Franz Jägerstätter, (also spelled Jaegerstaetter in English; born Franz Huber, 20 May 1907 – 9 August 1943) was an Austrian farmer and conscientious objector during World War II. Jägerstätter refused to fight for Nazi Germany because of his devout Catholic faith, leading to him getting sentenced to death and executed. He is venerated as a martyr and has been beatified by the Catholic Church.
Jägerstätter's mother was an unmarried chambermaid named Rosalia Huber who lived in Sankt Radegund, Upper Austria, a small village between Salzburg and Braunau am Inn where nearly everyone was Catholic. His father was Franz Bachmeier from Tarsdorf, the unmarried son of a farmer. He was born on 20 May 1907 in Huber's parents' home, and baptised in the parish church the next day under the name of St Francis Caracciolo.
As his parents could not afford a marriage, Franz was first cared for by his grandmother, Elisabeth Huber, who had a reputation as an exceptionally devout woman. His biological father was killed in World War I in 1915, when Franz was seven or eight years old. In 1917, his mother married Heinrich Jägerstätter. As the marriage didn't result in children of Jägerstätter's own, he adopted his wife's son and gave over the farm to him after Franz married in 1936.
As a boy, Franz was a higher-than-average student and an avid reader, apparently leaving school after his 14th birthday, as permitted by law. His fellow villagers remembered the Franz of early manhood fondly as "a jolly, robust, fun-loving, hot-blooded, 'he-man' type", intelligent and "bull-headed", who tended to be "ahead of the crowd" in his interests and to wish to be the first to try something new; he was the first in his village to own a motorcycle. While he regularly went to Mass, there was little to foreshadow the devotion he was known for in later years, and he once embarrassed the pastor of the village by asking him about the possibility that the Virgin Mary had other children after Jesus. In 1922, he participated in the local Passion play, acting as one of the soldiers who cast lots for the seamless robe of Jesus.
The young Franz was also remembered as a good fighter. On one occasion, he spent several days in jail as a consequence of a fight with members of the Heimwehr provoked by the attention paid by members of the group to local girls. In August 1933, an illegitimate daughter, Hildegard, was born to Jägerstätter and a local farm maidservant, Theresia Auer. Although some friends expressed doubts about Jägerstätter's paternity of the girl, he voluntarily paid money for her support and visited her often. Perhaps due to circumstances related to the girl's conception, Jägerstätter apparently underwent an "exile" around this time during which he was obliged to leave Sankt Radegund for several years, working in the iron mines of Eisenerz. In the social democratic working class environment he first experienced a crisis of meaning, but returned to his homeland as a deeply pious person.
In the mid-1930s, Jägerstätter made a turn towards morality and piety that most of his neighbours recalled as "so sudden that people just couldn't understand it", "almost as if he had been possessed by a higher power", although others described it as more gradual. In 1934, Jägerstätter intended to enter a monastery, but the parish priest advised him against it.
On Maundy Thursday (9 April) of 1936, he married Franziska Schwaninger (4 March 1913 – 16 March 2013), a deeply religious woman. After the wedding liturgy, the couple went on a pilgrimage to Rome, where they received a blessing from Pope Pius XI. Most members of the community attributed Jägerstätter's conversion to his wife's influence or the sight of the pope, but other evidence indicates that his choice of a wife and decision to travel to Rome may have rather been influenced by a conversion that had already taken place; one friend recalled that he observed Jägerstätter had already become much more pious when he returned from the iron mines in late 1934 or 1935. The marriage resulted in three daughters: Rosalia (b. 1 September 1937), Maria (b. 4 September 1938), and Aloisia (b. 5 May 1940).
When German troops moved into Austria in March 1938, Jägerstätter rejected the offered position as Radegund mayor. He was the only person in the village to vote against the Anschluss in the plebiscite of 10 April; nevertheless, the local authorities suppressed his dissent and announced unanimous approval. He was dismayed to witness many Catholics in his town supporting the Nazis, writing, "I believe there could scarcely be a sadder hour for the true Christian faith in our country". Although he was not involved with any political organization and underwent a brief period of military training, he remained openly anti-Nazi. He avoided any contact with the NSDAP, nor did he seek the help of local representatives to avoid being drafted into the Wehrmacht.
On 8 December 1940, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, he joined the Third Order of Saint Francis. In summer 1940, the local parish priest, Josef Karobath (1898–1983), offered him work as a sacristan, as Jägerstätter attended Mass daily anyway. He was therefore deferred from military service four times.
Drafted for the first time on 17 June 1940, Jägerstätter, aged 33, was again conscripted into the German Wehrmacht in October and completed his training at the Enns garrison. He refused to take the Hitler oath, but could return home in 1941 under an exemption as a farmer.
Faced with his experiences in military service, the suppression of the church, as well as reports on the Nazi T4 euthanasia program, he began to examine the morality of the war. He travelled to Linz together with Franziska to discuss this with his bishop, Josephus Calasanz Fließer. Among Jägerstätter's writings are three copies of a list of "Ten Questions" expressing his concerns about the evil of cooperation with the Nazis, which, despite its heading reading "Who can and will answer these ten questions for me?", consists in one draft of eleven questions. A reference in this text to "five years" of Nazi rule in Austria implies the questions were composed in the winter of 1943, probably in preparation for the meeting with Fließer. Jägerstätter's questions were:
Who will give us the guarantee that it is not the slightest bit sinful to belong to a party that aims to eradicate the Christian faith?
When has the magisterium of the Church given its approval for someone to do and obey everything the N.S. Party or government commands or desires us to do?
If everything is found to be right and good that is done by someone who belongs to the N.S. Volk community—such as collecting money for it and contributing to it—then must it not be that everything that does not conform to this Volk community's wishes must be declared evil and unjust? Both ways cannot be good.
What kind of Catholic would venture to declare that these military campaigns of plundering, which Germany has undertaken in many lands and is still leading, constitute a just and holy war?
Who would venture to maintain that only one individual [i.e., Hitler] of the German-speaking people bears responsibility in this war? And if only one individual is responsible, why then did so many millions of German-speaking people still have to vote "yes" or "no"?
Since when are deceived people who are dying without repentance and without amending their committed sins and failures—which they were deceived into committing—allowed to enter heaven?
Why do we celebrate fighters for Nazism as heroes even in the churches of Austria? Didn't we still utterly d[amn] such people only five years ago?