Pope Benedict XVI
In his 1996 autobiography Salt of the Earth, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) revealed that he was a member of Hitler Youth when he was 14 years old. However, in a May 2009 trip to Israel, Benedict's spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi told reporters that Ratzinger was never in the Hitler Youth, actually being in the Luftwaffe as an air force assistant. According to the Pope's brother, Monsignor Gregor Ratzinger, Josef was automatically placed on the Hitler Youth membership rolls on turning 14, as was required by law, but "did not attend meetings." In 1943 Ratzinger was conscripted into the Flakhelfer, teenage boys who assisted the crews of Luftwaffe antiaircraft guns; he eventually deserted and made his way to the American lines. The Ratzinger family, according to those who knew them, were very religious and hated the Nazi regime.
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| Nazism |
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Organizations
- Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen (NSRL)
- National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP)
- Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo)
- Sturmabteilung (SA)
- Schutzstaffel (SS)
- Hitler Youth (HJ)
- League of German Girls (BDM)
- National Socialist Women's League (NSF)
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History
- Early timeline
- Hitler's rise to power
- Machtergreifung
- German re-armament
- Nazi Germany
- Religion in Nazi Germany
- Night of the Long Knives
- Nuremberg Rally
- Anti-Comintern Pact
- Kristallnacht
- World War II
- Tripartite Pact
- The Holocaust
- Nuremberg Trials
- Neo-Nazism
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Ideology (non-racial)
- Fascism
- Gleichschaltung
- Hitler's political views
- Mein Kampf
- Militarism
- National Socialist Program
- New Order
- Propaganda
- Proletarian nation
- Religious aspects
- Syncretic Politics
- Women in the Third Reich
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Racial ideology
- Aryan race
- Blood and soil
- Eugenics
- Greater Germanic Reich
- Heim ins Reich
- Lebensraum
- Master race
- Racial policy of Nazi Germany
- Völkisch equality
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Final Solution
- Concentration camps
- Deportations
- Doctors' Trial
- Extermination camps
- Genocide
- Ghettos
- Labour camps
- Human experimentation
- Pogroms
- Racial segregation
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People
- Adolf Hitler
- Heinrich Himmler
- Hermann Göring
- Joseph Goebbels
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Beyond Germany
- American Nazi Party
- Arrow Cross Party (Hungary)
- German American Bund
- Greyshirts (South Africa)
- Hungarian National Socialist Party
- Nasjonal Samling (Norway)
- Nationaal-Socialistische
Beweging (Netherlands)
- National Movement of Switzerland (NBS)
- National Socialist Bloc (Sweden)
- National Socialist League (UK)
- Movimiento Nacional Socialista de Chile
- National Socialist Movement (United States)
- National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark
- National Unity Party (Canada)
- Nationalist Liberation Alliance (Argentina)
- Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (India)
- Ossewabrandwag (South Africa)
- Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement
(Independent State of Croatia)
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Literature
- National Socialist Program
- Mein Kampf
- The Legal Basis of the Total State
- The Myth of the Twentieth Century
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Lists
- Books by or about Adolf Hitler
- Nazi ideologues
- Nazi Party leaders and officials
- Nazi Party members
- Former Nazi Party members
- Speeches given by Adolf Hitler
- SS personnel
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Related topics
- Antisemitism
- Fascism
- Glossary of Nazi Germany
- The Holocaust
- Neo-Nazism
- Strasserism
- Völkisch movement
- Denazification
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