Did Ratzinger ever kill any Allies in WWII?

[El Supremo]

This is what Wikipedia says:

"In 1943, at the age of 16 he was, along with the rest of his class, drafted into the Flak or anti-aircraft corps, responsible for the guarding of a BMW plant outside Munich. He was then sent for basic infantry training and was posted to Hungary, where he worked setting up anti-tank defences until deserting in April 1944. In 1945 he was briefly held in an Allied POW camp, where he attended de-Nazification classes. By June he was released, and he and his brother (Georg) entered a Catholic seminary."

This guy is not a man of peace and I am beginning to think that his selection as Pope is a declaration of war against the liberal American Catholics. Watch out!

[Kellanved]

1. He stated in his memoirs that he had never fired a shot.

n/t

[El Supremo]

2. OK...

But how many American or British planes did his battery shoot down? How many Russian tanks did his mines take out?

[Kellanved]

4. that includes the battery

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1572667,00.html

[Hobarticus]

6. He was a legal combatant...that's what combatants do.

Think you can track down the specific shell he fired, or mine he laid?

[Tinoire]

9. How many innocent Iraqis did your tax dollars kill?

How many homeless Palestinians?

How many orphaned Afghans?

Woops I forgot, everyone's hands are lily white :)

[El Supremo]

16. How many protests against wars have you been in?

Yes, I pay my taxes. But I also fight against killing.

To all you defenders of Ratzinger's past, I just have this to say: I suppose you could call him blameless for being a German in WWII. But you can't hold the Cardinals blameless for for electing a WWII German combatant Pope. There were far better choices.

[Hobarticus]

24. Maybe a man who lived through war has a far better perspective on it

than someone who protested against one. Maybe you should give him the benefit of the doubt, first.

[dhinojosa]

55. I don't have to swim through shit to know it smells bad. nt

[atreides1]

7. Kind of Hard to believe this.

Taking into consideration that the city of Munich was one of the primary targets for the allies and was largely destroyed during the latter years of WWII.

Munich was the birth place National Socialism, not to mention that the BWW factory there provided engines for the German Luftwaffe, and vehicles and engines for the Wehrmacht, as well as did research for jet engines.

It's kind of hard to buy that he never fired a shot, being part of a AA gun crew, and even if he didn't pull the trigger, somebody had to help with loading the gun.

It would be kind of nice to find some of the other men that he may have served with, and ask them about the Pope's military service, and how much of an active role he took in performing his duties.

[jedr]

3. although this man is going to be very Conservative:

his WWII enlistment was done at gun-point....at that point in the war and if you were his age you either joined or were shot...considering his religious leanings , I think it's a stretch to call him a Nazi.... however with his feelings on birth control and gays... you got a right winger!

[Sequoia]

10. Right, IT WAS A WAR

and he was 16. Those young men had to join or else. Not to get off the subject too much, but remember Cap'n Von Trapp who had to flee Austria with his singing family because he didn't want to be in the party. Otherwise, well no "Sound of Music" that's for sure. And it was true if you want to do a search on it.

Guess it was okay for Kerry to run for President after having been in an unjust war too, but not for this guy to be a Pope who was also on the wrong side in an unjust war against the world, and he was only 16. Come on, teenagers, they were just kids really.

[atreides1]

11. His Religious Leanings????

Got some information for you my friend, the Catholic church in Germany wasn't known for it's pro-Jewish view points.

"In the 1930's, as the Catholic leaders listened to Hitler's rhetoric against the Jews during his appeal for power, his speeches
condemning Jews could only have correlated with the Church's own long history of Jewish hatred. It should come to no surprise that at
no time before or during Hitler's rise did the Catholic Church speak
up against such talk. Sadly the Church remained mostly silent, with its main objections concerned with its own power structure in Germany.
Thus is aimed to prevent loss of control and,indeed , to gain Church
control through an expansion of Papal power, control of appointment
of bishops, and the control of Catholic schools. This self-serving interest gave the Vatican an impetus to form an agreement with Germany. In this sense, Hitler actually saved Cathlocism in Germany,
especially considering that Bismark before him had begun a Kulturkampf("culture struggle"), a policy of persecution against Catholicism."

So I would guess that the Pope's religious awakening came into being after the murder of 12,000,000 human beings, with 6,000,000 of them being Jewish.

And being conscripted into a flak unit wasn't as bad as being placed into the infantry and actually having to face some very pisssed off Russian soldiers. Not to mention he was very lucky in not being caught after he deserted his post, the Waffen SS was well known for shooting deserters without asking any questions.

All in all the man has lead a charmed life, and now he gets to decide what 1.1 billion people get to believe in. I feel safer already don't you?

[mmonk]

12. Neither was the Lutheran Church

[jedr]

13. your putting words in my mouth;

I didn't say anything about anti-semitism....I know from living in a catholic-German family that the ties to the catholic Church runs deep. the Nazi's destroyed religion as much as possible and replaced it with state...I,m saying the man probably wasn't a "brown shirt"

[Hobarticus]

5. Paging Bill O'Reilly...

This sounds like something right out of Faux News.

"I have no proof...but, what if the new pope fed on infant's entrails?"

Come on.

[malmapus]

8. He really can't be blamed for being in the military at that time

As most have said he was drafted, you pretty much didn't have a choice back then in Germany, espicially if you were a German male of age.

Being with a Flak crew, doesn't say much. If he was all hard core and went into the Waffen SS then yeah alot of these posters calling him a Nazi would hold a little more water. Plus the fact that he deserted the service almost a year before the end of the war says alot. People need to remember that in April of 44 Germany still had a power hold, we hadn't opened the second front in Normandy yet. He could of been found out and killed easily.

EDIT: I'm not defending the guy for who he is now, heck I'm not even Catholic so really have no feel about him. But calling him a Nazi because of service in the Wermacht is a little out there, heck have seen a couple of posts liking him to the guards at concentration camps which is really unfair as those were monsters of a different caliber.

[atreides1]

14. It is an unfair title

I think the Nazi title came from his service with the Hitler Jugend, not with a flak unit. So calling him a Nazi is unfair, but to believe his memoir that he never fired a shot, that one is jus ta little hard to buy

And a historical note, not all members of the Nazi party were "monsters", not defending the party just pointing out that Patton had a point. For some it was like joining the popular political party, once you were a member, you got some favors sent your way.

Sound familiar.

One last thing, we had already opened up a second front with the invasion of Italy in 1943, which caused the unconditional surrender of the Italian government, unfortunately the Germans didn't agree with the surrender, and they kept on fighting.

[theHandpuppet]

31. Well, as it so happens...

If this Pope's job in the Reich's German Army was as a guard at the Munich BMW plant, then comparing him to a guard at a concentration camp isn't far off. This particular plant used thousands of concentration camp prisoners as forced labor. My post below gives links documenting that fact.

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. Are there any records that verify his desertion story?

In such a tightly controlled society as Nazi Germany I find it hard to believe that he could have successfully deserted a full year before the end of the war. Where did he hide? Did he spend the year in the family attic? In a church basement?

Or was he maybe transferred to some post that he'd rather not talk about?

It could be yet another case of the syndrome found in Germany after the war that though 20-25% of the population were party members, when the allies took over there wasn't a Nazi to be found, and nobody knew nothin about nothin.

I just have to wonder, how did he pass that year of being a deserter?

[Hobarticus]

21. This wasn't the Third Reich of the thirties...

Infrastructure was a mess by late war, and control had slipped. Loses were staggering, replacements were being scraped up where they could be found, and record-keeping wasn't what it used to be. The Wermacht relied on the threat of on-the-spot execution of deserters by military police to keep men with their units...but for many, it was still worth the risk.

When the Allies firebombed Dresden, there was an exodus of military and refugee traffic through there. It took them almost a decade to figure out who had actually died there; they had no idea who was passing through then. That's how bad the records-keeping was.

The Nazis kept meticulous records on the camps, true, but that's because they had them under control. Not so easy to maintain control over men in the field, especially in a chaotic time like an army approaching defeat. Men slipped through the cracks, just like any other war.

He was a scared teenager. He wasn't some Nazi mastermind.

[RaleighNCDUer]

56. The terror bombing of Dresden was in Feb. 1945

which was, in itself, a world away from the conditions in Germany in mid-1944. In '44 the Germans were still firmly in control, and if the Normandy invasion force had been pushed back into the sea in another Dunkirk, they might very possibly have won the war. It was only after the failure of the Ardennes offensive, which we call the Battle of the Bulge, that the defeat of Germany became inevitable.

In other words, before November '44, the infrastructure was intact enough for a 17 yr old soldier to be in jeopardy of being arrested for desertion. After November '44, with the collapse of the infrastructure, if he'd been found on the street he'd have either been shot on sight or immediately pressed into service in whatever local unit was available to repel the invasion of the Fatherland.

So I say again, where was he hiding during that year that he was a deserter?

[theHandpuppet]

17. Let's do a bit of research, shall we?

I see... some are claiming this new Pope was just an innocent "Hitler Youth" who later served in the German army guarding an innocuous BMW plant near Munich, and somehow never fired a shot as an anti-aircraft gunner.

Let's take a closer look at this BMW plant, shall we?

Prisoners of War and those from concentration camps (including many Jews) used by Nazis as forced labor at the Munich BMW plant, which wasn't just turning out Beetles:
http://members.aol.com/zbdachau/history/eng4.htm
http://www.adolfhitler.ws/lib/genocide/gen04.html
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/document/nca_vol4/1584-III-ps.htm
http://www.goethe.de/gr/dub/projekt/ENIAUTO3.HTM
http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/jphuck/BOOK3Ch2.html
http://www.courttv.com/archive/legaldocs/misc/naziswiss.html

To allied bombers, to be assigned a run over the Munich BMW plant was considered especially hazardous duty; it was heavily guarded by anti-aircraft as it was the hub of many secret military projects:
http://www.447bg.com/library/crews/quintin/intocombat.html

There's plenty more where that came from. I could post hundreds of references, but y'all get the idea.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

18. good research

excellent work

if people buy Pope Ratzi's story, next they'll believe that Bush served honorably in Vietnam

[jedr]

20. I think I'm starting to agree with post #5......n/t

[theHandpuppet]

27. A few more links...

A record of American combat missions flown over the Munich BMW plant in 1944:

http://www.92ndma.org/missions.htm
92nd Bomb Group
Missions Flown in World War II
1944 -- Munich BMW plant; 3 lost; at least 3 casualties

http://paul.rutgers.edu/~mcgrew/wwii/usaf/html/Jul.44.html and:
http://www.altus.af.mil/history/combat/combatjul44.htm
COMBAT CHRONOLOGY OF THE US ARMY AIR FORCES
JULY 1944 2. Of 340 B-17s, 183 hit the BMW factory at Munich and 106 hit the Munich
marshalling yard; 3 B-17s are lost, 1 damaged beyond repair and 89 damaged; 1
airman is KIA, 2 WIA and 30 MIA. Escort is provided by 166 P-38s, P-47s and
P-51s; 1 P-51 is lost (pilot is MIA).

American combat missions targeting Munich BMW plant, 1944:
http://www.381st.org/histories/535th_07-1944.html

[Kellanved]

19. ahem

He served at an AA gun with his high school class, not as a "normal" soldier.

[Hobarticus]

22. Yes, a little bit of historical perspective here, folks.

He was a teenaged AA gunner defending a factory..that doesn't make him a war criminal by association.

:eyes:

[Kathryn7]

23. He also deserted his post a year before the end of the war.

[Hobarticus]

25. Zactly...hardly a hardcore "to the death" Nazi

And, welcome to DU!!!

[LiberallyInclined]

26. although- not exactly a "to the death christian", either

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/42823.htm

"...The cardinal claims he never fired a shot and that resistance would have meant death..."

nope- no martyrdom genes there.

[theboss]

28. Do you view every German soldier in the 30s and 40s this way?

I ask this seriously because it's a question a lot of people have to wrestle with. If I had been a German in the 30s, I wonder what I would have done. I like to believe that I would have been a brave, sophisticated opposition leader. But it's probably just as likely I would have been a sergeant somewhere.

Basically, I've taken a forgiving posture toward the common soldiers and a never forgive posture towards the SS or any Nazi true believer. Otherwise, we spend the rest of eternity hating an entire generation of Germans.

[LiberallyInclined]

32. only the ones who would be "holy"...

nt

[El Supremo]

37. I can forgive any German who regrets what he did in WWII.

Did Ratzinger repent and ask God to forgive him? Or did he just rationalize it as so many Germans did? The Nuremberg Trials brought out the fact that the German people DID have the power to reject Hitler. There was something very wrong with the character of the German people - much like there is something very wrong now with the intelligence of 51% of the American people.

My German Christian ancestors got the hell out of Germany when it became so militaristic at the time of the Franco-Prussian war. What went wrong with the others?

[malmapus]

40. delete dupe

delete

[malmapus]

41. Exactly

I mean if I was a German and of age back in that time, my ass would probaly be a frozen corpse in Russia.

[Love Bug]

50. Thank you! My father felt the same way you do

My father was a WWII veteran -- he rode in tanks in the Royal Canadian Army. He fought in Europe and was wounded in Holland. Many years later, one of his best friends was a German national who had fought in the German army. My dad didn't hold anything against him because, frankly, the guy didn't have a choice and he was never a member of the Nazi Party.

Our families used to go camping together. Our dads would sit by the campfire at night and tell the most outragious bullshit stories about what they did in the war, trying to out-top each other. We kids were completely spellbound by their "achievements," while our mothers would sit and roll their eyes.

BTW -- until the day he died (30 years ago, now) my dad believed Hitler was still alive in Argentina.

[Hobarticus]

30. Guess staying alive in wartime disqualifies you for the papacy, then

eom

[LiberallyInclined]

33. well, apparently NOT standing up to evil doesn't...

:evilgrin:

[Hobarticus]

36. And you are doing exactly what to 'fight' the GOP, right now?

:evilgrin:

[LiberallyInclined]

38. I didn't know that i was under consideration to lead the Democratic Party.

wow...i'm speechless...i wasn't expecting this at all... what an honor.

[Hobarticus]

39. Don't be honored, really...

Although I find it pretty amazing for someone sitting fat and happy in modern-day America to judge what a teenage boy should have done in Germany 1945.

[LiberallyInclined]

42. i'm not fat....

and as a chronic-pain sufferer, i'm not exactly "happy" either- so you must NOT be referring to me. :hi:

but if I had "gone along" with the nazi's to save my sorry teenage ass- I think i would have had enough character to take my name out of the running for the postion of "holy father".

that's all.

and apparently there's at least one person in the world who doesn't hold that same opinion.

[Hobarticus]

43. No offense intended, personally, it's an expression.

But honestly, you really should do your homework.

1) His family was anti-Nazi.

2) He had been trained at seminary before his compulsory service.

2) Did I mention compulsory service?

There are SO many bad things about this choice besides his past, it's curious to see so many DUers focussing on his past and not on his stances. And to have so many false pretenses about the time period and the experiences of the average German to begin with...

Anyway, peace out. Off to work.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1572667,00...

"The son of a rural Bavarian police officer, Ratzinger was six when Hitler came to power in 1933. His father, also called Joseph, was an anti-Nazi whose attempts to rein in Hitler's Brown Shirts forced the family to move home several times.

In 1937 Ratzinger's father retired and the family moved to Traunstein, a staunchly Catholic town in Bavaria close to the Führer's mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. He joined the Hitler Youth aged 14, shortly after membership was made compulsory in 1941.

He quickly won a dispensation on account of his training at a seminary. Ratzinger was only briefly a member of the Hitler Youth and not an enthusiastic one, concluded John Allen, his biographer."

[LiberallyInclined]

44. In 1937 Ratzinger's father retired and the family moved to Traunstein...

if the family was so anti-nazi, why didn't they move out of the country?

i don't see anything mentioning their tireless work with the underground resistance movement, either...

[Hobarticus]

46. Why didn't EVERYBODY leave? eom

[LiberallyInclined]

47. ummm....because they were nazi's or nazi supporters?

just a hunch, mainly.

[Hobarticus]

49. You're right...all those persecuted and ordinary citizens were Nazis too.

Has nothing to do with the fact that Germnay was their home.

I think you'll need a bigger paint can for that brush you're painting with.

[ianrs]

51. and so?

personally I loathe Ratzinger, always have - it must be the gay catholic in me. But to condemn him because he's not a martyr? Please.

As others have pointed out, he was a teenage soldier. As to the Hitler Youth, see this interesting link:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitleryouth.html

If by 1939 90% of Germany's youth were in the Hitler Youth, it's not too surprising that he was in it as well. This figure surely points to the socio-political factors referred to elsewhere in this thread.
There is plenty to attack in Ratzinger's record as an adult priest, so unless one's argument is about the generality of German youth in the 30s and 40s, and German guilt, let's stick to the man's record, not the boy's.

[theHandpuppet]

29. Well there seems to be some confusion as to what his job really was...

Was it as an anti-aircraft gunner guarding one of the Nazis most secret weapons facilities or just a footsoldier guarding a weapons plant which used concentration camp prisoners as forced labor? Gee, there's a choice.

[Kellanved]

34. apparently

To clear up the confusion:

He was a "Flakhelfer" i.e. "AA support".

Following an order from 1943, all High School classes with students born prior to 1928 were drafted with their teachers to man the AA stations. The school lessons continued at the stations; all German males and many females in that age group had to do it.
It was not a Hitler Youth activity, and the Flakhelfer were not part of the Wehrmacht. In fact, the lack of indoctrination during the deployment was named as the biggest flaw of the program by Nazi leaders.

[tabasco]

35. I think it's ironic that the church which worships martyrs ...

elects a leader who did not have the faith or courage at age 16-18 to resist joining the forces of pure evil.

[Kathryn7]

45. Desertion is punishable by death. He just wasn't caught.

It is also a form of protest. It says, "count me out", "I want no part of this".

[cajones_II]

48. I never realized he was guarding a BMW plant

That's completely different.

[NNN0LHI]

52. A BMW plant that used slave labor n/t

[malmapus]

54. he wasn't "guarding" it. Flak would of been setup in the surrounding area

Heck he might not even have been in sight of it.

EDIT: Jeez can't believe I sound like I'm defending this guy

[lonestarnot]

53. 666