THE GESTAPO AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
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one would do with a glove, by the Holy See's emissaries who promised him power. The unbending Hitler was to prove just as malleable. The Ledochowski's plan was, originally, to create a federation of the Catholic nations in central and eastern Europe, in which Bavaria and Austria (governed by the Jesuit Seipel) would have had the pre-eminence. Bavaria had to be separated from the German Republic of Weimar—and, as by chance, the agitator Hitler, of Austrian origin, was then a Bavarian separatist. But the chance to realise this federation and place a Hapsburg at its head became more and more slim, whilst Monseigneur Pacelli, the nuncio who had left Munich for Berlin, became the more conscious of the German Republic's weakness because of the poor support the Allies gave it. The hope to get hold of Germany as a whole was then born at the Vatican and the plan was modified accordingly: "The hegemony of Protestant Prussia had to be prevented and as the Reich was to dominate Europe—to avert the Germans' federalism—a Reich had to be reconstituted in which the Catholics would be masters".(123) This was enough. Turning completely round with his "brown shirts", Hitler, who had been until then a Bavarian separatist, became overnight the inspired Apostle of the Great Reich.
(123) Mercure de France: "Pius XI and Hitler", 15th of January 1934.