Danzig-West Prussian Mennonites as Nazi Party “Local Group Leaders,” 1941

Danzig-West Prussian Mennonites generously embraced and cared for the religious and political challenges faced by Mennonites on the “trek” out of Ukraine (1943-44). A year later the Prussians would also flee the advancing Soviet armies, losing all. Memoirs capture that trauma—including multiple family suicides with weapon or poison (note 1). After the war many settled in Uruguay and later in Canada as well. Siegfried Bartel—a Mennonite Prussian military captain—became an evangelist for non-resistance in his later years (note 2).

More recently historian Colin Neufeldt has explored his mother’s family story in an essay on “Mennonite collaboration with Nazism.” His “Ratzlaff family” was from the Mennonite community of Deutsch-Wymyschle (annexed Poland). Writing was difficult “especially when your family is on the wrong side of history and actively collaborated with the Nazis,” Neufeldt confessed (note 3). These Mennonites in Poland were among the first to be “liberated” by the German Reich.

A church directory of German Mennonites including Danzig-West Prussians was published in 1936 (note 4). Prussian enthusiasm for National Socialism was especially strong. An “overwhelming majority of elders and ministers in West Prussia and Danzig” are “members of the [Nazi] Party,” Russian Mennonite leader Benjamin Unruh boasted to officials in 1938, and “as Party members they wear the swastika on their chest with pride and joy,” according to denominational chair and lead minister in Elbing, Emil Händiges (note 5). These church leaders oriented co-religionists coming from Ukraine into the strange new world of Nazi Germany, instructed them in faith, and baptized them.

Recently I found a list of Danzig-West Prussian Nazi Party “Local Group Leaders” and compared it with the church directory (note 6). To my surprise the former is full of active, baptized Mennonites.

NSDAP (Nazi) Party leadership at the local level was in the hands of these “Local Group Leaders.” Cell and Block Nazi Party Wardens reported to their respective Local Group Leader. The local ideological training leader, the propaganda leader, the press leader, agricultural leaders, and the heads of the local chapters of Party women's organizations, Hitler Youth and League of German Girls, local Party members, etc. also reported to the Local Group Leader (see attached organizational chart). The Local Group Leader was obligated to monitor the ideological formation and orientation of all “leaders” within his area, with the responsibility to carry out Party priorities, the right of surveillance, the right to forbid or approve measures, meetings or activities, etc., according to the best interests of the Party, and charged to unite those under him into a cohesive corps (note 7).

In each of these roles the "political" and local administrative typically were fused into one person. Under the Group Leader, Party "Block Wardens" would, for example, encourage every household to subscribe to the Party’s monthly educational paper for political and ideological training, with topics, e.g., on genetics and keeping German blood pure, on Jews as scapegoats for Germany’s loss in World War, the importance of racial division and hierarchy, and on most subjects of the Party’s platform—and report back to the Group Leader (note 8).

Nazi Party “Local Group Leaders” in Danzig-West Prussia in 1941 who were baptized members of Mennonite congregations included:

Cornelius Dyck (Ladekopp; Heubuden Mennonite)
Gustav Fieguth (Simonsdorf; member of Heubuden Mennonite)
Albert Neufeldt (Rückenau; member of Heubuden Mennonite)
Hermann Neufeld (Groß Mausdorf; member of Heubuden Mennonite)
Gustav Sprunk (Wotzlaff; member of Heubuden Mennonite)
Walter Willms (Mühlbanz; member of Heubuden Mennonite)
Johannes Warkentin (Altmünsterberg; member of Tiegenhagen Mennonite)
Helmuth Klaassen (Tiegenort; Tiegenhagen Mennonite; baptism not confirmed)
Cornelius Dyck (Tiegenhagen; Member of Ladekopp Mennonite)
Ulrich Goertz (Falkenau; member of Tragheimerweide Mennonite)
Georg Unrau (Bonhöf; member of Tragheimerweide Mennonite)
Rudolf Janzen (Schwansdorf; member of Thiensdorf-Pr. Rosengart Mennonite)
Horst Ewert (Linde; member of Schönsee Mennonite)
Hans von Riesen (Neumünsterberg; member of Fürstenwerder Mennonite)
Georg Kerber (Montau; member of Montau-Gruppe Mennonite)
Heinrich Kopper (Dragaß; member of Montau-Gruppe Mennonite)
Albert Schroeder (Ligowo; member of Montau-Gruppe Mennonite)
Emil Wiebe (Münsterwalde; member of Danzig Mennonite)
Johannes Wiens (Altfelde; unable to confirm which Johannes Wiens)
Johannes Wiens (Jankendorf; unable to confirm which Johannes Wiens)

Other typical Mennonite names on the 1941 list of Danzig-West Prussian Nazi Party “Local Group Leaders” and who were also located in historic Mennonite communities include:

Gustav Bachman (Pelplin)
Günther Boese (Wandau)
Walter Dau, (Hohenstein)
Heinrich Dück (Dobrin)
Otto Funk (Kurzeback (Mewischfelde)
Emil Lemke (Reinland; Fürstenwerder)
Otto Lemke (Schöneberg)
Willi Peters (Lipno, Czernikowo)
Franz Reimer (Neukirch; Elbing)
Hans Reimer (Graudenz)
Erich Siebert (Markushof)
Heinrich Töws (Schöneich, Kulm)
Friedrich Unruh (Danzig)
Fritz Wiebe (Lipno)
Werner Wiens (Rosenort).

I have not been able to confirm the families and congregations of the individuals in the second list.

Background: After 1933, elected German state or provincial bodies were effectively replaced by 36 Nazi Party regional administrative districts--or the Gau system. Each Gau was led by a high-ranking Party official with near autocratic power, responsible to Hitler directly.

With the invasion of Poland and the Free City of Danzig in September 1939 two new Gaue (plural) were added to the Reich: Wartheland (or Warthegau) and Danzig-West Prussia (eventually a total of 43 Gaue). The Gau Deputy Leader for Danzig-West Prussia until 1939 was Otto Andres, member of the Tiegenhagen Mennonite Church and also Party District Leader (i.e., very powerful).

Each Gau was subdivided into districts (Kreise), each with a ranking Party member as District Leader (Kreisleiter), responsible to carry out the instructions of the Gau Leader. Danzig-West Prussia had 31 Party districts. Walter Neufeldt was Leader for the Marienburg Party District, and in 1941 District Leader for the Großes Werder as well. He was a member of the Heubuden Mennonite congregation. In his first speech in Danzig in 1939, Hitler asked Neufeldt about the Mennonites and was tasked to put together a briefing (note 9).

Under each District Leader were Local Group Leaders (Ortsgruppenleiter; 503 in the Gau in total) and below them, 2,938 Party “cells,” broken down further into “blocks,” each with their own Leader (see diagram).

Danzig-West Prussian Mennonites were involved at each level of Nazi Party leadership. Colin Neufeldt has given an example for Mennonite historians and families on how to explore this difficult chapter. Mennonite memoirs of the “trek” out of Ukraine in 1943-44 and the embrace by Prussian Mennonites are typically silent about the political entanglements of their co-religionists as well. I expect that materials like those above from Polish archives will continue to become more accessible in the years ahead. Greater scrutiny and honesty in telling this period of Mennonite history is overdue.

--Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: As reported by Mennonite and former Party “Local Group Leader,” Gustav Fieguth: https://archive.org/details/ErichKernVerbrechenAmDeutschenVolkEineDokumentationAlliierterGrausamkeiten/page/n115/mode/2up?q=tiegenhof.

Note 2: Siegfried Bartel, Living with Conviction: German Army Captain Turns to Cultivating Peace (Winnipeg, MB: CMBC Publications, 1994), https://www.cmu.ca/docs/cmupress/CMU-BARTEL-Living-with-Conviction.pdf.

Note 3: Colin Neufeldt, “Mennonite collaboration with Nazism: A Case Study,” in European Mennonites and the Holocaust, edited by Mark Jantzen and John D. Thiesen, 172–201 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020), 192. See also idem and W. Marchlewski, "Divided loyalties: The political radicalization of Wymyśle Niemieckie Mennonites in interwar Poland (1918-1939)," Rocznik Teologiczny 64, no. 1 (2022), 175-229, http://rocznikteologiczny.eu/app/uploads/2022/05/rt_2022_06.pdf.

Note 4: See Christian Neff, ed., Mennonitisches Adreßbuch (Weierhof, 1936), https://mla.bethelks.edu/holdings/scans/Mennonitisches%20Adressbuch/; also individual 1935 congregational lists: https://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/prussia/.

Note 5: “Bericht über die Verhandlung im Braunen Haus in München betreffend die Regelung der Eidesfrage,” recorded by Gustav Reimer [deacon, Heubuden], July 4, 1938, 3; also Emil Händiges to Vereinigung Executive, June 23, 1938; in Vereinigung Collection, File Folder 1938, Mennonitische Forschungsstelle Weierhof.

Note 6: “Neues Anschriftenverzeichnis der Kreise und Ortsgruppen der NSDAP, Gau Danzig-Westpreußen,” Verordnungsblatt der NSDAP Gau Danzig-Westpreußen 5, no. 6 (June 1941), 8-37, https://pbc.gda.pl/dlibra/publication/117319/edition/104759/content.

Note 7: For the tasks of the Nazi Party’s Group, Cell, and Block Leaders, see: “Menschenführung und -betreuung in der Ortsgruppe der NSDAP,” Schulungsbrief 8 & 9 (1938), 319-325, https://archive.org/details/nsdap-schulungsbrief-1938-08-09/page/n52/mode/1up (includes organizational pics as well). See also related Wikipedia entry: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struktur_der_NSDAP#Ortsgruppenleiter.

Note 8: See the various of issues of the Party’s Schulungsbrief, https://archive.org/search?query=schulungsbrief&sort=-date.

Note 9: Diether Götz Lichdi, Mennoniten im Dritten Reich. Dokumentation und Deutung (Weierhof/Pfalz: Mennonitischer Geschichtsverein, 1977), 180 n.62, https://archive.org/details/mennonitenimdrit0000lich/.

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To cite this page: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “Danzig-West Prussian Mennonites as Nazi Party ‘Local Group Leaders,’ 1941,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), May 9, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/danzig-west-prussian-mennonites-as-nazi.html.

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