It's Time We have a Holiday to Honor those Who try to Stop Wars, too

5fish

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I found this interesting thought about honoring people. Its an article asking question for society to think over...


snip...

Memorial Day and Veterans Day often get equated, but there is an essential distinction between the two. Veterans Day honors all who have served the American military in wars. Memorial Day honors those who've perished. It's an annual reminder that wars have grave human costs, which must be both recognized and minimized. Those costs are not inevitable. We ought to also set aside time to remember those throughout American history who have tried hardest to reduce them, to prevent unnecessary loss of life both American and foreign: war resisters

snip... like Lincoln...

Abraham Lincoln, then in his only term as a congressman from Illinois, questioned Polk's rationale and introduced what came to be known as the "spot resolutions" demanding that the president point out the exact spot on which American blood had been spilled, to prove that it was really American land. Lincoln received vociferous attacks from Democratic newspapers and meetings back in his district; participants at one rally condemned him as "this Benedict Arnold of our district." But he was on the right side of history: the war was unjustified and caused needless suffering.

snip... 1st Amendment

And for the crime of opposing US entry into that morass, dozens saw federal prison time, mostly under the Espionage Act of 1917. In World War I alone, socialist leader Eugene V. Debs, Rep. Victor Berger (socialist-WI), Jehovah's Witnesses leader Joseph Franklin Rutherford, activist Kate Richards O'Hare, anarchist Emma Goldman, and German-American businessman William Edenborn all served time behind bars for their opposition to the war. Berger was denied his seat in Congress for his conviction, one of the few times a duly elected American politician was barred from office for having the wrong opinions

snip...

Outside the United States, World War I resisters suffered even more. More than 20,000 Britons refused the draft, and of those more than 6,000 were sent to prison and endured "hard labor, a bare-bones diet, and a strict 'rule of silence,'" as the writer Adam Hochschild explains. Those who refused to fight upon making it to the front often faced death. The British and French armies shot 320 and 700 men, respectively, for refusing to kill.
 

5fish

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Here is the Shot at Dawn Memorial...


snip...

The Shot at Dawn Memorial is a monument at the National Memorial Arboretum near Alrewas, in Staffordshire, UK. It commemorates the 306 British Army and Commonwealth soldiers executed after courts-martial for desertion and other capital offences during World War I.

1622499992218.png


snip...


The memorial portrays a young British soldier blindfolded and tied to a stake, ready to be shot by a firing squad. The memorial was modelled on the likeness of 17-year-old Private Herbert Burden, who lied about his age to enlist in the armed forces and was later shot for desertion. It is surrounded by a semicircle of stakes, on each of which are listed the names of the soldiers executed in this fashion.
 

5fish

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@rittmeister , @Wehrkraftzersetzer do you know about this memorial....


Monument to the Unknown Deserters of Both World Wars, seen in Potsdam, Germany...

1622500616443.png


Between 1939 and 1945, about 400,000 German soldiers (2% of the total) deserted or attempted to desert, not counting those surrendering in battle. 30,000 of them were caught in the act, 23,000 of those were executed. This was the first of the monuments now in Germany erected in memory of “those who refused to kill others in unjust wars.” The first official memorial for the Unknown Deserter was meant to be placed in Bonn, capital of West Germany, but was finished just after the Wall came down and was set up in Potsdam, considered to be the center of German militarism. In 2002 a general pardon was issued for those who had deserted the Wehrmacht during World War II. It was sculpted by Mehmet Aksoy, of Turkey.

snip...

In front of the so-called 'Theaterhaus' in Stuttgart, Germany, Baden-Württemberg exists a Silhouette Art Sculpture. It is dedicated to the 'Deserters of all Wars'. The sculpture was created by the German artist Nikolaus Kernbach in 1996/2001. It consists of stone.

1622500811968.png

snip...

Memorial to Deserters in Ulm

1622500925232.png


These pictures were taken on 19 November, 2005, on the day this memorial was formally unveiled by the organization Friedenswerk Ulm - 17 years after it was built! It is located near the Lehrertal entrance to the university botanical garden at Ulm. It is right by the road, near the parking lot of a dog school. The organizers were a bit disappointed that a more prominent place could not be found, but did point out that the place where the memorial now stands is not totally inappropriate.

Those memorialized by this marker are the men who deserted the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. 15,000 men were executed. The idea for the memorial emerged in 1985 at the annual meeting of the organization, "Reservists Refuse". They decided to build a memorial to deserters.

In June of 1988 the Initiative for the Creation of a Memorial to Deserters came to life in Ulm and Neu Ulm. A central idea was, "Desertion is not reprehensible, war is". On 9 September, 1989, this memorial, was unveiled in front of the Roxy Hallen in downtown Ulm. Four weeks later, the city council of Ulm decided to have the memorial removed, and the memorial was moved to the private yard of one Frau Henseler in Neu Ulm/Ludwigsfeld, where it remained for almost 16 years! In July of 2005 it was placed at its current location.

During the intervening years a number of events contributed to a rethinking of the status of deserters in society, including the 1993 decision by the EU parliament to offer asylum to deserters from Yugoslavia and the decision by the German parliament to rehabilitate Wehrmacht deserters in 1997. The convictions for desertion were only formally and legally reversed by the German parliament in 2002 (although the Nazi-era convicions for treason in wartime were not anulled). The group "Youth for Peace", which was formed during the crisis surrounding the outbreak of the Iraq War in 2003, was the primary moving force behind getting the memorial moved onto public land. A 1995 attempt to get the city council to reconsider its earlier decision failed.
 

5fish

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Here one more...


1622501159637.png

In 2009, architect Ruedi Baur constructed a memorial in Cologne for those who have refused to fight. It is a bus shelter with these words on the roof: Homage to the soldiers who refused to shoot at the soldiers, who refused to shoot at the people, who refused to torture the people, who refused to give information against the people, who refused to brutalize the people, who refused to discriminate against the people, who refused to ridicule the people, who showed civil courage while the majority kept silent and toed the line. The monument stands amidst three historically relevant buildings: the former arsenal (today a building of the Cologne city museum); the EL-DE-house, in which the Gestapo once operated its torture chamber (today the Nazi documentation center) and the former Criminal Justice building, where at least 123 people were sentenced to death during National Socialism.
 

rittmeister

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i've seen the first and knew of #2 and #3 - i did not know #4 and i don't like it but i'm no fan of text in memorials - i'm not talking plaquettes but the memorials themselves (i'm not talking stuff like the vietnam wall of course)

i guess a monument to desertes might be a strange thing to americans but i'm all for it

... and yes there are different types of deserters but not everyone who fought is a hero either


to me the best concept is #2:
i don't know whether it's the artist's intention but to me it shows two things: a man broken out of a wall (standing in for military ranks) and also a man standing with the back to a wall (like in front of a firing squad) : the colour grey stand for the german military as german army uniforms used to be grey (still are for dress uniforms)
 

5fish

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Here is a list of memorials to Deserters.... one in is planned in Canada for American Deserters... click on the link...


Here one in Canada about American Deserters

Proposed in 2004 - "The Welcoming," Nelson, British Columbia (Canada). Also known as the "Draft Dodger Monument." "Roughly 125,000 Americans crossed the border into Canada during the 1960's and 1970's because of their opposition to the Vietnam War. Many settled in the Nelson area. The planned statue depicts a Canadian reaching out to help a two US draft dodgers. The plan got the attention of FOX-TV News in the U.S. and has come under fire from Americans, veterans groups and some Canadian politicians. As a result of the criticism, the city of Nelson, afraid of alienating US tourists, has distanced itself from the proposal." "More recently, servicemen deserting from America's war with Iraq have found their way to Nelson."
 

5fish

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i guess a monument to desertes might be a strange thing to americans but i'm all for it
I agree I am looking for one but found one proposed in Canada. It's being staled or most likely will not happen...
 

rittmeister

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I agree I am looking for one but found one proposed in Canada. It's being staled or most likely will not happen...
the shot at dawn monument in the uk is totally different as it primarily commemorates men unfairly convicted
 

Leftyhunter

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@rittmeister , @Wehrkraftzersetzer do you know about this memorial....


Monument to the Unknown Deserters of Both World Wars, seen in Potsdam, Germany...

View attachment 6933


Between 1939 and 1945, about 400,000 German soldiers (2% of the total) deserted or attempted to desert, not counting those surrendering in battle. 30,000 of them were caught in the act, 23,000 of those were executed. This was the first of the monuments now in Germany erected in memory of “those who refused to kill others in unjust wars.” The first official memorial for the Unknown Deserter was meant to be placed in Bonn, capital of West Germany, but was finished just after the Wall came down and was set up in Potsdam, considered to be the center of German militarism. In 2002 a general pardon was issued for those who had deserted the Wehrmacht during World War II. It was sculpted by Mehmet Aksoy, of Turkey.

snip...

In front of the so-called 'Theaterhaus' in Stuttgart, Germany, Baden-Württemberg exists a Silhouette Art Sculpture. It is dedicated to the 'Deserters of all Wars'. The sculpture was created by the German artist Nikolaus Kernbach in 1996/2001. It consists of stone.

View attachment 6934

snip...

Memorial to Deserters in Ulm

View attachment 6935


These pictures were taken on 19 November, 2005, on the day this memorial was formally unveiled by the organization Friedenswerk Ulm - 17 years after it was built! It is located near the Lehrertal entrance to the university botanical garden at Ulm. It is right by the road, near the parking lot of a dog school. The organizers were a bit disappointed that a more prominent place could not be found, but did point out that the place where the memorial now stands is not totally inappropriate.

Those memorialized by this marker are the men who deserted the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. 15,000 men were executed. The idea for the memorial emerged in 1985 at the annual meeting of the organization, "Reservists Refuse". They decided to build a memorial to deserters.

In June of 1988 the Initiative for the Creation of a Memorial to Deserters came to life in Ulm and Neu Ulm. A central idea was, "Desertion is not reprehensible, war is". On 9 September, 1989, this memorial, was unveiled in front of the Roxy Hallen in downtown Ulm. Four weeks later, the city council of Ulm decided to have the memorial removed, and the memorial was moved to the private yard of one Frau Henseler in Neu Ulm/Ludwigsfeld, where it remained for almost 16 years! In July of 2005 it was placed at its current location.

During the intervening years a number of events contributed to a rethinking of the status of deserters in society, including the 1993 decision by the EU parliament to offer asylum to deserters from Yugoslavia and the decision by the German parliament to rehabilitate Wehrmacht deserters in 1997. The convictions for desertion were only formally and legally reversed by the German parliament in 2002 (although the Nazi-era convicions for treason in wartime were not anulled). The group "Youth for Peace", which was formed during the crisis surrounding the outbreak of the Iraq War in 2003, was the primary moving force behind getting the memorial moved onto public land. A 1995 attempt to get the city council to reconsider its earlier decision failed.
Also @rittmeister ,
So West Germany kept track of who commited treason against the Nazis and held that against the individual for their entire life? That sounds weird. I would think the DDR gave a pass to such person's.
Leftyhunter
 

rittmeister

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Also @rittmeister ,
So West Germany kept track of who commited treason against the Nazis and held that against the individual for their entire life? That sounds weird. I would think the DDR gave a pass to such person's.
Leftyhunter
what gives you that idea? deserters took a lot longer than other people, though.
 

5fish

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The Memorial for the Victims of Nazi Military Justice is located at the Ballhausplatz in the centre of Vienna, opposite the President's office and the Austrian Chancellory. The monument was created by German conceptual artist Olaf Nicolai. The inscription atop the three-step sculpture features the poem by Scottish poet Ian Hamilton Finlay consisting of just two words: all alone.

1622532799160.png

 

rittmeister

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Also @rittmeister ,
So West Germany kept track of who commited treason against the Nazis and held that against the individual for their entire life? That sounds weird. I would think the DDR gave a pass to such person's.
Leftyhunter
okay i thought about it and it requirers a broader answer (i will stick to the military, though)

crimes

there are basicly three war related crimes that could get you shot or hanged (that depends whether you are military or civillian)
  1. fahnenflucht (desertion)
  2. feigheit vor dem feinde (cowardice)
  3. wehrkraftzersetzung (untermining of the war effort)
1: fahnenflucht could (in theory) be applied to workers in war related industries but hardly was as sabotage was also punishable by death and you could always send men to the eastern front
2: feigheit vor dem feinde could in (theory) be applied to workers who didn't show up in industries that where bombed regularily (these cases normally were drafted into the wehrmacht and send to the eastern front (nobody wanted that)
3: wehrkraftzersetzung was a rather broad term which covered anything from telling your wife you thought the war is lost and being ratted out by your ten year old son in the hj to lightening army rations beyond regulations - the member of weiße rose were (among other stuff) sentenced for wehrkraftzersetzung

the judicary

basicly they tried to hide behind the i only applied the law, i didn't make it defense but there was lots of nazis in the judicary (33-45) and many managed to stay on after the war. hans filbinger is but one example.

there were also way too few qualified people who were unbelastet (that literally means not laden down with nazi stuff) to be found in germany - someone had to have worn all those black (ss) and brown (sa) uniforms. hans globke and reinhard gehlen are just two examples of rather competent altnazis (literally old nazis); heinrich lübke even made it to bundespräsident (his competence is debatable, though). especially the americans were very font of gehlen. and don't forget what operation paperclip did among other things for the us space program.

reasons for a relatively late rehabilitation

1. the usa
operation paperclip - look who's building our rockets
wiederbewaffnung and nato - you can't give them guns if they are all nazis, can you?

2. the german judicary
they don't want to stirr up dirt they might be connected to

3. the government
they don't want to lose some of their personnel or get caught in (what nowadays is called) a shitstorm

4. the german population
... just wanted to be done with it


there were of course the july 20th dudes but that's a different cattle of fish alltogether

georg elser was sidelined for
  • seing the truth long before educated people did
  • nearly succeeding (as a simple joiner) in something a bunch of highly cellebrated generals totally fucked up
there is otoh hand a film (1959) by wolfgang staudte who adresses the problem in the judicary


why the english wiki and youtube call it a comedy is beyond me. that film is anything but funny but it has of cause some comic relief (walter giller was mostly a comedian after all)
 

Leftyhunter

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okay i thought about it and it requirers a broader answer (i will stick to the military, though)

crimes

there are basicly three war related crimes that could get you shot or hanged (that depends whether you are military or civillian)
  1. fahnenflucht (desertion)
  2. feigheit vor dem feinde (cowardice)
  3. wehrkraftzersetzung (untermining of the war effort)
1: fahnenflucht could (in theory) be applied to workers in war related industries but hardly was as sabotage was also punishable by death and you could always send men to the eastern front
2: feigheit vor dem feinde could in (theory) be applied to workers who didn't show up in industries thatwhere bombed regularily (these cases normally were drafted into the wehrmacht and send to the eastern front (nobody wanted that)
3: wehrkraftzersetzung was a rather broad term which covered anything from telling your wife you thought the war is lost and being ratted out by your ten year old son in the hj to lightening army rations beyond regulations - the member of weiße rose were (among other stuff) sentenced for wehrkraftzersetzung

the judicary

basicly they tried to hide behind the i only applied the law, i didn't make it defense but there was lots of nazis in the judicary (33-45) and many managed to stay on after the war. hans filbinger is but one example.

there were also way too few qualified people who were unbelastet (that literally means not laden down with nazi stuff) to be found in germany - someone had to have worn all those black (ss) and brown (sa) uniforms. hans globke and reinhard gehlen are just two examples of rather competent altnazis (literally old nazis); heinrich lübke even made it to bundespräsident (his competence is debatable, though). especially the americans were very font of gehlen. and don't forget what operation paperclip did among other things for the us space program.

reasons for a relatively late rehabilitation

1. the usa
operation paperclip - look who's building our rockets
wiederbewaffnung and nato - you can't give them guns if they are all nazis, can you?

2. the german judicary
they don't want to stirr up dirt they might be connected to

3. the government
they don't want to lose some of their personnel or get caught in (what nowadays is called) a shitstorm

4. the german population
... just wanted to be done with it


there were of course the july 20th dudes but that's a different cattle of fish alltogether

georg elser was sidelined for
  • seing the truth long before educated people did
  • nearly succeeding (as a simple joiner) in something a bunch of highly cellebrated generals totally fucked up
there is otoh hand a film (1959) by wolfgang staudte who adresses the problem in the judicary


why the english wiki and youtube call it a comedy is beyond me. that film is anything but funny but it has of cause some comic relief (walter giller was mostly a comedian after all)
I can agree with the above but did a Nazi era conviction burden those convicted in post war West Germany in terms of limiting employment or educational opportunities?
Leftyhunter
 

Leftyhunter

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what gives you that idea? deserters took a lot longer than other people, though.
So did being a convicted deserter carry over to the post war era? If say circa 1955 an applicant at Mercedes Benz would be denied a job because ten years earlier he had a desertion conviction?
Also by the 1960s West Germany had guest workers from Turkey and South Korea so there was a labor shortage so why would West German employers care about WWII era convictions?
Leftyhunter
 

rittmeister

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I can agree with the above but did a Nazi era conviction burden those convicted in post war West Germany in terms of limiting employment or educational opportunities?
Leftyhunter
theoretically yes but there was a shortage of manpower and most of the people we are talking about were dead anyway. you didn't get 20 years for any of that stuff you posed against a wall or had a dance with the robemaker's daughter (mit des seilers tochter tanzen = to get hanged) - so we are mostly talking about pensions for widows or orphants.
 

rittmeister

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So did being a convicted deserter carry over to the post war era? If say circa 1955 an applicant at Mercedes Benz would be denied a job because ten years earlier he had a desertion conviction?
Also by the 1960s West Germany had guest workers from Turkey and South Korea so there was a labor shortage so why would West German employers care about WWII era convictions?
Leftyhunter
no - as a convicted deserter you were just dead -> no need for a job. we had a shortage of manpower right after the war, even convicted nazis got jobs (obviously not the kind of jobs they'd preferred).
 

rittmeister

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lefty, i just looked it up, the us army had more than 21,000 deserters in ww2 and shot only poor eddie slovik for it. as a matter of fact he's the only us soldier shot for desertion after the civil war - the wehrmacht had more than 20,000 'deserteurs' shot (that's roughly two thirds* of all deserteurs). those who weren't got jobs - mostly menial ones as they were considered to not having done their duty. don't forget that war was a total one (at least for germany) not an oversized bar browl like your civil war.

---

* but don't forget the lucky cases were sent to the ostfront on special assignment
 

Leftyhunter

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lefty, i just looked it up, the us army had more than 21,000 deserters in ww2 and shot only poor eddie slovik for it. as a matter of fact he's the only us soldier shot for desertion after the civil war - the wehrmacht had more than 20,000 'deserteurs' shot (that's roughly two thirds* of all deserteurs). those who weren't got jobs - mostly menial ones as they were considered to not having done their duty. don't forget that war was a total one (at least for germany) not an oversized bar browl like your civil war.

---

* but don't forget the lucky cases were sent to the ostfront on special assignment
True but my question was simply if a German soldier was convicted for desertion and survived or convicted by a Nazi court for any reason did that man have any barrier's to post war employment, education or housing?
Leftyhunter
 

rittmeister

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True but my question was simply if a German soldier was convicted for desertion and survived or convicted by a Nazi court for any reason did that man have any barrier's to post war employment, education or housing?
Leftyhunter
not a legal one - we don't do post sentence stuff unless a court individually says so - if you get out of jail, survive a strafbatallion etc you are clean. we don't have ex-inmates are not allowed to vote nonsense
 

5fish

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I found this...

Nazi GermanyEdit
In Nazi Germany, conscientious objection was not recognized in the law. In theory, objectors would be drafted and then court-martialled for desertion. The practice was even harsher: going beyond the letter of an already extremely flexible law, conscientious objection was considered subversion of military strength, a crime normally punished with death. On September 15, 1939 August Dickmann, a Jehovah's Witness, and the first conscientious objector of the war to be executed, died by a firing squad at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.[50] Among others, Franz Jägerstätter was executed after his conscientious objection, on the grounds that he could not fight in the forces of the evil side.

I found this...

.

Wehrkraftzersetzung or Zersetzung der Wehrkraft (German for "undermining military force") was a sedition offence in German military law during the Nazi Germany era from 1938 to 1945.

Wehrkraftzersetzung was enacted in 1938 by decree as Germany moved closer to World War II to suppress criticism of the Nazi Party and Wehrmacht leadership in the military, and in 1939, a second decree was issued extending the law to civilians.[note 1][1] Wehrkraftzersetzung consolidated and redefined paragraphs already in the military penal code to punish "seditious" acts such as conscientious objection, defeatist statements, self-mutilation, and questioning the Endsieg. Convictions were punishable by the death penalty, heavy sentences in military prisons, concentration camps, or Strafbataillons.[note 2] Wehrkraftzersetzung was de facto abolished in 1945 after Nazi Germany's defeat, but text from the penal code continued to be used by the Federal Republic of Germany. On 25 August 1998 and 23 July 2002, after lengthy debate, the Bundestag removed the Nazi-era sentences from the German criminal justice system and all Nazi military sentencing for conscientious objection, desertion, and all other forms of Wehrkraftzersetzung were repealed as unjust. Current German military law neither contains the term "undermining the military" nor its extensive rules, but a few offences included under the umbrella of Wehrkraftzersetzung remain on the statute books in a vague form.


I found this...


Who was Franz Jägerstätter? On August 9, 1943, the Nazis executed the conscientious objector in a prison in Brandenburg an der Havel, close to Berlin. The simple Upper Austrian peasant from St. Radegund, situated in the Innviertel region close to Hitler’s birthplace of Braunau, was drafted into the Wehrmacht for military service in 1940. After weeks of basic training, he was exempted from military duty due to being “indispensable” on his farm. When he was drafted again in February 1943, Jägerstätter, the father of four young girls, refused to serve due to his strong religious convictions. The following is the summary of his own defense on July 6, 1943, from the trial records of the Reich Military Court in Berlin: Jägerstätter’s courageous refusal to serve in the German Wehrmacht was one of the most prominent acts of resistance by an ordinary Austrian during World War II.

I found this...


The largest group to of conscientious objectors on religious grounds by far came from the Jehovah's Witnesses, which had been banned nationwide on April 1, 1935. In the first nine months of the war, the Reich court martial handed down 63 death sentences on Jehovah's Witnesses alone; in the first year of the war, 123 Jehovah's Witnesses were executed for “undermining military preparedness”. This harsh approach was justified with reference to the “necessity of war”. A total of well over 300 Jehovah's Witnesses were executed during the Nazi era for voicing their rejection of the Nazi state in different ways.

Seven Seventh-day Adventists also met with death for refusing to swear the oath of allegiance.

There were hardly any conscientious objectors in the two major churches because of their traditions, which had always also been acquainted with religious approval of a (defensive) war. Catholics could not expect support in this issue from their episcopate, nor could Protestants from their church – not even the Confessing Church. The two churches called unanimously for to obedience and sacrifice for Führer and Fatherland when war broke out.

Seven Catholics are known to have conscientiously objected and have been punished by death: Franz Jägerstetter, an Austrian, Franz Reinisch, a priest from the Pallottines, Michael Lerpscher, zugehörenden the Umfeld of the Society of Christ the King, and Josef Ruf. Alfred Andreas Heiss, Ernst Volkmann and Richard Reitsamer from Upper Franconia also deserve mention. One Catholic and two Quaker conscientious objectors survived
 
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