John M. Oesterreicher

Who was John M. Oesterreicher?

Monsignor John Maria Oesterreicher, born Johannes Oesterreicher, was a Roman Catholic theologian and a leading advocate of Jewish-Catholic reconciliation. He was one of the architects of Nostra Aetate or "In Our Age," which was issued by the Second Vatican Council in 1965 and which repudiated antisemitism.

Oesterreicher was born to a Jewish family in Město Libavá in Moravia. He was a convert to Roman Catholicism, who became a priest in 1927. He served as a chaplain in Gloggnitz and there he founded the local Scout group and served at its chaplain.

He was active as an anti-Nazi activist in the 1930s. In 1934 he founded the newspaper Die Erfüllung in order to improve the relation between Judaism and Christianity and to fight against antisemitism. He founded together with Georg Bichlmair SJ the Pauluswerk in Vienna. The Pauluswerk was a community for Converts from Judaism to Roman Catholicism and prayed for Christianization of Jews.

After the broadcast of Schuschnigg's resignation, Österreicher went to his office and burned all the correspondence, because he was aware, that the Gestapo would scan him, his office and home. So he saved quite some people who were involved in the Jewish-Christian understanding. John M. Oesterreicher said "Maybe Iniitzer would have been more successful, when the told Hitler "I am here to pay respect to you, but I will not hand the Austrian church over to you", as the Gestapo rewarded when people did not show fear. His parents Nathan and Ida Oesterreicher, b. Zelenka were caught bei the Nazis and died in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. He fled Austria at the time of the German Anschluss, or annexation of Austria, in 1938. Based initially in Paris, he condemned the Nazis in weekly broadcasts and writings. He fled to the U.S. after the German invasion of France in 1940.