In Memoriam: Franz Jägerstätter

Franziska in the Shadow Woodcut:  Robert R. McGovern	Franz Illumined Woodcut:  Robert R. McGovern

A neighbor out early saw him leaving 
looking back that February morning 
toward this farmhouse from the gravel path 
framed now by this kitchen window.

A wife fifty years a widow welcomes us 
lights the stove to warm her guests against 
the evening chill of early summer.

A friend of Burschen years saw him farther on:
“Go with God, Franz,” he called.
The answer back: “You’ll see no more of me.” 
The blessing uncomprehending of
a life soon ending early. The judgment
in before the verdict: Frommigheit excessive piety.

What with wife and three daughters
and his going off . . . upstairs the old woman 
shows us the great marriage bed
brought here as her dowry.

A tandem the villagers say still: 
Franz and Franziska a marriage
making each twice strong not half weak 
giving grace as a sacrament ought. 
Opinion here is that she allowed him. 
Her silence was his assurance.

With summer wife and pastor Karobath
went to see Franz in his Berlin jail.
He had delayed this face-to-face appeal 
for fear of giving in.

“I did not want my husband to die,” 
she still insists nor did Father Karobath
himself in Bezirksverbot for speaking out.

The waiting room looked on a prison yard 
where a truck came with Franz in chains 
pushed off into a soldiers’ circle.
“Franz,” she screamed from the window 
and he looked wildly about.

With a visit less than twenty minutes
he managed somehow a chocolate for 
each his daughters. Later Franziska
wrote: “Heavy-hearted we had to leave each other.”

Here at table in her daughter’s house
beside her own old home become now a shrine 
my fellow pilgrim presents a timid gift:
his print of Franz from photographs with
fear the likeness would not suit her.

No. The gift is welcome
bringing first silence then apology 
or emotions still alive
smoothed daily by faith
soothing oil on deep wounds.

A half century now
these houses fields and hills 
still an indifferent stage
mute behind such sorrow.

The Greeks knew the cycle:
grief joy courage cowardice. 
Wheat and weed grow together
Branau and Linz homes of Hitler and 
Eichmann only kilometers away.

No. No sudden strength this.
More the wisdom of a gospel virgin 
not caught with lamp unoiled more 
a way of life revealed in prison letters:
“It would not be too much
a hundred kilometers on foot
to attend a single Mass.”

An echo of easier earlier years 
alone of men at daily Mass 
Franz and Father Karobath
and the older village women.

Yet not always so.
The village remembers more the lustig years 
of bars and brawls and motorcycle.
Then an absence so mysterious that
visits home were secret.

Rumor that he was away at
Steiermark a miner making extra money 
while old parents could still manage.

Or did women trouble bring new expense 
the need for distance . . .
No matter. Trouble can be grace
trimming the lamp as well as anything.

Exile and return and marriage 
were making the new man 
and not an Aryan supreme.

Farmer rather and sacristan
fingering beads and Bible in the fields.
At night Franz and Father Karobath
planned resistance to the Anschluss.

Some remember the new seriousness
how the sacristan would bolt the door 
against those coming late to Mass.
The same Father Karobath who
for aging needing parents
persuaded Franz away from religious life 
wanted some compromise with conscription.

A procession of priests and persuasion: 
pastor and replacement pastor 
prison chaplains at Linz and Berlin
a Greek chorus going
“You must be practical
your wife and children . . .”

All warnings absorbed by the new Franz 
looking at life with his gospel lamp. 
Family was indeed in mind
the painful part of the decision: “All my dear ones . . .
I would spare you but you know
we must love God even more than family.”

Enter local bishop.
Franz’ stand even then
a stone rippling still waters.
Franz summoned or bishop sought 
the Linz prelate saw him:
“I reminded him of his greater charge 
in particular for his family.”

Priests themselves were being conscripted 
his court-appointed attorney asks:
“How can you unlearned in theology 
rush to such conclusions?”

Franz answers with the exquisite 
love that judges none but self:
“They have not received the grace 
to see things otherwise.”

A charity as earlier for an informer
reporting the sermons which had Karobath removed. 
All the village shunned the man
except for Franz.

The prison months a lifetime.
Lamplight flickered in the storm
a whirlwind: faith doubt worry
“My dear children
when your mother reads these letters
your father will be already dead.
He would have loved to come to you again.”

Here now in this house
blessed by his blood offering 
hard to give his offering sense 
by any human measure.

By such he made no difference.
Third Reich and Great War
not less nor more for his stand.
Austria prospers in the
“economic miracle” of modem Europe.

Franz and Thomas More another tandem.
Franz had more with wife willing.
More had more in public station 
standing up to Caesar knowing 
the crime was recorded would 
with centuries curb the crown.

Endurance saw Franz no further 
than being brought closer as 
some are by grace and fate to
the nuptials sought at daily Mass.

Before the headsman we glimpse
a wedding already begun
as Franz declines a chaplain’s care:
“I am completely bound in inner union 
any reading would only interrupt
my communion . . .”

After Saint Radegund all Austria
looks different down the Danube 
by boat Linz to Vienna
I see more clearly sadly
the rivertowns notice
abiding the onion-dome
churches of this almost Eastern Europe 
high behind great cloister
walls sturdy as the rock cliffs.
Signs as clear as roadside shrines: 
the heart of Catholic Austria.

Like the rushing river
fierce questions intrude:
Why was Franz so alone? Where 
the Church so woven into life?
The Benedictine blessing of ordinary 
family fields and daily life?

Is strength weakness when 
weakness needs strength? Is
what blesses hearth and sanctions power 
hindrance for an apocalypse?
Too slack a sail for the whirlwind?

Twenty years on with
the Nazi horror in full light
the bishop who once discouraged Franz 
could still dismiss him as
“thirsting for martyrdom . . .
more to be admired than imitated.”

Here in Vienna as night comes 
the great Votivkirche darkens 
fills with Brahms Vivaldi . . . 
suddenly a west window burns 
a blaze unseen by all but
this pilgrim fresh from Saint Radegund: 
Franz ripping a cloth swastika
Franziska farther down praying at his grave.

With dusk the window dies
the flame goes in goes home with me. 
Tomorrow by accident or grace
another will notice
light his lamp from Franz
tomorrow and tomorrow...

Clay Vessels and Other Poems, John P. McNamee and Robert R. McGovern, 1995, Sheed & Ward

John P. McNamee

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