Becoming German: Ludendorff Festivals in Molotschna, 1918

During the friendly German military occupation of Ukraine at the end of WWI, patriotic “Ludendorff Festivals” were encouraged by German forces to raise funds to support injured German soldiers.

A first such festival in the Molotschna was held on June 25, 1918 in Ohrloff, and was attended by “a great many German officers, soldiers and colonists with music, [patriotic] speeches and social interaction”

From the perspective of the German army press, the event was “extremely enjoyable;” it was accompanied with music by a 30-piece regiment orchestra, and beer, sausage, sandwiches, ice-cream, raspberries and cherries were sold. It closed with a “small dance,” raising 7,387 rubles or 9,850 German marks in donations (note 1).

Later that summer, a Ludendorff Festival in Halbstadt began with Sunday worship, followed by an early concert, games and performances by the Selbstschutz, as well as “entertainment and merriment of every kind,” with short plays and dancing into the morning (note 2).

"The 'well-behaved' self-defense militia men were all stone drunk and the affability of some of the venerable leading men in the community gave cause for earnest concern" (note 3).

One young Mennonite wrote in her diary: “July 23rd … A number of important people have already criticized the conduct of our girls with the German officers. The noble and true womanly pride seems to have been lost in this generation of women, in spite of all their self-conceit. … perhaps the above mentioned are only the sad exceptions. Nevertheless, the disgrace seems to fall on all” (note 4).

Another regretted that German military occupation brought “tactless familiarity with the occupation army … and moral surrender of our youth,” with beer-drinking and dancing to the music of the military band (note 5).

Gnadenfeld held two fests. The assessment of a middle-aged, single diarist from Rudnerweide was blunt:

August 31, 1918 [Rudnerweide]. Today things were brought together at the mayor’s [home] for the festival in Gnadenfeld for Prussian soldiers. It’s a heathen festival where they drink and dance. We had to give cheese, sugar, meat, chickens, butter, eggs and various other things and from several villages supply vehicles to get liquor from Berdjansk and Melitopol. They don’t ask whether we want to, they order us to—that is of course done by our Mennonites. (Note 6).

By November 1918, only seven months after the arrival of German troops in Ukraine, Germany was defeated on the Western Front and began to withdraw all troops from Ukraine.

The German colonists—especially those in Molotschna—became “trusted friends,” whose assistance, hospitality and German manner created a “second home” for the troops, who now understood that “they belong inseparably together as members of one people (Stamm),” according to the military editor of the Deutsche Zeitung für Ost-Taurien (note 7).

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

----Notes----

Note 1 / Pic: Deutsche Zeitung für Ost-Taurien (DZOT) no. 15 (June 26, 1918), 3; DZOT no. 18 (June 29, 1918), 3; also Peter J. Dyck diary, cited by Hans Werner, “An Array of Contradictions. Mennonite Expressions of Nationalism in Imperial Russia During World War I,” in Questions of German History, 130–145 (Dnepropetrovsk: Lira, 2015), 141, http://www.irbis-nbuv.gov.ua/cgi-bin/irbis_nbuv/cgiirbis_64.exe?C21COM=2&I21DBN=UJRN&P21DBN=UJRN&IMAGE_FILE_DOWNLOAD=1&Image_file_name=PDF/Pni_2015_2015_15.pdf. For comparison, the price for 1 Pud of pork (16.4 kilograms) was set at 60 rubles (DZOT no. 35 [July 19, 1918], 4).

Note 2 / Pic: “Őrtliche Nachrichten,” DZOT, no. 68 (August 28, 1918), 3.

Note 3: David J. Penner, Anti-Menno. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Mennoniten in Russland, by A. Reinmarus [pseud.] (Moscow: Zentral-Volker, 1930), 75, https://chortitza.org/Buch/AMeno.pdf.

Note 4: Diary of Anna Baerg, 1916–1924, translated and edited by Gerald Peters (Winnipeg, MB: CMBC Publications, 1985), 27.

Note 5: J. P. Epp, cited in Josephine Chipman, “The Mennonite Selbstschutz in the Ukraine: 1918–1919” (Master of Arts thesis, University of Manitoba, 1988), 110, http://hdl.handle.net/1993/3535.

Note 6: Jacob P. Janzen, “Diary 1916–1925,” trans. by Edward Enns, from Mennonite Heritage Archives, Winnipeg, MB, Jacob P. Janzen fonds, 1911–1946, vol. 5136.

Note 7: “Abschied an den Leser,” DZOT, no. 149 (November 30, 1918), 1.

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