Monsignor Josef Tiso led Slovakia into an alliance with Hitler and the Nazis.
Here's What You Need to Know: Hitler’s war and the alliance with Nazi Germany eventually became unpopular in Slovakia.
According to the 1960 memoirs of Henriette Hoffmann von Schirach, Adolf Hitler called Father Josef Tiso, a monsignor in the Roman Catholic Church and premier of Fascist Slovakia, “The little parson.” CBS radio broadcaster William L. Shirer described Tiso as being “almost as broad as he was tall” in his book
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Dr. Paul Schmidt of the German Foreign Office recalled, “It was strange to see Hitler greeting this Catholic priest with friendliness; the short, stout Catholic dignitary stood facing a man who could hardly be called a friend of the Catholic Church, but when Tiso wanted something for Slovakia, he would have visited the devil himself. He once told us, ‘When I get worked up, I eat half a pound of ham, and that soothes my nerves.’”