Michael Phayer

J. Michael Phayer, born 1935, is a historian and professor emeritus at Marquette University in Milwaukee and has written about 19th and 20th century European history and the Jewish Holocaust.

He received his Ph.D. from the University of Munich in 1968 and joined Marquette's Department of History in 1970. He attained the rank of Professor in 1990 and retired in 2002.

Michael Phayer has published numerous research articles and books relating to Nazi Germany, the Holocaust and the Catholic Church, including his most recent, Pius XII, the Holocaust, and the Cold War (2007).

His previous work was The Catholic Church and the Holocaust 1930-1965 (published in 2000), which Harvard professor Stanley Hoffmann considered "a comprehensive and deeply disturbing volume" which "describes in detail Pope Pius XII's preference for quiet diplomacy with Hitler and his regime, his anxiety about the Catholic Church's fate, his solicitude for Germany's Catholics, and his conviction that communism posed a greater threat than did Nazism". According to Robert A. Krieg, from the University of Notre Dame, this book is "an invaluable contribution to understanding the Catholic Church and the Holocaust." Phayer's main thesis, says Krieg, is that Pius XII privately helped Jews only to the extent that his efforts did not jeopardize two priorities in his foreign policy: "First, judging that the Church's primary enemy was not Nazism but Communism, the pope wanted to maintain good ties with Germans and their government so that he could work with them to resist the spread of Communism into Europe. Second, concerned to protect Rome from destruction during the war, he did not want to say anything that might bring down the Luftwaffe's bombs upon Vatican City".