Don't forget Pope Benedict was in the Hitler Youth.
this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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He had no choice
Ratzinger's family, especially his father, bitterly resented the Nazis, and his father's opposition to Nazism resulted in demotions and harassment of the family.[20] Following his 14th birthday in 1941, Ratzinger was conscripted into the Hitler Youth – as membership was required by law for all 14-year-old German boys after March 1939[21] – but was an unenthusiastic member who refused to attend meetings, according to his brother.[22] In 1941, one of Ratzinger's cousins, a 14-year-old boy with Down syndrome, was taken away by the Nazi regime and murdered during the Aktion T4 campaign of Nazi eugenics.
I can't find anything on Walter Hallstein and Adolf Heusinger being nazis or committing war crimes. Looks like the former was an academic drafted in the army and the latter a high-ranking officer who began his career before the nazis.
I get that Heusinger can be seen as complicit (he must have known for whom he worked and didn't quit), but what about Hallstein?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Hallstein
In 1935, Hallstein attempted to start a military career alongside his academic duties.[17] In 1936, he managed to integrate a voluntary military service in an artillery unit.[17] In the years between 1936 and 1939, he attended several military courses[18] and was made a reserve officer.[17]
Hallstein was a member of several nominally Nazi professional organizations,[g][19] but he was not a member of the Nazi Party
Not the worst nazi but the voluntary military service under the Nazis seals the deal for me. Definitely a Nazi.
Ah yeah, I thought he was drafted. Thanks!
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Operation Osoaviakhim was a secret Soviet operation in which more than 2,500 German specialists (scientists, engineers and technicians who worked in several areas) from companies and institutions relevant to military and economic policy in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany (SBZ) and Berlin, as well as around 4,000 more family members, totalling more than 6,000 people, were taken from former Nazi Germany as war reparations to the Soviet Union. It took place in the early morning hours of October 22, 1946
The keywords here being "as war reparations".
Nazis were put to work for their crimes not given a new name and passport and a high paying and respected career.
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