# HAHA, the new pope was a member of the Hitler youth **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 19, 2005, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haha-the-new-pope-was-a-member-of-the-hitler-youth/300152 "2005-04-19T23:31:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haha-the-new-pope-was-a-member-of-the-hitler-youth/300152/41 "2005-04-20T20:21:40Z")
> [@Andros\_X](#): > > According to this Wikipedia article, Ratzinger refused to go to meetings. So, he didn’t join to meet girls? Oh, wait. That’s Communism. Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haha-the-new-pope-was-a-member-of-the-hitler-youth/300152/42 "2005-04-20T23:36:13Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > Yeah I can be insensitive, I already know that & it doesn’t bother me any. So even though you realize that you are insensitive, you refuse to change. Ratzinger not only admitted his flaws, but he did change. And YOU are contemptuous of HIM? HAHA. ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haha-the-new-pope-was-a-member-of-the-hitler-youth/300152/43 "2005-04-20T23:44:02Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Give it a REST? > > Riiiiight, I’ve been constantly harping on and mocking this issue. Why, I’ve posted, like, ONCE about it, and that post only had SOME disclaimers in it, as opposed to being entirely CONSISTING of disclaimers. Man, I’m a one-trick pony. You’re right. That was unfair of me. I meant to say “let it go” as in let the Hitler Youth thing go. I just don’t think it’s right to lay responsibility for the Holocaust at the feet of a teenager. ---
**Author:** ![Buran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@Buran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buran)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haha-the-new-pope-was-a-member-of-the-hitler-youth/300152/44 "2005-04-21T01:04:06Z")
Pope Benedict XVI was a close personal friend and confidant of Pope John Paul II, a man who lived through the Nazi invasion of his country. Thats good enough for me. And btw Christianity is all about forgiveness for past mistakes, even if he _was_ a Nazi (which he wasn’t) and he was really, truly sorry and served penance for his actions then he is forgiven. Simple as that. I’m talking about his place within the Church hierachy and his priestly comrades. (I’m sure JPII would have just _loved_ that description) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![wonderwench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/35a633/32.png) [@wonderwench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderwench)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haha-the-new-pope-was-a-member-of-the-hitler-youth/300152/45 "2005-04-21T01:10:29Z")
> [@uglybeech](#): > > Max and Wesley, The Hitler Youth was not the Nazi Party. It was something done _to_ the German children \*by \* the Nazi Party. It’s called indoctrination. The Soviet Union did it too. Give it a rest. We do it in the U.S. as well - it’s called public education run by and for the liberal teachers’ unions. I’m not a fan of this Pope - but he did escape from the army and served time as a POW. Insinuating that a child forced into an indoctrination program is somehow a party to the Nazi-run Holocaust is beyond the pale. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haha-the-new-pope-was-a-member-of-the-hitler-youth/300152/46 "2005-04-21T03:25:58Z")
Originally Posted by uglybeech > [@](#): > > Max and Wesley, The Hitler Youth was not the Nazi Party. It was something done to the German children by the Nazi Party. It’s called indoctrination. The Soviet Union did it too. Give it a rest. > [@wonderwench](#): > > We do it in the U.S. as well - it’s called public education run by and for the liberal teachers’ unions. > > I’m not a fan of this Pope - but he did escape from the army and served time as a POW. Insinuating that a child forced into an indoctrination program is somehow a party to the Nazi-run Holocaust is beyond the pale. But asserting that public education in the US is run “by and for” the “liberal teachers’ unions” is ok? ---
**Author:** ![wonderwench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/35a633/32.png) [@wonderwench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderwench)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haha-the-new-pope-was-a-member-of-the-hitler-youth/300152/47 "2005-04-21T03:29:10Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > Originally Posted by uglybeech > But asserting that public education in the US is run “by and for” the “liberal teachers’ unions” is ok? Yes. ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haha-the-new-pope-was-a-member-of-the-hitler-youth/300152/48 "2005-04-21T03:31:35Z")
> [@wonderwench](#): > > We do it in the U.S. as well - it’s called public education run by and for the liberal teachers’ unions. Care to back this up a bit. I’d like to hear how the public schools are comparable to the hilter youth. ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haha-the-new-pope-was-a-member-of-the-hitler-youth/300152/49 "2005-04-21T04:20:40Z")
Alas, **WC** , I regret to inform you that you’ve inadvertently demonstrated that the current Pope has more credibility then you do. This is what your posting seems to be implying. Kid + Membership in Hitler Youth = Nazi + Causing Suffering and Pain. I had a lot of German relatives (farmers mostly) who were kids during WWII. Asking them about membership in the Hitler Youth was something I found not really appreciated (especially by the older ones, hoo-boy!). So I’m inclined to believe that they probably did. On the other hand, none of them ever pushed or even hinted of any Nazi dogma to me back in ’92 during a short visit. One distant in-law wanted me to take me to a concentration camp since I had never seen one (I limited on time unfortunately). Said it freaked him out the first time he visited it after the war, because he’d heard rumors, but simple country folk were not about to give the Gestapo a justification for stopping by for tea and torture. (Yes, he used the term “freaked,” he had lived in America for three years-- he brought back a Weber BBQ in his luggage so he could show “his people” that Amerikans still have a thing or two to show them). My impression of all this was that they were far better off then had ever been in their lives; why bring back bad memories and condemnation? I kind of look at this way-- Senator Robert Byrd was a member of the KKK as an adult. I know he regrets to this day and was stupid move on his part. BUT, that was the culture of the time in West Virginia–to get ahead you made compromises. So he’s fair game in that regard But does anyone suggest that Byrd is currently anti-Semitic or anti-Catholic? I mean, geeze **WC** these were the Nazis, not the Boy Scouts. Character building was about being tool of the state for Der Fueher, not cleaning trash out of creek. It was the Depression and things were out of control which is tough for Germans who love order and rules. Hitler pressed that button along with the smoldering anti-Semitism that seems to be Europe’s continuing curse to achieve his goal of absolute power and zero accountability. What was Ratzinger going to do? Become a conscientious objector? Start an opposition party? Write a letter to the editor in the local Nazi Dagblat? Picket downtown Berlin? He got out when he could and even risked his life at the end of the war to get away from these porkers of Satan. You want to go after a leader who allegdly should have some serious character? Go piss on Kurt Waldheim instead–he was Austrian McNazi who caused some serious pain and suffering, and yet he became the SG of the UN. It just doesn’t add up **WC**. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haha-the-new-pope-was-a-member-of-the-hitler-youth/300152/50 "2005-04-21T07:59:49Z")
I gotta say this - I’m not thrilled with Benedict XVI. I disagree with most of his past writings. I disagree with most of the positions he has taken. BUT, this whole hoopla about his membership in the Hitler Youth is dumb dumb dumb. Of all the things to jump on this guy for this is the most overblown. Read some history. Find a nearly 80 year old male who grew up in Germany at that time who has no connection to the Nazi party or its subsidiary organizations. They will most likely be Jewish or dead. Hitler oppressed alot of people. Normal Germans were part of that group. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haha-the-new-pope-was-a-member-of-the-hitler-youth/300152/51 "2005-04-21T16:29:14Z")
> [@kellner](#): > > From 1939 on, it was mandatory for girls, too. Their branch was called the “Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM)” - “Federation of German Girls”. Perhaps she wasn’t precisely the right age. Children were also ineligible if they did not meet certain standards of moral, race and honor (as defined by the BDM of course.) They could also be exempt for medical reasons if they got a certificate from a Hitler Youth physician. The law also allowed exeptions in individual cases for unspecified “important reasons”, again at the discretion of the Hitler Youth. It probably helped that her father was very very rich at the time. They lost everything during the war. Including Dad and Namesake son in the span of a week. ( the son in battle. Dad of the stress of losing his son.) War sucks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haha-the-new-pope-was-a-member-of-the-hitler-youth/300152.md?page=2)