Benedict's apologists are too quick, I think, to dismiss the effects of his having come of age during a brutal totalitarian regime that was absolute in it silencing of dissent. I personally don't think the effects of that can be underestimated, but nobody wants to talk about his compulsory time spent in the Hitlerjugend, as though it were of no consequence. I think it explains a great deal about his personality, the way he views the church and the hierarchy who run it.