Further bio on Pius XII

The First Nuncio in Berlin
Several years after he was appointed Nuncio to Germany, and after completion of a concordat with Bavaria, the nunciature was moved to Berlin. June 23, 1920 and 1925 respectively. Many of Pacelli's Munich staff would stay with him for the rest of his life, including his advisor Robert Leiber and Sister Pascalina Lehnert — housekeeper, friend, and adviser to Pacelli for 41 years.
In Berlin, Pacelli was doyen or Dean of the Diplomatic Corps and active in diplomatic and many social activities. There he met notables like Albert Einstein, Adolf von Harnack, Gustav Stresemann, Clemens August Graf von Galen, and Konrad Cardinal von Preysing, the later two he elevated to cardinal in 1946. He worked with the German priest Ludwig Kaas, who was known for his expertise in Church-state relations and was politically active in the Centre Party.[23]. While in Germany, he enjoyed working as a pastor. He traveled to all regions, attended Katholikentag (national gatherings of the faithful), and delivered some 50 sermons and speeches to the German people. [24]

While in Berlin he met many notables and that must have had the effect of broadening his horizons and diplomatic education. His experience in foreign policy and diplomacy was extremely varied and he exercised and learned diplomatic discretion that stood him well later and understandably formed his motivation leading to the Concordat with Nazi Germany to protect and guarantee Church neutrality the only viable solution to the existence of the Church. He understood the Totalitarian beast better, I believe, than any in his generation and was a lonely voice after the ascent of Hitler amidst the silence of the Western Democracies in condemning anti semitism and racism and continued Pius XI's tradition of Mit brennender Sorge .The democracies well knew of the scourge and paganism of Nazism from the many denunciations the world heard on Vatican radio founded by Pius XI.

Negotiations with the Soviet Union (1925-1927)
In post-war Germany, Pacelli worked mainly on clarifying the relations between Church and State (see below). But in the absence of a papal nuncio in Moscow, Pacelli worked also on diplomatic arrangements between the Vatican and the Soviet Union. He negotiated food shipments for Russia, where the Church was persecuted. He met with Soviet representatives including Foreign Minister Georgi Chicherin, who rejected any kind of religious education, the ordination of priests and bishops, but offered agreements without the points vital to the Vatican. [25] “An enormously sophisticated conversation between two highly intelligent men like Pacelli and Chicherin, who seemed not to dislike each other”, wrote one participant.[26] Despite Vatican pessimism and a lack of visible progress, Pacelli continued the secret negotiations, until Pope Pius XI ordered them to be discontinued in 1927.

Pacelli supported the Weimar Coalition with Social Democrats and liberal parties. Although he had cordial relations with representatives of the Centre Party such as Marx and Kaas, he did not involve the Centre in his dealings with the German government.[28]
Pacelli supported German diplomatic activity aimed at rejection of punitive measures from victorious former enemies. He blocked French attempts for an ecclesiastical separation of the Saar region, supported the appointment of a papal administrator for Danzig and aided the reintegration of priests expelled from Poland.[29]. Pacelli was critical of German policy regarding financial reparations, which he considered unimaginative and lacking a sense of reality.[30] He regretted the return of William, German Crown Prince from exile as destabilizing. After repeated German acts of sabotage against the French occupation forces in the Ruhr valley in 1923, German media reported a conflict between Pacelli and the German authorities. The Vatican denounced these acts against the French in the Ruhr. [31]

When he returned to Rome in 1929, praise was heaped by Catholics and Protestants alike on Pacelli, who by now had become more popular than any German cardinal or bishop,[32] which he had largely excluded from his negotiations and dealings with the German government

authorblog: Verse And Worse

authorblog: Verse And Worse

Concordats of Nuncio (then) Pacelli

The Reichskonkordat was an integral part of four concordats Pacelli concluded on behalf of the Vatican with German States. The state concordats were necessary, because the German federalist Weimar constitution gave the states authority in the area of education and culture, which were of main concern to Vatican policy. As Bavarian Nuncio, Pacelli negotiated successfully with the Bavarian authorities in 1925. He expected the concordat with Catholic Bavaria to be the model for the rest of Germany.[48] Prussia showed interest in negotiations only after the Bavarian concordat. However, Pacelli obtained less favorable conditions for the Church in the Prussian concordat of 1929, which excluded educational issues. A concordat with the German state of Baden was completed by Pacelli in 1932, after he had moved to Rome. There he also negotiated a concordat with Austria in 1933. [49] A total of 16 concordats and treaties with European states had been concluded in the ten year period 1922-1932.[50]

This concordat with Hitler of 1933 was one of the most misunderstood documents of recorded history and contains numerous overtones . Pius' many years as a nuncio/diplomat taught him well concerning the radical German mentality of that era and he used the knowledge to gain a safety buffer for Catholic institutions in the heart of a Pagan maze of bestial corruptions in which he knew there could be only "antithesis" and no compromise with Christianity. This is indicative of his later condemnatory encyclicals concerning Nazism. It reverberated all over the world in its implications and the protective shell afforded the Church breathing time and survival in a sea of evil . Little did Hitler know what he was preserving, a lifeboat, to be sure. Was he supposed to know, providentially, I mean? Was this prepared by a Higher power? Just a musing of mine.

The Reichskonkordat, signed on July 20, 1933, between Germany and the Holy See, while thus a part of an overall Vatican policy, was controversial from its beginning. It remains the most important of Pacelli's concordats. It is debated, not because of its content, which is still valid today, but because of its timing. A national concordat with Germany was one of Pacelli's main objectives as secretary of state, because he had hoped to strengthen the legal position of the Church. Pacelli, who knew German conditions well, emphasized (1) protection for Catholic associations (§31), (2) freedom for education and Catholic schools, and, (3) freedom for publications.[51]
As nuncio during the 1920s, he had made unsuccessful attempts to obtain German agreement for such a treaty, and between 1930 and 1933 he attempted to initiate negotiations with representatives of successive German governments, but the opposition of Protestant and Socialist parties, the instability of national governments and the care of the individual states to guard their autonomy thwarted this aim. In particular, the questions of denominational schools and pastoral work in the armed forces prevented any agreement on the national level, despite talks in the winter of 1932.[52][53]
Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor on 30 January 1933 and sought to gain international respectability and to remove internal opposition by representatives of the Church and the Catholic Centre Party. He sent his vice chancellor Franz von Papen, a Catholic nobleman and former member of the Centre Party, to Rome to offer negotiations about a Reichskonkordat.[54] On behalf of Cardinal Pacelli, Prelate Ludwig Kaas, the outgoing chairman of the Centre Party, negotiated first drafts of the terms with Papen.[55] The concordat was finally signed, by Pacelli for the Vatican and von Papen for Germany, on 20 July and ratified on September 10, 1933.[56]

Travels with Charley

Steinbeck began the book by describing his life-long wanderlust and his preparations to travel the country again, after 25 years. He was 58 years old in 1960 and at the end of his career, but he felt that he "was writing of something [he] did not know about, and it seemed to [him] that in a so-called writer this is criminal" (6). He had a truck fitted with a custom camper-shell for his journey and planned on leaving after Labor Day from his home in Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York. Steinbeck delayed his trip slightly due to Hurricane Donna which made a direct hit on Long Island. Steinbeck's exploits in saving his boat during the middle of the hurricane foreshadow his fearless, or even reckless, state of mind to dive into the unknown.

This is wanderlust which comes in many forms and satisfies the quest to know,without which, the writer has no right to write. It could be channeled into mental and spiritual journeys as well .

His excursions in Maine

Steinbeck began his trip by travelling by ferry from Long Island to Connecticut, passing the Naval Submarine Base New London where many of the new nuclear submarines were stationed. Steinbeck noted that the “submarines are armed with mass murder, our silly, only way of deterring mass murder” (21). He talked to a sailor stationed on a sub who enjoyed being on them because "they offer all kinds of – future" (22). Steinbeck credited uncertainty about the future to rapid technological and political changes. He mentioned the wastefulness of American cities and society, and the large amount of waste as a result of everything being "packaged".
He had a conversation with a man.The two concluded that a combination of fear and uncertainty over the future limited their discussion over the election. Steinbeck enjoyed learning about people through local morning radio programs, although he noted that: "If Teen Angel is top of the list in Maine, it is the top of the list in Montana" (35), showing the ubiquity of culture brought on by mass media technologies.

Travels with Charley, 1962 Viking Press Cover
Steinbeck next took US Highway 1 to Wheaton, IL. On the way he noted a commonality between most of the “summer” stores. They were all closed for the winter. Antique shops, that bordered a lot of the roads up North, sold old “junk” that Steinbeck would have bought if he thought he had room for it, noting that he had more junk at home than most stores. He stopped at a little restaurant just outside the town of Bangor where he learned that other people’s attitudes can greatly affect your own attitude. Steinbeck then went to Deer Isle, Maine, deciding to go because a friend of his went there every time he had traveled to Maine. His friend always raved about it, but could never describe exactly what about it that was so captivating. While driving to Deer Isle, Steinbeck stopped and asked for directions. He later learned not to ask for directions in Maine because locals don’t like to talk to tourists and tend to give them incorrect information. When Steinbeck arrived at the house where he was supposed to stay, he met a very terse cat and ate the best lobster he had ever tasted, fresh from the local waters and un-traumatized by travel. He next went to northern Maine, where he spent the night in a field next to a group of French-speaking migrant potato pickers from Canada, with whom he shared some French vintage. Steinbeck's descriptions of the workers was sympathetic and even romanticized, a clear nod to his works such as The Grapes of Wrath which made him famous. For the final part of his visit to Maine, Steinbeck traveled around several towns throughout the state and visited popular outdoor clothing stores such as Abercrombie and Fitch.