Alois Karl Hudal (also known as Luigi Hudal; 31 May 1885 – 13 May 1963) was an Austrian bishop of the Catholic Church based in Rome. For thirty years, he was the head of the Austrian-German congregation of Santa Maria dell'Anima in Rome and, until 1937, an influential representative of the Catholic Church in Austria.
In his 1937 book, The Foundations of National Socialism, Hudal praised Adolf Hitler and his policies and indirectly attacked Vatican policies. After World War II, Hudal helped establish the ratlines, which allowed prominent Nazi German and other European former Axis officers and political leaders, among them accused war criminals such as Adolf Eichmann, to escape Allied trials and denazification.
Alois Hudal, the son of a shoemaker, was born on 31 May 1885 in Graz, Austria, and studied theology there from 1904 to 1908. He was ordained to the priesthood in July 1908.
Hudal became a specialist on the liturgy, doctrine and spirituality of the Slavic-speaking Eastern Orthodox Churches while a parish priest in Kindberg. In 1911, he earned a Doctor of Sacred Theology degree at the University of Graz. He entered the Teutonic College of Santa Maria dell'Anima in Rome, where he was a chaplain from 1911 to 1913 and attended courses in Old Testament at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. He earned his Doctor of Sacred Scripture degree with a dissertation on Die religiösen und sittlichen Ideen des Spruchbuches ("The Religious and Moral Ideas of the Book of Proverbs"), published in 1914. He joined the faculty for Old Testament studies at the University of Graz in 1914. During the First World War, he was a military chaplain. In 1917, he published a book of his sermons to the soldiers, Soldatenpredigten, in which he expressed the idea that "loyalty to the flag is loyalty to God", though also warning against "national chauvinism".
In 1923, he was named rector of the Collegio Teutonico di Santa Maria dell'Anima (known simply as "Anima") in Rome, a theological seminary for German and Austrian priests. In 1930, he was appointed a consultant to the Holy Office by Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val, its prefect.
Ludwig von Pastor, an Austrian diplomat, introduced Hudal to Pope Pius XI in 1922, and recommended Hudal's study of the Serbo-Croatian National Church to him. On 5 February 1923, he recommended Hudal for a position at the Anima, mainly because he was Austrian. Von Pastor was concerned that Austria, which had just lost World War I and with it much influence, would lose the Anima to a German, Dutch or Belgian candidate. The pope agreed to name Hudal later that month.
Hudal became the public face of advocacy for Austria, the Austrian bishops' conference, and Austrian prestige in the Vatican, as German groups attempted to reestablish their influence at the Anima. Pope Pius XI supported Hudal, though he rejected requests to make Hudal responsible for pastoral care of the German community.
In 1924, Hudal, in a Vatican ceremony in the presence of Pope Pius XI, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri and numerous cardinals, delivered a speech in praise of von Pastor to mark the 40th anniversary of the publication of Pastor's History of the Popes From the Close of the Middle Ages.
In June 1933, Hudal was consecrated titular bishop of Aela by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (future Pius XII), who had succeeded Merry del Val as the cardinal protector of the German national church at Rome.
In April 1938, Hudal helped organise a vote of German and Austrian clerics at the German college of Santa Maria dell'Anima on the question of the German annexation of Austria (Anschluss). The vote took place on the German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer, anchored in the Italian harbour of Gaeta. More than 90% voted against the Anschluss, an outcome partisans of German expansion named the "Shame of Gaeta" (Italian: Vergogna di Gaeta; German: Schande von Gaeta).
From 1933 on, Hudal publicly embraced the pan-Germanic nationalism he had previously condemned, proclaiming that he wished to be a "servant and herald" of "the total German cause".
His invective against Jews became more frequent, linking the so-called "Semitic race" – which "sought to set itself apart and dominate" – with the nefarious movements of democracy and internationalism and alleged a Jewish bankers' conspiracy to become "the financial masters of the Eternal City". In 1935, he wrote a preface to an Italian biography of the Austrian politician Engelbert Dollfuss without mentioning that he had been murdered by Austrian Nazis during a coup attempt the previous year.
Perception of Bolshevism and liberalism as enemies
Hudal was a committed anti-communist and opposed liberalism. Before the rise of Nazism, he was already critical of parliamentary governance. His ideas were similar to the political and economic ideas of such authoritarian and/or fascist politicians as Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg (Austria), Franz von Papen (Germany), and António de Oliveira Salazar (Portugal). According to author Greg Whitlock: "Hudal squarely fitted into a formula current at the time, the category of Clerical-Fascism."
Hudal was most concerned with the rise of the international communist movement and worker parties in Austria. Fear of Bolshevism was his starting point, but this feeling turned into an aggressive political doctrine towards Russia: "Essential to understanding Hudal's politics is his fear that Bolshevist military forces would invade Italy through Eastern Europe or the Balkans and would be unstoppable until they destroyed the Church. Like many within the Church, he embraced the bulwark theory, which placed hope in a strong German-Austrian military shield to protect Rome. This protection involved a pre-emptive attack on communism, Hudal believed, and so he felt an urgent need for a Christian army from Central Europe to invade Russia and eliminate the Bolshevist threat to Rome".
He had another reason to hope for a German-led defeat of Russia. His long-term goals were "the reunification of Rome with the Eastern Orthodox Church and the conversion of the Balkans from the Serbian Orthodox Church to Catholicism". He expected that the invasion of the Soviet Union by European forces would serve these aims. Since the Russian Revolution of 1917 had crushed the Russian Orthodox Church, Hudal and other Catholics saw a historic opportunity to help Russian Christians with aid "and conversion", ending the thousand-year East–West Schism that divided Christianity.
"Good" and "bad" National Socialism
Hudal is said to have received a Golden Party Badge, but this is disputed. In Vienna in 1937, Hudal published a book entitled The Foundations of National Socialism, with an imprimatur from Archbishop Theodor Innitzer, in which he enthusiastically endorsed Hitler. Hudal sent Hitler a copy with a handwritten dedication praising him as "the new Siegfried of Germany's greatness".