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Young Joseph Ratzinger at 13 years (c. 1940) Image Credit: KNA / AP – Now Pope Benedict – 2007

April 19th, 2005

The Pope with the Most

Posted by scim in politics, world, history

A new pope will have to end up being one of the biggest worldwide stories this year, so I have to post something. Ratzinger was a surprising pick given the the fact that he was a favorite and the pre-election buzz of popes of the past. He has the reputation for being one of the most hardline of the cardinals, so don’t expect the Vatican to budge too much on birth control, the role of women, or allowing priests to marry. After all, thegovernment of Vatican City is more a Dictatorship than a Democracy.

Perhaps sensing his image and how he needs to soften it, he chose the name Benedict XVI, ostensibly to carry on the anti-relativistic, yet moderate policies of XV. The promise of relativism is assured from his quote in the AP article on his election:

“Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism,” he said, speaking in Italian. “Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and ’swept along by every wind of teaching,’ looks like the only attitude acceptable to today’s standards.

Something that’s bound to be a controversy in the coming weeks was Ratzinger’s time in service to the Nazis, once as a Hitler Youth and once as a anti-aircraft gunner helper during WWII. Both times were apparently against his will, but it really doesn’t help the ongoing image of the Vatican colluding with the Nazis.

NEW: The London Times has an article that goes a little more in depth on the Ratzinger-Nazi connection. It does add more evidence to his argument that all his service was involuntary, but it also points out that he did not openly decry the Nazis either. From the article:

Some locals in Traunstein, like Elizabeth Lohner, 84, whose brother-in-law was sent to Dachau as a conscientious objector, dismiss such suggestions. “It was possible to resist, and those people set an example for others,” she said. “The Ratzingers were young and had made a different choice.”

Now I have no idea what it would be like to be in his shoes then, but I would tend to give him the benefit of the doubt for this. Back then, you could be killed for openly opposing the Nazis, so not resisting is not necessarily acquiescence. So, to clarify my original point: While I think Ratzinger himself is not guilty of being a Nazi, his connection to them will cause a stir given the past Vatican image in relation to the Nazis.

Current Pope when he was in Hitler Youth His father, Joseph Ratzinger, Sr., was an Ordnungspolizei. The Ordnungspolizei (OrPo) was the name for the uniformed regular German police force that existed in Nazi Germany between the years of 1936 and 1945. After their green uniforms, they were also referred to as Grüne Polizei (green police). Joseph Ratzinger, Sr., served in the Bavarian Landespolizei for several years as a rural policeman. Various sources state that the Ratzingers' views towards the National Socialist German Workers Party caused the family some hardship, including the family having to move several times in the 1930s. There is no evidence, however, that Joseph Ratzinger, Sr., was ever arrested for anti-Nazi tendencies. He continued to serve in the police even after such events as the Night of the Long Knives and the passing of the Nuremberg Laws. These are the items the Ordnungspolizei police force wore In 1936, Joseph Ratzinger, Sr., became a member of the Ordnungspolizei after all the police forces of Nazi Germany were incorporated into a national police force. Georg Ratzinger (the Pope's brother) In summer 1942 Georg Ratzinger was drafted to the Reichsarbeitsdienst, and the same autumn to the German Wehrmacht. In 1944 he was wounded in battle in Italy. At the end of World War II, he was a POW of the U.S. Army in the vicinity of Naples, but was released, and arrived at home in July of 1945.

Here are recent pictures of Dominican Monks:
Nazi Funeral with Catholic Alter Boys	Hitler Signing Autograph for Nun	"Heil Rome!"

"Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler and most members of the party's "old guard" were Catholics", wrote M. Frederic Hoffet. "It was not by accident that, because of its chiefs' religion, the National-socialist government was the most Catholic Germany ever had... This kinship between National-socialism and Catholicism is most striking if we study closely the propaganda methods and the interior organisation of the party. On that subject, nothing is more instructive than Joseph Goebbel's works. He had been brought up in a Jesuit college and was a seminarist before devoting himself to literature and politics... Every page, every line of his writings recall the teaching of his masters; so he stresses obedience... the contempt for truth... "Some lies are as useful as bread!" he proclaimed by virtue of a moral relativism extracted from Ignatius of Loyola's writings..." Frederic Hoffet: "L'lmperialisme protestant" (Flammarion, Paris 1948, pp.172 ss).