Franz Wolfhart was eighteen years old when German forces occupied his hometown during their invasion and annexation of Austria (Anschluss) in 1938. Two years later, Nazi authorities imprisoned him in the Rollwald penal work camp near Frankfurt, Germany. Wohlfahrt was professionally trained as a painter, and his skill with the featured paint roller and stencil helped him to survive in the camp.
Wohlfahrt was born into a Catholic family in 1920 in Velden am Wòˆrthersee, Austria. The family converted to Jehovah’s Witnesses in the 1920s when he was young.1 The family’s experiences changed dramatically after the German annexation of Austria.2 Nazi policies were put into place in Austria within a matter of months.3 Discrimination and persecution toward Jews, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other groups targeted by the Nazi regime escalated rapidly.
Shortly after the Anschluss, Wohlfahrt's fellow Austrians reported him to the Gestapo for refusing to join the Hitler Youth, return the Nazi salute, or say “heil Hitler.”4 A group of Nazi SA (Sturmabteilung) and SS (Schutzstaffel) threatened Wohlfhart with imprisonment in Dachau. Like other Jehovah’s Witnesses, Wohlfahrt believed that he should only turn to God for salvation and pledge loyalty to God—not to any person, state, or government.5 Jehovah’s Witnesses were also devoted pacifists. In December 1939, Wohlfhart’s father Gregor was executed for refusing to serve in the German military.6
Wohlfhart also refused to do any military training of any kind. In March 1940, he was assigned to a labor service where young men did military-style training while holding shovels instead of rifles. When he refused to do these drills, he was arrested and held by the Gestapo in Graz, Austria before he was sentenced to five years of hard labor in Germany.7
Wohlfahrt arrived at the Rollwald penal work camp near Frankfurt, Germany in February 1941. Wohlfahrt arrived at the Rollwald penal work camp near Frankfurt, Germany in February 1941. Wohlfart soon developed a serious infection from the terrible working conditions in the camp. After explaining to the camp authorities that he was a skilled painter, he was reassigned to work on the new camp commandant’s personal villa.
The new camp commandant—Karl Stumpf—was impressed by Wolfhart’s painting skills.8 While working on Stumpf’s villa, Wohlfahrt used the featured paint roller and stencil to create a leafy pattern that mimicked wallpaper—which was very difficult to find during the war. The roller is made of a red sponge attached to a metal frame with a wooden handle. It is 6.5 inches wide. The stencil is made from carved rubber around a metal cylinder 6.75 inches long. Bits of green paint remain visible on it.
Stumpf permitted Wohlfahrt to work in his home without a guard, and Wohlfahrt worked for him or other German officers and government officials from late 1943 until the end of the war. Wohlfahrt would later recall that Stumpf helped to save his life while he was imprisoned at Rollwald. Stumpf invented reasons to keep Wohlfahrt under his command, and he and his wife gave Wohlfahrt extra food. As Allied forces approached and Nazi Germany crumbled, Stumpf told Wohlfahrt to hide in his villa if things grew dangerous. Stumpf also gave him civilian clothing to wear when American forces liberated the camp in March 1945.
Wohlfahrt reunited with his surviving family members after the war and immigrated to Canada in the early 1950s.