When the Gestapo Came for the Sisters

In June 1945, just weeks after World War II ended in Europe, Bishop Paulus Rusch of Innsbruck wrote a sworn account of how Nationalsocialism had targeted the Catholic Church in Tyrol and Vorarlberg. Buried in the Nuremberg Trial records, his testimony gives us a stark glimpse of what happened to nuns and other women religious under Nazi rule.

The crackdown began early. Already in Spring 1938, the ever-popular Corpus Christi processions were banned, and over the course of the summer Catholic schools shuttered, and priests began to be jailed. This crackdown extended to charitable work. One priest was imprisoned simply for giving bread and coffee to two hungry Dutch prisoners. Such gestures of compassion were deemed “favoring elements foreign to the race.” But by 1939, the regime turned directly against convents.

The Nazis expelled the Dominican Sisters of St Peter’s in Bludenz, closed their convent, and partly demolished the interior of their church. The Innsbruck Sisters of Perpetual Adoration fared worse; they were dragged out of their cloister one by one by Gestapo officers. Their church was seized and turned into a military installation.

This parallels actions elsewhere; Convent churches were closed, desecrated, or turned to military use. In Bregenz, the Abbey of St. Gallus saw its church gutted; at Mehrerau, the abbey and sanatorium were seized. And yet one local consultant, a Josef Gschwilm, thought it was funny; he liked to dress up as a priest and get himself photographed during these monastery closures (Pichler 253).

Layfolk were impacted just as dramatically. Across Vorarlberg, 348 Catholic associations and congregations were disbanded (Pichler 252).

Even schools for girls -- the lifeblood of these communities and the social safety-net for orphans -- were dissolved. In Bregenz alone, the three girls schools of Thalbach, Marienburg, and Riedenburg were all forced to close. In short, the infrastructure that had sustained Catholic belief and practice for generations was systematically dismantled.

These stories remind us that the Nazi assault on faith was not abstract. It reached into classrooms, chapels, and convent walls, stripping women of their vocations, demolishing sacred spaces, and silencing communities of prayer.

What Bishop Rusch called “the fighting of Nationalsocialism” was, for these sisters, a fight simply to exist. And yet, exist they did. Though their convent walls were broken and their schools closed, their witness of faith and service endured beyond the war years -- a quiet defiance that outlasted the regime that tried to silence them.

NOTE ON SPELLING:

I follow the one-word, no-hyphen spelling of “Nationalsocialism” adopted in the Nuremberg Trial documents.

SOURCES:

Meinrad Pichler, Das Land Vorarlberg 1861 bis 2015, Geschichte Vorarlbergs Bd 3. Wagner Universitätsverlag, 2015.

Bishop Paulus Rusch, “The Fighting Of Nationalsocialism In The Diocese Of The Apostolic Administration Innsbruck-Feldkirch, Of Tyrol And Vorarlberg,” translated and published in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. 5, aka the “Blue Series” of the Nuremberg Trials (1945), books.google.com/books?id=iGN2rIerJR0C&pg=PA1077

Kin, Cash, and Convent: Providing for Nieces (and Nephews) in 1613 Bludenz

Excerpts of AT-VLA, BludenzStadtA, Charter 10255 of 1613

In Counter-reformation Bludenz in 1613, widow Catharina Zürcherin*, a citizen of the town, prepared her legacy with a special eye toward her female kin. Childless herself, and without the guidance of her late husband (Anton Marks of Braz), she gave all her funds to her siblings’ children.

The family was doing well. The male Zürcher siblings and cousins – Hans, Georg, Dietrich, Gabriel, Adam and Sebastian – had recently been elevated by Emperor Maximillian to the hereditary nobility just a few years before (1610 April 5, Innsbruck, AT-StaAB Urkunde 741). In the document, the emperor names the brothers and cousins alike for “in consideration of their services to the House of Austria.” But, of course, none of the females of the house were named. Such gendered recognition (and gendered absence) was common practice at the time.

So back to Catharina: As she makes her will, she chooses to recognize the children (of both genders) of her sister Anna Zürcherin by both husbands, and those of her brother Mathias Zürcher. As for the third sibling, Gabriel Zürcher, well, Catharina wrote in a special provision for his daughter, her niece, Elsbeth Zürcherin.

For Elsbeth, Catharina set aside 200 Rhenish guilders, and explicitly intended these funds to be used as a convent dowry. This would give Elsbeth access as a choir-sister to an elite Catholic institution of her choice. Given the location, Catharina probably had in mind Elsbeth’s joining St Peter’s in Bludenz, the Dominican women’s convent at the edge of town, though other nearby options included the Clares at Valduna in Rankweil, the Franciscan Tertiaries at Thalbach in Bregenz, or the recently founded Capuchin convent of St Anna’s, also in Bregenz.

Catharina has clearly thought about the situation, for while she is generous, that generosity is conditional. She stipulates that if Elsbeth decided not to enter a convent, the money would come to her only after Catharina’s own death.

If, however, Elsbeth were to predecease her such that the money might revert to her brother Gabriel, well, sorry, then that special legacy would be revoked, and the money be divided evenly.

In these provisions, Catharina is doing several things. She’s supporting the next generation of her natal family. She’s promoting the Catholic faith. She’s making possible a conventual lifestyle for a favored relative. And, given the conditions on her gifts, it seems she just might be thumbing her nose at her brother.

One wonders if niece Elsbeth felt a calling that went unsupported by her father. If so, Auntie Katharina may have been defying male expectations by stepping in here to be sure a favored niece was able to find her way into a religious life.

Either way, it’s clear that one determined woman could shape the lives – and privileges – of the next generation.

One afterwards to this story: while Elsbeth Zürcherin’s future is unknown to us, it seems likely that she was related to the Maria Magdalena Zürcherin of Bludenz, daughter of Adam  Zürcher and Elisabeth Leu – perhaps a cousin or a second cousin of our Elsbeth? – who took up the monastic calling at Thalbach in Bregenz about fifteen years later, in 1627, and took orders there under the name Maria Victoria (Fußenegger, 140). 

NOTES

I honor the early modern Austrian practice of naming women by their patronymics with the feminine “-in” ending. Women of the day did not typically adopt their husband’s surname.

* The name Catharina Zürcherin can also be rendered Katharina Zücherin. Spelling of the period is notoriously inconsistent, and the handwriting itself challenging to read. However, outside of the two documents cited here, the family surname spelled with the interior “R” – Zürcherin – is preferred (102 documents to 2, according to monasterium.net!), and I have adopted it here.

WORKS CITED

Documents, accessed through monasterium.net:

• Bregenz, Stadtarchiv, Urkunde 741 (5. Apr 1610, Innsbruck)

• Vorarlberger Landesarchiv - Bludenz, Stadtarchiv Charter 10255 (6. Nov 1613)

Secondary Literature:

• Fußenegger, Gerold. “Bregenz am Bodensee: Terziarinnenkloster Thalbach.” Alemannia Franciscana antiqua 9 (1963): 93-140.