www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1572667,00.html
The Times and The Sunday Times electronic paper The Times and The Sunday Times electronic paper The Sunday Times - World April 17, 2005 Papal hopeful is a former Hitler Youth Justin Sparks, Munich, John Follain and Christopher Morgan, Rome THE wartime past of a leading German contender to succeed John Paul II ma y return to haunt him as cardinals begin voting in the Sistine Chapel to morrow to choose a new leader for 1 billion Catholics. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whose strong defence of Catholic orthodoxy has earned him a variety of sobriquets including the enforcer, the pan zer cardinal and Gods rottweiler is expected to poll around 40 vot es in the first ballot as conservatives rally behind him. Although far short of the requisite two-thirds majority of the 115 votes, this would almost certainly give Ratzinger, 78 yesterday, an early lead in the voting. Liberals have yet to settle on a rival candidate who cou ld come close to his tally. Unknown to many members of the church, however, Ratzingers past includes brief membership of the Hitler Youth movement and wartime service with a German army anti- aircraft unit. Although there is no suggestion that he was involved in any atrocities, h is service may be contrasted by opponents with the attitude of John Paul II, who took part in anti-Nazi theatre performances in his native Polan d and in 1986 became the first pope to visit Romes synagogue. John Paul was hugely appreciated for what he did for and with the Jewish people, said Lord Janner, head of the Holocaust Education Trust, who i s due to attend ceremonies today to mark the 60th anniversary of the lib eration of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. If they were to appoint someone who was on the other side in the war, he would start at a disadvantage, although it wouldnt mean in the long ru n he wouldnt be equally understanding of the concerns of the Jewish wor ld. The son of a rural Bavarian police officer, Ratzinger was six when Hitler came to power in 1933. His father, also called Joseph, was an anti-Nazi whose attempts to rein in Hitlers Brown Shirts forced the family to mo ve home several times. In 1937 Ratzingers father retired and the family moved to Traunstein, a staunchly Catholic town in Bavaria close to the Fhrers mountain retrea t in Berchtesgaden. He joined the Hitler Youth aged 14, shortly after me mbership was made compulsory in 1941. He quickly won a dispensation on account of his training at a seminary. Ratzinger was only briefly a member of the Hitler Youth and not an enthu siastic one, concluded John Allen, his biographer. Two years later Ratzinger was enrolled in an anti-aircraft unit that prot ected a BMW factory making aircraft engines. The workforce included slav es from Dachau concentration camp. Ratzinger has insisted he never took part in combat or fired a shot add ing that his gun was not even loaded because of a badly infected finge r He was sent to Hungary, where he set up tank traps and saw Jews being herded to death camps. He deserted in April 1944 and spent a few weeks in a prisoner of war camp. He has since said that although he was opposed to the Nazi regime, any op en resistance would have been futile comments echoed this weekend by h is elder brother Georg, a retired priest ordained along with the cardina l in 1951. 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. Some locals in Traunstein, like Elizabeth Lohner, 84, whose brother-in-la w was sent to Dachau as a conscientious objector, dismiss such suggestio ns. It was possible to resist, and those people set an example for othe rs, she said.
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