He wasn't a Nazi, if you mean a member of the party, or even if you mean a supporter of the party.
"oseph Alois Ratzinger was born on 16 April, Holy Saturday, 1927 at 11 Schulstrasse, his parents' home in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria and baptised on the same day. He was the third and youngest child of Joseph Ratzinger, Sr., a police officer, and his wife, Maria, whose family were from South Tyrol. His father served in both the Bavarian State Police (Landespolizei) and the German national Regular Police (Ordnungspolizei) before retiring in 1937 to the town of Traunstein. The Sunday Times described the older Ratzinger as "an anti-Nazi whose attempts to rein in Hitler’s Brown Shirts forced the family to move several times." [1]. According to the International Herald Tribune, these relocations were directly related to Joseph Ratzinger, Sr.'s continued resistance to Nazism, which resulted in demotions and transfers.[2] The pope's brother Georg said: "Our father was a bitter enemy of Nazism because he believed it was in conflict with our faith," [3]. The family had a sadder encounter with the Nazi regime, because of its euthanasia program for the handicapped. John Allen, Ratzinger's biographer, reports a revelation made by Cardinal Ratzinger at a conference in the Vatican on November 28th 1996: " Ratzinger had a cousin with Down's Syndrome who in 1941 was 14 years old. This cousin was just a few months younger than Ratzinger and was taken away by the Nazi authorities for "therapy." Not long afterwards, the family received word that he was dead, presumably one of the 'undesirables' eliminated during that time."[4]..."
en.wikipedia.org
He was in the Hitler Youth, but that was mandatory (and also was not the same as being a Nazi party member)
HJ membership became mandatory, under the Gesetz über die Hitlerjugend law. This legal obligation was re-affirmed in 1939 with the Jugenddienstpflicht and HJ membership was required even when it was opposed by the member's parents. From then on, most of Germany's teenagers belonged to the HJ. By 1940, it had eight million members. Later war figures are difficult to calculate, since massive conscription efforts and a general call-up of boys as young as ten years old meant that virtually every young male in Germany was, in some way, connected to the HJ. Only about 10 to 20% were able to avoid joining.
en.wikipedia.org
Message 24514343
And didn't you have to be a Nazi when you were in the army?
There was no such requirement, at least not for rank and file soldiers or for the Luftwaffenhelfer (a military or para-military organization for those to young for the regular army) which Ratzinger was a member of. |
