Monday, May 22, 2006
THE CLASSICS NEVER GO AWAY
When making a choice between two people, and the choice consists of the guy with the Nazi past, and the guy without the Nazi past, I figured that pretty much any person, or organization in the Western world that wants to attain or retain any sort of creditability would select the guy without the Nazi past. Well once again it appears that the Catholic Church doesn't share this point of view with me. They had no problem electing Joseph Alois Ratzinger pope. So someone who once fought for the Nazi state is now God's representative to millions of Christians all over the world. And yet the Catholic Church would have me believe that they are not an anti-semitic organization. Did I just fall off a fucking turnip truck?
I found the following description of Ratzinger's association with Nazism at Wikipedia.
"Following his fourteenth birthday in 1941, Ratzinger joined the Hitler Youth as membership was legally required after December 1936. According to one of Ratzinger's biographers, the National Catholic Reporter correspondent John Allen, he was an unenthusiastic member who refused to attend meetings. His father was a bitter enemy of Nazism, because he believed it was in conflict with their faith. In 1941 one of Ratzinger's cousins with Down's Syndrome was murdered by the Nazi regime. In 1943, when he was 16, Ratzinger was drafted with many of his classmates into the Luftwaffenhelfer programme. After his class was released from the Corps in September 1944, Ratzinger was put to work setting up anti-tank defences in the Hungarian border area of Austria in preparation for the expected Red Army offensive. He was eventually drafted into the German army at Munich to receive basic infantry training in the nearby town of Traunstein. His unit served at various posts around the city and was never sent to the front. Ratzinger was briefly interned in an Allied prisoner-of-war camp near Ulm and was repatriated on June 19, 1945. The family was reunited when his brother, Georg, returned after being repatriated from a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy."
Granted that this is a brief history and there are many facts missing, there are still many problems with it. Ratzinger is made out to be just some kid in the wrong place at the wrong time who in no way agreed with the principles of Nazism. Funny how after the war everyone left in Germany was some sort of anti-Nazi. I guess the millions of people who voted for them in 1933, (43.9% vote percentage), all died in the war, and only the ones who knew how evil they were from day one survived. They don't actually say whether Ratzinger supported National Socialism or not, they only state that he was "an unenthusiastic member who refused to attend meetings". Enthusiasm and belief are two very different things. I believe in many things that I don't "enthusiastically" support. Did he in any way attempt to not fulfill his duty as a Nazi? Did he try to undermine the Nazis and their efforts in any way?
What about his father, the "bitter enemy of Nazism"? Did he leave Germany when the Nazis came to power? Did he join any sort of anti-Nazi organization? Did he do anything that would substantiate labelling him an "anti-nazi". Not as far as I can tell. In fact Ratzinger Sr. was a police officer under the Nazi regime, and therefore enforced Nazi law (until his retirement in 1937).
What it appears the Ratzingers did (at the very least) was go along with the whole Nazi thing, like so many Germans did. They enabled things like the Holocaust and the destruction of much of Europe by their inaction. It was easy enough to say that one oppossed the Nazis once the war was over, but it was a whole other matter to have actually done something about it while Hitler was in power. It would have taken bravery and selflessness to have done anything in defiance of the Nazi authorities. The opposite of those qualitities are what we can safely attribute to Ratzinger and his family. It should be noted that no matter how unenthusiastic a member of the Hitler Youth Ratzinger was, he still did his duty in defending the Nazi regime. He was worse than a man who does nothing and let's evil triumph.
I found the following description of Ratzinger's association with Nazism at Wikipedia.
"Following his fourteenth birthday in 1941, Ratzinger joined the Hitler Youth as membership was legally required after December 1936. According to one of Ratzinger's biographers, the National Catholic Reporter correspondent John Allen, he was an unenthusiastic member who refused to attend meetings. His father was a bitter enemy of Nazism, because he believed it was in conflict with their faith. In 1941 one of Ratzinger's cousins with Down's Syndrome was murdered by the Nazi regime. In 1943, when he was 16, Ratzinger was drafted with many of his classmates into the Luftwaffenhelfer programme. After his class was released from the Corps in September 1944, Ratzinger was put to work setting up anti-tank defences in the Hungarian border area of Austria in preparation for the expected Red Army offensive. He was eventually drafted into the German army at Munich to receive basic infantry training in the nearby town of Traunstein. His unit served at various posts around the city and was never sent to the front. Ratzinger was briefly interned in an Allied prisoner-of-war camp near Ulm and was repatriated on June 19, 1945. The family was reunited when his brother, Georg, returned after being repatriated from a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy."
Granted that this is a brief history and there are many facts missing, there are still many problems with it. Ratzinger is made out to be just some kid in the wrong place at the wrong time who in no way agreed with the principles of Nazism. Funny how after the war everyone left in Germany was some sort of anti-Nazi. I guess the millions of people who voted for them in 1933, (43.9% vote percentage), all died in the war, and only the ones who knew how evil they were from day one survived. They don't actually say whether Ratzinger supported National Socialism or not, they only state that he was "an unenthusiastic member who refused to attend meetings". Enthusiasm and belief are two very different things. I believe in many things that I don't "enthusiastically" support. Did he in any way attempt to not fulfill his duty as a Nazi? Did he try to undermine the Nazis and their efforts in any way?
What about his father, the "bitter enemy of Nazism"? Did he leave Germany when the Nazis came to power? Did he join any sort of anti-Nazi organization? Did he do anything that would substantiate labelling him an "anti-nazi". Not as far as I can tell. In fact Ratzinger Sr. was a police officer under the Nazi regime, and therefore enforced Nazi law (until his retirement in 1937).
What it appears the Ratzingers did (at the very least) was go along with the whole Nazi thing, like so many Germans did. They enabled things like the Holocaust and the destruction of much of Europe by their inaction. It was easy enough to say that one oppossed the Nazis once the war was over, but it was a whole other matter to have actually done something about it while Hitler was in power. It would have taken bravery and selflessness to have done anything in defiance of the Nazi authorities. The opposite of those qualitities are what we can safely attribute to Ratzinger and his family. It should be noted that no matter how unenthusiastic a member of the Hitler Youth Ratzinger was, he still did his duty in defending the Nazi regime. He was worse than a man who does nothing and let's evil triumph.
