Yes, he's had plenty of time to reflect. Makes a big difference!
"Yes, he's had plenty of time to reflect. Makes a big difference!"
I don't think it took him very long. Defeat has a way of making one refect.
Each time I have been to Germany, I have met men of that generation who have taken it upon themselves to offer an apology for their "history".
Reflect on what? His parents were anti-Nazis, he was anti-Nazi. He was forced to join the Hitler Youth or drop out of the seminary; he attended one meeting to satisfy the local Nazi party leadership. He was drafted into the German army and deserted his post in the closing weeks of the war, thus risking being shot by any SS man who happened to find him. He was then picked up by the Americans as a POW and put in a cage outdoors for a couple of months.
I don't see that he has much to reflect on, or be sorry about.
I know I wasn't brave enough at 18 to risk being shot as a deserter, whether from Hitler's army or any other. Were you?
Something I haven't seen mentioned yet. The Pope had a cousin who had Down's Syndrome, and was murdered by the Nazis. He is literally a relative of a victim of the Holocaust.
Reflect, you say?