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.