Escaping Repatriation: Stalin’s Claw-Back, 1946

Like so many others, as Susanna Toews recalled in her little book Trek to Freedom that “[o]ur discussions always centred around the question, what the New Year had in store for us” (note 1).

The first Christmas after war’s end brought some early glimmers of normal life for those in the Western Military Zone of Germany. My Walter Bräul—a war-weary vet at age 17—attached wheels to the back of an old suitcase and made his “kid-sister” Käthe—my mother—a functional doll carriage. My grandmother found time and material to sew doll clothing. The joy was tempered by the fact that they had no word on the other boys: Franz Jr., Heinrich, or Peter. Though the war had ended seven months earlier, they did not know if and how long they would be able to stay in the village of Bonstorf (note 2), near Celle in the British Zone.

In February 1945, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt met secretly in Yalta and agreed that after the war Germany would be divided into three zones of occupation. Moreover, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to Stalin’s demand that citizens of the Soviet Union in all parts of Germany were to be repatriated--without consent and by force if necessary.

Soviet agents moved freely to locate their former citizens—including Mennonites. British and Americans troops offered logistical support. A confidential German Mennonite (Vereinigung) report to MCC in August 1945 confirmed the dire situation, that Soviet commissaries were attempting to force Russian Mennonites to return to the USSR.

“In spite of the fact that the British commandants have not yet given their consent, they proceed very rigorously … But the Mennonites do not want to go at all and there is a distress of which the anxious women are not able to master. Some of them have been taken to camps against their will.”

After a meeting with the British Commandants, a report nine days later confirmed:

“There is a possibility that many will be taken back to Russia by force, especially those who cannot defend themselves of the tricky and inconsiderate measures of the Russians. [However, the local mayors were] lending willing help to the Russians. They are trying to get rid of extra mouths to feed.” (Note 3)

By the end of September 1945, some 2,034,000 Soviet citizens in the British, American or French zones in Germany had been repatriated, and 2,946,000 from the Soviet zone (note 4).

In October things changed, and Allied Commander-in-Chief, General Dwight D. Eisenhower “ordered the discontinuance of forcible repatriation of Russian national,” but as Frank H. Epp notes, “the US State Department, concerned about cementing or retaining Soviet friendship, overruled Eisenhower’s instructions” (note 5). As a result there was confusion on the ground well into the new year.

Katie Friesen gives a vivid summary of the experience of those in the British Zone:

“Even though we were [naturalized] German citizens now, the Russian soldiers and agents came to the German towns and villages to search for former Russians. Soviet commissars were busily travelling from place to place holding meetings and urging the people to be ready when the truck would come to pick them up. Already, earlier in the summer, when we returned from the fields, we feared that there would be a Russian army truck waiting at the farm. We lived with this nagging fear, although I am quite sure that the [German host family] would not have easily given us up into the hands of the soldiers. They needed us and appreciated us, and we were grateful that we could reside with them, even though we were paid very little. Money was quite useless at the time because there was so little to buy. We became alarmed when we heard ... that the Russians had come to nearby Garssen to pick up Russian refugees but had been unable to find any. That made them quite furious and they assured the local people that they would get their people yet.” (Note 6)

After one such meeting my 17-year-old uncle Walter Bräul told his employer he had to quit. When asked why, he said he had to go back to the Soviet Union. “Do you want to go?” “Of course not,” said Walter. “Then you don’t have to. You stay with us as long as you wish.” Ex-soldiers were in greatest danger of forced repatriation—as Peter J. Dyck reported—however even in such cases Dyck found that the US and British sides would intervene, that is, “if the man can conclusively prove that he was forced into the Wehrmacht and the SS against his will” (note 7). That of course would almost always require the truth to be stretched to the extreme!

Some Mennonite refugees were ready to collaborate with the Soviets, hoping to impress the commissars with the numbers they could gather. Soviet officials with translators promised Mennonites their old homes and more. Uncle Walter remembered one such meeting at a school in a neighbouring village in which young Hans Dahl was asked politely by the commissar, “Don’t you want to go?” Dahl replied: “Why should I go back to Russia? You took my father to Siberia and he’s probably dead by now. And you’ll do the same to us. Why should I want to go with you?” With this reply the Soviet commissar lost his temper and lashed out at Dahl.

In Bonstorf on the famous Lüneburg Heath, where Oma, mom and sister Sarah lived, there were regular meetings which all adults were required to attend, including Hans Hilmer—host family father--and the mayor, who hosted another Mennonite family. Before one of these meetings Hilmer helped Oma and the other two Mennonite mothers in the village hide their children in a shepherd’s hut on the heath, fearing that other Soviet agents could search the homes and snatch the children while the adults were at their meetings.

My then eight-year-old mother remembers how afraid she, her sister, her cousin and the Bergen boys were that evening; the little windows of the hut were closed tight and the five children seemed to hear every noise in the forest that night. The Hilmers were very protective of their refugees; more than once they offered to hide my grandmother and children in their attic during the visits of Soviet agents who claimed these as “their” people (note 8).

This mix of fear and hope shaped the start of the new year 1946.

In these months MCC's secret plans were also taking shape—a Menno Pass to Holland (note 9), and MCC’s larger (and questionable) so-called “Dutch-Strategy” (note 10).

Of the approximately 35,000 Soviet Mennonites who had been resettled in Germany during the war years, only 12,000 ultimately escaped Stalin’s claw-back (note 11).

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Susanna Toews, Trek to Freedom: The Escape of Two Sisters from South Russia during World War II, translated by Helen Megli (Winkler, MB: Heritage Valley, 1976), 38.

Note 2: See previous post (forthcoming).

Note 3: Cf. Ernst Crous, co-chair, "Association (Vereinigung) of German Mennonite Congregations," Minutes translated for MCC, August 21, 1945, 4, from Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_108/36%20Correspondence%20Special%20service%20and%20trips%20MCC%20Europe%201946/007.jpg.

Note 4: Harry Loewen, Road to Freedom: Mennonites Escape the Land of Suffering (Kitchener, ON: Pandora, 2000), 34; for the broader tragedy, cf. Nikolai Tolstoy, Victims of Yalta: The Secret Betrayal of the Allies, 1944–1947 (New York: Pegasus, 1977).

Note 5: Frank H. Epp, Mennonite Exodus (Altona, MB: Friesen, 1962), 366.

Note 6: Katie Friesen, Into the Unknown (Steinbach, MB: Self-published, 1986), 101.

Note 7: Peter Dyck, “Memorandum on Mennonite Refugees in Germany as on July 25, 1946,” 3, MCC-Akron archives.

Note 8: Toews, Trek to Freedom, 36. On the Hilmer family and Bonstorf in the war, see an earlier post (forthcoming).

Note 9: See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/in-case-of-extreme-danger-menno-pass.html.

Note 10: See previous post (forthcoming).

Note 11: Ingeborg Fleischhauer, Das Dritte Reich und die Deutschen in der Sowjetunion (Stuttgart: Deutsches Verlags-Anstalt, 1983), 242, https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1524/9783486703344/html. Harry Loewen, “Of Suffering, Forgiveness, and Closure: Reflections on Russian Mennonite Experience,” Vision: A Journal for Church and Theology 8, no. 2 (2007), 48–54; 50, https://press.palni.org/ojs/index.php/vision/article/view/422/366.

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To cite this page: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “Escaping Repatriation: Stalin’s Claw-Back, 1946,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), May 10, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/escaping-repatriation-stalins-claw-back.html.