Early life of Pope Benedict XVI

<!-- If anyone has any image that would suit the "military service" section, that's the only thing this page is really aesthetically missing. What about the truth?? -->The early life of Pope Benedict XVI concerns the period from his birth in 1927 through the completion of his education and ordination in 1951.

Background and childhood (1927&ndash;1943)

Joseph Alois Ratzinger was born on 16 April, Holy Saturday, 1927 at 11 Schulstrasse, his parents' home in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria and baptised on the same day. He was the third and youngest child of Joseph Ratzinger, Sr., a police officer, and his wife, Maria, whose family were from South Tyrol. His father served in both the Bavarian State Police (Landespolizei) and the German national Regular Police (Ordnungspolizei) before retiring in 1937 to the town of Traunstein. The Sunday Times described the older Ratzinger as "an anti-Nazi whose attempts to rein in Hitler’s Brown Shirts forced the family to move several times." . According to the International Herald Tribune, these relocations were directly related to Joseph Ratzinger, Sr.'s continued resistance to Nazism, which resulted in demotions and transfers. The pope's brother Georg said: "Our father was a bitter enemy of Nazism because he believed it was in conflict with our faith". The family had a sadder encounter with the Nazi regime, because of its euthanasia program for the handicapped. John Allen, Ratzinger's biographer, reports...
Read More