"Well, you could have been hardly more anti-Nazi than the Ratzinger family."

From an interview with German journalist Hesemann, who recorded and edited the material that makes up My Brother, the Pope (also available in e-book format), in today's edition of National Catholic Register:

In the past, we have experienced various attempts to reduce Pope Benedict's past to the Nazi era. How does this book help to address that mischaracterization of the Ratzinger family's values and activities during that era?

Well, you could have been hardly more anti-Nazi than the Ratzinger family. The Pope's father was a small-town policeman when he stopped Nazi rallies and ended Nazi Party meetings, so the Nazis complained about him, and he was advised to request removal to a village — which he did, although it was a step down the career ladder. He hated them; he called Hitler "the Antichrist." He couldn't wait for his retirement, since he did not want to serve the Nazi regime, and, of course, he never joined the Nazi Party.

Instead, he was a subscriber to the most outspoken Catholic anti-Nazi Newspaper, Der gerade Weg, whose editor in chief, Fritz Gerlich, was murdered by the Nazis just after they came to power. After Hitler's election, Joseph Ratzinger Sr. told his family frankly and nearly prophetically: "Soon we will have a war, so let's buy a house" — which they did.

Indeed, the decision of both brothers to join the seminary was also a protest against the Nazis, and you can just imagine how seminarians were mocked by the Nazi boys of their age. Although it was the law to join the Hitler Youth and the whole class was automatically enlisted, young Joseph Ratzinger avoided it. He frankly told his school teacher he did not want to go, and, eventually, the teacher allowed him to stay at home. Even their older sister, Maria Ratzinger, who was an intelligent young lady and dreamed of becoming a school teacher for all her childhood, refused to study when the Nazis came to power and became a lawyer's secretary instead: She just did not want to teach Nazi ideology at a Nazi school.

There were a few good Catholics in Germany, even during the Nazi regime — people who suffered a lot, and the Ratzingers were among them.

Read the entire interview, which is really interesting. For more about My Brother the Pope, visit the book's website.