When Pope Benedict visited Auschwitz in 2006, he delivered a speech, with death camp survivors present, that hit all the right notes. Joseph Ratzinger was a teenager in postwar Germany’s school of hard knocks, where no one discussed why voters elected “criminals” to power. The main moral dilemma was not why Germany murdered six million Jews, but the moral rights and wrongs of looting for food and coal. For many ordinary Germans, reflecting on the past meant pointing the finger of blame at true believers in the SS and Gestapo. Others suggested that Hitler had “abused the German capacity for enthusiasm”.

Source: The Irish Times June 05, 2021 22:52 UTC