For example, in requesting clemency from the Nazi court for a priest who refused, Archbishop Konrad Gröber of Freiburg wrote that the priest was “an idealist who has grown ever more estranged from reality. . . . who wanted to help his Volk and Vaterland but who proceeded from the wrong premises.”¹⁴

Bishop Fliesser of the same Linz diocese reveals that he, too, had “known Jägerstätter personally,” and argued “to no avail” that Jägerstätter was not responsible “for the actions of the [Nazi] civil authority.” The bishop said that his was “a completely exceptional case, one more to be marveled at than copied.” Bishop Fliesser was writing to a priest after the war in explanation of his refusal to allow publication of Jägerstätter’s story in the Linz diocesan paper. The story might “create confusion and disturb consciences,” he said.

Thus Bishop Fliesser viewed a man who followed his conscience as an “exceptional case”​—not to be copied. “I consider the greater heroes to be those exemplary young Catholic men, seminarians, priests, and heads of families who fought and died in heroic fulfillment of duty,” he continued. Even the Nazi’s court-appointed attorney Feldmann used this argument in an attempt to get Jägerstätter to compromise, noting the millions of Catholics, including clergy, engaged in combat with a “clear” conscience. Finally, Feldmann recalls, he challenged him to cite a single instance in which a bishop in any way discouraged Nazi military service.¹⁷ He knew of none. Do you?

Then, returning to the rejected article titled “Heroic Consistency,” Bishop Fliesser spoke reproachfully of “the Bibelforschers [Jehovah’s witnesses] and Adventists who, in their ‘consistency,’ preferred to die in concentration camps rather than bear arms.” He said they were influenced by an “erroneous conscience,” and that “for the instruction of men, the better models” are the “heroes” who fought, influenced by “a clear and correct conscience.”¹⁸

Hence, even after the war, an Austrian bishop in good standing still viewed as “correct” the consciences of church members who allowed themselves to be herded into Nazi armies to slaughter fellow church members. Those who faced death in the concentration camps rather than serve the Nazis, the bishop implies, were errant cowards.