Pope Benedict XVI was the 265th pope of the Catholic Church and
the first from Germany since the 11th century. Pope Benedict was
born Joseph Ratzinger in Marktl am Inn, Germany, on April 16,
1927. His father, a policeman, moved frequently, and the family
left when he was 2. He has an older brother, Georg -- former
director of the renowned Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir. He
spent his childhood and adolescence in Traunstein, a small
village near the Austrian border. During that time, the Nazi
regime pursued a hostile attitude toward the Catholic Church.
The young Joseph saw how some Nazis beat a parish priest before
the celebration of Mass, according to the Vatican's Web site.
Ratzinger went through the harrowing years of Nazi rule. He was
drafted as an assistant to a Nazi anti-aircraft unit and also
sent to the Austrian-Hungarian border to construct tank
barriers. He deserted the Germany army in May 1945. U.S.
soldiers took him prisoner and held him in a POW camp for
several weeks. Upon his release, he re-