Franz Jägerstätter

Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, O.F.S.
Franz Jaegerstaetter
Martyr
Born	Franz Huber (1907-05-20)20 May 1907 Sankt Radegund, Upper Austria, Austria-Hungary
Died	9 August 1943(1943-08-09) (aged 36) Brandenburg-Görden Prison Nazi Germany
Honored in	Secular Franciscan Order
Beatified	26 October 2007, Linz, Austria by Pope Benedict XVI
Feast	21 May
Patronage	Conscientious objectors

Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, O.F.S., (in English also spelt Jaegerstaetter) (20 May 1907 – 9 August 1943) (born as Franz Huber) was an Austrian conscientious objector during World War II. Jägerstätter was sentenced to death and executed. He was later declared a martyr and beatified by the Catholic Church.

Jägerstätter was born in Sankt Radegund, Upper Austria, a small village between Salzburg and Braunau am Inn. He was the illegitimate child of Rosalia Huber, a chambermaid, and Franz Bachmeier, a farmer. He was first cared for by his grandmother, Elisabeth Huber. Franz's natural father was killed in World War I when he was still a child, and when his mother married in 1917, Franz was adopted by her husband, Heinrich Jägerstätter.

In his youth, Franz gained a reputation for being a wild fellow, but, in general, his daily life was like that of most Austrian peasants. He worked as a farmhand and also as a miner in Eisenerz, until in 1933 he inherited the farmstead of his foster father. In that same year, he fathered an out-of-wedlock daughter, Hildegard Auer. On Maundy Thursday of 1936, he married Franziska Schwaninger (1913–2013), a deeply religious woman. After the ceremony, the bridal couple proceeded on a pilgrimage to Rome. The marriage produced three daughters.

When German troops moved into Austria in 1938, Jägerstätter was the only person in the village to vote against the Anschluss in the plebiscite of 10 April. The local authorities suppressed his dissent and announced unanimous approval. Although he was not involved with any political organization and did undergo one brief period of military training, he remained openly anti-Nazi. He joined the Third Order of Saint Francis in 1940 and worked as a sacristan at the local parish church, being deferred from military service several times. In 1940, aged 33, he was conscripted into the German army and completed basic training. Returning home in 1941 under an exemption as a farmer, he began to examine the morality of the war and discussed this with his bishop. He emerged from that conversation saddened that the bishop seemed afraid to confront the issues.