My Brother, the Pope

by Georg Ratzinger

  We reached the area around Cassino when the monastery was already lying in ruins. The Americans had established their bridgehead near Nettuno in order to bypass the main German line of defense so as to be able to advance more quickly to Rome. So in our position, we were exposed to constant fire from two sides. It was like being in hell down there; it was always thundering, God knows how. Once they told us that we all had to get out of our positions, the Americans were about to attack. We were lying on the ground at a distance of four or five yards from each other when I noticed my neighbor was no longer moving. That was when I saw that his whole hip was bloody and that he was already dead. Then we had to stand up and begin our retreat. Each one had his weapon, his ammunition pouch, and all his gear. The Americans followed us with tanks; we were moving on foot. Then we marched to Rome. In view of Saint Peter’s Basilica, we were allowed to come to a halt. We were dead tired. Despite that, I would have been so glad to go into that magnificent church just for a prayer, but it was forbidden. Churches in general were off limits to us. Then came the command: Continue the march, and leave the city by a particular street, the Via Cassia. We also heard the shouts of joy of the populace as we left Rome. The people were glad when the Americans arrived and we were gone, and who could blame them.

  My brother told me how Professor Hubert Jedin (1900-1980), the famous Church historian, experienced the events of that time. His mother was of Jewish extraction, and so he had fled to the Vatican, which he was not allowed to leave during the nine months of the German occupation. He had observed how the Germans pulled back from Rome on foot and the American army moved in with their trucks. The Germans made such a weary, downtrodden impression that people could already tell how it all would end, that they had already lost the war.

  By the Via Cassia we reached Bolsena, a little town in Latium, north of Rome, where a famous eucharistic miracle took place during the Middle Ages.

  A Bohemian priest on a pilgrimage to Rome in 1263 was offering the Sacrifice of the Mass in the Church of Saint Christina when doubts occurred to him about the presence of the Lord in the Eucharist, in other words, about the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. But at the moment when he broke the Host, blood dripped from it, human blood, onto the altar cloth. The miracle was reported immediately to the pope, who was staying at the time in Orvieto, and the altar cloth with the large bloodstain was brought there. Today it is still displayed in the cathedral in Orvieto. Subsequently the pope reigning then, Urban IV (1261-1264), inaugurated the Feast of Corpus Christi.

  There, in Bolsena, on June 12, 1944, we engaged the Americans in a firefight and tried to stop them. During the battle, a grenade exploded near me, and the force swept up my arms—and then I saw that my right upper arm was bleeding heavily. I drew my arm back right away and thanked God that I could still move it. Nevertheless, I was afraid I might never be able to play music again, and for me that was a rather depressing thought. In any case, I crawled to the nearest Red Cross tank, torturously made my way into it with difficulty and a lot of pain, and let them bring me to a cave where the Red Cross treated the wounded. An assistant doctor was there, who first cut open my sleeve and treated me. The whole arm was so completely covered with dried blood that initially he could not find the wound. But then he discovered the point of entry on the one side and the exit wound on the other. Apparently at the moment when my arms went up, an enemy bullet had gone clear through my arm. “That’s a nice million-dollar wound”, was his mildly ironic comment on the gunshot wound, which was actually quite harmless, and he was right. After making several stops, an ambulance brought me to Rosenheim, where there was an assembly point for the sick. There I saw how much suffering the war had inflicted on the young men of my generation, many of whom were now crippled because they had to have a leg or an arm amputated. Fortunately, there was a very reasonable senior medical officer there. He himself had once been wounded and brought to a military hospital, in which he had felt very lonely, and so he had resolved to grant each soldier his wish. Therefore he asked me where I wanted to go, and naturally I answered, “To Traunstein.” So I was transferred as a wounded soldier to the military hospital in Traunstein, on the premises of our former seminary. Around that time, specifically on July 20, 1944, the attempt to assassinate Hitler took place, but we heard little about it in the military hospital. Of course we would have hoped the war would end right then, but, as everyone knows, that was unfortunately not the case. Yet at least I could recuperate from the hardships of war in Traunstein. Soon I had full use of my arm again, too, which was a big relief for me. The nurses gave me good food, the usual ration and always a little more besides. Every ten days, I got a new medical chart, on which my present weight was also noted, and after ten days it said that I had already gained twenty-two pounds. At first I had no doubt about that, but then it turned out the scale was broken. At any rate, I spent a few nice days there in my former seminary during which I quickly regained my strength. So I was soon assigned to a convalescent company and was sent first to Prague and then to the Czech hinterland. There we had to fell trees and cut them up into small pieces. We used to say we were only making cheap firewood for the Czechs, and that was precisely the case. When our convalescent company was stationed in a little town, they told us at first that we would be transferred to Yugoslavia to serve as a guerilla unit. But the assistant officer of our division prevented that and managed to have us transferred to Italy to rejoin our troop. At that time, I came to the region around Imola and was assigned to the radio unit. That meant in practice that during the day I stayed in the bunker and at night had to go out to repair broken telephone lines, which was a rather dangerous job.

  Our next position, near Dozza in the province of Bologna, was hell on earth. We were situated on the north side of Monte Maggiore, while the Americans opened fire on us from the south side. Actually they shot at the cliffs over us, and again and again fragments of rock broke off from them and fell down on us. Then there was dust and a roar, and as soon as there was a pause in the fire, we first had to fortify our bunkers. One day, on April 15, 1945, the artillery fire suddenly stopped, and they began launching white phosphorus shells that turned the mountain slope into a sea of flames. Everything around us was burning, all the bushes and trees. The next day began with a deathly silence that was almost ghostly. For a moment we thought the war was over. But then the Americans stormed our bunker with fixed bayonets and a shout that set our teeth on edge and drove us out. First, they took our watches and then our medals. I had two decorations, one for being wounded in action and then the Iron Cross Second Class, which was awarded to everyone who had mended the broken telephone lines a few times. In a roundabout way, they brought us to a prison camp near Vesuvius, where there were several camps, each for four thousand captured soldiers. At first we were guarded by white soldiers, but then they were relieved by black Americans, who took everything a little easier. It even happened occasionally that they fell asleep at their guard posts and their weapons fell down—to us in the camp. That was of course a serious offense for which they were usually disciplined. So we used to snap up the weapon and sell it back to the guard for cigarettes. It was not long before the colored soldiers were replaced by Italians. We welcomed them by stacking our tin cans in such a way that they looked like canon barrels, which we then aimed at them. So the Italians thought we were in possession of heavy artillery, and they fled immediately, so that for a time we were on our own again.

  Finally the American administration organized a train that would transport the first group of prisoners to be released. They had instructed some German soldiers whom they trusted to some degree, including theologians, to draw up the necessary list of persons. The first plan was to give preference to all vitally important occupations, in other words, farm workers, transportation workers, in short, all the workers. But shortly thereafter, this order was revoked, and they said that everyone from the eastern part of Germany had to remain in the camp. Therefore, t
he first train of released prisoners was reorganized, and one of the theologians who knew me put me on this list. So I returned home by the first train of released prisoners that traveled from Italy to Germany. That was in mid-July of 1945.

  Joseph Ratzinger did not escape the war, either. In 1943 the brownshirted rulers had a new idea. Since boarding-school students lived in community away from home anyway, they reasoned, you could relocate their boarding schools arbitrarily—for instance, to the batteries of the Flugabwehr (anti-aircraft defense, or “Flak”). Since they could not spend the whole day studying, it would make sense for them to spend their free time defending against enemy planes. Thus, the seminarians from Traunstein who were born in 1926 and 1927 were drafted into the Flak and went to Munich. They lived in barracks like the regular soldiers, wore similar uniforms, and had almost the same duties. The only difference was that in addition they took a reduced load of courses taught by the teachers from the Maximilians-Gymnasium in Munich. Since the students of that school had likewise been drafted, it was a mixed class. For Joseph, it was an exciting experience suddenly to meet with students of the same age from the big city. After some initial friction, everyone learned to get along and to form a community.

  Their first post was Ludwigsfeld to the north of Munich. Their duty there was to protect a branch of the Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) that manufactured airplane motors. Later they were transferred to Unterföhring, then to Innsbruck, and finally to Gilching, to the west of Munich, where the Dornier-Werke were located. Since the Allied bombers gathered in that same airspace for their attacks on Munich, the position was doubly important. For the sixteen-year-old Joseph Ratzinger, who once described himself as being “so nonmilitary a person” (M 31), it was a difficult time. Nevertheless, he tried to make the best of it. He asked to be assigned to the observation division and then to telephone communications and thus could at least avoid having to shoot. He was fortunate: the noncommissioned officer in charge of them relentlessly defended the autonomy of his group. At some point or other, the group was exempted from all military exercises, and no one dared to intrude into their little world. Finally, he was even assigned to a little single room in one of the barracks. He used every spare minute to read and, with a large group of active Catholics in the unit, was able to organize, first, religious instruction and, then, occasional visits to churches. One of the men who served in the same Flak battery with him, the now eighty-four-year-old Walter Fried of Munich, still remembers well the “very reserved, relatively unpretentious” youth. Once, he related to the news magazine Der Spiegel, a high-ranking officer came by for an inspection. Then, one after the other, each had to say what he wanted to be someday. Many, including Fried, said they wanted to become a pilot. In that case, there were no further questions. “When Ratzinger’s turn came, he said he wanted to become a priest. There was some derisive laughter. But of course at that time it did take some courage to give such an answer.”

  Flak assistant Joseph Ratzinger, second from the left, 1943

  At first, the students were still allowed to go into the city three times a week to attend classes at the Maximilians-Gymnasium. But gradually the trips turned into a nightmare. The city was bombarded with increasing frequency by the Allies, and it seemed to be sinking more and more into ruins. Soon there was nothing in the air but smoke and an intense smell of fire. Finally, rail travel was no longer possible; a bomb attack had destroyed the tracks. The seminarians hoped that the Western powers would succeed and end the war as soon as possible. Yet several of them would not live to see the end of the war.

  On September 10, 1944, the students were released from the Flak. Yet no sooner had Joseph arrived in Traunstein than he received his draft notice to report to the work service of the Reich. After an endless ride on a truck bed, his battalion arrived in the Austrian Burgenland. There an enormous army of forced laborers was supposed to erect a “southeastern rampart” post-haste, in order to stop the advance of the Russians. The next two months were the most horrible time of his life, for the SS officers were in command. The young men endured nothing short of enslavement. In the night, they were summoned from their plank beds in the barracks and pressured to enlist “voluntarily” in the weapons branch of the SS. Many who were too exhausted to offer resistance became obliged in this way to serve the monster. When Ratzinger said he had the intention of becoming a Catholic priest, he was ridiculed and insulted. But at least that chalice passed from him.

  In the Reich work service, the seventeen-year-old realized for the first time the pseudo-religious character of National Socialism, “Hitler’s religion” in pure form. Like his brother, Georg, he too was “trained according to a ritual invented in the 1930s, which was adapted from a kind of ‘cult of the spade’, that is, a cult of work as redemptive power”, as he wrote in his memoirs, Milestones (33). Picking up and putting down the spade, cleaning it, and presenting it seemed to him like a “pseudo-liturgy”. Only when the front drew closer did the spade rituals come to an abrupt end. Suddenly the spade was once again what it really always had been: a banal, everyday tool. Its “fall”, however, was emblematic of the collapse of National Socialism that was now unmistakably occurring everywhere: “A full-scale liturgy and the world behind it were being unmasked as a lie” (M 34).

  Usually work service personnel at the front were automatically taken over by the armed forces. Yet Joseph Ratzinger was again lucky. First, he was sent back home, completely unexpectedly. He started his journey by taking the train, which had to stop again and again when air-raid alarms sounded. The trip led through Vienna, which now also bore the scars of bombardment during the war. In his beloved Salzburg, not only was the train station in ruins, but the beautiful Renaissance cathedral also appeared to have been hit. As the train was about to travel right through Traunstein because of an aerial threat, he quickly decided to jump off.

  Finally he was at home. “It was an idyllically beautiful fall day”, he later recalled: “There was a bit of hoarfrost on the trees, and the mountains glowed in the afternoon sun. Seldom have I ever experienced the beauty of my homeland as on this return from a world disfigured by ideology and hatred” (M 34). He never liked the military. Now, however, after he had experienced first hand the horrors of war, he first realized how precious peace was.

  But the war was not yet over. After a “welcome respite” of three weeks, he was called to Munich. There the officer who had to assign the young men probably no longer believed in “final victory”, either. “What shall we do with you? Where is your home?” he asked the young man. “In Traunstein”, Joseph answered. “We have a barracks there,” the officer replied, “so go to Traunstein, and don’t start right away, but enjoy a few nice days first” (see M 35).

  So first he had to go through basic training in the barracks in Traunstein. In a dejected mood, he celebrated a melancholy Christmas in 1944 with his comrades in their living quarters. When he became sick, he was exempt from service for almost the entire month of February. In general, the chief duty of his company seemed to be marching through the city in new uniforms and singing war songs to prove to the public that the “Führer” still had young, freshly trained soldiers at his disposal. Then, when there was still a danger of being called to the front, Joseph took courage—and simply deserted.

  At that time—this was in April 1945—he was risking his life, because the SS had orders to shoot deserters on the spot or to hang them on the nearest tree as a warning to anyone who might try to imitate them. When two soldiers confronted him at a railroad underpass, his heart sank. But he was lucky again. Obviously the two armed servicemen were just as sick and tired of the war as he was. And since he had his arm in a sling because of an injury, they let him pass. “Comrade, you are wounded. Move on!” So, finally, he arrived home unharmed.

  But even there he was not safe. A few days later, two SS men were quartered in his parents house. They saw the young man of military age and began to ask uncomfortable questions. When his father then aired his a
ngry opinions about Hitler, it seemed that his fate was sealed. But for inscrutable reasons, the two Nazis disappeared again the next day without having caused any mischief.

  Finally, the Americans marched into Traunstein. Even though it was so modest, they made the Ratzinger house their headquarters. When they identified Joseph as a former soldier, he had to put on his uniform and surrender formally. His mother was horrified when she learned that her son was now considered a prisoner of war. She quickly prepared for him some semolina gruel, while he himself put an empty notebook and a pencil in his pocket before setting out together with several hundred other prisoners of war from his small town on the path to an uncertain future.

  It was an almost endless parade, which after a three-day march on the empty highway finally arrived at Bad Aibling. The Allies had gathered the survivors of the defeated army from all parts of Bavaria and rounded them up there on a former military airfield. Especially the very young and the very old soldiers were enthusiastically photographed again and again. The Americans wanted to show back home the desperate straits in which the Germans had already been. From Bad Aibling, the men were finally transported to an immense tract of farmland near Ulm, on which the approximately 50,000 prisoners were accommodated. Since the Americans were completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of these numbers, there were neither barracks nor tents; the men had to spend the night in the open. A lucky few had brought their own tents along and offered their comrades shelter when it rained. The daily rations consisted of a ladle of soup and a bit of bread. On the horizon loomed the tower of the cathedral in Ulm, which had not been damaged during the war, as a sign of hope for a better time and a reminder of the indomitable humaneness of the faith.