[meandog]

Membership in Hitlerjugen was mandatory after 1935--no exceptions! All other youth groups (boy and girl scouts) in Germany were outlawed...
Furthermore, Hitler Youth meetings began usually with a pledge to the Fuhrer and Fatherland with a song (usually the Hors Wessels) sung in praise to the movement. Therefore, young Ratzinger would have raised his hand in the Nazi salute despite all denials to this fact because, had he not, he and his parents would have gotten a visit from the Gestapo. I am not claiming that he was an enthusiastic member, but denial of his participation in Hitlerjugen by the Roman Catholic church is beginning to become as silly as Bill Clinton denials about "having sex with that woman, Miss Lewinski"!.

[NYer]

Ratzinger a Nazi? Don't believe it

[rogator]

Being forcibly enrolled in something and willingly participating in something are two different things.
Your opinion of Mormonism is pretty obvious from your FR About Page. Who knows, down the road a few decades you might just be enrolled in that Faith Tradition by proxy Baptism.

[dangus]

The Cardinal’s outburst is quite unwise, but there is quite a distinction that can be made between being enrolled automatically through a bureaucratic office, and becoming a “member.” In America’s bureaucratic obsession, to be enrolled is to be a member. Post a message on a web site and you end up being counted as a “member” of said organization. Sign up for an email to find out what Obama is saying, and you become a “member” of MoveOn.org.

“Member,” however, literally means a body part. Pope Benedict XVI fled rather than participate in the Hitler Youth. In other words, he risked his very life to NOT participate in the Hitler Youth. Therefore, it is perverse beyond any sanity to describe him as a member so as to make it seem like he had anything but outrage and contempt for the Hitler Youth.

Now, if Benedict stated he was enrolled in the Hitler Youth, and his biographer wrote that he was a member, I won’t call the biographer a liar. But that hardly means that Benedict has contradicted a cardinal who insists he was “never, never, never” a member.

Now, did Benedict flee before ever having head the Hors Wessels? Did he stand there with his arm raised, hoping his instuctors would not notice he wasn’t singing? Or did he regard as meaningless whatever he was forced to sing, because he did so with no free will and the intention to flee and disavow what he had said? I don’t claim to know. But to infer he was a Nazi under any scenario, as these politicians are doing is beneath contempt.