Anton Brugger

This article describes the conscientious objector. For the ÖVP politician of the same name, see Anton Brugger (politician) .

Anton Brugger (born April 9, 1911 in Kaprun , † February 3, 1943 in the Brandenburg penitentiary on the Havel ) was a reform-Adventist conscientious objector in World War II .

Life

Young years

Anton Brugger grew up as an only child in simple circumstances. His parents were traditionally Catholic. Therefore they gave him the middle name Benedict. Father Anton worked as a miner . His mother Elisabeth raised him, as is customary in Pinzgau, in the Roman Catholic faith. Even as a schoolboy, he stood out for his peacefulness and a keen sense of justice. In Vienna he then learned the profession of confectioner.

He first came into contact with the Reform Adventists as early as the 1920s . The Reform Adventists , organized under the name of the International Mission Society of Seventh-day Adventists, Reformation Movement, fundamentally reject military service for biblical reasons. At the time of the First World War, they were excluded from the Mother Church of the Seventh-day Adventists for refusing to do military service, and some of them were denounced. In 1934, Anton Brugger joined the Reform Adventists by being baptized as believers in Lake Wörthersee .

From 1934 to 1937 he worked as an Adventist book evangelist and distributed Christian scriptures. Right at the beginning of this work, which was considered illegal in Austria, he was charged with “peddling with pamphlets” and “insulting the legally recognized Catholic Church” by “disparaging its customs such as praying the rosary and cult of the Virgin Mary ” and sentenced to “three weeks of strict arrest”. However, he was not discouraged by this "incident" and persisted in working as a book evangelist.

The way to become a martyr

After the start of the war, Brugger fled to Italy because as a devout Christian he did not want to take part in the war. In Trieste he met and fell in love with Ester Karis and a short time later became engaged to her. After various attempts to get overseas from Italy with Ester, Anton Brugger was arrested in Milan in 1940 and deported to Austria on June 16, 1940. In Salzburg he found a job in the Fürst confectionery (inventor of the Mozartkugel ). On November 5, 1940 he was taken into custody and on March 14, 1941 because of his "anti-military attitude", a "crime according to § 3 of the regulation supplementing the criminal provisions for the protection of the military strength of the German people" by the special court of Salzburg to two years imprisonment sentenced. He was accused of having carried out anti-military propaganda as part of his missionary work as a reform adventist. To serve this sentence, Anton Brugger was transferred to Camp Rollwald , main camp II of camp Rodgau-Dieburg , on April 16, 1941 . His fiancée Ester Karis was allowed to visit him in the Rollwald prison camp once in September 1941 for exactly 15 minutes. It was to be their last meeting. Later he was employed in the satellite camp at Gabriel Gerster AG, Mainz.

In November 1942, while still a prisoner, he was forcibly drafted into the Wehrmacht and transferred to Artillery Department 961 at the Württemberg military training area in Heuberg for training . However, since he felt bound by the biblical commandment "You shall not kill", he refused to use the weapon in his unit. As a result, he was brought before the Reich Court Martial in Berlin. As a devout Reform Adventist, the Bible was authoritative for Anton Brugger . As a staunch Christian he could not and would not kill anyone or take part in war. He was more willing to die than break God's commandments.

On January 5, 1943, he was sentenced to death by the 2nd Senate of the Reich Court Martial in Berlin for undermining military strength . A short time later, his mother Elise heard of the death sentence. She traveled to Berlin with a friend. She wanted to change his mind so that she might still be able to avert the death sentence. Anton Brugger, marked by the harsh detention, greeted his mother with the words: “Mother, go this way too. Then there will be a reunion ”. The letters he wrote to his mother and his fiancée Esther Karis from prison have been preserved. On February 3, 1943, Anton Brugger was beheaded as the fifth Reform Adventist in prison in Brandenburg an der Havel at the age of 32. His brother in faith Viktor Pacha from Upper Silesia was to follow him a month later. Anton Brugger's mother granted her son's wish. After the war she joined the Reform Adventists, her son's religious community, and stayed there until her death on March 24, 1949.

Appreciation

In 1947 the city ​​of Brandenburg built a memorial at the northern foot of the Marienberg . The ashes of 365 people executed were buried near the memorial. The names of the buried people were placed on four grave slabs. In addition to Anton Brugger, two other Reform Adventists , Ludwig Pfältzer and Viktor Pacha, are honored on these panels. On April 19, 2013, a Stolperstein was laid in Salzburg, Josef-Schwer-Gasse 8, in honor of Anton Brugger.

Comparison with other conscientious objectors

For the same reason and in the same place as Anton Brugger, Franz Jägerstätter , also Austrian, was executed a few months later . In contrast to the Catholic Jägerstätter, Brugger is one of the little-known reform-Adventist conscientious objectors and victims of National Socialism .

Anton Brugger was one of the few people who died for their biblical beliefs during the Second World War. Seven to eleven Reform Adventists (the exact number is not yet known) were convicted and executed for religious reasons of conscientious objection to military service during the Nazi dictatorship. In addition to the 250 executed Jehovah's Witnesses , who, as a religious community, offered the most unified resistance, “the Reform Adventists deserve special mention, who ... represent the only religious group in the Third Reich that offered more or less unified resistance. ... Of all the Protestant free churches, the Reform Adventists in the Third Reich had the highest number of martyrs and conscientious objectors ”.

literature

• Hans Fleschutz: And follow their faith! Memorial book for the martyrs of the Seventh-day Adventist Reformation Movement. Evidence of loyalty and steadfastness from Germany's dark days. Jagsthausen / Heilbronn 1967.
• Daniel Heinz : conscientious objector and religious pacifist. The Anton Brugger case and the attitude of the Seventh-day Adventists in the Third Reich . In: Yearbook of the Documentation Archive of Austrian Resistance (DÖW yearbook), vol. 1996, pp. 41–56. - From the perspective of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
• International Mission Society of Seventh-day Adventists / Reformation Movement eV (ed.): You collect my tears. Witnesses of faith in National Socialism . Edelstein-Verlag, Naumburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-933032-59-1 . Pp. 176-188.
• Walter Thaler. Pinzgauer! Heroes - fools - pioneers. newacademicpress. Vienna. ISBN 978-3-99036-014-9

Footnotes

1. ↑ Baptismal Register - TFBVII | Kaprun | Salzburg, rk. Diocese | Austria | Matricula Online. Retrieved October 31, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Intern. Mission Society of Seventh-day Adventists / Reformation Movement eV (ed.): You collect my tears. Witnesses of faith in National Socialism . Edelstein-Verlag, Naumburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-933032-59-1 . Pp. 15-33
3. ↑ Federal Archives Berlin, R 3001/177603
4. ↑ Federal Archives Berlin, R 3001/177603
5. ↑ Heidi Fogel: The Rollwald camp. Penitentiary system and forced labor 1938 to 1945 . Edited by the association for the historical processing of the history of the Rollwald camp, Rodgau-Niederroden 2004. ISBN 3-00-013586-3 here p. 284
6. ↑ Heidi Fogel: The Rollwald camp. Penitentiary system and forced labor 1938 to 1945 . Edited by the association for the historical processing of the history of the Rollwald camp, Rodgau-Niederroden 2004. ISBN 3-00-013586-3 here p. 284
7. ^ German WASt Berlin Office, Anton Brugger file
8. ↑ Heidi Fogel: The Rollwald camp. Penitentiary system and forced labor 1938 to 1945 . Edited by the association for the historical processing of the history of the Rollwald camp, Rodgau-Niederroden 2004. ISBN 3-00-013586-3 here p. 286
9. ^ Andreas Maislinger : Other religious groups . In: Christa Mitterrutzner, Gerhard Ungar (ed.): Resistance and persecution in Salzburg 1934–1945. A documentation , vol. 2. Österreichischer Bundesverlag Wien / Pustet Salzburg, 1991. ISBN 3-215-06566-5 . Pp. 323-353, here pp. 352-353.
10. ↑ Intern. Mission Society of Seventh-day Adventists / Reformation Movement eV (ed.): You collect my tears. Witnesses of faith in National Socialism . Edelstein-Verlag, Naumburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-933032-59-1 . Pp. 61-62
11. ^ Gert Kerschbaumer : Stolpersteine ​​Salzburg - Anton Brugger
12. ^ Daniel Heinz: Committed to command and conscience: Free Church Martyrs . In: Harald Schultze, Andreas Kurschat, Claudia Bendick (eds.): Your end looks at ... Protestant martyrs of the 20th century . Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2006. ISBN 978-3-374-02370-7 . Pp. 85-98, quoted on p. 92.

Web links

• Stolpersteine ​​Salzburg: Anton Brugger , accessed on November 29, 2014.