Just for the Record

Last pope-related post of the day, I promise. I couldn’t let this post from Daily Kos pass without pointing out something. Earlier I made reference to Ratzinger’s past membership in Hitler Youth, which is something different from calling him a Nazi. If we parsing things this carefully, there’s a difference between saying he is a Nazi and saying that he was a member of the Hitler Youth.

That said, there are a few other things that bother me about his “don’t call him a Nazi” line of discourse. John brings up some of them. Another jumped out at me from the Daily Kos posting.

The man is 78 years old. He was 18 when the war ended. He is of the right age group where you were required by law to join the Hilter Youth. Membership in the Hitler Youth by no means made you grow up to be a confirmed Nazi, although that was certainly the intent. Belonging to a Luftwaffe AA battery is also not a sign that he was a Nazi; had he been a fanatical Nazi, not only would he have volunteered for the Waffen SS, but he wouldn’t have deserted in 1944. That desertion in itself is not an unremarkable act. They still shot deserters at that time. Being in the German Army does not mean that you were a Nazi.

Another jumped out at me from the article linked above.

“Resistance was truly impossible,” Georg Ratzinger said. “Before we were conscripted, one of our teachers said we should fight and become heroic Nazis and another told us not to worry as only one soldier in a thousand was killed. But neither of us ever used a rifle against the enemy.”

Some locals in Traunstein, like Elizabeth Lohner, 84, whose brother-in-law was sent to Dachau as a conscientious objector, dismiss such suggestions. “It was possible to resist, and those people set an example for others,” she said. “The Ratzingers were young and had made a different choice.” [emphasis added]

Talking to my husband when he came home this evening crystalized it for me. You see, his family emigrated to the U.S. from Poland—birthplace of Pope John Paul II—following World War II. According to my husband, his father faced a choice of whether to join Poland’s communist party as a young man. “He chose not to join,” my husband says. “There were consequences for not joining, but he accepted those and chose not to join.” [emphasis added]

The same cannot be said for Ratzinger in relation to joining the Hitler Youth. As the woman quoted in the article said, whose brother was sent to Dachau for resisting, it was possible to resist, as long as one accepted the consequences for resisting. We can only assume that Ratzinger, for whatever reason, was reluctant to accept those consequences, unlike those who did resist and faced the consequences for that choice.

It also occurs to me that, in light of his words about “fundamental liberty that characterizes rizes the human person” in denying that gays are “inculpable” in their activity, Ratzinger is letting himself off the hook rather easily for his choices. He appears much easier on himself about his choice than he is on gays and lesbians for acting on as basic and intrinsic a human charactaristic as sexuality.

It may be debated for decades to come—in the Catholic church, at least—whether homosexuality is a “choice,” and whether gays and lesbians can be “blamed” for accepting their orientation and integrating it into happy and healthy lives. The truth is, he faced a choice—as did many in Nazi Germany—whether to collaborate or resist and face the consequences. Ratzinger made his choice, and because of that choice his past, which seems so incongruous with his present, continues to haunt him.

It may be “unfair” to call Ratzinger a “Nazi,” as the Kos diarist suggests, but it is entirely fair and and reasonable to call him a former member of the Hitler Youth. In fact, it’s more than fair. It’s a direct consequence of the choice he made more than 60 years ago; a choice he didn’t have to make, as evidenced by those who—in the same time and place—made the opposite choice. His choice and his involvement in the Nazi regime, however minor or tangental, will likely follow—as it has his entire life—to the grave. That is another consequence of his choice; one that he can’t outrun or even outlive.

That’s neither fair nor unfair. That’s just reality.