Flak Batteries

[Jim O]

I have read that as a high school aged boy, Pope Benedict XVI "served" in a Luftwaffe AA (Flak) battery. Does anyone know anything about these units?

[Ingsoc]

Yes, toward the end of the war when Germany had a problem with men power it's recruited HJ boys to serve in it's AA batteries, I believe that Benedict XVI defected from his unit and surrendered to the Americans.

[Klaus]

At the age of 16 years Joseph Ratzinger was used as Flakhelfer for the protection of a BMW factory outside of Munich. During this time he visited the Maximiliansgymnasium (Highschool). 1944 he was drafted for basic training and sent to Austrian/Burgenland to the RAD, where he was used among other things with the establishment by antitank barriers. In the last war days he defected. He came nevertheless in 1945 briefly into an american prisoncamp near Neu Ulm.

[Klaus]

That's him in his HJ uniform.

[Jack the collector]

Jim,

These units were HJ boys and BDM girls.They were conscripted into service as young as the age of twelve.This was done to free up older service men to fight in the east.
After the defeat at Stalingrad,the transition to "total war" began.In November of 1942 a regulation called Kriegshilfseinsatz der Deutschen Jugend bei der Luftwaffe( Auxiliary War Action of German Youth within the Luftwaffe) was put in place.Reichsminister Frick basically activated his regulation Emergency Service of Students for the War time Employment in the Luftwaffe in January 1943.Both decreed that all German males that had reached the age of 15,would be required to serve as members of the Luftwaffe auxillaries.This meant in real terms tha these boys( and later older girls) would work at the following wartime activities:

Search and sound locators.
Communications.
Transportation.
Fire defense.
smoke crew and barrage balloon
Flak guns(Flakhelfer)

In the begining,the plan was for the boys to do this on a partime basis until the age of 18,when they could then go into full military service.By the end of the war they were doing everything.Round about Feb. 1945,this was the group from which members of operation werewolf were pulled from.The only other famous flakhefer I can name id Manfred Rommel,son of GFM Erwin Rommel.

[Jack the collector]

forgot to post a link with basicly the same information

Axis History Factbook: Hitlerjugend: HJ-Flakhelfer

[Jim O]

Thanks for the info and the link. I didn't realize the extent to which children were "employed" in the war effort though somewhere I've seen a photo of Hitler pinching a boy soldier's cheek in Berlin during the closing days of the war.

[Klaus]

Some other Flakhelfer:

Nobelprice winner (1999) in Literature Günter Grass (born 1927), Ex-minister for foreign affairs Hans-Dietrich Genscher (1927), Professor for medical microbiologie Dietrich Falke (1927), Peter Alexander (1926), Showstar, was stationed in Vienna.

[Hagen]

Originally Posted by Jim O

somewhere I've seen a photo of Hitler pinching a boy soldier's cheek in Berlin during the closing days of the war.

The picture I believe you're talking about was taken on Hitlers last Birthday, (20 April 1945) he was decorating boys of the HJ with Iron Cross's for defending a (Havel?) bridge.