There is a new pope, Benedict XVI, and the media is taking care that everyone knows about that fact. If someone from Germany is in the media, I’ve noticed an interresting side effect. The, more or less secret, war between German and British tabloid, such as Bild-Zeitung and The Sun.
Soccer matches, canvas-chairs fights on Mediterranean islands, they have been previously used to create headlines to remind Brits and Germans that they used to be arch-enemies. Especially the Sun likes to dig up old stories from World War II, without a doubt one of the darkest moments in the history of Europe.
So this time around its Benedict XVI, formally known as Cardinal Josef Ratzinger. Mr. Ratzing was unfortunately born in Germany in the year 1927 which means that he grew during the dark time of the Nazi Regime and was member of an organization called “Hitler Jugend” just like many fellow young Germans. So the Sun had nothing better to do then to point out this information of historic proportion in the biggest letters on their front-page : From Hitler Youth to Papa Ratzi… Of course the Bild-Zeitung in Germany had to defend the German Pope in the biggest letters on their frontpage and at the same time remembering the Germans of all the flaws of the Brits.
Josef Ratzinger is 78, and all the others who actually lived during the rise and fall of the “Dritte Reich” will be history sooner or later. As a matter of fact, there will be a day when the last German who lived during the time of the Nazi-Regime will be dead. Poor Sun, no more headlines about some dark secret from in the past of German citizens…
This is just theoretical , but I’m currently 26 years old, male, catholic and not married, which, according to church law, means that I could become Pope at some point in the future. What would the Sun write about me? That my grandfather used to be part of the Hitler Youth? That I worked in Linz, once the favorite city of A. Hitler? Well, I don’t have to worry anyway, I’m Austrian, and the Germans have to take all the credit for World War II…
I wonder if, say in 20 years from now, the Germans will still blamed for things that happend between 1938 and 1945. But I also hope that human mankind has learned a few things since 1945 and that history will not repeat itself.