Fritz Mankowski

Fritz Mankowski was born in Vienna, the son of a former career officer who moved to Graz in 1920. There he graduated from the Realgymnasium in Lichtenfelsgasse in 1937. He was encouraged to enter the monastery there by the well-known future student chaplain and Seckau monk Father Laurentius Hora.

However, the abbot advised Fritz Mankowski to first complete a one-year voluntary year in the army. He did so, but was surprised by the Anschluss during this time and was immediately transferred to the German Wehrmacht, where he remained. He took part in the Polish and Balkan campaigns.

After his deployment in Greece, Fritz Mankowski applied for study leave. As he would not have been granted leave to study theology, he opted for medicine. He was subsequently transferred to the student company in Graz and began studying medicine.

As early as 1939, a group of Catholic university students met in the Barbara Chapel of Graz Cathedral on the initiative of the Carolina student fraternity and were therefore also known as the Barbara Community. The Carolina gained its "illegal" members from this circle.

Fritz Mankowski also joined this Barbara community, soon becoming its spiritual center and proving to be a courageous confessor of his faith. He twice left the lecture of histology professor Alfred Pischinger under protest. The first time because he described the Old Testament as pornography, the second time because he publicly boasted that he had handed over his brain-damaged son for euthanasia.

As a result, Fritz Mankowski had to give up his studies. He was therefore transferred back to the Eastern Front in the fall of 1943, but before that he "illegally" joined the Carolina student fraternity. By Whitsun 1942, he had already taken the Oblation in Seckau. This is a promise to lead a Christian life in close association with a particular monastery. The oblate becomes a member of the monastic family, but without living in the convent.

Fritz Mankowski is a gifted lyricist and prose poet, and many of his texts have been preserved. On January 9, 1944, one month before his death, he wrote a letter to his parents for the last time, which begins with the following verses:

The moonlight flows on foreign land,

foreign is where we go -

but over us is God's hand,

may it keep us.

We thank him for many a day,

when the earth blossomed for us,

for many a hot heartbeat,

wherein joy glowed -

we know: Mighty is the light,

which He kindles in us,

so we do not fear the darkness,

into which the journey leads.