Outrage in Canada: Ukrainian in Waffen-SS honoured in Parliament. Mennonite Connections

As an historic peace church, Russian Mennonite congregations in Canada never celebrated “their veterans” who had volunteered with the Waffen-SS or Wehrmacht in complex times; hundreds did however volunteer to protect and defend their corner of Ukraine from a new era of Moscow-based Bolshevism. Some later self-identified as "The Lost Generation." German Prussian Mennonites in contrast understood that heritage differently and celebrated the “Heroes' Day Memorial” service anually until 1945. After 1945 Germany appropriately renamed their remembrance day as Volkstrauertag—the People’s Day of Mourning (note 1). Many descendents live in Canada.

A parallel Ukrainian story made the news in Canada in September 2023. The Speaker of the House of Commons invited a 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian war veteran to a joint session of Parliament for the visit and address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on September 22.

Without good vetting by the Speaker, the guest was lauded as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero” and given a standing ovation in Parliament with President Zelensky present. On that weekend, news circulated that the man had served in the “14th Waffen-SS Grenedier Division ‘Galicia.’”

In 1943-44 thousands of Ukrainians volunteered for this all-Ukrainian Waffen-SS division under German command; many later immigrated to Canada. Theirs too was a fight against Moscow-based Soviet repression. And with the genocidal famine of the 1930s fresh in their minds, they hoped their chances for Ukrainian statehood were stronger under Hitler than Stalin. Decades later Ukrainian-Canadians have been divided on how to remember those who collaborated or cooperated with the Nazi Germany; notably members of this unit have been regularly celebrated as Ukrainian heroes (note 2).

After this information became public, on September 27 the Canadian Prime Minister apologized to the world on behalf of Parliament for an incident he called a “horrendous violation” of the memory of those murdered in the Holocaust (note 3).

Coincidentally this year McGill-Queen’s University Press published a volume on this SS division written by Myroslav Shkandrij, Professor Emeritus of Slavic Studies at the University of Manitoba (note 4); Shkandrij’s father had been a member of the division. The volume seeks to explore the “difficult space between one genocidal regime and another;” it has been well summarized in connection to the scandal by Justin Ling (note 5).

Shkandrij concludes in this way: “The force’s controversial, complex, and long story presents contemporaries with a range of lessons and challenges, and obliges them to consider how a previous generation reacted when trapped in the maelstrom of war.”

In previous posts, I have shared materials about the 500+ Mennonite young men in the Molotschna district (Ukraine) who under German occupation volunteered (or were pressured) for a self-defence unit, which morphed into the First Ethnic German Waffen-SS Cavalry regiment (note 6).

The other large, predominantly Mennonite Chortitza district in Ukraine had not been under the authority and jurisdiction of the SS, so their youth did not share that story until they were resettled in German-annexed Poland in 1943-44. There the SS Operations Commander for the Coordination Centre for Ethnic Germans (VoMi) in Gau Danzig-West Prussia reported favourably on the Chortitza Mennonites in February 1944:

“Especially the resettlers from the recent ‘Operation Chortitza,’ above all those born in 1915 [29 yrs. old] and younger wanted—already in December [1943] almost without exception—to voluntarily present themselves to the supplementary unit of the Waffen-SS for an acceptance examination. This shows the success of the ideological training on the part of the [resettler] camp leaders, who have to carry this out on an ongoing basis by order of the operational command.” (Note 7)

None other than Mennonite Professor Benjamin Unruh (see previous posts) was praised by SS leadership as one of the most valued, invited speakers in the camps in December. This is the same context—i.e., towards the end of the war with the German retreat out of Ukraine—in which the 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian man noted above volunteered as an eighteen-year-old for the all-Ukrainian SS division.

Shkandrij’s book is a large tome. He is a Manitoban and took opportunity to mention at least one ethnic Mennonite connection, namely, the much-hated Heinrich Wiens, born in Molotschna, a one-time student of Unruhs, who left for Danzig in 1930. Wiens joined the Nazi Party and the SS in 1931, returned to Molotschna in 1941 with the German invasion, and actively participated in the killing of Jews, Roma and Soviet activists (note 8). Notably in 1943-44 Wiens also had some responsibility for the all-Ukrainian Waffen-SS divison as well, and was feared and despised by its members, according to Shkandrij.

The invitation and praise of a member of the Waffen-SS in the Canadian House of Commons was a terrible error and deeply embarrassing for all involved. Mennonites share much in common with Ukrainian Canadians, including this very dark, confusing chapter of human history in which so many were trapped. Indeed, it offers “a range of lessons and challenges” when considering how a previous generation “reacted when trapped in the maelstrom of war” (Shkandrij).

While the war criminals like Wiens typically did not survive the war, some of the young Mennonite SS "volunteers" did. Dozens found their way to Canada, including a handful in my childhood congregation, and even more, the surviving mothers and sisters (like my mother) of the fallen. The story in the news recalled the complex, troubled baggage of many Canadian Mennonite congregations and families who struggled quietly to turn the page and recover a more robust peace church identity.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/07/day-of-commemoration-for-heroes.html.

Note 2: For example, on Remembrance Day 2010, “Paul Grod, President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, in the name of 1.2 million Ukrainian-Canadians, paid tribute to the veterans of the Waffen-SS Galizien” (https://web.archive.org/web/20230530015707/https://www.ucc.ca/2010/11/11/ukrainian-community-honours-veterans-on-remembrance-day/) as Per Anders Rudling recounts critically in his essay: “‘They Defended Ukraine’: The 14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (Galizische Nr. 1) Revisited,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies 25, no. 3 (2012), 329-368; 330. -https://www.academia.edu/1908894/_They_Defended_Ukraine_The_14_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_der_SS_Galizische_Nr_1_Revisited_The_Journal_of_Slavic_Military_Studies_25_3_2012_329_368. NB: After Spring 1945 the unit changed its name to “1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army.” See also the well-documented Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_(1st_Galician).

Note 3: Cf. “Canadian Speaker in House of Commons Quits After Honoring Ukrainian Who Fought for Nazis,” New York Times, Sept. 26, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/26/world/canada/anthony-rota-resign-canada-ukraine-nazi.html.

Note 4: Myroslav Shkandrij, In the Maelstrom: The Waffen-SS “Galicia” Division and its Legacy (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023).

Note 5: See blog post by Justin Ling: “About the SS Officer in the Gallery: History is messy, horrible, complicated. All we can do is face it,” https://www.bugeyedandshameless.com/p/yaroslav-hunka-canada. Thanks to Randy P. Penner for alerting me to this post.

Note 6: See previous posts, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/easter-and-molotschnas-first-ethnic.html; AND https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/08/notes-on-lost-generation-first-ethnic.html; AND https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/retrieving-lost-generation-heinrich.html.

Note 7: Operations Commander SS-Hauptsturmführer Bösche, “Activity Report of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VoMi; Coordination Centre for Ethnic Germans) in the Gau Danzig-West Prussia for the Period from January 1, 1943 to January 31, 1944 on the Resettlement of Germans from Lithuania, Southern Russia and Northern Russia,” February 10, 1944, pp. 3-4 [33-34; scans 67-69), Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (Coordination Centre for Ethnic Germans) Operations Command Gdansk-West Prussia. From: Bundesarchiv (BA) R 59/109, Umsiedlung der Deutschen aus Litauen und Russland, Gau Danzig/West-Preussen, https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/54c4be9f-0130-4868-baec-e7a6b5c6628a/.

Note 8: See European Mennonites and the Holocaust, edited by Mark Jantzen and John D. Thiesen (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020), 3, 4, 12, 14, 23, 30n.40, 36, 39, 57-62, 71n.63, 210-213, 217, 227n.66.

---

To cite this page: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, "Outrage in Canada: Ukrainian in Waffen-SS honoured in Parliament. Mennonite Connections," History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), September 28, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/09/outrage-in-canada-ukrainian-in-waffen.html.

Comments

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons!

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons: Heart-Shaped Waffles and a smooth talking General In 1874 with Mennonite immigration to North America in full swing, the Tsar sent General Eduard von Totleben to the colonies to talk the remaining Mennonites out of leaving ( note 1 ). He came with the now legendary offer of alternative service. Totleben made presentations in Mennonite churches and had many conversations in Mennonite homes. Decades later the women still recalled how fond Totleben was of Mennonite heart-shaped waffles. He complemented the women saying, “How beautiful are the hearts of Mennonites!,” and he joked about how “much Mennonites love waffles ( Waffeln ), but not weapons ( Waffen )” ( note 2 )! His visit resulted in an extensive reversal of opinion and the offer was welcomed officially by the Molotschna and Chortitza Colony ministerials. And upon leaving, the general was gifted with a poem by Bernhard Harder ( note 3 ) and a waffle iron ( note 4 ). Harder was an inf...

Soviet “Farmer Giesbrecht” and the German Communist Press, 1930

The 1930 booklet Bauer Giesbrecht was published by the Communist Party press in Germany —some months after most of the 3,885 Mennonite refugees at Moscow had been transported from Germany to Canada, Paraguay and Brazil ( note 1 ). In Fall 1929 Germany set aside an astonishingly large sum of money and flexed its full diplomatic muscle to extract these “German Farmers” (mostly Mennonites) who had fled the Soviet countryside for Moscow in a last ditch attempt to flee the "Soviet Paradise". About 9,000 however were forcibly turned back. Communists in Germany saw their country’s aid operation—which their crushed economy could ill afford—as a blatant propaganda attempt to embarrass Stalin with formerly wealthy ethnic German farmers and preachers willing to tell the world’s press the worst "lies." With Heinrich Kornelius Giesbrecht from the former Mennonite Barnaul Colony in Western Siberia they finally had a poster-boy to make their point: in Germany he had seen an...

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 ...

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...

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...

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 ...

What is the Church to Say? Letter 1 (of 4) to American Mennonite Friends

Irony is used in this post to provoke and invite critical thought; the historical research on the Mennonite experience is accuarte and carefully considered. ~ANF American Mennonite leaders who supported Trump will be responding to the election results in the near future. Sometimes a template or sample conference address helps to formulate one’s own text. To that end I offer the following. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mennonites in Germany sent official greetings by telegram: “The Conference of the East and West Prussian Mennonites meeting today at Tiegenhagen in the Free City of Danzig are deeply grateful for the tremendous uprising ( Erhebung ) that God has given our people ( Volk ) through the vigor and action of [unclear], and promise our cooperation in the construction of our Fatherland, true to the Gospel motto of [our founder Menno Simons], ‘For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.’” ( Note 1 ) Hitler responded in a letter...

Easter and Molotschna's First Ethnic German Cavalry Regiment of the Waffen-SS, 1942

For the two years of German occupation, 1941-43, the Molotschna Settlement area—renamed “Halbstadt” after its largest village—was under S.S. ( Schutzstaffel ) control. During this time, new National Socialist ceremonies and liturgies were introduced to the Mennonites in Ukraine, including Easter. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler named Halbstadt with its surrounding 144 villages a district commando. SS-Storm Unit Leader ( Sturmbannführer ) Hermann Roßner was appointed the Special Command R[ussia] leader for Halbstadt. Halbstadt had Waffen-SS doctors, a Waffen-SS pharmacist team and pharmacy, hospital equipment from the medical offices of the Waffen-SS and soon a Waffen-SS cavalry self-defense regiment of some 500-plus Mennonite young men ( note 1 ). Two of my uncles became members of the cavalry unit; a later, long-time lay minister in my home congregation was in the regiment as well. SS-celebrations for “Easter” were deliberately non-religious and anti-Christian, though careful ...

Molotschna's 50th Anniversary Celebration Plans, 1854

There is no mention of this celebrative event in Hildebrand’s Chronologischer Zeittafel, no report in the newly launched Prussian church paper Mennonitische Blätter , or in the Unterhaltungsblatt for German colonists in South Russia. But plans to celebrate five decades of Mennonite settlement on the Molotschna River were well underway in 1853; detailed draft notes for the event are found in the Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive ( note 1 ). Perhaps most importantly the file includes the list of names of the first settlers in each of the first nine Molotschna villages (est. 1804). While each village had been mandated a few years earlier to write its own village history ( note 2; pics ), eight of these nine did not list their first settler families by name. The lists with the male family heads are attached below. By 1854 Molotoschna’s population had increased to about 17,000; more than half of those living in the original nine villages were landless Anwohner ( note 3 ). Celeb...

Landless Crisis: Molotschna, 1840s to 1860s

The landless crisis in the mid-1800s in the Molotschna Colony is the context for most other matters of importance to its Mennonites, 1840s to 1860s. When discussing landlessness, historian David G. Rempel has claimed that the “seemingly endemic wranglings and splits” of the Mennonite church in South Russia were only seldom or superficially related to doctrine, and “almost invariably and intimately bound up with some of the most serious social and economic issues” that afflicted one or more of the congregations in the settlement ( note 1 ). It is important from the start to recognize that these Mennonites were not citizens, but foreign colonists with obligations and privileges that governed their sojourn in New Russia. For Mennonites the privileges, e.g. of land and freedom from military conscription, were connected to the obligation of model farming. Mennonites were given one, and then later two districts of land for this purpose. Within their districts or colonies , villages w...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog