The response of a German historian to the most absurd accusation against Benedict XVI

@ElentirENG ES 1·01·2023 · 19:28 0

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who died yesterday, was the victim of all kinds of defamation during his life and continues to be so once he is dead.

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One of the most common accusations against Benedict XVI, usually launched by left-wing and extreme-left media, has to do with his time in the Hitler Youth, the youth organization of the Nazi Party. Joseph Ratzinger was born in 1927. He was 12 years old when World War II began. In 2006, the German media Handelsblatt pointed out on this issue that the nazi regime demanded compulsory affiliation from March 1939, and that although those responsible for the seminary in which Joseph was resisted until October, they finally had They had to agree, so Joseph Ratzinger was conscripted when he was 14 years old, "but refused to participate in the activities of the Hitler Youth."

This German media recalls that the nazi regime distrusted the seminarians enlisted compulsorily in the Hitler Youth, because it considered them contrary to the regime. Joseph himself remembered that he was mocked by the Nazis in that youth organization, for pointing out that he wanted to be a priest. Let us remember that the Nazi press had been slandering Catholic priests for years. Let us remember that the Catholic Church had been denouncing the abuses of the Nazis since since he came to power in 1933. In Austria, one of the first things the nazis did after annexation was to ban Catholic youth organizations and the teaching of the Catholic religion in schools.

On the issue of Joseph Ratzinger and the Hitler Youth, there was already an absurd controversy promoted by the media in various countries when he was elected Pope. Some even cropped a photo of him to accuse him to give the Nazi salute. Anything was worth it, including manipulation and lies, to attack Benedict XVI. Nothing new that the Catholic Church had not suffered in its almost 2,000 years of history. A German historian very critical of Nazism, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, responded to these absurd accusations against Benedict XVI in an interview published by Der Spiegel in 2005:

"I find the whole controversy grotesque. Since December 1936, tightened in 1938, there was a mandatory youth law, according to which all 10-year-old boys and all 10-year-old girls were admitted to the Hitler Youth on April 20, that is, Hitler's birthday. First in the German youth group for 10-14 years, then they switched to the real Hitler Youth for 14-18 years. One can criticize Mr. Ratzinger from various points of view. But it must be clear that he, born in 1927, could not avoid serving in a Bavarian village among the Deutsches Jungvolk."

"Deutsches Jungvolk" (German Youth) was the section of the Hitler Youth reserved for children between the ages of 8 and 14. So, in this matter Benedict XVI was the victim of a totalitarian imposition by the Nazis, and now the left uses it to criminalize the victim, who was only a child at the time. In addition to being an absurd criticism, it is deeply base.

What is worth asking is: did the media that today attribute a "nazi past" to Benedict XVI also attribute that same past to left-wing politicians who suffered the same imposition? And in the case of the Spanish media, will they talk about the "falangist past" of many left-wing politicians who were also forced to join the Youth Front when they were children?

The curious thing is that among these media there are some that, at the same time, timely "forget" the terrorist past of current allies of the government of Pedro Sánchez. And we are not talking about a past that was the result of an imposition during childhood, but about the voluntary militancy of adults in a criminal gang like ETA. But it is already known that if you are of the left-wing, everything is forgiven.