Reply #42: to be a hero demands to be very brave in those times

[tocqueville]

or very cunning. What I meant is that the guy was in the Hitler youth, as most of the other children and teens at that time because the social and parental pressure told them to do so. They maybe even thought it was OK, because they didn't know better. It doesn't make the guy a conscious criminal.

If tomorrow Bush ends up at the Hague, will it turn EVERY Marine into a Waffen SS ? The freepers can be bashed because they ACTIVELY CHOSE to SUPPORT the President, but the Marines, despite some Haditha incident, were just sent and many times just thought they were avenging 9/11, which doesn't make everyone a "baby-killer"....

From Wikipedia:

"Following his fourteenth birthday in 1941, Ratzinger joined the Hitler Youth as membership was legally required after December 1936. According to one of Ratzinger's biographers, the National Catholic Reporter correspondent John Allen, he was an unenthusiastic member who refused to attend meetings. His father was a bitter enemy of Nazism, because he believed it was in conflict with their faith. In 1941 one of Ratzinger's cousins with Down's Syndrome was murdered by the Nazi regime."