Franz Reinisch

Father Franz Reinisch was a  Catholic priest who was executed during the “Third Reich”. As a decision on a matter of conscience he, after being recruited to the army, refused the oath of allegiance to Hitler. He was imprisoned, sentenced to death and beheaded on August 21, 1942.

Father Reinisch, a Pallottine Father, born in Austria, has his first personal Schoenstatt experience on the day when the remains of the hero sodalists, the first Schoenstatt members who lost their lives on World War I were brought back from France to Schoenstatt, in 1934. He worked actively in the Schoenstatt Movement, specially with the Men’s branches.

His decision to refuse the oath of allegiance brought him into the dilemma of all Christian radicalism – his decision meant to lose his life and he knew it; it would cause pain to parents, family, community. It also endangered Schoenstatt and his own Pallottine community – a motive for his superiors to not back up his decision -,and cast a shadow on each other priest and Christian who had given the oath. Yet Reinisch felt called to follow his special vocation and set an example of following conscience and the Personal Ideal in a matter of life and death.