Consider a Donation to Mennonite Archives / Historical Societies this Year

For those interested in Russian Mennonite History please consider a donation to one of the Mennonite archives before the end of the year. They all need our help.

Those of us who do Mennonite historical work—whether scholarly or more popular church or family research—know that none of this can happen without the on-going work and support of our archivists, historical societies and heritage museums. Not only do they collect and preserve, but they have a mandate to help interpret and make accessible—on site or increasingly online.

I just received this reminder from Mennonite Heritage Archives in Winnipeg. I was able to spend some time there in June this year (https://www.mharchives.ca/how-to/donate-finances/).

There are many other archives and historical societies that have helped me and others in the past year as well. Please consider:

Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies (Winnipeg), https://cmbs.mennonitebrethren.ca/.
Mennonite Historical Society of BC, https://www.mhsbc.com/donations.php.
Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College, Kansas, https://gift.bethelks.edu/campaigns/39879/donations/new.
Mennonitische Geschichte und Ahnenforschung, https://chortitza.org/ (Germany)
Weierhof Mennonite Research Centre (Mennonitischer Geschichtsverein, https://www.mennonitischer-geschichtsverein.de/geschichte/forschungsstelle/. Germany)

This is only a selection; forgive me for missing the many other worthy Mennonite historical societies and museums.

If you find the exploration of the Russian Mennonite tradition helpful and important, perhaps you would find joy in giving to one or more of our archives or historical societies.

Merry Christmas!

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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

Chortitza Greets Reich Minister for Occupied East Territories Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg, the German Reich Minister for the Occupied East Territories, visited the predominantly Mennonite settlement area of Chortitza on June 27, 1942; photos and a video capture that day ( note 1 ). Twice Rosenberg also visited the Mennonite German settlements of Halbstadt/Prischib ( note 2 )—though that area was under special oversight of his some-time rival Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. A warm welcome to a very powerful high-ranking visitor with a sympathetic disposition to the repression of Mennonites under Stalin does not tell us much about the Mennonites who gathered in Chortitza to greet Rosenberg. But the Nazi world in all of its dimensions—a comprehensive worldview presented in press and schooling; totalitarian organization of communities; brutally enforced racial policy; centrality of military and its requirements and orders—engulfed the Mennonites fully for three-and-a-half years and with such an intensity that survivors rarely spoke of it afterwards. For next

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

The Politics of Map-Making: A "Mennonite Map"

Maps are political artifacts. Russia or Ukraine? A late nineteenth-century map of “German Settlements and Presence throughout History” offers a good example from the Mennonite settlements ( note 1 ). It was based on the German Colonial Atlas of Paul Langhans ( note 2 ). Langhans was the most important mapmaker and promoter of German settlements around the globe; he continued this work of “pan-Germanism” well into the Nazi era ( note 3 ). Already in the nineteenth century, more than one Russian journalist claimed that Russian Germans—including Mennonites in Russia—promoted pan-Germanism in their schools and spread hatred against Russia ( note 4 ). The consequences on the ground were harsh: Johannes H. Janzen—a geography instructor in the Mennonite high school in Ohrloff—who was known “to love the Russian people and Fatherland more than most of his contemporaries,” was placed under “serious suspicion of treason” for an instructional map ( note 5 ) he made of the Molotschna Mennonite C

Anti-Jewish Pogroms and Mennonite responses in Einlage (1905) and Sagradovka (1899)

Below are stories of two pogroms and of the responses in two Mennonite communities in Ukraine/Russia. The first location is Einlage (Chortitza) in 1905, with two episodes. The rage of peasants and the working class exploded with strikes, bloody revolts, chaos and plundering across the land, especially on the estates early in 1905. The Greater Zaporozhzhia-Alexandrovsk economic zone, with larger Mennonite manufacturers of agricultural machinery in Einlage as well, was a centre for some of that labour unrest ( note 1 ). In the shadows of the larger March 1905 Russian Revolution, there were so-called provocateurs named the "Black Hundred" ( note 2 ) who organized pogroms across Russia, but especially in ethnic Ukrainian and Polish areas. “Jewish stores, shops, and homes were broken into, robbed, and plundered; Jewish women and girls were raped and brutally murdered. Many Jews lost not only their belongings in Russia, but also their lives. And all with impunity. The police

“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

Sesquicentennial: Proclamation of Universal Military Service Manifesto, January 1, 1874

One-hundred-and-fifty years ago Tsar Alexander II proclaimed a new universal military service requirement into law, which—despite the promises of his predecesors—included Russia’s Mennonites. This act fundamentally changed the course of the Russian Mennonite story, and resulted in the emigration of some 17,000 Mennonites. The Russian government’s intentions in this regard were first reported in newspapers in November 1870 ( note 1 ) and later confirmed by Senator Evgenii von Hahn, former President of the Guardianship Committee ( note 2 ). Some Russian Mennonite leaders were soon corresponding with American counterparts on the possibility of mass migration ( note 3 ). Despite painful internal differences in the Mennonite community, between 1871 and Fall 1873 they put up a united front with five joint delegations to St. Petersburg and Yalta to petition for a Mennonite exemption. While the delegations were well received and some options could be discussed with ministers of the Crown,

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

What does it cost to settle a Refugee? Basic without Medical Care (1930)

In January 1930, the Mennonite Central Committee was scrambling to get 3,885 Mennonites out of Germany and settled somewhere fast. These refugees had fled via Moscow in December 1929, and Germany was willing only to serve as first transit stop ( note 1 ). Canada was very reluctant to take any German-speaking Mennonites—the Great Depression had begun and a negative memory of war resistance still lingered. In the end Canada took 1,344 Mennonites and the USA took none born in Russia. Paraguay was the next best option ( note 2 ). The German government preferred Brazil, but Brazil would not guarantee freedom from military service, which was a problem for American Mennonite financiers. There were already some conservative "cousins" from Manitoba in Paraguay who had negotiated with the government and learned through trial and error how to survive in the "Green Hell" of the Paraguayan Chaco. MCC with the assistance of a German aid organization purchased and distribute

Life on the Estate: Gendered Work and the Weekly Menu (ca. 1910)

Only a very small percentage of Mennonites were estate owners, and each employed a small team of male and female servants, "German" and "Russian." The following comes from the memoir by Gerhard Wiens, who grew up on his maternal Schroeder family estate some 20 miles west of the Molotschna Colony. Wiens was born in 1900 and died in Minnesota on his 100th birthday. His detailed reflections ( note 1 ) are of a boy coming of age in the decade before World War I: “My mother presided over the household chores. She had a Mennonite cook and housemaid Marie Derksen who was employed with us as long as I can remember. She was assisted by two German girls either from the Molotschna Mennonite villages or from Lutheran villages some 20 miles from us. We also had two Russian girls who weeded the vegetables, washed the dishes and did some other work. The German girls did the dusting, cleaning and bed-making. They also had to do the washing with a hand-operated washing machine. Al

History of the Russian Mennonites

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