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I Will Not Serve
Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 2017
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September 9, 2018
I bought this autographed copy in O’Mahony’s Bookshop in Limerick, Ireland, and read it yesterday on a long-haul flight. It was an absorbing companion. Fr. Franz Reinisch was an Austrian priest with a deep devotion to Mary, who when he received his call-up papers refused to take the oath to Hitler. He resisted extreme pressure from his peers, who recommended adding the personal reservation option, that is, taking the oath but not really meaning it in the heart, and serving in the capacity of medic or chaplain, both positions noble and necessary to any army in wartime. Fr. Reinisch’s conscience would not allow him to take an oath to support such a man as Adolf Hitler. The civil authorities tried until the last moment to get him to change his mind, not because they had any respect for priests or religious, but because he was a nightmare to them – a priest who had been outspoken and openly critical preferred death to supporting the Third Reich was bad PR.
Not only is this a story needed to be told, but it touches on the lives of many other Catholics resistant to Hitler. People we will never hear about. Like his parents, who were urged to influence him to change his mind. But they had raised him to do the right thing and now stood by him even though they were to face losing him. For their support, in his prison cell, he was utterly grateful. There is mention of other Christians who resisted, who disappeared into the ‘Nucht und Nebel’ - Night and Fog’ of the camps, or were executed.
I found myself wanting to underline parts of this book as the deChristianisation may apply now as then in the USA and in Europe, though in a more subtle, sweetened form. Get religion out of schools; secularise hospitals. (Under the Third Reich, tens of thousands of nuns were expelled from schools and hospitals). Get the Youth. Make Christian youth organizations conform or close.
The conscience is the deciding factor in moral and ethical decisions even in Catholics faithful to Rome and the Pope. The conscience however must be informed. Fr. Reinisch agonized greatly over his decision. One is left with the question: what if every single Christian called up to serve the Army of the Third Reich made the same decision? I’m not sitting in judgement of those who took the oath (easy for anybody to say from here that they shouldn’t have!) but would Hitler have had an Army? What does it take to nip Evil in the bud? How does this apply to our own, modern world? What would have happened if every US Catholic priest had proclaimed, from the pulpit, the Iraq war to be unjust, as Iraq had not attacked the USA on 9/11?
The book is written scene by scene as in a film. Some modern dialogue comes across as anachronistic. I think Franz’ girlfriend’s speech to rethink the priesthood was a bit coarse for a respectable girl of her time. Other dialogue seems too 21st century pop-cultureish. For all that, the book is a Gem.
I’m left with the wish to read the book cited by David Rice in the text ‘The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich’ by at the time an anonymous author, now thought to be by Johann Neuhäusler, a priest who was sent to Dachau, the camp where most resistant priests were punished.
Finally, this historical work reminds one that there are, in North Korea and other places, evil regimes where dissidents are turned into an ‘eternal sort of mist’ as they were under Nazi Germany. Not only is this book a history, it has to be the story of many present-day human beings who are living under persecution. We shouldn’t leave it to another generation to uncover the atrocities against them.
Not only is this a story needed to be told, but it touches on the lives of many other Catholics resistant to Hitler. People we will never hear about. Like his parents, who were urged to influence him to change his mind. But they had raised him to do the right thing and now stood by him even though they were to face losing him. For their support, in his prison cell, he was utterly grateful. There is mention of other Christians who resisted, who disappeared into the ‘Nucht und Nebel’ - Night and Fog’ of the camps, or were executed.
I found myself wanting to underline parts of this book as the deChristianisation may apply now as then in the USA and in Europe, though in a more subtle, sweetened form. Get religion out of schools; secularise hospitals. (Under the Third Reich, tens of thousands of nuns were expelled from schools and hospitals). Get the Youth. Make Christian youth organizations conform or close.
The conscience is the deciding factor in moral and ethical decisions even in Catholics faithful to Rome and the Pope. The conscience however must be informed. Fr. Reinisch agonized greatly over his decision. One is left with the question: what if every single Christian called up to serve the Army of the Third Reich made the same decision? I’m not sitting in judgement of those who took the oath (easy for anybody to say from here that they shouldn’t have!) but would Hitler have had an Army? What does it take to nip Evil in the bud? How does this apply to our own, modern world? What would have happened if every US Catholic priest had proclaimed, from the pulpit, the Iraq war to be unjust, as Iraq had not attacked the USA on 9/11?
The book is written scene by scene as in a film. Some modern dialogue comes across as anachronistic. I think Franz’ girlfriend’s speech to rethink the priesthood was a bit coarse for a respectable girl of her time. Other dialogue seems too 21st century pop-cultureish. For all that, the book is a Gem.
I’m left with the wish to read the book cited by David Rice in the text ‘The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich’ by at the time an anonymous author, now thought to be by Johann Neuhäusler, a priest who was sent to Dachau, the camp where most resistant priests were punished.
Finally, this historical work reminds one that there are, in North Korea and other places, evil regimes where dissidents are turned into an ‘eternal sort of mist’ as they were under Nazi Germany. Not only is this book a history, it has to be the story of many present-day human beings who are living under persecution. We shouldn’t leave it to another generation to uncover the atrocities against them.
Displaying 1 of 1 review