Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Ratzinger in Germany in 1927, was a member of the Hitler Youth.
When Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) turned 14 in 1941 in Germany, he was legally required to join the Hitler Youth.
Hitler Youth was an organization set up by Adolf Hitler in 1933 for educating and training male youths in Nazi principles.
Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger in 1927 in Marktl am Inn, Germany, was head of the Catholic Church from 2005 until his resignation in February 2013. According to various sources, he was part of the Hitler Youth between 1941 and 1943. A Benedict biography note on Encyclopedia Britannica read:
Ratzinger’s father was a policeman and his mother a hotel cook. The youngest of three children, Ratzinger was six years old when the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933; his parents, who were staunch Catholics, were hostile to the regime. Ratzinger entered the seminary in 1939.
In 1941 he was compelled to join the Hitler Youth, and in 1943 he was drafted into the German military, serving in an antiaircraft unit in Bavaria before being sent to Hungary to set tank traps in 1945.
He deserted in April of that year and was captured by American forces and held prisoner for a brief period.
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