The Bishop Who Was a Major

At first glance, the life story of Matthias Defregger would seem to be a German version of The Cardinal, that durable novel about clerical success. Born in Munich, he was a bright boy, the grandson of a successful 19th century Bavarian painter, the son of a well-known sculptor. Before World War II he studied philosophy at a Jesuit college. Drafted into the Wehrmacht, he was released from service in 1945 as a major, wearing the coveted Ritterkreuz (Knight's Cross). Then, at 31, Defregger decided to become a priest. He was or dained in 1949 and assigned to a small church in the Munich suburbs.

The young priest was a comer. In 1962, Julius Cardinal Doepfner appointed him vicar-general of the Munich and Freising archdiocese. Defregger proved to be a master administrator. During Doepfner's protracted visits to Rome for the Second Vatican Council, the stocky priest with the high intellectual forehead, the cool blue eyes and the gold-rimmed glasses began to seem the cardinal's alter ego. In 1968, the Vatican agreed that Defregger should be made a bishop. "With the gift of your heart and your intelligence," wrote Pope Paul VI in his accreditation, "you appear to us especially suited for your office."

Servant of All. For his motto, the new bishop chose Omnium servus (Servant of All). He worked as hard as ever, but carried his duties with a light bonhomie. In the evening he was frequently seen at the theater or concerts, and occasionally he indulged in a bit of mountain climbing. About the only excess that some Muencheners objected to in Defregger was the fondness he bore for his former military connections. He celebrated Mass for the annual reunions of his old army outfit, the 114th Jaeger (Sharpshooter) division, and regaled them with rousing, nostalgic sermons. "What the dust of the Russian steppes, the fields of the Caucasus, what the bursting of the grenades have wrought," he once told them proudly, "will withstand the pragmatic materialism of our time." Last week, though, Defregger was rudely reminded of quite a different aspect of his military career. The German newsweekly Der Spiegel broke the story that shortly before his consecration, the Frankfurt Crimes Department had investigated Defregger on suspicion of wartime murder.

The case involved the little Apennine mountain village of Filetto di Camarda, 100 miles northeast of Rome. In 1944, Defregger was a captain in command of an intelligence company in the area. On June 7 of that year, Italian partisans had shot at least one German soldier in a radio transmitter unit of his company. According to Defregger's own account in Der Spiegel, there had been four victims, not one; the division commander retaliated by ordering the captain to "pick up 20 to 22 local men in the 20-to-50 age group and execute them." Eventually, 17 men, ranging from 17 to 65, were shot, and much of the village was burned.

Last week, as criticism grew in Munich, Cardinal Doepfner came to his assistant's defense with an impassioned plea for understanding. According to the cardinal, the division commander had first ordered Defregger to shoot all males in the village. He had refused, and the number to be executed was lowered. When he still refused, the general sent staff officers to see that the reprisals were carried out. Defregger objected again, but finally, and reluctantly, passed on the order to a lieutenant. "He himself," noted Doepfner, "did not participate in the executions."

According to Dietrich Rahn, Frankfurt's chief prosecutor, Defregger's involvement might have been, at the very most, manslaughter, a crime for which the German statute of limitations expired in 1959. Doepfner, who shocked many Catholics by admitting that he had known about Defregger's military history all along, said he was convinced that "according to international law, no criminal action has taken place." He also reminded his Munich flock that the 114th, an antipartisan outfit with a reputation for ruthlessness, had been engaged in "an especially dangerous withdrawal operation . . . It is almost impossible for us outsiders to identify ourselves with the situation during a partisan war." Indeed, the 114th Division had become so brutal, one veteran recalled, that anyone who refused an order "was stripped of his shoulder boards and shot on the spot."

Under the Bridge. The villagers of Filetto di Camarda were perhaps more ready to forgive than some of Defregger's own countrymen. Though a few of them called for revenge, and a survivor provided Der Spiegel with lurid details about the executions, one old lady spoke for many when she said, "For us, it is all water under the bridge." It was not quite so in Munich, where the city's powerful daily, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, called for the bishop's resignation, and some Catholics whose children had been confirmed by Defregger demanded that their children be administered the sacrament again. Prophetically, Defregger's last public speech six weeks ago had noted that in a time when the church is being pilloried, "we who want to help the church must be ready to be pilloried ourselves." Matthias Defregger was reported to be on retreat in an Alpine monastery last week; but even away from the furor, he was clearly among the pilloried.

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