Could one say that the family home was markedly religious?
One could certainly say that. My father was a very religious man. On Sundays he went to Mass at six, then to the main liturgy at nine, and again in the afternoon. My mother had a very warm and heartfelt piety. On that point the two, again, were at one in different ways. Religion was quite central.
What was your religious education at home like? I mean, a lot of parents today clearly have a problem with it.
Religion was part of life. The simple fact of praying together made it so. There was prayer at all meals. Whenever our school schedule would allow it, we naturally also went to daily Mass, and on Sundays we went to church together. Later, when my father was retired, we generally also prayed the rosary; for the rest my parents relied on the catechesis we received in school. My father also bought us things to read; there were magazines, for example, when we made our First Holy Communion. But there wasn’t explicit religious education; it was given by family prayer and church attendance.
The Third Reich went terribly against my father’s grain, and he tried to get out of service as early as possible. His religion and his decided antagonism toward the regime were convincing to us. His simple power to convince came out of his inner honesty. So his attitude became a model for us, even though it stood against what had public currency at the time.
So how did he express himself toward the regime?
He was in the civil service until 1937. In Tittmoning we lived through the so-called “time of struggle”, the final period of the Weimar Republic. I was still very small, but I can remember how he suffered. He had subscribed to Der Gerade Weg, an anti-Nazi newspaper; I can still remember the caricatures of Hitler. He was very sharp in his terminology. The approaching seizure of power, which he saw coming, was also the chief reason why we went to the village. There the situation was obviously much less tense, even though there were unfortunately a large number of Nazis among the country farmers.
He made no public opposition; that wouldn’t have been possible even in the village. But at home, whenever he read the newspaper, he almost had fits of rage. He always expressed his indignation vigorously and always spoke freely to people whom he could trust. Above all, he never joined any organisation, even though he was a civil servant.
Were you in the Hitler Youth?
At first we weren’t, but when the compulsory Hitler Youth was introduced in 1941, my brother was obliged to join. I was still too young, but later, as a seminarian, I was registered in the HY. As soon as I was out of the seminary, I never went back. And that was difficult, because the tuition reduction, which I really needed, was tied to proof of attendance at the HY. Thank goodness, there was a very understanding mathematics teacher. He himself was a Nazi but an honest man, who said to me, “Just go once and get the document so that we have it . . .” When he saw that I simply didn’t want to, he said, “I understand, I’ll take care of it,” and so I was able to stay free of it.
What would you have wanted to be when you were still a child? Were there models?
I couldn’t really say that I had clear models. As is the case with children, ideas often change radically. At some point a house painter who painted a wallimpressed me so much that I wanted to emulate him. When, later, Cardinal Faulhaberpaid a visit to our region, with his imposing purple, he impressed me all the more, so that I saidI would like to become something like that.
How did your vocation happen?
At any rate, there was no lightning-like moment of illumination when I realised I was meant to become a priest. On the contrary, there was a long process of maturation, and the decision had to be thought through and constantly rewon.
I couldn’t date the decision, either. But the feeling that God had a plan for each person, for me too, became clear for me early on. Gradually it became clear to me that what he had in mind had to do with the priesthood.
Did you have something like flashes of illumination — or something like illumination — at a later time?
Well, I haven’t had illuminations in the classical sense, if by that you mean something half-mystical. I am a perfectly ordinary Christian. But in a broader sense faith certainly gives one might. As one reflects on that faith, one certainly seems, to say it with Heidegger, to get a glimpse of the clearing from the various paths through the woods.
After you decided to become a priest — didn’t certain self-doubts emerge at some time, temptations or seductions?
They did, to be sure. In the six years of theological study one encounters so many human problems and questions. Is celibacy right for me? Is being a parish priest right for me? Those were indeed questions not always easy to deal with. I always had the basic direction before me, but there was no lack of crises.
In his memoirs, Milestones, published in 1997, the Pope recalls the most dramatic incident of his adolescence. After the death of Adolf Hitler on April 30, 1945, an 18-year-old Joseph Ratzinger deserted from the German army. He set off in the direction of his home, the village of Traunstein
AT the end of April or the beginning of May — I do not remember precisely — I decided to go home. I knew that the town was surrounded by soldiers who had orders to shoot deserters on the spot. For this reason I used a little-known back road, hoping to get through unmolested. But, as I walked out of a railroad underpass, two soldiers were standing at their posts, and for a moment the situation was extremely critical for me. Thank God that they, too, had had their fill of war and did not want to become murderers.
Still, they had to find an excuse to let me go.
Because of an injury I had my arm in a sling, and so they said: “Comrade, you are wounded. Move on!” In this way I came home unhurt.
Sitting at the table were some of the English Sisters whom my sister knew well. They were poring over a map and trying to determine when we could finally count on the Americans’ arrival. When I walked in, they thought that the presence of a soldier would be a sure protection for the house, but of course the opposite was the case.
In the course of the next few days there lodged with us, first, a sergeant-major of the air force, an agreeable Catholic from Berlin who, following a strange logic we could not understand, still believed in the victory of the German Reich. My father, who argued extensively with him on this matter, was finally able to win him over to the other side.
Then two SS men were given shelter in our house, which made the situation doubly dangerous. They could not fail to see that I was of military age, and so they began to make inquiries about my status. It was a known fact that a number of soldiers who had left their units had already been hanged from trees by SS men. Besides, my father could not help voicing all his ire against Hitler to their faces, which as a rule should have had deadly consequences for him. But a special angel seemed to be guarding us, and the two disappeared the next day without having caused any mischief.
The Americans finally arrived in our village. Even though our house lacked all comfort, they chose it as their headquarters. I was identified as a soldier, had to put back on the uniform I had already abandoned, had to raise my hands and join the steadily growing throng of war prisoners whom they were lining up on our meadow. It especially cut my good mother’s heart to the quick to see her boy and the rest of the defeated army standing there, exposed to an uncertain fate, prisoners under the custody of heavily armed Americans.
We had hopes of being released soon, but Father and Mother quickly put together a number of things that could be useful for the road ahead, and I myself slipped a big empty notebook and a pencil into my pocket — which seemed a most impractical choice, but this notebook became a wonderful companion to me, because day by day I could enter into it thoughts and reflections of all kinds. I even tried my hand at Greek hexameters.
During three days of marching, we advanced on the empty expressway in a column moving toward Bad Aibling that was gradually becoming endless. The American soldiers liked especially to take pictures of us, the youngest ones, and also of the oldest, in order to take home with them souvenirs of the defeated army and the woeful condition of its personnel.
Then for a few days we lay about in an open field at the military airport of Bad Aibling, until were shipped off to an area of enormous farmlands near Ulm, where about 50,000 prisoners had been brought. The magnitude of these numbers apparently taxed the abilities of the Americans themselves. Until the end of our captivity, we slept outdoors. Our rations consisted of one ladleful of soup and a little bread per day.
AROUND the beginning of June the releases began, and every new gap in our ranks was a sign of hope.
The different occupations determined the order of release: farmers first, and last of all — because the least needed in this situation — students. Quite a few academicians understandably declared themselves to be farmers, and very many suddenly remembered a distant relative or acquaintance in Bavaria in order to be released into that region, because the American sector appeared to be the most secure and promising.
Finally it was my turn too. On June 19, 1945, I had to pass through the various inspections and interrogations until, overjoyed, I held in my hand the certificate of release that made the end of the war a reality for me, too. We were brought by American trucks to the northern edge of Munich, and then each had to fend for himself in finding a way to get home.
I teamed up with a young man from Trostberg, in the vicinity of Traunstein, to find our way home together. In three days we hoped to cover the 120 or so kilometres (75 miles) that separated us from our families. We planned to spend the night along the way with farming families, who would also give us a bite to eat.
We had passed Ottobrunn when we were overtaken by a truck, powered by wood gas and loaded with milk. Both of us were too shy to signal it, but the driver stopped on his own and asked us where we were headed. He laughed when we said that Traunstein was our destination, because he worked for a dairy in Traunstein and was now on his way home.
So it was that, unexpectedly, I arrived in my home city even before sunset; the heavenly Jerusalem itself could not have appeared more beautiful to me at that moment. I heard praying and singing coming from the church: it was the evening of the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I did not want to create a disturbance, so did not go in.
Rather, I rushed home as fast as I could. My father could hardly believe it as I suddenly stood there before him, alive and well. My mother and sister were in church. On the way home they learned from some girls that they had seen me rushing by. In my whole life I have never again had so magnificent a meal as the simple one that Mother then prepared for me from the vegetables of her own garden.
Yet something was still missing to make our joy complete. Since the beginning of April there had been no news from my brother. And so a quiet sorrow hung over our house. What an explosion of delight then, when one hot July day, we suddenly heard steps, and the one we had missed for so long suddenly stood there in our midst, with a brown tan from the Italian sun.
Full of thanksgiving at his deliverance, he now sat down at the piano and intoned the hymn Grosser Gott, wir loben Dich (Holy God, we praise thy Name).
The months that followed were full of a sense of newly won freedom, something we were only now learning really to treasure, and this period belongs to the most beautiful memories of my entire life.
Salt of the Earth by Peter Seeward and Milestones are published by Ignatius Press, San Francisco. The UK distributor is Family Publications (0845 0500 879). www.familypublications.co.uk
Full coverage and debate: was Ratzinger the right choice? www.timesonline.co.uk/pope
