The Solitary witness of Franz Jagerstatter

On August 8, 1943, the night before he was beheaded for refusing to fight for Hitler's army, Franz Jagerstatter sat in a Berlin prison cell, deep in intimate prayer with God. On a table in front of him lay a piece of paper, a promise to serve in the Nazi medical corps. All he had to do was sign his name and the Nazis would let him live.

It was a simple choice. His guards encouraged him to sign the paper. His parish priest and bishop prayed for him to sign it and save himself. His wife and three little girls begged him to give up his one-man stand against imperial violence and sign the document so that one day he could come home.

But no. He had already made his choice. He would not fight. He would not kill. He would not support Hitler's war or anybody's war in any way. And so he sat there, only hours before his execution, motionless, deep in prayer, not crying, not panicking, not overcome with fear. Franz was at peace. He was at one with the God of nonviolence.

Such was the faith of Franz Jagerstatter, executed 50 years ago on August 9, 1943, for refusing to join Hitler's army. His witness ranks him among the 20th century's most noble examples of Christian discipleship.

The scene in the cell is haunting. Who among us would have the strength not to sign the paper and be reunited with our spouse and children? Many thought (many still think) that it would have been better if Franz had compromised, at least for the sake of the children. But Franz possessed, like Jesus, a stubborn nonviolence. No compromises, no concessions, no exceptions, no deals with death--and especially for the sake of the children.

Franz took up his fear and walked into prison. "Since the death of Christ, almost every century has seen the persecution of Christians," he wrote. "There have always been heroes and martyrs who gave their lives--often in horrible ways--for Christ and their faith. If we hope to reach our goal some day, then we, too, must become heroes of the faith. For as long as we fear others more than God, we will never make the grade....The important thing is to fear God rather than people."

FROM HIS EARLY years, Jagerstatter had spoken against Nazi militarism. He had specifically criticized the feckless church for giving in to Nazi demands. They should have set themselves "firmly in opposition to the Nazi party," he wrote. In February 1943, he was called to active duty; and despite the urging of his friends, wife, mother, children, priest, and bishop, he refused to be complicit with the Nazis.

On March 2, 1943, he wrote to his wife, Franziska, "Today I am going to take the difficult step." His formal refusal to join the Nazi army resulted in immediate imprisonment, eventual trial, and the death penalty. In the months before his execution, the 37-year-old Jagerstatter was allowed only one visit with his wife. In his magistral letters to her, he constantly thanked her for her love and fidelity and begged forgiveness for the suffering he brought her. A few hours before he was executed, he wrote her:

The hour comes ever closer when I will be giving my soul back to God....I would have liked to spare you the pain and sorrow that you must bear because of me. But you know we must love God even more than family, and we must lose everything dear and worthwhile on Earth rather than commit even the slightest offense against God....It is still best that I speak the truth, even if it costs me my life.

The chaplain who visited Jagerstatter in prison the night before his execution said that his eyes shone with a joy and a confidence that he would never be able to forget. When the chaplain asked him to sign the paper, Franz smiled and gently declined. After the execution, the chaplain declared that Franz "lived as a saint and died a hero. I say with certainty that this simple man is the only saint that I have ever met in my lifetime."

Perhaps one of the most compelling images from Franz's story is the dream he had of a crowded train that everyone was trying to board. As he watched this scene, a voice told him, "This train is going to hell!" The train represented the Nazi addiction to death and Franz desperately began to convince people not to board that death train. The dream summed up his real-life experience, he realized upon awakening. "I would like to call out to everyone who is riding on this train: 'Jump out before the train reaches its destination, even if it costs you your life!'" he said.

As Dorothy Day once wrote, we can invoke Franz Jagerstatter in our life struggle to be faithful followers of the nonviolent Jesus: "Standing before the face of God, as Franz Jagerstatter does, may he intercede for us all, and pray that the hearts of [all] will be filled with the courage he showed, and the conviction which enabled him to take his solitary stand and give his solitary witness." John Dear, S.J.

John Dear, S.J., worked with the homeless at the Horace McKenna Center in Washington, D.C., and was a Jesuit priest, peace activist, and author of Seeds of Nonviolence (Fortkamp) when this article appeared.