Was he engaged in battle with US forces? It seems he might have been. In his biography, he is mum about some details.
"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."
After I heard the news about the new pope, I went to DU to see how the left was reacting, and they were already making up looney conspiracy theories and dragging the new pope through the mud about being a Nazi 60 years ago.