Posted on 04/19/2005 5:03:46 PM PDT by wagglebee
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany has been elected as the next pope of the Roman Catholic Church and will take the name Benedict XVI. There are some who may criticize the election of Cardinal Ratzinger, since he joined the Hitler Youth at age 14 as a child growing up in Germany. I think any such criticism is unfounded.
How can the decision to join the Hitler Youth corps be the responsibility of a child? The Nazis brilliantly exploited German children with the games and military outfits that most youngsters enjoy. Former New York Times Executive Editor Max Frankel, in the opening paragraph of his book "The Times of My Life and My Life With The Times," summed up a child's feelings at the time:
"I was not yet three years old when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, and I could have become a good little Nazi in his army. I loved the parades: I wept when other kids marched beneath our window without me. But I was ineligible for the Aryan race, the Master Race that Hitler wanted to purify of Jewish blood and other pollutants so that it could rule the world for ‘a thousand years.'"
The leader of the Hitler Jugend, Balder von Shirach, was convicted at Nuremberg after the war and sentenced to 20 years in prison. However, the Allies did not find that the Hitler Jugend organization itself was a criminal organization.
If Cardinal Ratzinger had not joined the Hitler Youth, it would have been because his parents kept him out, which some – but very few – parents did. While Germans were not automatically jailed or shot for such conduct, you can be sure that refusing to cooperate with the Nazi authorities would have subjected them to adversity. Very few people had the courage to stand up to the Nazi murderers, especially when their children's lives were involved.
One of the highest priorities of the new pope hopefully will be to maintain a close relationship between Jews and Catholics, an effort begun by Pope John XXIII and vastly expanded by Pope John Paul II. I hope it is seen as a priority by the new pope. Of course, the new pope will continue to seek a reconciliation with other Christian faiths and a continuing dialogue with the representatives of Islam.
Cardinal Ratzinger in his homily delivered immediately before the conclave said he does not believe in syncretism, the attempt to reconcile different faiths. He probably would not attend on any occasion the service of another faith.
He is not alone in this position. Orthodox rabbis (but not Conservative or Reform rabbis) take the same position, as do some Protestant clergy. Indeed, some would go so far as to seek to punish a member of their sect if he were to participate in or even attend a joint service commemorating a public event, including memorializing a tragedy such as 9/11.
Pope John Paul II visited a Roman synagogue – the first pope to do so – and placed a written prayer in a crevice of the Western Wall. That, for me, set the standard. It is my hope that Cardinal Ratzinger as pope will follow in John Paul's footsteps, and that others, Jewish and Protestant, will embrace, as John Paul II did, members of other faiths, remembering that we will all ultimately answer to the same God.
Good points, Alouette. I've been a Christian all of my life (I'll be 50 in a few months), and I can only recall once where someone called the Jewish people "Christ killers". That person was roundly reamed and rebuked by everyone in no uncertain terms. As someone in the group put it so well, "the sins of every one of us drove the nails into Christ...every one of us, regardless of our background, and Christ said He voluntarily laid down His Life for all of us." BAM!
If Ed Koch had ever been baptized, he would be a better Catholic than you.
' Who died and left you God to sit in judgment on JP II? I thought not.
He put out a paper (I can't find it, either,) showing clearly the commonalities in the Jewish and Catholic belief systems, I think through Cong/Doc/Faith.
About 7-10 years ago, IIRC.
Ben Stein was VERY interested in the paper at the time.
LOL.
Than you've never been to Chicago. I grew up there and heard it plenty. :)
The only time I've heard the term "Christ-killers" here in Milwaukee (in my somewhat faulty and aging memory) was in a sermon denouncing the idiots who used the term...
With no disrespect meant, I wanted to pass along a thought offered by a friend during Bible study last night. He referred to the new Pope as "The German Shepherd".
Now that I am in California, they simply shout a few other choice epethets like "kike", or "f***ing Jew". Although, I was treated to "Springtime for Hitler" while at the supermarket a few years ago.
You sure have a lot of luck when you pick a neighborhood to live in, don't you?
Just lucky, I guess.
Do you think anybody at the NY Slimes actually took the time to find out EXACTLY what the Hitler Youth program was:
The Hitler Youth was a logical extension of Hitler's belief that the future of Nazi Germany was its children. The Hitler Youth was seen as being as important to a child as school was. In the early years of the Nazi government, Hitler had made it clear as to what he expected German children to be like:
"The weak must be chiselled away. I want young men and women who can suffer pain. A young German must be as swift as a greyhound, as tough as leather, and as hard as Krupp's steel."
Nazi education schemes part fitted in with this but Hitler wanted to occupy the minds of the young in Nazi Germany even more.
Movements for youngsters were part of German culture and the Hitler Youth had been created in the 1920's. By 1933 its membership stood at 100,000. After Hitler came to power, all other youth movements were abolished and as a result the Hitler Youth grew quickly. In 1936, the figure stood at 4 million members. In 1936, it became all but compulsory to join the Hitler Youth. Youths could avoid doing any active service if they paid their subscription but this became all but impossible after 1939.
The Hitler Youth catered for 10 to 18 year olds. There were separate organisations for boys and girls. The task of the boys section was to prepare the boys for military service. For girls, the organisation prepared them for motherhood.
Boys at 10, joined the Deutsches Jungvolk (German Young People) until the age of 13 when they transferred to the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) until the age of 18. In 1936, the writer J R Tunus wrote about the activities of the Hitler Jugend. He stated that part of their "military athletics" (Wehrsport) included marching, bayonet drill, grenade throwing, trench digging, map reading, gas defence, use of dugouts, how to get under barbed wire and pistol shooting.
Girls, at the age of 10, joined the Jungmadelbund (League of Young Girls) and at the age of 14 transferred to the Bund Deutscher Madel (League of German Girls). Girls had to be able to run 60 metres in 14 seconds, throw a ball 12 metres, complete a 2 hour march, swim 100 metres and know how to make a bed.
To the outside world, the Hitler Youth seemed to personify German discipline. In fact, this image was far from accurate. School teachers complained that boys and girls were so tired from attending evening meetings of the Hitler Youth, that they could barely stay awake the next day at school. Also by 1938, attendance at Hitler Youth meetings was so poor - barely 25% - that the authorities decided to tighten up attendance with the 1939 law making attendance compulsory.
Actually, except for the weather- Chicago is a wonderful town.
Out of curiously, what denomination of "Christian" were you dealing with? I hang with the Non Orthodox and non Catholic types of Christianity
I am not too sure. One may meet small minded people anywhere you go. I knew a huge number of Lutherans, Catholics, and Greek Orthodox. I actually was treated to more outright name-calling in Santa Monica (Califonia) than any other place I have been to.
Putting my opinion out here, with many others...Alouette, I'm a Christian and have NEVER been taught that, nor have I ever felt it, nor do I know others who do.
We're with you, as you are with us, all the way. ;)
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