[jcb8199]

Awesome post--thanks for it! Couldn't be more timely, with the MSM and the Left clamoring for dirt or controversy...

[henkster]

"A local teacher, he remembered, became an ardent follower of the new movement, and tried to institute a pagan May pole ritual as more fitting of Germanic ways than the traditional, conservative Catholicism."

May Pole = Asherath Pole.

Liberalism = Satan.

Some things never change.

[Ff--150]

he was a nazi.......shezam!

[writer33]

Oh, no. What has the Catholic church become?

Denote sarcasm.

Great post, yoely.

[Saundra Duffy]

He's a hero. And someone was spreading a story that he was a Nazi. For God's sake!!

[Sprite518]

Oh boy what was the Vatican thinking by putting a former German who was in WWII? You know something is going to come out of this.

[Rakkasan1]

BUSH's (sr) fault

[stylin19a]

It probably saved his life....

[Sidebar Moderator]

To avoid duplication, please do not change the title. Thanks.

[JayP56]

Oh come on....he was drafted(forced) into the auxiliary anti-aircraft services towards the end of the war. It was ether join or be shot. It's not like he was a member of the SS or SA.....please

[Brilliant]

WWII is over. But it doesn't surprise me that the media wants to demonize this guy with the Nazi label.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Nazi matter resolved:

"...was 18-year-old Joseph Ratzinger (search), who just days before had risked death by deserting the German army..."

Also heard he escaped on Hannity.

FReegards....

[paudio]

Soon he was home with his father, Josef, and his mother, Maria.

Hmmm... What is the name of the new pope again?

[raybbr]

His family was happy to see him. "Of course, for full joy, something was missing. Since the beginning of April, there had been no word from Georg," he remembered. "So there was a quiet worry in our house." Suddenly, in the middle of July, in walked Georg, tanned and unharmed. He sat at the piano and banged out the hymn "Grosser Gott, wir loben Dich," "Mighty God, we praise You" as father, mother, sister Maria and Joseph rejoiced.

I love a happy ending.

[StarCMC]

REALLY great read ping

[PAR35]

One of the earlier stories said that he deserted in April, 1944. That didn't sound very credible. This version sounds like it is more accurate.

[nutmeg]

read later

[Miss Behave]

Yoely, thank you for a great post.

[fso301]

When he turned 18, on April 16, 1945, he was put through basic training, alongside men in their 30s and 40s, drafted as the Third Reich went through its death agony. He was stationed near his hometown — he doesn't say where — but did not see combat with the approaching U.S. troops.

1927 Ratzinger is born on April 16, Holy Saturday in Marktl am Inn, and is baptized the same day. Reflecting on this experience in his memoirs, he says: To be the first person baptized with the new water was seen as a significant act of Providence. I have always been filled with thanksgiving for having had my life immersed in this way in the Easter Mystery . . . the more I reflect on it, the more this seems fitting for the nature of our human life: we are still waiting for Easter; we are not yet standing in the full light but walking toward it full of trust. [p. 8, Milestones] Ratzinger admits it is not easy to say what his 'hometown' is. As a rural policeman, his father was transferred frequently, and his family was continually on the road.

1929 Ratzinger's family moves to Tittmoning, a small town on the Salzach River, on the Austrian border.

1932 December: Due to his father's outspoken criticism of the Nazis, Ratzinger's family is forced to relocate to Auschau am Inn, at the foot of the Alps.

1937 Ratzinger's father retires and his family moves to Hufschlag, outside the city of Traunstein, where Josef would spend most of his years as a teenager. Here he begins classes at the local gymnasium for classical languages, where he studies Latin and Greek.

1939 Ratzinger enters the minor seminary in Traunstein, the initial step of his ecclesiastical career.

1943 Ratzinger, along with the rest of his seminary class, is drafted into the Flak [anti-aircraft corps]. He is still allowed to attend classes at the Maximilians-Gymnasium in Munich three days a week.

1944 September: Having reached military age, Ratzinger is released from the Flak and returns home, only to be drafted into labor detail under the infamous Austrian Legion ("fanatical ideologues who tyrannized us without respite"). November: Ratzinger undergoes basic training with the German infantry. Due to illness he finds himself exempt from most of the rigors of military duty.

1945 Spring (end of April or beginning of May): As the Allied front draws closer, Ratzinger deserts the army and heads home to Traunstein. When the Americans finally arrive at his village, they choose to establish their headquarters in the Ratzinger house. Josef is identified as a German soldier and incarcerated in a POW camp. June 19: Ratzinger is released and returns home to Traunstein, followed by his brother Georg in July. November: Ratzinger and his brother Georg re-enter the seminary.

Further Reading

[ex-snook]

"The American soldiers photographed us, the young ones, most of all, in order to take home souvenirs of the defeated army and its desolate personnel."

We may have had the Pope. All of our guys were young. I was 19 [no camera!]. The autobahn was full of German soldiers moving toward rear areas. We were moving toward Austria. There was no resistance.

From Regimental After Acton report - "On May 2, Companies E and G were relieved from special duty guarding the Dachau concentration camp and the autobahn bridge. We awaited the war's end in Tittmoning. " [earlier residence of the Pope]

On May 20 in Bad Aibling "The regiment established a perimeter defense and maintained order in that area. German troops began movement into the regimental area for discharge and demobilization."