Franz and Franziska
One of the most bitter moments in the life of Franz and Franziska was their parting at the nearby train station in Tittmoning on the 27th of February 1943. Franz could not let go of his wife, so the train tore them apart as it started. Franz took detours to the city of Enns and delayed reporting to the recruiting station there. While still in freedom on the first of March, he wrote to his wife:
“… My dearest wife, I want to thank you again most heartily for all your love, faithfulness and sacrifices that you have made for me and for the whole family. And for all the suffering you will still have because of me …
But we must never forget in such prayers to say: Lord, not my will be done, but Thine. Keep helping the poor
as long as you can. And be a father to the children now as well…”
This last letter written in freedom shows that in this case two people followed a path together that was not understood by anyone else. Her mother-in-law and the village community never forgave Franziska for not trying hard enough to dissuade Franz from his refusal. Franz was already aware of the hostility to which his wife would be exposed. The sentence, “… don’t be angry with my mother, even though she does not understand us”, shows how strongly Franziska supported Franz in his decision.
On the 3rd of March, Franz was writing from the military prison in Linz, the provincial capital…On the 5th of March, Franz could smuggle an uncensored letter out of prison: “… In Enns they used all manner of tricks to persuade me and still make a soldier out of me. It was not so easy to stay with my decision. It may still become very difficult, but I trust in God that if a different path would be better He will show it to me…”
According to documents from the Reich’s War Tribunal, the interrogators were instructed, in cases of men refusing military service for reasons of conscience, to put pressure on them and to try to persuade them to change their minds. In the prison in Linz, Franz learned for the first time that there were other resisters.
For Franziska there was a frightening week during which she heard nothing at all from her husband, not even if he was still alive. On Sunday, the 7th of March, she wrote the first letter that reached him since the separation: “My beloved husband, Yesterday I received your letter for which I thank you very much. When I wrote you letters two years ago, it was with a heavy heart too because you could not be with us, but at least I then had the joy of anticipating your next furlough. But writing to you in your present situation makes me terribly sad…”
After hearing this letter, you will understand why I have called my talk “Franz and Franziska.” We learn a lot about this family. Franziska’s husband was torn from her, there is no hope of being reunited. But she is not paralyzed in her pain. The sufferings of our heavenly mother, Mary, are her support. Franziska trusts in God, however painful and hard to understand what His will might be for her. One last glimmer of hope remained. Franz might still decide differently on his way to the recruiting station. One notices that neither in that letter nor in any of the following does Franziska put any pressure on her husband. She had gained an important experience in that reqard in 1938. Right after the Nazis had marched into Austria, they held a referendum regarding the “Anschluss” (Take-over). Franz did not want to vote, saying it was a farce since they had already come in with tanks. The Nazi terror had already begun, from every village some people had been taken to concentration camps. Franziska felt the pressure everybody was under and was fearful for her
husband. She told him: “If you don’t go to vote I won’t love you anymore.” Franz was alarmed. They talked it out and from this Franziska learned how to cope with her husband’s decision of conscience. Never in any letter she wrote to him in prison is there any sentence such as “Think of me and the children.”
Franziska’s greatest worry however was the spiritual state of her lonely husband who no longer had the fortifications of Holy Communion. “Are you still being consoled?” she asked, already sensing her beloved husband’s approaching agony.
Then there came a ray of hope for them both: Franz might be able to serve in the Medical Corps and thus save his life. On the 11th of March, he wrote to his wife: “… I want to let you know that I am ready to serve in the Medical Corps because one can actually do a lot of good in it and practice Christian love of neighbor in a practical sense, and my conscience no longer struggles against that.” Franziska received that letter on a Sunday right after Mass. “That was a beautiful Sunday” she remembers. She wrote back on the same day: “I wholeheartedly wish you luck in this decision, you will be able to do good and I am already looking forward to when we see each other again, if it be God’s will.”
Franz’s request to serve in the Medical Corps was denied however, first by the Military Tribunal in Linz and later in Berlin. He would have had to withdraw his refusal unconditionally and would have had to immediately fight with a weapon in a punishment battalion. In 1992, I was allowed to see in Prague the documents from 1938 to 1945 of the Reich’s Military Tribunal … When studying these documents of the War Tribunal, it becomes evident that it was the linking of military service with religious faith that gave the Nazis the most concern. The idea that one must refuse military service because of one’s religious beliefs must not be allowed to spread and had to be eradicated, and those who espoused it exterminated.
During his main hearing on the 6th of July 1943, in Berlin, Franz asked once more to be allowed to serve in the Medical Corps. This is in the record but is not used as a reason for a lesser punishment.
On the 13th of July 1943, Franziska asked the court appointed lawyer, Feldmann, in Berlin: “Could you not have put him into the Medical Corps?” He cynically replied: “We could have done it, but we did not do it.” After the war, however, Feldmann told this story differently.
But let us go back to March 1943, to the short time when there was renewed hope for Franz and Franziska. Franziska experienced problems with the work on the farm. Cows were used as draught animals and she had to break in a calf. This “… caused me quite a bit of trouble, but one has to try everything with no one else here.” Franz worried about his family at home: “… Grief and worry and all that hard work … it would be so good if I could help you with it. But I will just put my future in God’s hands.” He said in a letter dated the 19th of March. …
The Great Crisis in Prison
The letters during the last days of March are no longer so hopeful; there is no more mention of the Medical Corps. A letter dated the 9th of April 1943 shows that Franz is going through a big crisis. Seven years have passed since their
wedding: “When I look back on all the happiness and the graces that have come to us in these seven years, some of them coming close to a miracle, and somebody would tell me there is no God or that God does not love us and I would believe that, then I wouldn’t know any more what is happening to me.”
As is the case with other prisoners in comparable situations, so too the first few weeks of his imprisonment were the most difficult for Franz. The quote from this letter shows that his faith in God has been shaken – after all it was that very faith that now endangered his life. But the experience of the happiness and love that he had had in his marriage to Franziska held him in his faith. Thoughts of ending this waiting for death through suicide were also no stranger to Franz at this difficult time.
Holy Week and Easter however were a source of strength. On the 18th of April he wrote to his wife: “This week especially has to give us courage and strength, it makes this fate easier to bear…” On Easter Sunday, April the 25th Franz wrote: “Christ is risen, Alleluja! The Church rejoices today … what can be more consoling for us Christians than to know that we no longer have to fear death.”
At the beginning of May, Franz was moved from Linz to the prison at Berlin-Tegel. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was imprisoned there at the same time, describes the degrading conditions there … One of Franz’s last notes says: “I would not want to exchange my cell, which is not even clean, for the greatest palace, if it meant I would have to give up even a small part of my faith.”
It is now about time, especially for those of you who don’t know too much about Franz, for me to tell you a little bit of his early history. I want to tell you now about his childhood, his happy marriage with Franziska and his clash with National Socialism. Because as a Christian he could not fight, could not kill so that Hitler could rule the world, he had to take upon himself imprisonment and finally death.
Childhood
On the 7th of May 1907 the unmarried farm maid, Rosalia Huber, brought a little boy into the world. She and the child’s father, a farm labourer, loved each other but were too poor to get married. Rosalia had to leave the baby in the care of
her mother, Elizabeth Huber who had lived in very poor circumstances, had borne 13 children, and her husband had
died early … In 1917 Franz’s situation improved. His mother married the farmer, Heinrich Jägerstätter, who immediately
adopted his wife’s son. So starting in February 1917 there was a Franz Jägerstätter. Not only was there enough to eat at the farm, Franz also for the first time had real access to books. Books became one of the most important things in his life. “Whoever does not read will never be able to stand on his own feet really well, he can be manipulated by the opinion of others.” …
From 1927 to 1930 Franz worked in the iron ore mines in the Steiermark area. With his earnings he bought a motorcycle, the first in the village. Later he was glad that it contributed to some happy times for Franziska also.
A Happy Family
So the character of young Franz was formed by his being raised by his loving and devout grandmother, being disadvantaged early on because of poverty, and by the influence of religious books. Decisive for him in his human and religious development was his marriage to Franziska, nee Schwaninger. In her religious family and in her parish youth group Franziska experienced faith as something very joyful. She was able to share this experience with Franz. … They were, however, not only a devout but also a very, very happy couple. They had to work very hard on the small farm and had few chances of privacy, but they could express their passionate love for each other. Franz, for instance, liked to hide little presents that he brought his wife; Franziska hid the cookies she had especially baked for her husband …In the village, people noticed that Franz had become more devout. Since his marriage he went to Communion often. And village opinion later blamed Franziska for the deadly consequences of Franz’s strong faith. She herself says, “We each helped the other to grown in faith.” Franz sometimes said to his wife, “I could never have imagined that being married could be so beautiful.”
Resistance Towards the Nazis from the Beginning
In January 1938, two months before Hitler marched into Austria, Franz had a vision:
“... Suddenly I saw a beautiful train, which was going around a mountain. Grown-ups and children were streaming towards it and could hardly be held back. I would rather not say how few adults did not get on
the train. Then suddenly a voice said to me, ‘This train is going to hell.’... In the beginning this train was
rather puzzling to me, but the longer this goes on, the more the veil is lifted from this running train. And now I realize that it embodies National Socialism, as it descends upon us with all it many organizations.”
... From the beginning Franz refused all cooperation with the Nazi party. He gave no donations to it, and also refused to accept payments such as those for raising children or for storm damage.
In 1940 the first call to military service came. Franz took the oath on the 17th of June in Braunau, but because the St. Radegund mayor used his influence, Franz could return to his farm in a few days. Then, from October 1940 until April
1941 he was in the army for training – with no combat. When he returned to St. Radegund in April 1941, again thanks to the mayor, Franz said that he would not accept a renewed call: to fight and kill...
It was immediately clear to everybody that this refusal to go to war would cost Franz his life. His mother tried to influence him through relatives to get him to change his mind. Franziska too tried to persuade him early on. But when all talked against him, when they argued so strongly and he was all alone against the others, she stood by him. She explains her position this way: “If I hadn’t stood with him, he would have had nobody at all.” As we already saw from her first letter to him in prison, she had hoped until the end that there might be a way out for him ... Franz and Franziska were two human beings who did not live or die for abstract principle. They tried to live according to their Christian conscience in a new and very difficult situation.
Franz talked it over with priest friends; they tried to save his life and wanted to persuade him away from his refusal. But they had nothing with which to counter his arguments based on scripture. The local priest, Fr. Fuerthauer even told him in confession that he would be committing suicide. Franz was quite despondent after that. Noticing his depression, Franziska asked the reason and was able to help him find inner peace once more.
Franz even went to the Bishop of Linz ... Franz had felt the Bishop’s fear, and his doubts regarding going to war could
not be lessened by the Bishop. Regarding his responsibility as the head of a family he notes: “Always they try to weigh down my conscience regarding my wife and children. Should the deed that one commits become better or worse
because one is married and has children? Or is it better or worse because thousands of other Catholics do it too?”
His more sensitive conscience is not a burden to Franz but grace: “If God had not given me the strength and the grace to die for my faith when it is demanded of me, then I would probably do the same as the majority does. God can give everyone as much grace as He wants to.”
Franz knew that bishops and priests would be arrested if they said something other than what the government allowed. Nevertheless he asked the question: “What would be the difference if not one church would be open any longer, as long as the Church remains silent anyway in the face of all that is going on?”
From the moment of sentencing on, Franz’s hands were in shackles. The long, uncertain weeks waiting for death were part of the punishment. The shackles were to prevent any possible suicide. Franz continued his notes in very tiny, but clear writing: “It is better that the hands be shackled rather than the spirit.”
From his notes we get the impression that Franz had found clarity and inner peace. Fr. Kreutzbert, the prison chaplain, strengthened Franz in his refusal ... Franz was the first of 16 to be guillotined on the 9th of August 1943. ...
Dean Jochmann of Brandenburg, where Franz had been taken for the execution, was with him during his final hours. He asked Franz whether he should give him the Bible or something else to read. Franz thanked him, saying it would only distract him. He was completely calm and felt in the presence of God already. Later the priest said that Franz was the only saint he had met in his life.