---
product_id: 299462210
title: "Benedict XVI: A Life: Volume One: Youth in Nazi Germany to the Second Vatican Council 1927-1965"
brand: "peter seewald"
price: "KSh6183"
currency: KES
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 5
url: https://www.desertcart.co.ke/products/299462210-benedict-xvi-a-life-volume-one-youth-in-nazi-germany
store_origin: KE
region: Kenya
---

# Benedict XVI: A Life: Volume One: Youth in Nazi Germany to the Second Vatican Council 1927-1965

**Brand:** peter seewald
**Price:** KSh6183
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Benedict XVI: A Life: Volume One: Youth in Nazi Germany to the Second Vatican Council 1927-1965 by peter seewald
- **How much does it cost?** KSh6183 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.ke](https://www.desertcart.co.ke/products/299462210-benedict-xvi-a-life-volume-one-youth-in-nazi-germany)

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐ 







  
  
    Not Seewalds best work - to be treated with caution.
  

*by F***N on Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 January 2021*

Wow! What an erudite and challenging read. This profile of Benedict XV1 is one that firmly places him on the road to sainthood. Peter Seewald is a journalist not a historian so the flavour of what is written is controlled more by an agenda than facts.  Oh! there are plenty of facts that seem to paint a very authentic picture but the problem is with verification.  His reference section is sparse  and while Benedict is his primary source some of his assertions contradicts what Benedict says in Memories, and even what he (Seewald) wrote in previous works.  Mistakes are so significant that one may regard this book as partly fiction.  Here are some examples.Page 62 - “Hufschlag, near the Upper Bavarian town of Kleinstadt” they are 300 miles apart and that’s not near.  “P 120 - “At last the Americans arrived in Hufschlag. It was May 7th.”  It was May 3rd and on the 7th Joseph was a POW for four days, and was now held in a POW camp at Bad Aibling.  P 119 - “Joseph’s company was quartered in the girl’s school in the middle of Traunstein” Does not say what school.  All schools were requisitioned as hospitals so he could not have been billeted there, and Joseph never said so.  In Milstones he said he left from the barracks.  P119  -  “I decided to go home”  We have a date and a time for everything but he cannot remember the most important date when he claims his life was at risk.  Maj Quimby who took over Traunstein on May 3rd believed Joseph had just come home and that was after the town was surrendered.  P119 - “As he sneaked through the station subway two soldiers were standing there on guard duty”  This comment is really sick.  The station was bombed on April 18th and over 100 people were killed.  The subway took a direct hit.  The area was being searched for bodies.  One man was found 9 days later (27th) having been blown out of the area by the explosion.  Another man was dug out eleven days later (29th).  There was no tunnel to go through, and any soldiers around were looking for bodies.  That is not Seewalds only problem.  Joseph would have been travelling from south to north.  To get home he would have to cross the Traun River and the only bridge is near the barracks an area of high security.  P119 - “Bandaged hand”  other accounts state his arm was in a sling.  Which is it? …. His arm being in a sling would be consistent with a novice using a machine gun?  P119 - “Jews locked in a brewery pigsty”  We are not told the pigsty was at 3, Waginger Street a very short distance from the Ratzingers home.  Kurt Messerschmidt escaped at night and would have passed Ratzingers house as he made for cover in the woods.  We do not hear about Leo Neumann who was one of the 62 Jews shot but survived to give us an account of what happened! P120 -  “There was a tank pointing its canon towards Ratzingers house” Very dramatic but fiction.  Maj Quimby, 2nd Chemical Mortar Battalion, understood Joesph Ratzinger Sen was chief of police and made his headquarters there.  There were no tanks in his battalion - it was a chemical unit specialising in setting down smoke screens.  P94 - Seewald mentions that Cardinal Ratzinger would spend a few days on holidays every year in the Seminary where studied as a child.  A section of the upper floor was walled off and made into a spacious self contained apartment. It has not been used since 2005. (McCarrick would have been envious) Much is made of Josephs ‘desertion’ but unless we know the date we cannot assess the claim.  The barracks was shut down on May 2nd, all but a few were sent home. Locals were looting the barracks. Order within the city had collapsed before that, and the roads to Austria were blocked by military fleeing.One striking feature in this book is the total lack of empathy with all the suffering Joseph witnessed, and there is no evidence that he went out of his way to help anyone.  In Allach he was based beside a concentration camp and visited a devastated Munich but had no feelings for the death and sufferings all around.  Traunstein was full of hospitals with critically ill patients and two soldiers dying every day yet it was his finger that commanded attention.  Even as Archbishop in Munich he never visited Dachau.  Oh, he  visited the convent which opened onto the camp, and stood at the threshold, and gawked  at where the priests barracks were, and where 2579 priests were detained and 1034 martyred but he never walked the 100 yds to pray there.  His lack of empathy is disgustingly blamed on a non existing condition called ‘War Intermezzo’ (P102).  The same condition explains why he could ignore the thousands of abuse complaints that landed on his desk, as he devoted his time to writing eschatological papers only relevant to his devoted admirers.There are important things the book does not mention.  No evidence young Joseph ever went to mass or visited the church.  There were many opportunities to give spiritual support or assist at funerals but no evidence of that kind of witness.  His brother had taken part in the battle for Mount Casino and was later badly injured and sent to Traunstein for hospital treatment.  No word whether he visited him in hospital or at home.  It may well be that between his sore finger and Georg’s injuries Joseph spent as much time at home as he did in the barracks.  Indeed he seems to have been able to negotiate his passage through the Nazi period with privileged respect.  The writings of his contemporaries show more sensitivities to the realities of war.  Seewald who had unique access to Pope Benedict fails to extract and convey the information that makes his subject an integrated person.  One is left feeling we are only being given the information that he wants us to have.The murder of 62 Jews is a case in point.  There were two criminal investigations with different defendants.  No information was provided by local people and the cases collapsed.  The Ratzingers knew who the SS were who stayed in their house and who wanted to take young Joseph away and probably execute him.  At the time the Commandant of Dachau Wilhelm Eduard Weiter was on the run with a jeep full of food and booze.  It would be nice to know who those SS officers were.  Joseph says they “left without causing any harm”.  Harm to who?  How does he know they had nothing to do with the execution of the Jews?  Could it be that Joseph was forced to take part in the detachment that escorted the Jews to their execution as the price of saving his own life?  Could it be that the “little-known back road out of town” (Milestones P36) was Jahn Road, with its rail underpass, and close to Surberg where they were executed?  The only reason the soldiers would be placed there was to stop the Jews from escaping?  That scenario makes more sense than the one offered by Seewald?This book is a great read, but not one I would recommend and I doubt if I would give the time to read the next volume.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    ONLY A PORTION OF BENEDICT
  

*by S***T on Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 July 2021*

I say only a portion, as my view  is that the author paints a very sycophantic picture. As an extremely lapsed Catholic with two Post Graduate Degrees in Christian Theology obtained in a College with a strong Jesuit ethos, my interest is in the "human" side of the Popes and their detractors and supporters. I am not sure I got a three dimensional view of Benedict in this first volume and it did make him appear a "goodie two shoes". Reading elsewhere there is more to Benedict than might meet the eye. Nevertheless, I particularly liked the author giving a background history as to what was going on in the world which was concurrent with Benedict's early life. At times the translation I found lacking and also the editing, but only in places. For example, Karl Jaspers is given in one place as Japsers and Sachenhausen concentration camp is referred to as Sachsenhaus. Dreadful. Also, the phrase for a someone who teaches religion is given as "religion teacher". Surely "Teacher of Religion" would be better. Overall, a long read and Benedict's pious early life and his subsequent studies no doubt earmarked him for greater things. Playing priests and dressing up as a kid seems an odd thing to do. Personally, Benedict and his predecessor John Paul II may not be seen in a favourable light given their conservative proclivities with the decline in the priesthood and their failure to address the woes of the Catholic Church, particularly exclusion of certain categories from receiving the Sacrament. I would love to see a biography of Benedict by John Cornwell, who I am sure would give a whole different nuance. Cornwell's book on Francis being the point in question. I await the second volume which is due in November, 2021, I believe. My interest then would be Benedict as Cardinal Ratzinger and his strong arm tactics against those who would differ from orthodoxy. Regrettably, and this is my personal view, the Church is afraid to move forward. Change will be inevitable in the long run, but who will make the first move. Married Priests would be a good start and already there those who have crossed over from the Anglican Church and are married priests in diocese or Auxiliary Bishops. Work that one out.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Shoddy editing
  

*by A***R on Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 December 2020*

The book is well-informed and sympathetic, but clumsily translated and poorly edited.  It is a shame that Bloomsbury didn't employ an editor or proof-reader:  'Ratinzinger'?  'Paul XI'?  It should be possible to get a Pope's name right.

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*Last updated: 2026-03-15*