Robert Leiber

Leiber was the private secretary to Pius XII and, according to the pontiff's biographer Susan Zuccotti, he was his closest advisor "throughout his entire papacy".

Known in papal Rome as the "little asthmatic", some described him with a Latin quip: Timeo non Petrum sed secretarium eius - "I do not fear Peter [the Pope], but his secretary".

He met with Joseph Müller, who visited Rome in 1939 and 1940 to obtain assistance from the Pope in acting as an intermediary between the Resistance and the Allies in the lead up to a planned coup against Hitler.

[5] After World War II, Pius XII charged Leiber and Bea with investigating the activities of Gertrud Luckner (later declared Righteous among the Nations), the pioneer of a German Catholic philo-Semitic and pro-Israel movement.

[5] In an October 1958 meeting, Leiber turned down a position offered by new Pope John XXIII in light of his health, suggesting Augustin Bea instead.

[citation needed] According to Michael Phayer, Leiber "sparked new life" into Austrian bishop Alois Hudal's plan to set up a "ratline" — an escape route from Europe for Nazis and fascists, including war criminals.

], Leiber had no direct authority to correspond with Hudal but "[his] role as one of Pius XII's closest confidantes allowed the German Jesuit to act as the pope's intermediary and messenger.

[1] Leiber wrote an article, published on 27 March 1963 in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the main claim of which was that Pius XII had limited and generally unreliable information about the Holocaust.