A-Cases and O-Cases. After the Trek, 1944

Some 35,000 Mennonites evacuated from Ukraine by the retreating Reich German military in 1943-44 applied for naturalization /citizenship once in German-annexed Poland (mostly Warthegau). The applications made through the “EWZ” (Einwandererzentralstelle) are easy to attain today (note 1). Much information may be new and useful for families; however just as much is disturbing, including the racial assessments, categorization, and separation of so-called “A-cases” from “O-cases.”

What are they? The EWZ files contain the application for naturalization made by the head of a family unit, the certificate of naturalization, and sometimes correspondence/ claims regarding property and possessions left behind in Ukraine. Each form contains information about the applicant’s spouse and children, as well as a genealogy listing parents and grandparents, and those of their spouse as well; racial background is calculated by percentage (!). Applicants were asked about their citizenship, their ethnic-national identification (Volkstumsbekenntnis), religion, language in the home, places of residence (and when), education, past affiliations with political parties, clubs, associations, military roles, honours, criminal prosecutions, and about relatives in the Reich. The applicant had to affirm their German-blood ancestry and the absence of any Jewish blood. Some applications include a handwritten brief autobiography and photo. The form includes the results of a mandatory “Health and Hereditary-Biological Examination" for health and purity of the “race.” A final "Opinion of the ethnic-nationality (Volkstums-) Expert” is given with the "naturalization and application placement decision"—either as an “A-case” or an “O-case” by Settlement Staff. A “desirability” index is also included for population increase; some Mennonite files have an official name change for the applicant or a child, from an “Old Testament” name to a “more acceptable” German name (note 2).

Valdis O. Lumans gives the “case decision” some context:

“A family passed through the examination gauntlet together, eventually receiving a composite evaluation. Families with farming backgrounds and positive racial and political evaluations were classified as O-cases (Ost [=east]), the elite of the resettlers, and assigned to the Warthegau as farmers to Germanize the Lebensraum [expanded territory that the German Reich believed Germans needed for their natural development].” (Note 3)

Lumans continues: "Those graded as less politically reliable, not German enough, of poorer racial stock, or unsuited for farming—including those with technical skills better utilized in the war industry than on a farm—became the A-cases (Altreich), designated to work inside the [old] Reich. Once classified, the resettlers awaited their final placement.” (Note 4)

As an example, two months after arriving in the Warthegau in March 1944, my grandmother and her children were assessed to be racially German and to have fully “preserved” the German language and culture. They were deemed an “O-case” for settlement in Warthegau. My mother’s 53-year-old aunt Katharina Bräul (#691296)—who had never married and who accompanied my grandmother (her sister-in-law) on the trek out of Ukraine—was deemed an “A-case” (note 5).

Mennonite leader Benjamin H. Unruh liked to remind officials that he was “unconditionally recognized” as the representative of the Mennonite resettler communities and congregations by the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood and Reichsführer-SS Himmler (note 6). As such, Unruh had access to all of the related offices and officials and was called upon to help settle the more difficult cases.

Himmler “regarded the O-cases as the elite and their placement in the Lebensraum as the highest honor. These S.S. builders of the new racial order assured the Volksdeutsche that their lives, in particular those of the O-cases, would assume great historical importance” (note 7). Accordingly, Unruh was also proud to report to the denominational Vereinigung executive that the Wartheland Nazi Party Governor (Gauleiter) Greiser had “firm intentions of giving land to farmers from the eastern zone, and he especially values Mennonite farmers” (note 8).

“There will be two groups of settlers, O-cases and A-cases. The one group, pure German, will be settled toward the east, but not the other group, for they must first become German. And that is also correct! For most mixed couples only speak Russian, the children too. If they were to come under the Russians again or in their proximity, Russian [language/culture] will become attractive. However if they are in the Reich and only amongst Germans, then they are compelled to become German, at least to make German their primary language.” (Note 9)

“A-cases” could include the elderly and infirm, but they were typically those who had lost their German identity and language, or those who had the language but who were “politically unreliable.” Not a few Mennonites in Ukraine had thrown their hats in with the Communist regime, for example. Unruh reported that the “denunciations” were a particularly difficult problem in the refugee camps, and that those accused by neighbours of collaboration with the Bolsheviks would be given “the opportunity to improve themselves; they will be naturalized for a probationary period, and if they do not prove themselves, then their fate will be severe” (note 10).

It was not unusual for already-traumatized families to become “splintered.” “A-case” Mennonites were normally settled at a distance from their “O-case” family members—or worse ("Abl" = Ablehnung, rejection). Unruh tried to get them placed near German Mennonite communities in the Old Reich, or better: to keep families together. “A whole series of cases, which were very difficult, have found their best settlement. A Mennonite man and woman have been appointed to a position at the EWZ Litzmannstadt, which is significant. The EWZ asked me to make submissions a little later on the matter of the A-cases ...” (note 11).

Unruh wrote to the denominational executive in July 1944:

"We will ask that the A-cases be reduced as far as possible by allowing the ‘splinter families’ and the infirm to join the O-cases as much as possible. The EWZ, however, is more skeptical about such an action. We should rather make a petition to the VoMi (Ethnic German Liason Office) and ask that the A-cases be settled together and, if possible, in the vicinity of our co-religionists. I think that both possibilities should be considered. ... The hereditary-biological cases, as we were told in the EWZ, could not be settled in Warthegau. As for the mixed [-race] cases, all our people are of the opinion that they should be placed in the Old Reich [for German-ization].” (Note 12)

There is nothing in my great-aunt Tina Bräul’s EWZ application file that indicates why she was assessed differently than all the others in her clan—a brother, an adult niece, cousins, in-laws. But she was allowed to stay in Warthegau near family in the town of Exin where she cooked for Polish labourers.

Those deemed “biological-genetically weak” were removed from families. Another aunt by marriage was worried that her mother could be “eliminated” if hospitalized because of her epilepsy (note 13). Albert Dahl of Marienthal remembered that some of their Mennonites simply “disappeared” upon arrival in Warthegau—the handicapped and mentally weak (note 14). This was consistent with the Racial Policy of the Reich, which assumed that the “rise and fall of a people’s culture depends above all on the maintenance, care, and purity of its valuable racial inheritance” (note 15).

None of this was inconsequential for Unruh’s application to the state to have the proposed “Mennonite Church (Gemeindekirche) in Wartheland” statutes /constitution approved. It would be a racially defined church without Christian responsibility, charity and service with Poles or Jews.

“The Volk-community of Greater Germany has cast its eye on us as experienced Mennonite farmers. They want to put our people to work when the victory is won. For our part we will need an unbroken Volk-community too. We are too devout not to know that it [the Volk-community] must be sustained and consecrated by Christian faith, not merely—but that too!—by [German] blood. … This is our historical duty in this historical hour!” (Note 16)

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

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Note 1: Cf. Mennonite Extractions/ Index of Mennonites Appearing in the Einwandererzentrallestelle (EWZ) Files," 1943-44, https://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/EWZ_Mennonite_Extractions_Alphabetized.pdf. Note: Women are listed by maiden name. A file can be requested from the Mennonite Historical Society of British Columbia, genealogy@mhsbc.com.  

Note 2: See Babette Heusterberg, “Personenbezogene Unterlagen aus der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus,” HEROLD-Jahrbuch, Neue Folge (Neustadt a.d. Aisch: Degener, 2000), 147-186, https://www.bundesarchiv.de/DE/Content/Publikationen/Aufsaetze/aufsatz-heusterberg-persbez-unterlagen-ns-zeit.pdf. On A-Cases and O-Cases, as well as hereditary-biological conditions, see also: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einwandererzentralstelle. For “determination of fit and desirability” for population growth (a Roman numeral, I to IV stamped on the form), as well as the pressure placed on families to eliminate their “Old Testament given names,” “especially among Mennonites,” see previous post (forthcoming).

Note 3: Valdis O. Lumans, “Reassessment of Volksdeutsche and Jews in the Volhynia-Galicia Narew Resettlement,” in The Impact of Nazism: New Perspectives on the Third Reich and Its Legacy, edited by Alan E. Steinweis and Daniel E. Rogers (Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), 94, https://books.google.ca/books?id=RZ7igJKC6YQC&lpg=PA94&dq=A-case%20volksdeutsche%20litzmannstadt&pg=PA94#v=snippet&q=A-cases&f=false.

Note 4: Lumans, “Reassessment of Volksdeutsche and Jews,” 94.

Note 5: Helene Thiessen Bräul, #A3342-EWZ50-A073(GRanDMA ##466431); Katharina Bräul, #A3342-EWZ50-A073 (GRanDMA #691296). Einwandererzentrale (Central Immigration Office), National Archives Collection Microfilm Publication A3342, Series EWZ, Washington, DC.

Note 6: Benjamin H. Unruh to Vereinigung Executive, “Vollbericht über die Lagerbesuche,” (January 7, 1944), 2b. From: Benjamin Unruh Collection, “Correspondence with Abraham Braun, 1930, 1940, 1944–45,” Vereinigung 1944, Mennonitische Forschungsstelle Weierhof (MFW). See also 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 (condensed in Intersections: MCC Practice and Theory Quarterly 9, no. 4 (Fall 2021), 17–27, https://mcc.org/media/resources/10441).

Note 7: Lumans, “Reassessment of Volksdeutsche and Jews,” 94.

Note 8: B. H. Unruh, “Bericht über Verhandlungen in Warthegau im März 1944” (March 30, 1944), 6b, Unruh-Braun Correspondence, MFW.

Note 9: B. H. Unruh, “Lagerbericht,” 3b.

Note 10: B. H. Unruh to Vereinigung Executive, “Vollbericht über die Lagerbesuche,” (January 7, 1944), 5b, Unruh-Braun Correspondence, MFW.

Note 11: B. H, Unruh to Vereinigung Executive, “Kurzbericht” (November 21, 1944), 1b, Vereinigung Collection 1944, MFW.

Note 12: B. H. Unruh to Vereinigung Executive, “Mein Bericht über meine zweite Reise in den Warthegau” (July 17, 1944), Vereinigung Collection 1944, MFW.

Note 13: Katharine Bräul Fast, interview with author, July 26, 2017.

Note 14: Albert Dahl, interview with author, July 26, 2017.

Note 15: In Anson Rabinbach and Sander Gilman, eds., The Third Reich Sourcebook (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 171.

Note 16: “Zur Tauffrage: Ergänzung I zur Einigungsfrage,” (January 31, 1944), 6b, from Unruh-Braun Correspondence, MFW, See also: “Satzung der Mennonitischen Gemeindekirche im Wartheland” (March 1944 Submission), from Vereinigung Collection, File Folder 1944, MFW. 

Newspaper scan: Eugen Petrull, “Von der Molotschna bis zur Warthe—160,000 Schwarzmeer- und Shitomir-deutsche kommen ins Wartheland,” Ostdeutscher Beobachter 6, no. 71 (March 12, 1944), 5, https://www.wbc.poznan.pl/dlibra/publication/125852/edition/134988/content.

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To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, "A-Cases and O-Cases. After the Trek, 1944," History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), May 23, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/p/a-cases-and-o-cases-after-trek-1944.html.