Pope says he was never in the Hitler Youth

[charlie]

Oh boy. This guy can't do anything right. In or out? Compulsory or voluntary?

"The Pope has said he never, never was a member of the Hitler Youth, which was a movement of fanatical volunteers," Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said — contradicting statements the Pope has himself made about his involvement with the group. The Vatican denial came as Benedict’s trip sank deeper in controversy and recrimination, eclipsing the message of peace and reconciliation he has been pushing during his pilgrimage

Mr Lombardi said the Pope, as Joseph Ratzinger, a 16-year-old seminarian, served in an auxiliary air defence squadron "that had nothing to do with Nazism or Nazi ideology". Venting frustration with the relentless focus on the Pope’s war years — a highly sensitive subject on a visit to the Jewish state — Mr Lombardi insisted that the Pope "never was in this movement of young people ideologically linked to Nazism”. The spokesman said that he felt compelled to respond “to the lies written by the media here and internationally".

However, in a series of interviews in the 1996 book Salt of the Earth, the Pope, then still a cardinal, said that he had been drafted into the Hitler Youth, like so many other young Germans.

"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 HY. As soon as I was out of the seminary, I never went back," he said at the time.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6274826.ece

[murielm99]

1. Hitler Youth membership was compulsory.

Very few escaped being enrolled in the Hitler Youth.

I had a professor in college who had been a member of the Hitler Youth. His family had been very religious. His parents tried to have him and his brother avoid the organization, but they were eventually enrolled. His brother, who was younger, was enrolled in some sort of junior version of the Hitler Youth. It was like being a cub scout before becoming a boy scout. In fact, my teacher told us that the boy scouts and the Lutheran youth group he had been part of had merged with the Hitler Youth. This was done by passing a law, and no one had a say in the merger.

My teacher was trained in military tactics as a Hitler Youth. He was put into the army at age fifteen. It was near the end of the war, when there were many teenage German soldiers. He was wounded in the legs, and showed us the scars from the shrapnel. It's not that I wanted to see the scars, but we had a couple of louts in class who insisted on asking him about his days during World War II. This was a Renaissance history class, for crying out loud.

In the end, I was glad that our teacher was open with us about his life during those years. I had not met that many people who lived in Germany during those times. The man was conservative politically, but he was superbly knowledgeable and a very good teacher.

[struggle4progress]

2. The headline incorrectly attributes Lombardi's statement to the Pope. The Vatican has corrected

Lombardi's incorrect assertions


... HJ membership was made compulsory for youths over 17 in 1939, and for all over the age of 10 in 1941. By 1939, Hitler Youth membership comprised 90 percent of the country’s youth ... http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitleryouth.html

Law Concerning the Hitler Youth of December 1, 1936
... ARTICLE 1 The entire German youth within the borders of the Reich is organised in the Hitler Youth ... http://www.cdojerusalem.org/icons-multimedia/ClientsArea/HoH/LIBARC/ARCHIVE/Chapters/Stabiliz/Racial/LawConce.html

The Trial of German Major War Criminals
Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany
7th January to 19th January, 1946
Thirty-Fourth Day: Tuesday, January 15th, 1946
(Part 9 of 10)
... The first executive order on this basic law concerning the Hitler Youth was issued on 25th March, 1939. If you refer to Page 40 of your document book, this decree, 1939, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part 1, Page 709, among other points, confirms the exclusive nature of Schirach's responsibility concerning German youth. I will quote only one sentence: "The Youth Leader of the German Reich is solely competent for all missions of the physical, ideological, and moral education of the entire German youth outside home and school" ... http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-04/tgmwc-04-34-09.shtml