Media reaction: around the world: Conservative. And German. The world's press pounced on perhaps the only two facts most knew about Joseph Ratzinger and stressed either one or the other in coverage on Wednesday of his election as Pope Benedict XVI.
Talk of the "Panzer Cardinal" or "God's Rottweiler", the "enforcer" of dogma under John Paul II was marked in strongly Catholic countries, where the new pontiff's word carries weight.
"Intransigence" ran the editorial headline in France's left-wing Libération (right). From his native Bavaria, though, the liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung said he was no "monster" and might be surprisingly flexible.
In mainly Protestant northern Europe, Ratzinger's life story attracted more attention: "From Hitler Youth to Holy See", splashed Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad on its front page.
Catholic Austria's Die Presse newspaper wrote in an editorial: "For European and North American Catholics in particular, the new Pope is a symbol of dogmatic rigidity."
In Portugal, Diário de Notícias voiced the disappointment of many in the Latin world, which provides most of the church faithful: "The complex problems of the world today require dynamic responses. Joseph Ratzinger does not seem to have the profile and energy to give the small signs many are waiting for."
"There is no reason to expect any change of course for the church when it comes to matters like birth control, priestly celibacy or homosexuality," said the New York Times.
Belgium's Le Soir warned of the risk of "schism". Others - not least somewhat dazed commentators in his homeland - seized on the novelty of the first German pope in 1,000 years, a former conscript in Hitler's army taking a leading role in the world 60 years after the defeat of Nazism.
That the Pope is German elicited earnest praise - Croatia's Jutarnji List, hailing a "watershed in global politics", said: "Choosing Cardinal Ratzinger, a German and former soldier in Hitler's army, the Catholic Church has made a strong symbolic contribution to removing the German people's historic guilt."
It also prompted snappier headlines in European papers not slow to remind Germans of past failings: Britain's Sun, over a photograph of the new pontiff greeting the masses and the media, punned: "From Hitler Youth to... PAPA RATZI." It did later point out that he was "forced into" the Nazi youth movement as a teenager.
The paper's mass-selling German equivalent unsurprisingly took a different, if similarly nationalistic, line: "We Are The Pope!" screamed Bild, published in Protestant northern Germany.
Below the headlines there was room for more nuanced comment on the prospects for the papacy that follows the historic 26-year rule of John Paul II.
Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung, from Catholic Munich where Benedict was once archbishop, said: "Joseph Ratzinger is a conservative with whom one can have one's differences but he's not a sort of universal monster. Again and again he has been a surprise and broken through the image of the Panzer Cardinal." Some focused on his advanced age as a factor in his election. "The cardinals do not want another long pontificate; Ratzinger is 78," said Protestant Sweden's Dagens Nyheter (right).
Switzerland's Tagesanzeiger welcomed him with the headline: "A German Transitional Pope".
Less happy were editorial writers in Turkey, which Ratzinger angered by speaking out against it becoming the first mainly Muslim member state of the European Union: "The new pope is against Turkey," said the liberal daily Radikal in a headline.
The gay press lamented his hard line against homosexuality; Henk Krok, editor of Dutch magazine Gay Krant, said: "The white smoke from the Vatican was black for many homosexuals."