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Prof. Benjamin Unruh as a Public Figure in the Nazi Era

Professor Benjamin H. Unruh (1881-1959) was a relief and immigration leader, educator, leading churchman, and official representative of Russian Mennonites outside of the Soviet Union throughout the National Socialism era in Germany.

Unruh’s biography is connected to the very beginnings of Mennonite Central Committee in 1920-1922 when he served as a key spokesperson in Germany for the famine-stricken Mennonites in South Russia. Some years later he again played the central role in the rescue of thousands of Mennonites from Moscow in 1929 and, along with MCC, their resettlement in Paraguay, Brazil, and Canada. Because of Unruh’s influence and deep connections with key German government agencies in Berlin, his home office in Karlsruhe, Germany, became a relief hub for Mennonites internationally. Unruh facilitated large-scale debt forgiveness for Mennonites in Paraguay and Brazil, and negotiated preferential consideration for Mennonite relief work to the Soviet Union during the Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932-1933. He was also instrumental in the relief assistance MCC extended to those suffering from war in Poland and France in 1940. The efforts by Nazi leaders in Germany to extract and resettle Mennonites from Ukraine after 1941 was also done in close consultation with Unruh.

Much of this was possible because of Unruh’s tireless promotion of Russian Mennonites as "racially pure" Germans who had preserved their language and culture in Russia/Ukraine over generations. Throughout the entire Nazi era, Unruh was convinced that there was no contradiction in being both a faithful Christian in the Mennonite tradition and a supporter of National Socialism and Adolf Hitler. At the conclusion of World War II, Unruh’s past Nazi sympathies led MCC to quietly retire their relationship with Unruh with a small pension. Long after his death in 1959 however, Unruh continued to be held in the highest regard by thousands of Mennonite families in North and South America whose release from the Soviet Union was due in part to his efforts. He was a complex, larger-than-life figure, whose accomplishments have helped to define MCC’s own narrative. Although Unruh’s life and work have been well documented by family and friends, his very troublesome connections with German National Socialism have not received sufficient examination.

In 2020-21, I was commissioned by MCC and the Mennonite Quarterly Review to explore this connection in detail, with a promise of full archival support and access to correspondence and other documents. Eleven other scholars followed up on related themes.

For me this resulted in two essays--one shorter than the other, for two different audiences--using materials from five Mennonite archives, along with his published articles, to examine his pro-German Mennonite roots, his evolving relationship with MCC in the context of National Socialism and, through Unruh, MCC’s encounters and entanglements with the Nazi regime (links in note 1). These essays explore the roots of Unruh’s pro-German Mennonite orientation, document his growing pro-Nazism in the 1930s, and his explicit promotion of its racial goals. A fresh reading of these materials offers a more complete accounting of the tumultuous events of the twentieth century in which Unruh played a role, and identifies related themes in the larger Russian Mennonite community which embraced his leadership.

The Winnipeg Free Press has a helpful article on the MCC response to these materials and the organization's historical entanglements with National Socialism (note 2).

Since penning those essays, I found a series of old--but new--references to him from scans of the Baden Nazi Party newspaper, Der Führer. Unruh was not only well-known in government offices in Berlin, but he was also a public figure in Karlsruhe where he lived and served as a part-time, adjunct professor.

These references help give an even fuller picture of this highly regarded Mennonite leader. Below I have attached some of those pieces with some context, all of which Unruh and others tried to forget or erase from memory after the war.

1935:

Since at least 1933, Unruh had been a regular financial contributor and patron member (Förderndes Mitglied) of the Schutzstaffel (SS)--a paramilitary police organization that ultimately became responsible for enforcing the racial policy of Nazi Germany (note 3). Why? Unruh claimed to see “things breaking forth which our forefathers in the sixteenth century had advocated” (note 4).

The first reference to Unruh in the Nazi Party paper in Baden--Der Führer—was in 1935. The paper reported on a local Nazi Party chapter meeting in Unruh’s town, with Unruh offering a moving closing speech (pic):

“The local [Karlsruhe-] Rüppurr organization of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) gathered party comrades and friends in the restaurant 'Grüner Baum' for a lecture and slideshow entitled: 'The famine in Russia.' [Nazi] Party Comrade District Instructor Würfel offered background to the shocking pictures, which revealed to us the boundless misery in this country. Then Prof. Unruh, who lived in this region for years and himself experienced the hardship of this people, gave a moving closing speech.” (Note 5)

1936:

In July 1936, the Badische Presse announced a major lecture by Unruh on kinship and racial studies at a meeting of the German Foreign Institute combined with the National Socialist’s Teachers’ Association (pic; note 6).

For context, the Mennonite World Conference met in the Netherlands a month earlier. Criticism of Prof. Unruh in international Mennonite circles was becoming more open by 1936. Unruh lived from a small stipend that had fluctuated over the years based on German, Dutch, Canadian (Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization), and U.S. (MCC) Mennonite support.

In the same year, Unruh wrote to Mennonite leaders in Fernheim, Paraguay, whom he was mentoring: “We stand one hundred percent with Adolf Hitler in his God-given calling to lead Germany out of chaos and thus also to support and protect Europe and the world against Bolshevik ruin” (note 7).

And to his own mentor Mennonite pastor and scholar Christian Neff, Unruh wrote: “Hitler’s spirit is open to the truth of the gospel. But he will never be able to perceive this gospel in its broad generosity unless a great redeeming word of the message comes to him from the ‘core troops,’ as Unruh understood church at its best” (note 8).

1940:

Again in 1940 Unruh reiterated to a German state official what he had thought for years: “Mennonites find much in the teaching of the Führer that they had emphasized already in the 16th century, e.g., the emphasis on a practical Christianity” (note 9).

In May that year, the rector of the Karlsruhe Technical University petitioned the State of Baden to appoint Unruh to a University Chair in Cultural Policy and Worldview Studies, and praised him as “a man with very high qualities—especially from the National Socialist point of view.” The request was made “in full awareness of [the rector’s] responsibility to the Party” and in his capacity as state party Führer-of-professors (Gaudozentenführer; note 10).

And in October the paper Der Führer reported (pic) that Unruh gave a Volk cultural-political (volkstumspolitisch) lecture in which he sought to show “how German blood lines are spread across the whole world on extremely significant fronts, and that after the Völkische revolution [Nazi seizure of power/ reorganization of European population by racial identity] we must take note of this fact in a new way and experience it more deeply … Dutch and Low German have thereby become German par excellence in their historical and ethnic forms and contents, which Prof. Unruh repeatedly stated with joyful satisfaction,” the reporter noted (note 11).

1943:

In the Spring of 1943 German armies still controlled Ukraine. A few months earlier on New Year’s Day, Unruh was invited to meet with the second most powerful Nazi government leader, Reichsführer Himmler. Himmler said to Unruh—according to Unruh-- “It is a pleasure to meet the Moses of the Mennonites!,” referring to Unruh’s role in Mennonite migration (note 12). “I have been in Ukraine [October 1942] and I have observed the people there for myself. Your Mennonites are the best,” Himmler told him (note 13).

In April 1943, the paper Der Führer gave a fulsome account of another “cultural-political lecture” given by Unruh and organized by the National Socialists German Lecturers League (NSD-Dozentenbund) and the Adult Education Office (Volksbildungswerk; state-operated leisure organization in Nazi German) in Karlsruhe. Here Unruh offered his account of the difference between Bolshevism and Nazism.

“Professor B. Unruh spoke on ‘the incursion of Bolshevism into the ethnic German schools of Ukraine,’ reviewing the Bolshevik 'cultural program' and the long series of attempts to realize it. To the question: 'What is Bolshevism?' one of the Bolshevik leaders replied curtly: 'Civil war'. Prof. Unruh, in comparison, asked the question, 'What is National Socialism?,' and answered just as curtly: 'Ethnic Community' (Volksgemeinschaft, or national community). This shows the contrast of the two worlds, which today are in a decisive struggle.” (Note 14)

As noted above, Unruh did not hide from Mennonites abroad his admiration for Hitler and National Socialism, though that was quietly forgotten after the war. These articles from Der Führer—which I do not think have been seen since the 1940s—remind us of a lesser known side of perhaps the most important and influential Russian Mennonite leader from before the Revolution until after WW2.

Benjamin H. Unruh died in 1959. The Mennonite Encyclopedia / GAMEO entry on Unruh written by friend and sometime colleague Harold S. Bender, briefly noted that Unruh worked for MCC “in immigration to Paraguay 1930-1933” (note 15). On the one hand, the statement clearly underplayed Unruh’s magnitude; he was a tireless advocate for his people who remains a towering figure in the history of Russian Mennonites, especially in Paraguay and Brazil. On the other hand, Bender’s entry says almost nothing about how Unruh’s advocacy for and humanitarian efforts on behalf Mennonites from the Soviet Union were inextricably intertwined with his strident support for the Nazi regime and its objectives.

        --Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes—


Note 1: For the shorter essay, cf. Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “Benjamin Unruh, MCC [Mennonite Central Committee] and National Socialism,” Intersections: MCC Practice and Theory Quarterly 9, no. 4 (Fall 2021) 17–27, https://mcc.org/media/resources/10441. For the longer essay, cf. idem, “Benjamin Unruh, MCC [Mennonite Central Committee] and National Socialism,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 96, no. 2 (April 2022): 157–205, https://digitalcollections.tyndale.ca/handle/20.500.12730/1571. Both are free downloads.

Note 2
: Cf. Rick Cober Bauman and Ann Graber Hershberger, “MCC responds to its entanglements with National Socialism,” June 6, 2022, https://mcc.org/stories/mcc-responds-its-entanglements-national-socialism; John Longhurst, “Mennonite Central Committee makes important Statement,” Winnipeg Free Press, June 10, 2022, online, https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/life/faith/mennonite-central-committe-makes-important-statement-576581812.html.

Note 3: Cf. B. Unruh, "Fragebogen zur Bearbeitung des Aufnahmeantrages für die Reichsschriftumskammer,” October 7, 1937, submitted by B. Unruh, MS 416, MLA (Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_416/unruh_harder_quiring_berlin_docs/.

Note 4: B. Unruh, in Erich Göttner, recorder, “Zur Kirchenfrage der Mennoniten: Außerordentliche Kuratoriumssitzung der Vereinigung der Mennonitengemeinde im Deutschen Reich in Berlin vom 17. -19. Nov. 1933,” Mennonitische Blätter 80, no. 12 (Dec. 1933), 114, https://dlibra.bibliotekaelblaska.pl/dlibra/publication/25857/edition/24786.

Note 5: “Die NSDAP, Ortsgruppe Rüppurr,” Der Führer : das Hauptorgan der NSDAP Gau Baden; der badische Staatsanzeiger 9, no. 327, Wednesday, November 27, 1935, p. 12, https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/newspaper/item/CTPQIY4X2BG27MI65VOIUPXKRFQRXLNM?query=%22Prof.+UNRUH%22&page=2&hit=6&issuepage=8.

Note 6: This article entitled “Survey of German Culture in Russia (Rußland-Deutschtum) via Kinship Studies” is from the Badische Presse, 52, no. 177, July 31, 1936, p. 6, https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/newspaper/item/ZE6XSQMDIDLDVJXHKRO24RCDOBOUCRKV?issuepage=6.

Note 7: B. Unruh to J. Siemens, Jan. 4, 1936, MS 416, folder B. H. Unruh Writings, MLA, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_416/unruh_bh_writings_by/SKMBT_C35108052209090_0003.jpg.

Note 8: B. Unruh to C. Neff, Oct. 5, 1936, 1; 2b, Schowalter Correspondence, folder 1929-1945, MFSt (Mennonitische Forschungsstelle Weierhof).

Note 9: B. Unruh to SS-Hauptsturmführer Walther Kolrep, January 30, 1940, 1, letter, MS 295, folder 13, MLA, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_295/folder_13/SKMBT_C35107061214280_0001.jpg.

Note 10: Rector [Rudolf Weigel], Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe, to Minister of Culture and Education, State of Baden, May 10, 1940, Benjamin H. Unruh Personalakte, S499, Schrank 2a, Fach 24, Technische Universitätsarchiv Karlsruhe (copy at MLA).

Note 11
: “Niederländisch-niederdeutsches Zusammengehen in der Ostsiedlung,” Der Führer 14, no. 294, October 25, 1940, p. 5, https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/newspaper/item/GBEUUMXBP3AS5FPTBRYSV6EQOBE4UTYZ?issuepage=5.

Note 12: In Heinrich B. Unruh, Fügungen und Führungen: Benjamin Heinrich Unruh, 1881–1959: Ein Leben im Geiste christlicher Humanität und im Dienste der Nächstenliebe (Detmold: Verein zur Erforschung und Pflege des Russlanddeutschen Mennonitentums, 2009), 333. B. Unruh allegedly “sat immediately to the right of Himmler and dined with him,” together with SS-Oberführer Horst Hoffmeyer and SS Obergruppenführer Werner Lorenz. In B. Unruh to Vereinigung Executive, Jan. 6, 1943, 2, letter, file folder 1943, Vereinigung Collection, MFSt.

Note 13: Diether Götz Lichdi, Mennoniten im Dritten Reich. Dokumentation und Deutung (Weierhof/Pfalz: Mennonitischer Geschichtsverein, 1977), 140f., https://archive.org/details/mennonitenimdrit0000lich/.

Note 14: “Bolschwismus heißt Bürgerkrieg,” Der Führer, Monday, April 5, 1943, p. 3, https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/newspaper/item/7NMQKEAE4BBWPIF6ITIHREVJZQQ7EMDU?query=%22Prof.+UNRUH%22&hit=1&issuepage=3.

Note 15
: Harold S. Bender, "Unruh, Benjamin Heinrich (1881-1959), in GAMEO, https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Unruh,_Benjamin_Heinrich_(1881-1959).







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