New Pope don't rock

[Paul Mather]

On Fri, 2005-04-22 at 13:08 +0200, Denis Regenbrecht wrote:

> >> Still, conscientious objectors did resist being drafted, and were
> >> usually sent to concentration camps as a result.  I guess Mr.
> >> Ratzinger
> >> chose a path of least resistance...
>
> He didn't chose "the path of least resistance". Sometimes during the
> last months of the war, when he was serving as a "Flak-Helfer" he
> deserted. He was just lucky to get caught by some disillusioned
> Wehrmacht-soldiers (who just let him go!) instead of some SS guys, who
> would, without a doubt, had him shot or hanged at once.
> That of course doesn't suit the picture the British yellow press wants
> to create in their typical psychotic "always mention the war"-tick.

FWIW, the "path of least resistance" was actually from a German
contemporary of Ratzinger who grew up in the same town, contrasting it
with the fate of someone who *did* elect to act as a conscientious
objector.  Ratzinger just behaved as an average person would.  But, as
someone pointed out in another article, the Pope is not supposed to be
"an average person." :-)

Just in case the tone of my original message has been obfuscated, I'll
make it clearer: I didn't see anything "sinister" in Ratzinger having
joined the Hitler Youth when he did (the implication seeming to be
"Hitler Youth member = Nazi supporter").  But, by the same token, I
don't think he acted out of true conscience when there were others that
did, even though by his own admission he felt opposed to the Nazi regime
at the time.  (His anti-aircraft battery was attached to a BMW factory
whose workforce included slave labour from Dachau, and he was later sent
to the Austro-Hungarian border region where he saw Jews deported to
death camps.)  Germans did resist the Nazi regime; Ratzinger chose not
to because he felt to do so would be "futile."  He made a different
choice.

Perhaps the hard-line dogmatic approach now attributed to him
crystallised after WWII, and that's when his own moral compass became
strongly aligned.  I've heard that the events of the late 60s were a
major influence.

> just my 0.02€

Mine, too.

Cheers,

Paul.
--
e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Don't mention the war!"
        --- Basil Fawlty