Joseph Ratzinger, Sr.
| Joseph Alois Ratzinger | |
|---|---|
| Allegiance |
|
| Service/branch |
 Wehrmacht ReichsarbeitsdienstLuftwaffenhelfer |
| Years of service | 1943–1945 |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
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.
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 (née Peintner), 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 encountered the Nazi regime's euthanasia program for the handicapped. John Allen, a Ratzinger biographer, reports a revelation made by Cardinal Ratzinger at a conference in the Vatican on 28 November 1996: "Ratzinger had a cousin with Down's Syndrome who in 1941 was 14 years old. This cousin was just a few months younger than Ratzinger and was taken away by the Nazi authorities for "therapy". Not long afterwards, the family received word that he was dead, presumably one of the 'undesirables' eliminated during that time."
His elder brother, Georg (born 1924) also became a priest. Their sister, Maria, managed Joseph's household until her death in 1991, fulfilling a promise she made to their parents to take care of her brothers. She never married. Their great uncle Georg Ratzinger was a priest and member of the Reichstag, as the German Parliament was then called.
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