Benedict and his shady past
As a boy, I was fascinated by my father's most visible piece of WWII loot: a Hitler Youth knife. It was a Solingen blade in a self-sharpening sheath, wickedly sharp. He only used it to gut fish or game. I never asked about that singleness of purpose.
He did respond once to my question, "Who were the Hitler Youth? " Dad explained that at the end of the war, the Hitler Youth were sent out to infiltrate Allied lines, armed with these knives, that they were anywhere from 10 to 14 (that seemed old to me at the time) and that it was "kill or be killed" for GIs attacked by these fanatical boys.
Apparently, that wasn't the whole story.
Fast forward to the mid 1990s and a previous interval of education. One of my tech writing classmates was, among other things, a competent militaria collector. Since I was an antiques reporter at the time, we had common interests. In the spring of 1995, when the media were trumpeting the 50th anniversary of the freeing of the death camps, I was discussing with Bob what I knew of my Dad's role in Holocaust liberation. I mentioned in passing that he had a Hitler Youth knife, and Bob came to a full stop, looked at me strangely and said, "Do you know how those guys got those knives?"
I did not.
"They usually got them by having to kill the boy who was trying to kill them," he said. He explained that it was something of a recognised badge of survival. No soldier likes killing children...or so we hope. No soldier likes being killed, either.
Benedict XVI, nee Ratzinger, may remain God's Rottweiler, or theoretically he could be another John XXIII, achieving great things in a short time. I'll wait and see. In the meantime, let's be clear on one dimension of his past:
The Hitler Youth were not the fucking Cub Scouts.
PS:
The Mitchell Trio said a lot about Pope Benedict XVI:
Each and every German dances to the strain
Of the I-Was-Not-A-Nazi Polka.
All without exception, join in the refrain
Of the I-Was-Not-A-Nazi Polka.
Help! Does anyone have the complete lyrics ?
He did respond once to my question, "Who were the Hitler Youth? " Dad explained that at the end of the war, the Hitler Youth were sent out to infiltrate Allied lines, armed with these knives, that they were anywhere from 10 to 14 (that seemed old to me at the time) and that it was "kill or be killed" for GIs attacked by these fanatical boys.
Apparently, that wasn't the whole story.
Fast forward to the mid 1990s and a previous interval of education. One of my tech writing classmates was, among other things, a competent militaria collector. Since I was an antiques reporter at the time, we had common interests. In the spring of 1995, when the media were trumpeting the 50th anniversary of the freeing of the death camps, I was discussing with Bob what I knew of my Dad's role in Holocaust liberation. I mentioned in passing that he had a Hitler Youth knife, and Bob came to a full stop, looked at me strangely and said, "Do you know how those guys got those knives?"
I did not.
"They usually got them by having to kill the boy who was trying to kill them," he said. He explained that it was something of a recognised badge of survival. No soldier likes killing children...or so we hope. No soldier likes being killed, either.
Benedict XVI, nee Ratzinger, may remain God's Rottweiler, or theoretically he could be another John XXIII, achieving great things in a short time. I'll wait and see. In the meantime, let's be clear on one dimension of his past:
The Hitler Youth were not the fucking Cub Scouts.
PS:
The Mitchell Trio said a lot about Pope Benedict XVI:
Each and every German dances to the strain
Of the I-Was-Not-A-Nazi Polka.
All without exception, join in the refrain
Of the I-Was-Not-A-Nazi Polka.
Help! Does anyone have the complete lyrics ?
posted by Uncle | 23:59
2 Comments:
I don't know if you're still checking this at all, but I've got the entire song by the Chad Mitchell Trio in MP3 format, if you need me to transcribe it for you sometime. I realize the blog entry's years old, but I just came across it yesterday, while searching, ironically, for info on the Chad Mitchell Trio. Heh.
Blogger.com is a faithful hound dog, so yes, I'm very interested in that transcription. It still has legs, as they say.
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