Skip to main content

Russian-German Frisians: Rebranding Mennonites

No one developed and promoted the Frisian thesis more effectively than Prof. Benjamin H. Unruh’s one-time Halbstadt student, Heinrich “Hajo” Schröder—born in Molotschna, teacher in Germany, visitor to Paraguay, Nazi Party promoter, author and frequent letter writer to the Mennonite press across the Atlantic (note 1). Schröder was a popular writer with a large influence in Germany, Paraguay and Canada.

Schröder’s 1936 book on “Russian-German Frisians” places the Russian Mennonite sojourn into an essentially “Frisian” ethno-German narrative. He seeks to identify those innate characteristics of “true Frisians” in order to clarify their “racial (völkische) responsibility in the present,” and to connect kinship (Stamm) and nationality (note 2). With pride and astonishment, he points back to Bruges in 1568 which had 7,000 [sic] distinctly self-confident Frisian Anabaptist members despite heavy persecution—misquoting his source tenfold (note 3). Later migration to the “colonization regions” of “West- and East Prussia” in the seventeenth century was because of land scarcity, he claims, echoing contemporary Nazi propaganda for German “living space” (Lebensraum; note 4).

Wise Russian land-policy is confused by Schröder for “old, traditional Frisian law” (note 5), and credit is taken from Russian government-initiated school reforms that created schools as “true German cultural centres” (note 6). That the leadership clans in the colonies all carry Frisian names, especially in his paternal Frisian home village of Rudnerweide, is a large claim forgetful of the widely praised elder with Slavic surname, Benjamin Ratzlaff, who served thirty-five years (note 7).

While Schröder is not a theologian, he argued that deep religiosity—characteristic of Frisians—awakens concern for “blood purity” which is critical for the vitality and survival of the race. The concern echoes a quote from Hitler’s Mein Kampf—profiled in the Canadian Mennonitische Warte in 1938, to which Schröder added: “Blood mixture and the resultant drop in the racial level is the sole cause of the dying out of old cultures; for men do not perish as a result of lost wars, but by the loss of that force of resistance which is contained only in pure blood” (note 8). Schröder is appalled to report that researchers have identified a slight reduction of “Nordic blood” in Russian Frisians over two hundred years.

Schröder is no less evangelistic about German soil. Though always close to the land, Russian-Frisians farmers lacked the will to form a state. “Today, however, the will is present,” for without basic minority rights in the Soviet Union or North America, for example, many “hugely yearn for a possibility to finally be able to live on German soil under the banner of the Swastika” (note 9). Schröder envisioned a Mennonite “heritage colony” (Traditionskolonie; note 10) on German soil, and later sponsored the return of a group of young single Paraguayan Mennonites (mostly from “Friesland”) back to the “homeland” (note 11). But “until that Holy Day arrives,” Schröder admonishes his readers with classic, end-time biblical rhetoric, “hold to this watchword: ‘work, fight, train …,’ so that when the bells toll for you, you will not be standing unprepared, but found worthy to return home into the German father-house” (note 12).

His text marshals many immortal heroes of the Volkskörper (ethnic body) murdered by “Jewish Bolshevism” (note 13)—largely the Frisian Selbstschutz fighters from his youth, e.g., Plett—“a strong supporter of militarism,” or Harder from Marienthal—a farm boy who died in the Special Battalion of German Colonists in the winter of 1919/1920 in Perekop, Crimea.

The list also includes a few teachers or elders who were true “German patriot[s]” (note 14) like Jakob H. Janzen, Chaplain to the First German Colonist Regiment of the Wrangel Army in 1920, who survived and was presently serving as elder in Ontario, Canada.

Schröder appropriated the iconic Anabaptist Martyrs Mirror title for a chapter on the armed, “heroic struggle of the Russian-Frisians” in a 1918 Selbstschutz military victory at Tschernigovka (note 15). “For four-hundred years the church preached absolute non-resistance (Wehrlosigkeit). But when the lives of 60,000 people were in gravest danger, the [Mennonite] youth listened to the voice of the [Nordic] blood and grabbed for the sword” (note 16).

While honouring his paternal Frisian home town of Rudnerweide time and again, he avoids confessing that this village rejected Selbstschutz participation en masse.

Schröder’s industrialist father—who had hosted German military parties (Ludendorffsfeste) in his Halbstadt garden during occupation (note 17) and had been an officer in the self-defence units—even demanded that Mennonite Brethren minister and teacher B. B. Janz together with another minister be expelled from the colonies because of their opposition to the Selbstschutz; both Schröder’s father and Janz attended the Rudnerweide Mennonite Church in their youth (note 18).

After narrating the many migration stories of “our clan group,” he surmises that the common cause “is surely to be sought in the ancient Frisian-Germanic drive for true freedom,” which “has remained rooted, even if unconsciously, deep within his blood. The men that led in each of these migrations were without exception of truly Nordic character, born of loyal mothers” (note 19).

To support this mythology, Schröder furnishes examples of contemporary Russian Mennonite leaders across the globe—strikingly “Nordic men of Frisian origin” fighting for the future of their “racial comrades” (Volksgenossen).

With reference to Canadian migration leaders C. F. Klassen and Bishop David Toews, he surmises that with only a few exceptions all “give complete allegiance to the new Germany,” especially those “fighters for the new Germany in Fernheim [Paraguay]” (note 20).

Schröder’s “Russian German Frisians” book is reviewed and summarized without critique by South German historian and co-editor of the Mennonitisches Lexikon, Christian Hege in 1936, and recommended by Walter Quiring, later editor of the Canadian paper, Der Bote, and also in the Canadian Mennonitische Rundschau (note 21).

The Canadian Mennonitische Volkswarte led by Russländer intelligentsia provided Schröder with seven pages over two 1936 issues to define Aryanism, illustrate völkisch theory, reiterate the importance of racial purity for the vitality of a Volk, warn against mixed marriages, take pride in the ancient roots of the Frisian branch of the Aryan race, explain the God-given, blood-determined mission for each race on the soil on which they have their history, to praise Hitler and the importance of racially-based politics. and more (note 22).

The Frisian thesis would only grow in significance: in 1944, Schröder’s one-time teacher Benjamin Unruh was preparing a major publication that would “demonstrate scientifically the Frisian origin of the Russian German Mennonites, the remainder of whom … have now immigrated into the Warthegau” (note 23).

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

--- Notes---

Note 1: For Unruh’s comments on Schroeder, cf. Benjamin Unurh to J. Siemens, District Mayor of Fernheim, October 19, 1935, p. 2, Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_416/unruh_bh_writings_by/SKMBT_C35108052209060_0002.jpg. On his life, cf. Gerhard Rempel, “Heinrich Hajo Schroeder: The Allure of Race and Space in Hit!er’s Empire,” Journal of Mennonite Studies 29 (2011), 227–254, https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/1416/1406. On Unruh, see my essay: “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: Heinrich Schröder, Rußlanddeutsche Friesen (Döllstädt-Langensalza: Self-published, 1936), 4; 31, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/books/1936,%20Schroeder,%20Russlanddetusche%20Friesen/.

Note 3: Schröder, Rußlanddeutsche Friesen, 8. This error is repeated by Peter P. Klassen, The Mennonites in Paraguay, vol. 1: Kingdom of God and Kingdom of this World, translated by Gunther H. Schmitt (Hillsboro, KS: Self-published, 2004), 220.

Note 4: Schröder, Rußlanddeutsche Friesen, 9.

Note 5: Schröder, Rußlanddeutsche Friesen, 12.

Note 6: Schröder, Rußlanddeutsche Friesen, 16.

Note 7: Schröder, Rußlanddeutsche Friesen, 19.

Note 8: Hit!er, Mein K@mpf, cited in Mennonitische Warte 4, no. 41 [May 1938], 161, https://chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk364.pdf. In an earlier issue, a quote from Hit!er’s 1933 Reichsparteitag speech to the “Hit!er Youth” on virtues, loyalty, bravery, courage and unity is profiled together with a sketch of the famous “Menno-Linden” planted by Menno Simons at the home of his printer (Mennonitische Warte 4, no. 38 [February 1938], 64, https://chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk362.pdf). Schröder was a regular contributor on genealogy to this Canadian Mennonite journal as well as to the Winnipeg-based Mennonitische Rundschau and Der Bote.

Note 9: Schröder, Rußlanddeutsche Friesen, 31.

Note 10: Volkswarte 1, no. 12 (December 1935), 462, https://chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk360.pdf. See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2022/09/in-january-2020-i-received-information.html. 

Note 11: P. Klassen, Mennonites in Paraguay I, 93.

Note 12: Schröder, Rußlanddeutsche Friesen, 31.

Note 13: Schröder, Rußlanddeutsche Friesen, 54.

Note 14: Schröder, Rußlanddeutsche Friesen, 95; VI; 91, 93.

Note 15: Schröder, Rußlanddeutsche Friesen, 52.

Note 16: Schröder, Rußlanddeutsche Friesen, 53.

Note 17: Gerhard Wiens, in Irmgard Epp, ed., Constantinoplers—Escape from Bolshevism (Victoria, BC: Trafford, 2006), 38. On the Ludendorff Festivals in Molotschna, see previous post: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MennoniteGenealogyHistory/permalink/2762854107081942/.

Note 18: B. B. Janz, Mennonitische Rundschau (December 26, 1934), 2f., https://archive.org/details/sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau_1934-12-26_57_52/page/n1/mode/2up?q=janz. Schröder was also well acquainted with the vocally non-resistant Rudnerweide minister David Janzen and siblings; they had purchased a dealership from Schröder in 1912 (J. Janzen, “Diary 1911–1919,” January 1912, edited and translated by Katharina Wall Janzen. From MHA, Jacob P. Janzen Fonds, 1911–1946, vol. 2341.

Note 19: Schröder, Rußlanddeutsche Friesen, 24.

Note 20: Schröder, Rußlanddeutsche Friesen; for published comments for Klassen and Toews, cf. Benjamin Wall Redekop, “German Identity of Mennonite Brethren Immigrants in Canada, 1930–1960,” Master of Arts thesis, University of British Columbia, 1990, 76, https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0098172. Toews travelled to Germany in 1936.

Note 21: Mennonitische Geschichtsblätter 1, no. 1 & 2 (1936), 57f., https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennonitische%20Geschichtsblaetter/1936-1940/; Walter Quiring, Deutsche erschließen den Chaco (Karlsruhe: Schneider, 1936), 184, n.41, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/books/1936,%20Quiring,%20Deutschen%20erschliessen%20den%20Chaco/; Mennonitische Rundschau 59, no. 29 (July 15, 1936), 9, https://archive.org/details/sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau_1936-07-15_59_29/page/n1/mode/2up?q=; also Mennonitische Rundschau 59, no. 21 (April 20, 1936), 4, https://archive.org/details/sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau_1936-05-20_59_21/page/8/mode/2up?q=russlanddeutsche.

Note 22: Heinrich Schröder, “Was heißt völkisch?,” Mennonitische Volkswarte 2, no. 8 (August 1936), 252–256 (part 1); no. 9 (September 1936), 279–282 (part 2), https://chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk379.pdf.

Note 23: Karl Götz, Das Schwarzmeerdeutschtum: Die Mennoniten (Posen: NS-Druck Wartheland, 1944), 8, https://chortitza.org/pdf/0v772.pdf.

 



Print Friendly and PDF
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

Mennonite Literacy in Polish-Prussia

At a Mennonite wedding in Deutsch Kazun in 1833 (pic), neither groom nor bride nor the witnesses could sign the wedding register. A Görtz, a Janzen, a Schröder—born a Görtzen – illiterate. “This act was read to the married couple and witnesses, but not signed because they were unable to write.” Similarly, with the certification of a Mennonite death in Culm (Chelmo), West Prussia, 1813-14: “This document was read and it was signed by us because the witnesses were illiterate.” Spouse and children were unable to read or write. Names like Gerz, Plenert, Kliewer, Kasper, Buller and others. 14 families of the 25 Mennonite deaths registered --or 56%--could not sign the paperwork ( note 1 ; pic ). This appears to be an anomaly. We know some pioneers to Russia were well educated. The letters of the land-scout to Russia, Johann Bartsch to his wife back home (1786-87) are eloquent, beautifully written and indicate a high level of literacy ( note 2 ). Even Klaas Reimer (b. 1770), the founder t...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

"Between Monarchs" a lot can happen (like revolt). A Mennonite "Accession" Prayer for the Monarch

It is surprising for many to learn that Russian Mennonites sang the Russian national anthem "God save the Tsar" in special worship services ... frequently! We have a "Mennonite prayer" and sermon sample for the accession of the monarch ( Thronbesteigung ) or its anniversary, with closing prayer-- and another Mennonite sampler of a coronation ( Krönung ) prayer, sermon and closing prayer ( note 1 ). After 70 years with one monarch, the manual is made for a time like this--try sharing it with your Canadian Mennonite pastor ;) Technically there is no “between” monarchs: “The Queen is Dead. Long live the King!” But there is much that happens or can happen before the coronation of the new monarch. Including revolt. Mennonites in Molotschna had hosted Tsar Alexander I shortly before his death in 1825. Upon his death in December, Alexander's brother and heir Constantine declined succession, and prior to the coronation of the next brother Nicholas, some 3,000 rebel (mos...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

“The way is finally open”—Russian Mennonite Immigration, 1922-23

In a highly secretive meeting in Ohrloff, Molotschna on February 7, 1922, leaders took a decision to work to remove the entire Mennonite population of some 100,000 people out of the USSR—if at all possible ( note 1 ). B.B. Janz (Ohrloff) and Bishop David Toews (Rosthern, SK) are remembered as the immigration leaders who made it possible to bring some 20,000 Mennonites from the Soviet Union to Canada in the 1920s ( note 2 ). But behind those final numbers were multiple problems. In August 1922, an appeal was made by leaders to churches in Canada and the USA: “The way is finally open, for at least 3,000 persons who have received permission to leave Russia … Two ships of the Canadian Pacific Railway are ready to sail from England to Odessa as soon as the cholera quarantine is lifted. These Russian [Mennonite] refugees are practically without clothing … .” ( Note 3 ) Notably at this point B. B. Janz was also writing Toews, saying that he was utterly exhausted and was preparing to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 ...
1 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

A-Cases and O-Cases. After the Trek, 1944

Some 35,000 Mennonites evacuated from Ukraine by the retreating Reich German military in 1943-44 applied for naturalization /citizenship once in German-annexed Poland (mostly Warthegau). The applications made through the “EWZ” ( Einwandererzentralstelle ) are easy to attain today ( note 1 ). Much information may be new and useful for families; however just as much is disturbing, including the racial assessments, categorization, and separation of so-called “A-cases” from “O-cases.” What are they?  The EWZ files contain the application for naturalization made by the head of a family unit, the certificate of naturalization, and sometimes correspondence/ claims regarding property and possessions left behind in Ukraine. Each form contains information about the applicant’s spouse and children, as well as a genealogy listing parents and grandparents, and those of their spouse as well; racial background is calculated by percentage (!). Applicants were asked about their citizenship, their e...
Post a Comment
Read more

Non-Resistant Service: Forestry Camps

The 1902 photos are of the Mennonite Crimean Forestry ( Forstei ) “Commando” in the vineyards and orchards of southern Crimea on route to Yalta (" Gut [estate] Forroß";  note 1). The tasks for the units or commandos were to plant forests, lay out nurseries, and raise model orchards—work not directly or meaningfully connected to non-resistance, but deemed by the state as an acceptable alternative to state or military service. This non-combatant, alternative service program was the largest, most expensive and most formative, faith-based undertaking by Mennonites during the Mennonite "golden era" in Russia ( note 2 ). The first cohort of young men were chosen and sent for their term of alternative service in 1880: “On November 15 [1880] in Tokmak the first German youth were chosen [by lot] in the presence of the [Mennonite] district mayor and also of Elder A. Goerz. There, with singing and prayer, they beseeched the Lord for His mercy, which interested the Russian ...
Post a Comment
Read more