Kristallnacht 1938, German Mennonites and Benjamin Unruh

The following is a Holocaust-related story of the South German Mennonites and Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, November 9/10, 1938.

The well-known leader Prof. Benjamin H. Unruh, the representative of Russian Mennonites in Germany, is a key figure in the German churches at this time and also in this story (note 1).

The Night of Broken Glass occurred a week before the German national and religious holiday for “Prayer and Repentance” (Buß- und Bettag). The Conference of South German Mennonites met annually on this holiday at their Bible and retreat centre Thomashof in Baden. They come closest to what we might call “evangelical” Mennonites today, with an emphasis on personal piety, small groups and Bible study.

On the night of November 9, 91 Jews were murdered across Germany. Jewish homes, stores and offices were vandalized, and 170 synagogues set aflame, including the synagogue in nearby Karlsruhe—Benjamin Unruh’s place of residence (note 2). Three days later a decree was issued barring Jews from selling goods and services of any kinds (Decree on the Elimination of the Jews from Economic Life; Verordnung zur Ausschaltung der Juden aus dem deutschen Wirtschaftsleben). The United States recalled its ambassador on November 14, and on the day before Mennonites gathered for retreat, Jewish children were barred from attending any public school in Germany.

The report on the Mennonite gathering on November 16 is important as much for what it doesn’t say as for what it does say. The conference began at 10 a.m. with Tersteegen's hymn, “God himself is with us.” Daniel Hege (Durlach) greeted those present with the words of the Psalm 46:8, "The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge."

“An eventful time has passed since the last conference. We have every reason to thank God and our government for the return of Austria and the Sudetenland [today Czechia] to the Reich and averting the threat of war. But there are still more tasks ahead. Let us not be timid: God is with us” (note 3).

Repentance, let alone sadness for the events of the past week, is entirely absent in the report.

Benjamin Unruh was the keynote speaker. Unruh spoke on the essence of Christian hope according to 1 Peter 1, and the word of forgiveness which Christ speaks. Not our piety, but Christ is the foundation of our hope, Unruh emphasized. The hope of the kingdom of God, which has already broken in with Easter "drives the Christian to work and struggle" (note 4).

The silence on the events of the past week is not surprising.

The same issue of the denominational paper also reminded readers, based on 1 Peter 2, that “Israel was the holy and chosen people (Volk) to proclaim the virtues of its God ... But Israel did not fulfill its calling, did not accomplish its task. It fell away from God and sank into idolatry and pagan vices” (note 5). Rather than calling the church to extend refuge or protection for their vulnerable and disenfranchised Jewish neighbours, the Gemeindeblatt fueled anger towards Jews.

Not even a month after Kristallnacht, Unruh received a letter from a Mennonite professional which highlighted the fact that "a whole row of leading Bavarian Mennonites are members of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) and some have been members for a long time” (note 6).

That snapshot wasn’t unique. In a presentation on July 4, 1938 at the infamous Nazi Party "Brown House" in Munich, Benjamin Unruh boasted that an “overwhelming majority of the elders and ministers in West Prussia and Danzig are members of the [Nazi] party” (note 7)—a conference defined by traditional Mennonite teaching and personal piety as well.

And even in the north-west, the liberal Mennonites—for whom neither doctrine nor piety were defining criteria for Christian Mennonite faith—joined the other German Mennonites in their apostacy. In that same year Krefeld Mennonite pastor Gustav Kraemer delivered and published a widely received essay in which he wrote that he feels very sorry for the suffering of individual Jews, but he also understands the need for “the hard exclusionary battle against Jewry (Judentum). … At first [the new anti-Jewish] laws appeared very brutal and unjust to me, but later I could appreciate that … in the ordering of this world, which of course is God’s order … we live as members of a community, in both good times and in bad.' And now the old Jewish law—that the children are punished for the sin of the parents “to the third and fourth generation' (Exodus 34:7)—falls upon the decent and innocent Jews as well," according Kraemer. As a people Jews have sinned against the Volk that had offered them hospitality; they always refused to take any responsibility, according to Kraemer (note 8).

From north to south Germany, and from west to east—pious, liberal and orthodox German Mennonites together with a few Russian Mennonite leaders in the mix, helped pave the path not only to Kristallnacht, but also to the Holocaust (note 9).

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: See my a) shorter and b) longer essays on Unruh: 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; and (longer), 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.

Note 2: On Karlsruhe and Kristallnacht, see: https://www.ka-news.de/region/karlsruhe/stadtgeschichte./80-Jahre-Reichspogromnacht-Die-Nacht-in-der-auch-in-Karlsruhe-die-Synagogen-brannten;art6066,2297020.

Note 3: “Bericht,” Gemeindeblatt 70, no. 1 (January 1, 1939), 3, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Gemeindeblatt%20der%20Mennoniten/1933-1941/DSCF7793.JPG.

Note 4: “Bericht.”

Note 5: “Der erste Petrusbrief,” Gemeindeblatt 70, no. 1 (January 1, 1939), 1, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Gemeindeblatt%20der%20Mennoniten/1933-1941/DSCF7792.JPG.

Note 6: Karl Würtz to Benjamin H. Unruh, December 7, 1938, letter, Vereinigung Collection Folder 1938, Mennonitische Forschungsstelle Weierhof.

Note 7: Report, Presentation by Benjamin H. Unruh and Daniel Dettweiler at the Brown House, Munich, July 4, 1938, p. 3, Vereinigung Collection Folder 1938, Mennonitische Forschungsstelle Weierhof.

Note 8: Gustav Kraemer, Wir und unsere Volksgemeinschaft 1938 (Krefeld: Consistorium der Mennonitengemeinde Krefeld, 1938), https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/books/1938,%20Kraemer%20Wir%20und%20unsere%20Volksgemeinschaft/.

Note 9: See my published essay: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “German Mennonite Theology in the Era of National Socialism,” in European Mennonites and the Holocaust, edited by Mark Jantzen and John D. Thiesen, 125–152 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020).

Comments

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 ...

Fraktur (or Gothic) font and Kurrent- (or Sütterlin) handwriting: Nazi ban, 1941

In the middle of the war on January 1, 1942, the Winnipeg-based Mennonitische Rundschau published a new issue without the familiar Fraktur script masthead ( note 1 ). One might speculate on the reasons, but a year earlier Hitler banned the use of the font in the Reich . The Rundschau did not exactly follow all orders from Berlin—the rest of the paper was in Fraktur (sometimes referred to as "Gothic"); when the war ended in 1945, the Rundschau reintroduced the Fraktur font for its masthead. It wasn’t until the 1960s that an issue might have a page or title here or there with the “normal” or Latin font, even though post-war Germany was no longer using Fraktur . By 1973 only the Rundschau masthead is left in Fraktur , and that is only removed in December 1992. Attached is a copy of Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann's official letter dated January 3, 1941, which prohibited the use of Fraktur fonts "by order of the Führer. " Why? It was a Jewish invention, apparent...

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 ...

Last Days of Mennonite Life on the Molotschna, September 1943

The Molotschna Mennonite Colony was established in 1803; 140 years later its villages were evacuated by retreating German armies. A map of the larger German operation of 1943 and the various "Trecks" is attached. The tens of thousands of evacuees included some 35,000 Mennonites. Nazi Germany had utterly failed Ukrainians, but continued to have plans for their "ethnic Germans" in the east. On Sept. 8, 1943 , the Red Army successfully took Donetsk (Stalino), 230 km east of Molotschna. The next day, S.S. administrators gave orders that every Molotschna family should load one wagon with their possessions and prepare for an orderly evacuation. Hitler was intent on holding Crimea, and sought to set up a defensive line from Zaporizhzhia to Melitopol and south to the Sea of Azov. Evacuation plans east of this line were in place since late June—initially to be resettled “somewhere” west of the Dnieper; on Aug. 17 first steps were taken to move 8,000 hospital beds west o...

Russia: A Refuge for all True Christians Living in the Last Days

If only it were so. It was not only a fringe group of Russian Mennonites who believed that they were living the Last Days. This view was widely shared--though rejected by the minority conservative Kleine Gemeinde. In 1820 upon the recommendation of Rudnerweide (Frisian) Elder Franz Görz, the progressive and influential Mennonite leader Johann Cornies asked the Mennonite Tobias Voth (b. 1791) of Graudenz, Prussia to come and lead his Agricultural Association’s private high school in Ohrloff, in the Russian Mennonite colony of Molotschna. Voth understood this as nothing less than a divine call upon his life ( note 1; pic 3 ). In Ohrloff Voth grew not only a secondary school, but also a community lending library, book clubs, as well as mission prayer meetings, and Bible study evenings. Voth was the son of a Mennonite minister and his wife was raised Lutheran ( note 2 ). For some years, Voth had been strongly influenced by the warm, Pietist devotional fiction writings of Johann Heinrich Ju...

On Becoming the Quiet in the Land

They are fair questions: “What happened to the firebrands of the Reformation? How did the movement become so withdrawn--even "dour and unexciting,” according to one historian? Mennonites originally referred to themselves as the “quiet in the land” in contrast to the militant--definitely more exciting--militant revolutionaries of Münster ( note 1 ), and identification with Psalm 35:19f.: “Let not my enemies gloat over me … For they do not speak peace, but they devise deceitful schemes against those who live quietly in the land.” How did Mennonites become the “quiet in the land” in Royal Prussia? Minority non-citizen groups in Poland like Jews, Scots, Huguenots or the much smaller body of Mennonites did not enjoy full political or economic rights as citizens. Ecclesial and civil laws left linguistic or religious minorities vulnerable to extortion. Such groups sought to negotiate a Privilegium or charter with the king, which set out a legal basis for some protections of life an...

The Shift from Dutch to German, 1700s

Already in 1671, Mennonite Flemish Elder Georg Hansen in Danzig published his German-language catechism ( Glaubens-Bericht für die Jugend ) as preparation for youth seeking baptism. Though educational competencies varied, Hansen’s Glaubens-Bericht assumed that youth preparing for baptism had a stronger ability to read complex German than Dutch ( note 1 ). Popular Mennonite preacher Jacob Denner (1659–1746), originally from the Hamburg-Altona Mennonite Church, lived in Danzig for four years in the early 1700s. A first volume of his Dutch sermons was published in 1706 in Danzig and Amsterdam, and then in 1730 and 1751 he published two German collections. Untrained preachers would often read Denner’s sermons: “Those who preached German—which all Prussian preachers around 1750 did, with the exception of the Danzig preachers—had no sermons books from their co-religionists other than this one by Jacob Denner” ( note 2 ). In Danzig and the Vistula Delta region there were some differences...

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...

Eugenics and Euthanasia: Russian Mennonites and the Third Reich

Little surprises me when I write about Russian Mennonites caught “between the devil and the deep blue sea.” A 1944 letter I found recently from Mennonite Prof. Benjamin H. Unruh however offers a new and disturbing snapshot of this leader and the Russian Mennonite community under the umbrella of the Third Reich ( note 1 ). It is not too much to say that this larger-than-life leader stands at the centre of almost every significant Russian Mennonite story between 1915 and 1945, including community decisions during the revolution, the formation of MCC, the emigration of 20,000 Russländer, the miracle release of thousands gathered at the gates of Moscow, 1929-30, the creation of the Paraguayan Fernheim Colony, famine relief in the 1930s, the Canadian debates about identity and worldview in Der Bote and the Rundschau papers, and almost everything that happened with Mennonites in Ukraine from 1941 to 1945. His importance for the Mennonite story cannot be understated. Even for many conte...

Why Danzig and Poland?

In the late 16th century, Poland became a haven for a variety of non-conformists which included Jews, Anti-Trinitarians from Italy and Bohemia, Quakers and Calvinists from Great Britain, south German Schwenkfelders, Eastern Orthodox, Armenian, and Greek Catholic Christians, some Muslim Tatars, as well as other peaceful sectarians like the Dutch and Flemish Anabaptists. Unlike the Low Countries and most of western Europe, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a “state without stakes,” and as such fittingly described as “God’s playground” ( note 1 ). In the view of 17th-century Dutch dramatist Joost van den Vondel, it was “the ‘Promised Land,’ where the refugee could forget all his sorrow and enjoy the richness of the land” ( note 2 ). Over the next two centuries an important strand of Mennonite life and spirituality evolved into a mature tradition in this relatively hospitable context ( note 3 ). Anabaptists from the Low Countries began to arrive in Danzig and region as early as 15...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog