{{infobox militant organization | name

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam | logo Ltte_emblem.jpg | caption The official emblem of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. | dates May 5, 1976 – present | leader Velupillai Prabhakaran (1976 - 2009)Selvarasa Pathmanathan (2009) | motives The creation of a separate Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka | area United Kingdom, Canada, United States and others | ideology Tamil nationalism | Indicated as Freedom Fighters | attacks Central Bank bombing, Palliyagodella massacre, Dehiwala train bombing and Rajiv Gandhi Assassination. | status Inactive. Militarily defeated in May 2009. Proscribed as a terrorist organization by 32 countries. | revenue $200-300 million USD, prior to the military defeat. | financing Donations from expatriate Tamils, Extortion, Shipping, Sales of weapons, Taxes under LTTE controlled areas. }}

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (, ISO 15919: ''''; commonly known as the LTTE or the Tamil Tigers) was a separatist militant organization formerly based in northern Sri Lanka. Founded in May 1976 by Vellupillai Prabhakaran, it waged a violent secessionist campaign to create an independent state in the north and east of Sri Lanka for Tamil People. This campaign evolved into the Sri Lankan Civil War, which ran from 1983 until 2009, when the LTTE was defeated by the Sri Lankan Military.

At the height of their power, the Tigers possessed a well-developed militia and carried out many high-profile attacks, including the assassinations of several high-ranking Sri Lankan and Indian politicians — such as Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993 and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. LTTE is the only terrorist organization to assassinate two world leaders. Civilian massacres, suicide bombings and acts of ethnic cleansing were integral parts of its pursuit to create a monoethnic Tamil Eelam. The Tigers pioneered the use of suicide belts, and used light aircraft in some of their attacks. As a result of their tactics, they are currently proscribed as a terrorist organization by 32 countries (''see list of countries''), but have extensive support amongst the Tamil diaspora in Europe and North America, and amongst some Tamils in India. However, Human Rights Organizations such as UTHR (Jaffna) alleges that Tamil Tigers have killed at least 8000 fellow Tamils considered to be traitors to their cause. LTTE founder Velupillai Prabhakaran headed the organization from its inception until his death in 2009.

Over the course of the conflict, the Tamil Tigers frequently exchanged control of territory in north-east Sri Lanka with the Sri Lankan military, with the two sides engaging in fierce military confrontations. They were involved in four unsuccessful rounds of peace talks with the Sri Lankan government over the course of the conflict. LTTE was in control of 76% of the landmass in Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka, at its peak in 2000. At the start of the final round of peace talks in 2002, Tamil Tigers, with control of 15,000 km² area, ran a virtual mini-state. After the breakdown of the peace process in 2006, the Sri Lankan military launched a major offensive against the Tigers, bringing the entire country under their control and defeating the LTTE militarily. Victory over the Tigers was declared by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on 16 May 2009, and the LTTE admitted defeat on 17 May 2009. Prabhakaran was killed by government forces on 19 May 2009. Selvarasa Pathmanathan attempted to succeed Prabhakaran as leader of the Tamil Tigers, but he was arrested in Malaysia and handed over to the Sri Lankan government in August 2009.

History

Background

In 1971, United Front government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike introduced the Policy of standardization to rectify disparities created in university enrollment in Sri Lanka under colonial rule. Tamil Manavar Peravai (Tamil Students League) was formed by Sathyaseelan in the same year to counter this move. This group comprised Tamil youth who advocated an armed insurrection against the government. Inspired by the failed 1971 insurrection of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, it was the first Tamil insurgent group. There were around 40 Tamil youth in the group at that time including Ponnuthurai Sivakumaran (leader of the Sivakumaran group), K. Pathmanaba (one of the founder members of EROS) and Velupillai Prabhakaran, who was an 18 years old youth from Valvettithurai (VVT). In 1972, Prabhakaran teamed up with Chetti Thanabalasingam, a well known criminal from Kalviyankadu, Jaffna to form the Tamil New Tigers (TNT). Thanabalasingham was its leader. After he was killed, Prabhakaran took over. At the same time, Nadarajah Thangathurai and Selvarajah Yogachandran (better known by his ''nom de guerre'' Kuttimani) were also involved in discussions about an insurgency. They would later (in 1979) create a separate organization named Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) to campaign for the establishment of an independent Tamil Eelam. These groups, along with another prominent figure of the armed struggle, Ponnuthurai Sivakumaran, were involved in several hit-and-run operations against pro-government Tamil politicians, Sri Lanka Police and civil administration during early 1970s. These operations include throwing bombs at the residence and the car of SLFP Jaffna Mayor, Alfred Duraiyappah at least 3 times, placing a bomb at a carnival organized by him in the stadium of Jaffna city (now "Duraiyappah stadium") and Neervely bank robbery. 1974 Tamil conference incident also sparked the anger of these militant groups. Both Sivakumaran and Prabhakaran attempted to assassinate Duraiyappah in revenge for the incident. Sivakumaran committed suicide on 5 June 1974 in order to evade capture by Police. But on 27 July 1975, Prabhakaran was able to assassinate Duraiyappah, who was branded as a "traitor" by TULF and the insurgents. Prabhakaran himself shot and killed the Mayor when he was visiting the Krishnan temple at Ponnalai.

Founding and rise to power

The LTTE was founded on 5 May 1976, by Prabhakaran, as the successor to the Tamil New Tigers. Prabhakaran sought to "refashion the old TNT/new LTTE into an elite, ruthlessly efficient, and highly professional fighting force", which, as terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna notes, he did by "keeping [his] numbers small, maintaining a high standard of training, [and] enforcing discipline at all levels". The LTTE carried out low-key attacks against various government targets, including policemen and local politicians.

TULF support

TULF leader Appapillai Amirthalingam, who was in 1977 elected as the Opposition leader of Sri Lanka Parliament clandestinely supported the LTTE. Amirthalingam believed that if he could exercise control over the Tamil insurgent groups, it would enhance his political position and pressurize government to agree to his demand, which was to grant political autonomy to Tamils. Thus, he even provided letters of reference to the LTTE and to other Tamil insurgent groups to raise funds. Prominent youth wing members of TULF, Secretary of Tamil Youth Forum, Colombo brach and ex-surveyor Uma Maheswaran, joined the LTTE as its chairman, and Urmila Kandiah, as its first female member in 1977. Amirthalingam introduced Prabhakaran to N.S. Krishnan, who later became the first international representative of LTTE. It was Krishnan, who introduced Prabhakaran to Anton Balasingham, who later became the chief political strategist and chief negotiator of LTTE. LTTE was split for the first time in 1979. Uma Maheswaran was found out having a love affair with Urmila Kandiah. It was against the code of conduct of LTTE. Prabhakaran ordered him to leave the organization. Uma Maheswaran left LTTE and formed People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) in 1980.

Meanwhile in 1980, J. R. Jayawardene government agreed to devolve power by the means of District Development Councils upon the request of TULF. But by this time, LTTE and other insurgent groups were not ready to accept any solution less than a separate state. LTTE had no faith in any sort of political solution. Thus the TULF and other Tamil political parties were steadily marginalised and insurgent groups emerged as the major force in North. During this period of time several other insurgent groups came into the arena, such as EROS (1975), TELO (1979), PLOTE (1980), EPRLF (1980) and TELA (1982). LTTE ordered civilians to boycott the local government elections of 1983 in which even TULF contested. Voter turnout became as low as 10%. Thereafter, Tamil political parties had very little room to represent Tamil people as insurgent groups took over their position.

Thirunelveli attack, 1983

The LTTE carried out its first major attack on 23 July 1983, when they ambushed Sri Lanka Army patrol Four Four Bravo at Thirunelveli, Jaffna. Thirteen Sri Lankan servicemen were killed in the attack, leading to the Black July riots against the Tamil community of Sri Lanka. Many outraged Tamil youths joining Tamil militant groups to fight the Sri Lankan government, in what is considered as the start of the insurgency in Sri Lanka.

Indian support

Due to various geo-political reasons (''see Indian intervention in the Sri Lankan Civil War''), from August 1983 to May 1987, India, through its intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), provided arms, training and monetary support to 6 Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups including LTTE. During that period, 32 camps were set up all over India to train these militants. 495 LTTE militants, including 90 women were trained in 10 batches. First batch of Tigers were trained in Establishment 22 based in Chakrata, Uttarakhand. Second batch including LTTE intelligence chief Pottu Amman was trained in Himachal Pradesh. Prabakaran himself visited the first and the second batch of Tamil Tigers to see them training. 8 other batches of LTTE were trained in Tamil Nadu. Ironically, Thenmozhi Rajaratnam ''alias'' Dhanu, who carried out the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and Sivarasan - the key conspirator were among the militants trained by RAW, in Nainital, South India.

In April 1984, the LTTE formally joined a common militant front, the Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF), a union between LTTE, the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF).

Clashes with other insurgent groups

TELO usually held the Indian view of problems and pushed for India's view during peace talks with Sri Lanka and other groups. LTTE denounced the TELO view and claimed that India was only acting on its own interest. As a result, the LTTE broke from the ENLF in 1986. Soon fighting broke out between the TELO and the LTTE and clashes occurred over the next few months. As a result almost the entire TELO leadership and at least 400 TELO militants were killed by the LTTE. The LTTE attacked training camps of the EPRLF a few months later, forcing it to withdraw entirely from the Jaffna peninsula. In 1987 LTTE established the Black Tigers, a unit of LTTE responsible for conducting suicide attacks against political, economic, and military targets, and launched its first suicide attack against a Sri Lanka Army camp, killing 40 soldiers. LTTE members are prohibited from smoking cigarettes and consuming alcohol in any form. LTTE members must avoid their family members and avoid communication with them. Initially LTTE members were prohobited from having love affairs or sexual relationships as it could deter their prime motive. But this policy had changed since Prabhakaran married Mathivathani Erambu in October 1984.

IPKF period

In July 1987, faced with growing anger among its own Tamils and a flood of refugees,

War against IPKF

Although the accord was signed between the governments of Sri Lanka and India and the Tamil militant groups did not have a role in the agreement, most Tamil militant groups accepted it. The LTTE rejected the accord because they opposed the candidate for chief administrative officer of the merged Northern and Eastern provinces because he was a member of the EPRLF. The LTTE named three alternate candidates for the position, which India rejected.

Thus LTTE found itself engaged in military conflict with the Indian Army, and launched its first attack on an Indian army rations truck on 8 October, killing five Indian para-commandos who were on board by strapping burning tires around their necks. The government of India decided that the IPKF should disarm the LTTE by force.

Premadasa government support

The Indian intervention was also unpopular among the Sinhalese majority. Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa during his presidential election campaign in 1988, pledged to withdraw IPKF as soon as he is elected president. After being elected, in April 1989, he started negotiations with LTTE. President Premadasa ordered Sri Lanka Army to clandestine handed over arms consignments to the LTTE to fight the IPKF and its proxy Tamil National Army (TNA). These consignments include RPG guns, motars, self loading rifles, T81 automatic rifles, T56 automatic rifles, pistols, hand grenades, ammunition and communications sets. Moreover, millions of dollars was also passed on to the LTTE.

After IPKF

IPKF became bogged down in the fighting with the Tamil Tigers for nearly three years, experiencing heavy losses. The last members of the IPKF, which was estimated to have had a strength of well over 100,000 at its peak, left the country in March 1990 upon the request of President Premadasa. A shaky peace initially held between the government and the LTTE, and peace talks progressed towards providing devolution for Tamils in the north and east of the country. Ceasefire held between LTTE and the government from June 1989 to June 1990, broke down as LTTE massacred 600 Police officers in the Eastern Province.

Fighting continued throughout the 1990s, and was marked by two key assassinations carried out by the LTTE: that of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993, using suicide bombers in both occasions. The fighting briefly halted in 1994 following the election of Chandrika Kumaratunga as President of Sri Lanka and the onset of peace talks, but fighting resumed after LTTE sunk two Sri Lanka Navy boats in April 1995. In a series of military operations that followed, the Sri Lanka Army re-captured the Jaffna peninsula. Further offensives followed over the next three years, and the military captured vast areas in the north of the country from the LTTE, including area in the Vanni region, the town of Kilinochchi, and many smaller towns. From 1998 onward the LTTE regained control of these areas. This culminated in the capture in April 2000 of the strategically important Elephant Pass base complex, located at the entrance of the Jaffna Peninsula, after prolonged fighting against the Sri Lanka Army.

Mahattaya, a one-time deputy leader of LTTE, was accused of treason by the LTTE and killed in 1994. He is said to have collaborated with the Indian Research and Analysis Wing to remove Prabhakaran from the LTTE leadership.

2002 ceasefire

In 2001, the LTTE dropped its demand for a separate state. Instead, it demanded a form of regional autonomy. Following the landslide election defeat of Kumaratunga and the coming to power of Ranil Wickramasinghe in December 2001, the LTTE declared a unilateral ceasefire. The Sri Lankan Government agreed to the ceasefire, and in March 2002 the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) was signed. As part of the agreement, Norway and other Nordic countries agreed to jointly monitor the ceasefire through the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.

Six rounds of peace talks between the Government of Sri Lanka and LTTE were held, but they were temporarily suspended after the LTTE pulled out of the talks in 2003 claiming "certain critical issues relating to the ongoing peace process". In 2003 the LTTE proposed an Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA). This move was welcomed by the international community but rejected by the Sri Lankan President. The LTTE boycotted the presidential election in December 2005. While LTTE claimed that the people under its control were free to vote, it is alleged that they used threats to prevent the population from voting. The United States condemned this act.

The new government of Sri Lanka came into power in 2006 and demanded to abrogate the ceasefire agreement, stating that the only possible solution to the ethnic conflict was a military solution, and that the only way to achieve this was by eliminating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil. Further peace talks were scheduled in Oslo, Norway, on 8 and 9 June 2006, but cancelled when the LTTE refused to meet directly with the government delegation, stating its fighters were not being allowed safe passage to travel to the talks. Norwegian mediator Erik Solheim told journalists that the LTTE should take direct responsibility for the collapse of the talks. Rifts grew between the government and LTTE, and resulted in a number of ceasefire agreement violations by both sides during 2006. Suicide attacks, military skirmishes, and air raids took place during the latter part of 2006. Between February 2002 to May 2007, Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission documented 3,830 ceasefire violations by the LTTE, with respect to 351 by the security forces. Military confrontation continued into 2007 and 2008. On January 2008 the government officially pulled out of the Cease Fire Agreement.

Dissension

In the biggest show of dissent from within the organisation, a senior LTTE commander named Colonel Karuna (''nom de guerre'' of Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan) broke away from the LTTE in March 2004 and formed the TamilEela Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (later Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal), amid allegations that the northern commanders were overlooking the needs of the eastern Tamils. The LTTE leadership accused him of mishandling funds and questioned him about his recent personal behaviour. He tried to take control of the eastern province from the LTTE, which caused clashes between the LTTE and TMVP. The LTTE has suggested that TMVP was backed by the government, and the Nordic SLMM monitors corroborated this.

Military defeat

Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected as the president of Sri Lanka in 2005. After a brief period of negotiations, LTTE pulled out of peace talks indefinitely. Spordiac violence had continued and on 25 April 2006, LTTE tried to assassinate Sri Lanka Army Commander, Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka. Following the attack, the European Union decided to proscribe the LTTE as a terrorist organisation. A new crisis leading to the first large-scale fighting since signing of the ceasefire occurred when the LTTE closed the sluice gates of the Mavil Oya (Mavil Aru) reservoir on July 21 and cut the water supply to 15,000 villages in government controlled areas. This dispute was developed into a full scale war by August 2006.

Defeat in East

Eelam War IV had commenced in the East. Mavil Aru fell into the hands of Sri Lanka Army by 15 August 2006. Systematically, Sampoor, Vakarai, Kanjikudichchi Aru and Batticaloa also fell into the hands of military. Finally military captured Thoppigala - the Tiger stronghold in Eastern Province on 11 July 2007. Even IPKF had failed to capture it from LTTE during its offensive in 1988.

Defeat in North

Sporadic fighting in the North had been going on for months, but the intensity of the clashes increased after September 2007. Gradually, defense lines of LTTE began to fall. Advancing military confined LTTE into an fast diminishing areas in North. Prabhakaran was seriously injured during air strikes carried out by the Sri Lanka Air Force on a bunker complex in Jayanthinagar on November 26, 2007. Earlier, on November 2, 2007, S. P. Thamilselvan, who was the head of the rebels' political wing, was killed during another government air raid. On January 2, 2008, the Sri Lankan government officially abandoned the ceasefire agreement. By August 2, 2008, LTTE lost the entire Mannar District following the fall of Vellankulam town. Troops captured Pooneryn and Mankulam during the final months of 2008.

On 2 January 2009, the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, announced that the Sri Lankan troops had captured Kilinochchi, the city which the LTTE had used for over a decade as its de facto administrative capital. On the same day, President Rajapaksa called upon LTTE to lay down arms and surrender. It was stated that the loss of Kilinochchi had caused a substantial dent in the LTTE's image, and that the LTTE was likely to collapse under military pressure on multiple fronts. As of 8 January 2009, the LTTE abandoned its positions on the Jaffna peninsula to make a last stand in the jungles of Mullaitivu, their last main base. The entire Jaffna peninsula was captured by the Sri Lanka Army by 14 January. On 25 January 2009, SLA troops "completely captured" Mullaitivu town, the last major LTTE stronghold.

The Sri Lankan Government accused the LTTE of causing a human disaster by trapping civilians in the shrinking area under their control. With the LTTE on the brink of defeat, the fate of their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran remained uncertain. On 12 May 2009, the BBC reported that the LTTE was now clinging to of land near the town of Mullaitivu, which is roughly the same area as New York City's Central Park. UN secretary General Ban Ki Moon appealed to the LTTE that children should not be held hostage, recruited as child soldiers, or put in harm's way. Claude Heller of United Nations Security Council said, 'We demand that the LTTE immediately lay down arms, renounce terrorism, allow a UN-assisted evacuation of the remaining civilians in the conflict area, and join the political process.' The council president, speaking on behalf of the 15 members, said they 'strongly condemned the LTTE, a terrorist organisation, for the use of civilians as human shields and for not allowing them to leave the area'. On 13 May 2009, the UN security council condemned the LTTE, denounced its use of civilians as human shields, and urged them to acknowledge the legitimate right of the government of Sri Lanka to combat terrorism by laying down their arms and allowing the tens of thousands of civilians to leave the conflict zone. On 14 May 2009, The United Nations acting representative for Sri Lanka, Amin Awad, said that 6,000 civilians had fled or were trying to flee, but that LTTE was firing on them to prevent them from escaping.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared military victory over the Tamil Tigers on 16 May 2009, after 26 years of conflict. The rebels offered to lay down their weapons in return for a guarantee of safety. Sri Lanka's disaster relief and human-rights minister Mahinda Samarasinghe stated 'The military phase is over. The LTTE has been militarily defeated. Now the biggest hostage rescue operation in the world has come to a conclusion, The figure I have here is since 20 April 179,000 hostages have been rescued.' On 17 May 2009, LTTE head of "Department of International Relations", Selvarasa Pathmanathan conceded defeat, saying in an email statement "This battle has reached its bitter end". Several LTTE fighters committed suicide when they became surrounded.

Aftermath

With the end of the hostilities, 11,664 LTTE members, including 595 child soldiers surrendered to the Sri Lankan military. Approximately 150 hardcore LTTE cardres and 1000 middle level cardres escaped to India. Government took action to rehabilitate the surrendered carders under a "National Action Plan for the Re-integration of Ex-combatants". They were divided into 3 categores; hardcore, non-combatants, and those who were forcefully recruited (including child soldiers). 24 rehabilitation centres were set up in Jaffna, Batticaloa and Vavuniya. Among the apprehended carders, there had been about 700 hardcore members. Some of these cardres were integrated into State Intelligence Services to tackle the internal and external networks of LTTE. By August 2011, government had released more than 8,000 cardres, and 2,879 remained.

Continued operations

After the demise of LTTE leader Prabhakaran and the entire top brass of the organization, Selvarasa Pathmanathan ''alias'' KP was its sole first generation leader left alive. KP assumed duty as the new leader of LTTE on 21 July 2009. A statement was issued, allegedly from the Executive Committee of the LTTE, stating that Pathmanathan had been appointed leader of the LTTE. But 15 days after the announcement, on 5 August 2009, a Sri Lankan military intelligence unit, with the collaboration of local authorities, captured Pathmanathan in the Tune Hotel, Downtown Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. LTTE leader of Norway, Perinpanayagam Sivaparan ''alias'' Nediyavan, Global Tamil Forum President Father S. J. Emmanuel and New York based lawyer Visvanathan Rudrakumaran are allegedly trying to revive the organization among the Tamil diaspora. Subsequently in May 2011, Nediyavan, who advocates an armed struggle against Sri Lankan state, was arrested and released on bail in Norway, pending further investigation.

Divisions

Two major divisions of the LTTE were, the military wing and the political wing. Military wing consisted of at least 11 separate divisions including the conventional fighting forces, Charles Anthony Brigade and Jeyanthan Brigade; the dreaded suicide wing Black Tigers; naval wing Sea Tigers, air-wing Air Tigers, LTTE leader Prabhakaran's personal security divisions, Imran Pandian regiment and Ratha regiment; auxiliary military units such as Kittu artillery brigade, Kutti Sri mortar brigade, Ponnamman mining unit and hit-and-run squads like Pistol gang. Charles Anthony brigade was the first conventional fighting formation created by LTTE. Sea Tiger division was founded in 1984, under the leadership of Thillaiyampalam Sivanesan ''alias'' Soosai. LTTE acquired its first light aircraft in late 1990s. Vaithilingam Sornalingam ''alias'' Shankar was instrumental in creating the Air Tigers. It carried out 9 air attacks since 2007, including one last suicide air raid targeting Sri Lanka Air Force headquarters, Colombo in February 2009. LTTE is the only terrorist-proscribed organization to acquie aircrafts. LTTE intelligence wing consisted of Tiger Organization Security Intelligence Service ''aka'' TOSIS, run by Pottu Amman, and a separate military intelligence division.

{| style="text-align:center; float: right; font-size:85%; margin-left: 2em;" align="center" class="wikitable" |+ Aircraft in LTTE possession ! Type of Aircraft !! Quantity |- ! Micro Light Aircraft | 2 |- ! ZLIN 143 | 5 |- ! Helicopters | 2 |- ! Unmanned aerial vehicles | 2 |} Although LTTE was never serious about a political solution, it operated a systematic and powerful political wing, which functioned like a separate state in the LTTE controlled area. In 1989, it established a political party named People's Front of Liberation Tigers, under Gopalaswamy Mahendraraja ''alias'' Mahattaya. It was abandoned soon after. Later, S. P. Thamilselvan was appointed the head of the political wing. He was a member of the LTTE delegation for Norwegian brokered peace talks too. After the death of Thamilselvan in November 2007, Balasingham Nadesan was appointed as its leader. Major sections within the political wing include International peace secretariat, led by Pulidevan, LTTE Police, LTTE court, Eelam bank, Sports division and "Voice of Tigers" Radio broadcasting station of LTTE.

LTTE is also known for the use of female cardres for military engagements. Its women's' wing consisted of Malathi and Sothiya Brogades. Besides, LTTE controlled a powerful international wing. "KP branch", controlled by Selvarasa Pathmanathan, "Castro branch", controlled by Veerakathy Manivannam ''alias'' Castro and "Aiyannah group" led by Ponniah Anandaraja alias Aiyannah, comprised the international wing.

Global network

LTTE had developed a massive international network since the days of N.S. Krishnan, who served as its first international representative. In its early days, TULF parliamentarians such as A. Amirthalingam provided letters of reference to collect money, and V. N. Navaratnam, who was an executive committee member of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), introduced many influential and wealthy Tamils living overseas to Tamil insurgent leaders. During 1970s, Navaratnam had introduced LTTE members to the members of Polisario Front, a national liberation movement in Morocco, at a meeting held in Oslo, Norway. In 1978, during his world tour of A. Amirthalingam, with London based Eelam activist S. K. Vaikundavasan, formed the World Tamil Coordinating Committee (WTCC), which later turned out to be an LTTE front organization. The global contacts of LTTE grew steadily since then. At the height of its power, LTTE had 42 offices all over the world. The global network of LTTE is functional in 4 major areas. They are,

Propaganda

Fund raising

Arms procurement

Shipping

There were 3 types of organizations to do propaganda and fund raising, i.e. Front, Cover and Sympathetic. Prior to the ethnic riots of 1983, all attempts to raise funds for a sustaining military campaign failed. But it was the mass exodus of Tamil civilians to India and western countries, following Black July, made it possible. As the armed conflict evolved, LTTE used force and threats to collect money, in addition to dwindling voluntary donations. At its peak, LTTE was worth US$ 300 million. In addition to donations, forced or volunteer; LTTE global network owned numerous business ventures. These include investment in real estate, shipping, grocery stores, gold and jewellery stores, gas stations, restaurants, production of films, mass media organizations (TV, radio, print), industries, etc. LTTE controlled numerous charitable organizations including Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation, which was banned and funds were frozen by United States Treasury in 2007 for covertly financing terrorism.

Arms Procurement and shipping activities of LTTE were largely clandestine. Prior to 1983, it procured weapons mainly from Afghanistan via the Indo-Pakistani border. Explosives were purchased from commercial markets in India. From 1983 to 1987, LTTE acquired subsantial amount of weapons from RAW and from Lebanon, Cyprus, Singapore and Malaysia based arms dealers. LTTE received its first consignment of arms from Singapore in 1984 on board MV Cholan, the first ship owned by the organization. Funds were received and cargo was cleared at Chennai Port with the assistance of M. G. Ramachandran, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. In November 1994, LTTE was able to purchase whopping 60 tonnes of explosives (50 tonnes of TNT and 10 tonnes of RDX) from Rubezone Chemical plant in Ukraine, providing a forged Bangladeshi Ministry of Defense end-user certificate. Payments for the explosives were made from a Citibank account in Singapore held by Selvarasa Pathmanathan. Consignment was transported on board MV Sewne. Same explosives were used for the Central Bank bombing in 1996. Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Indonesia remained the most trusted outposts of LTTE, after India alienated it after the Rajiv Gandhi assassination.

Since late 1997, North Korea became the principal country to provide arms, ammunition and explosives to the LTTE. The deal with North Korean government was carried out by Ponniah Anandaraja ''alias'' Aiyannah, a member of World Tamil Coordinating Committee of USA and later, the accountant of LTTE. He worked at the North Korean embassy in Bangkok since late 1997. LTTE had nearly 20 second-hand ships, which were purchased in Japan, and registered in Panama and other Latin American countries. Most of the times, these ships transported general cargo, including paddy, sugar, timber, glass and fertilizer. But when an arms deal was finalised, they travelled to North Korea, load the cargo and brought it to the equator. Then the ships are based there. Then on board merchant tankers, weapons were transferred to the sea of Alampil, just outside the territorial waters in Sri Lanka's Exclusive Economic Zone. After that, small teams of Sea Tigers brought the cargo ashore. Sri Lanka Navy, during 2005-08 destroyed at least 11 of these cargo ships belonged to LTTE in the international waters.

LTTE's last shipment of weapons came in March 2009, towards the end of the war. Merchant vessel "Princess Iswari" went from Indonesia to North Korea under captain Kamalraj Kandasamy ''alias'' Vinod, loaded the weapons and it came back to international waters beyond Sri Lanka. But due to the heavy naval bockades set up by Sri Lanka Navy, it could not deliver the arms consignment. Thus it dumped the weapons in the sea. The same ship, after changing its name to MV Ocean Lady, appeared in Vancouver with 76 migrants, in October 2009. In December 2009, Sri Lanka Navy apprehended a merchant vessel belonged to LTTE, "Princess Chrisanta" in Indonesia and brought it back to Sri Lanka.

LTTE had a special relationship with Eritrea in the latter stages of Sri Lankan civil war. United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (USSFRC) and Ethiopian based Jimma Times claimed that Eritrean government had provided direct military assistance, including light aircrafts to LTTE. This relationship was developed during the 2002-03 period, when it was having negotiations with Sri Lankan government via the Norwegian mediators. It has been alleged that Erik Solheim, the chief Norwegian facilitator, helped LTTE to establish this relationship. Sri Lankan armed forces have been concerned that Prabhakaran may try to flee to Eritrea, in the final stages of war.

Links to other designated terrorist organizations

LTTE is believed to have no extensive military association with al-Qaeda or other Islamic terrorist groups. However, LTTE had stolen Norwegian passports and sold them to Al Queda affiliates including Ramzi Yousef, who was one of the main perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a co-conspirator in the Bojinka plot. The group had interactions with other terrorist organizations through illegal arms markets in Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia. It had also smuggled weapons from Pakistan-based Islamists to their counterparts in the Philippines. During the mid-1970s, LTTE rebels were known to have trained from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Southern Lebanon.

LTTE also had connections with Maoist Naxalite movement, which is fighting to establish an Marxist Indian state, and Khalistan movement, which is fighting to create a separate Sikh state in India. LTTE's shipping fleet has provided logistics support to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, a Pakistani group with al-Qaeda affiliations, to transport a consignment of weapons to the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines. They also maintain close contact with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). LTTE had also sent two combat tacticians and explosive experts to the southern Philippines to train members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The ''Times of India'', in 2001, highlighted an alleged nexus between al-Qaeda and the LTTE, and claimed that "[al-Qaeda links with the LTTE] are the first instance of an Islamist group collaborating with an essentially secular outfit". The US-based research organisation "Maritime Intelligence Group" said the Indonesian group Jemaah Islamiya, which has known links to al-Qaeda, had been trained in sea-borne guerrilla tactics by LTTE Sea Tiger veterans.

"Norwegians Against Terrorism" led by Falk Rune Rovik, described how the Tamil community in Norway, at the behest of the LTTE, sold fake and stolen Norwegian passports to al-Qaeda members. The LTTE itself acquired a fake passport for Ramzi Yousef, convicted mastermind of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in New York. He further alleged that funds from Government of Norway had been inadvertently diverted to the LTTE.

LTTE tactics followed by other terrorist organizations

Some of LTTE's attacks in Sri Lanka have similarities to attacks by other proscribed groups. Some examples are: The similarities between previous LTTE attacks against Sri Lanka Navy ships and the al-Qaeda attack on the USS ''Cole'' which killed 17 US Navy sailors. The incident has raised suspicions of connections between the two groups. The "Maritime Intelligence Group" based in Washington, DC, claims to have unearthed substantial evidence that the LTTE trained Indonesian Islamists in the technique of maritime suicide bombings. The group, linked to al-Qaeda, is believed to have then passed the technique it learned from the LTTE to al-Qaeda itself. The website "South Asian Terrorism Portal" claimed that the LTTE provided forged passports to Ramzi Yousef, who was one of the planners of the first attack against the World Trade Center in New York in 1993. The allegation has been backed by the ''Westminster Journal'' as well. The website "South Asian Terrorism Portal" states that there are increasing intelligence reports that the LTTE was smuggling arms to various terrorist organizations, including Islamic groups in Pakistan and their counterparts in the Philippines, using their covert smuggling networks. The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies found that LTTE was building commercial links with al-Qaeda and other militants in Afghanistan, and that several cadres were spotted in Afghan militant camps.

India's National Security Adviser, M K Narayanan, alleges that LTTE raises money by smuggling narcotics. A recent arrest of LTTE operatives in Colombia corroborates this claim.

According to an "anti-LTTE" website, Glen Jenvey, a former employee of the government of Sri Lanka and a specialist on international terrorism, claimed that al-Qaeda has copied most of its terror tactics from the LTTE. He highlighted the LTTE as the mastermind that set the pattern for organisations like al-Qaeda. According to ''Asian Tribune'', attacks on civilians in buses and trains in Sri Lanka were copied in the attack on public civilian transport during July 2005 bombings in London. As of January 2009, these include: India (since 1992) United States (designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the Department of State since 8 October 1997. Named as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) since 2 November 2001) United Kingdom (designated as Proscribed Terrorist Group under the Terrorism Act 2000 by the Home Secretary since 2000) European Union (since 2006; 27 countries) Canada (since 2006) Canada does not grant residency to LTTE members on the grounds that they have participated in crimes against humanity. Sri Lanka (from January 1998 to 4 September 2002, and again from 7 January 2009)

The first country to ban the LTTE was its former ally, India. The Indian change of policy came gradually, starting with the IPKF-LTTE conflict, and culminating with the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. India opposes the new state Tamil Eelam that LTTE wants to establish, saying that it would lead to Tamil Nadu's separation from India though the leaders of Tamil Nadu are opposing it. Sri Lanka itself lifted the ban on the LTTE before signing the ceasefire agreement in 2002. This was a prerequisite set by the LTTE for the signing of the agreement.

The European Union banned LTTE as a terrorist organization on 17 May 2006. In a statement, the European Parliament said that the LTTE did not represent all the Tamils and called on it to "allow for political pluralism and alternate democratic voices in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka".

Assassinations

{| style="text-align:center; float: right; font-size:85%; margin-left: 2em;" align="center" class="wikitable" |+ Political figures assassinated by LTTE ! Position/Status !! Number |- ! President of Sri Lanka | 1 |- ! Prime Minister of India | 1 |- ! Presidential candidate | 1 |- ! Leaders of political parties | 10 |- ! Cabinet Ministers | 7 |- ! Members of Parliament | 37 |- ! Members of Provincial Councils | 6 |- ! Members of Pradeshiya Sabha | 22 |- ! Political Party Organisers | 17 |- ! Mayors | 4 |}

The LTTE has been condemned by various groups for assassinating political and military opponents. The victims include Tamil moderates who coordinated with Sri Lanka Government, Tamil paramilitary groups assisting Sri Lankan Army. The assassination of the Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa is attributed to LTTE. The seventh Prime Minister of the Republic of India, Rajiv Gandhi, was assassinated by an LTTE suicide bomber Thenmozhi Rajaratnam on 21 May 1991. On 24 October 1994, LTTE detonated a bomb during a political rally in Thotalanga-Grandpass, which in turn wiped out most of the promonent politicians of the United National Party, including presidential candidate Gamini Dissanayake MP, Cabinet ministers Weerasinghe Mallimarachchi and G. M. Premachandra, Ossie Abeygunasekara MP and Gamini Wijesekara MP.

LTTE sympathizers justify some of the assassinations by arguing that the people attacked were combatants or persons closely associated with Sri Lankan military intelligence. Specifically in relation to the TELO, the LTTE has said that it had to perform preemptive self-defence because the TELO was in effect functioning as a proxy for India.

Suicide bombings

According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, LTTE was the first insurgent organization to use concealed explosive belts and vests. The specialized unit that carried out suicide attacks was named Black Tigers. According to the information published by the LTTE, Black Tigers had carried out 378 suicide attacks between 5 July 1987 and 20 November 2008. Out of the deceased, 274 were male and 104 were female.

Many of these attacks have involved military objectives in the north and east of the country, although civilians have been targeted on numerous occasions, including during a high profile attack on Colombo's International Airport in 2001 that caused damage to several commercial airliners and military jets, and killed 16 people. The LTTE was responsible for a 1998 attack on the Buddhist shrine and UNESCO world heritage site Sri Dalada Maligawa in Kandy that killed eight worshipers. The attack was symbolic in that the shrine, which houses a sacred tooth of the Buddha, is the holiest Buddhist shrine in Sri Lanka. Other Buddhist shrines have been attacked, notably the Sambuddhaloka Temple in Colombo that killed nine worshipers.

Black Tiger wing had carried out attacks on various high-profile leaders both inside and outside Sri Lanka. It had successfully targeted 3 world leaders, only insurgent group to do so. That includes assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India on 21 May 1991, assassination of Ranasinghe Premadasa, the President of Sri Lanka on 1 May 1993 and failed assassination attempt of Chandrika Kumaratunga, the Sri Lankan President on 18 December 1999, which resulted in the loss of her right eye.

The slain Black Tiger cardres were highly glorified and their families were given the "Maha Viru family" status. Those cardres were given a chance to have his/her last supper with the LTTE leader Prabhakaran, which was a rare honour one would get in the LTTE controlled area. This, in turn motivated LTTE cardres to join the Black Tiger wing.

On 28 November 2007, an LTTE suicide bomber named Sujatha Vagawanam [24], in an attempt to kill Sri Lankan minister Douglas Devananda, detonated a bomb, hidden inside her brassiere. This was recorded in the security cameras inside Devananda's office. It is the only occasion a suicide bomber detonating the bomb is recorded in a camera. (video)

Human rights violations

The United States Department of State states that its reason for banning LTTE as a proscribed terrorist group is based on allegations that LTTE does not respect human rights and that it does not adhere to the standards of conduct expected of a resistance movement or what might be called "freedom fighters". The FBI has described the LTTE as "amongst the most dangerous and deadly extremist outfits in the world". Other countries have also proscribed LTTE under the same rationale. Numerous countries and international organizations have accused the LTTE of attacking civilians and recruiting children.

Attacks on civilians

The LTTE has launched attacks on civilian targets several times. Notable attacks include the Aranthalawa Massacre, Anuradhapura massacre, Kattankudy mosque massacre, the Kebithigollewa massacre, and the Dehiwala train bombing. Civilians have also been killed in attacks on economic targets, such as the Central Bank bombing.

Child soldiers

The LTTE has been accused of recruiting and using child soldiers to fight against Sri Lankan government forces. The LTTE was accused of having up to 5,794 child soldiers in its ranks since 2001. Amid international pressure, the LTTE announced in July 2003 that it would stop conscripting child soldiers, but both UNICEF and Human Rights Watch have accused it of reneging on its promises, and of conscripting Tamil children orphaned by the tsunami. On 18 June 2007, the LTTE released 135 children under 18. UNICEF, along with the United States, states that there has been a significant drop in LTTE recruitment of children, but claimed in 2007 that 506 child recruits remain under the LTTE. A report released by the LTTE's Child Protection Authority (CPA) in 2008 stated that less than 40 soldiers under age 18 remained in its forces. In 2009 a Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations said the Tamil Tigers "continue to recruit children to fight on the frontlines", and "use force to keep many civilians, including children, in harms way".

The LTTE argues that instances of child recruitment occurred mostly in the east, under the purview of former LTTE regional commander Colonel Karuna. After leaving the LTTE and forming the TMVP, it is alleged that Karuna continued to forcibly kidnap and induct child soldiers.

Ethnic cleansing

The LTTE is responsible for forcibly removing, or ethnic cleansing, of Sinhalese and Muslim inhabitants from areas under its control, and using violence against those who refuse to leave. The eviction of Muslim residents happened in the north in 1990, and the east in 1992. Main reason behind the expulsion of Muslims was the fact that local Muslim community did not support the Tamil Eelam struggle of LTTE.

However, Muslim community in the North of Sri Lanka participated the Tamil movement on several occasions. Muslim ironmongers in Mannar fashioned weapons for the LTTE. In its 1976 Vaddukodai Resolution, LTTE condemned the Sri Lankan government for "unleashing successive bouts of communal violence on both the Tamils and Muslims." But later, LTTE undertook its anti-Muslim campaigns as it began to view Muslims as outsiders, rather than a part of the Tamil nation. Local Tamil leaders were disturbed by the LTTE’s call for the eviction of Muslims in 1970. In 2005, the "International Federation of Tamils" claimed that the Sri Lankan military purposefully stoked tensions between Tamils and Muslims, in an attempt to undermine Tamil security. As Tamils turned to the LTTE for support, the Muslims were left with the Sri Lankan state as their sole defender, and so in the eyes of the LTTE, the Muslims had legitimized the role of the state, and were thus viewed as Sri Lankans.

Beginning in 1985, the LTTE forcibly occupied of Muslim-owned farmland in the north of Sri Lanka, before systematically evicting the Muslims from areas under LTTE control. Although anti-Muslim pogroms had occurred in the north and east of Sri Lanka since 1985, the LTTE embarked on a campaign to expel Muslims from the North in 1989. The first eviction notice was sent to the Muslims of Chavakacheri on 15 October 1989, after the LTTE entered the local mosque and threatened Muslims a few weeks earlier. Afterward, the houses of evicted Muslims were ransacked and looted. On 28 October 1989, the Muslims of Mannar were ordered to leave, by the LTTE. Before leaving, they had to seek permission and clearance at the LTTE office. LTTE was to decide their exit route."

The deadline was extended by four days after pleas from local Tamil Catholics, who were left to look after many Muslims' property in anticipation of looting by the Sri Lankan army. The Catholics themselves were later robbed by the LTTE of both their own, and the Muslims’ property. On the 28th, while Muslims were preparing to leave, the LTTE barred Hindus from entering Muslim villages and dealing with them. The areas were reopened on 3 November, after Muslims had been packed onto the boats of Muslim fishermen and sent southwards along the coast. After a lull in ethnic cleansing, the LTTE on 3 August 1990, sealed off a Shiite mosque in Kattankady, the Meera Jumma and Husseinia, and opened fire through the mosque's windows, leaving 147 Muslim worshipers dead, out of 300 gathered for Friday prayers. Fifteen days later, LTTE gunmen shot dead between 122 and 173 Muslim civilians in the town of Eravur.

Ethnic cleansing culminated on 30 October 1990 when the LTTE forcibly expelled the entire Muslim population of Jaffna. LTTE commanders from the east announced at 7:30 am that all Muslims in Jaffna were to report to Osmania stadium, where they were to be addressed by two LTTE leaders, Karikalana and Anjaneyar. After listening to the leaders denigrate Muslims for allegedly attacking Tamils in the east, the leaders explained to the community that they had two hours to evacuate the city. The community was released from the stadium at 10 am, and by noon, and were only allowed to carry 500 rupees, while the rest of their possessions were seized by the LTTE after they were forced to report to LTTE checkpoints upon exiting Jaffna. In total, over 14,400 Muslim families, roughly 72,000 people, were forcibly evicted from LTTE-controlled areas of the Northern Province. This includes 38,000 people from Mannar, 20,000 from Jaffna and Kilinochchi, 9,000 from Vavuniya and 5,000 from Mullaitivu.

In 1992 the LTTE embarked on a campaign to create a contiguous Tamil Hindu-Christian homeland that stretched from the North of Sri Lanka and downwards along the Eastern Coast. A large Tamil-speaking Muslim population inhabited a narrow strip of land between the two entities, and so a pattern of ethnic cleansing emerged in Eastern Sri Lanka. "The LTTE unleashed violence against the Muslims of Alinchipothanai and killed 69 Muslim villagers. This led to a retaliatory violence against the Tamils in Muthugala, where 49 Tamils were killed allegedly by the Muslim Home guards." Later in the year, the LTTE attacked four Muslim villages (Palliyagodalla, Akbarpuram, Ahmedpuram, and Pangurana) and killed 187 Muslims. The ''Australian Muslim Times'' commented on 30 October 1992: ''The massacres, eviction and the atrocities by the Tamil Tigers are carried out in order to derive the Muslim Community from their traditional land in the Eastern province as they have done it in the northern province and then set up a separate state only for Tamils''.

In 2002 LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran formally apologized for the expulsion of Muslims from the north and asked the Muslims to return. Some families returned and re-opened the Osmania College and two mosques in 2003. Since the apology, TamilNet, which is widely seen as an LTTE mouthpiece, has featured numerous stories of Muslim civilians coming under attack from Sinhalese forces. During the summer of 1990, the LTTE killed over 370 Muslims in the North and East of Sri Lanka in 11 mass killings The LTTE is accused of organizing massacres of Sinhala villagers who settled in the Northeast under the dry lands policy. Expulsion of civilians did not confine to Muslim community. Sri Lanka population census of 1981 recorded 19,334 Sinhala civilians in Jaffna District. But with the end of the war in 2009, hardly any Sinhala civilian remained in their places of origin in Jaffna.

Execution of prisoners of war

LTTE had executed prisoners of war on a number of occasions, in spite of the declaration in 1988, that it would abide by the Geneva Conventions. Most important incident was the mass murder of unarmed 600 Sri Lankan Police officers in 1990, in Eastern Province, after they surrendered to the LTTE upon the request of President Ranasinghe Premadasa. Police officers were promised safe conduct and subsequent release. But they were taken to the jungles, blindfolded, tied hands behind, made to lie down on the ground and shot. In 1993, LTTE executed 200 Sri Lanka Army soldiers, captured in the naval base at Pooneryn, during the Battle of Pooneryn.

War crimes

There are allegations that war crimes were committed by the Tamil Tigers during the Sri Lankan Civil War, particularly during the final months of the conflict in 2009. The alleged war crimes include attacks on civilians and civilian buildings; executions of combatants and prisoners; acute shortages of food, medicine, and clean water for civilians trapped in the war zone; and child recruitment. A United Nations expert panel investigating violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the final stages of the civil war found "credible allegations" which, if proven, indicated that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed by the Sri Lankan military and the Tamil Tigers. The panel has called on the UN Secretary General to conduct an independent international inquiry into the alleged violations of international law.

Other criminal activities

One factor that has greatly benefited the LTTE has been its sophisticated international support network. While some of the funding obtained by the LTTE is from legitimate fundraising, a significant portion is obtained through criminal activities, extortion among Tamil diaspora, involving sea piracy, human trafficking, drug trafficking and gunrunning.

;Sea piracy

The LTTE has been accused of hijacking several vessels and ships in waters outside Sri Lanka, including ''Ocean Trader'' (in October 1994), ''Irish Mona'' (in August 1995), ''Princess Wave'' (in August 1996), ''Athena'' (in May 1997), ''Misen'' (in July 1997), ''Morong Bong'' (in July 1997), MV ''Cordiality'' (in September 1997), ''Princess Kash'' (in August 1998), ''Newko'' (in July 1999), ''Uhana'' (in June 2000), Fuyuan Ya 225 (Chinese trawler, in March 2003), ''MV Farah III'' (in December 2006) and ''City of Liverpool'' (in January 2007). The MV ''Sik Yang'', a 2,818-ton Malaysian-flag cargo ship which sailed from Tuticorin, India on 25 May 1999 was reported missing in waters near Sri Lanka. The ship, with a cargo of bagged salt, was due at the Malaysian port of Malacca on 31 May. The fate of the ship's crew of 15 is unknown. It is suspected that the vessel was hijacked by the LTTE and is now being used as a phantom vessel. Likewise the crew of a Jordanian ship, ''MV Farah III'', that ran aground near LTTE-controlled territory off the island's coast, accused the Tamil Tigers of risking their lives and forcing them to abandon the vessel which was carrying 14,000 tonnes of Indian rice.

;Arms smuggling The LTTE members operated a cargo company called "Otharad Cargo" in the United Arab Emirates. There are reports that the LTTE met Taliban members and discussed the "Sharjah network", which existed in the Sharjah emirate of the United Arab Emirates. The Sharjah network was used by Victor Bout, an arms-smuggling Russian intelligence agent, to provide Taleban with weapons deliveries and other flights between Sharjah and Kandahar. Otharad Cargo reportedly received several consignments of military hardware from the Sharjah network.

The Mackenzie Institute claimed that LTTE's secretive international operations of the smuggling of weapons, explosives, and "dual use" technologies which is attributed to the "KP Branch", headed by Selvarasa Pathmanathan prior to 2002. It also claims that the most expertly executed operation of the KP Branch was the theft of 32,400 rounds of 81 mm mortar ammunition purchased from Tanzania destined for the Sri Lanka Army. Being aware of the purchase of 35,000 mortar bombs, the LTTE made a bid to the manufacturer through a numbered company and arranged a vessel of their own to pick up the load. Once the bombs were loaded into the ship, the LTTE changed the name and registration of their ship. The vessel was taken to Tiger-held territory in Sri Lanka's north instead of transporting it to its intended destination. In 2002, Prabhakaran appointed Castro as the international chief of LTTE. He overtook the responsibilities of arms smuggling and related activities from Pathmanathan.

;Human smuggling Most of the smuggling of Tamil people to western countries was carried out by LTTE. It had largely benefited from this. The prices charged by LTTE to go to countries such as Canada was extremely higher than the normal cost to travel. In addition, money had to be paid to obtain "exit visa" to leave LTTE controlled areas. After the war, LTTE's main business has been the human smuggling. A cost of LKR 4 million per immigrant was "enforced" by LTTE operatives. LTTE's human smugglisg ships include MV Ocean Lady, appeared in October 2009, off Canada's British Columbia coast with 76 Tamil asylum seekers; MV Sun Sea, arrived in August 2010, off British Columbia, with 492 asylum seekers and MV Alicia, carrying 80 illegal immigrants, which was intercepted by Indonesian authorities in July 2011, allegedyly heading towars Canada or New Zealand.

;Extortion LTTE had coreced Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora and Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka to give it money, by threatening the safety of their relatives or property in areas under its control.

;Money laundering LTTE was involved in several money laundering cases in western countries. In January 2011, Swiss authorities arrested several LTTE members on money laundering.

;Passport forgery In 1990, Canadian authorities uncovered a passport forgery scheme of LTTE. In December 2010, Spanish and Thai police uncovered another passport forgery scheme attributed to LTTE.

;Drug trafficking Number of intelligence agencies have accused that LTTE is involved in drug trafficking. In 2010, citing Royal Canadian Mounted Police sources, the Jane's Intelligence Review said the LTTE controls a portion of USD one billion drug market in the Canadian city of Montreal. It also states, narcotics smuggling using its merchant ships, is one of the main ways of earning money out of its USD 300 million annual income. US Department of Justice states that LTTE has historically served as the drug couriers moving narcotics into Europe. Indian authorities accused LTTE operatives used to bring narcotics to Mumbai from Mandsaur District of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab border. Then the drugs were transported to coastal towns in Tamil Nadu such as Tuticorin, Rameswaram, Ramanathapuram, Nagapattinam and Kochi.

;Credit card fraud LTTE is also involved in credit card fraud, in United Kingdom. In 2010, STF arrested the mastermind behind this fraud, Neshanadan Muruganandan ''alias'' Anandan. LTTE had cloned credit cards using PIN and card numbers obtained from unsuspecting cards holders in the United Kingdom, and funds were transferred to their accounts later. In 2007, Norwegian authorities sentenced 6 LTTE members for skimming more than 5.3 million Norwegian kroners in a similar credit card scam.

See also

2009 World Tamil protests

Black July

Eelam War (disambiguation)

List of attacks attributed to the LTTE

Military use of children in Sri Lanka

Notable assassinations of the Sri Lankan Civil War

Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups

References

Further reading

External links

;LTTE web sites

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Official website

Tamilnet Although not officially affiliated to the LTTE, considered as a propaganda instrument of the organization

Tamil Eelam News A news website advocating separatism

;Sri Lanka Government

Humanitarian Operation - Factual Analysis, July 2006 - May 2009 A report on strength and impact of LTTE from Sri Lanka Ministry of Defense

Humanitarian Operation timeline, 1981-2009 The history of Sri Lankan armed forces operations and area controlled by LTTE

Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence LTTE in Brief An overview of LTTE by Sri Lanka Ministry of Defense

;International Organizations

An analysis of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam organization and operations by Federation of American Scientists

Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora After LTTE Relationship between LTTE and the Tamil diaspora, and consequences of LTTE defeat, by International Crisis Group

Background information on the Tamil Tigers by Council on Foreign Relations

Overview of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam by Anti-Defamation League

Funding the "Final War" A Human Rights Watch report on LTTE's fund raising strategies

Trapped and Mistreated Human rights violations of LTTE, a Human Rights Watch report

;International Press

Sri Lankan Civilians Trapped by Tamil Tigers 'Last Stand' Article appeared on The Christian Science Monitor, 3 May 2009

Guerrilla Tactics – How the Tamil Tigers Were Beaten in an 'Unwinnable' War Article appeared on The Times, 19 May 2009

Rise and Fall of the LTTE - An Overview A Sri Lanka Guardian article on characteristics of LTTE

Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:European Union designated terrorist organizations Category:Government of India designated terrorist organizations Category:Organizations designated as terrorist by the United States government Category:Organizations established in 1976 Category:Secession in Sri Lanka Category:1976 establishments in Sri Lanka

ar:نمور التاميل zh-min-nan:Tamil Eelam Kái-hòng Lāu-hó͘ be:Тыгры вызвалення Таміл-Ілама bs:Tamilski tigrovi br:Tigred Dieubiñ Tamil Eelam bg:Тигри за освобождение на Тамил Еелам ca:Tigres d'Alliberament de Tamil Eelam cs:Tygři osvobození tamilského Ílamu cy:Teigrod Rhyddhau Tamil Eelam da:De Tamilske Tigre de:Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam et:Tamili Eelami Vabastustiigrid es:Tigres de Liberación del Eelam Tamil fa:ببرهای آزادی‌خواه تامیل ایلم hif:Tamil Sher fr:Tigres de libération de l'Îlam tamoul gl:Tigres de Liberación do Tamil Eelam ko:타밀일람 해방 호랑이 hi:तमिल ईलम के मुक्ति बाघ id:Macan Tamil it:Tigri Tamil he:נמרי השחרור של טאמיל אילם jv:Macan Tamil kn:ಎಲ್.ಟಿ.ಟಿ.ಇ. ka:თამილის ვეფხვები ku:Pilingên Tamîl ml:തമിഴീഴ വിടുതലൈപ്പുലികൾ mr:लिबरेशन टायगर्स ऑफ तमि़ळ ईलम ms:Harimau Pembebasan Tamil Eelam nl:Tamiltijgers ja:タミル・イーラム解放のトラ no:Tamiltigrene nn:Dei tamilske tigrane pl:Tamilskie Tygrysy pt:Tigres de Liberação do Tamil Eelam ru:Тигры освобождения Тамил-Илама simple:Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam sk:Tigre oslobodenia tamilského Ílamu sl:Osvobodilni tigri Tamilskega Eelama so:Shabeelada Tamil sr:Тамилски тигрови sh:Oslobodilački tigrovi Tamilskog Elama su:Macan Tamil fi:Tamilitiikerit sv:Tamilska befrielsetigrarna ta:தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள் te:లిబరేషన్ టైగర్స్ ఆఫ్ తమిళ్ ఈలం th:กองทัพพยัคฆ์ปลดปล่อยทมิฬอีแลม tr:Tamil Elam Kurtuluş Kaplanları uk:Тигри визволення Таміл-Ілама vi:Những con Hổ giải phóng Tamil wuu:泰米尔猛虎解放组织 zh:泰米尔伊拉姆猛虎解放组织

name	Lostprophets
landscape	Yes
background	group_or_band
origin	Pontypridd, Wales
genre	Alternative rock, Post-hardcore, Nu metal (early)
years active	1997–present
alias	Lozt Prophetz (1997–1999)
label	Visible Noise, Sony Music
associated acts	Nine Inch Nails, Public Disturbance, The New Regime, The Blackout, L'Amour la Morgue
website
current members	Ian WatkinsJamie OliverLee GazeMike LewisStuart RichardsonLuke Johnson
past members	DJ StepzakMike ChiplinIlan Rubin }}

Lostprophets (; often stylised as lostprophets) is a Welsh rock band from Pontypridd, formed in 1997. Founded by vocalist Ian Watkins, bassist (later guitarist) Mike Lewis, drummer Mike Chiplin and guitarist Lee Gaze, they were originally a side-project to hardcore punk band Public Disturbance. To date, Lostprophets have released four studio albums, most recent released ''The Betrayed'' on 13 January 2010. They are also part of the Cardiff music scene.

The band have achieved two top ten hits on the UK Singles Chart ("Last Train Home" and "Rooftops"), one number one single on the Alternative Songs chart ("Last Train Home"), and several Kerrang! Awards and nominations.

History

Early years (1997–2000)

The band formed in 1997 in the Welsh town of Pontypridd. Lostprophets formed with two members of Public Disturbance, which featured singer Ian Watkins on drums and guitarist Mike Lewis. Neither member initially left Public Disturbance, although Watkins quit as soon as 1998. With Watkins on vocal duties and Lewis (who did not leave Public Disturbance until 2000) playing bass, the band also included guitarist Lee Gaze and Mike Chiplin on drums.

Lostprophets started out as part of the fledgling South Wales scene — originally calling themselves "The bum mules" — playing gigs at venues across Wales including T.J.'s in Newport. From there, they went on to tours on the UK's circuit. The band recorded three demos during this time: ''Here Comes the Party'', ''Para Todas las Putas Celosas'', which translates as "For all the jealous whores", and ''The Fake Sound of Progress''. These were produced by Stuart Richardson, who joined the band as bassist for the latter recording. Mike Lewis at this point switched to rhythm guitar. ''The Fake Sound of Progress'' also included the addition of DJ Stepzak, who would remain with the band for around a year. The first three tracks from their third demo were refined and re-recorded for the release of their debut album of the same name: the title track, "MOAC Supreme" and "Stopquote" — the latter two were renamed "A Thousand Apologies" and "Awkward", respectively. All of the EPs are out of print, and are very rare.

The band caught the attention of the two music publishers ''Kerrang!'' and ''Metal Hammer'' magazines both giving them glancing reviews. In 1999 they signed in with Independent label Visible Noise.

''Thefakesoundofprogress'' (2000–2002)

The band's debut album ''Thefakesoundofprogress'' was released through Visible Noise in November. Recorded in less than two weeks for £4000 the record drew on a wide range of influences, it would be re-released the following year through Columbia Records. Shortly after the completion of the album, DJ Stepzak decided he would not commit to the band and was replaced with Jamie Oliver, who was placed in the band simply because he got on so well and could not go on tour otherwise.

''Thefakesoundofprogress'' featured many references to 1980s pop-culture. In addition to the Duran Duran reference in the band's name, there was an image of Vengar from the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' TV series on the album sleeve notes, as well as song titles like "Shinobi vs. Dragon Ninja" and "Kobrakai". The first song's title was a reference to the video games ''Shinobi'' and ''Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja'', while the second was an alternative spelling of Cobra Kai, the name of the karate dojo in the ''Karate Kid'' movies. Another reference is the use of the VF-1 Valkyrie in Battroid mode from the 1982 anime ''The Super Dimension Fortress Macross'' as part of the album illustration.

Q Prime management, who represent such acts as Metallica, assisted the band in courting America's top major labels. The band chose to sign with Columbia, a division of Sony Records, though in Europe their records continue to be released through Visible Noise. The band worked with renowned producer Michael Barbiero to remaster the album, and this new remastered version of the album was released in November 2001. The album appears to have divided the band's existing fan base where the first accusations of selling out were levelled at the band from the underground music scene within which they achieved their first success.

During this period, Lostprophets built up a strong live following with support slots to popular acts such as Pitchshifter, Linkin Park and Deftones, as well as several headlining stints of their own. They also took part in the successful Nu-Titans tour with Defenestration among other new UK Metal acts of the time. Co-headlining the 2002 Deconstruction Tour in London , supporting acts was Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Mad Caddies among others., Lostprophets featured on a bill consisting of more traditionally punk oriented acts. This provoked hostility from certain members of the audience, who were upset at Lostprophets inclusion on such a bill. The band subsequently toured with Ozzfest, played at Glastonbury and the Reading and Leeds Festival. They also appeared on a number of British TV shows, including ''Top of the Pops'', ''CD:UK'' and ''Never Mind the Buzzcocks''. They also performed as part of the 2002 NME Carling Awards tour.

''Start Something'' (2003–2004)

After the extensive touring cycle for ''The Fake Sound of Progress'' finally ended, the band took a brief break before beginning the process of writing new material for ''Start Something'' at Frontline Studios in Caerphilly, Wales. They then entered Los Angeles's ''Bigfoot Studio'' for a recording process that lasted from March until September 2003, with producer Eric Valentine. Valentine had previously produced albums for Queens of the Stone Age and Good Charlotte.

The first single released from the album was the song "Burn Burn", the music video for which began receiving heavy rotation on satellite and cable channels like MTV2, Kerrang! TV and Scuzz in the UK. The song attracted some criticism, however, as the opening bore a striking resemblance to "Mother Mary", a song from the band Far's ''Water and Solutions'' album. The band themselves even conceded in interviews that the singing pattern bore an undeniable similarity to the Adamski song "Killer".

"Burn Burn" was released on 3 November 2003, and was originally scheduled to be closely followed by the release of the album. The release of the album was delayed several times and a headlining tour of the UK, was also postponed during this time. The band rescheduled the cancelled UK shows, with the exception of their scheduled appearance at the Reading and Leeds Festivals, stating in magazine interviews that honouring those commitments would have meant leaving the recording studio while the album was only half completed.

The album was released in the UK on 2 February 2004, and was commercially successful, achieving number four in the UK Albums Chart. The album has sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide according to BBC Wales. The critical response from mainstream magazines was mostly positive, though the response from rock publications such as ''Kerrang!'', ''Metal Hammer'' and ''Rock Sound'' was sometimes tepid. To promote the album, they toured North America, Europe and as part of the Big Day Out festival in Australia and New Zealand. The tour for this record culminated on 21 November 2004, at a sold out show in Cardiff International Arena.

''Liberation Transmission'' (2005–2007)

On 19 June 2005, founding member Mike Chiplin left the group to pursue other musical opportunities. Since then, Chiplin has joined another band called The Unsung, and is currently in a band called Accident Music, which also features Chris Morgan of Midasuno and Darran Smith formerly of Funeral for a Friend. He has also opened up his own practice studio for young people to start bands.

The remaining members began working on material for the next album. Due to the lengthy gap between ''The Fake Sound of Progress'' and ''Start Something'', and the backlash that grew against the band because of it, the remaining band members stated in various interviews that they wanted to release their third album in early 2006. As with ''Start Something'', the band wrote and recorded demo tracks for the album (with Ian Watkins playing the drums) in a UK recording studio before completing the album in America. ''Liberation Transmission'' was recorded in Hawaii, and saw the band work with Bob Rock. Drummer Josh Freese (of The Vandals and A Perfect Circle) recorded ten out of the twelve drum tracks for this album (Ilan Rubin recorded "Everybody's Screaming!!!" and "For All These Times Son, for All These Times").

The band returned to their roots, playing a series of small venues across South Wales. They also headlined Give it a Name, a two-day event with My Chemical Romance. These shows featured the first live appearance of then-17 year-old Ilan Rubin on drums and the live premiere of songs "Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast)", "A Town Called Hypocrisy" and "The New Transmission". The album itself was released on 26 June 2006 (27 June in the USA), and became the first Lostprophets album to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart. The album has seen the band adopt a more contemporary sound with far less emphasis on screaming than previous releases (exceptions being songs "Everyday Combat" and "For All These Times Son, for All These Times").

Lostprophets began a full-fledged UK tour on 3 July 2006. As with their warm-up gigs prior to the album's release, the band selected South Wales-based support bands for this tour. The band followed this with another UK tour in November. They followed their UK dates with a European tour in France, Germany, and several other countries. The main support for this was The Blackout. They returned to the UK for an Arena tour in April 2007, from 18 April to 22nd. The scheduled venues were: Glasgow (SECC); Manchester (MEN Arena); Birmingham (NIA) & London (Wembley Arena). Lostprophets also played at the Full Ponty festival in Wales on 26 May 2007. The support acts included Paramore and The Blackout.

''The Betrayed'' (2007–2010)

Writing and recording the band's fourth studio album began in early 2007. Originally the band stated that they wanted the album released in 2007, however due to both touring and being unhappy with the results of their work in the studio the band did not keep to their original release plan. Despite recording an entire album's worth of material with producer John Feldmann, this work was shelved in favour of material they later recorded and produced themselves, with recording sessions for what would later be known as ''The Betrayed'' beginning in November 2008. Consequently the album was not released until 13 January 2010, where it reached a peak of 3 on the UK Albums Chart.

Throughout the earlier part of 2008, the band performed several dates, including Download Festival which they headlined on the Sunday night, V Festival and Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, as well as a small amount of performances around the UK. They also headlined the NME/Radio 1 tent at 2009's Reading and Leeds Festival.

The band have claimed that ''The Betrayed'' is "by far the finest, darkest and most real album" of their career. Originally, Ian Watkins stated he wanted the new album to be "nastier" and "darker" than previous efforts, with more energy and vibe than before. In a blog post, guitarist Mike Lewis suggested that Ilan Rubin (who subsequently left the band to join Nine Inch Nails) was very much a large part of the writing/recording process. Following Rubin's departure, Luke Johnson of Beat Union was officially announced as the band's new drummer in August 2009. During this time, Kerrang! magazine published a "world exclusive" article on Lostprophets, revealing the album's title, and its release date of January 2010. In a later interview with Kerrang in early 2009, Watkins stated that the record was "the most honest album" the band has ever done, and that overall the record was "a lot grittier and sleazier", while also stating that did not mean "it won't be catchy", but that it would not be done "in such a twee way". When speaking about what the record would sound like, Jamie Oliver stated that he felt it had "the bite that ''Start Something'' had, with the song-ability of ''Liberation Transmission'' but personality of ''The Fake Sound of Progress''."

The first single from the new album, "It's Not the End of the World, But I Can See It from Here", was aired for the first time on BBC Radio 1 on 19 August. It was subsequently released on 12 October 2009 and reached #16 on the Official UK chart. This was followed by "Where We Belong", which was released on 4 January 2010.

The band commenced their UK tour with support from Kids in Glass Houses, Hexes, We Are the Ocean and Sharks, in February 2010.

The Doncaster date to the UK tour was cancelled and refunded, but no reason was given for the cancellation. The Port Talbot date of the tour has been postponed and moved to a different venue due to a fire at the Afan Lido Leisure Centre. The show took place on 1 May at the Cardiff International Arena.

The band also has confirmed that they will tour Australia. The tour took place on 27 March 2010 at ''The Roundhouse'', NSW, Sydney.

The band also played at the 2010 Reading and Leeds Festival.

Singles album and fifth studio album (2010–present)

The band have announced plans to release a singles album in autumn, which will include two unheard tracks. They also plan to have a new studio album out by Autumn 2011. At the weekend of the Reading Festival, Watkins participated in the ''Kerrang!'' Podcast: Reading Festival, telling the reporter that he hoped to have the singles album out by the end of 2010 or early 2011, and said that the fifth studio album should be released around the time of the 2011 Reading and Leeds Festivals. Currently, the band has rented a house in Norfolk, serving as their studio while composing a demo. British rapper/producer Labrinth confirmed in his blog on MTV that Lostprophets will feature on his new album due for release this autumn. Jamie Oliver has stated on his twitter that Lostprophets will be releasing new music soon. Lostprophets have started recording their 5th album in Hollywood with producer Ken Andrews.

The band recently played a new song called "Bring 'em Down".

Styles and influences

Lostprophets are most commonly termed nu metal and hard rock. However, a wide variety of influences have been noted in their music, with other genre tags applied to the band including alternative metal, post-hardcore, post-grunge and alternative rock. Their music is termed an aggressive style of rock, blending strong driving guitars, groove and bounce, and pop elements and accessibility.

The punk side to the band’s music has been noted, again specifically of the pop variety. The influence of heavy metal on their music is also noted, although this varies from song to song. Some have also described an emo side to the music. Their music has been praised as powerful, combining softer melodies with aggressive edge, with screamed vocals and catchy riffs, while some have also stated it has a derivative, formulaic or forgettable nature. They have been compared to bands such as Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Hoobastank and Incubus.

Watkins' lyrics range from sombre to aggressive, and have been described as often conveying a feeling of disillusionment, albeit frequently delivered in an arousing manner.

The band have also provided guest vocals for other band's songs. Ian Watkins was featured in "Secret" by Amazing Device, "It's High Tide Baby!" by The Blackout, "War" and "Julian" by Goldfinger, and both Watkins and Jamie Oliver were guests in Hoobastank's "Out of Control".

Band members

;Current members

Ian Watkins – lead vocals (1997–present)

Jamie Oliver – keyboards, piano, turntables, samples, vocals (2000–present)

Lee Gaze – lead guitar, backing vocals (1997–present)

Mike Lewis – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1998–present), bass (1997–1998) Stuart Richardson – bass, backing vocals (1998–present) Luke Johnson – drums, percussion (2009–present)

;Former members DJ Stepzak – turntables, samples (1999–2000)

Mike Chiplin – drums, percussion (1997–2005)

Ilan Rubin – drums, percussion (2006–2009)

Line-up history

Discography

''Thefakesoundofprogress'' (2000)

''Start Something'' (2004)

''Liberation Transmission'' (2006)

''The Betrayed'' (2010)

''TBC (Due February 2012)

Awards

''Kerrang!'' awards

|- | style="text-align:center;"| 2001 || Lostprophets|| Best British Newcomer || |- | rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2004 || '"Last Train Home" || Best Single || |- | ''Start Something''|| Best Album || |- | Lostprophets || Best British Band || |- | rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2006 || ''Liberation Transmission'' || Best Album|| |- | Lostprophets|| Best British Band || |- | "Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast)"|| Best Videoclip || |- | style="text-align:center;"| 2007 || Lostprophets|| Best British Band || |- | style="text-align:center;"| 2008 || Lostprophets|| Best British Band || |- | rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2010 || Lostprophets|| Best British Band || |- | ''It's Not the End of the World, But I Can See It from Here''|| Best Video || |- | Lostprophets|| The Classic Songwriter Award || |}

''NME'' Awards

|- | 2002 || Lostprophets || Best Metal Act || |}

Pop Factory Awards

|- | style="text-align:center;"| 2002 ||rowspan="5"| Lostprophets || Best Live Act || |- |2004 ||rowspan="3"| Best Welsh Act || |- |2005 || |- | rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2006 || |- | Best Live Act || |- | ''Liberation Transmission'' || Best Album || |}

References

External links

Category:People from Pontypridd Category:Musical groups established in 1997 Category:Welsh rock music groups Category:Welsh hard rock musical groups Category:Musical sextets Category:British post-grunge groups Category:Kerrang! Awards winners

bg:Лостпрофитс cy:Lostprophets da:Lostprophets de:Lostprophets es:Lostprophets fa:لاست‌پرافیتس fr:Lostprophets id:Lostprophets is:Lostprophets it:Lostprophets he:לוסטפרופטס la:Lostprophets lv:Lostprophets lt:Lostprophets hu:Lostprophets nl:Lostprophets ja:ロストプロフェッツ no:Lostprophets uz:Lostprophets pl:Lostprophets pt:Lostprophets ru:Lostprophets simple:Lostprophets sk:Lostprophets fi:Lostprophets sv:Lostprophets th:ลอสท์โพรเฟ็ทส์ tr:Lostprophets

{{infobox christian leader | type	Pope
english name	Pius XII
coat of arms	Pius 12 coa.svg
birth name	Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli
term start	2 March 1939
term end	9 October 1958 ()
predecessor	Pius XI
successor	John XXIII
ordination	2 April 1899
consecration	13 May 1917
consecrated by	Pope Benedict XV
cardinal	16 December 1929
birth date	March 02, 1876
birth place	Rome, Italy
dead	dead
death date	October 09, 1958
death place	Castel Gandolfo, Italy
signature	Signature_of_Pope_Pius_XII.svg
other	Pius }}

The Venerable Pope Pius XII (; ), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (2 March 1876 – 9 October 1958), reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958.

Before election to the papacy, Pacelli served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio and Cardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with European and Latin American nations, most notably the ''Reichskonkordat'' with Nazi Germany. His leadership of the Catholic Church during World War II remains the subject of continued historical controversy. He has been praised by Rabbi David Dalin as a 'righteous gentile' and a Jewish Study found that he had been responsible for saving at least 700,000 Jews and possibly up to 860,000.

After the war, Pius XII contributed to the rebuilding of Europe, and advocated peace and reconciliation, including lenient policies toward vanquished nations and the unification of Europe. The Church, flourishing in the West, experienced severe persecution and mass deportations of Catholic clergy in the East. In light of his protests, and his involvement in the Italian elections of 1948, he became known as a staunch opponent of communism.

Pius XII explicitly invoked ''ex cathedra'' papal infallibility with the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in his 1950 Apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus''. His magisterium includes almost 1,000 addresses and radio broadcasts. His forty-one encyclicals include Mystici Corporis, the Church as the Body of Christ; Mediator Dei on liturgy reform; Humani Generis on the Church's position on theology and evolution. He eliminated the Italian majority in the College of Cardinals in 1946.

Early life

Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli was born on 2 March 1876 in Rome into a deeply religious, aristocratic family with a history of ties to the papacy (the "Black Nobility"). His grandfather, Marcantonio Pacelli, was Under-Secretary in the Papal Ministry of Finances and then Secretary of the Interior under Pope Pius IX from 1851 to 1870 and founded the Vatican's newspaper, ''L'Osservatore Romano'' in 1861; his cousin, Ernesto Pacelli, was a key financial advisor to Pope Leo XIII; his father, Filippo Pacelli, a Franciscan Tertiary, was the dean of the Sacra Rota Romana; and his brother, Francesco Pacelli, became a lay canon lawyer and the legal advisor to Pius XI, in which role he negotiated the Lateran Treaty in 1929, bringing an end to the Roman Question.

Together with his brother Francesco and his two sisters, Giuseppina and Elisabetta, he grew up in the centre of Rome. At the age of 12, Eugenio announced his intentions to enter the priesthood instead of becoming a lawyer. After completing state primary schools, Pacelli received his secondary, classical education at the Visconti Institute, which was dominated by an anti-Catholic atmosphere popular at that time In 1894, at the age of 18, he entered the Collegio Capranica Seminary to begin study for the priesthood and enrolled at the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Apollinare Institute of Lateran University. From 1895 to 1896, he studied philosophy at University of Rome La Sapienza. In 1899, he received degrees in theology and ''in utroque iure'' (civil and canon law). At the seminary, he received a special dispensation to live at home for health reasons.

Church career

Priest and Monsignor

He was ordained a priest on Easter Sunday, 2 April 1899 by Bishop Francesco di Paola Cassetta – the vice-regent of Rome and a family friend – and received his first assignment as a curate at Chiesa Nuova, where he had served as an altar boy. In 1901, he entered the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, a sub-office of the Vatican Secretariat of State, where he became a ''minutante'', at the recommendation of Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli, another family friend.

In 1904, Pacelli became a papal chamberlain and in 1905 a domestic prelate. From 1904 until 1916, he assisted Cardinal Pietro Gasparri in his codification of canon law with the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs. He was also chosen in January 1901 by Pope Leo XIII to deliver condolences on behalf of the Vatican to Edward VII of the United Kingdom after the death of Queen Victoria. In 1908, he served as a Vatican representative on the International Eucharistic Congress in London, where he met Winston Churchill. In 1911, he represented the Holy See at the coronation of King George V.

In 1908 and 1911, Pacelli turned down professorships in canon law at a Roman university and The Catholic University of America, respectively. Pacelli became the under-secretary in 1911, adjunct-secretary in 1912 (a position he received under Pope Pius X and retained under Pope Benedict XV) and secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs in 1914—succeeding Gasparri, who was promoted to Cardinal Secretary of State. As secretary, Pacelli concluded a concordat with Serbia four days before Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo. During World War I, Pacelli maintained the Vatican's registry of prisoners of war. In 1915, he travelled to Vienna to assist Monsignor Raffaele Scapinelli – nuncio to Vienna – in his negotiations with Franz Joseph I of Austria regarding Italy.

Archbishop and Papal Nuncio

Pope Benedict XV appointed Pacelli as nuncio to Bavaria on 23 April 1917, consecrating him as titular Bishop of Sardis and immediately elevating him to archbishop in the Sistine Chapel on 13 May 1917. After his consecration, Eugenio Pacelli left for Bavaria. As there was no nuncio to Prussia or Germany at the time, Pacelli was, for all practical purposes, the nuncio to all of the German Empire.

Once in Munich, he conveyed the papal initiative to end the war to German authorities. He met with King Ludwig III on 29 May and later with Kaiser Wilhelm II and Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, who replied positively to the Papal initiative. However, Bethmann-Hollweg was forced to resign and the German High Command, hoping for a military victory, delayed the German reply until 20 September. For the remainder of the war, he concentrated on Benedict's humanitarian efforts. Pacelli was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Germany on 23 June 1920, and—after the completion of a Bavarian concordat—his nunciature was moved to Berlin in 1925. Many of Pacelli's Munich staff stayed with him for the rest of his life, including his advisor Robert Leiber and Pascalina Lehnert – housekeeper, friend, and adviser to Pacelli for 41 years. In Berlin, Pacelli was Dean of the Diplomatic Corps and active in diplomatic and many social activities. He worked with the German priest Ludwig Kaas, who was known for his expertise in Church-state relations and was politically active in the Catholic Centre Party. While in Germany, he traveled to all regions as a pastor, attended Katholikentag (national gatherings of the faithful), and delivered some 50 sermons and speeches to the German people.

In post-war Germany, in the absence of a 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. 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 of Social Democrats and liberal parties. Although he had cordial relations with representatives of the Centre Party, he did not involve the Centre in his dealings with the German government. 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.

Cardinal Secretary of State and Camerlengo

Pacelli was made a Cardinal-Priest of ''Santi Giovanni e Paolo'' on 16 December 1929 by Pope Pius XI, and within a few months, on 7 February 1930, Pius XI appointed him Cardinal Secretary of State. In 1935, Pacelli was named Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church.

As Cardinal Secretary of State, Pacelli signed concordats with a number of countries and states, including Baden (1932), Austria (1933), Germany (1933), Yugoslavia (1935) and Portugal (1940). The Lateran treaties with Italy (1929) were concluded before Pacelli became secretary of state. Such concordats allowed the Catholic Church to organize youth groups, make ecclesiastical appointments, run schools, hospitals, and charities, or even conduct religious services. They also ensured that canon law would be recognized within some spheres (e.g., church decrees of nullity in the area of marriage).

He made many diplomatic visits throughout Europe and the Americas, including an extensive visit to the United States in 1936 where he met Franklin D. Roosevelt, who appointed a personal envoy – who did not require Senate confirmation – to the Holy See in December 1939, re-establishing a diplomatic tradition that had been broken since 1870 when the pope lost temporal power.

Pacelli presided as Papal Legate over the International Eucharistic Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 10–14 October 1934, and in Budapest on 25–30 May 1938. At this time, antisemitic laws were in the process of being formulated in Hungary. Pacelli made reference to the Jews "whose lips curse [Christ] and whose hearts reject him even today". This traditional adversarial relationship with Judaism would be reversed in Nostra Aetate issued during the Second Vatican Council. According to Joseph Bottum, Pacelli in 1937 "warned A. W. Klieforth, the American consul to Berlin, that Hitler was "an untrustworthy scoundrel and fundamentally wicked person"; Klieforth wrote that Pacelli "did not believe Hitler capable of moderation, and... fully supported the German bishops in their anti-Nazi stand". A report written by Pacelli the following year for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and filed with Ambassador Joseph Kennedy declared that the Church regarded compromise with the Third Reich as "out of the question".

Some historians have argued that Pacelli, as Cardinal Secretary of State, dissuaded Pope Pius XI – who was nearing death at the time – from condemning the ''Kristallnacht'' in November 1938, when he was informed of it by the papal nuncio in Berlin. Likewise the draft encyclical ''Humani Generis Unitas'' ("On the Unity of the Human Race"), which was ready in September 1938 but, according to those responsible for an edition of the document and other sources, it was not forwarded to the Holy See by the Jesuit General Wlodimir Ledochowski. The draft encyclical contained an open and clear condemnation of colonialism, racism and antisemitism. Some historians have argued that Pacelli learned about its existence only after the death of Pius XI and did not promulgate it as Pope. He did however use parts of it in his inaugural encyclical Summi Pontificatus, which he titled "On the Unity of Human Society."

His various positions on Church and policy issues during his tenure as Cardinal Secretary of State were made public by the Holy See in 1939. Most noteworthy among the 50 speeches is his review of Church-State issues in Budapest in 1938.

''Reichskonkordat'' and ''Mit brennender Sorge''

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 German states authority in the area of education and culture and thus diminished the authority of the churches in these areas; this diminution of church authority was a primary concern of the Vatican. 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. 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. A total of 16 concordats and treaties with European states had been concluded in the ten year period 1922–1932.

The ''Reichskonkordat'', signed on 20 July 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 in particular protection for Catholic associations (§31), freedom for education and Catholic schools, and freedom for publications.

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.

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 member of the Centre Party, to Rome to offer negotiations about a Reichskonkordat. On behalf of Pacelli, Prelate Ludwig Kaas, the outgoing chairman of the Centre Party, negotiated first drafts of the terms with Papen. The concordat was finally signed, by Pacelli for the Vatican and von Papen for Germany, on 20 July and ratified on 10 September 1933. Father Franziscus Stratman, senior Catholic chaplain at Berlin University wrote 'The souls of well-disposed people are in a turmoil as a result of the tyranny of the National Socialists, and I am merely stating a fact when I say that the authority of the bishops among innumerable Catholics and non-Catholics has been shaken by the quasi-approval of the National Socialist movement'.

Between 1933 and 1939, Pacelli issued 55 protests of violations of the ''Reichskonkordat''. Most notably, early in 1937, Pacelli asked several German cardinals, including Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber to help him write a protest of Nazi violations of the ''Reichskonkordat''; this was to become Pius XI's 1937 encyclical ''Mit brennender Sorge''. The encyclical was written in German and not the usual Latin of official Roman Catholic Church documents. Secretly distributed by an army of motorcyclists and read from every German Catholic Church pulpit on Palm Sunday, it condemned the paganism of the National Socialism ideology. Pope Pius XI credited its creation and writing to Pacelli. It was the first official denunciation of Nazism made by any major organization and resulted in persecution of the Church by the infuriated Nazis who closed all the participating presses and "took numerous vindictive measures against the Church, including staging a long series of immorality trials of the Catholic clergy."

On 10 June 1941 he commented on the problems of the ''Reichskonkordat'' in a letter to the Bishop of Passau, in Bavaria: "The history of the Reichskonkordat shows, that the other side lacked the most basic prerequisites to accept minimal freedoms and rights of the Church, without which the Church simply cannot live and operate, formal agreements notwithstanding".

Papacy

Election and coronation

dipstyle	His Holiness
offstyle	Your Holiness
relstyle	Holy Father
deathstyle	Venerable }}

Pius XI died on 10 February 1939. Several historians have interpreted the conclave to choose his successor as facing a choice between a diplomatic or a spiritual candidate, and they view Pacelli's diplomatic experience, especially with Germany, as one of the deciding factors in his election on 2 March 1939, his 63rd birthday, after only one day of deliberation and three ballots. He was the first cardinal secretary of state to be elected Pope since Clement IX in 1667. He was also one of only two men known to have served as Camerlengo immediately prior to being elected as pope (the other being Pope Leo XIII). His coronation took place on 12 March 1939. Upon being elected pope he was also formally the Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, prefect of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Churches and prefect of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation. There was however a Cardinal-Secretary to run these bodies on a day-to-day basis.

Pacelli took the same papal name as his predecessor, a title used exclusively by Italian Popes. He was quoted as saying, "I call myself Pius; my whole life was under Popes with this name, but especially as a sign of gratitude towards Pius XI." On 15 December 1937, during his last consistory, Pius XI strongly hinted to the cardinals that he expected Pacelli to be his successor, saying "He is in your midst." He had previously been quoted as saying: "When today the Pope dies, you’ll get another one tomorrow, because the Church continues. It would be a much bigger tragedy, if Cardinal Pacelli dies, because there is only one. I pray every day, God may send another one into one of our seminaries, but as of today, there is only one in this world."

Appointments

After his election, he made Luigi Maglione his successor as Cardinal Secretary of State. Cardinal Maglione, a seasoned Vatican diplomat, had reestablished diplomatic relations with Switzerland and was for many years nuncio in Paris. Yet, Maglione did not exercise the influence of his predecessor Pacelli, who as Pope continued his close relation with Monsignors Montini (later Pope Paul VI) and Domenico Tardini. After the death of Maglione in 1944, Pius left the position open and named Tardini head of its foreign section and Montini head of the internal section. Tardini and Montini continued serving there until 1953, when Pius XII decided to appoint them cardinals, an honor which both turned down. They were then later appointed to be Pro-Secretary with the privilege to wear Episcopal Insignia. Tardini continued to be a close co-worker of the Pope until the death of Pius XII, while Montini became archbishop of Milan, after the death of Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster.

Pius XII slowly eroded the Italian monopoly on the Roman Curia; he employed German and Dutch Jesuit advisors, Robert Leiber, Augustin Bea, and Sebastian Tromp. He also supported the elevation of Americans such as Cardinal Francis Spellman from a minor to a major role in the Church. After World War II, Pius XII appointed more non-Italians than any Pope before him. American appointees included Joseph P. Hurley as regent of the nunciature in Belgrade, Gerald P. O'Hara Nuncio to Romania and Monsignor Aloisius Joseph Muench as nuncio to Germany. For the first time, numerous young Europeans, Asians and "Americans were trained in various congregations and secretariats within the Vatican for eventual service throughout the world."

Consistories

Only twice in his pontificate did Pius XII hold a consistory to create new cardinals, in contrast to Pius XI, who had done so 17 times in as many years. Pius XII chose not to name new cardinals during World War II, and the number of cardinals shrank to 38, with Dennis Joseph Dougherty of Philadelphia being the only living U.S. cardinal. The first occasion on 18 February 1946 – which has become known as the "Grand Consistory" – yielded the elevation of a record 32 new cardinals, almost 50 percent of the College of Cardinals and reaching the canonical limit of 70 cardinals. In the 1946 consistory, Pius XII, while maintaining the maximum size of the College of Cardinals at 70, named cardinals from China, India, the Middle East and increased the number of Cardinals from the Americas, proportionally lessening the Italian influence.

In his second consistory on 12 January 1953, it was expected that his closest co-workers, Msgrs. Domenico Tardini and Giovanni Montini would be elevated and Pius XII informed the assembled cardinals that both of them were originally on the top of his list, but they had turned down the offer, and were rewarded instead with other promotions. The two consistories of 1946 and 1953 brought an end to over five hundred years of Italians constituting a majority of the College of Cardinals. With few exceptions, Italian prelates accepted the changes positively; there was no protest movement or open opposition to the internationalization efforts.

Earlier, in 1945, Pius XII had dispensed with the complicated papal conclave procedures which attempted to ensure secrecy while preventing Cardinals from voting for themselves, compensating for this change by raising the requisite majority from two-thirds to two thirds plus one.

Church reforms

Liturgy reforms

In his encyclical Mediator Dei, Pius XII links liturgy with the last will of Jesus Christ.

The Church has, therefore, according to Pius XII, a common aim with Christ himself, teaching all men the truth, and, offering to God a pleasing and acceptable sacrifice. This way, the Church re-establishes the unity between the Creator and His creatures. The sacrifice of the altar, being Christ's own actions, convey and dispense divine grace from Christ to the members of the Mystical Body.

The numerous Liturgy reforms of Pius XII show two characteristics. Renewal and the rediscovery of old liturgical traditions, such as the reintroduction of the Easter Vigil, and, a more structured atmosphere within the Church buildings. The use of vernacular language, favoured by Pius XII, was hotly debated at his time. He increased non-Latin services, especially in countries with expanding Catholic mission activities. The church tabernacle holding the Blessed Sacrament should be immovably fixed to the altar and, unless another position was thought to be more appropriate, should normally be at the main altar. The Church should display religious objects, but not be overloaded with secondary objects. Modern sacred art should be reverential and reflect the spirit of our time. Priests are permitted to officiate marriages without Holy Mass. They may also officiate confirmations in certain instances.

The most radical of his liturgical changes concerned Palm Sunday and the Paschal Triduum. In the latter, he changed the hour of the celebrations, so that the Mass of the Lord's Supper was held in the evening, not the morning of Maundy Thursday, the Good Friday liturgical service was held in the afternoon, and the Vigil Mass of the resurrection of Jesus was no longer celebrated on the morning of Holy Saturday, but instead during the night that led to Easter Sunday. He inserted the washing of feet into the Mass of the Lord's Supper and made the distribution of Communion to the faithful a normal part of the celebration: previously the Roman Missal spoke of the consecration only of two large hosts (one reserved for Good Friday) and of small ones for the sick, "if necessary". The faithful were to be given Communion also on Good Friday, when previously only the priest received Communion. In the Easter Vigil service the Pope made many changes. He replaced a prayer said over incense (that apparently arose as a result of understanding "incensum cereum", meaning "the lit candle", as referring to "incensum", meaning "incense") was replaced with one over the Easter candle. He added a completely new ceremony in which the priest inscribed this candle with the Arabic numerals of the date of the year and inserted into it five pieces of incense. He abolished the triple candlestick with the three candles that were lit at different points of the ceremony. He removed the obligation for the priest to read silently by himself the Scripture readings that were being proclaimed to the people, and he introduced a newly composed ceremony of renewal of baptismal promises, in which the vernacular language could be used.

Canon Law Reforms

Decentralised authority and increased independence of the Uniate Churches were aimed at in the Canon Law/Corpis Iuris Canonici (CIC) reform. In its new constitutions, Eastern Patriarchs were made almost independent from Rome (CIC Orientalis, 1957) Eastern marriage law (CIC Orientalis, 1949), civil law (CIC Orientalis, 1950), laws governing religious associations (CIC Orientalis, 1952) property law (CIC Orientalis, 1952) and other laws. These reforms and writings of Pius XII were intended to establish Eastern Orientals as equal parts of the mystical body of Christ, as explained in the encyclical Mystici Corporis.

Priests and Religious

With the Apostolic constitution ''Sedis Sapientiae'', Pius XII added social sciences, sociology, psychology and social psychology, to the pastoral training of future priests. Pius XII emphasised the need to systematically analyze the psychological condition of candidates to the priesthood to ensure that they are capable of a life of celibacy and service. Pius XII added one year to the theological formation of future priests. He also included a "pastoral year", an introduction into the practice of Parish work.

The call to constant interior reform and Christian heroism is a central part of the message of Pius XII to all Religious. This means to be above average, to be a living example of Christian virtue. As the secular world has fallen back into Hedonism, the Catholic alternative is the sanctification especially of Priests and Religious. The strict norms governing their lives are meant to make them models of Christian perfection for lay people, he writes in Menti Nostrae. Bishops are encouraged to look at model saints like Boniface, and Pope Pius X. Priests were encouraged to be living examples of the love of Christ and his sacrifice.

Theology

Pius XII explained the Catholic faith in 41 encyclicals and almost 1000 messages and speeches during his long pontificate. Mediator Dei clarified membership and participation in the Church. The encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu opened the doors for biblical research. His magisterium was far larger and is difficult to summarize. In numerous speeches Catholic teaching is related to various aspects of life, education, medicine, politics, war and peace, the life of saints, Mary, the mother of God, things eternal and contemporary. Theologically, Pius XII specified the nature of the teaching authority of the Church. He also gave a new freedom to engage in theological investigations.

Theological orientation

;Biblical Research The encyclical, ''Divino Afflante Spiritu'', published in 1943 emphasized the role of the Bible. Pius XII freed biblical research from previous limitations. He encouraged Christian theologians to revisit original versions of the Bible in Greek and Hebrew. Noting improvements in archaeology, the encyclical reversed Pope Leo XIII's encyclical, which had only advocated going back to the original texts to resolve ambiguity in the Latin Vulgate. The encyclical demands a much better understanding of ancient Jewish history and traditions. It requires bishops throughout the Church to initiate biblical studies for lay people. The Pontiff also requests a reorientation of Catholic teaching and education, relying much more on sacred scriptures in sermons and religious instruction.

;The role of theology This theological investigative freedom does not, however, extend to all aspects of theology. According to Pius, theologians, employed by the Church, are assistants, to teach the official teachings of the Church and not their own private thoughts. They are free to engage in empirical research, which the Church generously supports, but in matters of morality and religion, they are subjected to the teaching office and authority of the Church, the Magisterium. "The most noble office of theology is to show how a doctrine defined by the Church is contained in the sources of revelation, … in that sense in which it has been defined by the Church." The deposit of faith is authentically interpretated not to each of the faithful, not even to theologians, but only to the teaching authority of the Church.

Mariology and the Dogma of the Assumption

As a young boy and in later life, Pacelli was an ardent follower of the Virgin Mary. He was consecrated as a bishop on 13 May 1917, the very first day of the appearances of Our Lady of Fátima. He consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1942, in accordance with the second "secret" of Our Lady of Fátima. His remains were to be buried in the crypt of Saint Peter's Basilica on the feast day of Our Lady of Fátima, 13 October 1958.

On 1 November 1950, Pope Pius XII defined the dogma of the Assumption:

The dogma of the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary is the crowning of the theology of Pius XII. It resolved a theological difficulty that the dogma of the Immaculate Conception had left open: if the soul of Mary had been created without the taint of sin, yet the Bible states that the wages of sin is death, should it be concluded that Mary, who by definition never sinned, therefore never died? The dogma of her assumption settles the problem by stating that she did not experience the ordinary human death, but was taken to Heaven as a divine gift.

The dogma was preceded by the 1946 encyclical Deiparae Virginis Mariae, which requested all Catholic bishops to express their opinion on a possible dogmatization. On 8 September 1953, the encyclical Fulgens corona announced a Marian year for 1954, the centennial of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. In the encyclical Ad caeli reginam he promulgated the feast, Queenship of Mary. Mystici Corporis summarizes his mariology.

Social teachings

;Medical theology Pius XII delivered numerous speeches to medical professionals and researchers. He addressed doctors, nurses, midwives, to detail all aspects of rights and dignity of patients, medical responsibilities, moral implications of psychological illnesses and the uses of psycho pharmaca. He also took on issues like the uses of medicine in terminally ill persons, medical lies in face of grave illness, and the rights of family members to make decisions against expert medical advice. Pope Pius XII often reconsidered previously accepted truth, thus he was first to determine that the use of pain medicine in terminally ill patients is justified, even if this may shorten the life of the patient, as long as life shortening is not the objective itself.

;Family and sexuality Pope Pius XII developed an extensive theology of the family, taking issue with family roles, sharing of household duties, education of children, conflict resolution, financial dilemmas, psychological problems, illness, taking care of older generations, unemployment, marital holiness and virtue, common prayer, religious discussions and more. Within the overall divine purpose of family life, he fully accepted the rhythm method as a moral form of family planning, although only limited circumstances, within the context of family.

;Theology and science To Pius XII, science and religion were heavenly sisters, different manifestations of divine exactness, who could not possibly contradict each other over the long term Regarding their relation, his advisor Professor Robert Leiber wrote: "Pius XII was very careful not to close any doors prematurely. He was energetic on this point and regretted that in the case of Galileo."

;Evolution In 1950, Pius XII promulgated ''Humani Generis'' which acknowledged that evolution might accurately describe the biological origins of human life, but at the same time criticized those who "imprudently and indiscreetly hold that evolution... explains the origin of all things". Catholics must believe that the human soul was created immediately by God. Since the soul is a spiritual substance it is not brought into being through transformation of matter, but directly by God, whence the special uniqueness of each person.." Fifty years later, Pope John Paul II, stating that scientific evidence now seemed to favour the evolutionary theory, upheld the distinction of Pius XII regarding the human soul. "Even if the human body originates from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is spontaneously created by God."

Encyclicals, writings and speeches

Pius XII issued 41 encyclicals during his pontificate – more than all his successors in the past 50 years taken together – along with many other writings and speeches. The pontificate of Pius XII was the first in Vatican history, which published papal speeches and addresses in vernacular language on a systematic basis. Until then, papal documents were issued mainly in Latin in Acta Apostolicae Sedis since 1909. Because of the novelty of it all, and a feared occupation of the Vatican by the German Wehrmacht, not all documents exist today. In 1944, a number of papal documents were burned or "walled in", to avoid detection by the advancing German army. Insisting that all publications must be reviewed by him on a prior basis to avoid any misunderstanding, several speeches by Pius XII, who did not find sufficient time, were never published or appeared only once issued in the Vatican daily, ''Osservatore Romano''.

Several encyclicals addressed the Oriental Churches. ''Orientalis Ecclesiae'' was issued in 1944 on the 15th centenary of the death of Cyril of Alexandria, a saint common to Orthodox and Latin Churches. Pius XII asks for prayer for better understanding and unification of the Churches. ''Orientales Omnes'', issued in 1945 on the 350th anniversary of the reunion, is a call to continued unity of the Ruthenian Church, threatened in its very existence by the authorities of the Soviet Union. ''Sempiternus Rex'' was issued in 1951 on the 1500th anniversary of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. It included a call to oriental communities adhering to monophysitism to return to the Catholic Church.

''Orientales Ecclesias'' was issued in 1952 and addressed to the Eastern Churches, protesting the continued Stalinist persecution of the Church. Several Apostolic Letters were sent to the bishops in the East. On 13 May 1956, Pope Pius addressed all bishops of the Eastern Rite. Mary, the mother of God was the subject of encyclical letters to the people of Russia in Fulgens Corona and a papal letter to the people of Russia.

Feasts and devotions

In 1958, Pope Pius XII declared the Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus as Shrove Tuesday (the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday) for all Roman Catholics. The first medal of the Holy Face, produced by Sister Maria Pierina De Micheli based on the image on the Shroud of Turin had been offered to Pius XII who approved of the medal and the devotion based on it. The general devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus had been approved by Pope Leo XIII in 1885 before the image on the Turin Shroud had been photographed.

Canonisations and beatifications

Pope Pius XII canonized numerous saints, including Pope Pius X and Maria Goretti. He beatified Pope Innocent XI. The first canonizations were two women, the founder of a female order, Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, and a young housekeeper said to have stigmata, Gemma Galgani. Pelletier had a reputation for opening new ways for Catholic charities, helping people in difficulties with the law, who had been neglected by the system and the Church. Galgani was a woman in her twenties whose virtue became model by her canonization.

World War II

As Cardinal Secretary of State, Pacelli signed a Concordat between Germany and the Vatican at a ceremony in Rome on 20 July 1933. His pontificate began on the eve of World War II. In the 1937 encyclical ''Mit brennender Sorge'', drafted by Pope Pius XII when he was still a cardinal, Pope Pius XI denounced Nazism and breaches of the Reichskonkordat. Read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches, it has been described as the first official denunciation of Nazism made by any major organization. Nazi persecution of the Church in Germany then began by "outright repression" and "staged prosecutions of monks for homosexuality, with the maximum of publicity." When Dutch bishops protested against the deportation of Jews, the Nazis responded by deporting Jewish converts, including Edith Stein.

In Poland, the Nazis murdered over 2,500 monks and priests while even more were sent to concentration camps. The Priester-Block (priests barracks) in the Dachau concentration camp lists 2,600 Roman Catholic priests. Pius XII's refusal to censure the German invasion and annexation of Poland was regarded as a "betrayal" by many Polish Catholics and clergy, who saw his appointment of Hilarius Breitinger as apostolic administrator for the Wartheland in May 1942 as "implicit recognition" of the breakup of Poland; the opinions of the ''Volksdeutsche'', mostly Catholic German minorities living in Poland, were more mixed. Although Pius XII received frequent reports about atrocities committed by and/or against Catholics, his knowledge was not complete; for example, he wept after the war upon learning that Cardinal Hlond had banned German liturgical services in Poland. Phayer argues that Pius XII – both before and during his papacy – consistently "deferred to Germany at the expense of Poland", and saw Germany – not Poland – as critical to "rebuilding a large Catholic presence in Central Europe".

During the war, the Pope followed a policy of public neutrality mirroring that of Pope Benedict XV during World War I. In 1939, Pius XII turned the Vatican into a centre of aid which he organized from various parts of the world At the request of the Pope, an information office for prisoners of war and refugees operated in the Vatican under Giovanni Battista Montini, which in the years of its existence from 1939 until 1947 received almost 10 million (9,891,497) information requests and produced over 11 million (11,293,511) answers about missing persons.

In April 1939, after the submission of Charles Maurras and the intervention of the Carmel of Lisieux, Pius XII ended his predecessor's ban on Action Française, an organization described by some authors as virulently antisemitic and anti-Communist.

In 1939, the Pope employed Jewish cartographer Roberto Almagia to work on old maps in the Vatican library. Almagia had been at the University of Rome since 1915 but was dismissed after Benito Mussolini's anti-semitic legislation of 1938. The Pope's appointment of two Jews to the Vatican Academy of Science as well as the hiring of Almagia were reported by ''The New York Times'' in the editions of 11 November 1939, and 10 January 1940.

During the Soviet Union's acts of aggression against Finland, the Winter War, Pius XII condemned the Soviet attack on 26 December 1939 in a speech at the Vatican. Later he donated a signed and sealed prayer on behalf of Finland.

On 18 January 1940, after over 15,000 Polish civilians had been killed, Pius XII said in a radio broadcast, "The horror and inexcusable excesses committed on a helpless and a homeless people have been established by the unimpeachable testimony of eye-witnesses."

In his first encyclical ''Summi Pontificatus'' (20 October 1939), Pius XII publicly condemned the invasion, occupation and partition of Poland under the Nazi-Soviet Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

''Time'' magazine reports that France and Britain were favourably surprised by the encyclical.

On 11 March 1940, The Pope had a personal meeting with German Minister of Foreign Affairs Joachim Ribbentrop, who was visiting Rome. During that meeting, The German Foreign Minister suggested to the Pope an overall settlement between the Vatican and the Reich government in exchange for the Pope instructing the German Bishops to refrain from political criticism of the German government, but no agreement was reached. The Vatican diplomatic record of the meeting describes what transpired as follows:

He (Ribbentrop) answered that at the bottom it is a question of a revolution and that compared with other revolutions the National Socialist Revolution has not caused grave harm to the churches. To which the Pope replied that in reality there had been many injuries – and he continued to point out examples. Ribbentrop underlined that the State spends a great deal for the clergy and the Church. The Pope replied that a great deal has been taken away from the Church, houses, institutions of education – kicking out the legitimate owners malo modo in a few hours. The Holy Father insisted particularly on the schools.

After Germany invaded the Low Countries during 1940, Pius XII sent expressions of sympathy to the Queen of the Netherlands, the King of Belgium, and the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. When Mussolini learned of the warnings and the telegrams of sympathy, he took them as a personal affront and had his ambassador to the Vatican file an official protest, charging that Pius XII had taken sides against Italy's ally Germany. Mussolini's foreign minister claimed that Pius XII was "ready to let himself be deported to a concentration camp, rather than do anything against his conscience."

In the spring of 1940, a group of German generals seeking to overthrow Hitler and make peace with the British approached Pope Pius XII, who acted as a negotiator between the British and the abortive plot.

On 13 June 1940, while the battle of France was still raging, the Pope issued encyclical ''Saeculo Exeunte Octavo'', which, though relating to Portugal, made an ambiguous statement about the general situation in the following words: "now, when more than a few European nations have been lost to the Church because of the changes in these calamitous times", which could have referred either to the German occupation or to Communism in Russia.

In April 1941, Pius XII granted a private audience to Ante Pavelić, the leader of the newly proclaimed Croatian state (rather than the diplomatic audience Pavelić had wanted). Pius was criticised for his reception of Pavelić: an unattributed British Foreign Office memo on the subject described Pius as "the greatest moral coward of our age." The Vatican did not officially recognise Pavelić's regime. Pius XII did not publicly condemn the expulsions and forced conversions to Catholicism perpetrated on Serbs by Pavelić; however, the Holy See did expressly repudiate the forced conversions in a memorandum dated 25 January 1942, from the Vatican Secretiat of State to the Yugoslavian Legation. Pius XII was well-informed of the involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the Ustaša regime, even possessing a list of clergymembers who had "joined in the slaughter", but decided against condemning the regime or taking action against the involved clergy, fearing that it would lead to schism in the Croatian church or undermine the formation of a future Croatian state. Pius XII elevated Aloysius Stepinac—a Croatian archbishop convicted of collaborating with the Ustaša—to the cardinalate. Although Phayer agrees in part with criticisms of Stepinac conviction as a "show trial", he states "the charge that he supported the Ustaša regime was, of course, true, as everyone knew", and that "if Stepinac had responded to the charges against him, his defense would have inevitably unraveled, exposing the Vatican's support of the genocidal Pavelić".

In 1941, Pius XII interpreted ''Divini Redemptoris'', an encyclical of Pope Pius XI, which forbade Catholics to help communists, as not applying to military assistance to the Soviet Union. This interpretation assuaged American Catholics who had previously opposed Lend-Lease arrangements with the Soviet Union.

In March 1942, Pius XII established diplomatic relations with the Japanese Empire and received ambassador Ken Harada, who remained in that position until the end of the war. In May 1942, Kazimierz Papée, Polish ambassador to the Vatican, complained that Pius had failed to condemn the recent wave of atrocities in Poland; when Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione replied that the Vatican could not document individual atrocities, Papée declared, "when something becomes notorious, proof is not required."

In June 1942, diplomatic relations were established with the Nationalist government of China. This step was envisaged earlier, but delayed due to Japanese pressure to establish relations with the pro-Japanese Wang Jingwei government. The first Chinese Minister to the Vatican, Hsieh Shou-kang, was only able to arrive at the Vatican in January 1943, due to difficulties of travel resulting from the war. He remained in that position until late 1946.

Pius XII's 1942 Christmas address on the Vatican Radio remains a "lightning rod" in debates about Pius XII. The majority of the speech spoke generally about human rights and civil society; at the very end of the speech, Pius XII mentioned "the hundreds of thousands of persons who, without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, have been consigned to death or to a slow decline". Reactions of contemporaries and scholars are divided, but the speech did denounce genocide (a term not coined until 1944), although "it is still not clear ''whose'' genocide or ''which'' genocide he was referring to".

Several authors have alleged a plot to kidnap Pius XII by the Nazis during their occupation of Rome in 1943 (Vatican City itself was not occupied); British historian Owen Chadwick and Jesuit ADSS editor Robert A. Graham concluded that such claims were the invention of British wartime propagandists. However, subsequent to those accounts, Dan Kurzman in 2007 published a work which he maintains establishes the plot as fact.

As the war was approaching its end in 1945, Pius advocated a lenient policy by the Allied leaders in an effort to prevent what he perceived to be the mistakes made at the end of World War I. In August 1944, he met British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was visiting Rome. At their meeting, the Pope expressed the hope that the planned war crimes trials shall not include Italian defendants, since he considered the Italians as victims of the Third Reich.

The Holocaust

In 1939, the newly elected Pope Pius XII appointed several prominent Jewish scholars to posts at the Vatican after they had been dismissed from Italian universities under Fascist leader Benito Mussolini's racial laws. Pius later engineered an agreement—formally approved on 23 June 1939—with Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas to issue 3,000 visas to "non-Aryan Catholics". However, over the next 18 months Brazil's Conselho de Imigração e Colonização (CIC) continued to tighten the restrictions on their issuance, including requiring a baptismal certificate dated before 1933, a substantial monetary transfer to the Banco do Brasil, and approval by the Brazilian Propaganda Office in Berlin. The program was cancelled 14 months later, after fewer than 1,000 visas had been issued, amid suspicions of "improper conduct" (i.e., continuing to practice Judaism) among those who had received visas.

Cardinal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione received a request from Chief Rabbi of Palestine Isaac Herzog in the Spring of 1940 to intercede on behalf of Lithuanian Jews about to be deported to Germany. Pius called Ribbentrop on 11 March, repeatedly protesting against the treatment of Jews. In his 1939 encyclical ''Summi Pontificatus'', Pius rejected anti-semitism, stating that in the Catholic Church there is "neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision." In 1940, Pius asked members of the clergy, on Vatican letterhead, to do whatever they could on behalf of interned Jews.

In 1941, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer of Vienna informed Pius of Jewish deportations in Vienna. Later that year, when asked by French Marshal Philippe Pétain if the Vatican objected to antisemitic laws, Pius responded that the church condemned antisemitism, but would not comment on specific rules. Similarly, when Philippe Pétain's regime adopted the "Jewish statutes", the Vichy ambassador to the Vatican, Léon Bérard (a French politician), was told that the legislation did not conflict with Catholic teachings. Valerio Valeri, the nuncio to France was "embarrassed" when he learned of this publicly from Pétain and personally checked the information with Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione who confirmed the Vatican's position. Yet in June 1942, Pius personally protested against the mass deportations of Jews from France, ordering the papal nuncio to protest to Pétain against "the inhuman arrests and deportations of Jews". In September 1941, Pius objected to a Slovakian Jewish Code, which, unlike the earlier Vichy codes, prohibited intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews. In October 1941, Harold Tittman, a U.S. delegate to the Vatican, asked the pope to condemn the atrocities against Jews; Pius replied that the Vatican wished to remain "neutral," reiterating the neutrality policy which Pius invoked as early as September 1940.

In 1942, the Slovakian chargé d'affaires told Pius that Slovakian Jews were being sent to concentration camps. On 11 March 1942, several days before the first transport was due to leave, the chargé d'affaires in Bratislava reported to the Vatican: "I have been assured that this atrocious plan is the handwork of ... Prime Minister (Tuka), who confirmed the plan ... he dared to tell me—he who makes such a show of his Catholicism—that he saw nothing inhuman or un-Christian in it ... the deportation of 80,000 persons to Poland, is equivalent to condemning a great number of them to certain death." The Vatican protested to the Slovak government that it "deplore(s) these... measures which gravely hurt the natural human rights of persons, merely because of their race."

On 18 September 1942, Pius received a letter from Monsignor Montini (future Pope Paul VI), saying, "the massacres of the Jews reach frightening proportions and forms." Later that month, Myron Taylor, U.S. representative to the Vatican, warned Pius that the Vatican's "moral prestige" was being injured by silence on European atrocities, a warning which was echoed simultaneously by representatives from the United Kingdom, Brazil, Uruguay, Belgium, and Poland. The Cardinal Secretary of State replied that the rumors about genocide could not be verified. In December 1942, when Tittman asked Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione if Pius would issue a proclamation similar to the Allied declaration "German Policy of Extermination of the Jewish Race", Maglione replied that the Vatican was "unable to denounce publicly particular atrocities." Pius XII directly explained to Tittman that he could not name the Nazis without at the same time mentioning the Bolsheviks. Pius XII also never publicly condemned the Nazi massacre of 1,800,000–1,900,000 mainly Catholic Polish gentiles (including 2,935 members of the Catholic Clergy), nor did he ever publicly condemn the Soviet Union for the deaths of 1,000,000 mainly Catholic Polish gentile citizens including an untold number of clergy. In late 1942, Pius XII advised German and Hungarian bishops that speaking out against the massacres in the Eastern Front would be politically advantageous. In his 1942 Christmas Eve message, he expressed strong concern for "those hundreds of thousands, who ... sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race, are marked down for death or progressive extinction. On 7 April 1943, Msgr. Tardini, one of Pius’ closest advisors, told Pius that it would be politically advantageous after the war to take steps to help Slovakian Jews.

In January 1943, Pius declined to publicly denounce the Nazi discrimination against Jews, following requests to do so from Władysław Raczkiewicz, president of the Polish government-in-exile, and Bishop Konrad von Preysing of Berlin. On 26 September 1943, following the German occupation of northern Italy, Nazi officials gave Jewish leaders in Rome 36 hours to produce 50 kilograms of gold (or the equivalent) threatening to take 300 hostages. Then Chief Rabbi of Rome Israel Zolli recounts in his memoir that he was selected to go to the Vatican and seek help. The Vatican offered to loan 15 kilos, but the offer proved unnecessary when the Jews received an extension. Soon afterward, when deportations from Italy were imminent, 477 Jews were hidden in the Vatican itself and another 4,238 were protected in Roman monasteries and convents. Eighty percent of Roman Jews were saved from deportation. Phayer argues that the German diplomats in Rome were the "initiators of the effort to save the city's Jews", but holds that Pius XII "cooperated in this attempt at rescue", while agreeing with Zuccotti that the pope "did not give orders" for any Roman Catholic institution to hide Jews.

On 30 April 1943, Pius wrote to Bishop Graf von Preysing of Berlin to say: "We give to the pastors who are working on the local level the duty of determining if and to what degree the danger of reprisals and of various forms of oppression occasioned by episcopal declarations... ''ad maiora mala vitanda'' (to avoid worse)... seem to advise caution. Here lies one of the reasons, why We impose self-restraint on Ourselves in our speeches; the experience, that we made in 1942 with papal addresses, which We authorized to be forwarded to the Believers, justifies our opinion, as far as We see.... The Holy See has done whatever was in its power, with charitable, financial and moral assistance. To say nothing of the substantial sums which we spent in American money for the fares of immigrants."

On 28 October 1943, Ernst von Weizsäcker, the German Ambassador to the Vatican, telegrammed Berlin that "...the Pope has not yet let himself be persuaded to make an official condemnation of the deportation of the Roman Jews.... Since it is currently thought that the Germans will take no further steps against the Jews in Rome, the question of our relations with the Vatican may be considered closed."

In March 1944, through the papal nuncio in Budapest, Angelo Rotta, the pope urged the Hungarian government to moderate its treatment of the Jews. The pope also ordered Rotta and other papal legates to hide and shelter Jews. These protests, along with others from the King of Sweden, the International Red Cross, the United States, and Britain led to the cessation of deportations on 8 July 1944. Also in 1944, Pius appealed to 13 Latin American governments to accept "emergency passports", although it also took the intervention of the U.S. State Department for those countries to honor the documents.

The Kaltenbrunner Report to Adolf Hitler dated 29 November 1944 on the background of the 20 July 1944 Plot to assassinate Hitler, states that the Pope was somehow a conspirator, specifically naming Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, as being a party in the attempt.

Post–World War II

After World War II Pope Pius XII focused on material aid to war-torn Europe, an internal internationalization of the Roman Catholic Church, and the development of its worldwide diplomatic relations. His encyclicals, ''Evangelii Praecones'' and ''Fidei Donum'', issued on 2 June 1951 and 21 April 1957, respectively, increased the local decision-making of Catholic missions, many of which became independent dioceses. Pius XII demanded recognition of local cultures as fully equal to European culture. Continuing the line of his predecessors, Pius XII supported the establishment of local administration in Church affairs: in 1950, the hierarchy of Western Africa became independent; in 1951, Southern Africa; and in 1953, British Eastern Africa. Finland, Burma and French Africa became independent dioceses in 1955.

;Persecutions in Eastern Europe and China

While the Church thrived in the West and most of the developing world, it faced most serious persecutions in the East. The Communist regimes in Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania practically eradicated the Roman Catholic Church in their countries.

;Church policies toward Poland

;Pope Pius and Russia

The difficult relations of the Vatican with the Soviet Union originated in the revolution in 1917 and continued through the pontificate of Pius XII, affecting the Orthodox Church and other non-Catholics as well. The Oriental Catholic churches were eliminated in most parts of the Soviet Union during the Stalinist era.

;The Vatican and the Church in China

The relations of the Holy See with China from 1939 to 1958 began hopefully with the long withheld recognition of Chinese rites by the Vatican in 1939, the elevation of the first Chinese cardinal in 1946, and the establishment of a local Chinese hierarchy. It ended with the persecution and virtual elimination of the Catholic Church in the early 1950s, and the establishment of a Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association in 1957

;Jewish orphans controversy In 2005, ''Corriere della Sera'' published a document dated 20 November 1946 on the subject of Jewish children baptized in war-time France. The document ordered that baptized children, if orphaned, should be kept in Catholic custody and stated that the decision "has been approved by the Holy Father". Nuncio Angelo Roncalli (who became Pope John XXIII, and was recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations) ignored this directive. Abe Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), who had himself been baptized as a child and had undergone a custody battle afterwards, called for an immediate freeze on Pius's beatification process until the relevant Vatican Secret Archives and baptismal records were opened. Two Italian scholars, Matteo Luigi Napolitano and Andrea Tornielli, confirmed that the memorandum was genuine although the reporting by the ''Corriere della Sera'' was misleading, as the document had originated in the French Catholic Church archives rather than the Vatican archives and strictly concerned itself with children without living blood relatives that were supposed to be handed over to Jewish organizations.

Later life, illness and death

Late years of Pope Pius XII

The last years of the pontificate of Pius XII began in late 1954 with a long illness, during which he considered abdication. Afterwards, changes in his work habit became noticeable. The Pope avoided long ceremonies, canonizations and consistories and displayed hesitancy in personnel matters. During the last years of the pontificate, Pius XII procrastinated personnel decisions within his Vatican, and found it increasingly difficult to chastise subordinates and appointees such as Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, who, after numerous indiscretions was excluded from Papal service for the last years, but, keeping his title, was able to enter the papal apartments to make photos of the dying Pope, which he sold to French magazines.

Pius XII often elevated young priests as bishops, such as Julius Döpfner (35 years) and Karol Wojtyla (38 years), one of his last appointees in 1958. He took a firm stand against pastoral experiments, such as "worker-priests", who worked full time in factories and joined political parties and unions. He continued to defend the theological tradition of Thomism as worthy of continued reform, and as superior to modern trends such as phenomenology or existentialism.

Illness and death

thumb|right|180px |''The Pope of Mary'': A Madonna and Child, added by [[Pope John XXIII|John XXIII, hangs over the tomb of Pius XII.]]

Since his 1954 illness, Pope Pius addressed lay people and groups about an unprecedented range of topics. Frequently, he spoke to members of scientific congresses, explaining Christian teachings in light of most recent scientific results. Sometimes he answered specific moral questions, which were addressed to him. To professional associations he explained specific occupational ethics in light of Church teachings. Pius granted the Honor of Being the "Catholic University of The Philippines" to the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, the oldest existing in Asia.

Before 1955, Pius worked for many years with Giovanni Battista Montini. The Pope did not have a full time assistant. Robert Leiber helped him occasionally with his speeches and publications. Augustin Bea was his personal confessor. Madre Pascalina Lehnert was for forty years his housekeeper and assistant. Domenico Tardini was probably closest to him.

Pius XII died on 9 October 1958 of acute heart failure brought on by a sudden myocardial infarction in Castel Gandolfo, the Papal summer residence. His doctor Gaspanini said afterwards: "The Holy Father did not die because of any specific illness. He was completely exhausted. He was overworked beyond limit. His heart was healthy, his lungs were good. He could have lived another 20 years, had he spared himself."

Botched embalming

Pius XII's doctor, Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, reported that the Pontiff's body was embalmed in the room where he died using a novel process invented by Dr. Oreste Nuzzi.

Pope Pius XII did not want the vital organs removed from his body, demanding instead, that it be kept in the same condition, "in which God created it". According to Galeazzi-Lisi, this was the reason why he and Professor Oreste Nuzzi, an embalmer from Naples, used a novel embalming approach invented by Nuzzi. Galeazzi-Lisi asserted that the new process would "preserve the body indefinitely in its natural state" However, whatever chance the new embalming process of efficaciously preserving the body was obliterated by intense heat in Castel Gandolfo during the embalming process. As a result, the body decomposed rapidly and the viewing of the faithful had to be terminated abruptly.

Galeazzi-Lisi reported that heat in the halls, where the body of the late Pope lay in state, caused chemical reactions which required it to be treated twice after the original preparation. Angelo Cardinal Roncalli (Pope John XXIII) wrote in his diary on 11 October that probably no Roman emperor had enjoyed such a triumph, which he viewed as a reflection of the spiritual majesty and religious dignity of Pius XII.

Cause for canonization

The Testament of Pope Pius XII was published immediately after his death. Pope Pius XII's cause of canonization was opened on 18 November 1965 by Pope Paul VI. In March 2007, the congregation recommended that Pius XII should be declared Venerable. Pope Benedict XVI did so on 19 December 2009, simultaneously making the same declaration in regard to Pope John Paul II.

Views, interpretations, and scholarship

Contemporary

During the war, the pope was widely praised. For example, ''Time'' magazine credited Pius XII and the Catholic Church for "fighting totalitarianism more knowingly, devoutly, and authoritatively, and for a longer time, than any other organized power". During the war he was also praised editorially by the ''New York Times'' for opposing Nazi anti-Semitism and aggression. Some early works echoed these favorable sentiments, including Polish historian Oskar Halecki's ''Pius XII: Eugenio Pacelli: Pope of peace'' (1954) and Nazareno Padellaro's ''Portrait of Pius XII'' (1949).

Many Jews publicly thanked the Pope for his help. For example, Pinchas Lapide, a Jewish theologian and Israeli diplomat to Milan in the 1960s, estimated controversially in ''Three Popes and the Jews'' that Pius "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000 but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands." Some historians have questioned this oft-cited number, which Lapide reached by "deducting all reasonable claims of rescue" by non-Catholics from the total number of European Jews surviving the Holocaust. Catholic scholar Kevin Madigan interprets this and other praise from prominent Jewish leaders, including Golda Meir, as less than sincere, an attempt to secure Vatican recognition of the State of Israel.

When Pius XII died in October, 1958 many Jewish organizations and newspapers around the world paid tribute to his legacy. At the United Nations, Golda Meir, Israel's Foreign Minister, said, "When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict." The Jewish Chronicle in London stated on 10 October "Adherents of all creeds and parties will recall how Pius XII faced the responsibilities of his exalted office with courage and devotion. Before, during, and after the Second World War, he constantly preached the message of peace. Confronted by the monstrous cruelties of Nazism, Fascism, and Communism, he repeatedly proclaimed the virtues of humanity and compassion". In the Canadian Jewish Chronicle (17 October), Rabbi J. Stern stated that Pius XII "made it possible for thousands of Jewish victims of Nazism and Fascism to be hidden away..." In the 6 November edition of the Jewish Post in Winnipeg, William Zukerman, the former American Hebrew columnist, wrote that no other leader "did more to help the Jews in their hour of greatest tragedy, during the Nazi occupation of Europe, than the late Pope". Other prominent Jewish figures, such as Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett and Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog expressed their public gratitude to Pius XII.

Pius was also criticized during his lifetime. For example, Leon Poliakov wrote five years after World War II that Pius had been a tacit supporter of Vichy France's anti-Semitic laws, calling him "less forthright" than Pope Pius XI either out of "Germanophilia" or the hope that Hitler would defeat communist Russia. Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa, a long-time critic of Pius XII's policies during the war and an opponent of clerical celibacy and the use of Latin as language of the liturgy, was excommunicated by Pius XII on 2 July 1945.

On 21 September 1945, the general secretary of the World Jewish Council, Dr. Leon Kubowitzky, presented an amount of money to the pope, "in recognition of the work of the Holy See in rescuing Jews from Fascist and Nazi persecutions."

After the war, in the autumn of 1945, Harry Greenstein from Baltimore, a close friend of Chief Rabbi Herzog of Jerusalem, told Pius how grateful Jews were for all he had done for them. "My only regret", the pope replied, "is not to have been able to save a greater number of Jews."

''The Deputy''

In 1963, Rolf Hochhuth's controversial drama ''Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel'' (''The Deputy, a Christian tragedy'', released in English in 1964) portrayed Pope Pius XII as a hypocrite who remained silent about the Holocaust. Books such as Dr. Joseph Lichten's ''A Question of Judgment'' (1963), written in response to ''The Deputy'', defended Pius XII's actions during the war. Lichten labelled any criticism of the pope's actions during World War II as "a stupefying paradox" and said, "no one who reads the record of Pius XII's actions on behalf of Jews can subscribe to Hochhuth's accusation." Critical scholarly works like Guenter Lewy's ''The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany'' (1964) also followed the publication of ''The Deputy''. Lewy's conclusion was that "the Pope and his advisers – influenced by the long tradition of moderate anti-Semitism so widely accepted in Vatican circles – did not view the plight of the Jews with a real sense of urgency and moral outrage. For this assertion no documentation is possible, but it is a conclusion difficult to avoid". In 2002 the play was adapted into the film ''Amen.''

An article on La Civilità Cattolica in March 2009 indicated that the accusations that Hochhuth's play made widely known originated not among Jews but in the Communist bloc. It was Moscow Radio, on 2 June 1945, that first direct against Pius XII the accusation of refusing to speak out against the exterminations in Nazi concentration camps. It was also the first to call him "Hitler's Pope".

A former high-ranking KGB officer, Securitate General Ion Mihai Pacepa stated in 2007 that Hochhuth's play and numerous publications attacking Pius XII as a Nazi sympathizer were fabrications that were part of a KGB and Eastern bloc Marxist secret services disinformation campaign, named Seat 12, to discredit the moral authority of the Church and Christianity in the west. Pacepa also indicated that he was involved in contacting east bloc agents close the Vatican in order to fabricate the story to be used for the attack against the wartime pope.

''Actes''

In the aftermath of the controversy surrounding ''The Deputy'', in 1964 Pope Paul VI authorized Jesuit scholars to access the Vatican State Department Archives, which are normally not opened for seventy-five years. Actes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, was published in 11 volumes between 1965 and 1981.The volumes were published by Angelo Martini, Burkhart Schneider, Robert A. Graham and Pierre Blet, the latter published a summary of the 11 volumes. All four, most frequently Robert A. Graham published articles and books on the subject matter.

''Hitler's Pope'' and ''The Myth of Hitler's Pope''

thumb|upright|The cover of ''Hitler's Pope'', showing Nuncio Pacelli leaving the residence of [[President of Germany|President Hindenburg in 1927.]] In 1999, John Cornwell's ''Hitler's Pope'' criticized Pius for not doing enough, or speaking out enough, against the Holocaust. Cornwell argued that Pius' entire career as the nuncio to Germany, cardinal secretary of state, and pope was characterized by a desire to increase and centralize the power of the Papacy, and that he subordinated opposition to the Nazis to that goal. He further argued that Pius was anti-Semitic and that this stance prevented him from caring about the European Jews.

Cornwell's work was the first to have access to testimonies from Pius' beatification process as well as to many documents from Pacelli's nunciature which had just been opened under the 75-year rule by the Vatican State Secretary archives. Cornwell's work has received much praise and criticism. Much praise of Cornwell centered around his disputed claim that he was a practising Catholic who had attempted to absolve Pius with his work. While works such as Susan Zuccotti's ''Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy'' (2000) and Michael Phayer's ''The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965'' (2000) are critical of both Cornwell and Pius XII, Ronald J. Rychlak's ''Hitler, the War and the Pope'' is critical as well but defends Pius XII in light of his access to most recent documents. Cornwell's scholarship has been criticized. For example, Kenneth L. Woodward stated in his review in ''Newsweek'' that "errors of fact and ignorance of context appear on almost every page." Five years after the publication of ''Hitler's Pope'', Cornwell stated: "I would now argue, in the light of the debates and evidence following ''Hitler's Pope'', that Pius XII had so little scope of action that it is impossible to judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by Germany".

In his 2003 book ''A Moral Reckoning'', Daniel Jonah Goldhagen asserts that Pius "chose again and again not to mention the Jews publicly.... [In] public statements by Pius XII . . . any mention of the Jews is conspicuously absent." In a review of Goldhagen's book, Mark Riebling counters that Pius used the word "Jew" in his first encyclical, ''Summi Pontificatus'', published on October 20, 1939. "There Pius insisted that all human beings be treated charitably – for, as Paul had written to the Colossians, in God's eyes "there is neither Gentile nor Jew." In saying this, the Pope affirmed that Jews were full members of the human community – which is Goldhagen's own criterion for establishing 'dissent from the anti-Semitic creed.'"

Most recently, Rabbi David Dalin's ''The Myth of Hitler's Pope'' argues that critics of Pius are liberal Catholics and ex-Catholics who "exploit the tragedy of the Jewish people during the Holocaust to foster their own political agenda of forcing changes on the Catholic Church today" and that Pius XII was actually responsible for saving the lives of many thousands of Jews.

International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission

In 1999, in an attempt to address some of this controversy, the International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission (Historical Commission), a group of three Catholic and three Jewish scholars was appointed, respectively, by the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews (Holy See's Commission) and the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), to whom a preliminary report was issued in October 2000.

The Commission did not discover any documents, but had the agreed-upon task to review the existing Vatican volumes, that make up the ''Actes et Documents du Saint Siege (ADSS)'' The Commission was internally divided over the question of access to additional documents from the Holy See, access to the news media by individual commission members, and, questions to be raised in the preliminary report. It was agreed to include all 47 individual questions by the six members, and use them as Preliminary Report. In addition to the 47 questions, the commission issued no findings of its own. It stated that it was not their task to sit in judgment of the Pope and his advisors but to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the papacy during the Holocaust.

The 47 questions by the six scholars were grouped into three parts: (a) 27 specific questions on existing documents, mostly asking for background and additional information such as drafts of the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, which was largely written by Eugenio Pacelli. (b) Fourteen questions dealt with themes of individual volumes, such as the question how Pius viewed the role of the Church during the war. (c) Six general questions, such as the absence of any anti-communist sentiments in the documents. The disagreement between members over additional documents locked up up under the Holy See's 70 year rule resulted in a discontinuation of the Commission in 2001 on friendly terms.

Recent developments

Phayer's ''Pius XII, The Holocaust, and the Cold War'' (2008) makes use of many documents that have recently come to light due to Bill Clinton's 1997 executive order declassifying wartime and postwar documents, many of which are currently at the US National Archives and Holocaust Memorial Museum. These documents include diplomatic correspondence, American espionage, and even decryptions of German communications. Relevant documents have also been released by the Argentine government and the British Foreign Office and other information sources have become available, including the diary of Bishop Joseph Patrick Hurley. These documents reveal new information about Pius XII's actions regarding the Ustaše regime, the genocides in Poland, the finances of the wartime church, the deportation of the Roman Jews, and the postwar "ratlines" for Nazis and fascists fleeing Europe. According to Phayer, "the face of Pope Pius that we see in these documents is not the same face we see in the eleven volumes the Vatican published of World War II documents, a collection which, though valuable, is nonetheless critically flawed because of its many omissions".

A special conference of scholars on Pius XII on the 50th anniversary of his death was held in Rome on 15–17 September 2008, by Pave the Way Foundation, a nonsectarian organization founded by Gary Krupp, a Jewish American that promotes interfaith cooperation. Pope Benedict XVI held on 19 September 2008 a reception for the conference participants, where he praised Pius XII as a pope who made every effort to save Jews during the war. A second conference was held on 6–8 November 2008 by the Pontifical Academy of Life.

On 9 October 2008, the 50th anniversary of Pius XII's death, Benedict XVI celebrated pontifical mass in his memory. Shortly prior to, and after the mass, dialectics continued between the Jewish hierarchy and the Vatican as Rabbi Shear Yeshuv Cohen of Haifa addressed the Synod of Bishops and expressed his disappointment towards Pius XII's "silence" during the war.

On 16 June 2009, the Pave the Way Foundation announced that it would release of 2,300 pages of documents in Avellino, Italy, dating from 1940 to 1945, which the organization claims show that Pius XII "worked diligently to save Jews from Nazi tyranny"; the organization's founder, Gary Krupp, a Jew, accused historians of harboring "private agendas" and having "let down" the public. The foundation's research led to the publication of the book ''Pope Pius XII and World War II: the documented truth'', authored by Krupp; the book reproduces 225 pages of the new documents produced by the foundation's research. On 17 September 2009, Pave the Way Foundation nominated Pius XII to be listed as Righteous Among the Nations at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. The foundation's efforts produced some 3,000 original documents and photos on the life of Pius XII and his work to save Jews during World War II.

See also

List of people from Rome

List of popes

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

''Acta Apostolicae Sedis'' (AAS). 1939–1958. Vatican City.

Angelini, Fiorenzo. 1959. ''Pio XII, Discorsi Ai Medici''. Rome.

Claudia, M. 1955. ''Guide to the Documents of Pope Pius XII''. Westminster, Maryland.

''Pio XII, Discorsi e Radio Messaggi di Sua Santita Pio XII''. 1939–1958. Vatican City. 20 vol.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.; Myron C. Taylor, ed. ''Wartime Correspondence Between President Roosevelt and Pope Pius XII''. Prefaces by Pius XII and Harry Truman. Kessinger Publishing (1947, reprinted, 2005). ISBN 1-4191-6654-9

Utz, A. F., and Gröner, J. F. (eds.). ''Soziale Summe Pius XII'' 3 vol.

Zolli, Israel. 1997. ''Before the Dawn''. Roman Catholic Books (Reprint edition). ISBN 0-912141-46-8.

Olivier Rota. ''Les ‘silences’ du pape Pie XII : genèse et critique d'un procès biaisé'', in Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique, Louvain, vol. 99 (3–4), huly-dec. 2004, pp. 758–766.

Thomas Bokenkotter. 2004. ''A Concise History of the Catholic Church''. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-50584-1

Owen Chadwick. 1995. ''A History of Christianity''. Barnes & Noble. ISBN 0-7607-7332-7

Frank J. Coppa, ''The Policies and Politics of Pope Pius XII: Between Diplomacy and Morality'' (New York etc., Peter Lang, 2011).

Cornwell, John. 1999. ''Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII''. Viking. ISBN 0-670-87620-8.

Cushing, Richard. 1959. ''Pope Pius XII''. Paulist Press.

Dalin, David G. 2005. ''The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis''. Regnery. ISBN 0-89526-034-4.

Falconi, Carlo. 1970 (translated from the 1965 Italian edition). ''The Silence of Pius XII''. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. ISBN 0-571-09147-4

Feldkamp, Michael F. ''Pius XII und Deutschland''. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 3-525-34026-5.

Friedländer, Saul. 1966. ''Pius XII and the Third Reich: A Documentation''. New York: Alfred A Knopf. ISBN 0-374-92930-0

Gallo, Patrick J., ed. 2006. ''Pius XII, The Holocaust and the Revisionists''. London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. ISBN 0-7864-2374-9

Goldhagen, Daniel. 2002. ''A Moral Reckoning – The role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair''. Little, Brown ISBN 0-316-72446-7

Gutman, Israel (ed.). 1990. ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'', vol. 3. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. ISBN 0-02-864529-4

Halecki, Oskar. 1954. ''Pius XII: Eugenio Pacelli: Pope of peace''. Farrar, Straus and Young.

Hatch, Alden, and Walshe, Seamus. 1958. ''Crown of Glory, The Life of Pope Pius XII''. New York: Hawthorne Books.

ICJHC. 2000. ''The Vatican and the Holocaust: A Preliminary Report''.

Kühlwein, Klaus. 2008. ''Warum der Papst schwieg. Pius XII und der Holocaust''. Düsseldorf: Patoms-Verlag. ISBN 978-3491725270

Kurzman, Dan. 2007. ''A Special Mission: Hitler's Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII''. Da Capo Press.

Leiber, Robert. ''Pius XII'' ''Stimmen der Zeit'', Freiburg i Br. Vol 163, 1958–1959, pp. 81 ff

Lehnert, Pascalina. 1983. ''Ich durfte Ihm dienen, Erinneringen an Papst Pius XII'', Würzburg, Verlag Johann Wolhelm Naumann

Kent, Peter. 2002. ''The Lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII: The Roman Catholic Church and the Division of Europe, 1943–1950.'' Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-2326-X

Pham, John Peter. 2006. ''Heirs of the Fisherman: Behind the Scenes of Papal Death and Succession. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517834-3

Lapide, Pinchas. 1967. ''Three Popes and the Jews''. London and Southampton: Souvenir Press.

Levillain, Philippe (ed.). 2002. ''The Papacy: An Encyclopedia''. Routledge (UK). ISBN 0-415-92228-3.

Lewy, Guenter. 1964. ''The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany''. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-306-80931-1.

Marchione, Sr. Margherita. 2000. ''Pope Pius XII: Architect for Peace''. Paulist Press. ISBN 0-8091-3912-X.

Marchione, Sr. Margherita. 2002. ''Consensus and Controversy: Defending Pope Pius XII''. Paulist Press. ISBN 0-8091-4083-7.

Marchione, Sr. Margherita. 2002. ''Shepherd of Souls: A Pictorial Life of Pope Pius XII''. Paulist Press. ISBN 0-8091-4181-7.

Marchione, Sr. Margherita. 2004. '' Man of Peace: An Abridged Life of Pope Pius XII''. Paulist Press. ISBN 0-8091-4245-7.

Martin, Malachi B. 1972. ''Three Popes and the Cardinal: The Church of Pius, John and Paul in its Encounter with Human History''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-27675-7.

McDermott, Thomas. 1946. ''Keeper of the Keys'' -''A Life of Pope Pius XII''. Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company.

McInerney, Ralph. 2001. ''The Defamation of Pius XII''. St Augustine's Press. ISBN 1-890318-66-3.

Morsey, Rudolf. 1986. "Eugenio Pacelli als Nuntius in Deutschland" in Herbert Schambeck, ''Pius XII''. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.

Murphy, Paul I. and Arlington, R. Rene. 1983. ''La Popessa: The Controversial Biography of Sister Pasqualina, the Most Powerful Woman in Vatican History''. New York: Warner Books Inc. ISBN 0-446-51258-3.

Padellaro, Nazareno. 1949. ''Portrait of Pius XII''. Dutton; 1st American ed edition (1957).

O'Brien, Felicity. 2000, ''Pius XII'', London and Bristol, Burleigh Press,

Paul, Leon. 1957. ''The Vatican Picture Book'' – ''A Picture Pilgrimage''. New York: Greystone Press.

Phayer, Michael. 2000. ''The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965''. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-33725-9.

Phayer, Michael. 2008. ''Pius XII, The Holocaust, and the Cold War''. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34930-9.

Pollard, John F. 2005. ''Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy: Financing the Vatican, 1850–1950''. Cambridge University Press.

Pfister, Pierre. 1955. ''PIUS XII'' – ''The Life and Work of a Great Pope''. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.

Ritner, Carol and Roth, John K. (eds.). 2002. ''Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust''. New York: Leicester University Press. ISBN 0-7185-0275-2.

Rychlak, Ronald J. 2000. ''Hitler, the War, and the Pope''. Our Sunday Visitor. ISBN 0-87973-217-2.

Sánchez, José M. 2002. ''Pius XII and the Holocaust: Understanding the Controversy''. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. ISBN 0-8132-1081-X.

Scholder, Klaus. 1987. ''The Churches and the Third Reich''. London.

Tardini, Domenico. 1960. ''Pio XII''. Roma: Poliglotta Vaticana.

John Vidmar. 2005. ''The Catholic Church Through the Ages''. Paulist Press. ISBN 0-8091-4234-1.

Volk, Ludwig. 1972. ''Das Reichskonkordat vom 20. Juli 1933''. Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag. ISBN 3-7867-0383-3.

Zuccotti, Susan. 2000. ''Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy''. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08487-0.

External links

Official Vatican page on Pius XII

*Official Vatican page hosting the ''Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale''

Category:1876 births Category:1958 deaths Category:19th-century Italian people Category:20th-century Italian people Category:Alumni of the Pontifical Gregorian University Category:Alumni of the Almo Collegio Capranica Category:Burials at St. Peter's Basilica Category:Cardinal Secretaries of State Category:Camerlengos of the Holy Roman Church Category:Cold War leaders Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in Italy Category:Deaths from heart failure Category:Grand Masters of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre Category:Italian anti-communists Pius 12 Category:Knights of the Order of the Most Holy Annunciation Category:People from Rome (city) Category:Sovereigns of Vatican City Category:Venerated Catholics Category:World War II political leaders

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name	General Levy
background	solo_singer
birth name	Paul Levy
born	28 May 1971
origin	London, UK
instrument	Vocals
genre	Reggae
notable instruments	}}

General Levy (real name Paul Levy) is a London born ragga vocalist, regularly employed on studio tracks by drum and bass DJs. He is best known for the track "Incredible" which he recorded with M-Beat.

Biography

General Levy's first major releases were with the independent Fashion record label who eventually signed a distribution deal with London Records for the re-releases of the tracks he had recorded. He had earlier releases with the producers Lloydy Crucial and Robbo Ranx but these were mainly tracks that were hits on the underground dance scene. General Levy was ostracised by the UK jungle scene in 1994, due to comments he made relating to his collaboration with M-Beat on the seminal "Incredible". He had claimed in an interview with ''The Face'' that "I run jungle at the moment". Many argue that certain artists are lambasted while other artists are able to communicate their feelings without any backlash. "Incredible" was featured in the film ''Ali G Indahouse''.

General Levy introduced and popularized the slang word "booyaka" which has been attributed to "the closest sound to a gunshot", but which Levy claims is a salutation in the jungle scene. Booyaka is the catch-phrase that the character Ali G adopts in the film "Ali G Indahouse". General Levy briefly collaborated with Rocco Barker of Flesh For Lulu in 'The Space Police'. Levy also featured on the song "Only God Can Judge Me" by R&B singer, Mark Morrison.

Levy featured on many sound systems in the late 1980s and early 1990s such as Java and Tippatone Sound.

Single discography

"Monkey Man" (1993) - UK #75

"Incredible" (1994) - UK #39 †

"Incredible" (1994) (remix) - UK #8 †

"Shake (What Ya Mama Gave Ya)" (2004) - UK #51 ‡

"Bring It On" (Dancehall Party Riddim) (2007) ¶

† Credited to M-Beat featuring General Levy ‡ Credited to General Levy vs Zeus featuring Bally Jagpal ¶ Credited as Ragga Meridional Crew

References

External links

Category:Living people Category:Jamaican reggae musicians Category:British reggae musicians Category:1971 births

de:General Levy fr:General Levy sv:Paul Levy

name	Paolo Fresu
background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
born	February 10, 1961Berchidda, Sardinia
instrument	Trumpet, flugelhorn
genre	Jazz
occupation	Musician, Composer, arranger, record producer
label	EMI, Columbia, Blue Note Records, RCA Records
website	Paolo Fresu's official site
notable instruments	}}

Paolo Fresu (born February 10, 1961) is a trumpet and flugelhorn jazz player, as well as an arranger of music, and music composer.

Career

Fresu was born in Berchidda, Sardinia. He picked up the trumpet at the age of 11, and played in the band Bernardo de Muro in his home town Berchidda. Fresu graduated from the Conservatory of Cagliari in 1984, in trumpet studies under Enzo Morandini, and attended the University of Musical and performing arts in Bologna.

Fresu has taught at the Siena Jazz National Seminars, as well as jazz university courses in Terni, and is the director of Nuoro Jazz Seminars in Nuoro, Italy.

Fresu composes music for theatre, poem, dance, radio, television, and film.

In 2007, Fresu recorded and toured with Carla Bley's quartet, The Lost Chords.

Bands

Paolo Fresu has played with the following bands:

Paolo Fresu Quintet and Sextet

Paolo Fresu-Furio di Castri Duo

The Open Trio (with Di Castri and James Taylor)

P.A.F. (with Furio di Castri and Antonello Salis)

Fresu-Di Castri-Balke-Favre

Paolo Fresu Euro4th

Discography

Paolo Fresu quintet and sextet

1985 - ''Ostinato'' - (Splasc(h) Records)

1986 - ''Inner Voices'' feat. David Liebman - (Splasc(h) Records)

1987 - ''Mamut'' - (Splasc(h) Records)

1988 - ''Qvarto'' - (Splasc(h) Records)

1989 - AA.VV. (Fresu 5th) - Top jazz from Italy (Yvp)

1990 - ''Live in Montpellier'' - (Splasc(h) Records)

1991 - ''Ossi Di Seppia'' feat. G. Trovesi - (Splasc(h) Records)

1992 - ''Ballads'' - (Splasc(h) Records)

1992 - ''Linve in Lugano'' - (Blue Jazz)

1994 - ''Ensalda Mistica'' feat. G. Trovesi - (Splasc(h) Records)

1994 - AA.VV. (Fresu 5th) - I Disertori (Columbia Records)

1995 - ''Night on the City'' - (OWL - EMI Records)

1995 - AA.VV. (Fresu 5th) - Onyx jazz Club 85-95 (Onyx)

1996 - AA.VV. (Fresu 6th) - Italian jazz today (MJDC)

1996 - P. Fresu 6th + Orchestra Utopia - 6 X 30 (Onyx)

1996 - AA.VV. (Fresu 5th) - Sempler, The Blue Note 1995 Labels (EMI / Blue Note Records)

1997 - Paolo Fresu 5th / Erwin Vann - Wanderlust (RCA/Victor BMG)

Other

2007 - ''The Lost Chords find Paolo Fresu'', with Carla Bley (ECM/Watt)

2011 - '' Mistico Mediterraneo'', with A Filetta and Daniele di Bonaventura (ECM)

References

External links

Paolo Fresu's official site

Category:1961 births Category:Living people Category:People from the Province of Olbia-Tempio Category:Flugelhorn players Category:Italian jazz trumpeters Category:Italian composers Category:Music in Sardinia Category:RCA Records artists Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Blue Note Records artists

de:Paolo Fresu fr:Paolo Fresu it:Paolo Fresu no:Paolo Fresu sc:Paolo Fresu