Christmas and New Year’s Letter to the New King, 1797

On Christmas Eve Day 1797, Orlofferfelde Elder Heinrich Donner took time to write the new 28-year-old monarch, Friedrich Wilhelm III, King of Prussia, on behalf of the entire Mennonite West Prussian ministerial:

“We, your humble servants, prostrate ourselves in deep reverence before your Honourable Royal Majesty at this year end, to offer our most loving congratulations on the occasion of our Honourable Royal Majesty’s ascendence to the supreme throne. No wishes are more heartfelt and fervent than ours, because our entire well-being is dependent on the great happiness brought about by being subject to the glorious and wise scepter of your Honourable Royal Majesty. Therefore, we wish for our Honourable Royal Majesty perpetual happiness, to the highest of all your government: May God grant His Royal Majesty, as well as your dearest wife, Her Majesty the Queen, the pleasures of all desired wealth and rewards and also infinite years for the welfare of the whole country. Then our joyous hope will be satisfied in receiving grace and protection from our Honourable Royal Majesty, the wisest monarch, in regards to our religion and our sustenance in favourable measure, and may we enjoy them forever. We pledge our Honourable Royal Majesty all the loyalty and servility your righteous subjects are capable of, and eagerly look forward to the time, Honourable Royal Majesty, just as our immortalized ancestors, to give the highest of all our solemn promise of homage publicly and deepest reverence.

Honourable Royal Majesty, your humble servants, the Elders and Ministers of all the Mennonite congregations in West Prussia: Heinrich Donner [Orlofferfelde; Frisian], Dirk Thiessen [Tiegenhagen; Flemish], Cornelius Warkentin [Rosenort; Flemish].” (Note 1)

The response reads as follows:

"His Royal Majesty, our most gracious ruler, acknowledges with gracious pleasure the congratulations and good wishes, which the Elders and Ministers of all the Mennonite congregations in West Prussia wish to express on the 24th of December at the approaching New Year, and does not fail to thank them for this with the assurance of his highest paternal grace.” Frederick Wilhelm Berlin December 31, 1797." (Translation slightly altered)

Since 1772, “full parity” between Catholics and Lutherans was established in the Marienwerder, whereas Mennonites were only to be “tolerated” and “the numerous beggar Jews (Betteljuden)” were designated for “gradual removal” (note 2).

Donner, Warkentin and Thiessen were politically astute Mennonite leaders for these very uncertain times. Notably five years later, hundreds of Mennonite families would leave Prussia to form the new Molotschna Colony in Russia.

Already under the new king’s father, Friedrich-Wilhelm II, the view from Berlin had turned toxic towards the “slothful and useless” Mennonites, and the benefits of expulsion were seriously weighed (note 3).

This came to a head with the Mennonite Edict of 1789, which made it almost impossible for Mennonites to increase their land holdings in number or size:

“We wish, therefore, to order and command [that Mennonites]:

… shall no longer be able to easily acquire the most comfortable and productive properties out from other subjects who serve in the military;

… shall be required to pay the same fees proportional to the value of their properties as Protestant members toward the support of Protestant church buildings, parsonages with chapels, and parsonages, as well as teacher residences and school buildings;

… shall … be required to pay the same church fees for births, weddings, and funerals where they are required of Protestants … [as well as] the supplemental pastoral fees in kind;

… concerning the children of mixed marriages … they shall be raised in the faith of their non-Mennonite parent.” (Note 4)

If their “religious opinion” kept Mennonites from “fulfilling one of the pre-eminent duties of loyal subjects—the defence of the fatherland”—it followed that they “may not have all those civil privileges enjoyed by subjects who willingly undertake this duty” and who are “more useful to the state,” according to Friedrich-Wilhelm II (note 5).

The land restrictions and new fees meant impoverishment for many, and no prospects for the poor and their children. The vast majority of Mennonites in Prussia still hoped that they would be able to negotiate a fair resolution as they had done so often in the past. After all, the Prussian state exempted the whole upper stratum of society from military service, including artisans and workers in industries. Elder Donner was convinced that the best political strategy was--as in the past--not to boast of their virtues, achievements, and economic contributions before the king, but simply plead for his grace. Like God, a sovereign king tolerates his subjects not on their merits, but because of grace alone (note 6). This assumption and tactic was behind the Christmas/New Years letter to the new king as well (this approach would change some years later on the advise of a leading lawyer; note 7).

In 1793 Donner and Warkentin met with the Governor of Prussia who restated that he would strongly oppose any Mennonite petitions. Donner informed the Governor that as a consequence many more Mennonite families would want to emigrate. “Let them go,” was the Governor’s response. But when asked if he would approve applications for emigration, he said no (note 8).

A year and a half after the Christmas letter above, on June 30, 1799, in a response to an unwisely formulated letter by a lone minister, the King reaffirmed his father’s 1789 policy that linked any Mennonite land acquisition to military service. The normally calm Frisian Elder Heinrich Donner was livid in his response: “Under Prussian rule we have never received such a disgraceful resolution as this. … [It] even seeks to prove that the station of a soldier is a duty based on the teachings of Jesus, and that we should unite this duty with our religious principles. … Lord have mercy!” It now seemed to Donner that they were like the people of Israel when a new king came to power in Egypt, “according to the description in Exodus 1:8–13,” who was ignorant of their legacy and call, and enslaved and oppressed them (note 9).

---Arnold Neufeld-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Heinrich Donner Diary (Tagebuch) (1774-1803), translated by Elfriede Rempel and Glenn Penner, Mennonite Heritage Archives Winnipeg, Feb 2023, https://www.mharchives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Heinrich-Donner-Diary-12-Feb-2023.pdf. Translation slightly altered. German: Orlofferfelde Chronik, transcribed by Werner Janzen and Merle Schlabough, 2022, Mennonite Library and Archives-Bethel College, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/cong_303/ok63/orlofferfeldechronik.html.

Note 2: Prussian policy did not change. Cf. Hans Maercker, “Geschichte des Schwetzer Kreises 1466–1873,” Zeitschrift der Westpreussischen Geschichtsvereins 17 [1886], 67, https://dlibra.bibliotekaelblaska.pl/dlibra/publication/52346/edition/49705#structure. Cf. also “Obermedizinalrat” and “Bericht der westpreussischen Kammer, 1803,” cited in Karge, “Die Auswanderung,” 70, 74f. It was argued that the state “would gain more than it would lose with the emigration” of this “soft” and “lazy type of humanity.” Conscription should be expanded to include every Mennonite, and such a policy could only be bettered, in the view of one regional official, if the same policies were enforced against “that similar type of humanity to the Mennonites in this province, namely the Jews.”

Note 3: Paul Karge, “Die Auswanderung ost- und westpreussischen Mennoniten nach Südrussland (nach Chortiza und der Molotschna), 1787–1820,” Elbinger Jahrbuch 3 (1923), 70, http://dlibra.bibliotekaelblaska.pl/dlibra/doccontent?id=13874; https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/0v760.pdf.

Note 4: Frederick William II, King of Prussia, “Edict Concerning the Future Establishment of the Mennonites in All Royal Provinces Excluding the Duchy Silesia, 1789,” in Mark Jantzen, Mennonite German Soldiers: Nation, Religion, and Family in the Prussian East, 1772–1880, translated by Mark Jantzen, Appendix, Document 2, 256–260 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010). Original: “Edict, die künftige Einrichtung des Mennonisten-Wesens in sämmtlichen Königlichen Provinzien exklusive des Herzogthums Schlesien betreffend,” Berlin, July 30, 1789. Decker, 1789. From Staatsbibliothek Berlin, https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht/?PPN=PPN806951052.

Note 5: In Jantzen, Mennonite German Soldiers, 256; cf. also the "1801 Declaration," ibid., 262.

Note 6: Donner, Orlofferfelde Chronik [German], 57 (1799).

Note 7: Eventually Mennonites retained an influential and well-connected lawyer from Königsberg. Rather than references to scripture or old Polish Privilegia, his strategy was to highlight the huge loss of technical knowledge and vast human resources in industry and agriculture because of the state’s policy. Cf. Karge, “Die Auswanderung,” 73.

Note 8: Donner, Orlofferfelde Chronik, 44f.; 47.

Note 9: Donner, Orlofferfelde Chronik, 57.

---

To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “Christmas and New Year's Letter to the New King, 1797,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), December 24, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/12/christmas-and-new-years-letter-to-new.html.

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History of the Russian Mennonites

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