I shall write this because I must tell you everything. But it is a sad matter.
Yesterday I heard the Holy Father’s address to the College of Cardinals. His Holiness used words of condemnation for National Socialism and of mercy for the German people. It is right for him to use them, since, when speaking in the name of Mercy, he must be cruel to those who have already been punished, although - I am convinced - the Germans will always be the same, in spite of all mercy, punishment, or effort to change their psyche. If anything, they will grow in the spirit of vengeance, and the next time, if the other states let them rearm, they will be worse than they are now.
But the condemnation of National Socialism, now pronounced openly, reminds me of my great suffering as a spokesman in November 1943. With tears and prayers I then obtained a modification in the tremendous dictation - that is, I got a complete copy, which is among my secret papers, and a... sweetened version, which is among the dictations.52 And those who are the object of the Lord’s reproach are not the Germans and their friends, but those who, as the depositories of Wisdom and of God’s supernatural means, do not use them, leading souls to imagine that there was complicity or blameworthy weakness. A reproach on the lips of many and a weapon in the hands of the guilty to intimidate people and hold them prostrate under their power....
Yesterday all of this presented itself again to my memory... and I echoed the Voice saying, “Too late!”... That’s one point.
The other sad affair: my short dream at dawn.... It was fearful. It took me back to those forecasts which greatly disturbed me in 1915 before the wars and revolutions and which have continued up to this war and its aftermath. Today I seemed to be living in expectation of a fearsome event, together with the whole city. And, indeed, people had to take cover because the sky was packed with small (since they were very high up), airplanes, all of them black, whose purpose was unknown. Gas? Grapeshot? Bombs? Everyone was fleeing. The streets emptied. I tried to look upwards, but I was told, “Quick, quick, take cover!” And they all screamed, “It’s the punishment that’s starting.” The planes seemed to be Russian. I was saying, “But we’ve just come out of a storm! Is that still not enough?” And many replied, “This is sweeping everyone away. Even the Monarchy’s time has come. [This is not a prophecy, since even dunces understand it] But there will be plenty for everyone.” I woke up terrified.
When it seemed that Italy was going to get bigger and the king was about to be crowned emperor, I always dreamed the catastrophes we have undergone in terms of raids, shelters, escaping, and so on, and I would always see the Russian enemies with their ugly black birds. And, in addition, I would always see the king, the queen, and their relatives coming down, fleeing anxiously, among ruins and coal dumps. They seemed to be fleeing not because there was a raid, but because they could no longer remain on account of the people’s hatred. My mother derided me for saying this... and I cried over what I saw. Unfortunately, the part concerning the Monarchy has already been confirmed by the facts.... But, Lord! Is, that still not enough ...?53
52 Probably found in the entry for October 30, in The Notebooks. 1943.
53 We pass over the handwritten entries extending from June 4 to July 1, 1945, which contain episodes found in The Second Year of the Public Life.