Franz Jägerstätter Is The Most Famous German Conscientious Objector In History

A conscientious objector is an individual who has “claimed the right to refuse to perform military service on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion.” The most famous German conscientious objector in history is an Austrian farmer named Franz Jägerstätter who refused to fight for Nazi Germany in World War II. Franz Jägerstätter was executed for refusing […]

Read More

A conscientious objector is an individual who has “claimed the right to refuse to perform military service on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion.” The most famous German conscientious objector in history is an Austrian farmer named Franz Jägerstätter who refused to fight for Nazi Germany in World War II.

Franz Jägerstätter was executed for refusing to serve in the Nazi German Wehrmacht after being conscripted in June,1940 and then called to active service in February 23, 1943.

Franz’s decision to stand for his faith rather than give in to the Nazis as other Catholics in his village did rings familiar to the actions of the Green Grocer in the powerful anti-Communist essay by Vaclav Havel.

Jägerstätter home in St Radegund, Austria.

Franz Jägerstätter

Franz was born in St Radegund, a small village outside of Salz, Austria.

When the Germans arrived in Austria in March 1938, Franz was given a deferral from military service, because he took an official position of at his local parish. There he was charged with caretaking of the church and its contents.

Franz was the only person in his village to vote against the German annexation of Austria, Anschluss Österreichs in 1938.

At age 36 on July 6, 1943 Franz was executed by guillotine.

Jägerstätter was declared a martyr in June 2007, and later was beatified in the same year. That means a person in the Catholic Church can pray in his name.

Recommended Reading

We highly recommend you read Franz Jägerstätter: Letters and Writings from Prison by author Erna Putz. Check the price on Amazon.

“Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer, a devoted husband and father, and a devout Catholic, was executed in 1943 as a result of his refusal to serve in the Nazi army. Before taking this stand Jägerstätter consulted both his pastor and his local bishop, who instructed him to do his duty to the fatherland and to obey the law, an instruction that violated his conscience.”

Rod Dreher writes about the stories of dissidents living in the truth and refusing to capitulate to the madness during Soviet-era communism in Live Not By Lies. Check the price on Amazon here.

Attributions

By Herwig Reidlinger – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15274668

The post Franz Jägerstätter Is The Most Famous German Conscientious Objector In History appeared first on HistoryAddicted.com.


Franz Jägerstätter Is The Most Famous German Conscientious Objector In History was first posted on April 8, 2021 at 1:40 pm.

Related Posts

Feathered Fighters

Feathered Fighters

by Tom Clavin 67 years ago, the U.S. Army Pigeon Service closed. You might think that couldn’t have been much of a big deal. But it was. Also known...

read more

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.