Last week Pope Benedict declared a number of people blessed. Those who aroused most interest were the Catholics killed by Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. But perhaps a more significant decision was to recognise Franz Jägerstätter as a martyr. The Nazis executed him for refusing to fight in the war. He was a constant man whose resistance has continued to reverberate.
Franz Jägerstätter was an Austrian farmer who had reflected deeply on the consequences of his Catholic faith. He was appalled by what Hitler was doing in Germany. After the German army entered Austria and imposed a referendum to approve the annexation, Jägerstätter opposed it. It was overwhelmingly approved by the majority of Austrian voters including those in his village. But even after the Annexation, Jägerstätter’s opposition to the regime led him to refuse benefits that he could have claimed.
He was called up for military service in 1943. He refused on the grounds that it would be sinful to fight. His refusal was grounded in his Christian faith. He sought advice from local clergy and from his Bishop. They all counselled him that he should agree to fight, on the grounds that he had an obligation to support his family and that he should obey the legitimately constituted Government. He rejected this advice, claiming that "just as those who believe in National Socialism tell themselves that their struggle is for survival, so must we, too, convince ourselves that our struggle is for the eternal Kingdom. But with this difference: we need no rifles or pistols for our battle, but instead, spiritual weapons--and the foremost among these is prayer". He was jailed, tried and finally executed.
He was subsequently forgotten. When asked by the United States peace activist, John Dear, if she thought he would be remembered, his wife answered, "Never. I thought no one would ever know about him. I hid his letters under my mattress for decades. Then, in the early 1960s, Gordon Zahn learned of him and wrote his book, In Solitary Witness, and that started the whole thing."
Zahn, a Catholic sociologist, presented an attractive picture of Jägerstätter as a Christian pacifist. I was among the many readers who were moved and challenged by his book when it appeared in the 1960’s. It offered an attractive and simple picture of radical Christianity and encouraged hard thinking about whether modern war could be morally justified. It also had some slight impact on the Vietnam War. Daniel Ellsberg, who read and was deeply moved by it, subsequently leaked the Pentagon Papers. They revealed the deceptions that had supported the war and helped turn public opinion against it. Typically, Jägerstätter’s constancy led another generation to think of the issues on which he took his stand.
And now Franz Jägerstätter has returned again to a world in which war is the dominant metaphor for political difference. War is also the strategy of choice to resolve differences in Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan. The military are increasingly made the human face of peacekeeping.
This time Jägerstätter comes recognised as a martyr by his church. The declaration is significant, because it claims that he died giving testimony to his faith. It blesses the intention of his death as well as the motivation that led him to execution. It says that the eyes out of which he looked at his world and at war were properly Christian eyes. His acceptance as a martyr also recognises his opposition to war to be an act of Christian witness. It recognizes his refusal to put his family before his Christian duty, not to participate in an unjust war, but to be a Christian witness. It recognises his disobedience to the command of the state to wage war, an act of witness. It also recognises his polite refusal to accept the advice he received from priests and bishop as an act of witness.
Jägerstätter is a simple, adamantine figure who stands in the way. He was not a political activist: his inspiration was fidelity to his faith. He hoped others would see what he saw; he did not organise them to do as he did. The path that led him to his death was a lonely one, a path seemingly to oblivion. But he keeps coming to mind at times when we are tempted to accept war as a fact of life and a legitimate resolution of difference.