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Josef Mayr-Nusser
20th-century Italian Catholic
Feast: 3 October (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
The Vatican record
- 8 July 2016 — Martyrdom recognised (decree list, 2016)
Who they were
Josef Mayr-Nusser was born on 27 December 1910 at the Nusserhof farm near Bolzano and worked as a bookkeeper, educating himself. He led the young men of Catholic Action in the German-speaking part of the archdiocese of Trent and from 1937 the St Vincent de Paul conference. On 26 May 1942 he married Hildegard Straub; their son Albert was born a year later.
Faithful to the Gospel, he refused to swear allegiance to Nazism. He died of privation in a cattle truck at Erlangen on 24 February 1945, his last act of charity to pass his food to prisoners hungrier than himself.
The miracles
As a martyr, beatified without a miracle.
Why that counted as sanctity
A husband and father who would not swear to Hitler and gave away his last food.
The cause
The cause continues. No postulation address is published here yet. Favours received through this person’s intercession, and offers of help, are best sent to the religious order or congregation they belonged to, or to the diocese where the cause was opened; either will pass them to the postulation.
Connected on this site
- Vincent de Paul Saint“Josef Mayr-Nusser (27 December 1910 – 24 February 1945) was an Italian Roman Catholic who served as the president of the Saint Vincent de Paul Conference of the Bolzano division as well as a member of Catholic Action.” — Wikipedia
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - biography: Josef Mayr-Nusser
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints — promulgated decrees (causesanti.va), summarised in our own words
- Wikidata Q882928 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Josef Mayr-Nusser (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.