Pope Makes Rare Mention Of Life Under The Nazis

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI, who was forced to join the Hitler Youth as a child, has made a rare mention of life in Germany under the Nazis, calling it a "dark time."

The 84-year-old, German-born pontiff turned his thoughts to 70 years ago, a time "already marked by war" and in which Adolf Hitler "had already subjugated" one country after another, including Poland, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France.

Benedict said "it looked like the continent was in the hands of this power, which put the future on Christianity in doubt."

Benedict was speaking during an audience Saturday at the Vatican with members of a German Catholic group in Regensburg, which he entered as a 14-year-old boy.

The pope's off-the-cuff remarks were reported by Vatican Radio.

Comments

[craftycrow]

12:17 PM on 05/31/2011

Perhaps he's asked for forgiveness...maybe through an act called redemption.

[AntiCon2012]

06:31 PM on 05/30/2011

We should never forget the fact that the Nazi party was a Right-Wing Christian organization.

[thorrsman]

07:45 PM on 05/30/2011

Incorrect. The National Socialist Party of Germany was close cousin to the Fascist movement that Mussolini--a life-long Socialist--viewed as a "perfected" form of Socialism, in that it conned industrialists--the favored enemy that Socialists point to--into becoming part of the very system that enslaved them.

And, of course, Socialism is of the Left, thus Fascism and Nazism are also of the Left, between plain vanilla Socialism and complete insane Communism.

[brokerallen]

10:24 PM on 05/30/2011

You're right on the money and very well informed.

[AntiCon2012]

10:40 PM on 05/30/2011

Right, they were not Christian either, huh?

[meredithnordaas]

04:48 PM on 05/30/2011

I see the glaring hypocrisy of a left which has no use for religion applying the standards of faith to someone whose whole life's journey has been single-mindedly and unequivocally dedicated to it. It's ironic that people who have such rabidly anti-semitic views toward Israel should be so eager to condemn Pope Benedict (who as an inexperienced youth was caught in the overwhelming dilemma of his time) and are currently so quick to come to the defense of the Palestinians against Israel. This, despite Palestinian alignment with the terrorist Hamas-Fatah coalition, who seek the destruction of Israel (and until the establishment of the Israeli state were Jordanians, Egyptians or Syrians). The fact that young Joseph Ratzinger ran away, escaped without a gun, and yet survived, speaks for itself. The fact that relations between Catholics and Jews have never been better speaks to the destructiveness of a ceaseless, unremitting regurgitation of the past which ignores the transformed attitudes of the present and rebuffs its promise. The Pope's decades of effort in support of that goal reveal his true attitude of heart. Demanding perfection of others while lacking the humility to see the deficiencies in oneself is an unmistakable symptom of sin -- that ever-resurgent human sickness which most Marxists are loathe to acknowledge, except in some shared, corporate way, absolving themselves personally of all responsibility.

[Mitakuye Oyasin]

05:02 AM on 05/31/2011

Forget his childhood and young adulthood, Ratzinger in the recent past and the present has protected and hidden child raping priests from legal prosecution.

[MrHomerS]

02:57 PM on 05/30/2011

I'm sure that all of the adults here who are critical of Joseph Ratzinger NEVER did anything shameful or wrong when the were teenagers.

[Mitakuye Oyasin]

06:09 PM on 05/30/2011

Not sure what your point is. He has done plenty of shameful and wrong things as an adult.

[thorrsman]

07:46 PM on 05/30/2011

Name one that is a provable fact rather than you personal biased opinion.

[Nihilicious]

09:12 AM on 05/30/2011

Ya but I'll bet he'll always cherish those memories of sun-soaked picnics with Himmler replete with longing and awkward pauses.

[pompous]

11:45 PM on 05/29/2011

There were many who collaborated with the German Nazis one supposes to somehow mitigate and establish terms for their continued existence in a German Nazi Europe i.e. Vichy, Pope Pius XII, Mussolini, the Lutheran church in Germany et. al. Pope Pius did little to bring attention or publicly condemn the fate of the Jews despite privately hiding jews and encouraging others to do the same. Hitler was a non practicing catholic and events as they are make the catholic church and religion itself an easy target simply because anti semitism was rooted in much of Europe's religious dogma. The character of Germany was heavily rooted in a Wagner like coma of German anti semitism, racism and nationalism fueled by the humiliation of World War I. There were a great many catholics, lutherans and others who spoke out against the treament of jews and offered safe harbour. In the end an atheist is just as capable of hate as a christian and it could be argued that a good many willing Nazis were not christians.

[Mitakuye Oyasin]

03:13 AM on 05/30/2011

Not buying it.

http://nob­eliefs.com­/nazis.htm

http://nob­eliefs.com­/mementoes­.htm

[gutenmorgen]

04:20 PM on 05/29/2011

I am just as old as this pope. Until 1948 I was a German citizen but I never was a lid of the Hitler Jugend and I escaped serving in the German armed forces. My father was a Jew, my mother was not and we lived in the Netherlands.
All the family of the pope had to do to prevent from being forced to become a Hitler Jungen was to raise the suspicion that one of his great-grandparents might have been Jewish or partly Jewish. Even this was probably not necessary because I know of several cases in which "fully Arian" boys refused to enter the HJ and got away with it. Given the job of the pope's father I seriously doubt that he was "forced" to join the HJ. I believe that he volunteered. It was the "thing to do" at the time.

[jimboy71]

10:01 PM on 05/29/2011

Look at the man's record.

It isn't a good one.

[cdnman]

10:43 AM on 05/30/2011

I agree with you...he is still a nazi.

[Vintage59]

04:14 PM on 05/29/2011

More Eurocentric comments from a leader out of touch with the Church he doesn't lead anywhere. Christ never went anywhere near Rome.

[bbriani3842]

07:46 PM on 05/29/2011

True enough, given he probably didn't exist in the first place.

[thorrsman]

09:19 PM on 05/29/2011

really? And you base that on what evidence, exactly?

[Louise Aloft]

09:14 AM on 05/31/2011

there's plenty of evidence that christ existed, just no evidence he was the son of god.

[bash]

10:58 PM on 05/29/2011

You are right. Christ Stopped at Eboli.

[redmoon]

03:50 PM on 05/29/2011

An example of someone who used his Catholic faith to stand up to Hitler was Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese Consul in Bordeaux in 1940 who saved an estimated 30,000 lives. For more information see www.sousamendesfoundation.org

[bdaved]

06:05 PM on 05/31/2011

Thank you for posting that. The man and his family suffered for the good he did, and their sacrifice should be remembered; and I'd never heard of him.

[JoeDGoy]

03:37 PM on 05/29/2011

30 million indigineous murdered, churches razed, priests shot, nuns butchered, yet anti-semitism was illegal...in the USSR...hmmm?

[Heru1]

03:23 PM on 05/29/2011

He wasn't 'forced' to join the Hitler youth

[KatK]

02:26 PM on 05/29/2011

If anyone has any real evidence that any priests and/or nuns were sent to the gas chambers for opposing Hitler, please post it. I would like to believe there were a few - but I wonder if people just say that because it sounds good.

I know from my grandparents experiences that their German priests preached in favor of Hitler and called him a great man.

Again, if any priests or nuns really had the guts to go against the church and oppose Nazism, I would love to know about them!! Thanks.

[agirlnamedana]

03:59 PM on 05/29/2011

Look up St. Maximillian Kolbe

[KatK]

10:09 PM on 05/29/2011

Ok. I'll accept him as one example.

[gutenmorgen]

04:22 PM on 05/29/2011

Niemoeller, a famous U-boat captain and Protestant minister was sent to a concentration camp but was not gassed.

[KatK]

10:10 PM on 05/29/2011

I know many people opposed the Nazis, but I was looking for Catholic priests and nuns.

[Flor Arellano]

01:30 PM on 05/29/2011

I expected more from this article, that told me nothing.

[lvx11378]

03:12 AM on 05/30/2011

Well, they only tell you what they want you to know.

[WilhelmOttoWolf]

01:27 PM on 05/29/2011

My father has told me stories of going to church in Germany as a boy and seeing SS officers praying and acting religious.

[MrHomerS]

02:55 PM on 05/30/2011

Not surprising, given that American soliders today are honored by the Church and many are not only patriotic but apparently devout Christians, despite the fact that they kill for their country. Do you really think that SS officers thought of themselves as evil, bad men? It's more likely that they were proud, patriotic Germans who believed that they were doing the right thing and that God supported their actions.

[stacknef]

01:05 PM on 05/29/2011

I wonder.....how many churches were burned to the ground in Nazi Germany? Can anyone authoritatively answer that?

[SaulBloodworth]

04:49 PM on 05/29/2011

Zero. Churches burned to the ground by Allied bombing: A couple of hundred.

[stacknef]

09:06 PM on 05/29/2011

that is true, however i can say that those churches would have remained standing if the Nazis hadn't decided on "total war" and started indiscriminant bombing of civilians like London...

[L0neV0ice]

09:26 PM on 05/30/2011

I guess those were the one's God didn't like the look of.

[SaulBloodworth]

05:14 PM on 05/29/2011

None