Canonize Both Jägerstätters

Many of you are already familiar with the story of Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter who refused to serve in Hitler’s army, was guillotined in 1943 and declared blessed by the Catholic Church in 2007. But the story of his wife Franziska is not as well known. Now that there is a movement to have both husband and wife canonized, the time has come to look more closely at the life of Franziska Schaninger Jägerstätter.

Franziska grew up in the village of Hochburg about five miles away from St. Radegund. The Schaningers were a deeply religious family. The grandmother was a Third Order Franciscan and Franziska had thought of becoming a nun. She was 23 when she married Franz then 29 on April 9, 1936. After the wedding, instead of the traditional feast and village celebration the couple traveled to Rome where they visited many of the churches associated with martyrs.

At first Franziska’s spiritual life was the most developed but after a few months Franz became more active in the practice of his faith. Neighbors talked of seeing him stop to pray when he was working in the fields. It was a happy marriage. Franz once told her, “I could never have imagined that being married could be so wonderful.” The Jägerstätters had three children, all daughters: Rosalie (Rosl) in 1937, Maria in 1938 and Aloisia (Loisi) in 1940.

Before his marriage, Franz was known for his rowdy ways and was father in 1933 to a daughter Hildegard. The mother, Theresia Auer was a local farm maid-servant. There was no marriage due to the opposition of Franz’s mother. Just before their marriage, Franz and Franziska offered to adopt Hildegard but her mother and grandmother declined. Franz provided material support for Hildegard and visited her often.

Although very active in the practice of their faith and the work of the farm, the young couple was aware of what was happening in the countries seized by the Third Reich. After their tanks rolled into Austria, the Third Reich called for a referendum to confirm Austria’s subjugation. Franz was the only person in St. Radegund to vote against the Anschsluss (takeover) and he was vocal in expressing his opposition to this meaningless vote.

Austrians were required to do military service and Franz was conscripted even though farmers were considered important to the war effort. He reported for military service induction at Braunau am Inn on June 17, 1940. Six weeks earlier he and Franziska had welcomed into the world their daughter Aloisia. With Franz’ departure it fell to Franziska to care for the three little children and to manage the family’s farm. Rosalie, Franz’s mother, lived with them.

Woodcut: R.F. McGovern

In her letters to Franz, we hear of Franziska’s problems with running the farm in his absence. On October 9, 1940 she wrote to him: “I am finished with the tilling of the oats. At the start, the planting of the potatoes with the plow was terribly frustrating to me to the point of tears … Today I received a dispensation from the plowing; father has arrived. I no longer need to shout at the cows [as they pull the plow] but only at our little ones.”

“The little ones” could sometimes demand all her attention. She wrote on October 20, 1940 “… I must now scold the children. They are arguing so terribly with each other that I cannot write you. They are always demanding my attention. Maridl always hits Rosl who says ‘You are bad’. Then Maridl says ‘I am good’. Rosl says ‘I am good, and you are bad’. So they fight all of the time. Helping them is no defense. Sometimes there is a critical moment between the two of them. Recently Maridl pulled the leg off of Rosl’s doll and said, ‘Now I’ll pull off the other, too.’ Rosl said she wanted to go to the doctor who would put the leg back on.”

The work of the farm continued relentlessly. Franziska wrote on February 18, 1941: “Today we finished the splitting of the firewood. It took a while because we also had a lot of manure to spread. Moreover, there was the other work that always needs to be done. During all of this, I often thought about you, especially when there were large, long logs that were hard to split. However, everything is now done. One needs only the will, and then everything happens.”

In April 1941 Franz returned to his family and farm. During his military service he had become a Third Order

Woodcut: R.F. McGovern

Franciscan. He became the sexton for his parish church helping to arrange for baptisms, weddings, funerals. During this time at home Franz became more determined that he must resist when he received the call to return to military duty. He went to the Bishop of Linz to discuss his decision and when he came out of the bishop’s consulting room,

Franziska recalls that “he was very sad and said to me: ‘they don’t dare commit themselves or it will be their turn next.’” In later years, Bishop Fliesser said, “I explained to him … the degree of responsibility that a private person and citizen bears for the actions of those in authority, and reminded him of his far higher responsibility for those within his private circle, particularly his family”.

Franz disagreed with the bishop because he believed that if God gives each one a free will and a conscience, each one is responsible for what we do and fail to do, all the more so if we are aware we have allowed ourselves to become servants of evil masters. Franziska never asked Franz to give up his decision to refuse but she expressed her feelings in a letter to him several days after he arrived in Linz prison: “… writing to you now in your current situation makes me terrible sad … I had still a small hope that you would change your decision during your trip [to Enns] because you have compassion for me and [know that] I cannot help [being as I am]. I shall pray to the loving Mother of God that she will bring you back to us at home if it is God’s will.”

Upon his refusal to accept military assignment he was imprisoned in Linz, then later sent to Berlin, given a brief trial before a military tribunal, and sentenced to death. There was a twenty-minute visit from Franziska and Fr. Furthauer arranged by the court- appointed lawyer Feldman to try to get Franz to change his mind but it was unsuccessful. Franz learned of a priest jailed in the same prison for criticism of the Third Reich government who was then executed. The story of Fr. Reinisch brought peace to Franz as he awaited death. He was beheaded on August 9, 1943.

Several months before his death Franz had sent a letter asking his family to “readily forgive everyone, including me if you undergo suffering because of me”. Franz was concerned that Franziska, his daughters and his mother would be ostracized because of his decision. In gathering testimony for his biography of Franz, Gordon Zahn interviewed Franziska in 1961. She spoke calmly of her husband’s last days and his execution but burst into tears when Zahn asked about the reactions of her relatives and neighbors. Many of her neighbors turned their backs on her. Some blamed Franz’s death on her overzealous religious influence. Few offered the help she needed after his death. Even after the war Franziska was denied coupons for clothes and shoes; she knitted clothing from the wool of angora rabbits. Denied a pension which the state decided should only go to widows of men who had fought for a free and democratic Austria, she finally was able in 1950 to win the right to a pension with the help of a lawyer, Franz’s cousin, Franz Huber.

But the tide began to turn when archbishop Thomas Roberts speaking to the bishops assembled for the Vatican II Council about the life and sacrifice of Franz Jägerstätter asked: Should not the church speak more clearly about the responsibility for its members to say no when they were required by their rulers to commit sins or be part of a system based on lies and injustice? Should the church not make clear that conscientious objectors to war have the support and admiration of their church for bearing witness to the gospel? Should the church not rejoice that Franz Jägerstätter had given such a witness against an unjust war? Roberts’ questions must have resonated with the other bishops because one of the council documents, Gaudium et Spes, calls on states to make legal

provision for those who, for reasons of conscience, refuse to bear arms.

For the rest of her life Franziska was active in sharing the letters and essays she had so carefully preserved. Soon after Franz’s death she wrote “I have lost a dear husband and a good father to my children but I can also assure you that our marriage was one of the happiest in our parish…” On the day of Franz’s beatification August 9, 2007, among the five thousand gathered in the Linz cathedral, were Franziska (now ninety-four) surrounded by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren – sixty in all!

For more info on both Jägerstätters See: www.cpfphila.com

Franz Jägerstätter: Letters and Writings from Prison, ed. by Erna Putz, 2009 (Orbis Press)

In Memoriam: Franz. Jägerstätter, Clay Vessels, John McNamee & Robert McGovern, 1995 (Sheed & Ward)

Phyllis Grady

Phyllis is a member of CPF

…The witness for which we honour Franz Jägerstätter was a joint witness. His decision to resist to the death was made with Franziska. … His was the dramatic action; hers to live out that act of resistance … B.T.Gumbleton