Franz Josef Weiland

Franz Josef Weiland was born in Trieste in Austria-Hungary. After school, he entered the Vienna seminary and was ordained a priest in 1935. He then became a pastor in the parish of Stammersdorf and then a cooperator (chaplain) in Wiener Neustadt. He later became parish priest in Paasdorf (Mistelbach district) in Lower Austria and curate of the provost parish of Wiener Neustadt. There he also experienced the occupation of Austria by the Third Reich on March 12, 1938.

As curate of the provost parish of Wr. Neustadt, Franz Josef Weiland was arrested on December 18, 1939, because he had received derogatory news about the attack on the archbishopric on October 8, 1938. October 1938 attack on the Archbishop's Palace in Vienna [as a reaction by the HJ to the youth demonstration at the Rosary Festival in St. Stephen's Cathedral on October 7, 1938], for allegedly working "illegally" in youth pastoral care and having contact with people persecuted by the Gestapo. He was released from protective custody on December 22, 1938 on the condition that he did not disclose anything about his protective custody.