Skip to main content

“First Arrival of German Troops in Halbstadt” (Volksfreund, April 20, 1918)

“April 19, 1918 will always remain significant in the history of the Molotschna German Colony. That which until recently could hardly be imagined has occurred: the German military has arrived to free us from the despotism, rape and pillaging of barbarous people and to reestablish the order and security of life and property--something desperately necessary for our land. For this we give thanks above all to the One in whose hands the peoples and nations and also individuals rest. ...” (Note 1)

Mennonites greeted their “guests and liberators” with festivities that included baked goods (Zwieback), meats and even the German anthem “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles"—all before the watchful eyes of their Russian /Ukrainian neighbours.

The troops arrived by train; and to the shock of most present, three bound prisoners—all well-known bandits and terrorists—“were brought out of one of the railway cars without any prior notice, lined up and shot right in front of us” as an example (note 2).

The arrival of German troops in brought an immediate cessation to the oppressive demands of the Bolsheviks and to arbitrary pillaging and terror.

Only three days earlier “guns had been received from Tokmak for our [Mennonite] militia men” (note 3); the support for self-defense was overwhelming in the central Mennonite town of Halbstadt (Molotschna): “Everybody was for it; all the preachers of every persuasion,” according to one eyewitness (note 4).

In the first days fleeing local Bolshevik leaders were rounded up and arrested, including two Bolshevik Mennonites—Johann Wiebe of Lichtenau, Gerhard Friesen of Gnadenfeld—and “some others.” Wiebe and Friesen were executed by the Germans, and later three other Mennonites as well: a Peter Braun of Lichtenau, a Neufeld from the Molotschna, and a Huebert from Nikolaipol (note 5). In another case, minister and teacher Jacob H. Janzen together with Philipp Cornies “interceded for eleven soldiers of the Red Army who were held by the German commander and were to be shot” (note 6).

The Mennonite press asked the community’s most pressing question: "Why had God had allowed us to suffer?" To dispel all thought that they may somehow be religious martyrs, Abraham Kröker drew an explicit contrast to “our martyr fathers” who in clear conscience “suffered for the sake of the highest things.” Rather

“… we have suffered because of 'Mammon' which we pursued too vigorously. We were far too materialistic, too selfish. That is why God first sent the Land Liquidation Laws; and when he did not achieve his goal, the knife had to cut deeper. A man is punished with that with which he sins. Do we understand this? Have we learnt anything?” (Note 7).

The moral problem was widespread. A German wartime internee placed under Mennonites in the Orenburg/ Samara region wrote to a German military newspaper that Mennonites—or “Mammon-ites” as he preferred to refer to them “were a hypocritical, miserly, money-sucking people” (note 8). Another wrote: “The most complaints have been voiced against the German Mennonites in the region of Samara, who have often exploited the plight of the deportees” (note 9).

While during the war Mennonites sought to convince the state that they were Dutch and not German, and should not be subject to land liquidation measures, by May 1918 Mennonites participated in a “Congress of Representatives of the German Settlements” in Prischib—across the Molotschna River from Halbstadt. A resolution was passed unanimously to request the German Kaiser to grant citizenship to German colonists in South Russia. The resolution indicated their wish “to organize a German state structure” and “to remain here as German forerunners and pioneers … [or to] return to the German motherland” (note 10). In turn, they promised “to offer themselves unreservedly to the German homeland, economically and militarily” (note 11).

The next day the new local self-government was established and two Mennonites—W. A. Hausknecht and J. H. Schröder—took the leadership roles in the regional self-defence committee (note 12). The old mayoral system was reinstated; mayors were responsible to resolve conflicts in the village in good conscience and wisdom. Voting rights were again only extended to land owners.

Previous Russian land liquidation laws were nullified (note 13), and confiscated property was returned to original owners.

In the Mennonite villages the once-wealthy—often accompanied by the Ukrainian National Guard and the German military—went house-to-house to identify property and goods. Mennonite “rich women went to the houses of the poor and demanded back their pillows, lamps, chickens, pets and jars. Here is where the real hatred was engendered,” according to one contemporary (note 14). In some cases a hand of friendship and forgiveness was extended, but there was also public flogging, verbal abuse, threats, and expulsions.

Old antagonisms and social divides in the Molotschna separating those with land, those with small-farms (Kleinwirtschaften), and the cottagers without land (Anwohner) resurfaced immediately; Mennonite youth leaders were very conscious and critical of a return to the previous status quo (note 15).

After two months of terror (February and March) the community had not learnt its lesson: “Many of our brethren treat their workers worse than before, provide less to eat, and use violence to force the servants to serve” (note 16).

As this continued into the summer, the German captain and district commander issued a stern public notice that wealthier residents were “creating an atmosphere amongst the poorer classes that will make any peaceful and fruitful work together impossible” (note 17. The directive noted that “it is a great error if some well-to-do people believe that the German troops have entered into the land only to protect the well-to-do.” The captain firmly expected “that in the future more tolerance will prevail, especially between ethnic brethren (eigenen Stammesbrüdern)” (note 18).

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Pic: German occupation troops in Melitopol; General von Kosch. Text at lower left says "Exzellenz General v. Kosch b. d. Melitopoler Besatzung." https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/numbered-photos/pholist2.php?num=2004-0102&fbclid=. 

Note 1: Volksfreund II (XI), no. 14 (32) (April 20, 1918), 1, https://chortitza.org/pdf/pletk19.pdf;

Note 2: See; Heinrich F. Goerz, Molotschna Settlement, trans. by Al Reimer and John B. Toews (Winnipeg, MB: CMBC, 1993), 228; John B. Toews, “Origins and Activities of the Mennonite Selbstschutz (1918–1919),” Mennonite Quarterly Review 46, no. 1 (January 1972), 5–40; 15. For larger context, see Wolfram Dornik et al, The Emergence of Ukraine: Self-Determination, Occupation, and War in Ukraine, 1917–1922, translated by Gus Fagan (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 2015).

Note 3: John P. Dyck, ed., Troubles and Triumphs 1914–1924: Excerpts from the Diary of Peter J. Dyck, Ladekopp, Molotschna Colony, Ukraine (Springstein, MB: Self-published, 1981), entry for April 18, 1918.

Note 4: A. Wiens, letter to B. B. Janz, cited in Josephine Chipman, “The Mennonite Selbstschutz in the Ukraine: 1918–1919” (Master of Arts thesis, University of Manitoba, 1988), 92. https://mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca/xmlui/handle/1993/3535.

Note 5: Cf. Volksfreund II (XI), no. 14 (32) (April 20, 1918), 1, https://chortitza.org/pdf/pletk19.pdf; no. 22 (40) (May 31, 1918), 7, https://chortitza.org/pdf/pletk27.pdf.

Note 6: Heinz Janzen, “Jacob H. Janzen—at Home,” Mennonite Life 6, no. 3 (July 1951), 36. https://mla.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/pre2000/1951jul.pdf.

Note 7: Abraham Kröker, “Unsere Befreiung,” Volksfreund II (XI), no. 16 (34) (April 27, 1918), 1.

Note 8: Julius Wolff, “Aus der russischen Internierungszeit (Fortsetzung),” Kriegszeitung von Baranowitschi 3, no. 20 (March 9, 1918), “Beilage;” no. 21 (March 13, 1918), “Beilage.” http://resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/SBB0002023600010095.

Note 9: “Aus der Heimat,” Rumänische Feldpost: Soldatenzeitung (July 24, 1918), 4, http://resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/SBB00014F7800010000.

Note 10: In John B. Toews, ed., Mennonites in Ukraine amid Civil War and Anarchy (1917–1920): A Documentary Collection (Fresno, CA: Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 2013) 52. Cf. Thy Kingdom Come: The Diary of Johann J. Nickel of Rosenhof: 1918-1919 (ed. John P. Nickel [Saskatoon, SK: Self-published, 1978], May 31, 1918, 47; May 2, 1918, 44), which references both the decision in Prischib and the broader Mennonite support in Chortitza for German citizenship. The official German response to colonists in Russia was, in contrast, very cautious; cf. Friedensstimme 16, no. 32 (July 9, 1918), 5, https://chortitza.org/pdf/pletk43.pdf.

Note 11: “Vertrauensrat russischer Kolonisten,” Deutsche Zeitung für Ost-Taurien (Melitopol, Ukraine) no. 3 (June 12, 1918), 3, http://resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/SBB00014E4200000000.

Note 12: Volksfreund II, no. 22 (May 31, 1918) 7, https://chortitza.org/pdf/pletk27.pdf.

Note 13: Cf. “Die Liquidation der Deutschstämmigen,” Deutsche Zeitung für Ost-Taurien, Part I, no. 136 (November 15, 1918), 2; Part II, no. 137 (November 16, 1918), 2, http://resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/SBB00014E4200000000.

Note 14: Gerhard Schroeder, Miracles of Grace and Judgement: A Family Strives for Survival During the Russian Revolution (Lodi, CA: Self-published, 1974), 28f.

Note 15: Gerhard A. Peters, “Die christliche Jugendpflege, ihre Notwendigkeit und Bedeutung (Fortsetzung),” presented at the General Conference of Mennonite Churches, Lichtenau, June 30–July 2, 1918, in Friedensstimme XVI, no. 34 (July 16, 1918), 2, https://chortitza.org/pdf/pletk45.pdf.

Note 16: Volksfreund II (XI), no. 19 (37) (May 11, 1918), 7, https://chortitza.org/pdf/pletk24.pdf; Christlicher Familienkalender 21 (1919), 60: “On the whole, one has the impression that the earlier materialistic (selfish) disposition has not only not diminished, but has actually increased,” https://chortitza.org/Pis/CFK19a.pdf.

Note 17: Friedensstimme 16, no. 33 (July 13, 1918), 3, https://chortitza.org/pdf/pletk44.pdf.

Note 18: Ibid.





Print Friendly and PDF
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Swiss and Palatinate Connections

Sometime after 1850 Andreas Plennert and his family immigrated to South Russia from the Culm Region of West Prussia. Though there was at least one Mennonite “Plehnert” who had already immigrated to Russia in 1793, it is not a very common Prussian-Russian Mennonite name. As such, however, it is easier to trace than many and offers a minority narrative and identity within the longer and broader Russian Mennonite story. The account below is adapted largely from information in Horst Penner, Die ost- und westpreußischen Mennoniten , vol. 1, though I have expanded upon his work to offer a slightly different narrative. In 1724 there was a group of Mennonites forced out of the Memel region in East Prussia for political and religious reasons and were given assistance to resettle back to West Prussia in areas populated by Mennonites. Among the 23 households that went to the Stuhm region there is one Plenert listed, namely Christian Plenert. We know that Mennonites entered the Memel region ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Catherine the Great’s 1763 Manifesto

“We must swarm our vast wastelands with people. I do not think that in order to achieve this it would be useful to compel our non-Christians to accept our faith--polygamy for example, is even more useful for the multiplication of the population. … "Russia does not have enough inhabitants, …but still possesses a large expanse of land, which is neither inhabited nor cultivated. … The fields that could nourish the whole nation, barely feeds one family..." – Catherine II (Note 1 ) “We perceive, among other things, that a considerable number of regions are still uncultivated which could easily and advantageously be made available for productive use of population and settlement. Most of the lands hold hidden in their depth an inexhaustible wealth of all kinds of precious ores and metals, and because they are well provided with forests, rivers and lakes, and located close to the sea for purpose of trade, they are also most convenient for the development and growth of many kinds ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Quiet in the Land: Peter Fast, 1932-2010

My father Peter Fast passed away in January 2010. The years have given me many opportunities to reflect on his life and impact. He was a gentle and good person--and could work like horse. He was born into poverty in 1932 in Paraguay. His parents were pioneers, first in Fernheim and then (1937) in Friesland. He liked to tell me that he ate manioc root for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was never sure if that was true, and it didn’t help to convince me to eat things I didn’t like. His mother died when he was fourteen; the basic medical aid she needed was out of reach. His new step-mother was a complex person who made life difficult for him and others. Dad only finished the 6th grade in Friesland. He was more than happy to get off the school bench and onto a horse. I don’t think I ever saw him write a complete sentence in my life, whether in English or in German. He had no interest in history, let alone reading—though over time he read the local city paper. Nothing I’ve written on...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jews and Mennonites Together in Danzig's Suburbs

There has been very little reflection on the relationship of Jews and Mennonites in the suburb of Schottland (or Alt-Schottland or Stare Szkoty) where Mennonites first settled in the mid-1500s. Here Mennonites and Jews lived in the small community together for two centuries, quite literally on the margins outside the gates of the city of Danzig. Many historic maps that include Alt Schottland have become available in recent years ( note 1; pic ). H.G. Mannhardt’s book on the Danzig Mennonite church community plus some archival membership lists are our best sources for the Mennonite experience, while illustrations from the day bring many of those episodes of prosperity, repressions, war, plague, emigration, flooding etc. in an urban environment to life ( note 2 ). Peter J. Klassen’s writings on Mennonites in Poland and Prussia also present newer research on Mennonite life in and around Danzig in helpful ways ( note 3 ). There is one small sentence in Klassen’s larger volume that sugg...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mennonite-Designed Mosque on the Molotschna

The “Peter J. Braun Archive" is a mammoth 78 reel microfilm collection of Russian Mennonite materials from 1803 to 1920 -- and largely still untapped by researchers ( note 1 ). In the files of Philipp Wiebe, son-in-law and heir to Johann Cornies, is a blueprint for a mosque ( pic ) as well as another file entitled “Akkerman Mosque Construction Accounts, 1850-1859” ( note 2 ). The Molotschna Mennonites were settlers on traditional Nogai lands; their Nogai neighbours were a nomadic, Muslim Tartar group. In 1825, Cornies wrote a significant anthropological report on the Nogai at the request of the Guardianship Committee, based largely on his engagements with these neighbours on Molotschna’s southern border ( note 3 ). Building upon these experiences and relationships, in 1835 Cornies founded the Nogai agricultural colony “Akkerman” outside the southern border of the Molotschna Colony. Akkerman was a projection of Cornies’ ideal Mennonite village outlined in exacting detail, with un...
Post a Comment
Read more

Invitation to the Russian Consulate, Danzig, January 19, 1788

B elow is one of the most important original Mennonite artifacts I have seen. It concerns January 19. The two land scouts Jacob Höppner and Johann Bartsch had returned to Danzig from Russia on November 10, 1787 with the Russian Immigration Agent, Georg von Trappe. Soon thereafter, Trappe had copies of the royal decree and agreement (Gnadenbrief) printed for distribution in the Flemish and Frisian Mennonite congregations in Danzig and other locations, dated December 29, 1787 ( see pic ; note 1 ). After the flyer was handed out to congregants in Danzig after worship on January 13, 1788, city councilors made the most bitter accusations against church elders for allowing Trappe and the Russian Consulate to do this; something similar had happened before ( note 2 ). In the flyer Trappe boasted that land scouts Höppner and Bartsch met not only with Gregory Potemkin, Catherine the Great’s vice-regent and administrator of New Russia, but also with “the Most Gracious Russian Monarch” herse...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mennonites in Danzig's Suburbs: Maps and Illustrations

Mennonites first settled in the Danzig suburb of Schottland (lit: "Scotland"; “Stare-Szkoty”; also “Alt-Schottland”) in the mid-1500s. “Danzig” is the oldest and most important Mennonite congregation in Prussia. Menno Simons visited Schottland and Dirk Phillips was its first elder and lived here for a time. Two centuries later the number of families from the suburbs of Danzig that immigrated to Russia was not large: Stolzenberg 5, Schidlitz 3, Alt-Schottland 2, Ohra 1, Langfuhr 1, Emaus 1, Nobel 1, and Krampetz 2 ( map 1 ). However most Russian Mennonites had at least some connection to the Danzig church—whether Frisian or Flemish—if not in the 1700s, then in 1600s. Map 2  is from 1615; a larger number of Mennonites had been in Schottland at this point for more than four decades. Its buildings are not rural but look very Dutch urban/suburban in style. These were weavers, merchants and craftsmen, and since the 17th century they lived side-by-side with a larger number of Jews a...
Post a Comment
Read more

"They are useful to the state." An almost forgotten Prussian view of Mennonites, ca. 1780s-90s

In 1787 Mennonite interest for emigration was extremely strong outside the quasi independent City of Danzig in the Prussian annexed Marienwerder and Elbing regions. Even before the land scouts Johann Bartsch and Jacob Höppner had returned from Russia later that year, so many Mennonite exit applications had flooded offices that officials wrote Berlin in August 1787 for direction ( note 1a ). Initially officials did not see a problem: because Mennonites do not provide soldiers, the cantons lose nothing by their departure, and in fact benefit from the ten-percent tax imposed on financial assets leaving the state.  Ludwig von Baczko (1756-1823), Professor of History at the Artillery Academy in Königsberg, East Prussia, was the general editor of a series that included a travelogue through Prussia written by a certain Karl Ephraim Nanke. Nanke had no special love for Mennonites, but was generally balanced in his judgements and based his now almost forgotten account of Mennonites on perso...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Politics of Map-Making: A "Mennonite Map"

Maps are political artifacts. Russia or Ukraine?  A late nineteenth-century map of “German Settlements and Presence throughout History” offers a good example from the Mennonite settlements ( note 1 ). It was based on the German Colonial Atlas of Paul Langhans ( note 2 ). Langhans was the most important mapmaker and promoter of German settlements around the globe; he continued this work of “pan-Germanism” well into the Nazi era ( note 3 ). Already in the nineteenth century, more than one Russian journalist claimed that Russian Germans—including Mennonites in Russia—promoted pan-Germanism in their schools and spread hatred against Russia ( note 4 ). The consequences on the ground were harsh: Johannes H. Janzen—a geography instructor in the Mennonite high school in Ohrloff—who was known “to love the Russian people and Fatherland more than most of his contemporaries,” was placed under “serious suspicion of treason” for an instructional map ( note 5 ) he made of the Molotschna Mennoni...
Post a Comment
Read more

Snapshots of Danzig Mennonites, late 1600s & early 1700s

A picture can be worth a thousand words. We do not have photographs, but we have a few colour paintings of life in and around Danzig in the late 1600s and early 1700s, as well as maps. We also have a limited number of "textual snapshots" of Mennonites at this time and place, which offer an instructive window into that foreign world. These snapshots of work, worship, health, education, community relationships, smaller repressions, and security can contribute to the creation of a larger collage of Mennonite life in Danzig and Polish Prussia.  Snapshot 1 : In 1681 there were approximately 180 Mennonite families who lived in the “gardens” or villages outside Danzig, with 113 of those families within the jurisdiction of the city. At this time Mennonites were barred from owning houses within the walls of the city. Of these 113 family heads, we know: 43 were retailers of spirits, 24 merchants, 9 lacemakers, 7 dyers, 3 silk dyers, 3 pressers, 2 brokers, 2 treasurers, 2 waitresses, et...
Post a Comment
Read more