BERLIN — In May 1945, thousands of German prisoners of war trudged down the highway toward the Bavarian town of Bad Aibling. Among them – tired but grateful to be alive – was 18-year-old Joseph Ratzinger, who days before had risked death by deserting the German army.
“In three days of marching, we hiked down the empty highway, in a column that gradually became endless,” the new pope recalled years later in his memoirs.
“The American soldiers photographed us, the young ones, most of all, in order to take home souvenirs of the defeated army and its desolate personnel.”
Like his predecessor, John Paul II, Ratzinger was marked by the terror-filled years of World War II. Karol Wojtyla was forced to work in a quarry and narrowly escaped arrest in a mass roundup of young men by the Germans in Krakow; Ratzinger’s experiences were also harrowing.
In particular, his decision to leave his army unit just after he turned military age could have cost Ratzinger his life.
At the time, he knew that the dreaded SS units would shoot a deserter on the spot – or hang him from a lamppost as a warning to others. He recalled his terror when he was stopped by other soldiers.
