{"id":4070,"date":"2007-10-26T19:37:30","date_gmt":"2007-10-26T19:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=4070"},"modified":"2025-09-30T01:55:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T01:55:22","slug":"today-franz-jag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=4070","title":{"rendered":"Today Franz Jagerstatter was beatified"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who is Jagerstatter? A heroic figure. Here’s a post about him. The book the author mentions – "In Solitary Witness<\/strong> – is one of the dryest books I’ve ever read. BUT it’s redeemed by having Jagerstatter’s surviving correspondence in an appendix at the back. <\/p>\n

\"Jagerstatter\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

The full article is long; you need to print it out.<\/p>\n

FIRST THINGS: On the Square \u00bb Blog Archive \u00bb Franz J\u00e4gerst\u00e4tter: Martyr and Model<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Executed in 1943 for refusing to serve in Hitler\u2019s army, J\u00e4gerst\u00e4tter was once known only to his relatives and neighbors\u2014many of whom considered him mad. Born out of wedlock in 1907 in the tiny village of St. Radegund, his natural father was killed in the Great War. His mother eventually married a farmer named J\u00e4gerst\u00e4tter, who adopted him. A Catholic from birth, Franz didn\u2019t always follow church teaching. Rumor has it that he lived something of a wild life\u2014possibly even fathering an illegitimate child\u2014before reclaiming his faith and marrying.<\/p>\n

In 1956, the American sociologist Gordon Zahn, then researching a book in Germany on another subject, came across J\u00e4gerst\u00e4tter\u2019s story. Transfixed, he thought it worthy of a serious biography and visited Austria to write it. After recovering J\u00e4gerst\u00e4tter\u2019s papers and interviewing surviving relatives and friends\u2014including two priests who served as his spiritual counselors\u2014Zahn published In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz J\u00e4gerst\u00e4tter<\/a><\/em><\/u> (1964). <\/p>\n

The book has since been translated into various languages, and it had a significant impact on the Church\u2019s support for conscientious objectors. As the biography reveals, Franz J\u00e4gerst\u00e4tter was the unlikeliest of heroes. He was \u201ca relatively untutored man from a remote and isolated rural village,\u201d writes Zahn. Moreover, he was \u201ca married man with a wife and children for whom he was responsible and whose future welfare he was morally bound to consider.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who is Jagerstatter? A heroic figure. Here’s a post about him. The book the author mentions – "In Solitary Witness – is one of the dryest books I’ve ever read. BUT it’s redeemed by having Jagerstatter’s surviving correspondence in an appendix at the back. The full article is long; you need to print it out. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9384,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070\/revisions\/9384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}