Russian Mennonites and German troop withdrawal, Advent 1918

First Advent, 1918: The last page of the final issue of the German military newspaper Deutsche Zeitung für Ost-Taurien (DZOT), informed readers of a German Catholic mass at the Mennonite Church in Melitopol (near the large Mennonite settlement of Molotschna) for 8 am, followed by a Protestant (Lutheran) Military Advent worship service at 9 am (pic), with the Mennonite worship service beginning at 11 am.

A week earlier they had done the same to honour their fallen comrades on Eternity Sunday (Totensonntag)—in the Mennonite worship space. The Mennonite colonists—“especially Molotschna”—became “trusted friends,” whose assistance, hospitality and German manner created a “second home” for the troops, who now understood that “they belong inseparably together as members of one people (Stamm),” according to the editor (note 1; pic).

Not only did troops give away German books, refrigerators, phonographs, recordings, movie projectors, distillery equipment, typewriters, linens, foot-ware, cooking pots, horses and more at fire-sale prices (see pics; note 2), but they also left thousands of weapons for the colonists and the White Army, including ammunition and grenades (note 3).

The Austrian military in Jekaterinoslav—including the Chortitza, Barotov and Memrik Mennonite settlements—were less concerned with the Bolshevik or anarchist threat according to estate owner Jacob C. Toews, and handed their weapons off to “the terrorist hordes” (note 4).

The short-lived Ukraine National Republic had withdrawn from WW I months earlier and appealed to Germany and Austria for assistance to repel Bolshevik “invaders,” to detach Ukraine from Russia, and to establish conditions of stability.

Over the preceding months both German officers and Mennonite leadership were convinced that good order had been restored, and that security moving forward might be expected with strong economic and political ties between Ukraine and Germany; the German Foreign Institute (Deutsches Auslands-Institut) made connections with these Black Sea Germans a priority (note 5).

However for weeks Bolshevik and anarchist armed riders had been stirring up renewed havoc in the region around the Molotschna (note 6).

With the formal end of WW I, the general of the last German division to withdraw from the district held a farewell speech in the large Halbstadt Mennonite Church, and warned of the imminent threat posed by the bandits, while pointing to the Mennonite Selbstschutz—well-armed and well-trained by the retreating German army (note 7).

Together with men from the neighbouring Lutheran and German Catholic villages, the local militia included a cavalry of three-hundred men, and twenty companies of infantry of approximately 2,000 to 2,700 volunteers in total, plus a few remaining German officers.

Of these about 1,000 soldiers were recruited from the Halbstadt and Gnadenfeld Mennonite districts of Molotschna including those from estates, who together formed the “First Mennonite Infantry Regiment” as they referred to themselves (note 8).

Russian White officers took over control of the Molotschna administrative offices at Halbstadt and Gnadenfeld and placed the Mennonite Selbstschutz under the regional White Commander, Colonel Malakov (note 9).

The influential Mennonite teacher and theologian Benjamin H. Unruh framed the situation as follows:

"… this was not about the rich historical legacy of refusing armed military service, but the recognition of the right to self-defense with respect to crimes against the very lives of innocent people, in particular women and children, by criminal elements from the ranks of former army and marine soldiers … It was exclusively about the repulsion of unlawful acts of violence by self-proclaimed, local and limited regionally operative forces in the form of individual gangs or groups of gangs. Certainly our Anabaptist forefathers were never thinking of such a case when they penned the Schleitheim Confession 400 years ago … ." (Note 10)

For Unruh, armed defense by Mennonites in this extraordinary state of emergency was “not a general abandonment of the received tradition of non-resistance;” the renunciation of every armed force remains the “highest Christian ideal.” Rather, armed defense is a theologically tolerable option, a question of conscience—however difficult and painful—for each to answer on their own before God.

Unruh’s aim was to help the younger graduates of his Halbstadt Commerce School in particular connect what they found necessary to do out of deep conviction with the world of faith and their church (note 11).

“We were all supposedly volunteers although great pressure was put on us to join the Selbstschutz. … Professor Benjamin Unruh’s attitude was one of tacit support for resistance. Somewhat of a shock to me. He was my Bible instructor and was highly educated … . Everyone in Halbstadt looked up to him. I was greatly influenced by his attitude towards the Selbstschutz as were others. … We all understood [however] that when the Red army would come we would not resist soldiers.” (Note 12).

Some 100 to 120 students from the school with some of their teachers formed one of the active Selbstschutz units (note 13).

And so the New Year 1919 began for Mennonites in Ukraine.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: “Abschied an den Leser,” Deutsche Zeitung für Ost-Taurien [DZOT], no. 149 (November 30, 1918), 4, https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/suche?queryString=PPN777397188.

Note 2: Cf. e.g., advertisements in DZOT, no. 142 (November 22, 1918) 4; no. 145 (November 26, 1918) 4; no. 146 (November 27, 1918), 2.

Note 3: P. Epp, son of Pordenau Elder (Bishop) Peter Epp, reported that he traveled to the Crimea as a member of the Selbstschutz to collect and transport 1,125 hand weapons, including munitions, four machine guns, hand grenades, steel helmets, etc., that were left behind by German troops (J. Epp, in Josephine Chipman, “The Mennonite Selbstschutz in the Ukraine: 1918–1919” (Master of Arts thesis, University of Manitoba, 1988), 140, https://mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca/xmlui/handle/1993/3535. See also “Nonresistance on Trial, or Selbsterlebtes u. Selbstschutz: Molotschna Mennonite Settlement, 1918–1919,” 2, no date, from Mennonite Library and Archive, Bethel College, KS, https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/289_74771_Se48.pdf.

Note 4: Jacob C. Toews, “Biography of Jacob Cornelius Toews, 1882–1968,” translated by Frieda Toews Baergen (Leamington: Essex-Kent Mennonite Historical Association), 28, https://www.ekmha.ca/collections/files/original/9856b7fca8c0ab6fdaa861245404166e.pdf.

Note 5: Cf. DZOT, no. 106 (October 10, 1918), 4; no. 134 (November 13, 1918), 2f.; no. 143 (November 1918), 2f.

Note 6: Cf. Graf Stauffenberg, Friedensstimme 16, no 45 (August 1918), 3; and Abraham Kröker, “Vergiß nicht!,” Friedensstimme XVI, no. 47 (August 31, 1918), 2; Diary of Anna Baerg, 1916–1924, translated and edited by Gerald Peters (Winnipeg, MB: CMBC Publications, 1985), 29.

Note 7: “Nonresistance on Trial, or Selbsterlebtes u. Selbstschutz,” 2.

Note 8: “Nonresistance on Trial, or Selbsterlebtes u. Selbstschutz,” 2; Lawrence Klippenstein, “Mennonites and Military Service in the Soviet Union to 1939,” in Challenge to Mars: Essays on Pacifism from 1918 to 1945, edited by Peter Brock and Thomas P. Socknat, 3–20 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 7; John B. Toews, editor and translator, Mennonites in Ukraine amid Civil War and Anarchy, ed. Mennonites in Ukraine amid Civil War and Anarchy (1917–1920): A Documentary Collection (Fresno, CA: Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 2013), 97.

Note 9: John B. Toews, “The Origins and Activities of the Mennonite Selbstschutz (1918–1919),” Mennonite Quarterly Review 46, no. 1 (1972), 5–40; 17.

Note 10: Cited in Heinrich B. Unruh, Fügungen und Führungen: Benjamin Heinrich Unruh, 1881–1959: Ein Leben im Geiste christlicher Humanität und im Dienste der Nächstenliebe (Detmold: Verein zur Erforschung und Pflege des Russlanddeutschen Mennonitentums, 2009) 139f.

Note 11: Cited in H. Unruh, Fügungen und Führungen, 141. In comparison, as early as 1743 most Dutch Mennonites no longer referred to themselves as “defenseless Christians” (as in the longer title of the Martyrs Mirror); rather, they were Christians who did-not-take-revenge or use violence for an offensive attack or war. They did however allow the use of counter-violence to ward off unjust violence, and had no problem delivering their goods on armed carriages, mounting cannons on their own ships and—in some cases—even carrying a weapon when travelling outside of the city (cf. Simeon F. Rues, Aufrichtige Nachrichten von dem Gegenwärtigen Zustande der Mennoniten oder Taufgesinnten wie auch der Collegianten oder Reinsburger [Jena, 1743], 103f., https://books.google.ca/books?id=aqBdAAAAcAAJ).

Note 12: Gerhard Wiens, in Irmgard Epp, ed., Constantinoplers—Escape from Bolshevism (Victoria, BC: Trafford, 2006), 47f.

Note 13: “Nonresistance on Trial, or Selbsterlebtes u. Selbstschutz.”

---

To cite this page: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, "Russian Mennonites and German troop withdrawal, Advent 1918," History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), January 21, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/russian-mennonites-and-german-troop.html.

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