Skip to main content

When Mennonite Agencies withdraw support from star player: Benjamin Unruh, 1938

In 1938 Mennonite Central Committee took the decision to significantly reduce their support of Benjamin Unruh’s work in Germany as of August 1, and Dutch Mennonites announced the same effective January 1, 1939. What to do? Ask the Nazi Party and government agencies to make up the difference (note 1)! On December 3, 1938, Unruh made the following pitch:

“Germany generously and magnanimously helped our [Mennonite] organizations, on my intercession, to overcome the manifold difficulties connected with such a large movement of people [beginning 1923] in such critical times. ... The fact that finally all Mennonite synodal and national associations formally appointed me as their representative in the field of Russian-German welfare (Fürsorge), had its deeper reason especially in the success of my activity in Germany. … You see that I stand in the center of the global Mennonite [relief] work. However, I have always done this as a German man and not only as a representative of my denomination and not only for the Mennonites. I must not conceal the fact that my consciously Volks-German oriented activity has met with some difficulties among the non-German Mennonites. … The inhibitions of the Dutch and Americanized Mennonites, which they have to a certain extent towards a distinctly Volk-German and not merely denominationally-oriented welfare (Fürsorge), do not flow from a bad, malicious attitude, but from prejudices, which will have to be overcome little by little. … It is quite embarrassing for me to have to accept material support from non-German Mennonites, given my unshakably firm ethnic-German standpoint. I would be overjoyed if there were any way to reduce my material dependence [on them] to a minimum. … I do not think that it is out of line if I approach the Party and the state via the V.D.A. (Association for German Culture Abroad), the Cultural Department of the Foreign Affairs Office, and the Ethnic German Liaison Office [the SS agency overseeing work of DAI] with the humble request that they might wish to assist me, in view of my decades of untiring and selfless ethnic German work, so that I can continue my work, which is still so necessary, as independently as possible from the non-German Mennonites … [My request] comes from a deep sense of responsibility, a thoroughly pure attitude, and the strong will to serve the poorest of the ethnic Germans, the Russian Germans, as members of the great German people, whom our Führer calls to join together in new community. Heil Hitler! Your very devoted, B.H. Unruh.”

Background:

Unruh had been a critical instigator of MCC beginnings, organized care for 1920s immigrants held back with medical issues, was solely responsible for the 1929-30 release of thousands of Mennonites gathered in Moscow and the beginnings of Fernheim Colony, Paraguay, and had facilitated the delivery of thousands of relief packages during the great Ukrainian famine of 1933-34. Thousands owed their lives and/or freedom to Unruh. Moreover, Unruh had significantly reduced the massive debt owed to the German Reich for Paraguay resettlement in 1930, and negotiated interest forgiveness for 1937 and 1938 as well (note 2). For more than 15 years, Unruh’s Karlsruhe office was a clearinghouse for relief efforts for Soviet Mennonite refugees and victims of famine and repression. German Mennonite leaders were angered with their Americans and Dutch co-religionists, but were committed “not to let Unruh fall, especially not now” (note 3).

Unruh was a scholar with a robust vision for an Anabaptist-Mennonite church (note 4). Yet American colleagues now wondered out loud if Unruh was an “agent of Berlin.” Such malicious opposition was coming largely from “the Jewish press,” Unruh surmised to Canadian leader and friend David Toews, Chair of the Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization. Unruh suspected that the “boundless ignorance” and “folly” of Americans goes hand-in-hand with American exceptionalism (note 5). 

Memorable Unruh quotes however were easy to find: “‘I am 100 percent for Hitler,’ Unruh said … comparing Hitler to the District Mayor (Oberschulze) in south Russia, who was typically a man of action, who brought the Mennonite settlements to the peak of development, and was perhaps not always the most pious. Hitler is the man for Germany, whom the German Volk has to thank for its prosperity today” (note 6).

Financial support for Unruh’s office from USA and Holland had been confirmed at the 1936 Mennonite World Conference (note 7). But now Unruh warned that authorities in Berlin would “not understand” if Mennonites abroad ceased to support his work (note 8). Moreover MCC was—stunningly—distancing the organization from any responsibility for the massive Paraguay transportation debt to Germany as well (note 9). Rather than turn their back, MCC should see the work of his office as “a kind of mission station for the poorest of the poor in our brotherhood, namely the congregations in Russia,” Unruh argued (note 10).

MCC did not know what to do with Unruh’s ideological leanings. “Being true to God implies being true to one’s Volk,” as Frank H. Epp summarized Unruh’s many Bote arguments (note 11). Unruh’s pro-German articles to the Canadian and Paraguayan Mennonite press did not land well with American MCC leadership. In Paraguay enthusiasm for the Reich was high, which Unruh encouraged (note 12). “Recently [1937] I received a letter from a preacher from Fernheim … He is not a political man. But as our fathers in Holland supported the work of William of Orange in spirit and deed ... [and] as the Russian-German Mennonites looked up to Alexander I in deepest veneration and love ... so also a deep, great gratitude for Adolf Hitler has blossomed in many Russian-German Mennonite hearts [in Paraguay]. They will and want to prove themselves …not only as Christians but also as good German people” (note 13). 

Unruh self-identified as a “convinced Christian and a convinced National Socialist” (note 14), and had been a Party donor for five years. He was not alone. An “overwhelming majority” of Prussian Mennonite ministers were Party members (note 15); the same was true in pious Bavaria (note 16) as well as liberal Krefeld (note 17). Their praise for the Führer and his “peace” bordered on fanaticism (note 18). At denominational gatherings Unruh prayed publicly for the state and Führer (note 19), convinced that “Hitler’s spirit is open to the gospel” (note 20). Mennonite commitment to a “separation of church and state” was “also in the spirit of our Führer and his book Mein Kampf!,” as Unruh instructed young adult men (note 21).

American Mennonite concerns in 1938 echoed their government’s growing anger. The US recalled its ambassador November 14, just days after Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) and the new “Decree on the Elimination of the Jews from Economic Life.”

Unruh now turned to Party and government agencies; they knew and had supported his work with Russian-Mennonite relief and resettlement for years. Because of those efforts, Unruh was made an executive member of the prestigious Association for German Culture Abroad (Verein [Volksbund] für das Deutschtum im Ausland, VDA) in 1932 (note 22), awarded the Order of Merit First Class from the German Red Cross (note 23), and given an honorary doctorate from the University of Heidelberg (note 24). Unruh was also named a councillor of the German Foreign Institute (Deutsches-Auslands Institut, DAI) in Stuttgart, and member of the Central Office for Kinship Studies of Germans Abroad (Hauptstelle für Auslanddeutsche Sippenkunde).The DAI endeavored to strengthen the racial and cultural ties between Germans living abroad and the Fatherland.


With American and Dutch Mennonite support failing, in December 1938 Unruh made the pitch above to the VDA and the German Foreign Affairs Legation Counsellor Dr. Kundt. This letter offers an important window onto one of the most important and complex Mennonite figures in the twentieth century. 

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Cf. Benjamin H. Unruh to District Advisor (Gebietsreferent) for Latin America, [Ernst G.] Kienitz, Volksbund für das Deutschtum im Ausland, December 3, 1938 (B. H. Unruh Nachlaß, Box 3, File 18; undated fragment, pp. 3-5, Mennonitische Forschungsstelle Weierhof (hereafter MFStW). Note: Missing 2 pages are in File 13, December 3, 1938, Unruh to Volksbund f. d. Deutschtum im Ausland. For further background on Unruh, see 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.

Note 2: D.R.d.F., 26 October 1938, from BArch R 2/11822, vol. 2, Reichsfinanzministerium, 1931–1942, 327, from Bundesarchiv, https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/79493e59-9bf4-4b08-a091-ddca426897fd/. 

Note 3: Abram Braun to Vereinigung Executive, 1 August 1938, 1f., file folder 1938, Vereinigung Collection, Mennonitische Forschungsstelle Weierhof (MFStW).

Note 4: Benjamin H. Unruh, “Das Wesen des evangelischen Täufertums und Mennonitentums,” Mennonitische Jugendwarte 17, no. 1 (February 1937), 6–15, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennonitische%20Jugendwarte/DSCF9305.JPG.

Note 5: Benjamin H. Unruh to David Toews, 14 September 1938, 3, letter, Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization Records, vol. 1315, B. H. Unruh Collection, 1936–1938, file from Mennonite Heritage Archives (MHA).

Note 6: N. J. Neufeld, “Unsere Rückreise von Europa nach Amerika,” Mennonitische Rundschau 59, no. 47 (November 18, 1936), 13, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_416/unruh_bh_writings_by/SKMBT_C35108052209050_0001.jpg. Neufeld was travelling from Winnipeg, Canada.

Note 7: John D. Unruh, In the Name of Christ: A History of the Mennonite Central Committee and its Service 1920–1951(Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1952), 341; 355n.

Note 8: Benjamin H. Unruh to O. Miller, 29 July 1938, 2, letter, MCC CPS and other Correspondence, 1931–39, file 1, from MCC-A.

Note 9: Cf. Orie O. Miller to Benjamin H. Unruh, letter, June 24, 1938, MCC Akron, “Mennonite Central Committee CPS and other Corr 1931 - 39 File 1 Unruh BH Reports 1938.”

Note 10: Benjamin Unruh to Orie Miller, letter, July 7, 1938, MCC Akron, Mennonite Central Committee CPS and other Corr 1931 - 39 File 1 Unruh BH Karlsruhe Germany 1938.

Note 11: Frank H. Epp, “An Analysis of Germanism and National Socialism in the Immigrant Newspaper of a Canadian Minority Group, the Mennonites, in the 1930’s,” PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1965, 227, 228, 229.

Note 12: H. C. Büsing, Excerpt from Report of the German Embassy in Asunción, Paraguay, on the Paraguayan Mennonite Colonies, June 20, 1938, Akten des Auslandsamt. Fernheim Mennonite Archives, Paraguay, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_416/fernheim_archives/SKMBT_C35108043009400_0007.jpg.

Note 13: Benjamin H. Unruh, “Die Kulturleistungen der Mennoniten in aller Welt” [June 1937], Mennonitische Blätter 87, no. 4 (July 1940),27, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennonitische%20Blaetter/1933-1941/DSCF1401.JPG.

Note 14: Benjamin H. Unruh to Vereinigung Executive, May 27,1937, Otto Schowalter Nachlaß, Correspondence 1929-1945, MFStW.

Note 15: Report on presentation by Benjamin H. Unruh and Daniel Dettweiler at the Brown House, Munich, July 4, 1938, p. 3, Vereinigung Collection Folder 1938, MFStW.

Note 16: Karl Würtz to Benjamin H. Unruh, December 7, 1938, letter, Vereinigung Collection Folder 1938, MFStW.

Note 17: Cf. Gustav Kraemer, Wir und unsere Volksgemeinschaft 1938 (Krefeld: Consistorium der Mennonitengemeinde Krefeld, 1938), https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/books/1938,%20Kraemer%20Wir%20und%20unsere%20Volksgemeinschaft/.

Note 18: E.g., see Emil Händiges (denominational chair and editor), “Ein doppeltes Reichs- Erntedankfest 1938,” Mennonitische Blätter 85, no. 11 (November 1938), 1, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennonitische%20Blaetter/1933-1941/DSCF1277.JPG.

Note 19: Mennonitische Blätter, 84, nos. 7 & 8 (July / August, 1937), 57, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennonitische%20Blaetter/1933-1941/DSCF1160.JPG.

Note 20: Benjamin H. Unruh to Christian Neff, letter, October 5, 1936, Otto Schowalter Nachlaß, Correspondence 1929-1945, MFStW.

Note 21: Adolf Schnebele, Mennonitische Jugendwarte 19, no. 2 (April 1939), 32, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennonitische%20Jugendwarte/DSCF9475.JPG.

Note 22: Mennonitische Blätter 79, no. 7 (July 1932), 64, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennonitische%20Blaetter/1927-1932/DSCF0792.JPG.

Note 23: Mennnonitische Blätter 79, no. 11 (November 1932), 96, https://dlibra.bibliotekaelblaska.pl/dlibra/publication/25894/edition/24751/content.

Note 24: Mennonitische Blätter 84, no. 10 (October 1937), 72, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennonitische%20Blaetter/1933-1941/DSCF1179.JPG.

---

To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “When Mennonite Agencies Withdraw Support from Star Player: Benjamin Unruh, 1938,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), July 23, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/07/when-mennonite-agencies-withdraw.html.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Executioner of Dnepropetrovsk, 1937-38

Naum Turbovsky likely killed more Mennonites than anyone in the longer history of the Anabaptist-Mennonite movement. This is an emotionally difficult post to write because one of those men was my grandfather, Franz Bräul, born 1896. In 2019, I received the translation of his 30-page arrest, trial and execution file. To this point my mother never knew her father's fate. Naum Turbovsky's signature is on Bräul's execution order. Bräul was shot on December 11, 1937. Together with my grandfather's NKVD/ KGB file, I have the files of eight others arrested with him. Turbovsky's file is available online. Days before he signed the execution papers for those in this group, Turbovsky was given an award for the security of his prison and for his method of isolating and transferring prisoners to their interrogation—all of which “greatly contributed to the success of the investigations over the enemies of the people,” namely “military-fascist conspirators, spies and saboteurs.” T
Post a Comment
Read more

Village Reports Commando Dr. Stumpp, 1942: List and Links

Each of the "Commando Dr. Stumpp" village reports written during German occupation of Ukraine 1942 contains a mountain of demographic data, names, dates, occupations, numbers of untimely deaths (revolution, famines, abductions), narratives of life in the 1930s, of repression and liberation, maps, and much more. The reports are critical for telling the story of Mennonites in the Soviet Union before 1942, albeit written with the dynamics of Nazi German rule at play. Reports for some 56 (predominantly) Mennonite villages from the historic Mennonite settlement areas of Chortitza, Sagradovka, Baratow, Schlachtin, Milorodovka, and Borosenko have survived. Unfortunately no village reports from the Molotschna area (known under occupation as “Halbstadt”) have been found. Dr. Karl Stumpp, a prolific chronicler of “Germans abroad,” became well-known to German Mennonites (Prof. Benjamin Unruh/ Dr. Walter Quiring) before the war as the director of the Research Center for Russian Germans
Post a Comment
Read more

Prof. Benjamin Unruh as a Public Figure in the Nazi Era

Professor Benjamin H. Unruh (1881-1959) was a relief and immigration leader, educator, leading churchman, and official representative of Russian Mennonites outside of the Soviet Union throughout the National Socialism era in Germany. Unruh’s biography is connected to the very beginnings of Mennonite Central Committee in 1920-1922 when he served as a key spokesperson in Germany for the famine-stricken Mennonites in South Russia. Some years later he again played the central role in the rescue of thousands of Mennonites from Moscow in 1929 and, along with MCC, their resettlement in Paraguay, Brazil, and Canada. Because of Unruh’s influence and deep connections with key German government agencies in Berlin, his home office in Karlsruhe, Germany, became a relief hub for Mennonites internationally. Unruh facilitated large-scale debt forgiveness for Mennonites in Paraguay and Brazil, and negotiated preferential consideration for Mennonite relief work to the Soviet Union during the Great Famin
Post a Comment
Read more

"Women Talking" -- and Canadian Mennonites

In March 2023 the film "Women Talking" won an Oscar for "Best adapted Screenplay." It was based on the novel of the same name by Mennonite Miriam Toews. The conservative Mennonites portrayed in the film are from the "Manitoba Colony" in Bolivia--with obvious Canadian connections. Now that many Canadians have seen the the film, Mennonites like me are being asked, "So how are you [in Markham-Stouffville, Waterloo or in St. Catharines] connected to that group?" Most would say, "We're not that type of Mennonite." And mostly that is a true answer, though unnuanced. Others will say, "Well, it is complex," but they can't quite unfold the complexity.  Below is my attempt to do just that. At the heart of the story are things that happened in Ukraine (at the time "New" or "South" Russia) over 200 years ago. It is not easy to rebuild the influence and contribution of "Russian Mennonite" women and th
Post a Comment
Read more

The Shift from Dutch to German, 1700s

Already in 1671, Mennonite Flemish Elder Georg Hansen in Danzig published his German-language catechism ( Glaubens-Bericht für die Jugend ) as preparation for youth seeking baptism. Though educational competencies varied, Hansen’s Glaubens-Bericht assumed that youth preparing for baptism had a stronger ability to read complex German than Dutch ( note 1 ). Popular Mennonite preacher Jacob Denner (1659–1746), originally from the Hamburg-Altona Mennonite Church, lived in Danzig for four years in the early 1700s. A first volume of his Dutch sermons was published in 1706 in Danzig and Amsterdam, and then in 1730 and 1751 he published two German collections. Untrained preachers would often read Denner’s sermons: “Those who preached German—which all Prussian preachers around 1750 did, with the exception of the Danzig preachers—had no sermons books from their co-religionists other than this one by Jacob Denner” ( note 2 ). In Danzig and the Vistula Delta region there were some differences
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more

“The way is finally open”—Russian Mennonite Immigration, 1922-23

In a highly secretive meeting in Ohrloff, Molotschna on February 7, 1922, leaders took a decision to work to remove the entire Mennonite population of some 100,000 people out of the USSR—if at all possible ( note 1 ). B.B. Janz (Ohrloff) and Bishop David Toews (Rosthern, SK) are remembered as the immigration leaders who made it possible to bring some 20,000 Mennonites from the Soviet Union to Canada in the 1920s ( note 2 ). But behind those final numbers were multiple problems. In August 1922, an appeal was made by leaders to churches in Canada and the USA: “The way is finally open, for at least 3,000 persons who have received permission to leave Russia … Two ships of the Canadian Pacific Railway are ready to sail from England to Odessa as soon as the cholera quarantine is lifted. These Russian [Mennonite] refugees are practically without clothing … .” ( Note 3 ) Notably at this point B. B. Janz was also writing Toews, saying that he was utterly exhausted and was preparing to
Post a Comment
Read more

Plague and Pestilence in Danzig, 1709

Russian and Prussian Mennonites trace at least 200 years of their story through Danzig and Royal Prussia, where episodes of plague and pestilence were not unfamiliar ( note 1 ). Mennonites arrived primarily from the Low Countries and in large numbers in the middle of the 16th century—approximately 750 families or 3,000 refugees and settlers between 1527 and 1578 to Danzig and Royal Prussia ( note 2 ). At this time Danzig was undergoing tremendous demographic, cultural and economic transformation, almost tripling in population in less than 100 years. With 80% of Poland’s foreign trade handled through this port city ( note 3 ), Danzig saw the arrival of new people from across Europe, many looking to find work in the crammed and bustling city ( note 4 ). Maria Bogucka’s research on Danzig in this era brings the streets of the maritime city to life: “Sanitation facilities were inadequate … The level of personal hygiene was low. Most people lived close together: five or six to a room, sle
1 comment
Read more

The Tinkelstein Family of Chortitza-Rosenthal (Ukraine)

Chortitza was the first Mennonite settlement in "New Russia" (later Ukraine), est. 1789. The last Mennonites left in 1943 ( note 1 ). During the Stalin years in Ukraine (after 1928), marriage with Jewish neighbours—especially among better educated Mennonites in cities—had become somewhat more common. When the Germans arrived mid-August 1941, however, it meant certain death for the Jewish partner and usually for the children of those marriages. A family friend, Peter Harder, died in 2022 at age 96. Peter was born in Osterwick to a teacher and grew up in Chortitza. As a 16-year-old in 1942, Peter was compelled by occupying German forces to participate in the war effort. Ukrainians and Russians (prisoners of war?) were used by the Germans to rebuild the massive dam at Einlage near Zaporizhzhia, and Peter was engaged as a translator. In the next year he changed focus and started teachers college, which included significant Nazi indoctrination. In 2017 I interviewed Peter Ha
Post a Comment
Read more

“First Arrival of German Troops in Halbstadt” (Volksfreund, April 20, 1918)

“ April 19, 1918 will always remain significant in the history of the Molotschna German Colony. That which until recently could hardly be imagined has occurred: the German military has arrived to free us from the despotism, rape and pillaging of barbarous people and to reestablish the order and security of life and property--something desperately necessary for our land. For this we give thanks above all to the One in whose hands the peoples and nations and also individuals rest. ...” ( Note 1 ) Mennonites greeted their “guests and liberators” with festivities that included baked goods (Zwieback), meats and even the German anthem “ Deutschland, Deutschland über alles "—all before the watchful eyes of their Russian /Ukrainian neighbours. The troops arrived by train; and to the shock of most present, three bound prisoners—all well-known bandits and terrorists—“were brought out of one of the railway cars without any prior notice, lined up and shot right in front of us” as an exampl
Post a Comment
Read more