Cardinal Pacelli goes on an airplane ride with German Ambassador Edmund von Thermann and Archbishop Copello - Oct. 16, 1934
Source: Timeline
Oct. 16, 1934 Cardinal Pacelli goes on an airplane ride with German Ambassador Edmund von Thermann and Archbishop Copello.
Thermann’s account of his interactions with Pacelli, in post-War Allied interrogation report
Photograph of Pacelli disembarking from German plane from La Prensa, Oct. 17, 1934, p.17
Oct. 1934 Ambassador Thermann’s account of his interactions with Copello and Pacelli at the Eucharistic Congress in Buenos Aires, as told to an Allied interrogator after World War II and reported to the U.S. State Department:
“Relations with the Catholic Church, which in the beginning had been somewhat strained, took a dramatic turn for the better when Cardinal Pacelli (the present Pope Pius XII) visited Buenos Aires in 1937 [sic] for the Eucharistic Congress and on that occasion attracted wide attention by inviting the Thermanns to social functions and conversing with them in fluent German. Having discovered that Pacelli was interested in aviation, Thermann offered to place a Junker plane at his disposal for the duration of his visit. This offer was accepted and Cardinal Pacelli, Thermann and Archbishop Coppello [sic] took a sight-seeing trip together in that plane. Since that day, Archbishop Coppello had been a frequent visitor to the German Embassy. Incidentally, it was through the Archbishop that the Thermanns became friendly with General Martinez Pita.”
Source: Report of interrogation of Edmund von Thermann, former German Ambassador to Argentina, dated July 11, 1945, page 3. Original Secret interrogation report, declassified
Additional post-war reports of interrogations of Thermann reveal that the newspaper El Pueblo received German propaganda subsidies of 3,000 German Marks per month. El Pueblo was the daily Catholic newspaper of Buenos Aires, a semi-official publication of Copello’s Archdiocese according to Austen Ivereigh, Catholicism and Politics in Argentina, 1810-1960 (1995), p.80. The first page of the Special Interrogation Report of November 30, 1945 indicates that Thermann was interrogated on a total of nine days, after the date of the earlier July 1945 report.
The first paragraph of an interior page of the report shows El Pueblo receiving German propaganda subsidies as of 1942:
“The prisoner was confronted with a list prepared by the German Embassy in March, 1942, setting forth the monthly needs in marks for subsidizing publications in Argentina. The principal beneficiary was El Pampero, with 42,000 marks a month; other substantial sums were paid to Ahora (7,200 marks), Deutsche La Plata Zeitung (7,000 marks) and El Pueblo (3,000 marks)."