![]() ![]() The truth is, the scenes of Franz whipping past expansive wheat fields in a motorcycle don’t stretch too far from reality. There’s something about a Harley Davidson amid cattle, the occasional donkey, and pre-war Austrian hinterlands that creates some sort of categorical turmoil. Before his execution on August 9th 1943, he wrote that “neither prison, nor chains, nor sentence of death, can rob a man of the Faith and his free will.” He declared his refusal to fight when he was summoned back to the Linz barracks in 1943, where he was held in custody, transferred to Berlin-Tegel to await trial, and condemned to death for sedition.įranz thought participating in something so evil would be more enslaving than having chains binding his hands. ![]() During his military training in 1940, he notices the evil underlying the Nazi regime and arrives home dead-set on refusing to fight for the army in the future. In the film, Franz enjoys rural life with his wife and their daughters after Hitler’s annexation of Austria in 1938. Apart from a few stints in mining, he served as a sacristan at his parish, ringing the occasional bell and preparing weddings and funerals for no extra compensation. Radegund, Austria in 1907, was a farmer with a quiet but intense religious conviction. Who was Franz Jagerstatter?įranz Jagerstatter, born in St. Below, we've parsed out what’s fact and what’s fiction in the harrowing tale of Franz’s life. The film is a visual journey, blending vast bucolic scenes of Franz and his family with his somber interior battle against the Nazi regime. Hitting theaters on December 13th, the three hour-long biopic showcases Franz’s life from shortly before he is beckoned for armed service through his execution for refusing to fight for the German military. He now stars in A Hidden Life as Franz Jagerstatter, the forgotten martyr and devout Catholic who saw the evil of Nazi Germany before many else did. August has played several roles across the spectrum of World War II Germany, from a gestapo officer and a hardened NS general to a Jewish concentration camp prisoner incarcerated for forging baptismal certificates. Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life brings together a German-speaking cast, a slew of Oscar buzz, and reintroduces us to the man who brought the browbeat SS-Sturmbannführer from Inglorious Bastards to life-actor August Diehl. ![]()
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