Go to: Joseph Ratzinger was born April 16, 1927, in Marktl am Inn, a town in southern Germany. His father was a police officer who came from a family of farmers. Here, Ratzinger is pictured in his German army uniform during World War II after he was drafted in 1943. He served for a time in an anti-aircraft unit that tracked Allied bombing raids. He deserted in the waning months of the war and returned to Traunstein, where he had grown up. U.S. troops took him prisoner, but he was released in June 1945. He returned to his hometown and resumed his studies as a seminarian.