new popes past

K

KaBar

Joined
Dec 30, 2004
Messages
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any one else think its strange that the new pope was a nazi soldier in ww2? im not catholic and ww2 history facinates me so it dosent bother me at all but it is kind of strange if you think about it.
 
KaBar said:
any one else think its strange that the new pope was a nazi soldier in ww2?
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No. It was required by law. He also deserted:

"Joseph Ratzinger was born in Marktl am Inn, in Bavaria, the son of a police officer who was staunchly anti-Nazi. In 1937 Ratzinger's father retired and settled in the town of Traunstein. When Ratzinger turned 14 in 1941, he joined the Hitler Youth, as was required by a 1938 law. According to National Catholic Reporter correspondent and biographer John Allen, Ratzinger was an unenthusiastic member who refused to attend any meetings. In 1943, at the age of 16, he and the rest of his class were drafted into the Flak or anti-aircraft corps, responsible for guarding a BMW plant outside Munich. This plant manufactured aircraft engines and used slaved labor from the Dachau concentration camp. He was then sent for basic infantry training and was posted to Austrian-Hungarian border, where he worked setting up anti-tank defences. After being shipped back to Bavaria, he deserted in May 1945 and returned to Traunstein.
 
Why not. The vatican helped scores of wanted nazi war criminals escape to other countries . Gave/sold them vatican passports for Jewish gold, and diamonds.
The catholic church has a rule that when the church is threatened, anything is fair, and they were broke at that time.:rolleyes::barf:

They'll never get it. Just like the pedophile priest/nun scandals, and they have bernard law saying mass in rome for the last pope.:rolleyes:
 
the funny thing is that i work for bmw lol

thats a interesting piece of reading, im facinated by ww2 history.
 
You should really get your facts straight. :rolleyes: Just because he was a "so-called" German soldier does not mean he was a Nazi. Joining the Hitler Youth was mandatory for boys of his age in Nazi controlled Germany and his father was anti-Nazi.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,153942,00.html
 
hehe, i knew this one was bound to touch one or two nerves.

who really cares what he was or was not, its facinating history, nothing more nothing less. theres no need to get your pantys in a wadd over this, its suposed to be a happy time, smile and enjoy it. :)
 
He was, in fact, briefly a US POW. He deserted is Nazi unit and was actually fortunate to be taken prisoner by US soldiers rather than arrested by German.
 
KaBar said:
hehe, i knew this one was bound to touch one or two nerves.

who really cares what he was or was not, its facinating history, nothing more nothing less. theres no need to get your pantys in a wadd over this, its suposed to be a happy time, smile and enjoy it. :)
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Well, your original post before you edited it did not reflect that and I based my reply on the unedited post. Seems to me your original post was started to stir the pot. Even still, you left the orginal post and then added to it. Your question reflects how naive you are to the history behind the new Pope. He is a man of God and never has nor ever will be a Nazi. If you are so interested in the history you should read his book entitled Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977.
 
Well, your original post before you edited it did not reflect that and I based my reply on the unedited post. Seems to me your original post was started to stir the pot. Even still, you left the orginal post and then added to it. Your question reflects how naive you are to the history behind the new Pope. He is a man of God and never has nor ever will be a Nazi. If you are so interested in the history you should read his book entitled Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977.
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i dont see what you are talking about? i edited it because i was rambling along, the meaning is the same i just simplified it. i dont know why your saying that im "stiring the pot" but who cares im not trying to start a fight.

heres just some of the links to some of the stuff i find interesting, my main intrest is in war relics (like buildings, abandoned vehicals, and compairson pictures) from all aspects of the war not just the european theater. i got in to this after i was given a ww2 egw fighting knife. in no way am i a expert, i just like the history.

http://www.undergroundkent.co.uk/ww2.htm
http://www.thirdreichruins.com/index.htm
 
KaBar said:
any one else think its strange that the new pope was a nazi soldier in ww2?
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This was your original post before you added to it. You made this statement with no backing whatsoever that he was Nazi. You did no research to see if it was, in fact, true. You took what you thought you knew and started a post that you knew would get people riled up. You knowingly stirred the pot by posting this topic. And after you saw the responses you got you revised your original post to make it look like you are interested in history. :rolleyes:
 
well, that post was not a lie, he was a german soldier. im just glad that you could clairify the facts to us all, the media has a way to warp the truth. :)
 
KaBar said:
well, that post was not a lie, he was a german soldier. im just glad that you could clairify the facts to us all, the media has a way to warp the truth. :)
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Next time do a little research before you post something that you know will get people worked up. :rolleyes:
 
KaBar, I think your tone is too chipper for such a serious accusation. It does smell of stirring the pot. Since you "knew this one was bound to touch one or two nerves" you could have phrased your concerns more felicitously.

The Jerusalem Post is a center-right English-language Israeli newspaper. It is not in the habit of exusing the enemies, past or present, of the Jewish people. I regularly follow the online edition. Here is a current article, just before the new Pope's election.

Ratzinger a Nazi? Don't believe it
By SAM SER

London's Sunday Times would have us believe that one of the leading contenders for the papacy is a closet Nazi. In if-only-they-knew tones, the newspaper informs readers that German-born Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was a member of the Hitler Youth during World War II and suggests that, because of this, the "panzer cardinal" would be quite a contrast to his predecessor, John Paul II.

The article also classifies Ratzinger as a "theological anti-Semite" for believing in Jesus so strongly that – gasp! – he thinks that everyone, even Jews, should accept him as the messiah.

To all this we should say, "This is news?!"

As the Sunday Times article admits, Ratzinger's membership in the Hitler Youth was not voluntary but compulsory; also admitted are the facts that the cardinal – only a teenager during the period in question – was the son of an anti-Nazi policeman, that he was given a dispensation from Hitler Youth activities because of his religious studies, and that he deserted the German army.

Ratzinger has several times gone on record on his supposedly "problematic" past. In the 1997 book Salt of the Earth, Ratzinger is asked whether he was ever in the Hitler Youth.

"At first we weren't," he says, speaking of himself and his older brother, "but when the compulsory Hitler Youth was introduced in 1941, my brother was obliged to join. I was still too young, but later as a seminarian, I was registered in the Hitler Youth. As soon as I was out of the seminary, I never went back. And that was difficult because the tuition reduction, which I really needed, was tied to proof of attendance at the Hitler Youth.

"Thank goodness there was a very understanding mathematics professor. He himself was a Nazi, but an honest man, and said to me, 'Just go once to get the document so we have it...' When he saw that I simply didn't want to, he said, 'I understand, I'll take care of it' and so I was able to stay free of it."

Ratzinger says this again in his own memoirs, printed in 1998. In his 2002 biography of the cardinal, John Allen, Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter wrote in detail about those events.

The only significant complaint that the Times makes against Ratzinger's wartime conduct is that he resisted quietly and passively, rather than having done something drastic enough to earn him a trip to a concentration camp. Of course, whenever it is said that a German failed the exceptional-resistance-to-the-Nazis test, it would behoove us all to recognize that too many Jews failed it, as well.

If he were truly a Nazi sympathizer, then it would undoubtedly have become evident during the past 60 years. Yet throughout his service in the church, Ratzinger has distinguished himself in the field of Jewish-Catholic relations.

As prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger played an instrumental role in the Vatican's revolutionary reconciliation with the Jews under John Paul II. He personally prepared Memory and Reconciliation, the 2000 document outlining the church's historical "errors" in its treatment of Jews. And as president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Ratzinger oversaw the preparation of The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, a milestone theological explanation for the Jews' rejection of Jesus.

If that's theological anti-Semitism, then we should only be so lucky to "suffer" more of the same.

As for the Hitler Youth issue, not even Yad Vashem has considered it worthy of further investigation. Why should we?
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K.V. Collucci said:
Next time do a little research before you post something that you know will get people worked up.
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That's good advice.

It doesn't take much research either. cnn.com had a bio on him up almost as fast the smoke went up the chimney.


It is especially important to take a few minutes and check your facts before you go posting scandalous accusations against anyone (much less the newly-elected Pope of the Roman Catholic Church).
 
It would seem to me that anyone who has published as much as the new
Pope Benedict the 16th has, any anti-semitisim would have shone thru
by now. Maybe the media is just trying to stir controversy and sell more
newspapers.
 
this is going to turn in to a fight fast so mods if you dont mind just delete or lock this thread.
 
Yeah, right. You've got two of the forum's moderators posting in the thread ... remind me again why I should lock myself down. (We don't delete on Bladeforums.)
 
KaBar said:
this is going to turn in to a fight fast so mods if you dont mind just delete or lock this thread.
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There is absolutely no need for this to turn into a fight. Stick to the facts of the matter and be respectful of others. We successfully discuss many issues here which have the potential of being controversial.
 
Regardless of his past, or what he may or may not have been, isn't one of the central pillars of christianity supposed to be that you can be forgiven past sins? (I'm not a christian so I'm no expert in this area).

Seems to me the main concern should be his age. The guy is 78! Seems most of the popes drop off in their 80s, shouldn't they try and select a candidate who at least has a decade or two of active service life left?
 
KaBar,

You opened the can of worms. Time to suck 'em down. The best I can do is move this to W&C. Of course, once that happens Esav and I will no longer have control of it and I won't be the one to do it. We don't delete threads and I don't plan on locking this one.
 
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