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

UDP

People are surprised that the leader of the catholic church who supposedly believes all the crap he spouts was easily brainwashed as a child by Nazi propaganda?

I think he should apologise for any harm he inflicted on others during his time in the Nazi Youth or Luftwaffenhelfer.

I don't think him being in those organisations is as simple as he should have just escaped since he is obviously susceptible to believing bullsh'it but at the same time he is claiming moral authority.

I reckon it is that he feels he is not answerable to mere mortals on earth thus he will not apologise or seek forgiveness for anything from them unless he is really really really forced to for PR reasons and even that is highly unlikely.

Bannasidhe

UDP wrote: »

People are surprised that the leader of the catholic church who supposedly believes all the crap he spouts was easily brainwashed as a child by Nazi propaganda?

I think he should apologise for any harm he inflicted on others during his time in the Nazi Youth or Luftwaffenhelfer.

I don't think him being in those organisations is as simple as he should have just escaped since he is obviously susceptible to believing bullsh'it but at the same time he is claiming moral authority.

I reckon it is that he feels he is not answerable to mere mortals on earth thus he will not apologise or seek forgiveness for anything from them unless he is really really really forced to for PR reasons and even that is highly unlikely.

I doubt he will as well.

But it is important that people like him, who for centuries were untouchable and unchallengeable, know that they will be challenged - that their hypocrisy will be highlighted.

The RCC will never accept it is accountable for it's actions and that membership of it's hierarchy does not absolve and place one above the law and human morality unless it is forced to.

recedite

Interesting to see that Ratsingers greatest enemy at the time wasn't the RAF bombers, but the jews, homosexuals, communists and wishy-washy liberals who were the slave labourers manufacturing his ammunition. I get the impression he never really "got over" his distrust of "their sort"

Luftwaffenhelfer wrote:

To be sure, we suffered under very difficult battle conditions, because the 128mm caliber ammunition which we were firing came out of a munitions factory which employed "forced labour", and probably also prisoners, who were busy carrying out sabotage. They sabotaged the shell by drilling into it so that the propellant and the explosive material of the actual shell were ignited when firing took place. The result in the most favourable case was a ruptured barrel, and in the most unfavourable case, an exploding barrel. After one of the numerous heavy air-raids we found our tattered barrel again in the neighbourhood at a distance of 100 m and it looked like the skin of a banana that had been ripped off in strips.

from

Bannasidhe wrote: »

http://www.gustave-roosen.de/hamburg-e.htm

bnt

I also tend to think a bit too much is being made of this. In the last days of WW2 the Germans were recruiting anyone they could get their hands on and throwing them on to the front, and cranking up the Hitler Youth for home defence / auxiliary work. I can't honestly say that, at his age in that situation, I would have done any differently.

Kids believe all manner of stupid things, and that's understandable as long as they drop the stupidity upon adulthood. Now, if only he would drop the Catholicism ...

robindch

bnt wrote: »

I can't honestly say that, at his age in that situation, I would have done any differently.

I wouldn't like to have been in his position either. The question of how does an impressionable, unformed human behave in a fully complicit society is not one that sits well with me.

Nonetheless, having (a) had 70-odd years to think about it, and having (b) pushed himself to the top of the world's most self-inflating, self-important moral power structure, you'd have thought -- if he were honest about it all -- that he'd like to set an example of moral rectitude by at least coming clean about what he did, and why he did it, and what he's done to make amends. He hasn't, so the man's a hypocrite. He doesn't even hold himself, as Bannasidhe has clearly pointed out, to the rules that he declares to others. So one can add a charge of political cowardice to that of intellectual and ethical hypocrisy.

jank

Bannasidhe wrote: »

...there was no resistance to the Nazis in Germany.

I never said that, indeed I asked for facts about the "many, many" 17 year old's at the time resisting the Nazi regime and how many of them comprised the total population of 17 year olds at the time. No facts were forth coming, apart from an article of a far left american website.

No historical revisionism eh?:rolleyes:

jank

robindch wrote: »

I think you left out the second "perhaps".

I brought up the possibility that Ratzinger had fired weapons on behalf of Hitler because I think it's a reasonable possibility, based upon the fact that Ratzinger was a member of the Luftwaffenhelfer, manning an anti-aircraft gun close to a munitions factory.

Are you saying that it's impossible that Ratzinger fired the gun?

Actually, more generally, what on earth are you saying?

Is it impossible?, no of course not, nor is it impossible that you are a pedophile or there is a god

To correct your post, he maintained these anti-aircraft guns, didn't operate them as in fired the weapon (unless you have proof?) and it was a BMW factory responsible for manufacturing engines for aircraft. Not a munitions factory per say that manufactured shells, bullets, bombs....

Indeed what are you saying or trying to say? He is perhaps guilty of attempted murder?

jank

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Indeed, Jank would have us believe that an 18 year old in the Luftwaffenhelfer stationed with an anti-aircraft unit close to a munitions factory did not engage in anyway in performing his assigned duties and suffered no repercussions. He was not arrested. He was not shot.

If you are going refute claims or non claims that I have made you could at least keep close to the facts, especially if you reject that you are re-visioning history... He was 17 when he was stationed with the Luftwaffenhelfer. He was discharged when he was 17 and drafted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst. I also do not think a factory that made aircraft engines could be classified as a munitions factory.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Jank would have us believe Ratzinger did not fire a weapon, he did not load a weapon, he did not participate- perhaps he sat there praying for the souls of those murdered by the regime he was defending or for the souls of his fellow German youth who resisted the regime even though this often led to their torture and deaths.

I do not know what your point is. If you have proof or facts that he did or didn't do those things then by all means post it. Conjecture is pointless.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Or read this description of the role of the Luftwaffenhelfer by another young man who was involved and tell me how Ratzinger could have avoided participating while remaining in uniform[/U]?
http://www.gustave-roosen.de/hamburg-e.htm

Well you answered your own question there, how could he have avoided participating? He was drafted and forced into participating into a war, just like Gustave Roosen. Yet he should still appologise?

Bannasidhe

jank wrote: »

If you are going refute claims or non claims that I have made you could at least keep close to the facts, especially if you reject that you are re-visioning history... He was 17 when he was stationed with the Luftwaffenhelfer. He was discharged when he was 17 and drafted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst. I also do not think a factory that made aircraft engines could be classified as a munitions factory.



I do not know what your point is. If you have proof or facts that he did or didn't do those things then by all means post it. Conjecture is pointless.



Well you answered your own question there, how could he have avoided participating? He was drafted and forced into participating into a war, just like Gustave Roosen. Yet he should still appologise?

I find it interesting that you believe a man who tells Roman Catholics, with all the weight of the Papacy behind him, that they must resist gravely unjust laws and exercise the right to conscientious objection when referring to Gay marriage should not be obliged to answer why he himself did not resist gravely unjust laws and exercise the right to conscientious objection while living in Nazi Germany.

robindch

jank wrote: »

Is it impossible?, no of course not, nor is it impossible that you are a pedophile or there is a god Indeed what are you saying or trying to say? He is perhaps guilty of attempted murder?

Uh, yeah, whatevs, dude!

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I find it interesting that you believe a man who tells Roman Catholics, with all the weight of the Papacy behind him, that they must resist gravely unjust laws [...]

Perhaps the resistance is only metaphorical?