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NAZI era Ukranian religion faiths Christianity Mennonites World War II militarzationm
Ukranian Mennonites: World War II --NAZI Era Militarization (1941-43)
Figure 1.-- Thus looks to be German troops and perhaps Mennonite womennabd schildren that they had rounded up. The lack of helmet decals and uniform insignia suggest that they were not a regular Whermacht formation. A caption in one Mennonite history book located this scene at the Molotschna colony in Ukraine (August 1942). The caption reads, "This photo shows the uneasy meeting of two branches of the German and Low German cultures: the militarism of Prussia as well as of the Third Reich, and its opposite—the nonresistance of the Mennonite religious culture. The worldwide German culture is much richer given the existence of a community that did not soil itself with the militarist Nazi madness." This is an effort by Mennonite hitoins to distance their Ukranianm bretheran from NAZI collaboration. Actually the men are part of a Waffen-SS cavalry unit composed mostly of Mennonites. The hirses may seem an anomaly, but horse were wudely used by the Deutsche Ostheer. And the Mennnites had horses. The photo was taken at a rally where Mennonite women and children were performing for the visiting head of the SS--Heinrich Himmler. Source: Adina Reger and Delbert Plett, eds., Diese Steine: Die Russlandmennoniten (Steinbach, MB: Crossway Publications, 2001), 332.
The Mennonites for an extended period were exempted from military service by the Tsarist regime. Thus changed (late-19th century). They began to be drafted for non-combatant service. After the Revolution they were drafted like other Soviet citizens as well as subjdcted to the regime's Atheism Campaign. We do not have, however, any information about information about Mennonites in the Red Army. We have some limited information about military involvement with the Germans. We know that militias were formed by the ethnic Germans in Ukraine. They would have been used n security operation in the area. And militia units included the Mennonites. Pacifist theoology does not seem to have been a problem. This probablly reflects in part the Stalinist atheism campign as well as hated of the Soviets as a result all that the Mennonites sufferded during two decasdes of Soviet rule. We are not sure how many Mennonites joined actual Wehrmacht formations. Barbarossa was the first military campaign in which the Germans suffered serious losses. So there was constabt need for men to fill out depleted units. Hitler did not want Uktanians recruite, but the Mennonite were ethnic Germans. Some Mennonites are known to have joined the Waffen-SS. Ethnic Germans were part of the Trawnikimänner. [Procknow, p. 35.] It appears that mostly the Mennonites were involved in the local militias formed under Wehrmacht supervision, but we do not have much detail. It is not something the Mennonites are too anxious to talk about.
Sources
Reger, Adina and Delbert Plett, eds. Diese Steine: Die Russlandmennoniten (Steinbach, MB: Crossway Publications, 2001)
Goosse, Ben. "The kindergarten and the Holocaust," Anabaptist Historians (December 11, 2018). Goose has followed these developments through the NAZI controlled German-language newspapers.
Procknow, Gregory (2011). Recruiting and Training Genocidal Soldiers (Francis & Bernard Publishing: 2011).
