Franz Romstorfer

Franz Romstorfer attended grammar school in Hollabrunn. After graduating from high school, he did military service in 1918 and then studied theology in Vienna. Here he joined the Rudolfina student fraternity in 1920. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1924, he worked in various pastoral positions as a co-operator (chaplain) in Etzdorf/Kamp, Herrenbaumgarten and in 1927 in Baden, where he played a key role in founding the Badenia Baden secondary school fraternity.

In the meantime, he also passed the secondary school teaching examination and worked as a professor of religion in Baden from 1936 and as a secondary school professor in Stockerau from 1937 to March 1938, followed by two years as a local provost in Götzendorf. He was able to save the most important parts of Badenia's inventory in his apartment just before the German troops marched in.

After the arrest of Pastor Jakob Zeggl, who was subsequently forced to resign from the parish of Poysdorf, Franz Romstorfer became provisional pastor there in 1940 and finally parish administrator because, in the opinion of the new rulers, he could do less harm to the National Socialist objectives here in the countryside. He was also exposed to spying there because "he preached, even though it was forbidden, he held the Corpus Christi procession and ignored the orders of the Nazi rulers. He visited everyone, even those who had left the church." - The parish chronicle reports "One of his last visits to the sick was for Mr. Leydolf [...] who had fallen away from the faith. When Mr. Leydolf died, his relatives requested that he be rung out, and they also wanted the bells to be rung at the funeral." Because Franz Romstorfer forbade this request, he came into conflict with those in power.

After his sacristan reported him to the Gestapo, he was arrested on June 10, 1941 and taken to the Korneuburg prison. He was interrogated and tortured in various ways, including being beaten on his bare back with leather whips until his skin burst open. SS-Untersturmführer Römer once asked him to tell a joke. "Pastor Romstorfer tells a joke in his simplicity: 'The Führer only greets with his left hand because he lacks a right arm. This was just in the days when Rudolf Hess had allegedly gone abroad by plane. Römer now wanted to know where the joke came from."

After his 42-day imprisonment, he - like his predecessor before him - had to give up the parish of Poysdorf. The ordeals he suffered in prison have driven him mad. He now sought peace with his mother and his brother Martin in Enzesfeld, where he was chaplain at the time. "On the day he died, he came to Enzesfeld to visit his brother and played with the altar boys in the afternoon. Suddenly he disappeared, he was searched for everywhere but never found. At that time there was still a pigsty in the middle of the vicarage garden, with a wooden outhouse next to it. At around 10 pm, the priest Thomas Huber, Martin Romstorfer and the cook Leni Franz Romstorfer were found hanging in it." - This is how contemporary witness Hans Skartis describes the suicide of Franz Romstorfer on September 26, 1941, who was driven insane by the Nazis and is probably one of the most tragic victims.