Ratzinger attended the elementary school in Aschau, which was named in his honor in 2009.
Following Joseph Ratzinger’s 14th birthday in 1941, he was conscripted (a nicer term for drafted) in the Hitler Youth, as membership was required for all 14-year old German boys after December 1939, but was an unenthusiastic member and refused to attend meetings. His father was a bitter enemy of Nazism, believing it conflicted with the Catholic faith, according to biographer John L. Allen, Jr. In 1943 while still in seminary, he was drafted at age 16 into the German anti-aircraft corps.. Ratzinger then trained in the German infantry, but a subsequent illness precluded him from the usual rigours of military duty. He never fired a weapon at another man. As the Allied front drew closer to his post in 1945, he deserted back to his family's home in Traunstein after his unit had ceased to exist, just as American troops established their headquarters in the Ratzinger household. As a German soldier, he was put in a POW camp, but was released a few months later at the end of the war in the summer of 1945. He reentered the seminary, along with his brother Georg, in November of that year.

Following repatriation in 1945, the two brothers entered Saint Michael Seminary in Traunstein, later studying at the Ducal Georgianum of the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich. They were both ordained in Freising on 29 June 1951 by Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Munich. Ratzinger recalled:

...at the moment the elderly Archbishop laid his hands on me, a little bird -- perhaps a lark -- flew up from the altar in the high cathedral and trilled a little joyful song.

His career that followed included his time as a university professor, a theological consultant at Vatican II, and then the Archbishop of Munich. He became a cardinal only one month after becoming Archbishop. In 1981, the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, asked him to become prefect for the Doctrine of the Faith. After refusing several times, he finally gave in. He became Cardinal Bishop in 1993, Cardinal Vice-Dean in 1998, and Dean in 2003. At the death of Pope John Paul II, he celebrated the holy father’s public funeral and hosted the Conclave that elected him.

Produced and edited by Dario

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