Pope Benedict XVI

"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.(...)

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. "Thank God they were ones who had had enough of war and did not want to become murderers," he wrote in his book, "Aus meinem Leben," published in English as "Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977."(...)

For years, he and his family had watched the Nazis strengthen their grip on Germany. His father, a policeman and a convinced anti-Nazi, moved the family at least once after clashing with local followers of the party. A local teacher, he remembered, became an ardent follower of the new movement, and tried to institute a pagan May pole ritual as more fitting of Germanic ways than the traditional, conservative Catholicism. In 1941, Ratzinger, 14, and his brother, Georg were enrolled in the Hitler Youth when it became mandatory for all boys.

Soon after, he writes in his book, "The Salt of the Earth," he was let out because of his intention to study for the priesthood. In 1943, like many teenage boys, he was drafted as a helper for an anti-aircraft brigade, which defended a BMW plant outside Munich. Later, he dug anti-tank trenches. When he turned 18, on April 16, 1945, he was put through basic training, alongside men in their 30s and 40s, drafted as the Third Reich went through its death agony. He was stationed near his hometown -- he doesn't say where -- but did not see combat with the approaching U.S. troops.

After he returned home, the Americans finally arrived -- and set up their headquarters in his parents 18th century farmhouse on the outskirts of the town. They identified him as a German soldier, made him put on his uniform, put up his hands, and marched him off to join other prisoners kept in a nearby meadow. Taken to a camp near Ulm, he wound up living outside for several weeks, surrounded by barbed wire. He was finally released June 19 and hitched a ride on a milk truck back to Traunstein.

His family was happy to see him. (...) Suddenly, in the middle of July, in walked Georg, tanned and unharmed. He sat at the piano and banged out the hymn, "Grosser Gott, wir Loben Dich," "Mighty God, we Praise You" as his family rejoiced. The war was truly over. "The following months of regained freedom, which we now had learned to value so much, belong to the happiest months of my life," he wrote.