Get your facts right, people

[karohemd]

Having been a member of the Hitler Youth and being a Nazi are two very different things.
The first was compulsory from 1936, the latter was a choice (to join the party).
I thought you would have learned by now to disassociate Germans with Nazis but sadly, this doesn't seem to be the case...

As little as I like Ratzinger's views, he wasn't and isn't a Nazi.

Comments

[a1exxandra.livejournal.com]

:( people suck!
DIdn't Ratzinger refuse to attend meetings and stuff?

[blackmetalbaz.livejournal.com]

A fair point. He has even been described as 'not being a particularly enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth'. On the other hand, they're hardly likely to say 'he was well up for it'. It doesn't stop him being the Antichrist though.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Might it be the contemporary corruption of the term "Nazi" to mean something broadly analagous to fascist?

Or is it just mindless racist wankery? *sigh*

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It's a handy catch-all for the hard-of-thinking: "I disagree with so-and-so so therefore they are a Nazi".
In recent weeks I've seen, variously, The new Pope, Tony Blair, the Conservative Party, Veritas (and Robert Kilroy Silk), and myself all described as 'Nazis'.
None of these people are, obviously, but as a quick answer for those unable or unwilling to formulate their own opinions it's an easy solution.
And some people wonder why I don't really bother with LJ any more.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Considering how he gets on with other world faiths (or just other Christian factions), you could well call him a Catholic fascist, true.

What gets me is the Hitler Youth=Nazi conclusion.

[vierkilau.livejournal.com]

Well said I have no problem with the German people on the whole, if the allies weren't so stupid after WWI to label all germans the same we would not of had the rise of Nazism. I thought we had progressed from then

[borusa.livejournal.com]

That's a bit of a gross oversimplification. Here's another one that isn't quite so gross.

The terms of the Treaty of Versailles were particularly harsh, largely as a result of a french desire for retribution. As well as crippling the German economy, they were a pretty big insult to a country that had fought a relatively honourable (if bloody) war. However, things were largely beginning to turn around under the Weimar republic under Gustav Stresseman. This all fell apart when the Wall Street Crash happened, as much of the financing of the recovery had come from US bankers, who withdrew their investment. Massive economic crash in Germany, which (partly because of Versailles) lacked the infrastructure and resiliance to recover.

In times of high inflation, mass unemployment and food shortages, people normally start looking towards extremist parties - they are the only ones who appear to offer solutions. However, the communist party in Germany was largely discredited (though it had done well in the 1928 elections), and was unable to respond to the advance of the Nazi party. In 1930, the Nazi's became the second largest party, two years later Hitler was Chancellor, and the rest...

[trauma-pet.livejournal.com]

I don't like Ratzinger because he is ultra conservative and seems to have strange ideas on things such as feminism being a contributing factor to men turning gay and saying that condoms don't stop aids so people shouldn't bother with them

I am aware he was in the hitler youth but I am also aware that pretty much everyone of that age was at the time in the area.

I just wish they had chosen a liberal pope not someone who has more excommunications on his record than anyone else:(

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

It's jump-on-the-bandwagon of easy labelling from all the trash tabloids.

[serpentstar.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I don't think anyone (or at least, anyone sensible) was associating compulsory membership of the Hitler Youth with being a Nazi. I certainly don't associate Germans with Nazis, and I know that Germany these days is probably one of the most vehemently anti-fascist countries in Europe...

...but...

I was talking about this with bridiep last night.

Just as a bit of background, her family on her late father's side are of Austrian Jewish origin. Her Dad got out of Austria just in time; most of the rest of his family didn't. Some of them killed themselves the day the Nazis marched into Vienna, some were killed later in concentration camps. One of the concentration camp survivors is still alive today, lovely person, won't talk about that time at all. Bridie's Dad died last month, liberal socialist humanist to the last; I don't know what he would have made of the new Pope, but he went to his grave convinced that religions were responsible for most of the world's evils, so I suspect his suspicions would have been confirmed.

Anyway, we eventually agreed that despite membership in the HY being compulsory at the time, that didn't mean that those who were inducted into it had no choice, or that Ratzinger didn't have a choice later when he fought for the Axis army against the Allies. Life might have been made very difficult for him had he refused. He might well have ended up in the concentration camps himself. But the truly ethical man would have taken those risks into consideration, and refused to join either the HY or the army. Anything less, to my mind, can be justified in an ordinary person -- but not in a man who supposedly sets the moral compass for a fair chunk of the world in his later life. There were always other options than joining the Hitler Youth and the army simply because he was ordered to do so.

I don't think his membership of the HY and the Axis army makes him a Nazi, but I do think it makes him too weak-willed to be Pope. But then, I don't agree with the Catholic idea that one can sin as much as one likes, so long as one confesses, so what do I know?

[lsur.livejournal.com]

There were always other options than joining the Hitler Youth and the army simply because he was ordered to do so.

What other options were there? I don't think it took much for a person to be denounced and get on the wrong side of the authorities in those days. Not everyone was in a position to emmigrate either.

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

"But the truly ethical man would have taken those risks into consideration"

A boy of 14 (the age he was forced to join HY) is, in no ways, a man.

As to the 16 year old being made to man an AA gun and then go out and lay tank traps, I'm pretty sure that this is the MAN (who had now attended a seminary) who, when he saw Jews being herded into death camps, deserted. Doing anything other than deserting would have been a very good way to get himself shot. Which, I find, is a very bad way to make a positive change.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

There were always other options than joining the Hitler Youth and the army simply because he was ordered to do so.

He was only 14 years old at the time -- it seems a bit harsh to hold that against him! And 16 when he was drafted into the army -- from which he deserted when he was 18.

Is it reasonable to say that a lack of the will to martyrdom in your teens should disbar you from a post of moral authority in later life? If so, then we have generations of people, who didn't resist being drafted into unjust wars, to rule out of leadership.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Anyway, we eventually agreed that despite membership in the HY being compulsory at the time, that didn't mean that those who were inducted into it had no choice, or that Ratzinger didn't have a choice later when he fought for the Axis army against the Allies

He deserted the army. As a deserter he would have been summarily shot had he been caught. What sort of further moral stance do you expect from a 17 year old boy?
He had been raised in an atmosphere of blind loyalty, political absolutism and trust and was inducted into the army to defend his homeland against what would have been perceived as an invading army. And still he refused, at risk of his own life.
Just what, I ask you, what more would you have a 17 year old do?
What would you have done?

The more I read, he strikes me as a remarkably brave and wise teenager. Certainly a great deal more than I or, I believe, anyone I know would have been.

[whiskeylover.livejournal.com]

Hmm- by all accounts, the 14 year old Ratzi deserted from the Hitler Youth, and even before this (which was dangerous) he did not fire a shot in the anti-aircraft battery he was assigned to.

While I am no fan of the new pope, weak-willed is a term I would most certainly not apply to him.

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

Whos calling hun a Nazi?

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

Him, not hun.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

It is a pretty deep-rooted prejudice among British people of my generation -- we grew up on a diet of war films in which German = Nazi = bad. So anyone who doesn't manifest the prejudice now, has probably had to actively overcome it to emotionally move into the post-war era.

Which most of us have successfully done -- anti-German racism is a small minority opinion now -- but when the phrase 'Hitler Youth member' is linked to a person whom we already have many reasons to dislike and fear, it maybe raises the old reflex.

(I must admit that I hadn't known membership was compulsory, or I wouldn't have mentioned it on my earlier post -- for which, sorry!)

[ua-meruti.livejournal.com]

This kind of mistake doesn't surprise me in a country which is as terrible at teaching history as this one. Hell a large portion of 15 year olds think Churchill was an insurance salesman (I kid you not - yet curiously they voted him the greatest Englishman ever).

Doesn't help that the term Hitler is now synonymous with Nazism (which isn't the same as Fascism) and all the evil things that the Nazis did. The good things he did for his country have been somewhat swept under the carpet.

[lsur.livejournal.com]

How do Nazism and Fascism differ?

[jholloway.livejournal.com]

The good things he did for his country have been somewhat swept under the carpet.

Yeah, my favorite thing Hitler did for Germany was declaring war on the US and the USSR. Nothing says fun like declaring on war on two countries that are collectively like ten times your size. Oops!

I think that "implemented social security programs" doesn't really put enough in the credit column to overbalance "sent millions to their deaths," "invaded neighbors," and "turned German cities into piles of flaming wreckage."

[jholloway.livejournal.com]

Well, yes and no, right? It's certainly true that membership in the party was limited, but not everyone who supported the Nazis was actually a member of the NSDAP, in the same way that not every person who supported Communism in the USSR was actually a member of the Communist Party, which was a restricted organization.

On the other hand, that isn't to suggest that Ratzinger was one of those people who supported the Nazi ideology.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Of course.

[sea-cucumber.livejournal.com]

*grin*
I just wrote a chunk in my LJ about this :) :)

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

You're like, totally tuned into what's hip.

[lsur.livejournal.com]

That damn karohemd's obsession with the Pope has opened a can of worms here :¬)

[lsur.livejournal.com]

Or should that be a Diet of Worms?

Weeeeelll...

[ukporl.livejournal.com]

I posted this on another friend's LJ, but I think the most worrying thing about him (speaking as somebody raised a Roman Catholic, but who, having analysed the situation found it difficult to take on board the infallibility of a mortal man who wasn't personally selected by Jesus, but by a bunch of similarly fallible men, decided that he wasn't going to buy that line and so pays no attention to the man behind the curtain) is his eyes.

Look at them...





But, you know, the ukporl-inherent 'sit-on-the-fence-until-you've-analysed-the-situation-to-death-and-investigated-every-angle-and-opportunity-including-the-ones-that-nobody-will-ever-know-about' attitude does pipe up in the back of my head that if you aren't part of the Church then it's not for you to say who shoud be in charge of it.
Of course, then, one of the other voices chips in with:

"But the Pope's selection affects others outside the Church and so it's right for people to be concerned if it affects them negatively. Like the whole issue of John Paul II saying homosexuality is 'disordered' and using condoms (regardless of the HIV status of either of the partners) is 'a mortal sin'."

And then another voice says:

"On the other hand, contrary to uninformed opinion, JP II spoke out about intolerance to AIDS sufferers and that the use of condoms being a sin was not the only solution to not contracting HIV - abstinence was the key issue and the ultimate santity of life which only the Almighty has the right to end or prevent, thus contraception is wrong."

Then some other chap comments:

"All very well, but the attitude that people should remain sexually inactive in today's society is naive and outmoded blanket statements can only serve to cause confusion and division within the Church..."


And so it goes on.
So next time you see me watching an argument rather than joining in...now you know why. I'm already having one. Just not audibly.

Re: Weeeeelll...

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Pretty much the same reason I usually don't get involved, either...