“Münsterite!”: The ultimate Mennonite insult

In the 16th century, the term “Mennonite” was adopted by several Anabaptist groups after the tolerant Countess of East Friesland, Anna von Oldenburg, insisted on distinguishing between the “fanatical” Münsterite Anabaptists, on the one hand, and Menno’s peaceful adherents—the Menniten—on the other (note 1).

In 1534, Anabaptists who found refuge in Münster had attempted to establish an “Anabaptist kingdom,” the “New Jerusalem,” in part with he forceful uprooting of the ungodly (note 2). This new holy city was marked by a variety of excesses including polygamy and the community of goods as they awaited the end-time apocalyptic battle between good and evil. This ended disastrously: the armies of the bishop besieged the city and, once inside, killed almost all the men. The three leaders were caged, severely tortured, displayed throughout the country, and put to death six months later.

The next year another 300 Münsterites, and possibly Menno’s brother, occupied a monastery in Friesland near Bolsward, where 37 were beheaded immediately, and another 54 later.

For next generations in Royal Prussia, an obsession with status quo together with rigorous and frequent application of the ban led the Frisian Mennonites to refer disparagingly to their more rigorous Flemish brethren as “Münsterites.” But critiques by the Frisians did not bother the Flemish, apparently, whom the Flemish referred to as “rubbish carts” (Dreckwagen)—for they picked up any kind of smutty Mennonite (note 3)!

Moreover, some Mennonites in Prussia did “not like to call themselves Mennonites,” but rather Taufgesinnte or “baptism-minded.” They did not want to be known as originating from the fanatical and militant Münsterite Anabaptists of the 16th century (note 4). Others alternately spoke of themselves as “quiet in the land” in contrast to the militant Münsterite revolutionaries of old (note 5),

One of the first elders in Chortitza, David Epp, had a very difficult first year as elder. His misdemeanors were detailed in a lengthy letter of formal complaint dated September 1793 to elders in Danzig and Prussia and endorsed by nineteen signatories. The elder’s leadership was responsible for “causing dissension, hate and strife and the like,” and the writers even compared Epp and his supporters with the militant, theocratic Anabaptist “Münsterites” (note 6).

After the Russian Revolution, Mennonite leader Benjamin Unruh wrote that “Bolshevik putschism” stands in direct continuity with the revolutionary “sectarian” Anabaptism of Münster. Both could employ violence (“social revolution with the sword of Gideon”) as a strategy for inaugurating the new world order. In “genuine” Anabaptism, in contrast, the congregation is similar to a “shock troop and bearer of an unbroken devotion to the final goals” and “coming ‘order of God,’” but it is “never the kingdom of God” itself, according to Unruh (note 7). Ironically Unruh was writing (positively) about shock troops in a context in which Nazi shock troops in Germany were first having an impact.

With this context it is not surprising that others too produced hate literature that conflated Mennonites and Münsterites to warn against the murderous errors of "new” Anabaptists. In 1701, etchings known as the "Warning Mirror" (Warnungs-Spiegel) were produced—a kind of mirror opposite of the copper-plate etchings of the Martyrs Mirror by Jan Luyken (d. 1712; note 8).

Below are some of those etchings that warn earnestly against "new Anabaptists," including Mennonites, Quakers, Pietists, atheists, polygamists and many more heretics and arch-heretics.

The etchings function a little like extreme political cartoons in our day, but here with the message that though the Old Anabaptists “may be dead, but their spirit and legacy is still to be eradicated!"

And in Mennonite circles if you are looking to start a new schism, remember that the “ultimate putdown” after many centuries is still to call your fellow Mennonite a Münster-ite (or alternatively a Dreckwagen, depending on context or perspective).

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Anna Oldenburg-Delmenhorst, Countess of East Friesland, “On the Treatment of Sectarians,” February 15, 1545. In A. F. Mellink, ed., Documenta Anabaptistica Nederlandica, Part I: Friesland en Groningen, 1530–1550 (Leiden: Brill, 1975) I, 190.

Note 2: Cf. Walter Klaassen, Living at the End of the Ages. Apocalyptic Expectation in the Radical Reformation (New York: University of America Press, 1992), 45-51, https://archive.org/details/livingatendofage0000klaa.

Note 3: Cf. Abraham Hartwich, Geographisch-Historische Landes-Beschribung [sic] derer dreyen im Pohlnischen Preußen liegenden Werdern (Königsberg, 1723), 279, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/resolve/display/bsb10000874.html.

Note 4: Cf. Ludwig von Baczko, ed., Nankes Wanderungen durch Preussen, vol. 2 (Hamburg and Altona, Vollmer, 1800), 111-125, https://archive.org/details/reisedurcheinen00baczgoog/page/n378/mode/2up; OR https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:70-dtl-0000000449#061, 112f.

Note 5: Benjamin H. Unruh, “Die Wehrlosigkeit.” Vortrag, gehalten auf der Allgemeinen Mennonitischen Konferenz am 7. Juni 1917, 16, 17, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/books/1917,%20Unruh,%20Wehrlosigkeit/.

Note 6: In Peter Hildebrand, From Danzig to Russia (Winnipeg, MB: CMBC, 2000), 40. Also in Gerhard Wiebe, “Verzeichniß der gehaltenen Predigten samt andern vorgefallenen Merkwürdigkeiten in der Gemeine Gottes in Elbing und Ellerwald von Anno 1778 d. 1. Januar.” Transcriptions from the original by Willi Risto, https://chortitza.org/Buch/Risto1.pdf; also Ingrid Lamp: https://mla.bethelks.edu/Prussian%20Polish%20Mennonite%20sources/wiebe.html.

Note 7: B. H. Unruh, “Geleitwort,” in Das Mennonitentum in Rußland von seiner Einwanderung bis zur Gegenwart, by Adolf Ehrt, III–VI (Berlin-Leipzig: Belz, 1932), IV, https://chort.square7.ch/Pis/Ehrt; also B. H. Unruh, “Das Wesen des evangelischen Täufertums und Mennonitentums,” Mennonitische Jugendwarte 17, no. 1 (February 1937), 12f., https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennonitische%20Jugendwarte/DSCF9305.JPG.

Note 8: Zacharia Theobaldo, Der alten und neuen Schwärmer widertäufferischer Geist (Cöthen: Meyer, 1701), front pages, https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb11204036_00005.html. Compare the etchings in Thieleman van Braght, The Martyrs’ Mirror: The Story of Fifteen Centuries of Martyrdom (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 2001), https://archive.org/details/MartyrsMirror. Also Rachel Epp Buller, "Beyond the Martyrs Mirror: The Prints of Jan Luyken," Anabaptist Historians (Jan. 2018), https://anabaptisthistorians.org/2018/01/25/beyond-the-martyrs-mirror-the-prints-of-jan-luyken/.

Comments

Village Reports Commando Dr. Stumpp, 1942: List and Links

Each of the "Commando Dr. Stumpp" village reports written during German occupation of Ukraine 1942 contains a mountain of demographic data, names, dates, occupations, numbers of untimely deaths (revolution, famines, abductions), narratives of life in the 1930s, of repression and liberation, maps, and much more. The reports are critical for telling the story of Mennonites in the Soviet Union before 1942, albeit written with the dynamics of Nazi German rule at play. Reports for some 56 (predominantly) Mennonite villages from the historic Mennonite settlement areas of Chortitza, Sagradovka, Baratow, Schlachtin, Milorodovka, and Borosenko have survived. Unfortunately no village reports from the Molotschna area (known under occupation as “Halbstadt”) have been found. Dr. Karl Stumpp, a prolific chronicler of “Germans abroad,” became well-known to German Mennonites (Prof. Benjamin Unruh/ Dr. Walter Quiring) before the war as the director of the Research Center for Russian Germans...

1929 Flight of Mennonites to Moscow and Reception in Germany

At the core of the attached video are some thirty photos of Mennonite refugees arriving from Moscow in 1929 which are new archival finds. While some 13,000 had gathered in outskirts of Moscow, with many more attempting the same journey, the Soviet Union only released 3,885 Mennonite "German farmers," together with 1,260 Lutherans, 468 Catholics, 51 Baptists, and 7 Adventists. Some of new photographs are from the first group of 323 refugees who left Moscow on October 29, arriving in Kiel on November 3, 1929. A second group of photos are from the so-called “Swinemünde group,” which left Moscow only a day later. This group however could not be accommodated in the first transport and departed from a different station on October 31. They were however held up in Leningrad for one month as intense diplomatic negotiations between the Soviet Union, Germany and also Canada took place. This second group arrived at the Prussian sea port of Swinemünde on December 2. In the next ten ...

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...

What is the Church to Say? Letter 4 (of 4) to American Mennonite Friends

Irony is used in this post to provoke and invite critical thought; the historical research on the Mennonite experience is accurate and carefully considered. ~ANF Preparing for your next AGM: Mennonite Congregations and Deportations Many U.S. Mennonite pastors voted for Donald Trump, whose signature promise was an immediate start to “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Confirmed this week, President Trump will declare a national emergency and deploy military assets to carry this out. The timing is ideal; in January many Mennonite congregations have their Annual General Meeting (AGM) with opportunity to review and update the bylaws of their constitution. Need help? We have related examples from our tradition, which I offer as a template, together with a few red flags. First, your congregational by-laws. It is unlikely you have undocumented immigrants in your congregation, but you should flag this. Model: Gustav Reimer, a deacon and notary public from the ...

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...

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...

1871: "Mennonite Tough Luck"

In 1868, a delegation of Prussian Mennonite elders met with Prussian Crown Prince Frederick in Berlin. The topic was universal conscription--now also for Mennonites. They were informed that “what has happened here is coming soon to Russia as well” ( note 1 ). In Berlin the secret was already out. Three years later this political cartoon appeared in a satirical Berlin newspaper. It captures the predicament of Russian Mennonites (some enticed in recent decades from Prussia), with the announcement of a new policy of compulsory, universal military service. “‘Out of the frying pan and into the fire—or: Mennonite tough luck.’ The Mennonites, who immigrated to Russia in order to avoid becoming soldiers in Prussia, are now subject to newly introduced compulsory military service.” ( Note 2 ) The man caught in between looks more like a Prussian than Russian Mennonite—but that’s beside the point. With the “Great Reforms” of the 1860s (including emancipation of serfs) the fundamentals were c...

The Beginnings: Some Basics

The sixteenth-century ancestors of Russian Mennonites were largely Anabaptists from the Low Countries. Because their new vision of church called for voluntary membership marked by adult baptism upon confession of faith, they became one of the most persecuted groups of the Protestant Reformation ( note 1 ). For a millennium re-baptism ( a na -baptism) had been considered a heresy punishable by death ( note 2 ), and again in 1529 the Imperial Diet of Speyer called for the “brutal” punishment for those who did not recognize infant baptism. Many of the earliest Anabaptist cells were found in Belgium and The Netherlands--part of the larger Habsburg Empire ruled after 1555 by “the Most Catholic of Kings,” Philip II of Spain. The North Sea port cities of the Low Countries had some limited freedoms and were places for both commercial and cultural exchange; ships arrived daily not only from other Hanseatic League like Danzig, but also from Florence, Venice and Genoa, the Americas and the Far Ea...

Why study and write about Russian Mennonite history?

David G. Rempel’s credentials as an historian of the Russian Mennonite story are impeccable—he was a mentor to James Urry in the 1980s, for example, which says it all. In 1974 Rempel wrote an article on Mennonite historical work for an issue of the Mennonite Quarterly Review commemorating the arrival of Russian Mennonites to North America 100 years earlier ( note 1). In one section of the essay Rempel reflected on Mennonites’ general “lack of interest in their history,” and why they were so “exceedingly slow” in reflecting on their historic development in Russia with so little scholarly rigour. Rempel noted that he was not alone in this observation; some prominent Mennonites of his generation who had noted the same pointed an “extreme spirit of individualism” among Mennonites in Russia; the absence of Mennonite “authoritative voices,” both in and outside the church; the “relative indifference” of Mennonites to the past; “intellectual laziness” among many who do not wish to be distu...

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...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog