The 1942 Christmas Address by Pope Pius XII was made shortly after the war had turned decisively against Nazi Germany. Hitler had broken his alliance with Stalin and advanced into the Soviet Union, although his army in Stalingrad had been surrounded, decimated, starved and was about to surrender, precipitating disaster on the Eastern Front. Following decisive victories in North Africa, the Pacific and the air war in Northern Europe, the war had turned in favour of the Allies. From May 1942, the Nazis had commenced their industrialized slaughter of the Jews of Europe – the "Final Solution". The brutalization of the Catholic Church in Poland had been underway for three years.