Josef Zotz

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Josef Zotz (born January 9, 1902 in Musau in Tyrol ; † July 7, 1941 in Weissensee ) was a Roman Catholic priest and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.

Life

Josef Zotz, who comes from the traditional Tyrolean Zotz family, was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on June 29, 1926 after studying at the Brixen seminary , today's Philosophical-Theological University of Brixen . Then he worked as a clergyman in Ehrwald and Längenfeld .

After the death of the pastor of Landeck (Tyrol) Josef Penz on January 5, 1939, Zotz took over his function as provisional. Because he spoke out clearly against anti-Semitism , the bellicose rhetoric of the government and the ideology of the master race of National Socialism in sermons and conversations , he soon saw gross harassment from the Gestapo and abuse by members of the SA and local Nazi activists exposed.

When he finally the Wehrmacht Adolf Bodingbauer in the desertion supported by the supplied nearly starved of money, he was arrested on July 3, 1940th Although only sentenced to three months in prison, he was then held in so-called protective custody .

During the imprisonment in the police prison, which he temporarily spent with the later Innsbruck bishop Reinhold Stecher , who was also imprisoned , he disregarded the regulations in many ways and, for example, celebrated Holy Mass for his fellow inmates with improvised ritual objects despite the prohibition . After his release on June 17, 1941, Josef Zotz was forbidden to stay in his Tyrolean homeland by being expelled from the Danube and Alpenreichsgaue . Those in power probably feared the indomitable priest's influence on his fellow citizens.

Just three weeks after his release from custody, Josef Zotz's body was recovered from Lake Weissensee on July 7, 1941, with a head injury. The authorities prevented a judicial investigation into the pastor's probably violent death and had him buried in Unterpinswang just three days later, on July 10, 1941 .

Josef Zotz left numerous testimonies of his rejection of the inhuman ideology of National Socialism and his Christian convictions. There is an initiative to initiate a beatification process .

literature

  • Analecta Praemonstratensia, volume 80.
  • Jakob Fried : National Socialism and the Catholic Church in Austria. Vienna 1947.
  • Roman Spiss: Landeck 1918-1945. A story not yet written. Innsbruck 1998.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Maximillian Liebmann: Church in Austria 1938-1988. Graz and Vienna 1990, p. 114.
  2. ^ Peter Eppel and Johann Holzner (Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance): Resistance and persecution in Tyrol. Volume 2. Vienna 1984. p. 278.
  3. ^ Peter Eppel and Johann Holzner (Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance). Resistance and persecution in Tyrol . Volume 2. Vienna 1984. pp. 230-236.
personal data
SURNAME Zotz, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian priest and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Musau
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 1941
Place of death Weissensee (Fuessen)