All Quiet on the Western Front

I recently viewed the 2023 Academy Award winning film, All Quiet on the Western Front.

As an undergraduate I read the novel in German and now watched it in German as well. It is rated R for “strong bloody war violence and grisly images”—which really is the case. It is not pro-war, however, but unfolds and displays the futility of patriotism and strong national pride. Though written by a German and published in Berlin, it was among the first books burned by the Nazis in 1933.

While watching the film my ears popped up when the lead character shouted in German for a Sanitäter (medic); I had to think of Germany’s “eastern front”.

Russia experienced as many military casualties as France (upwards of 1.5 million each) in WW1 and even more civilian casualties. Some 7,000 Russian Mennonites were on that front as Red Cross Sanitäter/ medics, including both my grandfathers. Our best source for stories is the edited collection: “Onsi Tjedils”: Ersatzdienst der Mennoniten in Rußland unter den Romanows. A sample:

“We carried the wounded from the front … and loaded between 300 and 400 wounded soldiers at a time. … To help these men somewhat, to alleviate their need and to say a kind word, that was our task. … We had one orderly who would read a chapter from the Gospels to the wounded in each load.” (Note 1)

In All Quiet on the Western Front the older schoolmaster gave a passionate patriotic speech in praise of the glory of Germany, encouraging his 18 year-old students not to wait for the draft, but to enlist immediately in service of the Fatherland.

The portrayal reminded me of the Hamburg-Altona (Germany) Mennonite pastor and denominational leader Hinrich van der Smissen—and his “talk” to Mennonite soldiers and medics in Germany six years before the start of WW1. Van der Smissen was an ardent German nationalist and helped to promote connections between Germany and Germans abroad, in particular, with Mennonites in North America and Russia. He was well connected with Chortitza elder D. H. Epp, and had visited Russia. In a larger article for a popular German geographical journal, he boasted of the flourishing Mennonite colonies now spread across Russia which “in language, essence and character” have all “remained German” (note 2).

Van Smissen’s talk is appended to a booklet produced by the Soldiers’ Commission of the Conference of South German Mennonites entitled, Warnings and Advice while in the Military.

The booklet advised young Mennonite soldiers that the military can be “a good school in obedience, punctuality, love for orderliness and cleanliness,” and can strengthen one’s health and steel one’s body (note 3; p. 6). All of the moral dangers are also noted, but the commission’s concern was that Mennonites in the military do not boast about their service or “lose the best which one has, namely a pure and pious heart” (p. 28).

Pastor van der Smissen tells his readers how he eagerly served the “Fatherland” as a medical orderly in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and (boasts) of those formative experiences in service of God and country. He would have been known to Russian Mennonites studying in Germany/Switzerland at this time, including Benjamin Unruh and the mid-wife Helene Berg (note 4).

Van der Smissen encouraged the young men with heroic stories of how it was when he served as medic under military command.

“Whoever was fit, literally rushed to be included in the multitudes that went out to the borders to protect the fatherland from the hordes of the French Turks and Zuaves ... . Was it any wonder that a young student of 18, who with his friends had joyfully and wholeheartedly celebrated the love of the fatherland in his songs, felt nothing else in himself but the burning desire to give his best, and if need be his life, for the fatherland with the rest of his classmates? ...

Indeed, the horrors of war confronted us in horrible form as soon as we took our first step into enemy territory. And we understood that war is a bloody trade and leaves much misery and sorrow in its wake. … We had the great privilege of knowing however that our way of serving the fatherland was also a very necessary and beneficial one.” (Note 5).

For young Mennonites in the Russian Empire, the option to go to the front was also much more popular than the alternative—forestry service. The experience of horrific conditions forced the medics to mature quickly. In a letter to his young wife, one Mennonite Sanitäter wrote:

"A freight train had just pulled up next to ours with approximately 1,000 wounded soldiers, who lay in filthy freight cars terribly overcrowded. … The men had built fires directly on the floors, never mind the smoke that filled the car. These poor fellows just wanted to be warm. There were no bedsteads; the floors were covered with horse manure. For four days they had eaten nothing. When we gave them bread, they devoured it as ravenously as wild animals. You simply can’t imagine it." (Note 6)

Unfortunately the best Russian Mennonite playwright of the era, J. H. Janzen, did not write a novel of those experiences; the above could make for compelling episodes in a movie as well.

We know the returning Russian Mennonite medics were more than ready for a generational change in leadership after all they had seen and experienced. Some of their leaders too old to serve on the front now seemed to them too defensive of the status quo at home, too pompous, assertive, and impressed with what they thought they knew of the world (e.g., critique of Benjamin Unruh; note 7). The movie expressed the same for the returning German soldiers.

Van der Smissen’s patriotic words in 1908 mirrored that old world view--albeit for German Mennonites--that had now been shattered. For Van der Smissen and his generation there is something normal in war with opportunities for personal growth. His pastoral challenge does not go further than to be disciplined, do one’s duty, be courageous, give a good moral example to comrades, fear God, and keep from unnecessary cruelty—and then return to normal life after the battle's end.

“It is honorable and gives evidence of good upbringing when civilized and human behaviour characterizes you even in such extraordinary times. One can even say it is a Christian's duty and high privilege to set a good example for your comrades and ... to show that in addition to military discipline our conscience and fear of the holy God keeps us from any unnecessary cruelty and raw behaviour. We have to prove our heroic courage in places where one faces death and can be called away from life at any moment. Our endurance should prove itself in hardships; but when the roar of battle is over, we are also human beings and Christians in our quarters and must act like such.” (Note 8)

The point of All Quiet on the Western Front was the lesson learnt by Mennonites on the eastern front as well, I think. With the sheer carnage and brutality of the Great War, the idea that a military response to conflict might still be a noble enterprise carried out with dignity, restraint and morality for the fatherland was fatally wounded. Normal had ended for them. In Russia the immediate consequence was revolution, the abdication of the Tsar, and everything but normal (note 9).

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: A. Bergmann, in Waldemar Günther, David P. Heidebrecht and Gerhard J. Peters, eds., “Onsi Tjedils”: Ersatzdienst der Mennoniten in Rußland unter den Romanows (Yarrow, BC: Self-published, 1966), 73. See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/mennonite-medical-orderlies-in-world.html. See also Russian Empire video of Sanitäter, https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxOoI3IKhVIfoPa_GVSsK9T4USuX0WLd2e AND; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVNJGaBQTSc, see 4:13 to 5:34.

Note 2: See my related post (forthcoming); Hinrich Van der Smissen, “Entwickelung und jetziger Stand der deutschen Mennonitenkolonien in Südrußland,” in Dr. A. Petermanns Mitteilungen aus Justus Perthes’ Geographischer Anstalt, vol. 44, edited by A. Supan, 169–174 (Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1898), 174, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk274.pdf. On Van der Smissen, see GAMEO, https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Smissen,_Hinrich_van_der_(1851-1928).

Note 3: Konferenz Süddeutscher Mennoniten Soldaten-Kommission, Warnungen und Winke für die Militärzeit (Kaiserslautern: Lösch und Behringer, 1908), https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/warnungen_und_winke.pdf.

Note 4: See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/03/motherhood-of-people-halbstadt-midwife.html.

Note 5: Warnungen und Winke für die Militärzeit, 29f., 36.

Note 6: Nicolai Rempel in a letter to his wife Katharina, in Teodor Rempel, ed., Letters of a Mennonite Couple, Nicolai and Katharina Rempel: Russia, World War I, and the Revolution, 1914-1917 (Winnipeg, MB: Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 2014), 18f.

Note 7: See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2022/09/how-should-mennonites-organize.html. Key source: “A Mennonite Witness to Revolution. Johann G. Rempel’s Memoir of Moscow, March–June 1917,” translated with notes by David G. Rempel; edited with an introduction and conclusion by James Urry, Mennonite Quarterly Review 91, no. 3 (July 2017), 201–230.

Note 8: Warnungen und Winke für die Militärzeit, 58.

Note 9: See previous posts.

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...

The Jewish Colony (Judenplan) and its Mennonite Agriculturalists

Both Jews and Mennonites in Russia were dependent on separation, distinct external appearance, unique dialect, inner group cohesion, international familial networks, self-governing institutions, a sojourner mentality, sense of divine mission, and a view of the other as unclean or dangerous. Each had its distinct legal privileges, restrictions, and duties under the Tsar, and each looked out for their own. For both, moderation, spiritual values, family, learning and success were important, and their related dialects made communication possible. But the traditional occupation of eastern European Jews was as “middlemen” between the “overwhelmingly agricultural Christian population and various urban markets,” as peddlers, shopkeepers and suppliers of goods ( note 1 ). Jews were forbidden to stay for longer periods in German colonies or to erect houses or shops there. “If they try to stay, they are to be reported immediately. If they are not, the German mayor will be held responsible” ( no...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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