Blessed Franz Jägerstätter

Found his faith, lost his head

Lived in Aus­tria
May 1907 - August 1943
Franz was born shortly before World War I. His par­ents were not mar­ried, and his early years were spent liv­ing with his grand­mother. When he was 9, his father was killed in the war. His mother then mar­ried his step father, who adopted him and gave him his last name.

As Franz got older, he became a bit wild and liked to party. He got a girl preg­nant and had a daugh­ter. A few years later, he met Franziska Schwaninger, who was from a nearby vil­lage. He fell in love with her and the two were mar­ried. They decided to go to Rome for there hon­ey­moon. Some­thing hap­pened to Franz dur­ing this time. His heart began to feel drawn to God and his Catholic faith.

Franz and Franziska had three daugh­ters. He became very involved at his church, even­tu­ally being made respon­si­ble for tak­ing care of the church prop­erty and things, and set­ting up for Masses and cer­e­monies. Franz became a Third Order Fran­cis­can, mean­ing he was a lay mar­ried man who had a nor­mal job and fam­ily, but did his best to live a life like St Fran­cis and his Friars.

Dur­ing this time Hitler and the Nazi Party was in full power. The Anschluss began, as Ger­many started tak­ing over their neigh­bor­ing coun­tries. In Aus­tria, peo­ple voted to make Aus­tria part of the Third Reich with­out a fight rather than be taken by force. Most Aus­tri­ans knew if they voted no, they might be arrested, beaten or even killed. In his vil­lage, Franz was the only one to vote “no”.

Once Aus­tria joined the Third Reich, the Nazis began forc­ing Aus­trian men to serve in the Ger­man Army. Franz knew that the Nazi ideals were in direct oppo­si­tion to his faith. He knew it was wrong to take a per­sons free­dom and dig­nity away. He also knew of the vio­lence with which the Nazis treated those who dis­agreed with them, and how they treated Jews. He decided that as a Catholic, he could not fight for such a government.

His priest, bishop, and friends all encour­aged Franz to go along with the Nazis, because they were con­cerned about his wife and chil­dren being left father­less. But Franz had already lived part of his life ignor­ing his con­science, and decided he could not do that any longer. Even if he was going to be the only one, he would not com­pro­mise his morals or beliefs.

He refused to report for duty and was arrested and given a mil­i­tary trial. After he was con­victed Franz was beheaded on a guil­lo­tine on August 9, 1943.

No one, except maybe his wife, knows exactly what caused Franz to aban­don his for­mer rowdy lifestyle and embrace his faith. In a time in his life when he was far from God, he heard and turned his life around. And as the dark­ness of fas­cism swept up every­one around him, he man­aged to hold on to the light of Faith. Franz made the supreme sac­ri­fice of love for life and free­dom. He was named Blessed by Pope Bene­dict XVI on Octo­ber 26, 2007, and is on his way to being can­on­ized as a saint.