The Pope

[Gibber]

Not especially you see you had to join the Hitler Youth whereas a lot of the doctors and scientist working for the Nazi regime were doing so with a luger at the back of their noggin.

 

There was almost universal accecptance of the Nazi regime by the medical profession, Nazi membership was greater among doctors by a factor of 7, over any other profession by 1937. Lawyers were similar if I remember rightly and I bet scientists were no different. You're right JohanofNess to say that the Nazis hated Judaism and one of the reasons doctors joined the party was prejudice against the number of Jewish doctors in Germany, a prejudice that was shared throughout the country.

 

Germany at this time was a society geared towards Nazism in no small part because the "top professions" like doctors accecpted it so readily, not because teenagers were "put" into the Nazi Youth. Of course thats not to say there wasn't a lot of young people who were happy to be Nazis and happy with the ideology of Nazism. It is unclear about the Pope's feelings at the time but his membership alone shouldn't outright be damning.

[EM]

Does anyone know if he was made to join, a willing member of the Nazis, or just spineless like he was about kiddie fiddling catholic priest?

It is an amazingly ridiculous situation. He says he was in the HJ, his brother says he was, yet the Vatican now claim he wasn't . Given how irrelevant an issue it is, I read that as an attempt to keep people focused on that rather than his real crimes.

[GypsyScy]

The Vatican is the most corrupt 'nation' in the world, everything that comes out of there is lies and cover ups. Watched a report once on how the vatican invests it's money...it could be traced right back by association to the Porn industry, Drugs and Human trafficking. Everything it proclaims to be against.

[Guest Anonymous]

The vatican claims it could raise the largest army the world has ever seen yet when they should have done so ie the second world war they remained very quiet. The excuse for this was fear of reprisals against catholics in germany and the occupied countries. yet roughly half if not more of the german army were catholic if there had been a papal edict to resist the nazis just how far would hitler (also a catholic) of been able to lead the german people. The fact is the Vatican supported the regime right from the start and wholeheartedly got behind the execution of jews and other untermeinchin (not sure of spelling). There were a few catholics of good faith who stood up to the nazis but they did so without the support and in the case of priests against direct orders from rome.

The catholic church and all it stands for is a blight on humanity.

[GypsyScy]

The cathoilc curch was instrumental in the formation of the Irish pro-nazi brigade the Blue Shirts in Ireland, the Blue Shirt army were sent out to fight alongside Franco in the Sapnish Civil war under the guise of fighting to defend the cause of the catholic church and christianity against communisim in Europe. The uniform of the Blue Shirts was to mirror that of the German brown shirts and the Italian black shirts.

"The Army Comrades Association was established in Ireland in February 1932. Following the fashion of the private armies on the continent of the period they adopted a uniform from which it’s members were referred to as Blue Shirts. General Eoin O’Duffy, a former Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army and Commissioner of the Garda Siochana became the leader of the organisation. He renamed the movement the National Guard and organised marches, flags and salutes similar to those of Nazi Germany’s Brownshirts. In addition to these practices the movement espoused militant Catholicism, anti-communism and corporatism, all of this came with the blessing of the irish bishops"

[GypsyScy]

EH???????

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11332515

[NewMagnie]

"I was drafted! Everybody was doing it! I didn't shoot!' Who cares - every poor sod caught up in that mess was compromised one way or another.

 

The sad thing is, being part of the HJ is probably the moral high point of his life. Talking the Africans out of using condoms is right up there with the Holocaust as far as I'm concerned.

 

But the conflation of Nazism with atheism? Shaky, shaky ground, old man. There were as many padres in Hitler's armies as there were commissars in Stalin's (or thereabouts...)