"For years, he and his family had watched the Nazis strengthen their grip on Germany. His father, a policeman and a convinced anti-Nazi, moved the family at least once after clashing with local followers of the party. 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.
In 1941, Ratzinger, 14, and his brother, Georg were enrolled in the Hitler Youth when it became mandatory for all boys. Soon after, he writes in his book, "The Salt of the Earth," he was let out because of his intention to study for the priesthood.
In 1943, like many teenage boys, he was drafted as a helper for an anti-aircraft brigade, which defended a BMW plant outside Munich. Later, he dug anti-tank trenches. When he turned 18, on April 16, 1945, he was put through basic training, alongside men in their 30s and 40s, drafted as the Nazi 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.
After he returned home, the Americans finally arrived — and set up their headquarters in his parents 18th century farmhouse on the outskirts of the town.
They identified him as a German soldier, made him put on his uniform, put up his hands, and marched him off to the town square, where other prisoners were kept. He wound up living in the open air for several weeks, surrounded by barbed wire.
He was finally released June 19 and hitched a ride on a milk truck back to Traunstein.
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 his family rejoiced.
The war was truly over.
"The following months of regained freedom, which we now had learned to value so much, belong to the happiest months of my life," he wrote.
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This date does resound with compelling events
From an email sent by my friend, Gretchen:
April 19, 1775 Shots fired at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, started our Revolutionary War.
April 19, 1861 The first blood of the American Civil War was shed when a secessionist mob in Baltimore attacked Massachusetts troops bound for Washington, D.C. Four soldiers and 12 rioters were killed.
April 19, 1933 Connecticut finally approves the Bill of Rights (148 years later).
April 19, 1993 FBI's 51-day siege of Branch Dividians in Waco, Texas, ends with the deaths of scores of people.
April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing kills 168 and injures 500.
Adding
April 19, 2005 Election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI. (Thank you, Gretchen)
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