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.

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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.