Source: Timeline
Aug. 18, 1920 Nuncio Pacelli reports to Rome on the political situation in Germany and Bolshevism.
English translation - Italian original and German summary at www.Pacelli-Edition.deVentresca (2013), p.57, quotes Pacelli in this report referring to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles as an “international absurdity.”
Aug. 18, 1920 Pacelli to Gasparri re political situation in Germany and Bolshevism:
Most Reverend Eminence,
In my respectful Report No. 17150 dated June 26th this year, I explained to Your Most Reverend Eminence the political situation in Germany...
The German people are following at the present time, with great anxiety, the development of events in the East. The victorious advance of Bolshevism is raising a whole series of questions, whose weight and consequences are impossible to measure at this time. Germany is studying attentively how to exploit these events in its favor. It signed the Treaty of Versailles with clenched teeth and without a domestic consensus ...
Now it is exactly in the Russian events and the collapse of Poland that many believe they see the opportunity for such a major revision of the Treaty of Versailles...
I had just finished writing these lines this morning when Bavarian Minister von Kahr came to visit me after midday, for precisely the purpose of talking with me about Bolshevism, which he considers to be the most serious question in the world at the moment... The Minister President thinks that Bavaria, together with the other States of southern Germany, will eventually be able to organize an effective action against the Bolshevik tide. It is for that reason, he affirmed, that the Bavarian Government does not intend, come what may, to disarm the civic guard or Einwohnerwehr, which is the only guarantee for the protection of public order. When I observed that Germany has nonetheless assumed such an obligation in the Spa conference and that, in case of non-fulfillment of that obligation, the Entente would have occupied the Ruhr Valley, he answered me that France (and of this the Government in Berlin is also persuaded) is resolved to carry out such an occupation in any event, which is thus inevitable and only a matter of time. I fear that this solution of Mr. von Kahr may be a little simplistic ...
Source: Vatican Secret Archives, reprinted in Fattorini (1992), pp. 352-355. Italian original and German summary at www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Document No. 1053.