Joseph Ratzinger was 6 years old when Hitler came to power in 1933. His father (also named Joseph) was a small-town policeman who had utter contempt for, and openly opposed, Hitler's Brown Shirts, and for this reason was forced out of his job and several subsequent rural and small-town police jobs, requiring his family to move several times.
They finally settled in Traunstein, where they used to clandestinely listen to Allied radio broadcasts, an anti-Nazi activity which was, of course, strictly illegal. In December 1939, membership in Hitler Youth was made mandatory, and Ratzinger's entire class was automatically enrolled. Young Ratzinger refused to attend meetings (a remarkable thing, I think, for a 14-year-old.) At about the same time, in early 1941, the Nazis seized of one of Ratzinger's first cousin, who was also 14 years old and had Downs Syndrome, and --- what is the word? -- liquidated him. As you can imagine, this event which the whole family.
Ratzinger left high school and enrolled in the minor seminary, which did not have Hitler Youth. Two years later, at age 16 and still in the seminary, he was drafted into the German anti-aircraft corps, in a unit which included many who were conspicuously unwilling to be there (conscripts and slave laborers from Dachau were also assigned to this unit.)
Rarzinger never took part in combat and, in fact, never fired a weapon. In April 1944 he deserted. He made his way back on foot to his family's home in Traunstein, just as American troops established their headquarters in the Ratzinger household. As a German soldier, he was put in a POW camp but was released a few months later at the end of the War in summer 1945.
Thus concludes Joseph Ratzinger's "Nazi career." It forms the historic and personal basis for Ratzinger's lifelong opposition to the "Culture of Death." It is corroborated from many reliable sources all over the Internet; a good place for you to begin might be this eye-opening article from Jewish World Review.
I'm sure you'll keep this in mind the next time you write about Pope Benedict.
The Good Padre was lucky he didn't get captured by a Canadian Army outfit. They would have handed him back to the Germans for punishment, which could have included a firing squad.
Ratzinger's father was in the S.S. for two years until he retired. Plenty of young men chose not to join the Hitler Youth. There were ways around it. Others went along with it, as Ratzinger apparently did.
Revisionism is fraught with peril because it fosters an incorrect reading of the present as well as the past.
Yes, there are some Jews who praise Ratzinger. Israel needs the Vatican's recognition as an independent state, and some are willing to compromise the truth of the past for the security of the present.
In all the world there was not one human being on the face of the planet who could lead one billion Catholics except for a man who had once been in the Hitler Youth and whose father had been a member of the S.S.
Not one man.
Doesn't that concern you at all? Is that the best the RCC has?
Thank you for that information I didn’t know about that.
“I’m sure you’ll keep this in mind the next time you write about Pope Benedict.” Sadly, such a clear exposition will be ignored in order to continue believing what the poster wants to believe regardless of the facts.
"Oh, we all know how the Jews lie."
At that point, what can you say? I just shake my head.