Mennonite Medical Orderlies in World War I

Russia declared war on Germany on July 20, 1914. Mennonite ministers and civic leaders met on July 22, and called for the extension of their community’s alternative service agreement beyond forestry service: to form complete medical units to gather the wounded from the front and to transport them by hospital trains to interior hospitals; to establish special hospital facilities for the wounded in the colonies; to fundraise large sums for the Red Cross; and to grant financial aid to families of soldiers (note 1).

Mennonites knew that they would have to prove their patriotism in positive and tangible ways in order to retain property rights and privileges. Abraham Kröker, editor of the Friedensstimme, wrote just before the start of the war: “Do we not owe it our government and Russian neighbours to show that if a war … broke out, we would be ready to serve the interests of the Fatherland [Russia], and to help the needy?” D. H. Epp, editor of Der Botschafter, wrote: “We need to show that we have kept the promise of faithfulness made to our forefathers … our confession forbids us to spill blood, but binding wounds we hold to be a sacred duty” (note 2).

Jacob P. Janzen’s diary echoes the July 1914 ministerial meeting and its quick decision to embrace the call to military medical assistance and other means of support:

“July 1914 [Rudnerweide]. The minutes of the last Ministers Conference were read to the congregation. It had been decided to urge our young men to sign up voluntarily for the Sanitätsdienst [medical units]. Some have already done so.” (Note 3)

Immediately some 600 Mennonites volunteered to become medics (note 4), and on August 25, the district headquarters in Molotschna at Halbstadt and Gnadenfeld were informed by telegram of an immediate, universal draft. Reservists were to depart on September 1.

August 1914 [Rudnerweide]. “5,000 Mennonite men are to be drafted for the Sanitätsdienst and as guards in the forests (note 5). They expect to go soon. My brothers David and Klaas are also slowly getting ready and putting their affairs in order. Brother Johann came home for a visit, but had to leave again after four days. Will we ever see him again? Let us hope so!”

September 1914 [Rudnerweide]. “Yesterday at the communion service many tears were shed and afterward many farewells said. Our men left for Waldheim and Melitopol, then Ekaterinoslav at 3:00 AM on September 1st. Twenty men were selected by ballot to remain here and serve in our own district, but our brothers were not among them. … Then they were checked over again and assigned to different places: Richert to the Crimea, Klaas to the forests near Moscow, though he had volunteered for the Sanitätsdienst, and David to Petrograd, to serve in an ambulance train. Driedger was sent home because of his teeth; he has only 8 left and they are all bad.” (Note 6)

By October Mennonites in the Alexandrovsk District had donated one million rubles (=$421,940), and from the Molotschna another 200,000 rubles had been given above private donations. Russian women were helped with harvesting and threshing, and roasted buns (Zwieback) together with warm clothes were delivered to the poor (note 7).

Approximately 7,000 Mennonite men served on Red Cross trains in the "Great War,” either with the All-Russian Union of Zemstvos, the All-Russian Union of Cities, or the United Council of the Nobility—civilian organizations parallel to, but associated with the Russian Red Cross (note 8).

They were charged to transport wounded Russian soldiers from the front and care for them in trains that brought the wounded to hospitals in the interior (note 9). Archival materials with lists of who served have yet to come to light.

The Mennonite community as a whole bore all related costs for their alternative service units. Here is a diary entry from nearby Rudnerweide:

“February 1915. Money is being collected for the furnishings of an ambulance train. On the 7th we and many others from our village sent a lot of food along for our men with J. Thiessen, Marienthal, all in all about 23 Pud (376 kilograms): rusks, cookies, butter and apples. We drove the parcels down to Marienthal in two wagons with 4 horses harnessed to each because the roads were so muddy and practically bottomless.” (Note 10)

The large sums were collected through a self-imposed head and wealth taxation (Vermögenssteuer) system, which for decades had also covered the costs for an expanded school system and new settlement for landless Mennonites (note 11).

H. B. Tiessen was on the trains and described his work:

“The crew of the Red Cross train consisted, besides the regular train crew, of one doctor, about six nurses, and about 40 sanitarians, one sanitarian on each car. In addition to these the train carried the necessary medical and food supplies. They would move up to the battle lines where the sanitarians would pick up the injured and badly wounded.” (Note 12)

Mennonite ministers were not excused from alternative service. They worked side-by-side with their colleagues and often led services in the evenings. Minister David Janzen wrote a letter to his brother in Rudnerweide, reporting that "from May 18 to August 28 [1916] they moved almost 18,000 wounded; very hard work." Janzen maintains that "this will be the last war before the millennium" (note 13).

The presence of ministers up to age forty helped to discipline "the eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds" who joined later. “Sexually transmitted diseases were rampant in Russia; yet Mennonites returned after the war—almost without exception—without the diseases,” according to a respected doctor in the Halbstadt-Gnadenfeld district. “The experienced veterans guided, admonished and warned the younger ones, especially against sexual transgressions and their terrible consequences, syphilis, etc.” (note 14).

The effort of the medics to care for the wounded was consistent with Mennonite non-resistant teachings. Serving in this context brought pride and, in hindsight, had a deep spiritual impact on many medics.

“I carried many a wounded or diseased person on my back … They were all so happy, whether friend or foe. To me they were all friends. I am so thankful to God that I had opportunity to do this work. I like to believe the Mennonites were called to do this task and that they carried out this task as medical personnel in a trustworthy manner.” (Note 15)

The Russian press had few references to the Mennonite work, but it was important for archivist Peter J. Braun to collect and publish these words of praise in the Molotschna Volksfreund during the brief period of German occupation of Ukraine in June 1918. Count Tolstoi noted that the Mennonites “are all so committed to their task, and look after the wounded with such care, that when the soldiers leave the train, they say their farewells with tears and kisses.” Countess Tolstoi added that “everywhere [she] had only heard glowing praise for the work of the Mennonite medical orderlies,” which she had seen for herself. “This praise is well-deserved ... [they] are exceptionally competent, energetic, and self-sacrificial people, who offer exceptional care to the wounded.” A former member of the Duma and director of a medical train reported that “the Mennonites are so sincere and faithful in the execution of their duties, and they care for the wounded in such a Christian manner … the mere recollection of the high duty that they fulfilled for the Fatherland, and the responsibility which they carried for our heroes, overrides any critique.” A professor and politician reported from the Caucasus that “it was the collective opinion that the Mennonites formed the best Sanitäre contingent. We had ample opportunity to be personally convinced of this, and find that it is our duty to note that as well.” Another reported that the Mennonites

“… followed the combatants by foot in the winter through snow covered mountains, in the summer through the boiling, humid valleys of Armenia,  … in areas with epidemics and under fire, in these conditions the servants of the Union, mostly Mennonites … followed the army on their long, difficult marches, … the Administration considers it its duty … to return thanks for saving the lives of soldiers, for easing their pain, and for the commitment to the task that they demonstrated, that throughout the entire war, they were in fact comrades for us in the work.” (Note 16).

What was the impact of this relatively small Mennonite witness of alternative service? For the Mennonite community both then and decades later the impact was profound. Minister and later elder Jacob H. Janzen judged work on the front to be morally superior to their traditional forestry service which, in his mind, “‘was needed by no one, appreciated by no one, and therefore no good to anyone at all.’ … The best, truest and fairest witness from the Mennonites could only come in a service which was no easier or less dangerous than that rendered by other citizens” (note 17).

        --Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Videos: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxOoI3IKhVIfoPa_GVSsK9T4USuX0WLd2e AND; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVNJGaBQTSc, see 4:13 - 5:34.

Photos: Attached are photographs of my two grandfathers--Jacob G. Fast from Neu Samara, Russia, and Franz H. Bräul from Molotschna (today Ukraine)--in uniform.

Note 1: Lawrence Klippenstein, “Mennonites and Military Service in Russia,” in Mennonite Alternative Service in Russia: The Story of Abram Dück and his Colleagues 1911–1917, edited by Lawrence Klippenstein and Jacob Dick, 1–39 (Kitchener, ON: Pandora, 2002), 24.

Note 2: David H. Epp, July 27, 1914, cited in Klippenstein, “Mennonite and Military Service in Russia,” 22.

Note 3: Jacob P. Janzen, “Diary 1911–1919,” English monthly summaries. Edited and translated by Katharina Wall Janzen. From Mennonite Heritage Centre, Winnipeg, MB, Jacob P. Janzen fonds, 1911–1946, vol. 2341. For a similar diary account from Ladekopp, cf. Klippenstein, “Mennonites and Military Service in Russia,” 23. Only forestry service was a legal obligation for Mennonites; they had to “volunteer” however to join the Sanitätsdienst.

Note 4: Mennonitische Rundschau 38, no. 29 (July 21, 1915), 4, https://archive.org/details/sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau_1915-07-21_38_29/page/4/mode/2up.

Note 5: Cf. Abraham Friesen, “Heinrich J. Braun: Preacher, Entrepreneur, Servant of His People, 1873–1946,” in Shepherds, Servants and Prophets: Leadership Among the Russian Mennonites (ca. 1880–1960), edited by Harry Loewen, 21–46 (Kitchener, ON: Pandora, 2003), 35.

Note 6: J. Janzen, “Diary 1911–1919.”

Note 7: MR 38, no. 29 (July 21, 1915) 4.

Note 8: Cf. David G. Rempel (ed. by Abe Dueck), “Mennonite Medics in Russia during World War I,” Journal of Mennonite Studies 11 (1993), 149–160; 149, https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/361/361.

Note 9: Cf. George K. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten in Rußland, vol. 3 (Lage: Logos, 2003), 195, n.41. For a compilation of stories by participants, see Waldemar Günther, David P. Heidebrecht and Gerhard J. Peters, eds.,“Onsi Tjedils”: Ersatzdienst der Mennoniten in Russland unter den Romanows (Yarrow, BC: Self-published, 1966).

Note 10: Jacob P. Janzen, “Diary 1911–1919.

Note 11: For annual costs, cf. George K. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten in Rußland, vol. III (Lage: Logos, 2003), 183–190.

Note 12: Henry B. Tiessen, The Molotschna Colony: A Heritage Remembered (Kitchener, ON: Self-published, 1979), 102.

Note 13: J. Janzen, “Diary 1916–1925," Oct. 22, 1916.

Note 14: B. B. Janz, “Die Wehrlosigkeit der Mennoniten in Russland (I),” Der Mennonit 2, no. 7/8 (July/August, 1949) 62; 79, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Der%20Mennonit/1948-1949/DSCF8429.JPG; https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Der%20Mennonit/1948-1949/DSCF8440.JPG. Cf. also “Protokoll des Allgemeinen Mennonitischen Kongresses, 14.–18. August 1917,” reprinted in Mennonitische Warte 4, no. 42 (June 1938), 203, https://chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk366.pdf.

Note 15: Cited in Mennonite Alternative Service in Russia: The Story of Abram Dück and his Colleagues 1911–1917, edited by Lawrence Klippenstein and Jacob Dick (Kitchener, ON: Pandora, 2002), 80–81. How did others perceive the Mennonite medics? Cf. various snippets collected by archivist Peter J. Braun in: “Urteile über die mennonitischen Sanitäre,” Volksfreund II, no. 26 (June 15, 1918) 2–4, https://chortitza.org/pdf/pletk31.pdf.

Note 16: P. Braun, “Urteile über die mennonitischen Sanitäre,” 2–4. H. Tiessen (Molotschna Colony, 102) recalled that many of the young men were honoured by the government for “their fine service and heroism.”

Note 17: In Henry Paetkau, “Jacob H. Janzen: ‘A Minister of Rare Magnitude,’” Mennogespräch: Mennonite Historical Society of Ontario 6, no. 1 (March 1988), 3f. http://www.mhso.org/sites/default/files/publications/Mennogesprach6-1.pdf; cf. also Jacob H. Janzen, Lifting the Veil: Mennonite Life in Russia Before the Revolution, Lifting the Veil, edited with an introduction by Leonard Friesen; translated by Walter Klaassen (Kitchener, ON: Pandora, 1998), ch. 5. This assessment of the forestry service is echoed by others in Günther et al., "Onsi Tjedils,” but differs from Benjamin Unruh’s high praise.