From: Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> They claim Ratzinger > was "coerced" into joining the Hitler Youth at 14 (yet the pictures of him > show him goose-stepping with a pronounced shit-eating grin.) They also > touted as a "positive" that Ratzinger was a "deserter" from the Wermacht > (he was a shell passer for an anti-craft battery).
... The "shit-eating grin" while goose-stepping could be the enthusiasm of youth (in an organization not so different from the Boy Scouts). ...
[Not so different?]
Hitler Youth
He alone, who owns the youth, gains the Future! -- Adolph Hitler, speech at the Reichsparteitag, 1935
The Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth), the NAZI party's youth movement, indoctrinated German youth to perpetuate the "1,000 year Reich." The Hitler Youth movement emphasized activism, physical training, NAZI ideology, especially nationalism and racial concepts, and absolute obedience to Hitler and the NAZI Party. Indoctrinating children in National Socialist ideology was a key goal of the NAZI Party. Once Hitler assumed control over the German state, he used the Government to make the Hitler Youth the country's all encompassing youth movement. Hitler and other NAZIs leaders saw the indoctrination of young Germans as of critical importance. In the same year that they took power, the NAZIs organized German youth organizations into two branches of the Hitler Youth (Hitler Jugen), one branch for boys and one for girls. Membership was eventually made compulsory and all boys had to report to a neighborhood office to have his racial background checked and be registered for membership. There was then a typically elaborate introduction ceremony on the F�hrer's birthday.
The Hitler Youth was not just a German version of the Boy Scouts. The Hitler Youth were more similar to the Soviet Young Pioneers, but even with the Pioneers there were major differences. Hitler from the beginning saw the Hitler Youth movement as a tool to hardening boys for their future role of soldiers. He wanted a generation of "victorious active, daring youth, immune to pain." There was to be no "intellectual" training for the boys of the New Order, he saw intellectual pursuits as damaging to German youth. ...
<http://histclo.hispeed.com/youth/youth/org/nat/hitler/hitler.htm>
BTW, the original text of that excerpt bristles with misspellings, so maybe the Nazis' anti-intellectualism is contagious ... or maybe the author is wholly unreliable and Hitler Youth really were like Boy Scouts ... Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent :)
Carl Boy Scout, 2nd Class (Ret.)
