Milestones: Memoirs, 1927-1977
by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joseph Cardinal RatzingerBrand: Ignatius Press
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-10
ISBN: 0898707021
Number of pages: 156
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Book Reviews of Milestones: Memoirs, 1927-1977
Book Review: Was Ratzinger a Nazi?
Summary: 5 Stars
When Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI over a year ago, many journalists quipped that "Ratzi the Nazi" is now Pope. Indeed, the image of the German Pope being an ex-Nazi will probably never be lost for the remainder of his life, and though this extremely learned and dignified man shouldn't for a second be upset over the attacks made on him by people whose learning amounts to no more than a tiny fraction of his own, addressing the "Ratzi the Nazi" myth is worthwhile, if for no other reason than that it may teach some people to read something instead of making judgments on the basis of the lies and leftist clichés their brains are inculcated with in modern "schools."
So what evidence can you find in Ratzinger's memoirs that he came from an anti-Nazi family and himself disdains Nazism?
He wrote that "time and again, in public meetings" his father took "a position against the violence of the Nazis" (p. 12), that after the January 30, 1933 "seizure of power" in which Hindenburg transferred to Hitler the position of chancellor of the Reich his father was "mortified...to have to work...for a government whose representatives he considered to be criminals" (p. 14), that his father "would warn and aid priests he knew were in danger" due to the Nazi practice of spying and informing on priests who behaved as "enemies of the Reich" (p. 14), that his father "saw that a victory of Hitler's (in World War II) would not be a victory for Germany but rather a victory of the Antichrist that would surely usher in apocalyptic times for all believers, and not only for them" (p. 27), and that his father "voiced all his ire against Hitler" to the faces of two SS men given shelter in the Ratzinger house (in either April or May of 1945), an action which "as a rule should have had deadly consequences for him," or, in other words, an action that put his life in danger (p. 36-37). In September of 1944 Ratzinger was assigned to a Nazi forced-labor camp run by Nazis who Ratzinger described as "fanatical ideologues who tyrannized us without respite" (p. 32-33); and, in either late April or early May of 1945 (Ratzinger doesn't remember precisely) he risked his life to escape the Nazi forced-labor camp; he made the escape attempt with the knowledge that soldiers "had orders to shoot deserters on the spot" (p. 36). On page 42 he refers to Nazism as a "destructive ideology."
On lewrockwell.com Paul Gottfried briefly explained that the "Ratzi the Nazi" charge is entirely grotesque:
"Except for a forced membership in the Hitlerjugend and a minor role protecting German cities against the Allied bombing of German civilians, Ratzinger had no links to the Third Reich. Before the War's end, he surrendered to American forces, which allowed him to return to a Catholic seminary. He and his brother Georg, who also became a priest, came from a staunchly anti-Nazi Bavarian family, which made only the smallest necessary compromises to survive in a regime they plainly disliked."
Summary of Milestones: Memoirs, 1927-1977
Rich in humor and culture, passion and love for the cause of God and of man, Milestones is the autobiography of one of the most influential men in the Catholic Church at the turn of the millennium. In his famous Apology, Cardinal Newman accounted for his conversion to Catholicism. In this biography, which in certain respects recalls Newman's masterpiece, Ratzinger tells of his family life, the years of the Nazi oppression and of the war, his extraordinary academic path, and his participation in the Second Vatican Council. Illustrated.Popes Books
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