Tuesday, April 19, 2005

New Pope. No opinions yet. I need to read a bit about him from different sources. Not sure what to make of these Hitler Youth allegations. A buddy of mine tried to rationalize it by saying that most Germans of that era (and age) were in involved in that sort of thing.

Now, I'm all about fresh starts but that seems to me to be the sort of thing that might inhibit good will and ecumenicism. Sort of like having Cardinal Law host parties for kids (and yes, I know he wasn't accused of abusing children...just covering for those that did).

As for Popes, I'll take mine Alexander-style. Nothing quite like that great 18th Century poet (and Catholic - in England where Catholicism was banned at the time). Makes me think of college and Dr. Hines. She loved herself some Pope.

Everyone shoud go read The Rape of the Lock. You'll be a better person for it. Find it here or an annotated version here.

One more thing...go checkout my good friend Gum Drop Alice (aka: magicwritinggal). Inspired by me (I hope) she's done joined the clique and got herself a blog. It's bookmarked on the side. Check it out. Hell, visit all of them...each has a unique voice and opinions. I think they make the world a bit better just by being it it. Okay...enough sap. I don't live in Vermont.
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5 comments:

Ken said...

Thanks. I won't let it go to my head.

April 19, 2005 9:21 PM
jennybee said...

Ah, Doc Hines. She did love herself some Pope. I'd almost forgotten. "Now, Mis-ter My-ers..."

As for the Hitler youth thing, I would like to think that Popes would stay away out of genocide-promoting organizations, but then again, they're Popes. Not exactly a bloodless legacy.

Thanks for the props. Though Gumdrop should be one word, as I'm not dropping Doublemint. Ooh, dropping gum...Sounds like a mildly inappropriate new vice.

April 20, 2005 7:02 AM
jennybee said...

You know, old Benedict is really more like the German lovechild of Palpatine and Uncle Fester. Not a mating I care to see.

April 20, 2005 7:09 AM
munkee girl said...

DADGUM! I was so itching to reply to this last week, and Blogger was having problems with postings (hence the three Vagabond comments when I only clicked the button once).

So, this will be an abbreviated rant as the timeliness is over. Let's just say that the allegations over the Hitler Youth are ridiculous for a number of reasons.

1) The appeal of the Hitler Youth was the appeal of the Boy Scouts--they went camping, hung out at people's houses, did woodworking projects. Most kids tuned out the racist comments. In fact, the cover of Hans Juergen Massaquoi's book _Destined to Witness_ shows him as an Afro-German growing up in Nazi Germany; he's wearing a sweater vest with a swastika pin attached. He was terribly disappointed that he was not allowed to join the Hitler Youth. By the way, this book is a fascinating read and goes from his youth/young adulthood in Nazi Germany through his time serving in the U.S. Army to his search for his father's family in Africa to his work as an editor for _Ebony_.

2) Many "volunteer" activities in the Third Reich were hardly volunteer. If you worked for the government at all (as a policeman, school teacher, nurse, etc.), you were forced to join the Nazi party. Ratzinger's father was a policeman in a small town (albeit in pro-Nazi Bavaria), and it is said that Ratzinger himself was forced to join. Sometimes dissent was tolerated, but sometimes one stray comment could land you in a concentration camp, as was the case when a drunken worker made disparaging remarks about Hitler in a pub and was picked up by the Gestapo very soon after. You can read about that account and many others in Ian Kershaw's fascinating work _Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich, Bavaria 1933-45_, in which he researches the archives of secret police reports sent in by informants throughout the Third Reich in even the smallest towns.

3) It's very easy for us to sit in a free society and argue that we would have acted differently. I would like to think that I would sacrifice myself to save someone else, but who knows? And what if you were asked to put the lives of your parents, siblings, spouse, children at risk? In Anna Segher's fantastic _The Seventh Cross_ (published from exile DURING the Third Reich), she follows an escapee from a concentration camp who ends up at a former work buddy's doorstep. The work buddy knows that if he doesn't give his former friend assylum, the Nazis will torture and crucify him on the eponymous seventh cross. But he also knows his wife and two young children will be killed if the man is discovered in his house. Not an easy choice. Another great book on living in the Third Reich and the ramifications of protesting is Ernst Wiechert's _Forest of the Dead_, which he wrote after the Nazis sent him to Buchenwald for dissent--he buried the book in his backyard until after the Reich, since the Gestapo regularly searched his home after his release.

Hmmmn...so much for a short rant. Sorry--this topic seriously hinks me off in terms of lessons NOT learned. After all, what is the world community doing to stop atrocities that are as bad as or worse than what the Nazis did that are occurring right now in Uganda and the Sudan?

April 25, 2005 1:02 PM
Ken said...

I agree with you re. Sudan, Uganda, etc...

April 25, 2005 4:19 PM

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