The peasant who defied Hitler
Zahn, Gordon C.
THE PEASANT WHO DEFIED HITLER Gordon C. Zahn Saint Radegund is a village too small to have its own post office, too remote to be reached by normal transportation facilities. Yet in the tiny...
...A priest-given his calling, his education, his training-might be expected to take such a stand...
...In 1996, a historical/theological commission was established by the bishop of Linz (Saint Radegund's diocese) with the task of considering Jagerstatter's cause for canonization...
...He has been a frequent contributor to Commonweal, writing on conscientious objection and pacifism...
...It was soon translated into a number of foreign language editions, and an Austrian film version was made of it entitled Ver weigerung (The Refusal), with a cast head ed by one of Austria's most popular actors...
...America, July 5,1958 he pilgrims have been coming for several years now to the place I described above, sometimes singly, more often families, occasionally church groups (not only Catholic...
...It is a quiet place...
...Yet in the tiny graveyard of its centuriesold church lie the ashes of a simple farmer who defied a tyrant who had brought all of Europe to its knees...
...They gather at the grave of Franz Jagerstatter, an Austrian peasant executed by the Nazis on August 9,1943, for refusing to serve in the German army...
...Commonweal 47 September 12, 1997...
...In Solitary Witness, my biography of Jagerstatter, appeared in 1964, predictably enjoying a more favorable reception than its predecessor...
...The church had neither condemned the ongoing war as unjust, nor even hinted that Catholics might, much less should, refuse to support it...
...Although in the course of my research I had regularly sought out evidence of opposition to the war effort, the harvest was slim...
...It may someday be a place of pilgrimage...
...His was, at least to me, the real story...
...but the witness of a simple peasant who had a wife and three young daughters at home deserved more intensive study...
...But that is not the end of the story...
...What will come of these developments is impossible to say, but the fact that things have come this far was beyond my wildest expectations in 1958...
...A year later, with another research grant, I was able to spend several months in his village, Saint Radegund, and interview his family and anyone else who could furnish clues to what the sociologist in me defined as an extreme example of "socially deviant" behavior...
...I was privileged to serve as a "corresponding member," reviewing and commenting upon the commission's reports...
...Even so, interest in Jagerstatter continues to grow...
...To get a fuller account of his story, I visited one priest who had written a book on him published after the war and interviewed another who had served as chaplain at the prison where the execution had taken place...
...Of greater relevance, perhaps, on May 20, Archbishop Schoenborn of Vienna, who had been a leading force on the Linz commission, hosted a prominent scholarly gathering to celebrate "Franz Jagerstatter Day," declared to mark Jagerstatter's ninetieth birthday...
...In March 1997, the commission submitted a favorable recommendation, and the bishop has announced that a formal canonization process will begin this month...
...Most purist academics committed to sociology as a "value-free" science might not approve, but I find this sociologist's clearly "valuecentered" discovery of a prospective martyr-saint the crowning achievement of his professional career...
...He was an American Catholic conscientious objector to World War II...
...one feels a holy place...
...There were, however, individuals who did speak out in criticism and were sent to concentration camps and/or killed for doing so...
...This update is justified not only by the gratifying fulfillment of my 1958 predictions, but by the prospects of significant developments in his case...
...German Catholics and Hitler's Wars (1960), the result of that research published by a reputable Catholic house, Sheed & Ward, was dismissed by many of my fellow Catholics as intentionally defamatory and provoked concern that I was permitted to continue teaching at a Catholic university...
...In keeping with a policy introduced by the current German government, his widow and daughters have had his conviction repealed...
...It was in conversations with the latter that I learned about Jagerstatter...
...In a handwritten note, the archbishop reported to me that the Vienna celebration generated "great interest in TV and [the] public...
...El Gordon C. Zahn taught sociology at the University of Massachusetts-Boston...
...As a 1956 Fulbright Fellow in Germany, I focused my research on the role played by religious communities, particularly the Roman Catholic church, in providing moral support to the German war effort even while rejecting the evils of the Nazi regime and its philos ophy...
...One, a priest named Franz Reinisch, had been executed for refusing to violate his vows and serve in the military...
...Needless to say, there is still a long way to go and a long time to wait before a final decision is reached...
Vol. 124 • September 1997 • No. 15
