The German Pope

[Guest guest]

Thanks, Dan, for your succinct one-liner to fa about membership in

Hitler Youth during the Nazizeit not having been voluntary. In the

summer of 1954 I sailed to Europe and back on a ship that flew under

the Panamanian flag. A friend of mine and I travelled together on our

way over but our itineraries diverged and I came back by myself, which

inspired me to get to know some of the staff people (or whatever should

be the right nautical word). Rumor had it that ships under the

Panamanian flag were the only naval employment Germans could get at

that time and I must confess the pursar gave me the heebee-jeebies.

But I befriended a gal ( " Hannelore " ) a little older than I, as well as

her cabin-mate ( " Frau B " ) quite a lot older than both of us. This was

my first hands-on (so to speak) learning about exactly what you

mention. Hannelore was a bright, inquisitive, and conscientious soul

[if I may use that word in these theologically prickly days] and she

told me what it had been like for her to join Hitler Youth as an

adolescent, believing in things that sound kind of like some parts of

the " green " movement and enthusiasms in this country right now [except

for HY having been conscripted there -- big difference!]. Things like

helping the farmers -- and all sorts of stuff that I suppose goes with

being an adolescent in an afflicted country during bad times. I found

it hard to imagine anyone would not have known about the Holocaust, but

she wasn't putting me on -- she just plain did not. Until later her

travels took her to England. During our time of shipboard acquaintance

she was in the kind of mind-boggling state of trying to reprogram her

entire mind and sense of reality (aka " beliefs " ) from how she'd been

brainwashed during the war.

Well, that's just one of my pieces of " memories dreams reflections " but

as it happened, I knew many anti-Nazi Germans who stayed in Germany

during WWII as well as many who emigrated to the U.S. Those shipboard

evevenings chatting with Hannelore and Frau B in their cabin gave me a

clue/insight into life in Germany during the war which makes me hopeful

that Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI need not fit too many of the

slots that so many people seem inclined to assign to him. Conceivably

he's a person who can learn from experience?! Has, and will continue

to? Let's hope so.

To All: I hope you don't mind my modes of posting -- I have An Inferior

Sensation Function IN SPADES and the reply mode format most of you use

CONFUSES me!! All those >s etc. in reply-form posts. :-)

Wednesday, Apr. 20 Greetings to All