The Selbstschutz (Self-Defence Units) and Benjamin H. Unruh

Abram Kröker, editor of the Molotschna (South Russia/ Ukraine) -based Mennonite Friedensstimme, wrote that Mennonites are “predestined to foreshadow … even in an imperfect way, the great peace among nations in the Thousand-Year-Reign [of Christ].” And among all denominations, “it has pleased God,” according to Kröker, to “present and manifest” through the Mennonites this “pearl of evangelical truth gained at great cost by our fathers” (note 1).

And it is because of this theological hope and inheritance that “our youth are raised differently,” Kröker reminded his readers; “not military bravery or fighting are presented as the highest civic virtues, but rather sacrifice, suffering and renunciation for the sake of others. In all our schools, non-resistance is explicitly taught and impressed [upon students] according to the Mennonite catechism” (note 2).

But taking up arms in self-defence was nuanced differently by his colleague and influential 37-year-old teacher and theologian Benjamin H. Unruh:

“This was not about the rich historical legacy of refusing armed military service, but the recognition of the right to self-defence with respect to crimes against the very lives of innocent people, in particular women and children, by criminal elements from the ranks of former army and marine soldiers … It [is] exclusively about the repulsion of unlawful acts of violence by self-proclaimed, local and limited regionally operative forces in the form of individual gangs or groups of gangs. Certainly our Anabaptist forefathers were never thinking of such a case when they penned the Schleitheim Confession 400 years ago.” (Note 3)

For Unruh, armed defence by Mennonites in this extraordinary state of emergency (without a recognized government or law enforcement) was “not a general abandonment of the received tradition of non-resistance,” for the renunciation of every armed force still remains the “highest Christian ideal.” Rather, armed defence is a theologically tolerable option, a question of conscience—however difficult and painful—for each to answer on their own before God. Unruh’s aim was to help the younger graduates of his Commerce School in particular connect what they found necessary to do out of deep conviction with the world of faith and their church (note 4).

“We were all supposedly volunteers although great pressure was put on us to join the Selbstschutz (self-defence units) … Professor Benjamin Unruh’s attitude was one of tacit support for resistance. Somewhat of a shock to me. He was my Bible instructor and was highly educated … . Everyone in Halbstadt looked up to him. I was greatly influenced by his attitude towards the Selbstschutz as were others.” (Note 5)

Some 100 to 120 students from the Halbstadt Commerce School in the Mennonite Molotschna Settlement with some of their teachers formed an active Selbstschutz unit (note 6).

A letter written from Halbstadt on January 29, 1919 to an American Mennonite friend reported in broken English that

“...[a]ll men until 50 years—Mennonites and colonists—are armed and weaponed ‘until the teeth’ and formed a redoubtable power. … Our losses of men till now are very little indeed, but the brigands have lost very many. … You can imagine our situation here that has could [sic] thrust the Mennonites to such measures.” (Note 7)

Support was broadly based; before one battle a leading Mennonite minister prayed on his knees together with his own sons and the young men from the Halbstadt unit billeted in his home. After the prayer, according to one billet, the minister looked at his sons and said: “I hope you will do your duty” (note 8).

By mid-February the First Mennonite Infantry Regiment had helped liberate some German villages (non-Mennonite) including Andreasburg, eleven kilometres north of Molotschna. There they found many dead, including a middle-aged German man whose half-naked body lay on a table without visible wounds, but with the heart cut out. The infantry captured 10 prisoners, and the Mennonite soldiers executed them on the village perimeter. After this deed Unruh was quickly brought up from Halbstadt to lecture the soldiers not on a Mennonite peace theology, but on a key principle of the ancient Christian “Doctrine of Just War.”

“He regretted the execution of the prisoners. Despite the brutality of the enemy, a Christian should not judge or seek revenge. He pointed to the enormous task we must perform in protecting our villages and thereby our loved ones from such bands. … This speech by our highly esteemed teacher impressed all of us deeply, and each promised to do his duty.” (Note 9)

In another case, the Commerce School students “courageously” attacked a Russian village “and soon had the bandits on the run, leaving about seventy dead behind them,” as told by one estate owner. “Our boys did better than any of the trained Russian soldiers or officers … and pumped fear into the enemy” (note 10). Makhno’s men were generally “bad shots,” he reported, “while our boys lay behind fences and ditches and took good aim. They allowed the enemy to come close, and then laid down one of the attackers after another” (note 11).

By the end of the year Kröker told his Mennonite readership what many felt to be true--that the community as a whole had “provoked the sword.”

“Our Fathers, reaching back to the martyrs, cherished and upheld the treasure of their insight [non-resistance] high above all else, for which they sacrificed even property and life… . But in the summer of 1918, the South Russian Mennonites of our generation experienced in very short order a stark reversal [Wechsel] of their convictions, and though there was no particular necessity for it at the time, they let go of the invaluable good of non-resistance. Today many already recognize that they had made a great error at that time. … It appears to me that we … provoked the sword, and it has fallen upon us as a people. Besides the materialistic disposition and the pursuit of wealth, this could be the greatest sin of our people, and should be recognized and confessed.” (Note 12)

-Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Pic: Benjamin H. Unruh (Mennonite Archival Image Database. CA MHC 044-37.0).

Note 1: Abram Kröker, “Mennonitentum und Wehrlosigkeit,” Friedenstimme 17, no. 38 (November 16, 1919), 2, https://chortitza.org/pdf/pletk96.pdf; “Einige Gedanken zu unserm Wehrlosigkeitsprinzip,” Friedensstimme 16, no. 53 (September 21, 1918) 2, https://chortitza.org/pdf/pletk63.pdf.

Note 2: Kröker, “Einige Gedanken,” 2. On the "Schleitheim Confession," see https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Schleitheim_Confession.

Note 3: Cited in Heinrich B. Unruh, Fügungen und Führungen: Benjamin Heinrich Unruh, 1881–1959 (Detmold: Verein zur Erforschung und Pflege des Russlanddeutschen Mennonitentums, 2009), 139f. (pic, p. 177).

Note 4: Ibid., 141.

Note 5: Gerhard Wiens, in Irmgard Epp, ed., Constantinoplers—Escape from Bolshevism (Victoria, BC: Trafford, 2006), 47f.

Note 6: “Nonresistance on Trial, or Selbsterlebtes und Selbstschutz; Molotschna Mennonite Settlement, 1918–1919.” No date. From Mennonite Library and Archives—Bethel College, https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/289_74771_Se48.pdf.

Note 7: John H. Willems, “Letter to Peter Jansen, January 29, 1919,” reprinted in: “Some Information Concerning Mennonites in Russia,” The Mennonite 34, no. 39 (October 2, 1919), 4, https://archive.org/details/mennonite34unse_0/page/n308/mode/1up. The American Mennonite editor is understandably shocked that “as a measure of self-preservation, Russian Mennonites, the most conservative non-resistant people on earth, have been driven to taking up arms in self-defence.”

Note 8: “Nonresistance on Trial, or Selbsterlebtes u. Selbstschutz.”

Note 9: Ibid.

Note 10: J. Toews, “Biography of Jacob C. Toews, 1882–1968,” translated by Frieda Toews Baergen (Leamington: Essex-Kent Mennonite Historical Association), 33, https://www.ekmha.ca/collections/items/show/42.

Note 11: Ibid., 34.

Note 12: Kröker, “Mennonitentum und Wehrlosigkeit,” 2f.

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History of the Russian Mennonites

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