German Spies, Informants, and Mass Emigration in the 1920s

It is well known that Soviet secret police (GPU) spied and reported extensively on Mennonite communities in Ukraine from the early 1920s on (note 1). 

Less well known is that the German consulates in Kharkiv and Odessa were also gathering information confidential information on, and formulating opinions for, the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin about Mennonites. This included not only demographic information, but also Mennonite receptivity or resistance to the Bolshevist Revolution, on the Revolution’s impact on the economic, cultural and religious aspects of ethnic German settlements, their current attitudes and on Germany’s options for maintaining and strengthening “the German cultural islands” in Ukraine (note 2). Berlin had its own priorities in the Soviet Union; the impact of Bolshevism on the German-speaking Mennonites in Ukraine was important gauge to determine its strategies for intervention, support or non-involvement.

A Soviet Secret Police (GPU) report in 1925, for example, notes that they had intercepted German diplomatic mail with information about the Mennonites—i.e., on their organization, their emigration, and other intentions. Regarding Mennonite emigration, the intercepted German diplomatic letter notes:

“These prosperous peasants [Mennonites] were forced to leave [for Canada] not because of the last year’s crop failure [1924] and unfavorable prospects for this year’s harvest, but because of the realization that for a long time they will just be carrying out utopian ideas of communist theoretic economists. While the weakening of Germanism in Ukraine in connection with the emigration of the best German elements is sad, given the present sad situation and the unknown future, we should not oppose this aspiration as available materials show that Canadian Mennonites won’t transform into an Anglo-Saxon population and in general will preserve their Germanism.” (Note 3)

The GPU report adds that the German consulate’s concern around Germanism “is very characteristic and witnesses to the fact that the German government considers Mennonites as a base on which it can rely in the USSR” (note 4). This was not the only the time that the GPU intercepted German diplomatic mail about the Mennonites. But here it is curious that the German Foreign Ministry thought it could impede Mennonite immigration to Canada if it wished, but was convinced otherwise. Notably in 1924 the German Consul in Kharkiv—a trusted friend of B. B. Janz—sought an injunction with the chairman of the Ukrainian Council of People’s Commissars to block the mass evacuation of Mennonites. He told Janz that the Mennonite colonies “must remain because they are of great importance”—i.e., politically, for Germany (note 5).

The GPU in turn interpreted this diplomatic opinion as typical and a sign that Germany would also be relying on Mennonites as a base or outpost in the USSR as well. This Soviet perception of German intentions would continue—and not without cause. In 1929, for example with the massive flight of Mennonites to Moscow, Germany’s Ambassador Herbert von Dirksen outlined in a confidential memo the political value of ethnic Germans in Ukraine as a support base (Stützpunkt) for any future German ambitions, including the promotion economic and cultural ties (note 6). This assumptions of Germany’s intentions for ethnic German communities in Ukraine would have dire consequences for Mennonites in the 1930s after Hitler came to power.

Note too that the intercepted 1925 German consular correspondence expected that Mennonites would “preserve their Germanism” in Canada. This was an important political criterion. That view about the Mennonite ability to keep their German in Canada changed by 1929—at least from the perspective of von Dirksen (note 7).

Again in 1929--to Germany’s embarrassment and to the danger of Mennonites--much of this secret diplomatic correspondence had been leaked to Soviet sources by November (note 8). In particular, since the famine in 1922 Germany's priority was to give only enough aid to ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union to squelch any desire for mass emigration (note 9). This continued as policy in 1929.

At least six German consular reports to Berlin from Kharkiv or Odessa, written between May and September 1924, reviewed the situation and perspectives of Mennonites in Ukraine (note 10). In 1924, their consulate in Odessa estimated the ethnic Germans population in southern Ukraine to be about 300,000, including 30,000 in Crimea, 120,000 around Odessa, 50,000 in Bessarabia and another 100,000 in Prischib, Molotschna, Melitopol, Mariupol, Kronau etc., or 100,000 less than before the years of war, revolution and famine (note 11). For comparison, a Soviet source in March 1925 pinned the Mennonite population in Ekaterinoslav, Donetsk and Odessa gubernias at 56,894, residing in 173 villages (note 12).

With all of the above in mind, here is another 1924 piece of correspondence from the Kharkiv Consular Office to Berlin. The critique of Mennonite leadership and strategies as naïve is somewhat rich; their other correspondence in 1924 showed no signs of being any wiser about Soviet intentions than the Mennonites on the ground. 

A little background: on August 14, 1924, Janz wrote to the Mennonite immigration committees in North America—very openly and frankly, which would only have been possible with consular mail, which was likely read first by German diplomats (it was well known that Janz used German consular mail; note 13).

To fellow Mennonites abroad he wrote: “At the moment, the authorities seem to be serious about regulating the conditions in the colonies. And if this is really the case, it will be of great importance. Without going into more detail here, it should only be briefly said that it concerns the [additional] land question, the right to vote [for many who owned average size farms], the creation of German rayons (districts) with their own administration, then some rights of the Union [of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine, which Janz chaired; note 14], e.g. as an independent cooperation with its own fire insurance, its own ordinance for inheritance including orphan welfare. We will now have to wait and see what becomes deed and what is mere fog.” (Note 15)

The following consular letter mocks the Mennonite inability to see the obvious through "the fog"  (note 16).

“Consulate General. The German Plenipotentiary in Ukraine.

Kharkiv, September 25, 1924.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs [Berlin], received Oct. 10, 1924

The faint hope that the Mennonites pinned on the amalgamation of their villages around Halbstadt in order to form an autonomous [German language] administrative district for their economic, cultural and religious life was severely disappointed accordingly to a reliable, well-informed source.

As a result, the Mennonites plan to use all means at their disposal to oppose any further “rayonization” [Rayon =district], as the government of the USSR now intends to do with the settlements around Alexandrovsk.

They [the Mennonites] plan to take advantage of the resistance of local authorities and mostly Russian-speaking officials who will be replaced by [communist] German speakers, and thus become unemployed with rayonization.

The real intention which the government pursued with rayonization—according to the assessment of (my) an informant—has been to undermine the united front of the German-speaking Mennonite colonists by introducing [German-speaking] communist administrators and party workers and, under the guise of an outwardly liberal nationality policy [i.e., German language administration], to carry out hitherto unsuccessful Bolshevization.

This became immediately obvious after rayonization [earlier in year] and, even government officials who did not belong to the party had to laugh at the guilelessness and exceeding naiveté with which the Mennonites fell into the government's trap.

If under the previous Russian-Soviet administration, according to (my) an informant, taxes were the primary pressure tactic used to make the colonies more docile and life unpleasant, that has now changed with rayonization.

Before Russian-speaking officials could easily mistake an X for a U because of their ignorance of the German language; given their typical inclination to laziness as well, at least some arrangement or agreement could be found that could allow them to coexist in peace.

But with rayonization that has disappeared and German-speaking communists [administrators] have made their entry into the villages. They literally stuck their noses into everything and, in their ignorance of the living conditions of the colonists and of the country in general, they made life hell for them, especially because they aimed at the Bolshevization of the areas which had hitherto been inaccessible to Russian-speaking party workers.

The gift of rayonization was a trojan horse, and in order to turn things back as much as possible, in the Fall soviet elections Mennonites seek to replace the German-speaking communists who had been transplanted into their communities with the old Russian-speaking communists whom they knew from before.

To what extent the experiences of the Mennonite colonists coincide with those of the German colonists of the Prishib Rayon, I have not yet been able to determine. But likely they will not differ too much from these, especially since the experiences of rayonization by the German colonies around Odessa (Report of the Odessa Consulate No. 198 of September 12, 1924) agree with the experiences here.”

If Mennonites were naïve in this regard, then too the whole of Ukraine with the official upgrading of the Ukrainian language and culture which historians of Ukraine suggest was “purely intended to increase acceptance of the (actual Russian) party and … thereby increasing the legitimacy of Bolshevik rule” (note 17).

Nonetheless, it is quite astounding to see the level of interest that the German consulates in Kharkiv and Odessa had in observing the Mennonite experience—and the international intrigue, spying, the diplomatic gamesmanship behind that interest.

Berlin was an ally for Mennonites after the Revolution--but that only went so far. Their own political interests were always paramount. That said, in 1929/30 Foreign Affairs in Berlin had strong political reasons not to pursue Ambassador van Dirksen’s original recommendation and they brought out thousands of Mennonite refugees gathered at the gates of Moscow (note 18)—including two of my grandparents (and their siblings) and three great-grandparents. But they also dashed the hopes and plans of two other grandparents, expecting and hoping to leave for Canada in 1924.

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: See John B. Toews, With Courage to Spare: The Life of B. B. Janz, 1877–1964 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), 26, https://archive.org/details/WithCourageToSpareOCRopt.

Note 2: German Consulate in Odessa to German Foreign Affairs, September 12, 1924, letter, received October 2, 1924, from https://martin-opitz-bibliothek.de/de/elektronischer-lesesaal?action=book&bookId=via000273#lg=1&slide=0.

Note 3: “Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic State Political Board of the Council of People’s Commissars, City of Kharkov to Comrade Lobanov, City of Kharkov and Chairman of National Minorities Committee,” undated, probably late summer or early fall, 1925, in John B. Toews and Paul Toews, eds., Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine (1922–1927). Mennonite and Soviet Documents, translated by J. B. Toews, O. Shmakina, and W. Regehr (Fresno, CA: Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 2011), 317, https://archive.org/details/unionofcitizenso0000unse.

Note 4: Ibid.

Note 5: B. B. Janz interview with John B. Toews, in John B. Toews, The Lost Fatherland: The Story of the Mennonite Emigration from Soviet Russia, 1921–1927 (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1967), 162, https://archive.org/details/lostfatherlandst0000toew.

Note 6: Herbert von Dirksen, German ambassador, Moscow to Ministry of Foreign Affairs Berlin, August 1, 1929, in Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik 1918–1945, Serie B: 1925–1933, vol. XII (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978), 307, no. 141, https://digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb00045951_00005.html.

Note 7: Ibid.

Note 8: W. Zechlin to State Secretary of Foreign Affairs Schubert, November 14, 1929, in Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik, Serie B, XIII, 263f., no. 123, https://digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb00055363_00001.html. The leak was published in the Berlin-based pro-communist paper Die Rote Fahne (“Die Not der Deutschen in der USSR ein entlarvter Wahlschwindel!”), no. 231 (November 14, 1929), 1.

Note 9: Documented in Maria Köhler-Baur, “Die deutsche Berichtserstattung über die Rußlanddeutschen: ‘Der Auslandsdeutsche’ 1920–1929,” in Deutsche in Rubland und in der Sowjetunion 1914–1941, edited by A. Eisfeld, V. Herdt, and B. Meissner, 209–218 (Berlin: LIT, 2007), 209f.

Note 10: German Consulate in Kharkiv to Foreign Ministry in Berlin, May 16, 1924, https://martin-opitz-bibliothek.de/de/elektronischer-lesesaal?action=book&bookId=via000272#lg=1&slide=2; also June 26, 1924, https://martin-opitz-bibliothek.de/de/elektronischer-lesesaal?action=book&bookId=via000274#lg=1&slide=1; also August 7, 1924, https://martin-opitz-bibliothek.de/de/elektronischer-lesesaal?action=book&bookId=via000271#lg=1&slide=0; August 22, 1924, https://martin-opitz-bibliothek.de/de/elektronischer-lesesaal?action=book&bookId=via000273#lg=1&slide=0; September 12, 1924 (from Odessa Consulate), https://martin-opitz-bibliothek.de/de/elektronischer-lesesaal?action=book&bookId=via000273#lg=1&slide=2; September 25, 1924, https://martin-opitz-bibliothek.de/de/elektronischer-lesesaal?action=book&bookId=via000275#lg=1&slide=0.

Note 11: “German Consulate in Odessa to German Foreign Affairs,” September 12, 1924

Note 12: “Survey regarding land allocation among Mennonites in Ukraine, March 15, 1925,” in Toews and Toews, eds., Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine Union, 269.

Note 13: John B. Toews, With Courage to Spare: The Life of B. B. Janz, 1877–1964 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), 26, https://archive.org/details/WithCourageToSpareOCRopt.

Note 14: On the Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine, see Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine (above), and previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/1921-formation-of-union-of-citizens-of.html.

Note 15: “B. B. Janz to the Executive of the Mennonite Colonization Association, Rosthern, Kharkov, August 14, 1924,” in The Mennonites in Russia from 1917 to 1930: Selected Documents, ed. by John A. Toews, 428–439 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1975), 343, https://archive.org/details/the-mennonites-in-russia-from-1917-to-1930-selected-documents-ocr/page/343/mode/1up.

Note 16: German Consulate in Kharkiv to Foreign Ministry to Berlin, September 25, 1924, https://martin-opitz-bibliothek.de/de/elektronischer-lesesaal?action=book&bookId=via000275#lg=1&slide=0.

Note 17: Guido Hausmann, "Maps of the Borderlands: Russia and Ukraine," in The Shadow of Colonialism on Europe's Past, edited by Healy Róisín, and Enrico Dal Lago, 194-210 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 199.

Note 18: See previous posts, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/02/repression-thwarts-flight-from-ukraine.html; AND https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/christmas-with-refugees-1929.html; AND https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/03/death-of-refugee-children-as-political.html.