A priest refuses Hitler’s Wehrmacht

There were very few Germans and Austrians who refused to do military service during the Second World War. One of these brave people was the Austrian priest Franz Reinisch. He was born in 1903, came from Tyrol – and his trail also leads to Würzburg. In an exhibition in the Heiligkreuzkirche you can currently find out more about Reinisch and his connections to the Würzburg district of Zellerau.

Reinisch emerged as a Nazi opponent in the mid-1930s

Reinisch was in the Order of the Pallottines and an enthusiastic member of the Schoenstatt Movement. He emerged as a Hitler and Nazi critic as early as 1934. In 1940 he was banned from speaking and preaching by the Gestapo, but was not intimidated. “For me they bite on granite” – this saying from the beginning of 1942 has been handed down from him.

On April 14, 1942, he was to enter the barracks of Bad Kissingen as a medical soldier. In Bad Kissingen he confessed that he would not take the oath of the flag on Hitler and therefore do not perform military service because his conscience forbids him to do so. Thus, on April 22, 1942 in Würzburg, in the court of Division 173 in Zellerauer Sedanstrasse, the first interrogation took place – only a few meters away from the Church of the Holy Cross. Reinisch was not the first time in Würzburg. As early as 1939 he had held a retreat for women and girls from the Schoenstatt Movement in Würzburg.

The death penalty was imminent

The interrogating war judge Dr. Georg Oehrlein was a devout Catholic. After the war he wrote a very touching account of this unusual interrogation. There he wrote about Reinisch’s first impression: “A tall, slim, personable, but serious man in a gray uniform came into the room.” Oehrlein tried to change his mind, knowing that he would face the death penalty if he refused to serve.

Franz Reinisch had already considered all of this and was already preparing for a possible execution. Oehrlein reports that the tears came to him because he could not persuade the 39-year-old man to refuse. He tried to pass the very difficult case on to an older colleague, Dr. Stoll to give up what he failed. So he had to issue an arrest warrant and forward the files to the Imperial War Court in Berlin.

The whole interrogation lasted about three hours and, according to Oehrlein’s report, was full of drama and tension. Both judges, Oehrlein and Stoll, were “deeply impressed by the upright, male attitude of the accused,” as Oehrlein stated.

Afterwards, the accused either came to the adjacent military prison or returned to Bad Kissingen, which is no longer certain. In any case, he was sent to Berlin-Tegel prison on May 8. Because he hoped he would give up the refusal, the process was delayed. Then there was a trial on July 7, which ended in the death sentence. On August 21, 1942, Franz Reinisch was executed in Brandenburg an der Havel for refusing to take the oath of the flag and for military service.

An exhibition about Franz Reinisch can be seen in the Heiligkreuzkirche in Würzburg-Zellerau (Friedrichstraße 26). 14 large-format display boards provide information about the life and aftermath of the Christian martyr. The church is open daily from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. (entrance at the care center for the elderly, in front of the church on the right). The exhibition will be shown until the end of July.

Text: Franz Josef Tremer

–

• Wurzburg

• accused

• Friedrichstrasse

• Clergy and priests

• Gestapo

• Executions

• Catholics

• Military service

• Military prisons

• sympathy

• death penalty

• Wehrmacht

• World wars

–

–

–