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Papal hopeful is a former Hitler Youth
timesonline.co.uk ^ | 4-17-05 | Justin Sparks

Posted on 04/18/2005 6:51:26 AM PDT by TXBSAFH

The Sunday Times - World

April 17, 2005

Papal hopeful is a former Hitler Youth Justin Sparks, Munich, John Follain and Christopher Morgan, Rome

THE wartime past of a leading German contender to succeed John Paul II may return to haunt him as cardinals begin voting in the Sistine Chapel tomorrow to choose a new leader for 1 billion Catholics. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whose strong defence of Catholic orthodoxy has earned him a variety of sobriquets — including “the enforcer”, “the panzer cardinal” and “God’s rottweiler” — is expected to poll around 40 votes in the first ballot as conservatives rally behind him.

Although far short of the requisite two-thirds majority of the 115 votes, this would almost certainly give Ratzinger, 78 yesterday, an early lead in the voting. Liberals have yet to settle on a rival candidate who could come close to his tally.

Unknown to many members of the church, however, Ratzinger’s past includes brief membership of the Hitler Youth movement and wartime service with a German army anti- aircraft unit.

Although there is no suggestion that he was involved in any atrocities, his service may be contrasted by opponents with the attitude of John Paul II, who took part in anti-Nazi theatre performances in his native Poland and in 1986 became the first pope to visit Rome’s synagogue.

“John Paul was hugely appreciated for what he did for and with the Jewish people,” said Lord Janner, head of the Holocaust Education Trust, who is due to attend ceremonies today to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

“If they were to appoint someone who was on the other side in the war, he would start at a disadvantage, although it wouldn’t mean in the long run he wouldn’t be equally understanding of the concerns of the Jewish world.”

The son of a rural Bavarian police officer, Ratzinger was six when Hitler came to power in 1933. His father, also called Joseph, was an anti-Nazi whose attempts to rein in Hitler’s Brown Shirts forced the family to move home several times.

In 1937 Ratzinger’s father retired and the family moved to Traunstein, a staunchly Catholic town in Bavaria close to the Führer’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. He joined the Hitler Youth aged 14, shortly after membership was made compulsory in 1941.

He quickly won a dispensation on account of his training at a seminary. “Ratzinger was only briefly a member of the Hitler Youth and not an enthusiastic one,” concluded John Allen, his biographer.

Two years later Ratzinger was enrolled in an anti-aircraft unit that protected a BMW factory making aircraft engines. The workforce included slaves from Dachau concentration camp.

Ratzinger has insisted he never took part in combat or fired a shot — adding that his gun was not even loaded — because of a badly infected finger. He was sent to Hungary, where he set up tank traps and saw Jews being herded to death camps. He deserted in April 1944 and spent a few weeks in a prisoner of war camp.

He has since said that although he was opposed to the Nazi regime, any open resistance would have been futile — comments echoed this weekend by his elder brother Georg, a retired priest ordained along with the cardinal in 1951.

“Resistance was truly impossible,” Georg Ratzinger said. “Before we were conscripted, one of our teachers said we should fight and become heroic Nazis and another told us not to worry as only one soldier in a thousand was killed. But neither of us ever used a rifle against the enemy.”

Some locals in Traunstein, like Elizabeth Lohner, 84, whose brother-in-law was sent to Dachau as a conscientious objector, dismiss such suggestions. “It was possible to resist, and those people set an example for others,” she said. “The Ratzingers were young and had made a different choice.”

In 1937 another family a few hundred yards away in Traunstein hid Hans Braxenthaler, a local resistance fighter. SS troops repeatedly searched homes in the area looking for the fugitive and his fellow conspirators. “When he was betrayed and the Nazis came for him, Braxenthaler shot himself because he knew he couldn’t escape,” said Frieda Meyer, 82, Ratzinger’s neighbour and childhood friend. “Even though they had tortured him in Dachau concentration camp he refused to give up his resistance efforts.”

Despite question marks over Ratzinger’s wartime conduct, the main obstacle to his prospects in the conclave — the assembly of cardinals to elect the new pope — is the conservative stance he has adopted as guardian of Catholic orthodoxy since John Paul named him to head the congregation for the doctrine of the faith in 1981.

His condemnations are legion — of women priests, married priests, dissident theologians and homosexuals, whom he has declared to be suffering from an “objective disorder”.

He upset many Jews with a statement in 1987 that Jewish history and scripture reach fulfilment only in Christ — a position denounced by critics as “theological anti-semitism”. He made more enemies among other religions in 2000, when he signed a document, Dominus Jesus, in which he argued: “Only in the Catholic church is there eternal salvation”.

Some of his staunchest critics are in Germany. A recent poll in Der Spiegel, the news magazine, showed opponents of a Ratzinger papacy outnumbered supporters by 36% to 29%.

As one western cardinal who was in two minds about him put it: “He would probably be a great pope, but I have no idea how I would explain his election back home.”

One liberal theologian,when asked what he thought of a Ratzinger papacy, was more direct: “It fills me with horror.”


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: benedict; benedictxvi; nextpope; ratzinger
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To: WKUHilltopper
You're exactly right. I had a college professor who was a Hitler Youth and fought in Berlin. He also had most of his fingers chopped off in a soviet POW camp. Was in there for 10 years after the war. It's really no big deal, in my opinion.

Yeah???? YOU try living life with 2 fingers.

41 posted on 04/18/2005 7:25:24 AM PDT by Lazamataz (They taunted and gloated with perverse kitty pictures....)
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To: TXBSAFH
Will the left be able to outdo their generated hate for Bush with trumped up hate for Ratzinger?
42 posted on 04/18/2005 7:27:02 AM PDT by hermgem
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To: seamole
Ah, the ultimate smear. I recommend that people who are quick to condemn Ratzinger ought to go see the movie Downfall, now playing in select theatres.

Saw it last night.

I'd recommend it to anyone.

Starkly accurate depiction.

43 posted on 04/18/2005 7:27:56 AM PDT by EternalVigilance ('Quality of life' is another name for the slippery slope into barbarism.)
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To: SJackson

Before they made Kurt Waldheim UN Secretary General, where was the media then? Methinks they didn't put 1/10th of the effort into investigating Waldheim's real Nazi past as they have trying to smear Ratzinger.


44 posted on 04/18/2005 7:29:21 AM PDT by dfwgator (Minutemen: Just doing the jobs that American politicians won't do.)
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To: Lazamataz

LOL! You are probably right!


45 posted on 04/18/2005 7:40:59 AM PDT by Polyxene (For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel - Martin Luther)
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To: Lazamataz
YOU try living life with 2 fingers.

No problem as long as I can (1) point and (2) express my opinion.

46 posted on 04/18/2005 7:42:06 AM PDT by AmishDude (Join the AD fan club: "You're so right, AmishDude" -- beyond the sea; "Agreed." -- torchthemummy)
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To: TXBSAFH
spin

(LIVE THREAD) The Papal Conclave, Interregnum, Cardinals, Conclave Facts, Prayer and other links

47 posted on 04/18/2005 7:42:58 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: visualops
They force him in the Hilter Youth at 14, at 16 put him in the military, and at 17 he deserted.

It should be pointed out, in case anyone is in doubt, that the penalty for desertion was death. It took courage to do that.

48 posted on 04/18/2005 7:46:53 AM PDT by Campion
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To: Lazamataz

What are you talking about? It was no big deal he was a Hilter Youth...he was 16. So what!


49 posted on 04/18/2005 7:47:30 AM PDT by WKUHilltopper
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To: TXBSAFH
I have had the opportunity to study under one former Hitler Youth in college, and work under another. Both outstanding men, both lost their fathers and brothers in combat, and niether of them are NAZI. Both of them know the true cost of atheism, collectivism, and the resulting fascism. They know evil.

One is now a Republican, the other hates politicians. I'd say they should give this guy a break, besides, the liberals Pope would be a National Socialist.

50 posted on 04/18/2005 7:47:57 AM PDT by Dead Dog
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To: B Knotts

Of course homosexuals are "objectively disordered." Sexual attraction has a biological purpose -- reproduction.

If someone had an irresistible urge to eat by stuffing food in his ear, everyone would recognize that he had some kind of mental disorder. Sexual attraction toward someone of the same sex is equally crazy.

Until a tiny handful of homosexuals/sympathizers in the American Psychological Association got together 20 or 30 years ago and voted homosexuality off the list of disorders, everyone recognized the obvious. Now, they engage in all kinds of doublespeak to avoid recognizing the obvious.


51 posted on 04/18/2005 7:48:01 AM PDT by lady lawyer
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To: SJackson

You know, the pope really ought to have extraordinary character. What Ratzinger did in his youth was imminently defensible. Indeed, given the circumstances he was quite brave. Nothing good could have come from his getting himself killed. The pope, however, ought to be a person of extraordinary character. Granted that no one of such extraordinary character would have survived in Nazi Germany in the 40s, but I think this is truly enough to kill Ratzinger's candidacy. Which is too bad.


52 posted on 04/18/2005 7:48:08 AM PDT by AmishDude (Join the AD fan club: "You're so right, AmishDude" -- beyond the sea; "Agreed." -- torchthemummy)
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To: WKUHilltopper

The Pope is a baby-strangling, Jew-gassing, Hitler-praising Nazi.


53 posted on 04/18/2005 7:49:16 AM PDT by Lazamataz (They taunted and gloated with perverse kitty pictures....)
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To: Campion
It should be pointed out, in case anyone is in doubt, that the penalty for desertion was death.

Although I should point out that my calculations put his desertion around 1944, maybe later, and I don't know that anyone would have been in a position to enforce it by then. But I'm sure that, even so, it took courage. It wasn't clear that Germany would lose the war, even as late as D-Day, certainly not someone inundated with Nazi propaganda.

54 posted on 04/18/2005 7:51:07 AM PDT by AmishDude (Join the AD fan club: "You're so right, AmishDude" -- beyond the sea; "Agreed." -- torchthemummy)
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To: AmishDude; All

One of our readings in Church last Sunday was about Stepehn --- the first Christian (after Christ) killed for his faith.

One of the Jews looking on (if not participating) in the stoning was a young fellow named Saul.

People change.


55 posted on 04/18/2005 7:51:19 AM PDT by MeanWestTexan
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To: Lazamataz
The Pope is a baby-strangling, Jew-gassing, Hitler-praising Nazi.

Worse yet, he's Catholic. Gasp! ;)

56 posted on 04/18/2005 7:52:44 AM PDT by conservonator (Blank by popular demand)
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To: clintonh8r
The media smear begins against one of the most conservative of the cardinals

How exactly is it a 'smear'? It's the truth isn't it? He was a Hitler youth, apparently returned home, and was drafted into the regular German army. Mind you, it says he deserted towards the end. But it's not like anything the media says will have an effect on the vote anyway.

I don't care one way or the other as I'm not Catholic. But shouldn't historical fact be presented just for knowledge? From the betting though, I've seen his numbers may be cooling a bit as he's too strong at the first. And I came close to betting on him as the choice.

57 posted on 04/18/2005 7:55:08 AM PDT by billbears (Deo Vindice)
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To: MeanWestTexan

Actually, I think Ratzinger has nothing to be ashamed of in his youthful activities. But at the same time, it's not inspiring either.


58 posted on 04/18/2005 7:55:36 AM PDT by AmishDude (Join the AD fan club: "You're so right, AmishDude" -- beyond the sea; "Agreed." -- torchthemummy)
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To: TXBSAFH
I do not think this should be held against him, but you know some on the left will use it to bash the Holy See.

Of course. "Hitler's Pope." Can you see it?

Anyway, I'd be delighted with him or Cardinal Arinze.

59 posted on 04/18/2005 7:59:11 AM PDT by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: Lazamataz

Ok, now I know what you're talking about.


60 posted on 04/18/2005 7:59:15 AM PDT by WKUHilltopper
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