The Pope was a Nazi UPDATED

Posted by Greg Laden on September 17, 2010
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This might be a little unusual for me, being an American of my age and all, but over the course of my life I’ve had a small number of close friends who were Hitler Youth in Germany during World War II. I don’t hold that specific fact against anyone. But, just in case you wanted to see it, I thought I’d post this photograph of The Pope giving the Nazi Salute something that looks exactly like the Nazi salute but is actually a Christian blessing thingie (which does not obviate the fact that he was a Nazi along with most of his Christian-German compatriots of the time):

i-d6a060128e48a747578db0fc1e420730-7dew.jpg

But then, it turns out that he WAS giving a real lie Nazi salute in a different picture. Here.

source

Bottom line: The Christians (including their leaders) of Germany at the time included a lot of people who were perfectly OK with remaining silent or worse. How much harder must I make to make this case clear to the Nazi Symps and Holocaust denialists?

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Comments

  1. #1 aineolach
    September 17, 2010

    not quite

  2. #2 Joshua Zelinsky
    September 17, 2010

    I’m not sure what point you are trying to make here. I presume it is connected to the Pope’s recent idiotic and borderline hateful claims about atheism being linked to Nazism.

    Frankly, I found http://evolvingthoughts.net/2010/09/17/a-bridge-to-nowhere/ to be a much better response. The above seems closer to something I’d see on Conservapedia.

    And saying one had friends who were in the Hitler Youth comes across almost like “Some of my best friends are gay/black/Jewish/whatever group is being criticized.” This is stupid. The real response to this should be that yes, kids were in the Hitler Youth, and yes, that’s bad, and yes it indicates that they weren’t perfect and weren’t as brave or as courageous or as free thinking as they could have been. But we are talking about children and that’s to be expected. Benedict’s real problem is his attempt to blame Nazism on atheism when Benedict was a religious Catholic when he was in the Hitler Youth. He’s a walking counterexample to his own idiotic claim. Let’s be explicit about that.

  3. #3 Stacy
    September 17, 2010

    Must agree with Joshua here. Gott mit uns!

  4. #4 Stephanie Z
    September 17, 2010

    Joshua, of course that’s the problem, which is why Greg explicitly says that the problem is not participation in the Hitler Youth. Perhaps you should read what is actually said instead of freaking out that it looks superficially like something else.

  5. #5 Greg Laden
    September 17, 2010

    Joshua, you can kiss my ass too, you fucking nazi apologist.

    Context is everything. At the moment, I’m writing a meaningful length tyrade. Be assured of that. But I’m also babysitting and fixing shit around the house, so all you’re going to get out of me is one liners illustrated with photographs that I’ve cribbed form somewhere. This is a blog, not a history museum.

    And, in fact, there are several Ex nazi’s using my bathroom as we speak.

  6. #6 Stephanie Z
    September 17, 2010

    Or to get more explicit, the first comment I ever made on this blog was about the pope not being in need of a whole lot of protection, having the world’s biggest bully pulpit. The language you’re complaining about is a dogwhistle, something that’s said to tell people who agree with you where you stand without actually saying something that would be strongly objected to by people who disagree with you. In particular, it’s a dogwhistle used by the majority to suggest that there are some good members of a minority, so it’s okay to understand that the rest of them are worthless.

    As I’ve tried to explain in another set of threads on this blog, it’s a dogwhistle because it’s language that is perfectly reasonable on the surface and only carries the overtone to those sensitized to hear it. However, you can get sensitive enough to dogswhistles to hear them even when it’s only your own ears ringing. This is one of those cases.

    It is not ony reasonable to note that plenty of good people were Hitler Youth, it’s absolutely necessary to not forget that. It is even more necessary that someone in a position of power, like the pope, who has every reason to understand that evil can come out of your average good intentions and blind day-to-day complacency, not deny the source of that evil. It is completely unacceptable that he try to shunt blame for that evil onto a group–a scapegoated minority–that did nothing to earn it.

    Doing what the pope, this pope, did in that speech isn’t just wrong. It’s participating in the causes of religious persecution in a way that he may or may not have done when he was young but has no excuse for not understanding now.

  7. #7 «bønez_brigade»
    September 17, 2010

    Strikethrough noted, but here’s more info on the above pic, anyway:
    http://www.gospelaccordingtohate.com/2010/03/nazi-ratzingers-sieg-heil-photo-is-fake.html

    Fake pic notwithstanding, Ratbagz is still a fucking scumbag.

  8. #8 rpsms
    September 17, 2010

    @#7. I prefer the first site linked in comment. True, this photo was cropped. But scroll down for him giving the actual salute in an actual nazi uniform.

  10. #10 MadScientist
    September 17, 2010

    Meh. In that time and place, no salute probably meant being dragged off and cooped up with the Jews. However, Ratzinger’s actions make for a very good story about him bringing back the Fourth Kingdom – the Kingdom of Hitler the God – you know, with the return of Jesus, son of Hitler and all that. The path is clear – a few years ago a horrible creature from the nobility in Austria was canonized. That was the First Test – will the world be enraged when someone with no regard whatsoever for other humans is canonized? Apparently not – the next step of course is to canonize Pius XII. If people don’t riot and tear every stone out of St. Peter’s Basilica, then the church will know that everyone approves of Pius’ collusion with the fascists and the murder of all those Jews (and numerous others, including folks who tried to help the Jews). The next step would be the canonization of Hitler himself. Then the Rapture – how can the plan possibly go wrong? Those 60+ years of historical revisionism on Pius XII’s role in the war will be tested soon enough.

  11. #11 Jimmy_Blue
    September 17, 2010

    Maybe people should stop and think before running their mouth off.

    When I first saw that picture of Ratzinger as a youth giving the Nazi salute it took me the time necessary to type “Ratzinger Nazi salute” in Google to see that it was cropped, but then to continue insisting that a grainy photo of a middle aged fat Nazi with his hand in front of his face shows Ratzinger because a random religious kook on the internet Photoshops it with his name is pretty piss poor. For crying out loud, that quack you cite as showing a photo of Ratzinger giving a Nazi salute also claims to have proof Obama is a Muslim – he’s a loon.

    Ratzinger was born in 1927 – when was this photo taken? He was 12 when the war started – does that other photo look like a 12 year old? What proof is there that this other photo is Ratzinger other than random crazy internet guy saying its him?

    If we want to look better than Ratzinger, we should at least make sure we do things he doesn’t – like check our facts. For instance, this Secular Humanism article contains the same photo, captioned, and doesn’t mention that the fat middle aged Nazi standing two feet from Joseph Goebbels is the new Pope at age 14 dressed as a fat middle aged Nazi.

    Piss poor folks, piss poor. Where’s the critical examination of evidence we keep mouthing off about?

  12. #12 Jimmy_Blue
    September 17, 2010

    Sorry for the double post, but go here for a much clearer image of the second photo (scroll down the page to just over half way) – clearly not a teenage Ratzinger.

    Was/is he a Nazi? Possibly. But these photos sure as shit don’t prove it one way or the other, and do nothing but make us look foolish and ready to jump at anything.

  13. #13 sailor
    September 18, 2010

    The whole Nazi thing is ridiculous and smokescreen. However much the pope cries in his handkerchief about how awful it is priests buggered their way through numerous young children, he never once admits that the Church of which he is the head, fucked them again by covering these sins and protecting the church at the cost of the victims.
    Really that is all that matters.

  14. #14 A Bear
    September 18, 2010

    Maybe he wasn’t a nazi, even though his history and his present behavior seem to point to it.
    However, if you look at at his dark ringed sunken eyes, his nosferatu-like countenance, and his constant pure evil facial expression shown in contemporary photos it is clear he is a creature of the dark!
    Pope Dracula would have been more fitting a moniker than Benedict.

  15. #15 idlemind
    September 19, 2010

    The remnantofgod.org fellow is a loon. The linked post makes a big point of how raising ones arms with palms down somehow makes one evil, but for both RC’s and many Protestants it’s the traditional stance for giving a benediction. The post is clearly a reflection of the wacko blogger’s own weird religious beliefs, and simply doesn’t look credible.

    I’m appalled at the Pope’s behavior and his rank bigotry against the irreligious, but let’s not let slip our skepticism just because it’s convenient to do so.

  16. #16 Joshua Zelinsky
    September 19, 2010

    Greg, I’m not sure where you got the idea that anything I said came across as apologetics for Nazis. That leaves me quite confused.

    Stephanie, it isn’t that simple at multiple levels. First, part of the problem really is that he was in the Hitler Youth. The issue is the exact nature of that problem.

    The language you’re complaining about is a dogwhistle, something that’s said to tell people who agree with you where you stand without actually saying something that would be strongly objected to by people who disagree with you. In particular, it’s a dogwhistle used by the majority to suggest that there are some good members of a minority, so it’s okay to understand that the rest of them are worthless.

    To some extent yes and to some extent no. This phrasing is not just a dogwhistle. I think a fair number of people who use it actually believe when they use it that it really does allow them to make generalizations and that it is a valid argument. Part of the problem is that in general it isn’t. Indeed, even in this case it isn’t valid. The Nazis were shitheads, and I, unlike Greg, would be likely to be extremely unwilling to have anything to do with anyone who was in the Hitler Youth, even if there is the whole was-a-child mitigating factor. Part of this position though is that the conclusion that “people who were Nazis were much more likely to be shit-heads than the general populace” comes not from some trait that people can’t control (e.g. sexual orientation, race, gender) but something that even for youths required an active choice to adopt a specific ideology.

    As to the rest of what you said, I completely agree. However, I’d place the emphasis differently. While the Pope is clearly targeting a minority that’s not the only problem here. Distortions of what caused genocide make it more difficult to prevent genocide in the future. In that regard, behavior like the Pope’s increases the chance of genocide and other really bad stuff in the future. But we also shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that he’s a walking counterexample to his own claim. That just makes his general douchbaggery all the worse.

    Jimmy Blue,

    Don’t be an idiot. He was a Nazi. Whether or not we have a picture of him giving the salute is utterly irrelevant.

  17. #17 MacTurk
    September 20, 2010

    First, let me be clear; I utterly despise the current head of the Catholic Church for being first, morally blind, and second, for being responsible for a cover up of over 100 years in the child rapist protection business.

    However, could we please have facts? Being in the Hitler Youth after November 1939 was effectively compulsory. It was not as if he choose to join, and he did not attend many meetings. There is no evidence beyond this that he had any connection with the Nazi Party(NSDAP)

    The most important point here, with regard to the silly picture, is that he did not become a priest until 1951.

    Spreading stupid lies does not help those who would like to bring the Catholic Church to book, especially when it is such an obvious fake. It is cropped from what is probably the first mass celebrated by the Ratzinger brothers, so probably on 29 June 1951. It cannot be earlier.

    As for the second picture on the site, no way could it be an anonymous 16 or 17-year old member of the Hitler Youth. First, because of the prominence of the people in the photo, second because the man wrongly identified as “Ratzinger” is a member of the “Sturm Abeiltung(SA)” and is wearing jackboots, which were not issued to HJ members normally, and definitely not to younger members.

    Facts, people, please.

  18. #18 MacTurk
    September 20, 2010

    The second photo, shows young Ratzinger in the low quality uniform of a Luftwaffe(German Air Force) “Luftwaffenhelfer” or “Flakhelfer”, which describes a child/youth soldier placed in anti-aircraft gun or searchlight positions run by the Luftwaffe. This was a position he was conscripted into in 1946, at the age of sixteen. The eagle badge with swastika was standard for all Luftwaffe members.

    And if any/all of you can look back and say that “I am and will be proud of what I did when I was sixteen, while my country was under a maniacal dictatorship”, then you are a paragon of human of human perfection. He was maybe six and a half when Adolf Hitler became CHANCELLOR

  19. #19 Stephanie Z
    September 20, 2010

    MacTurk, compulsory service or not, it doesn’t matter. This isn’t about whether he’s some irreparably stained soul (hint: he doesn’t have one). This is about the fact that he was there, in the middle of everything, as a Christian. He has no excuse for blaming things he and everyone around him were part of on the moral failings of someone else. And beyond that, he has no excuse for claiming that what he just said is anything but exactly the sort of blood libel he was surrounded by in his youth. He’s not some ignorant yahoo–not on this topic. He bears absolute and full responsibility for what he just did and is trying to do.

  20. #20 hoary puccoon
    September 20, 2010

    I knew an ex-Hitler Youth when I lived in South Carolina. It was right after the Voting Rights Act passed. The guy was an American citizen by then, and extremely active in getting African-Americans registered to vote. He was also active in getting more people of every color (and both genders) involved in politics.

    Because that ex-Hitler Youth had learned a very powerful lesson in Nazi Germany. And he was *never* going to take the democracy of his adopted country for granted. He was *never* going to stand by while his fellow citizens’ rights were violated. That’s what happened to one ex-Hitler Youth.

    What happened to Ratzinger? When he’s copying Hitler’s Big Lie, scapegoating innocent people on the basis of their religious views, what lesson are we to assume he learned in his days in the Third Reich?

  21. #21 Greg Laden
    September 20, 2010

    MacTurk [17] It is a fact that it has been made abundantly clear that this is not a discussion about the Pope’s membership in HJ. And, no one is spreading lies. We are discussing a complex topic. If discordance between one source of information and another is considered by you to be a “lie” then you need to recalibrate how you engage in this sort of discussion! I welcome your addition of further information. In this case you’ve made a reasonable but nothing like conclusive argument that the photo of “Rat” and some priests and nazi’s saluting is not him. Your arguments are conjectural and inconclusive, though you may well be correct. As an archaeologist, I have a hard time believing that our current conception of the material culture of the Nazis can be imposed on the past without question. That would be like saying that all the American soldiers in the Revolution wore that minute man costume (though less extreme … you get the point). In order for your argument to be conclusive you’d have to demonstrate that what modern uniform buffs say is true is really always true.

    And before then stop wagging around your “facts!”

  22. #22 MacTurk
    September 20, 2010

    Stephanie Z wrote “he was there, in the middle of everything”. Yes, like the entire population of Germany. And he was 16 years old.

    I have noticed, talking to Citizens of the USA, that they tend to be very hard on people who had to make moral choices in situations which no American has ever faced – with the possible exception of the Abolitionists.

    I repeat, he was 16 years old, his cousin was killed by the regime under the eugenics laws, and he had to face choices which neither you nor I have ever had to, and hopefully will never have to.

    He is responsible for what he did as a grown man in the service of the institution he now heads, and for that service, which meant, among other things, continuing the game of “Hide the Pervert” and excommunicating any Catholic who alerted the civil authorities, he stands condemned.

    As for his deeply stupid statement equating atheists with the Nazi regime – which had its own National Bishops – perhaps we should take it as a sign that the grip of religion over humanity is fading? It is really grasping at straws and tilting at windmills, and also shows that both he and his institute are totally out of touch.

    However, then you have to account for the phenomenon of Western women converting to Islam, which I find hard to explain. Islam, is not a notably female-friendly faith, but among Western converts females seem to be in a majority.

  23. #23 Greg Laden
    September 20, 2010

    MacTurk: “Yes, like the entire population of Germany. And he was 16 years old.”

    Yes, and that is what this conversation is about. All of Germany was there, and most of Germany was Christian (many Catholics) and it will be a long time before the Germans will get, or be allowed to get, un-humble about their deeds. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church is suddenly off the hook because The Rat blames the Holocaust on Atheists.

    I have noticed, talking to Citizens of the USA, that they tend to be very hard on people who had to make moral choices in situations which no American has ever faced – with the possible exception of the Abolitionists.

    Interesting point, totally irrelevant.

    I repeat, he was 16 years old, his cousin was killed by the regime under the eugenics laws, and he had to face choices which neither you nor I have ever had to, and hopefully will never have to.

    No one is imagining that he was expected to don a super hero costume, fly to Berlin an beat up Hitler, then fly from Concentration Camp to Concentration Camp blasting open the doors and subduing the guards.

    We are not asking him to have done something then that virtually no one else did, but we are asking him to NOT do something else now that no one else does because it is unconscionable.

    Furthermore, there are those who died to fight the regime then. Is there any evidence that a larger proportion of such were deeply involved in the church? Or not? I’ve never seen that. I doubt it.

    He is responsible for what he did as a grown man in the service of the institution he now heads, and for that service, which meant, among other things, continuing the game of “Hide the Pervert” and excommunicating any Catholic who alerted the civil authorities, he stands condemned.

    And now, we add to the list, hiding the involvement of his religion in the Holocaust by scapegoating atheists. This is not hard, macTurk.

    However, then you have to account for the phenomenon of Western women converting to Islam, which I find hard to explain. Islam, is not a notably female-friendly faith, but among Western converts females seem to be in a majority.

    This paragraph has been submitted to Webster for inclusion as an illustration to go with the definition of the term “non sequitur”

  24. #24 Stephanie Z
    September 20, 2010

    MacTurk, congratulations. You may now add yourself to the long list of people who have ignored evil out of a complete lack of imagination. Was it a sign of powerlessness when the Catholic church spent centuries promoting blood libel against the Jews? Do the repercussions of the pope’s statements for atheists in countries where Catholics are the majority count any less because his statements were made in a largely secular country?

    Oh, never mind. Just go back to your comfortable little existence and repeat to yourself, “What’s the big deal? It can’t happen to me. I’m safe.”

  25. #25 kuckucksblume
    September 20, 2010

    Regarding the second photo: The Secular Humanism article, provided by Jimmy_Blue # 11, says that it was taken when the Saarland was re-incorporated into the German Reich. This took place on 1 March 1935 (Wikipedia). At that time, Ratzinger, born on 16 April 1927, was eight years old.

  26. #26 MacTurk
    September 20, 2010

    I am utterly at a loss as to what horrible thing the young Ratzinger is supposed to have done. This is not to diminish the evil-doing he has covered up in the USA, Ireland, Canada Germany, Belgium and other countries.

    He fired not a shot in anger, he killed no-one and deserted as soon as possible.

    And if any of you can claim that they were morally perfect at the age of sixteen, i will fall off my chair laughing.

    While i agree that were some few and very brave people, like Oberst Claus Schenk, (Count von Stauffenberg), who risked their lives to resist, there were no children among them.

    “Interesting point, totally irrelevant.” I do not think so. It is very easy to have 20/20 moral vision when it is all in hindsight, in a different time and place.

    Social and moral pressure, especially when explicitly endorsed by the State, is not easy to go against. And we were not there, so yes it would be very easy to go “Bad boy Benny! Why did you not resist the evil regime?”. However, I will not, because that is an exercise in self-indulgence.

    And Stephanie Z, just what the hell have you done that gives you the right to pass judgement on me or anyone else? When you find your self in a situation like young Ratzinger, and are faced with running or dying for a moral position, then and only then, can you afford the luxury of judging people whom you have never met, and do not know. Indignation is a very cheap emotion. When you have stood up to animals from the IRA, then judge. But do not dare to judge others from your unearned position of moral superiority.

    And I repeat, what horrible thing is a boy of 16 supposed to have done? As an adult, he can be judged for what he has done, but please show me and the rest of the world the great evil he did in his youth, during a war which killed 20 million Russians,6 million Jews, 6 million Poles, etc.

    Or else focus on what the MAN did, in a position of power, and stop this happy indulgence in “I am more morally outraged than you”.

  27. #27 Stephanie Z
    September 20, 2010

    MacTurk, read. I told you exactly what Ratzinger’s past has to do with his present, and I gave you a link to follow if you needed more information on my position. You haven’t followed it. You haven’t done the most basic work to understand what I’m saying or what Greg’s saying.

    Get over the idea that there is any condemnation of Benny the Rat’s childhood going on. This is entirely about condemning his present and protecting others’ futures. If you can’t follow that, maybe you should try asking some questions instead of sneering at what you mistakenly think is going on.

  28. #28 Greg Laden
    September 20, 2010

    MacTurk, you just need to understand what is being said here. This entire conversation is about what Pope Rat said last week. The context of that conversation has to do with facts about what really happened in the 1930s and 40s in Europe, where The Rat Pope comes from culturally and historically, and so on. You are making an argument against something that was not said.

  29. #29 Phil
    September 20, 2010

    Mactruck, you are growing tiresome.

  30. #30 MacTurk
    September 20, 2010

    Gee, i am so so sorry for being tiresome, but if any Creationist website put up as supporting “evidence” two such obvious photographic travesties, everyone, including me, would be all over them like flies on shit.
    Mr Laden, I have long respected you as someone who thought the truth was important. However,you are spreading lies if you do not take those two examples of forgery down.

  31. #31 Greg Laden
    September 20, 2010

    if any Creationist website put up as supporting “evidence” two such obvious photographic travesties, everyone, including me, would be all over them like flies on shit.

    Evidence of what?

    Regarding taking down forgeries, the top photo is not a forgery, and it is explained for what it is. THe second photo, the one pointed to, is what it is. And I’m not sure what that is, and it is open for discussion. This is not a matter of me being told by you what is true and not and then avoiding things that may or may not be true. The third photograph shown on the site pointed to isn’t even on my blog.

    Don’t give me this “I once respected you and now I don’t” shit. You have misunderstood the nature of this agument from the beginning, and I am now starting to think that your entire purpose is to derail this thread from the original point, perhaps because you agree with the pope as to who really killed six million Jews.

    That’s what the facts are starting to point to.

    Now, are you going to dispute that with your own facts, man-up and admit that you came into this discussion misunderstanding what it is all about (and refuse to even acknowledge that you are being asked to reconsider) or just whine some more?

    You really are, honestly, at the point where it is very hard for any reasonable onlooker to conclude that you are paying one iota of attention to what is being said here.

  32. #32 Stephanie Z
    September 20, 2010

    Thanks, MacTurk. I couldn’t ask for a stronger statement that you’re not actually interested in discussing (or having anyone else discuss) what the pope has done. You’ve gone from “Who are you to judge?” to “You’re defaming him with those pictures,” without addressing anything that’s been said to you in more than the most quote-mining fashion (speaking of creationists–who are you to judge?). Greg has labeled one of these photos as what it is and noted in discussion that the other has an unclear provenance.

    I don’t think you’ve got much more to add here. Come back and hang out when you actually want to deal with what’s been said.

  33. #33 hoary puccoon
    September 21, 2010

    MacTurk @26: “…focus on what the MAN [Ratzinger] did, in a position of power….”

    Yeah, why don’t we just do that little thing.

    1. The MAN has been responsible for covering up a pedophile ring that has psychologically damaged many, many children and driven some of them into suicide (which, according to Catholic doctrine, means into Hell.)

    2. The MAN has been responsible for spreading lies about condoms. Those lies have seriously undercut the fight against AIDS in Africa, leading to thousands of preventable deaths.

    3. The MAN has made statements about Nazism that were completely untrue, and he made them in order to scapegoat innocent people on the basis of their views on religion. In the process he was clearly attempting to shift responsibility away from the Catholic church, which did, in fact, collude with the Third Reich.

    That’s what “…the MAN did, in a position of power….”

    I gave an example @20 of an ex-Hitler Youth whom I admired– because, as an adult, he was dedicated to the spread and protection of democracy. As far as I’m concerned, this debate has *nothing* to do with Ratzinger’s behavior as a youth in the Third Reich. It has everything to do with his behavior since he achieved a position of power in a very large, influential organization. He has behaved as if the Catholic church as an organization and he as an individual had no connection to Nazism. Greg has simply pointed out that is a complete lie.

  34. #34 MacTurk
    September 21, 2010

    Stephanie Z, I objected to a personal attack from you.
    hoary puccoon, I agree with everything you are saying, and made my position regarding the current pope quite clear in the first sentence of my first post in this thread.

    My issue here is that using obviously falsified photos(or photos of very dubious provenance) is merely giving ammunition to the fundy idiots. They will now have perfect grounds for saying things like “You see? They lie”.

    Ciao

  35. #35 Greg Laden
    September 21, 2010

    MacTurk, are you now saying that the (only) photograph used in this post, of Ratzinger, is falsified? Are you explicitly saying that this is not him?

    My understanding is that it is a photo of him doing some religious thing that looks like but is not a Nazi salute. What do you think it is?

    Have you read the post yet?

  36. #36 MacTurk
    September 21, 2010

    The second photo feature catholic bishops in the company of Josef Geobbels(Propaganda Minister) on the right, next to Wilhelm Frick(Interior Minister 1933-43, then ReichsProtector of Bohemia and Moravia). If you think that you will be able to convince anyone that the man in the centre next to two of the most powerful people in the Nazi hierarchy was a boy caller Joseph Alois Ratzinger(14-17), best of luck to you.

    And if you think the fundies are not going to jump all over you for this piece of sloppiness, you are deluded.

    If any of Mr Laden’s students presented such insufficient evidence, I suspect that he would reject it out of hand.

  37. #37 Greg Laden
    September 21, 2010

    I’m looking at my post and I’m seeing one photo. There are links to and discussions of other photos on other blogs, and that’s nice. I’m sure you’re additional comments will be helpful to anyone who wants to figure all of this out. I’m not lying or falsifing or altering or otherwise fucking with photos or evidence or information. Your assertion that I am is obnoxious and incorrect, and, as I’ve been saying all along, nothing other than a continued attempt to distract from the key point: The current Pope has made the accusation that the Holocaust was carried out by Atheists. And you are trying to cover for that lie by distracting from the criticism of it. You really should be ashamed of yourself.

  38. #38 Stephanie Z
    September 21, 2010

    MacTurk, I’m sure you’re a lovely person who rescues feral strays and volunteers with the most difficult of the homeless in your time off from being a concern troll. Everything I’ve said here has to do with the arguments you’ve made.

  39. #39 DuWayne
    September 21, 2010

    Joshua Z @16 –

    The Nazis were shitheads, and I, unlike Greg, would be likely to be extremely unwilling to have anything to do with anyone who was in the Hitler Youth, even if there is the whole was-a-child mitigating factor. Part of this position though is that the conclusion that “people who were Nazis were much more likely to be shit-heads than the general populace” comes not from some trait that people can’t control (e.g. sexual orientation, race, gender) but something that even for youths required an active choice to adopt a specific ideology.

    Without any pressure from the government, or incentives offered by the government, I believed that homosexuality was evil when I was a kid. I also believed that the world was abt. 6000 years old and anyone who believed differently was going to hell. I believed that anyone who didn’t believe what I believed(including many other self identifying Christians) were going to suffer eternal damnation. I also believed that interracial relationships were a bad idea, as well as other ideas I since learned are actually quite racist. There were all sorts of absolutely horrible things that I believed when I was young.

    Now I will admit that I am not the nicest person. I have very little tolerance for willful ignorance and stupidity. I am arrogant and often something of an asshole. While I am very compassionate and empathetic, with a strong drive to help others – even when I can’t afford to, I am also prone to being quite rude sometimes, when the stupid annoys me – offline, as much, if not more, than on.

    There are people who don’t like me because of the traits listed in the second para, while others like me in spite of and occasionally because of them. Anyone who wants to base their decision to like or dislike me based on the traits in the first para are useless fucking morons. My environment was extremely conducive to thinking and believing as I did. I was part of very authoritarian churches, actually going to a parochial school from 3rd to 6th grade. I was a very bright child, but I was also quite successfully brainwashed.

    If it had been a part of my culture at the time, I probably would have been a Hitler Youth. While I probably would have been just as incapable of random physical violence as I actually was, I would not probably been resistant to something that my culture pressured me to be. And given my blond hair, blue eyesThe Nazis were shitheads, and I, unlike Greg, would be likely to be extremely unwilling to have anything to do with anyone who was in the Hitler Youth, even if there is the whole was-a-child mitigating factor. Part of this position though is that the conclusion that “people who were Nazis were much more likely to be shit-heads than the general populace” comes not from some trait that people can’t control (e.g. sexual orientation, race, gender) but something that even for youths required an active choice to adopt a specific ideology and intellect, the pressure would have been there. Of course it didn’t take long for me to reject the bigotry that I was raised with in actuality and I doubt I would have been much different, were I from Germany of that time. What I would have done with it is questionable, but by the time I was 16 I rejected much of the bigotry and by 18 I was proactively apposed to it – even as I still had a lot of bigotry to shed.

    It is one thing to judge people for what they do as adults. It is quite another to judge them for what they do as children, under pressure from not only their parents, but their culture as well. Kids are extremely maleable and suggestible. Given constant reinforcement, they will have a very hard time rejecting much of anything. Rejecting people for who they were as a child, as apposed to who they are as an adult, implies that people are somehow static.

    Would you like to be judged for who you were and the things you did as a child, or worse, as a teen?

  40. #40 hoary puccoon
    September 21, 2010

    DuWayne @39– “Would you like to be judged for who you were and the things you did as a child, or worse, as a teen?”

    Actually, I was pretty much an uptight little prig who toed the line back then, so, yeah, I’d probably be better off if people did judge me for what I was as a child or a teen. On the other hand, my life has gotten *much* more interesting since I lost most of my virtue. There’s always a tradeoff, ya know. :-)

    re MacTurk @34:

    I think I see your point. As far as I can tell, though, not even the most scrupulous regard for the truth will stop the Catholic apologists from screaming “lies!”

  41. #41 DuWayne
    September 21, 2010

    Ш цфытэе шдд иурфмувб Ш огые иудшумув куфддн рщккшиду ерштпыю Ерщгпр Ш ьгые фвьше ерфе Ш цуте вщцтршдд фы ф еуутю

  42. #42 Chad
    September 21, 2010

    That’s Greek to me.

  43. #43 DuWayne
    September 21, 2010

    Shit, that didn’t show up Cyrillic in the box. First I repaste a quote midstream, now I am typing in Cyrillic – there are some kinks to work out on the netbook it seems.

    I was trying to say that I wasn’t particularly ill behaved as a child, I just believed really horrible things. Though admittedly, I did go downhill as a teen.

  44. #44 MacTurk
    September 22, 2010

    Mr Laden, I have made my position re the Catholic Church and the current Pope crystal clear since the first time I posted on this thread. The Catholic church is known to anyone with a functioning brain to be a protection racket for child rapists. This, in Ireland, is documented for at least 80 years. They have been playing “Hide the Pervert” on an international basis for a long time. The present pope has been engaging in an ongoing cover-up since he was made a Bishop in 1977. As for his brain dead attempt to compare atheists to Nazis, others have said it better than I could, and I see no need to add my modest efforts.

    I am not an apologist for that stinking institution, but the truth is important, and you are in danger of using the same deception tactics that you rightly condemn when they are used by fundamental god botherers and Creationist loons.

    First, the picture at the top of this post is crudely cropped to give the impression that the man Joseph Alois Ratzinger was giving a Nazi salute. Posters aineolach(no 1), «bønez_brigade»(no 7) and rpsms(no 8) have all noted this. At the very least you should have put up the complete photograph, and the date it was taken, which is either at the Ratzinger brothers’ ordination(29th June 1951) or their first mass(8th July 1951). The Nazi Party(NSDAP) was nearly six years extinct by that time, which obviously ruins the association you wanted with the headline. This is the sort of crude deception you love to call out.

    The second picture, featuring Joseph Goebbels(Reich Minister of Propaganda)on the far right, Wilhelm Frick (then Reich Minister of the Interior), Franz Rudolf Bornewasser((Bishop of Trier) and Lugwig Sebastian(Bishop of Speyer). The man in the SA uniform in the centre remains unidentified, but is probably Josef Bürckel, the Saarland Gauleiter. The photograph can be found here: http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=paul_23_4

    It was taken in the Saarbrucken town hall between January 13th, 1935(Plebicite) and March 7, 1936(Remilitarisation of the Rhineland), at a ceremony to celebrate the return of the Saar region to Germany from French control.

    So will you continue to maintain that an 8 or 9-year old boy is giving the Hitler salute, next to two of the most powerful members of the Nazi Party?

    Curious, I am.

  45. #45 Greg Laden
    September 22, 2010

    As for his brain dead attempt to compare atheists to Nazis, others have said it better than I could, and I see no need to add my modest efforts.

    There is a very fine line between saying that others can speak for you and not speaking at all. Arm wave all you like about child abuse by priests, you are letting the Atheist accusation stand.

    Thank you for the additional potentially valid information about the photographs. You are mistaken if you think that I am ‘continuously maintaining’ anything.

  46. #46 MacTurk
    September 22, 2010

    I am not “letting the Atheist accusation stand”. I referred, inter alia, to “his brain dead attempt to compare atheists to Nazis”. I am fully aware that the current occupant of the corner office in the Vatican is a complete tool, whose slogan is basically “Back to the Middle Ages”.

    And stop maintaining links to silly photos, especially given the nature of the website in question. You only give ammunition to the fatuous faithists and creationists.

    You wrote “But then, it turns out that he WAS giving a real lie Nazi salute in a different picture. Here” “Here” is: http://www.remnantofgod.org/ratzingersalute.htm

    This is a fundy xtian site, which on its home page claims, among other things, “”Since September 4 Christchurch in New Zealand is being pounded by earthquakes, one after the other they are coming and some are fairly medium sized earthquakes. Those tremors, aftershocks or earthquakes are now approaching almost 700 earthquakes in just 13 days. That is either the biggest earthquake swarm we have heard off or something else is brewing beneath New Zealand.” -Prophetically speaking, earthquakes always mean God is near in coming or near in speaking. Did not the mountain shake when the Lord spoke His Law from Mt Sinai? And did not Christ declare earthquakes would increase right before He returns? This “new fault line” in New Zealand is obviously moving into a strategic position for when God’s wrath is released on those that deny His Son. How long will it be? No clue.. we cannot know the day or the hour. But we can know the season”. This is your source?

    Further down the home page, you will discover that “President Obama removed the reference to the “Creator” from the Declaration of Independence when he quoted a portion at a meeting of the Congressional Hispanic Congress. Obama said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But the the actual quotation is: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” -You can deny Him all you like Mr Obama. That won’t stop His return. I only pray that you are ready to meet the God that created even you. By the way, this is one more bit of evidence that Obama is a Muslim that denies the Creator God of the Christian. Prophecy did say the USA would start off Christian and end up anti-Christian. So be it! Maranatha! Sep 19 10, 02:09:55″. This also proves that your President is a Muslim, apparently. You want to be quoted as using this as a source?

    Just cut the link, and stop pretending the papal pedophile protector was a senior Nazi when he was less than ten years old. It does not reflect well.

  47. #47 Macturk
    September 22, 2010

    A further photo of the participants can be found here:
    “http://resources.ushmm.org/inquery/uia_doc.php/query/81?uf=uia_tUwxMV

  48. #48 Jimmy_Blue
    September 26, 2010

    Joshua Zelinsky wrote:

    Don’t be an idiot. He was a Nazi. Whether or not we have a picture of him giving the salute is utterly irrelevant.

    Well allow this idiot to ask, where’s your proof that Ratzinger was actually a member of the Nazi party?

    Giving the salute does not make him a Nazi. Being conscripted into the Hitler Youth does not make him a Nazi (unless you think that Hans Scholl was also a Nazi simply becauase of his Hitler Youth membership). Serving in the Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe does not make him a Nazi. Unless of course you’re one of those people who misuses the term Nazi.

    So, if you have something other than supposition, assumption or personal bias do please go ahead and show it. Failing that you could just throw out an insult, pretend I’m missing the point and ignore what I was actually saying. Oh look… All that is left now is for someone to accuse me of being an apologist for him or the Nazis.

    It’s quite simple, Greg Laden referred to a photo and claimed it showed Ratzinger giving the Nazi salute, with no good reason to do so other than some nutter had photoshopped the photo with Ratzingers name and an arrow pointing to someone, as far as I can tell. Despite protestations to the contrary it has been shown the man in the photo is clearly not Ratzinger, in fact its been shown the man in the photo could not be Ratzinger. Mr Laden still won’t admit that is the case and simply retract his earlier statement, instead he keeps dodging around it and half heartedly implying that the person in the picture could indeed still be Ratzinger, yet we’re supposed to be the intellectually honest and evidence minded ones.

    Yes, I am well aware that this isn’t even the main point of the post, whether or not Ratzinger was a Nazi is irrelevant to his odious attempts to blame the Holocaust on atheists when his own religion and its adherents were knee deep in it – he’s attempting breathtakingly repugnant historical revisionism and needs to be vilified and ridiculed for it – but doing so by lying or getting caught by obvious fakes allows Ratzinger and his followers to wriggle off the hook. His defenders can say “Look, they lied about this / got it wrong” and people won’t remember that we showed the Pope was a cock, they’ll remember we got a picture wrong and attach that to everything else we say.

    Just say you were wrong about both of the pictures and move on.

  49. #49 Greg Laden
    September 26, 2010

    Jimmy Blue,

    “It’s quite simple, Greg Laden referred to a photo and claimed it showed Ratzinger giving the Nazi salute”

    !=

    “something that looks exactly like the Nazi salute but is actually a Christian blessing thingie ”

    “in fact its been shown the man in the photo could not be Ratzinger. ”

    I don’t think it has been shown that it is not Ratzinger, but I’m perfectly willing to believe that it isn’t him. As I’ve said a dozen times, I appreciate any information clarifying the nature of this photo as well as the photos that I did not post even though it seems that some people see them up there in the OP anyway, and having all that information in the comments is sufficient. If you really want me to re-write the post to your specifications, Jimmy boy, buy out Scienceblogs.com, change the editorial policy, give me a HUGE raise so I don’t quit with the new policies, edit the post the way you want it, and run it buy me but ignore my comments.

    “Mr Laden still won’t admit that is the case and simply retract his earlier statement, instead he keeps dodging around it”

    Nope, not dodging around it. Just not accepting the dogmatic screaming that a) this is not a particular person or b) that The Rat was or was not of a particular philosophy as a youth or that c) I must follow the Jimmy Rules of blog editorial polizeez!!!

    “we’re supposed to be the intellectually honest and evidence minded ones.”

    We? I think you can guess where I think you should put your “we.” Look at yourself, what you are saying. You are being as dogmatic as anyone else on this thread, and doing it in a way that covers for the Pope’s ‘sin’ of obviating the responsibilities that his church has … in FACT … in the holocaust. That places YOU, Jimmy, in a very special position. Not a comfortable position at that.

    “Just say you were wrong about both of the pictures and move on.”

    You mean by deleting the part where I was wrong (because I more or less copied what someone else had written with the photos) and changing it to something that as far as I can tell is correct? (Which is what I did) Or by deleting what as far as I can tell is correct and replacing it with what you, Jimmy The Roolz, demand that I am to believe in order to pass your personal litmus test? You are not a skeptic, Jimmy, you are a dick. Your intentions are good, but your approach is totally fucked. You spend three or four paragraphs dressing down an ally for saying something ambiguous instead of dogmatic, and then finally mention that yes, the pope is all wrong about what he has said. I am not impressed. Anyone who reads the first half of your post and stops there would see an argument for accommodationism. I’m not into that. You blew it. You should rewrite your comment so it does not help the other side in this manner.

    I mentioned earlier the people I’ve known who were in the HJ. (I was senselessly berated for that as a “there’s a Nazi in my bathroom” comment, which was an utterly stupid thing to say for whomever said that.) Those individuals, whom I’ve known in recent decades, are not Nazis today yet they were part of a major Nazi organization as kids. It is hard to say that they were not Nazis, but they certainly are not today. Yes, we can define a “Nazi” as a card carrying member of the party and do so very narrowly. If so, the I was never a communist either, even though as a 14 year old I joined the closest thing to a communist organization that existed in the US and read all the commie literature and went to all the meetings and knew all the words to “the tree that stands beside the water” and everything. I was a Communist but by the Jimmy Definition for membership in a party, I was not.

    The people I know who were HJ have renounced their links to the Nazis. The Pope has stood in on behalf of Catholics of the time and blamed the holocaust on atheists. This places him in a very ambiguous position. Since we KNOW that Hitler was a Catholic as were many other prominent Nazis, and that many top Catholic church leaders supported the Nazi’s, does this mean that the Pope is a step or two away from denying the Holocaust itself, or Nazi involvement? Or perhaps, and this is more plausible, blaming Satin mixed with a lack of faith (atheism) and thus washing the hands of both any particular political party (read “Nazis) AND the Catholics of the time?

    I’m not going along with the strong assertion that the Pope was not a Nazi (in the same way I was a Communist, not going by some stupid-ass thoughtless narrow definition) for the simple reasons of his known history at the time TOGETHER WITH his current apologism for key aspects of the holocaust.

    The world is not the simple place you wish it was, Jimmy, and you are not the guy on top of it able and authorized to tell the rest of us what to think, write, or edit.