Should Ratzinger apologize for being in the Hitler Youth + Luftwaffenhelfer?

I didn't know where else to put these :pac: Just with that thread about how apparently Atheists hate Muslims or whatever I think these two pieces of audio shout be kept forever to remind fanatical people where blind following and disregard for anyone in the slightest bit different can lead us.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/holocaust/5111.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/holocaust/5115.shtml

I've seen it all and read it all before but this is stuff that must never be forgotten or lost sight of. This is where idiocy and herd mentality meets its zenith, it's something that I hope I'll never experience on either side. Modern examples can be drawn for political reasons but nothing since, and hopefully nothing in the future will reach this level of ruthlessness.

How the British soldiers didn't kill every well-fed German in sight is beyond me, they were better people than I could be.

robindch

Deleted User wrote: »

How the British soldiers didn't kill every well-fed German in sight is beyond me, they were better people than I could be.

At one concentration camp -- perhaps more or even most as it may well have been, or become, policy -- Allied troops rounded up the citizens of various local towns and villages and bussed them out for involuntary, guided tours of the camps, still with their residents, so that people could learn what their sons, brothers, fathers, neighbours and friends had been up to during the war. As a strategy to ensure that what happened could never be plausibly denied, that's pretty unbeatable.

Otherwise, well, what Marta Gellhorn said.

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

At one concentration camp -- perhaps more or even most as it may well have been, or become, policy -- Allied troops rounded up the citizens of various local towns and villages and bussed them out for involuntary, guided tours of the camps, still with their residents, so that people could learn what their sons, brothers, fathers, neighbours and friends had been up to during the war. As a strategy to ensure that what happened could never be plausibly denied, that's pretty unbeatable.

Otherwise, well, what Marta Gellhorn said.

A close friend of my father's was a sergeant in a US transport unit in WWII. As he was of Polish descent and spoke the language he was tasked with leading the first transport unit into Buchenwald. He literally drove the first Allied truck through its gates. Until the day he died he couldn't talk about it except to say they had heard rumours (the Soviets had already discovered the Camps in Poland) but he had no idea of the horrors that awaited him. His sister later told me he punched the officer who ordered him to be the first driver - he was chosen as they wanted people who could speak the same languages as 'the Jews'. Even 60 years later the expression on his face was all one needed to understand the numb shock and horror he felt. I think killing was the last thing on his mind.

Edit to say: about 50 guards were killed after Dachau was liberated and some of the US officers were called before a court martial but Patton had the charges dropped. Some of these guards were killed by the 'prisoners' but was no-one was ever questioned we have no way of knowing how many.


I asked my grand uncle, an ex RAF medic now in his 90s, if he knew. He said not at the time but by late 44 they had a pretty good idea, but not the scale. He spoke of how the aircrews wanted to bomb Germany into oblivion but that after the war he got assigned as company sergeant to a crew tasked with destroying Luftwaffe airbases. He learnt German (he's that kind of guy, also speaks fluent Arabic from his time in N. Africa) and although at first his hatred of the German people was palpable he came to realise that they were victims of what happens when people are brainwashed, dissent and debate are punished and the people are reduced to unthinking sheep. He is passionately insistent that evil comes when people are denied the right to think for themselves and forced to conform to an ideology that allows for no other way of being then the one it espouses.

You should hear him go off on the topic of the Christian Brothers and Ireland in the 1930s. It's a joy to behold .

As a point of interest, Dachau is a rather exclusive and expensive suburb of Munich. As a friend of my brother's discovered when looking for accommodation in the early 80s. This guy is the double of Brendan Grace (so you can picture the scene) and having listened to the real estate agent extolling the virtues of living in Dachau for about an hour while thinking 'no way am I living here! Is this woman mad!!! It's bleeding Dachau. She wants me to live near a concentration camp!!!!' he realised she had told him how much a months rent was - at the time it was 2000 Deutschmarks (:eek:) 'Jaysus' says he in his best Dublin ' ' are yez expecting me to pay the bleeding gas bill for yez as well!'

robindch

Bannasidhe wrote: »

As a point of interest, Dachau is a rather exclusive and expensive suburb of Munich.

Yep, I dropped out there on suburban railway one Monday morning around fifteen years ago and found myself more or less alone on the Dachau station platform -- itself, perhaps not resonating with the finest historical memories -- not quite knowing how to ask directions for whatever it was that they called the camp these days. In a state of some mild perplexity, I trotted over and asked, auf Deutsch, two girls who were on the platform where, uh, the, uh, Dachau, uh,..., and turned out they were Canadian and also looking for the place. So we all left the station and hopped into the first taxi, whose driver replied in English to some further mumblings, "Ah so you are looking to visit ze memorial"; "thank fuck", I thought and we had a short, very silent, trip there, everybody staring forward. I lasted about 20 minutes in the place and left, and I'll not be going near anything like that again as long as I live.

Dades

Dachau was a standout memory of an Interrailing summer nearly 20 years ago.
Incomprehensible evil.

recedite

Bannasidhe wrote: »

A close friend of my father's was a sergeant in a US transport unit in WWII. As he was of Polish descent and spoke the language he was tasked with leading the first transport unit into Buchenwald.

Interesting, I had the opportunity to speak with the first allied soldier into Belsen, an Irishman, Colonel Douglas Bluett who was born just up the road from where I live. A man who was not overly fond of Nazis, nationalism of any kind, or indeed religion. He's dead now, buried in Dublin. He was an army doctor at the time, working close to the front lines. It seems there was some disagreement among the Germans about how to handle the situation. Food supplies to the camp had ceased due to a general Allied bombing of German convoys and also a general breakdown in the SS administration. A large number of diseased prisoners had also arrived in the previous few months from Auchwitz. The prisoners in Belsen were originally intended to be ransomed or exchanged, but starvation, overcrowding and disease had turned a very bad situation into a hellish one. Typhus and TB and had taken hold and 80% of the inmates had diarrhoea. They slept in sheds without toilets, on 3 tier bunk-beds. The strongest of them held the top bunks; faeces rained down on those sleeping below. They were the walking dead, and it was in nobody's interest to let them out into the surrounding countryside. The German combat troops outside the camp, a regiment of paratroopers, were making an arrangement with the the the British troops to come in and take control from the camp commandant, an SS man. However, some of the SS guards decided to cut the water supply and drain the water tanks before quitting the scene, knowing that the combination of dehydration and diarrhoea would kill off the remaining inmates very quickly. In the event, this plan was foiled by the cooperation between the opposing armies. The commandant and some other (presumably less bad) SS guards remained and were still in charge when the colonel arrived. Most of these were subsequently beaten up and/or hanged. German medical staff and nurses remained on, including at least one female nurse who was known to have previously been an SS guard, but who was found to be useful in saving lives. Tragically around 2000 died in the first few days of liberation, many immediately after being fed British army rations. Their digestive systems had already been reabsorbed by their own bodies. This link gives insight into the medical problems as described by those who were tasked with solving them. Around 14,000 proper beds were quickly "requisitioned" from the surrounding German civilian population, along with clean clothes, food and any medical supplies available.
Another Irishman saving many lives at Belsen was an International Red Cross doctor, Dr Collis who was frustrated in his attempts to get any significant number of Belsen orphans sent to Ireland for adoption by an Irish law which specified that adoptive parents should be the same religion as the child. The precise origins of the orphans could not be identified, but they were thought to be Jewish. In the end, Sweden send a plane to take a large number of them unconditionally, and Dr. Collis adopted two of them personally.

IMHO if there is any lesson to be learned, it is that individuals normally have the free will to rise above the circumstances or times they find themselves in. Alternatively they can sit back and try to use the Nuremberg Defence afterwards. There is no god to pass judgement, only history.
Some interesting comments from Alan Shatter here on the policy of Irish State neutrality, especially coming from a man whose family would have been targeted for extermination.

Bannasidhe

I agree with Shatter that unless we are vigilant this can happen again. I profoundly disagree with his stance on Irish neutrality and think for him to claim that this stance was immoral due to the Holocaust is disingenuous. Was Ireland meant to psychically know about the Final Solution?
Anyway - lengthy discussions on this over in H & H.

recedite

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Was Ireland meant to psychically know about the Final Solution?

It was public knowledge that the Nazi regime was rounding up and "disappearing" vast numbers of Jews, communists, homosexuals and any other political opponents, from the late 1930's on, even if the final destination of these people was not known exactly.

robindch

recedite wrote: »

[...] that individuals normally have the free will to rise above the circumstances or times they find themselves in. Alternatively they can sit back and try to use the Nuremberg Defence afterwards.

That appears to be Herr Ratzinger's policy with respect to his time in the Hitler Youth, operating weaponry on behalf of the Nazi regime etc.

Bannasidhe

recedite wrote: »

It was public knowledge that the Nazi regime was rounding up and "disappearing" vast numbers of Jews, communists, homosexuals and any other political opponents, from the late 1930's on, even if the final destination of these people was not known exactly.

Ireland was so cut off from the rest of the world they didn't know the rules of Basketball had changed until they found themselves in dire trouble at the '48 Olympics - they last got their hands on the rule book in 1936 .

Anyway - as I said, there is a lengthy discussion on Shatter's comments and Irish neutrality (on the side of the Allies) over in H & H. Don't want to drag this thread off topic (well, no more off topic then it usually meanders.)

robindch

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Ireland was so cut off from the rest of the world they didn't know the rules of Basketball had changed until they found themselves in dire trouble at the '48 Olympics - they last got their hands on the rule book in 1936

1936? Presumably the players had to dribble the ball with their right arms outstretched and pointed upwards at 45 degrees.

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

1936? Presumably the players had to dribble the ball with their right arms outstretched and pointed upwards at 45 degrees.

The Irish Olympic Basketball team of 1948 discovered it was no longer permissible to actually physically tackle their opponents. Looking at the scores it appears this was the only tactic the team had. They were also used to a smaller but heavier ball.

robindch

Sounds like Gaelic Basketball, something which obviously didn't work all that well against the Mexicans or the French:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball_at_the_1948_Summer_Olympics#Group_D

Still, things could have been worse -- the team finished only three places behind Great Britain.

magicbastarder

recedite wrote: »

Interesting, I had the opportunity to speak with the first allied soldier into Belsen

i once had a chat with a chap whose grandfather was a bbc correspondent embedded with whatever unit liberated either buchenwald or belsen (the conversation was over 10 years ago). the guy i was talking to was the only person his grandfather would discuss the issue with, even though he was only in his mid teens at the time.

i know someone whose grandfather-in-law, if such a thing exists, was with a special unit whose job it was to make hell in germany (not sure if it was the SOE, but i can check).
his speciality, given his love of dogs, was stealing alsatians from the SS.

jank

robindch wrote: »

That appears to be Herr Ratzinger's policy with respect to his time in the Hitler Youth, operating weaponry on behalf of the Nazi regime etc.

In fairness, he was only a small boy which required him by law to join. Trying to equate that to a grown man who joined the SS in the view of cleansing Europe of Jewry is a pretty big step, even for you.

Bannasidhe

jank wrote: »

In fairness, he was only a small boy which required him by law to join. Trying to equate that to a grown man who joined the SS in the view of cleansing Europe of Jewry is a pretty big step, even for you.

He was born in 1927, so in 1937 he would have been ten - yes?

In 1943 he would have been...wait for it.... not a small boy by any stretch of the imagination.

Was Joseph Ratzinger in the Hitler Youth when he was 17?

Nope - he was in the Flakhelfer - a section of the Luftwaffe.

'Jewry' - what an interesting term to use.

robindch

jank wrote: »

robindch wrote: »

recedite wrote: »

[...] that individuals normally have the free will to rise above the circumstances or times they find themselves in. Alternatively they can sit back and try to use the Nuremberg Defence afterwards.

That appears to be Herr Ratzinger's policy with respect to his time in the Hitler Youth, operating weaponry on behalf of the Nazi regime etc.

In fairness, he was only a small boy which required him by law to join.

You're excusing the Nuremberg Defence -- confirming the point I was making up above. Thanks

jank wrote: »

Trying to equate that to a grown man who joined the SS in the view of cleansing Europe of Jewry is a pretty big step, even for you.

During his time in the Hitler Youth, Ratzinger could have escaped, left the country or openly defied membership, as other people did. He did none of those things.

And since the war ended, Ratzinger has had almost 70 years to reflect upon his activities and his moral ambivalence and repudiate publicly his membership of the Hitler Youth, and make an abject apology for it, possibly even accepting that he may well have had little choice. So far as I recall, Ratzinger has repudiated nothing and apologized for nothing, even in his toe-curlingly self-inflating "Salt of the Earth" which I read years ago, and in which he talks, in very abstract terms, about what he did during the War. Even if he can't apologize for membership of the Hitler Youth, at least he might try to find it within himself to apologize for supporting the murder of, and perhaps evening making his own attempts to murder, Allied airmen during his time at an anti-aircraft battery at a Bavarian munitions factory during his membership of the Luftwaffenhelfer.

I await with interest, if little hope.

sbsquarepants

robindch wrote: »

That appears to be Herr Ratzinger's policy with respect to his time in the Hitler Youth, operating weaponry on behalf of the Nazi regime etc.

Ah now, you know he didn't shoot his gun - he had a sore finger remember!

jank

Bannasidhe wrote: »

He was born in 1927, so in 1937 he would have been ten - yes?

In 1943 he would have been...wait for it.... not a small boy by any stretch of the imagination.

Was Joseph Ratzinger in the Hitler Youth when he was 17?

Nope - he was in the Flakhelfer - a section of the Luftwaffe.

'Jewry' - what an interesting term to use.

OK then a teenager..... because we know that 17 year old controlled the state and its military institutions....


Also if you want to insinuate something, say it by all means.

Bannasidhe

jank wrote: »

OK then a teenager..... because we know that 17 year old controlled the state and its military institutions....


Also if you want to insinuate something, say it by all means.

You stated 'he was only a small boy' that is patently not true.

Many 17 year olds refused to be part of the Nazi war machine. They died for their convictions. Ratzinger waited until the war was lost to desert to the Americans.

What am I meant to be insinuating?

robindch

jank wrote: »

[...] we know that 17 year old controlled the state and its military institutions [...]

The Nazi's controlled the state because millions of people, like Ratzinger, didn't object. And that's separately from the point that the Catholics provided the crucial votes that Hitler (also a catholic) needed in order to become dictator.

Please address Ratzinger's moral ambivalence and stop avoiding it.

jank

robindch wrote: »

You're excusing the Nuremberg Defence -- confirming the point I was making up above. Thanks

I am not excusing anything and to insinuate in some way that the Nuremberg defense is acceptable by soldiers on the ground who actively participated in genocide is sick and typical of you and your agenda.

robindch wrote: »

During his time in the Hitler Youth, Ratzinger could have escaped, left the country or openly defied membership, as other people did. He did none of those things.

Do you the stats of these others? How many people actually did this as a % of the population. I suppose he could have done lots of things, he could have led a revolution against the Nazi state, would that have been acceptable to you?

robindch wrote: »

And since the war ended, Ratzinger has had almost 70 years to reflect upon his activities and his moral ambivalence and repudiate publicly his membership of the Hitler Youth, and make an abject apology for it, possibly even accepting that he may well have had little choice. So far as I recall, Ratzinger has repudiated nothing and apologized for nothing, even in his toe-curlingly self-inflating "Salt of the Earth" which I read years ago, and in which he talks, in very abstract terms, about what he did during the War. Even if he can't apologize for membership of the Hitler Youth, at least he might try to find it within himself to apologize for supporting the murder of, and perhaps evening making his own attempts to murder, Allied airmen during his time at an anti-aircraft battery at a Bavarian munitions factory during his membership of the Luftwaffenhelfer.



I await with interest, if little hope.

His conscience is his own and I cannot speak for him, by all means ask him yourself. Why are you using the term murder to describe an act of war? Tbh I think you are just looking for a rise and just trolling.

If you really really think that his time spent when he was young in the Hitler Youth and the Luftwaffenhelfer is somehow equivalent to the SS men who swept through eastern Europe after 1940 killing millions upon million of people then you are utterly retarded with a tunnel vision like no other.

jank

Bannasidhe wrote: »

You stated 'he was only a small boy' that is patently not true.

Many 17 year olds refused to be part of the Nazi war machine. They died for their convictions. Ratzinger waited until the war was lost to desert to the Americans.

What am I meant to be insinuating?

How many 17 year old died for their convictions?

The word "Jewry".....??

jank

robindch wrote: »

The Nazi's controlled the state because millions of people, like Ratzinger, didn't object. And that's separately from the point that the Catholics provided the crucial votes that Hitler (also a catholic) needed in order to become dictator.

Please address Ratzinger's moral ambivalence and stop avoiding it.

So therefore everyone born before 1941 in Germany is just as guilty by association of war crimes as those in Nuremberg as they didnt topple the Nazi state. Em... ok!

Also, I suppose the Catholic Church are to blame for Hitlers rise to power as well, yeap blame religion for everything even when it rains in the summer.

robindch

jank wrote: »

he could have led a revolution against the Nazi state, would that have been acceptable to you?

I've already suggested what he could have done up above.

jank wrote: »

His conscience is his own and I cannot speak for him,

You spoke for him in this post. Why are you choosing to avoid commenting on his moral ambivalence now?

jank wrote: »

Why are you using the term murder to describe an act of war? Tbh I think you are just looking for a rise and just trolling.

Because, with the exception of self-defence, I believe that the intentional killing of another human being constitutes murder.

jank wrote: »

If you really really think that his time spent when he was young in the Hitler Youth and the Luftwaffenhelfer is somehow equivalent to the SS men who swept through eastern Europe after 1940 killing millions upon million of people then you are utterly retarded with a tunnel vision like no other.

You're the one who made that silly equivalence; I certainly haven't, nor would I since it is patently silly.

Would you care to address the question of Ratzinger's moral ambivalence that I mentioned in this post?

robindch

jank wrote: »

So therefore everyone born before 1941 in Germany is just as guilty by association of war crimes as those in Nuremberg as they didnt topple the Nazi state. Em... ok!

Also, I suppose the Catholic Church are to blame for Hitlers rise to power as well, yeap blame religion for everything even when it rains in the summer.

Are you able to read and comprehend English outside of this forum? That's a genuine question, since you seem to have insuperable problems comprehending it here - refuting points that nobody has made, avoiding questions that people ask and getting tetchy about patently ridiculous viewpoints that no sane person could ever old.

joseph brand

jank wrote: »

His conscience is his own and I cannot speak for him, . .

Spoken like a politician.

You're allowed have an opinion on whether you think he should come clean on his stint in the Hitler Youth.

jank

robindch wrote: »

I've already suggested what he could have done up above.

OK, that's fine but I am not sure you are an authority on what was/is acceptable resistance. Very easy to look back in hindsight and be a judge especially when nobody here has grown up in a totalitarian state, although some would claim that Ireland in the 80's was a totalitarian state. :rolleyes:

robindch wrote: »

You spoke for him in this post. Why are you choosing to avoid commenting on his moral ambivalence now?

Eh, no I was offering the opinion that to compare his situation to that of Goring or Keitel just to take an example is ridiculous, stupid and lacking credability. If you think its comparable then fine. :rolleyes:

robindch wrote: »

Because, with the exception of self-defence, I believe that the intentional killing of another human being constitutes murder..

OK, so by that logic every single allied airmen in WWII is guilty of murder?
Self defense? Well operating an anti aircraft weapon isn't really an offensive weapon now is it. (going off topic at a mile an hour....)

robindch wrote: »

You're the one who made that silly equivalence; I certainly haven't, nor would I since it is patently silly
Would you care to address the question of Ratzinger's moral ambivalence that I mentioned in this post?

Yet you do not clarify what you mean by the Nuremberg defense he used....
The insinuation is enough IMO.

jank

robindch wrote: »

Are you able to read and comprehend English outside of this forum? That's a genuine question, since you seem to have insuperable problems comprehending it here - refuting points that nobody has made, avoiding questions that people ask and getting tetchy about patently ridiculous viewpoints that no sane person could ever old.

Well you are the Master of the Strawman now.

Bannasidhe

jank wrote: »

How many 17 year old died for their convictions?

The word "Jewry".....??

Why don't you educate yourself and stop trying to make excuses for Ratzinger?

I suggest Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis by Michael Berenbaum as a good starting point. In it he discusses the State murder and persecution of Catholic activists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and pacifists.

As Robin has said without the support of people like Ratzinger the Nazis would not have been able to perpetuate their hate crimes. He may not have been in the SS (maybe he wasn't Aryan enough eh?) but he was part of the regime right up until they had no hope of victory.

'Jewry' I said it was an interesting term to use as usually it refers to Jewish ghettos or is employed by those of an anti-Semitic disposition to lump a diverse group of people into one convenient soundbite. Perhaps you were not familiar with it's negative connotations?

The Tudors used to refer to the 'Irishry' in similar negative ways during the conquest of Ireland.

Newaglish

jank wrote: »

How many 17 year old died for their convictions?

Have you ever heard of a martyr? Christians are all over that kind of thing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_martyrs

You think someone who would later become Pope would be pretty solid in their convictions. Or are you suggesting that the Pope believes morals are dependant on particular situations and circumstances and are, dare I say it, somewhat relative?

robindch

Bannasidhe wrote: »

[...] he was part of the regime right up until they had no hope of victory.

Worse than that -- Ratzinger appears only to have formally surrendered/hung up his Hitler Youth hat/whatever only when his unit formally ceased to exist which I believe was around the same time the Americans walked into his parents' house and set up shop there.

Perhaps his moral equivocacy is informed and inflamed by the demons of his youth to which he has no wish to return to consider, let alone address, this late in his life. But I rather think not. Looking at him and listening to his tiresome, meticulous, deliberate, word-splitting, legalistic and utterly amoral approach to just about every topic he addresses, I suspect he simply can't see what he should have to apologize for.

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

Worse than that -- Ratzinger appears only to have formally surrendered/hung up his Hitler Youth hat/whatever only when his unit formally ceased to exist which I believe was around the same time the Americans walked into his parents' house and set up shop there.

Perhaps his moral equivocacy is informed and inflamed by the demons of his youth to which he has no wish to return to consider, let alone address, this late in his life. But I rather think not. Looking at him and listening to his tiresome, meticulous, deliberate, word-splitting, legalistic and utterly amoral approach to just about every topic he addresses, I suspect he simply can't see what he should have to apologize for.

Nothing says 'your side lost' like a load of opposition troops sitting at your Mammy's kitchen table chewing gum and the suicide of your leader.

jank

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Why don't you educate yourself and stop trying to make excuses for Ratzinger?

I suggest Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis by Michael Berenbaum as a good starting point. In it he discusses the State murder and persecution of Catholic activists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and pacifists.

As Robin has said without the support of people like Ratzinger the Nazis would not have been able to perpetuate their hate crimes. He may not have been in the SS (maybe he wasn't Aryan enough eh?) but he was part of the regime right up until they had no hope of victory.

'Jewry' I said it was an interesting term to use as usually it refers to Jewish ghettos or is employed by those of an anti-Semitic disposition to lump a diverse group of people into one convenient soundbite. Perhaps you were not familiar with it's negative connotations?

The Tudors used to refer to the 'Irishry' in similar negative ways during the conquest of Ireland.

I am well aware of the term Jewry and I used it in the context to illustrate the point of the SS men blitzing around Europe to kill off "Jewry" as they saw it. Maybe it went over your head.

The point you are trying to make, where he was an active part of the "regime" is deliberately trying to overstate his involvement. It is a historical emotional fudge. There were millions of people conscripted into various youth programs like the Hitler Youth. Do all of them have blood on their hands? By that extension alone are all Germans born before 1941 just as guilty as the top SS men? The Jews themselves policed themselves under SS guidance in the Ghettos, are they just as guilty?

As I said NOBODY here has lived under a totalitarianist regime, yet some are very quick to judge from a comfortable middle class suburb in 21st century Ireland from a laptop.

Lastly, you said plenty of 17 year old's resisted, I asked for stats, can you give them? Were they 10% of 17 year olds, 5%, 20%. What were the stats?

Bannasidhe

jank wrote: »

I am well aware of the term Jewry and I used it in the context to illustrate the point of the SS men blitzing around Europe to kill off "Jewry" as they saw it. Maybe it went over your head.

The point you are trying to make, where he was an active part of the "regime" is deliberately trying to overstate his involvement. It is a historical emotional fudge. There were millions of people conscripted into various youth programs like the Hitler Youth. Do all of them have blood on their hands? By that extension alone are all Germans born before 1941 just as guilty as the top SS men? The Jews themselves policed themselves under SS guidance in the Ghettos, are they just as guilty?

As I said NOBODY here has lived under a totalitarianist regime, yet some are very quick to judge from a comfortable middle class suburb in 21st century Ireland from a laptop.

Lastly, you said plenty of 17 year old's resisted, I asked for stats, can you give them? Were they 10% of 17 year olds, 5%, 20%. What were the stats?

So your use of a term with negative connotation was to illustrate a point - grand. As for your your dig about it going over my head - was that gratuitous dig really necessary or are you making another point? Perhaps that you tend to insult people who disagree with you or call BS when they see it?

How many other Germans who were willingly or unwillingly involved in the Nazi regime are now claiming to speak for God and consider themselves to be an absolute moral authority?

No matter how many 17 year olds died opposing the Nazi regime - Joseph Ratzinger cannot be counted among their number. He went along with it.

Newaglish

jank wrote: »

I am well aware of the term Jewry and I used it in the context to illustrate the point of the SS men blitzing around Europe to kill off "Jewry" as they saw it. Maybe it went over your head.

The point you are trying to make, where he was an active part of the "regime" is deliberately trying to overstate his involvement. It is a historical emotional fudge. There were millions of people conscripted into various youth programs like the Hitler Youth. Do all of them have blood on their hands? By that extension alone are all Germans born before 1941 just as guilty as the top SS men? The Jews themselves policed themselves under SS guidance in the Ghettos, are they just as guilty?

As I said NOBODY here has lived under a totalitarianist regime, yet some are very quick to judge from a comfortable middle class suburb in 21st century Ireland from a laptop.

Lastly, you said plenty of 17 year old's resisted, I asked for stats, can you give them? Were they 10% of 17 year olds, 5%, 20%. What were the stats?

I think the point is that if you want to go on to become the actual Pope, you are probably going to be held to a higher moral standard than other people your age.

robindch

jank wrote: »

[...] some are very quick to judge from a comfortable middle class suburb in 21st century Ireland from a laptop.

The man we're talking about has allowed himself to become the moral leader of around 1.5 billion people and despite the passage of almost seventy years, he hasn't apologized for playing his necessary, even if involuntary, part in the Nazi regime?

And -- seriously -- you see no problem with that?

jank

Ah finally we get to the nub of it. He is held up to a higher account by atheists of all people. Irony meter just exploded!!

If you cannot find stats that showed how many teenagers died in the Third Reich resisting the state then I cannot take it seriously that it was easy and many people did it.

I take it that he was a product of the times and was not a grown adult how had total control over his life at that age.

Personally I dont give a $hit about him and have stated before that he is a relic that is holding back the RC, but a man with Nazi blood on his hands is historically, rationally and logically false and emotionally convenient for many here.

Anyway, what has this got to do with "Hazards of belief"?

recedite

Bannasidhe wrote: »

No matter how many 17 year olds died opposing the Nazi regime - Joseph Ratzinger cannot be counted among their number. He went along with it.

^^ This is the point. Yet the man claims to have higher moral authority than the rest of us.

Bannasidhe

jank wrote: »

Ah finally we get to the nub of it. He is held up to a higher account by atheists of all people. Irony meter just exploded!!

If you cannot find stats that showed how many teenagers died in the Third Reich resisting the state then I cannot take it seriously that it was easy and many people did it.

I take it that he was a product of the times and was not a grown adult how had total control over his life at that age.

Personally I dont give a $hit about him and have stated before that he is a relic that is holding back the RC, but a man with Nazi blood on his hands is historically, rationally and logically false and emotionally convenient for many here.

Anyway, what has this got to do with "Hazards of belief"?

Dachau had a special "priest block." Of the 2,720 priests (among them 2,579 Catholic) held in Dachau, 1,034 did not survive the camp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany#Christians_imprisoned_or_died_under_the_Third_Reich

For someone you don't give a $hit about you are going to great lengths to exonerate him of any culpability - including claiming we was a very small boy.

What on Earth could the fact that the leader of the largest Christian denomination who is considered millions of people to be the absolute authority on human morality was an active participant in the Nazi regime - he did not object, he did not flee into exile, he wore the uniform, he gave the seig heil, he fired anti-aircraft guns at Allied aircraft = active - have to do with the Hazard of belief... gosh. I don't know...you have me stumped there. :rolleyes:

robindch

jank wrote: »

He is held up to a higher account by atheists of all people.

He holds himself to a higher account.

jank wrote: »

I take it that he was a product of the times and was not a grown adult how had total control over his life at that age.

Yes, this has been implied in -- I think -- just about every post that I've made. I'm not fully sure why you haven't been able to take this on board yet, other than to point you to this earlier post.

Anyhow, if you can't understand why some people might think that a man who allows himself to become the moral leader of well over a billion people should apologize publicly for his involvement, involuntary or not, with the Nazi regime, then there isn't any point in continuing this conversation.

An implication of that, btw, is that you'll have to admit that you now you accept the Nuremberg Defence, which is where we came in, and which states that people can avoid taking responsibility for any action they carried out, simply by saying that they were "only following orders". The Nuremberg Defence was rejected ex cathedra at the Nuremberg Trials and is now rejected, by international treaty, in most if not all courts of law. So you're in a rather solitary position on that too.

Cossax

robindch wrote: »

The man we're talking about has allowed himself to become the moral leader of around 1.5 billion people and despite the passage of almost seventy years, he hasn't apologized for playing his necessary, even if involuntary, part in the Nazi regime?

And -- seriously -- you see no problem with that?

Far be it for me to defend the Pope but despite the fact he's now the moral leader of X number of people, I find it hard to see why he should have to apologise because, as a teenager, he attempted to defend his homeland from bombing raids.
I don't know how severe the bombing raids were in his part of the country or how widely known the severity of the bombing was, but when you consider the casualties caused by the likes of Dresden I find it even harder to suggest he should apologise.

Bannasidhe

Cossax wrote: »

Far be it for me to defend the Pope but despite the fact he's now the moral leader of X number of people, I find it hard to see why he should have to apologise because, as a teenager, he attempted to defend his homeland from bombing raids.
I don't know how severe the bombing raids were in his part of the country or how widely known the severity of the bombing was, but when you consider the casualties caused by the likes of Dresden I find it even harder to suggest he should apologise.

Defending his homeland from people his country and it's allies had invaded/attacked in the first place.

I am not for a second defending the horrific Allied bombing raid - but Nazi Germany was reaping what it had sown so I think to say 'defending his homeland' is a bit disingenuous.

Italians defended their homeland - they hanged Mussolini.

Cossax

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Defending his homeland from people his country and it's allies had invaded/attacked in the first place.

I am not for a second defending the horrific Allied bombing raid - but Nazi Germany was reaping what it had sown so I think to say 'defending his homeland' is a bit disingenuous.

Italians defended their homeland - they hanged Mussolini.

I don't think it's disingenuous to say that a 16/17 year old who was shooting at planes which were dropping hundreds/thousands of bombs fairly indiscriminately across his country on a daily basis doesn't need to apologise.

Bannasidhe

Cossax wrote: »

I don't think it's disingenuous to say that a 16/17 year old who was shooting at planes which were dropping hundreds/thousands of bombs fairly indiscriminately across his country on a daily basis doesn't need to apologise.

Given what his homeland was guilty of and it's plans for the future would you prefer if the planes hadn't been there?

Lack of fuel due to the bombing was a serious factor in the collapse of the Nazi war machine.

Ratzinger was 18 years old in 1945, he was still in uniform, he had spent at least 10 years listening to the Nazi message of anti-Semitism, hatred of homosexuals, the disabled and 'lesser races' - not to forget the race superiorityof the German people - did he at any point stop and 'say this is wrong? I protest! I cannot be part of this!!!' as one would expect of a man who is now seen, and sees himself, as the ultimate moral authority second only to God by millions and millions of people. No. He did not. He chose to fire the gun and defend the Nazi regime - not his homeland - the Nazi Regime whose message he was very familiar with. In doing so, he participated up to the bitter end.

Cossax

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Given what his homeland was guilty of and it's plans for the future would you prefer if the planes hadn't been there?

Lack of fuel due to the bombing was a serious factor in the collapse of the Nazi war machine.

Ratzinger was 18 years old in 1945, he was still in uniform, he had spent at least 10 years listening to the Nazi message of anti-Semitism, hatred of homosexuals, the disabled and 'lesser races' - not to forget the race superiorityof the German people - did he at any point stop and 'say this is wrong? I protest! I cannot be part of this!!!' as one would expect of a man who is now seen, and sees himself, as the ultimate moral authority second only to God by millions and millions of people. No. He did not. He chose to fire the gun and defend the Nazi regime - not his homeland - the Nazi Regime whose message he was very familiar with. In doing so, he participated up to the bitter end.

Are you serious?

In one paragraph you build up the case for brain washing and then blame him for not being able to think for himself? :rolleyes:

But anyways, how do you know he was defending the Nazi regime rather than trying to protect civilians from, say, being fire-bombed?

Hotblack Desiato

This is getting as tiresome as the skepchicks thread.

Bannasidhe

Cossax wrote: »

Are you serious?

In one paragraph you build up the case for brain washing and then blame him for not being able to think for himself? :rolleyes:

But anyways, how do you know he was defending the Nazi regime rather than trying to protect civilians from, say, being fire-bombed?

Other's were able to not be brainwashed. All those objectors to the regime who died in Camps or fled the country failed to be brainwashed.

Some of those at the very heart of the regime managed to not be brainwashed and sought to kill Hitler.

Catholic priests died having failed to be brainwashed.

In some countries Roman Catholic bishops and even Catholics themselves had openly protested and attacked Nazi policies. For instance, in the Netherlands and Poland, where bishops and priests had protested the deportation of Jews, the clergy was either threatened with deportation themselves and kept in custody (as in the case of German bishop Clemens von Galen), or directly deported to concentration camps (as in the cases of the Dutch Carmelite priest Titus Brandsma and Polish Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, who was later canonized). The Catholic Church was particularly suppressed in Poland: between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 3,000 members (18%) of the Polish clergy, were murdered; of these, 1,992 died in concentration camps.

In the annexed territory of Reichsgau Wartheland it was even more harsh: churches were systematically closed and most priests were either killed, imprisoned, or deported to the General Government. Eighty per cent of the Catholic clergy and five bishops of Warthegau were sent to concentration camps in 1939; 108 of them are regarded as blessed martyrs.

Religious persecution was not confined to Poland: in Dachau concentration camp alone, 2,600 Catholic priests from 24 different countries were killed. Some dissenting German Protestant clergy, such as those who founded the anti-Nazi Confessing Church, were also persecuted. The Baha'i Faith, which teaches as its doctrine, the unity of humanity, was formally banned in the Third Reich.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims#Religious_persecution

Seems a lot of people in Germany resisted brainwashing - but the young man who would one day become Pope was unable to resist...did his deep faith not protect him? Did Jesus' message of brotherly love, charity and care for our fellow human beings not give him the strength to resist? - Apparently not.

Surely the way to help save his people was to aid the Allies or to work with the Youth Resistance groups

This is in response to those who are wishing to give the new Pope a free pass on his activities during WWII on the basis of his age. I mentioned yesterday in a few posts that I had known a few German immigrants who resisted Hitler during their youth, and this is a followup to those posts.

The four best known groups of young Nazi resistance are The White Rose, The Eidelweiss Pirates, The Swing Youth, and the Helmut Hubener Group.

The White Rose was a group of college students, ranging in age from eighteen to their mid twenties. They were active in raising consiousness and propaganda work until 1943, when they were rooted out by the Gestapo, and members were incarcerated and killed.

The Eidelweiss Pirates were a group of kids who stood in opposition to, and took on members of the Hitler Youth. Made up of working class kids, aged thirteen and above(I was personally aquainted with a member), the Pirates hated the conformity and mission of the Hitler Youth movement. Operating out of multiple cities, they would confront the Hitler Youth in massive brawls that sometimes involved gunfire. Many were imprisoned, and some perished at the hands of the SS.

The Swing Youth were similar in makeup and ideology as the Eidelweiss Pirates. Hooked on American jazz culture, they stood in direct opposition to the rigid ideology of the Hitler Youth, and confronted members of the HJ at any opportunity. On the personal order of Himmler, many Swing Youth members were incarcerated for the duration of the war.


The Helmut Hubener group, founded by Helmut Hubener ranged in age from fourteen to sixteen. Motivated by their faith(LDS)and their sense of moral outrage, the Hubener Group printed leaflets, tangled with the Hitler Youth, and passed on the broadcasts of the BBC to German people yearning to here the truth. Captured in 1942, three members of the group were incarcerated, while their leader, Helmut, was executed on the personal order of Hitler himself, at the age of seventeen, thus being only two years older than Ratzinger at the time.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3512353

If you do wish to insist poor Joseph is not responsible as he was 'brainwashed' this begs the question - is he still brainwashed?

I ask as the only person I have met who was in the Hitler Youth is my brother's ex mother-in-law - and she is an outrageous anti-Semite- and while she claims to 'hate' the Nazis, still spout their bile at every opportunity.

Bannasidhe

ninja900 wrote: »

This is getting as tiresome as the skepchicks thread.

NOTHING is as tiresome as the skepchicks thread.

fitz0

As understandable as it is for a young man to be pressed into military service and through propaganda and indoctrination embrace it, you'd think the all knowing creator of the universe would choose a creation of higher moral fibre and firmer character to be his sole representative on earth.

The Mad Hatter

Bannasidhe wrote: »

NOTHING is as tiresome as the skepchicks thread.

Oh, really?