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

The End of Schardau (and other Molotschna villages), 1941

My grandmother was four-years old when her parents moved from Petershagen, Molotschna to Schardau in 1908. This story is larger than that of Schardau, but tells how this village and many others in Molotschna were evacuated by Stalin days before the arrival of German troops in 1941. -ANF The bridge across the Dnieper at Chortitza was destroyed by retreating Soviet troops on August 18, 1941 and the hydroelectric dam completed near Einlage in 1932 was also dynamited by NKVD personnel—killing at least 20,000 locals downstream, and forcing the Germans to cross further south at Nikopol. For the next six-and-a-half weeks, the old Mennonite settlement area of Chortitza was continuously shelled by Soviet troops from Zaporozhje on the east side of the river ( note 1 ). The majority of Russian Germans in Crimea and Ukraine paid dearly for Germany’s Blitzkrieg and plans for racially-based population resettlements. As early as August 3, 1941, the Supreme Command of the Soviet Forces received noti...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
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 ...
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

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mennonite-Designed Mosque on the Molotschna

The “Peter J. Braun Archive" is a mammoth 78 reel microfilm collection of Russian Mennonite materials from 1803 to 1920 -- and largely still untapped by researchers ( note 1 ). In the files of Philipp Wiebe, son-in-law and heir to Johann Cornies, is a blueprint for a mosque ( pic ) as well as another file entitled “Akkerman Mosque Construction Accounts, 1850-1859” ( note 2 ). The Molotschna Mennonites were settlers on traditional Nogai lands; their Nogai neighbours were a nomadic, Muslim Tartar group. In 1825, Cornies wrote a significant anthropological report on the Nogai at the request of the Guardianship Committee, based largely on his engagements with these neighbours on Molotschna’s southern border ( note 3 ). Building upon these experiences and relationships, in 1835 Cornies founded the Nogai agricultural colony “Akkerman” outside the southern border of the Molotschna Colony. Akkerman was a projection of Cornies’ ideal Mennonite village outlined in exacting detail, with un...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
1 comment
Read more

Volendam and the Arrival in South America, 1947

The Volendam arrived at the port in Buenos Aires, Argentina on February 22, 1947, at 5 PM, exactly three weeks after leaving from Bremerhaven. They would be followed by three more refugee ships in 1948. The harassing experiences of refugee life were now truly far behind them. Curiously a few months later the American Embassy in Moscow received a formal note of protest claiming that Mennonites, who were Soviet citizens, had been cleared by the American military in Germany for emigration to Paraguay even though the Soviet occupation forces “did not (repeat not) give any sanction whatever for the dispatch of Soviet citizens to Paraguay” ( note 1 ). But the refugees knew that they were beyond even Stalin’s reach and, despite many misgivings about the Chaco, believed they were the hands of good people and a sovereign God. In Buenos Aires the Volendam was anticipated by North American Mennonite Central Committee workers responsible for the next leg of the resettlement journey. Elisabeth ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
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