On the train on Friday, contemplating the gridlock in New York City due to Pope Benedict's presence, we were discussing the papacy and the pope and various other things. My seat-mate exclaimed that she would never support Benedict because he was a Nazï and, by the way, how did the Cardinals come to select a former Nazï as pope. I was startled because I'm usually (too?) aware of such allegations but I knew nothing of this one. So I looked it up. Apparently, this is what happened: when Benedict (Ratzinger then) turned fourteen in 1943 he was required to join the Hitler youth; I'm sure the consequences of not joining were brutal by then partly based on the fact that estimates are that only a very few resisted though I am going to dig a bit further and see what happened to those who did resist. In any case, he joined the Hitler Youth but attended few meetings and did get into trouble for that, although again that's not clearly documented where I was looking fairly cursorily. At 16, Ratzinger was conscripted into the German army (yes, a few refused but the consequences had a note of, um, finality) but he avoided what he could and became ill enough that he couldn't take part in most activities. (I'd be curious to know more about the 'illness'.) The war ended in early 1944 in Germany and he was put into a POW camp because he was a soldier, from which he was released in the summer of 1945. So I guess technically he was a Nazï.

Here's a question - which I'm asking myself as well as anyone else who feels like answering: Should all those who were Hitler Youth and in the army in Germany in the 1940s be identified as such, and held accountable, and viewed as somewhat evil and/or sinful, by definition?

Keep in mind that our perspective on this, in 2008, is skewed somewhat because of the constant availability of news and information; in the 1940s there was no 24-hour-media coverage so few 'ordinary' people knew the horrors that were the concentration camps, nor even, I suspect, the twisted ideological underpinnings of the Nazï worldview. Even today with all the information we can have, don't most people just go about their lives doing day-to-day things that need to be done? In Germany in the 1940s it would have been unusual to know, let alone do, otherwise. Some writing has considered whether the German populace bears some blame for not seeing what was happening under Hitler, and refusing to cooperate. What is a citizenry reasonably to be expected to know and do?

These days, in the beginning of the twenty-first century, even young children know many things about their society and world. The adult and child spheres aren't separated by much. But until quite recently, and certainly in the 1940s, children were controlled by their elders in nearly every way. Today's children would find it hard to imagine, let alone live that way. So I wonder about a German teenager, even if he or she somehow knew about Nazï atrocities, even if he or she somehow had considered and was aware of how morally bankrupt the Nazï philosophy was. Should he or she been both aware and strong enough to refuse directives from school and community and perhaps parents? Certainly it would be ideal if everyone's thoughts and actions were ramrod upright and clear-headed, morally speaking. On the other hand, is it reasonable or fair to excoriate those who are not, who are simply ordinarily human? On the other hand, should they be elevated to the papacy? On the other hand, should ordinary humans be excluded from such positions? . . . . . . . ?

Labels: modern culture, reflections