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April 19, 2005
The Pope Has Been Untruthful About the Role of Nazism in his Early Life.
I do think, though, that he has been untruthful about the role that Nazism played in his childhood.
Consider this passage from today's Jerusalem Post article defending the new pope against allegations of closet Nazism:
Ratzinger has several times gone on record on his supposedly “problematic” past. In the 1997 book Salt of the Earth, Ratzinger is asked whether he was ever in the Hitler Youth.“At first we weren’t,” he says, speaking of himself and his older brother, “but when the compulsory Hitler Youth was introduced in 1941, my brother was obliged to join. I was still too young, but later as a seminarian, I was registered in the Hitler Youth."
This is totally inaccurate.
• Membership in the Hitler Youth became compulsory in 1936, not 1941. Its compulsory nature was reinforced in 1939.• Membership in the Hitler Youth was required of all fourteen-year-old German males. The pope turned fourteen on April 16, 1941. He would have been obliged to join the Hitler Youth in 1941, and was not "too young" at that time.
• By 1941, he would have had to be a member of the Hitler Youth's junior brother, the Deutsche Jungvolk, since he turned ten (on April 16, 1937). That was what the laws of both 1936 and 1939 required. Yet I see no reference anywhere to the pope's having admitted to membership in this organization.
The new pope is clearly no closet Nazi. But it's also clear that he has not told the truth about his childhood and teen membership (mandatory as it was) in the Reich's youth organizations.
Come on, blogosphere. This is the kind of truth-squadding we're supposed to be good at, isn't it?
Posted by Eric at April 19, 2005 7:23 PM
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Comments
While at the gym this week, I was listening to Maria Doria Russell's novel A Thread of Grace, about Italy after Mussolini surrendered. I was immersed in tales of Nazi horror when I ran into a German friend of mine, a gentleman in his late 60's. I just had to walk away and then I wondered if that reflected badly on me.
Posted by: Dabney at April 19, 2005 8:28 PM
In fairness, there are a number of possibilities that we ought to consider:
1) Membership may have been mandatory, but not strictly enforced in the region where the pope grew up. Unlikely for Bavaria, but possible.
2) The pope was only speaking to the issue of joining the Hitler Youth, not other youth organizations.
3) He misremembers the dates. Possible. His older brother was registered first, when it became compulsory in 1936 or 1939, and he registered later, when he became 14, however many years later.
In any case, I deplore the blogosphere's talent for blowing up tempests in a teacup. Does this really matter? Why? Lots of people were forced into organizations they didn't agree with; lots of Germans were conscripted. That doesn't make them bad people, and as you say, the pope is no closet Nazi. Why make a big deal out of this bit of trivia?
Powerline may have been CORRECT that Dan Rather's memos were forged. But it wasn't important. It wasn't as important as the real issue at hand (did Bush avoid Guard duty). The same is true in this case. The pope may have erred or misspoken or even misrepresented his youth. But it isn't as important as the rest of his life and who he is now.
Posted by: saurabh at April 19, 2005 9:37 PM
I've been Ratzinger-bashing all day today, so let me flip sides for a moment. He may just be a little murky about exact dates. The Salt of the Earth quote is not, I think, a smoking gun.
(I fully expect to learn that he *has* lied or shaded the truth, at some point. And see comments at Yglesias's blog on Ratzinger's telling students, when he was a professor, that it was useless to resist the Nazi regime. That's much more terrible than fudging what year he had to join the HY.)
Posted by: Anderson at April 19, 2005 9:50 PM
He is speaking the truth, there were 2 compulsory statements, for kids over 17, then again lowering it to 10. He is only remembering the 2nd one:
HJ membership was made compulsory for youths over 17 in 1939, and for all over the age of 10 in 1941.
from http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitleryouth.html
Posted by: Pluto's Dad at April 20, 2005 6:57 PM