The Man Who Said No To Hitler
Franz Jägerstätter's unflinching resolve
“You don’t have to do this.”
The lawyer had a plan that he hoped would spare his client’s life.
If Franz Jägerstätter (YAY-ger-shteh-ter) would simply sign the document in his attorney’s hand, he might still avoid execution. With a pen stroke, the Austrian farmer could declare his intention to serve the Nazi war effort in a non-combatant role, perhaps as a medic or clerical worker. The death sentence that hung over him could vanish.
But Jägerstätter rejected the compromise. Any role he accepted, after all, would require him to swear allegiance to Hitler and the Third Reich. He was unwilling for such a lie to pass his lips, as he explained to the lawyer. And furthermore, he refused to aid a regime he viewed as murderous and indefensible.
Friedrich Feldman, the court-appointed attorney, was becoming exasperated. He wanted to shout, “You have a wife and three children!” But he opted for an approach he thought more likely to persuade the stubborn thirty-six-year-old. The war won’t last forever, he argued. If Franz served, he might one day return to his family. But if he refused, his execution was assured. Millions of other Catholics, the lawyer pointed out, had reconciled their faith with their duty to the nation. That included many seminary students and priests.
“They have not been given the grace to see otherwise,” the prisoner replied.
The attorney pushed back. “Do you know of a single instance of a bishop calling upon Catholics not to support the war effort? Or to refuse military service?”
Franz admitted he did not, but believed that made no difference. “They,” he said, “have not been given the grace either.”1
On August 9th, 1943, Franz Jägerstätter lay beneath a Nazi guillotine. The day that the blade fell, hardly anyone outside of St. Radegund, an Austrian farming village, had ever heard of him. And most of the townspeople, as Franz knew, thought he had made a tragic and foolish mistake. Among the locals, Franz’s well-known religious zeal was believed to have mutated into madness.
Although some Austrians had welcomed Hitler’s forces in 1938, many saw them as unwanted foreign occupiers. Yet even among those who loathed the Third Reich, very, very few refused to serve the military effort.
Today we recognize the Nazis as a uniquely evil regime. But for European peasant farmers during World War II, information about Hitler’s atrocities was limited. Furthermore, a call to military service spoke to one’s sense of honor, as well as duty to kin and country. Most Austrians viewed this sense of obligation as distinct from their personal opinion of the Third Reich or the morality of its war.
Such a backdrop makes Jägerstätter’s unwillingness to serve all the more striking. And yet, this extraordinary story could easily have been lost to history. In the 1960s, sociologist Gordon Zahn was researching Catholic resistance to Nazism when he caught wind of the bold resister from St. Radegund. Intrigued, he traveled to the village, where he interviewed many who knew Franz personally. The resulting 1964 book, In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägerstätter, introduced the world to this singular figure.
One part reflection on steely Christian resolve, one part meditation on agrarian community and memory, the book presents a captivating portrait. Zahn spoke at length with Franz’s beloved widow, Franziska. He conversed with a priest who admired Franz, and to whom the farmer had explained his decision. He engaged many villagers who knew him personally. Almost without exception, they recalled Franz warmly. And yet most believed that mental illness, not moral principle, had been behind his unwillingness to serve the German military.
Many of these people had, of course, seen their own fathers, uncles, and brothers die in the war. And if Jägerstätter’s refusal to serve Hitler was morally right, how were they to make sense of the deaths of loved ones who had? How were they to justify their own complicity with the regime?
The theory that Franz had become mentally unhinged offered the people of St. Radegund a moral loophole. It allowed them to avoid condemning a man they loved and saw as one of their own. It also permitted them to make sense of his actions without questioning the faithfulness of their tightly-knit Roman Catholic community.
In interviews, Zahn repeatedly heard that Jägerstätter was a good man, but that he had taken his religious zeal too far. In his teens and early twenties, Franz had been known for carousing and brawling—no more so than many young men, locals were quick to add. But even if his youthful conduct wasn’t unusual, it nonetheless carried consequences. While unmarried, Franz likely fathered a child.
Yet, the townspeople later noticed a newfound religious devotion in Franz. At first, they admired this. In 1936, the year he married, he became the parish sexton. This role included maintenance of the church building and grounds, earning him much appreciation. But when he refused to serve the Nazis, friends began to paint his faith as runaway religious fervor, perhaps even derangement. After all, what mentally stable man would willingly leave his family behind?
But the evidence is overwhelming that Franz Jägerstätter was of sound mind. Published in 2009 as Letters and Writings from Prison2, the Austrian’s own words reveal a grounded man with a deep affection for his wife and children. He never once advocates uprising or violence against the Nazi regime. His writings offer no hint of a grandiose self-image, let alone mental illness or a longing for martyrdom.
Rather, his letters are filled with the ordinary concerns of a farmer, husband, and father. On April 25, 1943, his letter included a note for his young daughters:
My dear children, how did things go for you with the Easter eggs? Were you so strong that you broke a lot of them during the egg rolling? Now you will not be able to pick all of the flowers. . .Your father warmly greets you. Do not forget me.
Shortly after, on May 2, he wrote to his wife:
One can always and in general use God’s blessings. You could ask Schmied [a neighbor] about a new rotating ploughshare. . .How does the grain look? You see, I am no less curious in how everything is at home. One remains interested when one loves his home.
Again and again, Franz reveals his heart for his family, farm, and homeland. He asks about the extra work Franziska has to take on in his absence. He inquires how his young daughters are faring. He mentions his love of Austria, calling patriotism a “good and healthy thing.” Now and then, with the same level-headedness and compassion, he brings up Scripture that supports his stand.
The letters reveal both his biblical reasoning and broader spiritual convictions. Like nearly all Austrians of his day, Franz was Roman Catholic. And on subjects including Mary, purgatory, and even how a sinner is justified in the sight of God, his letters include no shortage of statements that will give Protestants unease.
And yet, he also upends stereotypes. Contra the view of many Protestants that Catholics outsource their moral decision-making to the Roman hierarchy, Franz’s religious overseers never endorsed his stand. Rather, he draws arguments for why he cannot serve the Nazis straight from Scripture. “Fear not those who can kill the body but not the soul,” he writes in one letter, quoting Matthew 10:28, “rather fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.”
While such warnings strengthened his resolve, Scripture’s promises of everlasting life drew out his hope and warmth. Just months before his death, he wrote to his wife:
If it is God’s will, we shall have a reunion with each other again in this world. If not, then we hope for it in the next world where the visiting time will be somewhat longer than fifteen to thirty minutes [the time allotted a prisoner for visitation].
The remarkable letters span several years. In 1940 and 1941, before he refused active duty, he chose to take part in military training. From their letters during this time, it’s clear that he and his wife were praying fervently for an end to the war. As Franz became increasingly resolved that he would not fulfill his service, an end to the conflict became his best hope of survival. His participation in the training allowed him to buy time.
And then time ran out.
His three daughters, ages three to six at the time of his death, would grow up without him. Fani, as he affectionately called his wife, raised the girls on the farm and never remarried. She would live as a widow for seventy years, passing on in 2013 at age 100.
This is the most wrenching part of the Franz Jägerstätter story. His act of faith would be vindicated when the full horror of Nazi Germany was exposed. The Catholic Church would come to officially recognize his heroism. But none of that changed the fact he left his wife without a husband, his children without a father.
Reflecting on Fani’s visit to him in prison about a month before his execution, he wrote:
I wanted to spare you this suffering that you have borne for me.
However, you know Christ’s words: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). How it must have brought Christ much heartache as He inflicted pain on His mother through His suffering, which is not comparable with our suffering. And Jesus endured all of this only out of love for us sinners.
Franz fully understood he was going to cause extraordinary pain to his wife and daughters. Yet, he took God at His Word that allegiance to Him must come first.
The life and death of Franz Jägerstätter raise deep questions, including many that still resonate in our day. This one is inescapable: how did a peasant, whose formal education ended at age fourteen, arrive at such moral certainty? Such wisdom?
He didn’t hesitate to engage clergy with his objections to Hitler’s war. When he did so, he was often told that an ordinary person lacked the ability to determine the justice or injustice of the conflict.
Was Franz then correct in what he said to his lawyer? Was he among the very few who to whom God had graciously given such moral certainty? Or did many of his contemporaries also see the evil of the Reich, only to count the cost, and then veer onto a path of compromise?
Franz’s farewell to his beloved Fani, and to life on earth, was marked by the same straightforwardness as so much of his writing. To the end, he was an ordinary man with faith in an extraordinary Savior.
Four weeks ago today we saw each other on earth for the last time. This morning, at approximately 5:30, I had to get dressed immediately for a car was waiting. I went with other condemned prisoners on the ride from Tegel to Brandenburg. We do not know what will happen to us. At noon someone told me that the verdict would be confirmed at 2:00 p.m., and that it would be fully enacted at 4:00 p.m.
I want to write all of you a few words of farewell. Dearest wife and mother, I am deeply grateful for everything that you have done for me in my life, for all of the love and sacrifices which you have shown me. . .
I thank our Savior that I could suffer for Him and may die for Him. I trust in His infinite compassion. I trust that God forgives me everything and will not abandon me in the last hour.
Zahn, Gordon. In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägerstätter. Templegate Publishing, 1964.
The 2019 movie A Hidden Life is based on the letters found in this book.