History of the Russian Mennonites

In Fall 1929 some 10,000 Mennonites attempted to flea the Soviet countryside for Moscow in a last ditch attempt to leave. Ultimately Germany's intervention was salvation for 3,885 of that group, and Mennonite leader Benjamin Unruh—stationed in Germany--was their shepherd, with American aid through Mennonite Central Committee. Ultimately it was because of Unruh that the German government had put economic and diplomatic pressure on Stalin to open the gates out of Moscow to the west, if only for a short period. Germany in turn could only be a transit country, and Canada refused to take more than 1,000 (in the end it was 1,344). The remainder were assisted to migrate to Paraguay (1,572) or Brazil. Not surprisingly family clans were split. Some of the young people who had arrived in the Paraguayan Chaco “had attended communist schools in Russia,” leading to “undesirable” dynamics and “unpleasant occurrences” in some of the villages, in the estimation of the younger and charismatic teach

Another deep dive into the dark side of Mennonite history—this time in Winnipeg. The latest issue of MCC’s journal Intersections on MCC’s entanglements with National Socialism through the 1930s should not be entirely shocking to Canadian Mennonites ( note 1 ). Mennonite support for Hitler and his vision for Germany was very real and public on the Canadian prairies until the start of WWII. The most read newspaper in Manitoba, the Winnipeg Free Press , reported on a large Winnipeg pro-Hitler rally (January 30, 1939, page 3) with the byline: “Hitler Salute: Local Germans hail re-birth of fatherland under Fuehrer ." The pictures show the Mennonite Young People's Choir performing at the event (see also last paragraph of the Free Press article). The choir was led by John Konrad, a Russländer (1920s Mennonite immigrant). Konrad founded an ensemble in 1935 that evolved into the Mennonite Symphony Orchestra; he actively directed choirs with the Manitoba Mennonite Youth Organization,

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