On July 20, 1933, the Vatican Chancellery in Rome held a ceremony in which the Holy See concluded a Concordat with Nazi Germany. Representing the Germans was Franz von Papen, the deputy chancellor; the Vatican was represented by Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli - the initiator and architect of the Concordat, the Secretary of State, and subsequently Pope Pius XII (1939-1958). The occasion gave Hitler an important diplomatic victory, while preserving a modicum of space for Catholic independence of action in Germany.
