The Wigratzbad Apparitions (Maria vom Sieg)

Wigratzbad is a hamlet in the municipality of Opfenbach, in the Bavarian district of Lindau, close to the Austrian and Swiss borders. Antonie Rädler was born there in 1899, the daughter of a farmer and master butcher. In 1919, gravely ill with Spanish influenza, she said the Virgin appeared at her bedside and laid her hands upon her. She was healed.

From 1927 to 1936 she ran her father's butcher branch in Lindau. In 1936 she was ordered to replace a Marian picture with a Hitler portrait, and to greet customers with "Heil Hitler" instead of "Grüß Gott". She refused. Devotional accounts tell of attacks that followed, including an attempt to drown her in Lake Constance, and a mysterious cyclist surrounded by a light who protected her.

Her parents built a Lourdes-style grotto in the family garden. On 11 October 1936 Pfarrer Basch of Wohmbrechts blessed it. In November, as Rädler prayed there, the statue smiled at her. She received an invocation: "Our Beloved Lady of Victory, conceived without sin, pray for us!"

December 15, 1936. The octave day of the Immaculate Conception. She was praying the third sorrowful mystery before the grotto when she heard angelic choirs singing: "O Mary! Immaculate, conceived without sin, Beloved Lady of Victory, pray for us." The shrine's own account is quieter. It says she perceived Mary's wish to be honoured here as the "Mutter vom Sieg".

February 22, 1938. About 6:30 in the morning. Cecilia Geyer, seriously ill, heard something like a slight murmur. A bright cloud appeared and grew larger. Out of it came the Mother of God, looking exactly like the Wigratzbad statue. "Suddenly, I found myself in the little grotto of Antonie," she said. The message was plain. "Build a chapel here for me. I shall trample underfoot the serpent's head." When she objected that the Sacrament was exposed nowhere, a chapel appeared at the spot, its monstrance projecting rays of light in all directions.

Civil authorities approved the chapel on 17 June 1938. On 21 November Rädler was arrested, on suspicion of fraud according to the shrine. She faced long interrogations. Night of 7 to 8 December. She had wept all day. At midnight, as the bell struck twelve, the cell grew light. A cloud formed. The Immaculata appeared and said: "Fürchte dich nicht! Ich habe alles in den Händen." Do not be afraid, I hold everything in my hands. She was promised release in time for Christmas. On 18 December she walked free.

The Church never formally investigated the visions. Bishop Kumpfmüller of Augsburg allowed the chapel to be blessed on 25 March 1940. Bishop Josef Stimpfle permitted public Mass in 1963, and in 1976 Wigratzbad became a diocesan prayer site. That recognised a place of prayer, not the apparitions. After Rädler's death in 1991, Stimpfle privately told her confessor: "I know that Wigratzbad is authentic!" It was never an official declaration.

Martin Willing notes that Geyer's vision came four days after Rädler had asked the Landesbauamt in Kempten about building a chapel, though he says the two women could not have known each other. He sees parallels with Kevelaer, where a voice once ordered a chapel. Sources disagree on dates, and on whether Geyer was a 61-year-old widow or a young girl. Only two people ever reported seeing anything. No crowd. No photographs.

Willing writes that the Gestapo closed the finished chapel, and that the statue of Maria vom Sieg became a place of secret pilgrimage. Today about 500,000 pilgrims come each year, and since 1988 the FSSP's International Seminary of St. Peter has stood here. The novena Rädler said she received in her cell is still prayed at the shrine.