barrels per day) flows.
Overnight, gas prices rose. By April 5, the national average for a gallon of regular gas in the United States reached $4.11, compared to roughly $2.98 before military operations began.
For more than a year, a majority of Americans had tolerated—if not supported—Trump’s ceaseless attacks on their Constitutional liberties. But now his brutal and reckless actions threatened to come between them and their gas-guzzling cars.
And for most Americans, this was the one sin they could not forgive.
With midterm elections eight months away, Republicans might well lose their control over the Senate and House of Representatives. And with a Democratic majority in both houses, a third impeachment trial for Trump would be a certainty.
With the Iranians apparently not intimidated by his April 5 post, Trump followed with another on April 7: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
Legal experts and international organizations such as Amnesty International, warned that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.
As the hours ticked off April 6. American pilots were forced to decide: “Do we want to become war criminals?”
B-52 bomber
Then, on April 8, the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire—less than two hours before Trump’s deadline.
But then Iran cited Israel’s bombing of Lebanon as a violation of the truce, and once again began restricting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
In response, Trump ordered the United States Navy to blockade Iran’s ports—just as he has imposed a naval blockade of Cuba. “We can’t let a country blackmail or extort the world because that’s what they’re doing,” he said.
Iran responded with threats on all ports in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, taking aim at U.S.-allied countries.
Meanwhile, Trump was at war with not only Iranian religious figures but the chief Christian one: Pope Leo XIV, the first US-born pope in Catholic history.
Leo had aroused Trump’s ire by daring to say: “Today as we all know there was this threat against all the people of Iran. This is truly unacceptable.”
And he added: “We have a worldwide economic crisis, an energy crisis, (a) situation in the Middle East of great instability, which is only provoking more hatred throughout the world.
“Come back to the table, let’s talk, let’s look for solutions in a peaceful way and let’s remember especially the innocent children, the elderly, sick, so many people who have already become or will become victims of this continued warfare.”
Pope Leo X1V
Edgar Beltrán, The Pillar, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
On April 12 Trump posted on Truth Social: “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
This from a man who was convicted of 34 felonies on May 30, 2024. A New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree to conceal hush-money payments made to porn “star” Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
And he continued:
“Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!”
So, with the world holding its breath at what disaster might follow, Trump clearly felt that the time had come to remind people of his divine presence—and mission.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 13, 2026 at 12:07 am
A dictator can die of illness or old age.
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as Gaius Caligula, Adolf Hitler and—possibly—Joseph Stalin.
Death by Fellow Bureaucrat
Joseph Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union from January 21, 1924, to March 5, 1953—29 years.
Joseph Stalin
Throughout his nearly 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, at least 20 million men, women and children died—from executions, deportations, imprisonment in Gulag camps, and a man-made famine through the forced collection of harvests.
Robert Payne, the acclaimed British historian, vividly portrayed the crimes of this murderous tyrant in his brilliant 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin.
According to Payne, Stalin was planning yet another purge during the last weeks of his life. This would be “a holocaust greater than any he had planned before.
“This time there would be a chistka [purge] to end all chistkas, a purging of the entire body of the state from top to bottom. No one, not even the highest officials, was to be spared.”
Then, on March 5, 1953, Stalin died—officially from a cerebral hemorrhage.
He was 73 and in poor health from a lifetime of smoking, drinking and little exercise. But he could have died of unnatural causes.
In the 2004 book, Stalin’s Last Crime, Vladimir P. Naumov, a Russian historian, and Jonathan Brent, a Yale University Soviet scholar, assert that he might have been poisoned.
If this happened, the occasion was during a final dinner with four members of the Politburo. Two of these were Lavrenti P. Beria, chief of the secret police, and Nikita S. Khrushchev, who eventually succeeded Stalin.
The authors believe that, if Stalin was poisoned, the most likely suspect was Beria. The method: Slipping warfarin, a tasteless and colorless blood thinner also used as a rat killer, into his glass of wine.
In Nikita Khrushchev’s 1970 memoirs, he quotes Beria as telling Vyacheslav M. Molotov, another Politburo member, two months after Stalin’s death: “I did him in! I saved all of you.”
It’s entirely possible that Donald Trump’s “Presidency-for-Life” may end by natural causes.
He’s 79, and despite his repeated boastings that he’s the healthiest President in United States history, clearly he isn’t.
He is grotesquely overweight, doesn’t exercise, falls asleep in public appearances and slurs his words. Much of his diet consists of greasy, artery-clogging fast food—such as from McDonald’s and KFC.
He stays up late at night, pouring out his hatred for countless real and imagined enemies on his website, Truth Social.
But that is not the only way his reign could disappear in other ways:
- The Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet could invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This allows the removal of the President when he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” The Vice President then becomes President.
- Within the Senate and House of Representatives, Republicans could stop backing his every infamy and secure his impeachment and conviction.
- Generals could protest publicly Trump’s attacks on their intelligence and even patriotism—or his racist and sexist firings of professional military officers.
- FBI agents could initiate their own unofficial investigations of Trump’s crimes and leak those results to the press. It was through such leaks that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein brought down Richard Nixon.
* * * * * * * * * *
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman, authored The Discourses on Livy, a work of political history and philosophy. In it, he outlined how citizens of a republic can maintain their freedoms.
One of the longest chapters—Book Three, Chapter Six—covers “Of Conspiracies.” In it, those who wish to conspire against a ruler will find highly useful advice. And so will those who wish to foil such a conspiracy.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Above all, he notes how important it is for rulers to make themselves loved—or at least respected—by their fellow citizens:
“Note how much more praise those Emperors merited who, after Rome became an empire, conformed to her laws like good princes, than those who took the opposite course.
“Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus and Marcus Auelius did not require the Praetorians nor the multitudinous legions to defend them, because they were protected by their own good conduct, the good will of the people, and by the love of the Senate.
“On the other hand, neither the Eastern nor the Western armies saved Caligula, Nero, Vitellius and so many other wicked Emperors from the enemies which their bad conduct and evil lives had raised up against them.”
In his better-known work, The Prince, Machiavelli warns rulers who—like Donald Trump–are inclined to rule by fear:
“A prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred: for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together.”
By Machiavelli’s standards, Trump has made himself the perfect target for a conspiracy:
“When a prince becomes universally hated, it is likely that he’s harmed some individuals—who thus seek revenge. This desire is increased by seeing that the prince is widely loathed.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 10, 2026 at 12:16 am
A dictator can die of illness or old age. That’s what happened to Francisco Franco (Spain), Mao Zedong (China) and Fidel Castro (Cuba).
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as the following three.
Death by Bodyguards
First up: Gaius Caligula, the “Mad Emperor” of Imperial Rome.
Caligula’s reign spanned March 18, 37 A.D. to January 24, 41 A.D.—four years.
Gaius Caligula
Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
He became Emperor in 37 A.D. after succeeding the Emperor Tiberius, his uncle who had adopted him as a son after his father died.
Caligula’s reign began well—and popularly. He gave Tiberius a magnificent funeral—then recalled to Rome all those whom Tiberius had banished, and ignored all charges that Tiberius had leveled against them.
He gave bonuses to the military and allowed the magistrates unrestricted jurisdiction, without appeal to himself.
But in October 37 A.D. he fell seriously ill or perhaps was poisoned.
Caligula soon recovered but emerged a changed man. He began claiming to be a god, and killing or exiling anyone he saw as a threat. He ordered his victims tortured to death with many slight wounds: “Strike so that he may feel that he is dying.”
Among his litany of crimes, according to his biographer, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus:
“He forced parents to attend the executions of their sons, sending a litter for one man who pleaded ill health, and inviting another to dinner immediately after witnessing the death, and trying to rouse him to gaiety and jesting by a great show of affability.”
For all his cruelty and egomania, the trait that finally destroyed Caligula was his joy in humiliating others.
His fatal mistake was to taunt Cassius Chaerea, a member of his own bodyguard. Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and mocked him with names like “Priapus” and “Venus.”
On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.
Death by Suicide
Next up: Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany from January 30, 1933, to April 30, 1945—12 years.
He was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary.
Adolf Hitler
He was appointed Chancellor—chief law enforcement officer—of Germany on January 30, 1933, by President Paul von Hindenburg. Upon Hindenburg’s death in 1934, Hitler assumed the Presidency and established himself as absolute dictator.
From 1933 to 1939 he presided over Germany’s rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the defiance of restrictions imposed on Germany after World War 1, and the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, where millions of ethnic Germans lived.
These accomplishments won him widespread popular support.
But after absorbing Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hitler felt himself invincible. On September 1, 1939, his armies attacked Poland—and unintentionally ignited World War II.
After conquering Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece and Yugoslavia, he made his two greatest mistakes of the war: He invaded the far more powerful Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and declared war on the equally more powerful United States on December 11.
Parallel to unleashing a war that slaughtered 50 million people, Hitler orchestrated the extermination of at least six million Jews during the Holocaust.
By April, 1945, Germany faced destruction from the advancing Russians on the East, and from the advancing Americans on the West.
On April 30, with Russian forces only blocks from his underground bunker, Hitler lifted a heavy 7.65mm Walther PPK pistol to his right temple, bit on a cyanide capsule, and pulled the trigger.
Just as Caligula’s mangled remains were hastily burned and buried in the Horti Lamiani gardens, Hitler’s body was hastily cremated in the Reich Chancellery garden.
Last up: Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union from January 21, 1924, to March 5, 1953—29 years.
Born on December 18, 1878, in Georgia, Russia, he hated Czarist rule and in 1903 joined the Communist Bolsheviks party, led by Vladimir Lenin, to overthrow it.
Joseph Stalin
On November 7, 1917, Lenin overthrew the Provisional Government, which had taken power in February, after Czarist rule collapsed.
Stalin became a member of the new Soviet government, gradually working his way to the position of General Secretary. When Lenin died on January 21, 1924, Stalin outmaneuvered Leon Trotsky, his major rival for the succession, and became absolute dictator.
Starting in 1934, a series of massive purges followed—most notably between August, 1936, and March, 1938.
Throughout his nearly 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, at least 20 million men, women and children died—from executions, deportations, imprisonment in Gulag camps, and a man-made famine through the forced collection of harvests.
Robert Payne, the acclaimed British historian, vividly portrayed the crimes of this murderous tyrant in his brilliant 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin.
According to Payne, Stalin was planning yet another purge during the last weeks of his life. This would be “a holocaust greater than any he had planned before.
“This time there would be a chistka [purge] to end all chistkas, a purging of the entire body of the state from top to bottom. No one, not even the highest officials, was to be spared.”
Yet Stalin did nothing to calm their fears. He often summoned his “comrades” to the Kremlin for late-night drinking bouts, where he freely humiliated them.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 9, 2026 at 12:14 am
There are major similarities between Adolf Hitler’s 1941 invasion and intended conquest of the Soviet Union and Donald Trump’s 2026 attack and intended conquest of Iran.
Even as late as January 30, 1945, Hitler claimed that God firmly stood on the side of the Third Reich—and thus would guarantee its eventual victory.
PAST – HITLER: God the Almighty has made our nation. By defending its existence we are defending His work…Therefore, it is all the more necessary on this twelfth anniversary of the rise to power to strengthen the heart more than ever before and to steel ourselves in the holy determination to wield the sword, no matter where and under what circumstances, until final victory crowns our efforts.
Similarly, on March 22, 2026, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, hosting his monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon, prayed:
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.
“I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed,” he read from Psalms 18:37. “Those who hated me I destroyed. They cried to the Lord, but He did not answer them.”
On December 31, 1939—more than three months into World War 11—Hitler made clear his ultimate war aims:
PAST – HITLER: We shall only talk of peace when we have won the war. The Jewish capitalist world will not survive the twentieth century.
PRESENT – PETE HEGSETH: Iran cannot outlast us. We are going to ensure through violence of action and our offensive capabilities and our defensive capabilities, as I said, that we set the tone and the tempo of this fight.
Hitler believed that German airpower could force Great Britain to submit to his will. The Battle of Britain and The Blitz proved him wrong.
He also believed that his mechanized Panzers—which had defeated French and British armies in May-June,1940—would succeed where Napoleon’s horse-driven Grand Army had failed in 1812. The final proof of his mistake appeared on April 30, 1945, as Russian forces were almost literally knocking at his Fuhrerbunker door.
PAST – HITLER: We have only to kick in the front door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.
Hegseth believes that American airpower can force Iran to submit to his will. But the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to world shipping (except for those nations that Iran regards as friendly or neutral). So long as this continues, Americans’ gas prices will continue to rise with no end in sight—and pose a threat to Republicans’ continued control of the House and Senate.
About 20% of the world’s total oil consumption—roughly 20-21 million barrels per day—passes through this, making it the world’s most crucial oil chokepoint.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Iran will never possess a nuclear bomb, not on our watch, not ever. And this is why President Trump’s moral clarity on Iran today is so vital. Unlike the past, where vague red lines and endless negotiations let Iran fund terror and inch ever so slightly toward a bomb, this president sees the threat plainly and acts decisively, no more half measures, especially when Iran is at its weakest. No more letting Tehran play for time while our people pay the price.
PAST – HITLER: Russia is already broken and will never rise again.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Iran’s senior leaders are dead, the so-called governing council that might have selected a successor, dead, missing or cowering in bunkers, too terrified to even occupy the same room. Senior generals, mid-level officers, enlisted ranks, they can’t talk or communicate, let alone mount a coordinated and sustained offensive. That’s not great for morale.
PAST – HITLER: Moscow must disappear from the earth’s surface as soon as its riches have been brought to shelter.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: The enemy can no longer shoot the volume of missiles they once did, not even close, and the chairman will lay out some of those percentages. So, our air defenses and that of our allies have plenty of runway. We can sustain this fight easily for as long as we need to. And as I said yesterday, we set the terms.
PAST – HITLER: Today I am at the head of the strongest Army in the world, the most gigantic Air Force and of a proud Navy. Behind and around me stands the Party with which I became great and which has become great through me. Our enemies must not deceive themselves—in the 2,000 years of German history known to us, our people have never been more united than today.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: And we know their ability to shoot versus our ability to defend. That difference gets wider and wider every day. Our defense gets better. Their offense capabilities diminish as we are going into ammunitions that we, as we said, have tens of thousands of and can drop unlimited supplies on, with even more effects than the stand-off munitions we have now, which is why, when we say the throttle’s going up, the throttle’s going up. And it’s going to stay on high.
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POPES AND TYRANTS: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on April 22, 2026 at 12:10 amOn April 12, President Donald Trump wrote on X: “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. We don’t like a pope who says it’s OK to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
Despite his escalating attacks on Pope Leo XIV over the pontiff’s opposition to the Iran war, Trump’s approval rating among Republicans has climbed to 86%. The poll was conducted by The Economist and YouGov on April 15.
This includes high-ranking Republican leaders like Speaker of the House Mike Johnson: “A pontiff or any religious leader can say anything they want, but obviously, if you wade into political waters, I think you should expect some political response, and I think the pope’s received some of that.”
Mike Johnson
And not to be outdone, Vice President JD Vance-–a Catholic convert who often calls himself deeply religious—said: “I think it’s very, very important for the Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
So much for the current actions of a Right-wing dictator. Now for those of a past one.
In 2005, Avvenire (“Future”), a daily newspaper which is affiliated with the Catholic Church and based in Milan, Italy, carried a story about Adolf Hitler’s plots to kidnap Pope Pius XII in 1943 and 1944.
The plots were part of a wider plan to “abolish” Christianity and replace it with a religion in which Hitler would be worshipped as the savior of humankind.
But instead of kidnapping the Pope, SS General Karl Wolff, in charge of the SS in Italy, went to the Vatican to warn Pope Pius XII of the danger he faced.
Wolff, who survived World War II, revealed the affair in a March 24, 1972 written statement to Vatican officials weighing the case for setting Pope Pius on the road to sainthood.
Karl Wolff
Jmac66999, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Previously, Wolff testified at the Nuremberg trials that Hitler had talked of seizing the Pope in 1943. With Italy in ruins from Allied bombings and Italian armies defeated or in retreat everywhere, Italians were desperate for peace.
On July 25, Hitler’s fellow Fascist, Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini—who had held power since 1922—was overthrown. Summoned to the royal palace by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, he was arrested and taken to a police station in an ambulance.
He was eventually transferred to the Hotel Campo Imperatore, in Italy’s Gran Sasso mountain range.
On September 12, 1943, he was rescued through a daring German airborne operation. German paratroopers and Waffen-SS special forces landed to free him from his imprisonment.
Although he was officially restored to power, he remained strictly a puppet of Hitler. His symbolic reign came to an end on April 28, 1945, when he was executed by Italian partisans.
Benito Mussolini
Hitler exploded in rage at the news of Mussolini’s arrest—and ordered German troops in Italy to take over the country: “Drive into Rome and arrest the whole Italian government! Get the King and the whole bunch right away! Arrest the Crown Prince and the whole gang! Pack them into a plane and off with them!”
Several generals asked what should be done with the Vatican.
Hitler replied: “I’ll go right into the Vatican! Do you think the Vatican embarrasses me? We’ll take that over right away. The entire diplomatic corps are in there. That rabble! We’ll get that bunch of swine out of there! Later we can make apologies!”
In September, 1943, Hitler decided to occupy the Vatican, “secure the archives and the art treasures, which have a unique value, and transfer the pope, together with the curia [the papal bureaucracy], for their protection, so that they cannot fall into the hands of the allies and exert a political influence.”
Hitler feared the Pope would speak out against the Nazis’ deportation of Jews, and wanted to eliminate the Church as a political force in Italy.
Pope Pius XII
The plan allegedly involved 2,000 SS troops blocking all Vatican exits to seize the Pope and cardinals. Proposed destinations for the kidnapped Pope included Liechtenstein or Lichtenstein Castle in Württemberg, Germany.
Wolff talked the Fuhrer out of the scheme, warning that it would prove an international political disaster. But in 1944, Hitler returned to the subject.
By May, 1944, American forces were advancing northwards through Italy, so Wolff had to shed his SS uniform when appearing in public.
On May 10, Wolff, wearing civilian clothes, met with Pope Pius XII in secret and warned him that he was in danger. He also assured the pontiff that he would not carry out the order.
Pius asked Wolf to save the lives of two condemned prisoners, and this was arranged.
Nevertheless, fearing abduction, Pope Pius XII prepared a resignation letter to take effect immediately upon his arrest. The College of Cardinals would flee to neutral Portugal to elect a successor.
The Germans evacuated Rome on the night of June 4-5, 1944.
Eighty-two years after Pope Pius XII faced the threat of terror by Adolf Hitler, an American-born Pope—Leo XIV—faces the threat of terror by Donald Trump.
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