Originally Posted by Dyshade

Attending Hitler Youth classes was made compulsory in 1939 due to a lot of youths not attending, it was still not compulsory to join however. And even when it was made compulsory to attend almost all classes did not check that those enrolled were attending. Those that did did so out of patriotic duty. No fault in that nor is it any fault that Ratzinger and his family were patriotic/// and they were indeed until the last few months of the war in which the young Ratzinger decided to desert his Infantry Division.