A Hidden Life (2019)

August Diehl: Franz Jägerstätter

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Quotes 

• Franz Jägerstätter : I don't know everything. A man may do wrong, and he can't get out of it to make his life clear. Maybe he'd like to go back, but he can't. But I have this feeling inside me, that I can't do what I believe is wrong.

  Judge Lueben : Do you have a right to do this?

  Franz Jägerstätter : Do I have a right not to?

• Franz Jägerstätter : They seem to have more freedom, and to know more of peace and happiness, though they are only unreasoning animals, than we humans do. We who have the gift of understanding.

• [first lines] 

  Franz Jägerstätter : [narrating]  I thought that we could build our nest high up, in the trees. Fly away, like birds - to the mountains.

• Franz Jägerstätter : What comes next is seldom better.

• Franz Jägerstätter : If God gives us free will, we're responsible for what we do, what we fail to do, aren't we? If our leaders are not good, if they're evil, what does one do? I want to save my life, but not through lies.

• Franz Jägerstätter : When you give up the idea of surviving at any price, a new light floods in. Once, you were in a rush, always short of time. Now you have all you need. Once, you never forgave anyone. Judged people without mercy. Now you see your own weakness, so you can understand the weakness of others.

• Fani Jägerstätter : Remember the day when we first met?

  Franz Jägerstätter : You were shy like now.

  Fani Jägerstätter : I remember that motorcycle. My best dress. You looked at me, and I knew. How simple life was then. It seemed no trouble could reach our valley. We lived above the clouds.

• Franz Jägerstätter : You - my shepherd. You make me lie down in green pastures, by the river of life. You - my strength. You show me the path. You - our light. Darkness is not dark to you. Bring us to your eternal light, to you - the true, the never-failing light.

• Captain Herder : What good do you think your defiance is doing anyone? You think it will change the course of things? You think the authorities are aware of you? That your protest will come to their attention? You think anyone will know of it? Ever hear you? No one knows what goes on behind these walls. No one. What purpose does it serve?

  Franz Jägerstätter : Does it make no difference whether this war is just or unjust?

• Lawyer Feldman : See here, I am going to leave this paper with you. Keep it with you. Sign, and you will go free.

  Franz Jägerstätter : But I am free.

  Lawyer Feldman : So, why am I here?

  Franz Jägerstätter : I don't know?

• Franz Jägerstätter : Do you believe in what we're fighting for?

• Franz Jägerstätter : Will I be required to swear loyalty to Hitler?

  Lawyer Feldman : Words. No one really takes that sort of thing seriously.

  Franz Jägerstätter : I can't.

• Franz Jägerstätter : Better to suffer injustice than to do it

• Judge Lueben : Do you judge me?

  Franz Jägerstätter : I don't judge you.