DDDr. Johann Kapistran (Wilhelm) Pieller OFM

Born in Vienna, Wilhelm Pieller initially completed four classes at the Vienna IX grammar school (Wasagasse), but had to leave school at the age of 14 after the death of his father. He then completed a one-year commercial college course. From 1908 to 1909, he worked as an office clerk at a uniforms company in Vienna. In 1909, he followed his original wish to become a priest and joined the Franciscan order in Graz, where he was given the religious name Johannes Kapistran. After his novitiate year, he completed four years of secondary school at the grammar school in Hall/Tyrol, where he graduated in 1914. He then studied theology at the universities of Graz and Vienna. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1918, he took on pastoral duties in St. Pölten and from 1924 at the Franciscan church in Graz. The order enabled him to continue his academic education by studying law and political science in Graz, where he graduated with a doctorate in 1927 and a doctorate in law in 1929.

At the age of 33, he joined the student fraternity Carolina in 1924 and worked here as a fraternity chaplain. From 1931, Johann Kapistran Pieller lived with the confreres in St. Pölten, where he also worked as a chaplain in the local prison. From here, he completed his doctoral studies at the Faculty of Theology in Vienna, graduating with a doctorate in theology in 1937.

After various positions in the service of his order, including as chaplain in Maria Enzersdorf from January to August 1940, Father Kapistran became guardian of the Franciscan monastery in Eisenstadt and rector of the monastery school there in August 1940. He was also "in charge of the crypt of Prince Esterházy."

In 1937, he met the then theology student Frater Benno OFM (who later became a non-commissioned officer in the air force Eduard Pumpernig), who brought him into contact with members of the later "Antifascist Freedom Movement of Austria" (AFÖ) in Eisenstadt in the autumn of 1941 after he had joined the Wehrmacht. P. Kapistran agreed with the aims of the AFÖ and was prepared to actively support them, for example by writing pamphlets against the Nazi regime. For example, the leaflet that was distributed in Klagenfurt in March 1942 and presented as evidence at the trial.

The core of the AFÖ was formed by the Upper Carinthian and Gurk diocesan priest Dr. Anton Granig (1901-1945), leader of the St. Joseph Brotherhood in Klagenfurt together with the former Member of Parliament Karl Krumpl, both founded the local resistance group here, which was quickly joined by Eduard Pumpernig. The group met at the Elisabethinenkloster convent in Völkermarkter Straße, where Anton Granig lived. They met with their Viennese contacts at the "Pürstner" pub in Riemergasse in Vienna. Eduard Pumpernig has the leaflets printed in the Franciscan monastery in Vienna and distributed in Klagenfurt. The Gestapo became aware of them and arrested the AFÖ's Viennese liaison officers in February 1943. On March 19, 1943, Karl Krumpl was arrested for high treason, followed by Eduard Pumpernig on June 3 and Anton Granig on June 17, 1943.

For supporting the AFÖ, Father Johann Kapistran Pieller was also arrested by the Gestapo in Eisenstadt on August 23, 1943. He was accused of writing a leaflet against the National Socialists, giving 150 Reichsmarks to the AFÖ for propaganda against them and handing over two revolvers and ammunition. He spends months with his co-defendants in the Rossauer Lände detention center (Elisabethpromenade) and in the Vienna Regional Court in uncertainty. The Gestapo report reads:

"Dr. Pieller, who was already hostile to the Nazis during the system era and did not change his hateful and lowly attitude even after the national upheaval, is described as a steadfast opponent of the state of the worst kind. His anti-state activities were likely to endanger the welfare of the Reich. Dr. Pieller has essentially confessed."

On 11.8.1944, the V. Senate of the Supreme Court in Vienna sentenced him together with several defendants of the AFÖ pursuant to § 80 and 83 para. 2 and 3, no. 1 and 3 RStGB "to death and loss of honour for life for preparation for high treason and favouring the enemy".

Attempts at a pardon were unsuccessful. Fr. Johann Kapistran Pieller and the other death row prisoners had to wait in the death dungeon of the district court until 4 April 1945 to see whether the execution would be carried out or not. Shortly before the Red Army marched into Vienna on April 5, 1945, Father Johann Kapistran Pieller was chained together in pairs with over 40 other death row prisoners (he was chained together with his provincial, Father Dr. Angelus Steinwender OFM) on the orders of Johann Karl Stich (1888-1955), Attorney General at the Higher Regional Court, and driven on foot from the Vienna Regional Court via Stockerau to Stein an der Donau, where they arrived on April 9. An eyewitness reports:

"Look! ... How they walk out of the gate chained together in pairs. ... The procession of death row prisoners in gray clothes, with gray, decayed faces. ... beings who are not yet dead and are no longer alive."

On April 15, 1945, P. Johann Kapistran Pieller and the other prisoners were massacred two by two by the SS with machine guns in the courtyard of the Krems-Stein prison on the orders of the Gauleiter Niederdonau, SS-Obergruppenführer Hugo Jury (1887-1945). Father Johann Kapistran Pieller is laid to rest in a mass grave in Stein. Both Franciscans were honored as victims of National Socialism in the Maria Langegg pilgrimage church.

On 14 April 1964, the Vienna Chief Public Prosecutor's Office announced "that all files from 1945 had been destroyed and that there were no documents relating to the shooting of the aforementioned persons."