"Day of Commemoration for Heroes": Rosenort Mennonite Congregation, West Prussia, 1941

I have yet to visit the former Mennonite congregations in Poland; it is on my bucket list. And when I do it will done with great humility. Poles suffered greatly because of Nazi Germany. Prussian Mennonites sided firmly and enthusiastically with the racial politics of the Reich and its goals for a reorganized Europe under German leadership.

Here is the Sunday program for the 1941 Rosenort Mennonite Heldengedenktag: Day of Commemoration for Heroes, March 1941 (Third Sunday of Lent). In addition, the file has other write-ups and photos of fallen congregational members for the denominational paper (below).

The congregation's lead pastor (Elder) Ernst Regehr had been a Nazi Party member since 1931. This was not unusual for Prussian Mennonite congregations, and there was nothing in a decade to temper their enthusiasm.

In 1941 the Rosenort cemetery had a large memorial stone for twenty-one fallen congregational soldiers in World War 1 (see pic); likely that was destroyed in World War 2. But in 1941 with the victory over France complete, this Mennonite congregation was ready to celebrate and honour--even in their grief--the sacrifice of their dead and especially of their Führer.

The sermon (pic below) leaves no doubt: Hitler is perceived by Regehr and his Mennonite community as an amazing gift of God. I have attached only a partial translation of Regehr's sermon.

As the sermon continues, he freely intermixes quotes from scripture and from Hitler. Those who preach semi-regularly in Mennonite congregations today, may rightly ask: What in the world has happened here? Regehr knows scripture well and the congregation is generally pious and doctrinally orthodox.

In the post-war years Regehr was again elected as elder in Uruguay, where many Danzig-Prussian Mennonites fled and resettled (note 1).

It is a sober part of our history, especially for those with a family connection to West Prussia in the twentieth century. It is also an opportunity for the "healing of memories."

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Source: "Stoff für den Mennoniten Gemeindekalender 1941," Box 1, 1-7, Nachlaß Abraham Braun, Mennonitische Forschungsstelle Weierhof.

Note 1: See Mark Jantzen articles in GAMEO, https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Regehr,_Ernst_(1903-1970); also https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Rosenort_Mennonite_Church_(Rosenort,_Pomeranian_Voivodeship,_Poland). A German translation is found in MennLex V, http://www.mennlex.de/doku.php?id=art:regehr_ernst.

See multiple previous posts, including: https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/danzig-west-prussian-mennonites-as-nazi.html; ALSO https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/holoca ust-remembrance-day-january-27.html; ALSO https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2022/09/prof-benjamin-unruh-and-mccs.html.

---

To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “Day of Commemoration for Heroes": Rosenort Mennonite Congregation, West Prussia, 1941,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), July 13, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/07/day-of-commemoration-for-heroes.html.

Comments

Swiss and Palatinate Connections

Sometime after 1850 Andreas Plennert and his family immigrated to South Russia from the Culm Region of West Prussia. Though there was at least one Mennonite “Plehnert” who had already immigrated to Russia in 1793, it is not a very common Prussian-Russian Mennonite name. As such, however, it is easier to trace than many and offers a minority narrative and identity within the longer and broader Russian Mennonite story. The account below is adapted largely from information in Horst Penner, Die ost- und westpreußischen Mennoniten , vol. 1, though I have expanded upon his work to offer a slightly different narrative. In 1724 there was a group of Mennonites forced out of the Memel region in East Prussia for political and religious reasons and were given assistance to resettle back to West Prussia in areas populated by Mennonites. Among the 23 households that went to the Stuhm region there is one Plenert listed, namely Christian Plenert. We know that Mennonites entered the Memel region ...

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 ...

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...

Mennonites in Danzig's Suburbs: Maps and Illustrations

Mennonites first settled in the Danzig suburb of Schottland (lit: "Scotland"; “Stare-Szkoty”; also “Alt-Schottland”) in the mid-1500s. “Danzig” is the oldest and most important Mennonite congregation in Prussia. Menno Simons visited Schottland and Dirk Phillips was its first elder and lived here for a time. Two centuries later the number of families from the suburbs of Danzig that immigrated to Russia was not large: Stolzenberg 5, Schidlitz 3, Alt-Schottland 2, Ohra 1, Langfuhr 1, Emaus 1, Nobel 1, and Krampetz 2 ( map 1 ). However most Russian Mennonites had at least some connection to the Danzig church—whether Frisian or Flemish—if not in the 1700s, then in 1600s. Map 2 is from 1615; a larger number of Mennonites had been in Schottland at this point for more than four decades. Its buildings are not rural but look very Dutch urban/suburban in style. These were weavers, merchants and craftsmen, and since the 17th century they lived side-by-side with a larger number of Jews a...

Invitation to the Russian Consulate, Danzig, January 19, 1788

B elow is one of the most important original Mennonite artifacts I have seen. It concerns January 19. The two land scouts Jacob Höppner and Johann Bartsch had returned to Danzig from Russia on November 10, 1787 with the Russian Immigration Agent, Georg von Trappe. Soon thereafter, Trappe had copies of the royal decree and agreement (Gnadenbrief) printed for distribution in the Flemish and Frisian Mennonite congregations in Danzig and other locations, dated December 29, 1787 ( see pic ; note 1 ). After the flyer was handed out to congregants in Danzig after worship on January 13, 1788, city councilors made the most bitter accusations against church elders for allowing Trappe and the Russian Consulate to do this; something similar had happened before ( note 2 ). In the flyer Trappe boasted that land scouts Höppner and Bartsch met not only with Gregory Potemkin, Catherine the Great’s vice-regent and administrator of New Russia, but also with “the Most Gracious Russian Monarch” herse...

Jews and Mennonites Together in Danzig's Suburbs

There has been very little reflection on the relationship of Jews and Mennonites in the suburb of Schottland (or Alt-Schottland or Stare Szkoty) where Mennonites first settled in the mid-1500s. Here Mennonites and Jews lived in the small community together for two centuries, quite literally on the margins outside the gates of the city of Danzig. Many historic maps that include Alt Schottland have become available in recent years ( note 1; pic ). H.G. Mannhardt’s book on the Danzig Mennonite church community plus some archival membership lists are our best sources for the Mennonite experience, while illustrations from the day bring many of those episodes of prosperity, repressions, war, plague, emigration, flooding etc. in an urban environment to life ( note 2 ). Peter J. Klassen’s writings on Mennonites in Poland and Prussia also present newer research on Mennonite life in and around Danzig in helpful ways ( note 3 ). There is one small sentence in Klassen’s larger volume that sugg...

Polish-Prussia? Royal Prussia? West Prussia? Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth? Notes for Clarification

The historical jurisdictions, names and political powers under which Mennonites lived since their arrival in lands that are today Poland are difficult to keep straight. However they are important for telling the story right. This post simply provides some notes for orientation with reference to the late sixteenth-century map below. Polish- or Royal Prussia comes into being with the defeat of Teutonic Knights by the Polish Crown in 1466. See the pink-shaded area of the map below. Ducal Prussia is a fiefdom of the Kingdom of Poland after 1525 (see stiped on map). In 1618, this duchy (voivodeship) is inherited by Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg, who separated it from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1657. After 1701, the Elector of Brandenburg is the “King of Prussia” when in that territory. With the First Partition of Poland in 1772, it becomes East Prussia . By 1569 Polish- or Royal Prussia was fully integrated into Kingdom of Poland and part of the larger Polish-Lithuanian...

Russian Mennonites: A People of Peace and a People of Witness

One way of explaining well who a certain group of people is, is by looking at the unique set of questions they kept on asking, generation after generation. What peculiar issues did Russian Mennonites (or earlier in Prussia) keep struggling with in each new context? What were their experiments as community? Of course the answers differed in each place and time, and the arguments were divisive. Some experiments failed. Utterly. Below are two basic sets of questions that Mennonites asked over and again in each generation in Russia/Ukraine. The questions, I would suggest, were unique to their experience; that is, the other Christian communities in their context--Lutheran, Pietist, Catholic and Orthodox--were asking different sets questions First, and perhaps least surprising, Mennonites in Russia/Ukraine kept asking / being concerned about non-resistance, about being a people who took those New Testament admonitions of peace seriously, and did not return evil for evil, seek revenge o...

The Selbstschutz (Self-Defence Units) and Benjamin H. Unruh

Abram Kröker, editor of the Molotschna (South Russia/ Ukraine) -based Mennonite Friedensstimme , wrote that Mennonites are “predestined to foreshadow … even in an imperfect way, the great peace among nations in the Thousand-Year-Reign [of Christ].” And among all denominations, “it has pleased God,” according to Kröker, to “present and manifest” through the Mennonites this “pearl of evangelical truth gained at great cost by our fathers” ( note 1 ). And it is because of this theological hope and inheritance that “our youth are raised differently,” Kröker reminded his readers; “not military bravery or fighting are presented as the highest civic virtues, but rather sacrifice, suffering and renunciation for the sake of others. In all our schools, non-resistance is explicitly taught and impressed [upon students] according to the Mennonite catechism” ( note 2 ). But taking up arms in self-defence was nuanced differently by his colleague and influential 37-year-old teacher and theologian Benja...

Snapshots of Danzig Mennonites, late 1600s & early 1700s

A picture can be worth a thousand words. We do not have photographs, but we have a few colour paintings of life in and around Danzig in the late 1600s and early 1700s, as well as maps. We also have a limited number of "textual snapshots" of Mennonites at this time and place, which offer an instructive window into that foreign world. These snapshots of work, worship, health, education, community relationships, smaller repressions, and security can contribute to the creation of a larger collage of Mennonite life in Danzig and Polish Prussia. Snapshot 1 : In 1681 there were approximately 180 Mennonite families who lived in the “gardens” or villages outside Danzig, with 113 of those families within the jurisdiction of the city. At this time Mennonites were barred from owning houses within the walls of the city. Of these 113 family heads, we know: 43 were retailers of spirits, 24 merchants, 9 lacemakers, 7 dyers, 3 silk dyers, 3 pressers, 2 brokers, 2 treasurers, 2 waitresses, et...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog