Franz Reinisch SAC
Personalia
Born:
Died:
Profession:
Persecution:
Imprisoned 15.04.1942 - 21.08.1942,
Murdered on 21.08.1942
Memberships
Curriculum Vitae
Born in Vorarlberg, Franz Reinisch attended the Franciscan grammar school in Hall/Tyrol together with his brother Andreas. Both joined the secondary school fraternity Sternkorona Hall in 1919. After graduating in the summer of 1922, he began studying law in Innsbruck - like his brother - and became a member of the student fraternity Leopoldina in the same year.
In the summer semester of 1923, he went to Kiel to study forensic medicine; here he became a member of the student fraternity Rheno-Guestphalia. In July 1923, he returned home with the decision to become a priest and began studying philosophy and theology in Innsbruck. In 1925, he went to the seminary in Brixen, where he first came into contact with the Pallottines through Fr. Richard Weickgenannt (1892-1966). Franz Reinisch was ordained a priest in Innsbruck in 1928. In the same year, he joined the Pallottine Order and began his novitiate in Untermerzbach near Bamberg; the strict house rules there were a tough test for him. After his profession, he became a lector and spiritual director in the order. His order entrusted him with various tasks such as youth work in Friedberg near Augsburg. Here he became acquainted with the Schoenstatt Movement of his confrere Fr. Joseph Kentenich SAC (1885-1968) and joined it. Further stages of his work include student chaplain in Salzburg, pilgrimage chaplain in Hohenrechberg and youth chaplain in Bruchsal; in 1938 he came to [Vallendar]-Schoenstatt as a men's chaplain.
During this time, he already became acquainted with the National Socialists' fight against the Catholic Church in southern Germany.
In March 1938, he came to Innsbruck for a visit, gave a speech at the inauguration of his Leopoldina on March 4 and spoke to his brothers "about the difficult times that Austria was now facing, about loyalty to Christ and to the homeland, which would have to pass the acid test in the coming years". His sermons in the pastoral care of men are borne by this missionary spirit and become increasingly open. He is monitored by the Gestapo.
On September 12, 1940, he is banned from preaching and speaking in the entire Reich because he is said to have given "a politically incorrect speech" in St. Mauritius in Winzeln near Rottweil on April 3 and June 13, 1940. He then translated church news and texts from Italian magazines into German. After his physical examination on August 14, 1940 in Bendorf (near Koblenz), Franz Reinisch received his readiness order on March 1, 1941 in [Vallendar-]Schoenstatt as fit for the Ersatz-Reserve I. He was firmly convinced that he could not take the oath to Adolf Hitler for reasons of conscience. 1939 in a dinner conversation:
A serious struggle begins to explore the will of God.
Franz Reinisch is prepared to allow himself to be excluded from the community of the order "to the outside world" if this would spare the province of the order any harm. "Our faith in Christ and Mary is as immovable as the mountains of our homeland" - this slogan of his student fraternity Leopoldina has strengthened his perseverance and firm conviction to refuse the oath of allegiance despite all the efforts of his order and his friends since his student days. "If it is the will of God, then die as a sacrificial lamb", was the answer Fr. Joseph Kentenich, his confessor, gave him when he was asked about the permissibility of taking the oath of allegiance.
On Easter Tuesday, 8 April 1942. On Easter Tuesday, April 8, 1942, he received the call-up order for April 14, 1942 to the medical replacement division 13 in Bad Kissingen in Wegscheid/Landkreis Passau, where he was pastorally active at the time. However, Franz Reinisch deliberately enlisted a day later on April 15 in Bad Kissingen. "You don't seem to attach any importance to becoming a soldier..." he is approached. His answer:
"I would value it if I had to serve another regime!"
After his official declaration that he did not want to become a soldier and would not take the oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler, he was then referred to the responsible court martial in Würzburg.
Here, on April 22, 1942, he was questioned by the court of the 171st Division, where he justified his refusal - according to the interrogation protocol - by stating, among other things, that the seminaries in Cologne and Trier had been abolished by the Gestapo as "institutes hostile to the state". "However, a declared enemy of the state could not be expected to perform military service for the current regime."
Thou Queen of the Worlds, command the tempest of time,
Thou crush Satan's brood, thou victor in conflict.
Let me become an apostle, stand there as a knight,
and dying I will smile: O dear MTA.
Despite all the instructions, the accused persists in his standpoint. Out of a personal attitude, he refuses to remain loyal to the German people in their struggle for existence. He therefore deliberately sets himself in opposition not only to the people and the state, but incidentally even to his ecclesiastical superiors. In addition, the persistence of the act is capable of exerting an advertising power that is dangerous for the welfare of the Reich. Here, only the harshest punishment can fulfill the purpose of punishment. The Senate therefore sentences the accused to death. Military service is honorable service to the German people. Since the defendant refuses to fulfill the honorary duty of a German, he ... is also deprived of his civil rights for life ...
.
On the field judgment of July 7, 1942 in the criminal case against the soldier Franz Reinisch, 3rd San.-Ers.-Abt. 13 in Bad Kissingen, the convicted man asks to be allowed to make the following closing statement: Since today the fight against Bolshevism is about the preservation of the Christian faith and the German homeland and, as the President of the Senate himself stated in the main court hearing, also about the preservation of the Christian West, the convicted man believes that he must steadfastly adhere to his previous line of reasoning. For the time of war is primarily used to tear the faith in the God-Man Jesus Christ from the hearts of the people and especially the youth at home - as countless examples prove - whereby the soldiers at the front - instructed by their leave as well as by letters from their relatives - are tremendously shaken in their military strength. From Russia, both those on leave and the wounded, all of them family men, came and explained to me: 'What is the point of our fighting? We are fighting against Bolshevism abroad, for Bolshevism at home!', e.g. the removal of crucifixes from schools, the dissolution of monasteries and the closure of churches. The condemned man is not a revolutionary; he is a Catholic priest who uses the weapons of the spirit and of faith. And he knows what he is fighting for. It would therefore stand to reason that those forces that carry out this disintegration of the armed forces should first be rendered harmless and sentenced to death. But since the present government does not in the least put a stop to these forces, but even favors them, the condemned man believes that by refusing to swear allegiance to the present government he is more loyal to the German people in its struggle for existence than vice versa. He is therefore gladly prepared to lay down his life for Christ the King and for the German homeland, so that Christ the Lord may defeat these anti-Christian Bolshevist forces and powers abroad and especially at home, so that our people may once again become: a strong and free people of God in the midst of the peoples of the West.
Berlin-Tegel, July 25, 1942 Franz Reinisch
Places
Honoring:
Place of activity:
Location:
Citations
- Krause, Peter/Reinelt, Herbert/Schmitt, Helmut (2020): Farbe tragen, Farbe bekennen. Katholische Korporierte in Widerstand und Verfolgung. Teil 2. Kuhl, Manfred (ÖVfStG, Wien), p. 274–277.
