William Doino, in First Things:

Tomorrow, on October 26, the Catholic hero Franz Jägerstätter will be beatified in Linz, Austria.
Executed in 1943 for refusing to serve in Hitler’s army, Jägerstätter was once known only to his relatives and neighbors—many of whom considered him mad. Born out of wedlock in 1907 in the tiny village of St. Radegund, his natural father was killed in the Great War. His mother eventually married a farmer named Jägerstätter, who adopted him. A Catholic from birth, Franz didn’t always follow church teaching. Rumor has it that he lived something of a wild life—possibly even fathering an illegitimate child—before reclaiming his faith and marrying.

In 1956, the American sociologist Gordon Zahn, then researching a book in Germany on another subject, came across Jägerstätter’s story. Transfixed, he thought it worthy of a serious biography and visited Austria to write it. After recovering Jägerstätter’s papers and interviewing surviving relatives and friends—including two priests who served as his spiritual counselors—Zahn published In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägerstätter (1964).
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The book has since been translated into various languages, and it had a significant impact on the Church’s support for conscientious objectors. As the biography reveals, Franz Jägerstätter was the unlikeliest of heroes. He was “a relatively untutored man from a remote and isolated rural village,” writes Zahn. Moreover, he was “a married man with a wife and children for whom he was responsible and whose future welfare he was morally bound to consider.”

As the takeover of Austria proceeded, Jägerstätter knew he would be asked to collaborate at some point. In early 1943, it came: He was ordered to appear at the induction center at Enns, where he declared his intention not to serve. The next day, he was hauled off to a military prison at Linz, to await his fate. “All he knew when he arrived,” writes Zahn, “was that he was subject to summary execution at any moment.”
A parade of people—relatives, friends, spiritual advisers, even his own bishop—pleaded with Jägerstätter to change his mind. Some did not disagree with his anti-Nazi convictions or his moral stance; they simply argued he could not be held guilty in the eyes of God if he offered minimal cooperation under such duress, given the extreme alternative.
Jägerstätter, however, saw things differently. He believed Christians were called precisely to meet the highest possible standards—“be thou perfect,” said Our Lord—even at the cost of one’s life, if fundamental Christian principles were at stake. Serving Germany in a nonmilitary post would simply make it easier for someone else to commit war crimes. He could not participate in the Nazi death machine, even indirectly. He would not be swayed: “Since the death of Christ, almost every century has seen the persecution of Christians; there have always been heroes and martyrs who gave their lives—often in horrible ways—for Christ and their faith. If we hope to reach our goal someday, then we, too, must become heroes of the faith.” Indeed, he added, “the important thing is to fear God more than man.”

After several months of imprisonment in Linz, Jägerstätter was taken to Berlin, where he stood military trial. According to witnesses, Jägerstätter was quite eloquent in his defense, but he was sentenced to death for sedition. On August 9, 1943, Jägerstätter was informed he would be beheaded that day. His last words as he was taken to the gallows were ones of peace, testifying to his faith: “I am completely bound in inner union with the Lord.” The prison chaplain who ministered to him that day later remarked, “I can say with certainty that this simple man is the only saint I have met in my lifetime.”
During his ordeal, many of Jägerstätter’s neighbors considered his act unnecessary and foolish, a sentiment that remained long after his death. Zahn, who interviewed Jägerstätter’s critics, examines all the explanations offered to question Jägerstätter’s sacrifice—that he was selfish, reckless, spiritually vainglorious, or even disturbed—and makes a convincing case that none of them hold.