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 also barred from living within the safety of the city gates. Both were under the jurisdiction of the Catholic bishop, who also profited from e.g., Mennonite competition with the guilds of Danzig. A small monastery was also constructed around this time between Schottland and the city walls. In the neighbouring hamlet of Nobis the local pub is noted (Der Nobis Krug).

Illustration 3, with the Bischofs-Berg (Bishop's Mount) in the background right, is from the early 1600s. The first literary product of the Danzig Mennonite congregation was from this period—a handsome reprint of a Dutch Bible, known as the "Scottish" (Schottländische) Bible of 1598.

Illustration 3b, 1617, shows a world of activity in and around Schottland and neighbouring Petershagen, and also the quarrying of the Bishop's Mount.

Illustration 4 offers a beautiful view of Schottland looking out from the Danzig city walls, mid-1600s. It appears to be a prosperous community. We know that wealthier members of the Danzig congregation (mostly living in Schottland) sent their young adult children to Amsterdam to complete their education, learn a business, and receive catechetical instruction and baptism.

In 1648 the Flemish Mennonites were given permission by the city to build a church building—its front likely indistinguishable from a house—and hospice. To that point most of its members lived in Schottland. The Frisians were able to purchase land for their meeting place in 1638.

In 1656 Schottland was razed by the city as a precaution in the war with Sweden (Curicken, 368), but by 1681 some 180 Mennonite families were living in suburbs of Danzig again (Mannhardt, 105; H. Penner II, 41).

The 1709 plague took some 24,533 lives in and around Danzig. The small Flemish Mennonite congregation centred in Schottland lost 154 members and 141 younger adherents. The "Lehn Diary" notes that 146 Mennonites were buried in the Schottland fields; 223 individuals were buried in Hoppenbrug, immediatelybehind Schottland; Jews in Schottland buried 94 of their own; 185 Catholics were buried in the Jesuit cemetery behind Schottland; 364 plague deaths were recorded in neighbouring Petershagen, and 2,063 in Ohra.

Map 5 jumps ahead 80 years to 1734, just prior to the siege of the city by the Russians. Again, it shows the prosperity and urban density of Schottland, Ohra, Langfuhr, and Stolzenberg where Mennonites were living.

Map 6: 1740; depicts in deep red the destroyed buildings of Schottland after the Russian siege in 1734. By the 1760s Schottland is completely rebuilt; illustration 6b offers another beautiful view of the village from the "Lege" or "New" Gate into the city.

After 1800 Mennonites were permitted to become citizens and moved increasingly into the city.

Map 7 and Map 8, 1807, show the nicely rebuilt and vibrant Mennonite communities just prior to the siege of Danzig by the French.

Illustration 8b depicts the intensity of the French bombardment of the city and generally how the suburbs were razed in advance. Danzig soldiers dismantled and destroyed all buildings within 800 paces of the city walls, which included the Frisian Mennonite church building in Neugarten and their hospice. The larger Flemish Mennonite church and its new organ and hospice were not destroyed, but were set aflame in 1815 in an attack on the city by Russian forces. In 1808 after two centuries of division, the congregations had merged (the division however continued in Russia).

Map 9: by 1822, Mennonite life in Alt-Schottland had come to an end. Alt Schottland, Ohra, Stolzenberg are labelled as burnt out and "lying in ruins“ after the French siege in 1807.

Illustration 10, ca. 1890s, is a photograph of the Danzig Mennonite Church and parsonage under the Bishop's Mount.

There are other maps and other depictions of life in Danzig, especially from the mid-1600s (see source for illustration 4). Danzig was a large, wealthy, beautiful and strategically important city. Proud citizens, friends and foes alike had reasons to map it out! Fortunately these artefacts also help us to piece together a little bit of Mennonite life "in the suburbs."

---Text by Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Sources and Links---

Map 1: From Karl Stumpp, “Karte der Siedlungen in Danzig-Westpreußen, aus denen Mennoniten in den Jahren 1789–1807 nach Rußland ausgewandert sind,” in idem, The emigration from Germany to Russia in the years 1763 to 1862 (Lincoln, NB: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1973), appendix, https://archive.org/details/emigrationfromge00stum/page/1039/mode/1up.

Map 2: “1615 inset” of an 1815 map of Danzig, http://maps.mapywig.org/m/City_plans/Central_Europe/Situations_Plan_von_der_Stadt_und_Festung_Danzig_1815_Rolle_30L.jpg?fbclid=IwAR2ao8i3XlZ3vMsDRW93EVfQTvYdh_AA0dwIwXFHHwiLz5kHjlqzLOwEug4.

Illustration 3: ca. 1600, https://gdansk.fotopolska.eu/1716151,foto.html?s=0.72&cx=3642&cy=1805.

Illustration 3b, 1617, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021670734.

Illustration 4: mid-1600s, from Reinhold Curicken, Der Stadt Dantzig: Historische Beschreibung (Amsterdam/ Dantzigk: Janssons, 1687), 32 [63], https://pbc.gda.pl/dlibra/publication/61987/edition/55645/content.

Map 5: 1734, https://gdansk.fotopolska.eu/Gdansk/b25605,Mapy_i_plany,72,48.html?f=780245-foto.

Map 6a: 1740, https://gdansk.fotopolska.eu/367411,foto.html.

Map 6b: 1760-1764, https://download.cloudgdansk.pl/gdansk-pl/t/202206191744.jpg.

Map 7: 1807, https://gdansk.fotopolska.eu/717711,foto.html?s=1&cx=4291&cy=1904.

Map 8: 1807, https://gdansk.fotopolska.eu/Gdansk/b25605,Mapy_i_plany,72,48.html?f=780245-foto.

Illustration 8b: 1807, https://gdansk.fotopolska.eu/Gdansk/b33823,Panoramy_Gdanska,24,48.html.

Map 9: 1822, https://gdansk.fotopolska.eu/Gdansk/b25605,Mapy_i_plany,120,48.html?f=672473-foto.

Illustration 10: 1890s, https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Danzig_Mennonite_Church_(Gdansk,_Poland)#/media/File:Gdansk_mennonici_02_137.jpg.

---References for Further Reading---

“Jesuiten in Danzig,” https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuiten_in_Danzig.

Klassen, Peter J. A Homeland for Strangers. An Introduction to Mennonites in Poland and Prussia. Rev’d ed. Fresno, CA: Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1989. https://archive.org/details/ahomeland-for-strangers-an-introduction-to-mennonites-in-poland-and-prussia-revised-ocr.

———. Mennonites in Early Modern Poland and Prussia. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.

Lehn, Waldemar Henry, ed. “Lehn Diary.” Transliteration from the gothic script and translation, 2010. From Mennonite Heritage Archives, Winnipeg, MB.

Mannhardt, Hermann G. Die Danziger Mennonitengemeinde. Ihre Entstehung und ihre Geschichte von 1569–1919. Danzig, 1919. https://archive.org/details/diedanzigermenno00mannuoft.

———. "Danzig Mennonite Church (Gdansk, Poland)." https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Danzig_Mennonite_Church_(Gdansk,_Poland).

Penner, Horst. Die ost- und westpreußischen Mennoniten in ihrem religiösen und sozialen Leben in ihren kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Leistungen. Teil 2, 1772–bis zur Gegenwart. Kirchheimbolanden: Self-published, 1987.

“Stare-Szkoty (Alt-Schottland),” https://www.gdansk.pl/turystyka-w-gdansku/wielokulturowa-tozsamosc-miasta-gdanska/stare-szkoty,a,223126.

Comments

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...

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 ...

Formidable Fräulein Marga Bräul (1919–2011)

Fräulein Bräul left an indelible mark on two generations of high school students in the Mennonite Colony of Fernheim, Paraguay. Former students and acquaintances recall that Marga Bräul demanded the highest effort and achievements of her students, colleagues and of herself—the kind of teacher you either love or hate but will never forget! In March 1947, Marga was offered a position at the Fernheim Secondary School ( Zentralschule ). A recent refugee to Paraguay from war-torn Europe, she taught mathematics, physics, and chemistry. In 1952, she was the only female faculty member ( note 1 ). Marga wedded a strong commitment to academics with a passion for quality arts and crafts. She provided extensive extra-curricular instruction to students in handiwork and was especially renowned for her artwork—which included painting and woodworking— end of year art exhibits with students, theatre sets, and festival decorations. Marga’s pedagogical philosophy was holistic; she told Mennonite ed...

Shaky Beginings as a Faith Community

With basic physical needs addressed, in 1805 Chortitza pioneers were ready to recover their religious roots and to pass on a faith identity. They requested a copy of Menno Simons’ writings from the Danzig mother-church especially for the young adults, “who know only what they hear,” and because “occasionally we are asked about the founder whose name our religion bears” ( note 1 ). The Anabaptist identity of this generation—despite the strong Mennonite publications in Prussia in the late eighteenth century—was uninformed and very thin. Settlers first arrived in Russia 1788-89 without ministers or elders. Settlers had to be content with sharing Bible reflections in Low German dialect or a “service that consisted of singing one song and a sermon that was read from a book of sermons” written by the recently deceased East Prussian Mennonite elder Isaac Kroeker ( note 2 ). In the first months of settlement, Chortitza Mennonites wrote church leaders in Prussia: “We cordially plead ...

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...

“We have no poor among us”: From "Blue Bag" to e-Transfer

Through not unique or original to Menno Simons, the idea of watching and caring for fellow travellers on the journey of faith “where no one is allowed to beg” ( note 1 ) was a pillar of his teaching, and forms one of the most consistent threads in the Anabaptist–Mennonite story. In the decades before Mennonites settled in Russia they used the “Blue-Bag” to collect for the poor in Prussia. In 1723 Abraham Hartwich—an otherwise unsympathetic observer of Mennonites—noted that Mennonites in Prussia “do not allow their co-religionists to suffer want, but rather help them in their poverty from the so-called blue-bag, their fund for the poor” ( note 2 ). It is unclear when the “blue-bag tradition” changed? Similarly, in the early 1800s, two Lutheran observers—Georg Reiswitz and Friedrich Wadzeck—noted that the Mennonite care for their poor through annual free-will contributions was “exemplary” ( note 3 ). Moreover Reiswitz and Wadzeck describe a community stubbornly committed to each ot...

Catherine the Great’s 1763 Manifesto

“We must swarm our vast wastelands with people. I do not think that in order to achieve this it would be useful to compel our non-Christians to accept our faith--polygamy for example, is even more useful for the multiplication of the population. … "Russia does not have enough inhabitants, …but still possesses a large expanse of land, which is neither inhabited nor cultivated. … The fields that could nourish the whole nation, barely feeds one family..." – Catherine II (Note 1 ) “We perceive, among other things, that a considerable number of regions are still uncultivated which could easily and advantageously be made available for productive use of population and settlement. Most of the lands hold hidden in their depth an inexhaustible wealth of all kinds of precious ores and metals, and because they are well provided with forests, rivers and lakes, and located close to the sea for purpose of trade, they are also most convenient for the development and growth of many kinds ...

“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 ...

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...

Ukraine Independence--Russian Aggression--German Interests (1918)

The semi-autonomous Ukrainian People's Republic was established shortly after Russia's February Revolution in 1917. Much was still fluid, however. After the October Bolshevik Revolution the Central Rada of Ukraine in Kyiv declared full state independence from the Russian Republic on January 22, 1918. The Ukrainian People's Republic negotiated an end to its participation in Great War, and on February 9, 1918 signed a protectorate treaty in Brest-Litovsk. On February 17, Ukraine appealed to Germany and Austria-Hungary for assistance to repel Russian Bolshevik “invaders,” to detach Ukraine from Russia, and to establish conditions of stability. The World War had not yet ended. Imperialist Germany was desperate for grain and natural resources from Ukraine, eager to end the war in the east while containing Russia, and determined to establish post-war markets for German goods, technologies and influence ( note 1 ). For its part the Russian Bolshevik regime was eager to save ...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog