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For the race obsessed NAZIs, the Mennonites were a rare find of what they saw as gentically valuable material in a sea of Untermench. The Germans were not sure at first what to make of the Mennoites. A Chistian pacifist sect was hardky the NAZI's cup of tea, bit they were German and made for excellent propaganda back home. Rather than being supressed, in the remamining Mennoite communities were promoted and awarded special privliges and treatment. Articles about the Mennonites appeared in NAZI newspapers and magazines stressing liberatioin from Soviet percecutionn. A historian paraphases a typical article, "Children’s eyes sparkled in the candlelight. This was the first time many had seen a Christmas tree, aglow in the Einlage kindergarten in December 1942. Soldiers handed out wooden toys. They had spent weeks carving them—model houses, schools, churches, city halls, trucks, and trains—while convalescing at the military hospital in this Mennonite village in southeastern Ukraine. The group joined in song, filling the hall with old German Christmas carols. The tunes, which had not been heard openly during the recent years of Bolshevik rule, reminded all those present of the momentous changes wrought since Hitler’s armies had taken control of Ukraine. ["Die Brücke...] Apparently the NKVD had been unable to deoprt many of the German Volk Dutsch from the southern Ukraine. One repoorts indicates that there were 10,000 Kindergarten-age children, meaning there was avery sizeable German population. Reich authorities assigned special teams to assess the genetuc value of the Volk Deutshe. Apparenbtly these were SA men as brown shirts were mentioned. They were alo to conduct the NAZIification of a largely apolitical, highly religious community. Special attention was given to education. Here the Volk Deutsche were a particularly vulnerable groups because of their percecution during the Stalinist era and antipathy toward Soviet Communism. Local militias were formed and Hitler Youth groups for the older boys and girls. We are unsure to what extent they cooperated with the Holocaust. We know they did receive Jewish property from both the Einstzgruppen operations and the Holocaust. And we suspect that their militia group played a role, but do not yet have details. The Einsatzgruppen were small and recruited locals for their grisly opertions. There is no way to excuse this, but one must realize that we are talking about two very evil regimes. The Soviets had committed terrible atroicities against the Mennoites. Many of those who blithly critcise the Mennoites are unlikely to have behaved differently if they were in a similar position.
For nearly 2 years of World War II, NAZI Germany and the Soviet Union beginning with the invasion of Poland were allies (September 1939). Althoughh Hitler after Poland strucvk west, his real objectived was the East--meaning the Sovirety Union. He explained thid in Mein Kampf. After being stopped at the Channel, he began planning his primry objective--the conquest of the East and the destruction of the Soviet Union. He began amassing a huge invasiuin firce along the Soviet border. Yiou could not desguise a 3 million man invasiion force. Stalin was informed, but refused to believe the reports. Hitler launched Barbarossa (June 1941), the kargest millitary campaign in history. Barbarossa was unlease on a huge frint, from Alatic to the Bkack Sea. Hitler planned it as a war of the up,kost brutality, a war of exterminatiomn. It was initially a huge success. The POamzers raced east, scoring vast encirclement opoerations and ebentuially reacged Mosow. Several millkion Red Army troops were killed or taken prisoner. The Germans were stoped at Moscow (December 1941) when the Red Army kaunched a winter counter offensive. The Germans were left in control of much of the western Soviet Union, the most productibe area of the country. This included Ukraine, seen as the bread basket of Europe.
The Ukraine was one of Hitler's primary objectives when he unleased Barbarossa. He saw the Ukranine as the future German breadbasket and a needed area for Lebensraum. Army Group South was assigned the task of seizing the Ukraine. The Germans, however, encountered problems in the south. Several factors were involved. There were important Soviet formations deployed there, some armed with the new T-34 tank which shocked the Germans when they first enountered it. In addition, the Romanian allies proved less reliable than hoped. Hitler, anxious to lay his hands on Ukranian resources, diverts powerful Panzer units driving on Moscow from Army Group Center. The results are a spetacular victory at Liev, but in the end the drive toward Moscow fails. Soviet forces badly maul the Romanians at Odessa. The NAZI Eisatzgruppen begin the wholescale murder of Jews. Thhey also suppress Ukranian nationalists and begin mass killings of non-Jewish Ukranians.
For the race obsessed NAZIs, the Mennonites were a rare find of what they saw as gentically valuable material in a sea of Untermench. The Germans were not sure at first what to make of the Mennoites. A Chistian pacifist sect was hardly the NAZI's cup of tea. After two decades of Soviet Communism and the relentless Sioviet atheism campaign, the Mennoties were changes, much more secular than had bee the case at the time of the Revolution.
While the NAZIs did not like Mennonite theology, but they were ethnic Germans which had not mixed much with the surrounding Ukranian population. They thus made for excellent propaganda back home. Articles ppeared in NAZI newspapers and magazines. Articles about the Mennonites appeared in NAZI newspapers and magazines stressing liberation from Soviet percecutionn. This was the case in Reich publications, but also local publictions in Ukraine. The primary medium of propaganda were three newspapers for the German population in the Ukraine: soldiers, bureaucrats, and local ethnic Germans, imcluding the Mennonites. There was also interested audiences at bhome in the Reich. The articles provided the opportunity to deliver anti-communist and anti-Semitic messages mixed in with Heimat imagery. To the NAZIs they were one in tge same, commonly referred to as Judeo-Bolshevism. An of couse there were constant, confidently references to the coming NAZI victory--even after the great battlefield victories victory at a time when the front was already faltering ceased and the fisaster at Stalingrad fundamentally changed the course of the War (January 1943).
A historian paraphases a typical article, "Children’s eyes sparkled in the candlelight. This was the first time many had seen a Christmas tree, aglow in the Einlage kindergarten in December 1942. Soldiers handed out wooden toys. They had spent weeks carving them—model houses, schools, churches, city halls, trucks, and trains—while convalescing at the military hospital in this Mennonite village in southeastern Ukraine. The group joined in song, filling the hall with old German Christmas carols. The tunes, which had not been heard openly during the recent years of Bolshevik rule, reminded all those present of the momentous changes wrought since Hitler’s armies had taken control of Ukraine. ["Die Brücke...]
Apparently the NKVD had been unable to deport many of the German Volk Dutsch from the southern Ukraine. One repoorts indicates that there were 10,000 Kindergarten-age children, meaning there was avery sizeable German population. The Mennonites were primarily located in colonies south of Dnipropetrovsk on the Dnieper and north of the Crimea. The Chortitza colony (13,000) was located at the Great Bend of the Dnieper. Kronau (13,000) was located to the west and Halbstadt (25,000), the largest Mennonite community, to the east. These were the major communities in a chain if German villages. Most of Ukraine's 35,000 Mennonites lived in these three colonies: Further east the area was still under miltary occupation. These colonies were not all Mennonite, there were Reformed (Lutherans) and a few Roman Catholics. There were also Russiams and Ukranians as ella s Jews. The Einstzgruppen quickly miredered the Jews. The Russins and Ukranians were subjucated in various ways or deported.
Hitler's expectations was that invading the Soviet Uniin woulkd secure all the resources Germany lacked and were needed to wage war. And Ukraine, often seen as the nreadbasket of Europe, would solve Germany's food problem. It did not wprk out that way. Very little food reached the Reich from the East. The food seized in the East primarily went to feed the Ostheer. And this was only achieved by not feeding the civilian population. The only civilians who got food were those working for the Germans. This was all in keeping with Generalplan Ost--a plan to enslave or murder the Slavic and other people of the East. Admist the hunger and missery that the Germans were creating in the East was a privlidged group--the Volksdeutsche. The Mennonites were part of that group. Rather than being supressed, in the remamining Mennoite communities were promoted and awarded special privliges and treatment. The NAZIs wanted to depopulte the ast and fill it with German colonists. It was not all that easy toi fibd Germans wabting to go eeast as ut was. So wheb they found ethnic Germans in the East, it was important that they be NAZIfied and happy. Visitirs remarked on the new Eden that the NAZIs wanted to create in the East. Some visitors were impressed. One enfused, "Blossom-white are the dresses and the head coverings of the women and the girls," descriing a Sunday scene Chortitza. Another described "The simple church is no longer a movie theater as in Bolshevik times." Triumphal delegations led by preminent NAZIs visited the ethnic German cimmunities, including the Mennonites.
There were visits from high-ranking NAZIs which inccuded rallies, including SS Commmander Himmler who tool a special interest in Fermanizing the East. Another imprtant figure was Alfred Rosenberg, Minister for the East. There were conflicts between Rosenberg and Himmler. Himmler usually won because he had a powerful police/military force. Rosenberrg led a high-powered delegation (June 1942). Hr made a another visit (June 1942). Himmler visited (August 1942), The lasts major rally was held in Mykolaiv (May 1943). It was reported in detail by the NAZI newspapers. The principal speaker offered the standard NAZI line--'“international Judaism' launched the war. "Whether on the side of the plutocrats or the Bolsheviks, the Jew works everywhere as agitator and provocateur. This war is a race war. We must break the Jewish danger, or we will be broken by it." It was all so ludicros of course, but before dismissing this thinking as a relic of a dark past, one needs to consider the risung level of anti-Semitim in Europe tody.
Local Mennonites joined the bureaucracy being established by NAZI agencies. Village names were Germanized. The oocoped East was to be administered by the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete -- RMfdbO), often referred to as the Ostministerium. Hitler created the agency soon after launching Barbarossa and the stunning German military successes which followed (July 1941). He appointed NAZI theortician, Alfred Rosenberg to head the Ostministerium.. Alfred Meyer was appointed as his deputy. The Ostministerium was firned to administer the vast areas of the east captured and the anticipation of more to come as the Deutsche Ostheer moved ever further east. The Ostministerium attempted to support anti-Soviet groups in Central Asia, mostly Muslims oppressed by the Soviet system. Rosenberg announced a land reform program which would have meant decollectivization through the abolition of kolkhozes and redistributinfg land to peasants and German colonists for family farming. Two Reichskommissariats (Ostland and Ukraine). Two more were planned (Muscovy and the Caucasus). The Otheer filed to gain firm possession of these two eastern areas, so those two Reichskommissariats meaning civilian control were never estblished. Hitler appointment of Erich Koch, who had links to Himmler and the SS, to administer the Reichskommissariat Ukraine basically undercut Rosenberg's authority and plans. Rosenberg wished to portray the Germans as liberators of Ukraine from Soviet domination, essentialy to recruit the Ukraine as NAZI allies. This was not what Hitler wanted. Hitler ordered Koch to take a harsh, brutal approach to the Ukranians. He wanted to begin with Generalplan Ost as soon as possible. Koch determind that mauntining collevtivization was ghe best way to maintain production. Koch's mobstrous brutality pushed potential Ukrainian allies back into Soviet hands. Rosenberg's Ostministerium had no security aparatus of its own or any authority over the military and SS security formations. The other Reich Commissar, Hinrich Lohse, for Ostland fid not have SS connection and had little authority or influence. Himmler with the powerful SS security apparatus acted as he wished, rarely even bothering to consult with Rosenberg.
[Evans, p. 188.]
The main economic activity was farming and few related industrues. The Germans helped set up an iron foundry in Chortitza and a machine factory in Halbstadt. And there was even silk manufacture. Horse breeding was promoted. Much of this supported the war effort. Contrary to popular opinion, the Germnan Army was not a modern army. Only a small part of the Ostheer was motirized. Most of the Ostheer was on foot, movng with horse-drawn carts. Thus horses were very important in the Ostkrieg. They were widely used by the Germans and Soviets. Fortunstely for the Soviets, the Americans supplied them with lrge numbers of trucks through Lend Lease.
Reich authorities assigned special teams to assess the genetic value of the Volk Deutshe encountered in Ukraine, including the Mennonites. SA men as brown shirts were mentioned wnt dor to door in every village, sorting the residents by 'genealogical and racial biological' criteria. This was described in the local NAZI newspapers.
The NAZI Brownshirts were able to conduct the NAZIification of a largely apolitical, religious community. Here the Volk Deutsche were a particularly vulnerable groups because of their percecution during the Stalinist era and antipathy toward Soviet Communism. Almost immediately, able-bodied men were organized into a paramilitary German Corps, a militia forces. Older boys (aged 14-17 years) were organized inti the German Youth Corps--essentially the Hitler Youth. Girls and young women (aged 14-21 years) joined the League of Ethnic German Girl sassociated with the Hitler Youth Bund Deutscher Mädel. The local Women's League was NZIfied and formned sewing circles and distributing clothing shipments from comcentration camps and death camos when they were opened (1942). Aid workers arrived in the colonies provided by the highly NAZIfied German Red Cross, the NAZI Volkswohlfahrt/People's Welfare Organization (NSV), and Himmler's SS. TheSS was not just a killing organization, but had a large professional staff.
NAZI officials gave special attention to education. Teacher exchanges would have been helpful, but the rail system was already clogged with supplies and personnel for the Ostkrieg. There were a few exchanges. The newspapers reported in Chortitza, that 20 twenty talebted young people competed for five spots to study in Germany. Others returned from brief learning trips to learn how to Nazism at home. The NAZIs recruited a small groups of Reich professionals from the NAZIfied German education system. They conducted crash courses on how to 'indoctrinated in the National Socialist mindset'. These NAZI specialists organized back-to-back three-week camps in Kronau (spring of 1942).25 Ethnic Germans including Menninites, arrived bt horse-drawn waggons from all over southern Ukraine. The camp program included NAZI lectures on German politics, literature, and art. They returned to their villages to teach. The schools received NAZI workbooks and reading materials. The German-only segregated schools included Kindergartens and Kindergartens opened in Mennonite and other German colonies. The Einlage Kindergarter was a show-case school. A German soldier named Leonhard Froese, we think recovering from battle injuries wrote about it. "It is a miracle." He had a real interest in teaching and hoped to have a kindergartener of his own. He describ his visit to the Einlage kindergarten. The school opened (7:00 AM). The the pupils assembled outside for roll call (8:00). The swastika flag was risen and the day began with exercises. He then describes everyone executung the would 'goose step' through the front door. Each child was assigned his or her own cubby for jackets. For field trips, they were divided into three groups by height: giants, dwarves, and Thumbelinas. Froese’s described it as being in Germany. Chortitza’s kindergartens and elementary schools were followed by two high schools (1943). There was talk of a middle school and agricultural school as well as a training school dor rural women. It was not the best timing. After Stalingrad, the Red Army began moving west. A teacher training academy was established in Halbstadt that became Ukraine’s primary location for molding ethnic German teachers. These facilities were amust calls for visiting NAZI dignitaries. A typical ceremony was for a orchestra to play Wagner while students pupils took the stage to pledged loyalty to the Reich and Führer. [Goosse] We wonder how the staff and students viewed the turn of events in the military campaign. Wesusoect that they were not toldva lotbabout the Red Army successes further eat.
Not all wounded soldiers were evcuated to the Reich. There were hospital an recovery facilities for the wiunded soldiers in the German ethnic communities, including the Mennonite communities. One such facility was estblidhed at Einlage. The recovering soldiers there began calling the town children 'their children'. They made toys nd drew pictures that invomved the younger children into the mystical world of German fairy tales and myths. There were swastika flags around these facilities.
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. 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.
Hitler Youth groups were formed for the older boys and girls. We do not see the youngr childern being organzed. The Deutsches Jungvolk (DJF)--the Cub sector of the HJ for boys 10-14 years old. Halbstadt and Kronau both received HJ youth delegations from Germany. The German Youth of Ukraine (GYU) were organized in the various German colonies, including the Mennonite colonies. We see them being used in various NAZI events. There was no time for HJ summer camps in 1941. We are unsure about 1942, but summer camps were organized in 1943. An estimated third of eligible young people across Dnipropetrovsk (south central Ukraine) had been enrolled in the GYU. We are not sure why they were not called the Hitler Youth. Perhaps becuase NAZI officials did not yet have an opportunity to make the needed racial assessments. The German newspapers reported the best enrollment results from Chortitza and Halbstadt. There was a GYU leadership training camp, perhaps in 1942. The 42 girl and 32 boy graduautes staffed GYU camps (1943). The largest grandest lasted 6 weeks and had 160 participants. [Goosse] Again the tiiming was not very good. Even before the end of the summer, the Red Army was moving toward Dnipropetrovsk.
The Germans murdered some 1.2 million Jews in Ukraine, mostly the work of the Einsatzgruppen. Tens of thousands of Jew were shot in the Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv regions. This of course never appeared in the press. What did appear was justification for muder. The Jewsa were depicted as aggressors who must be stopped from their neferious activities. They were depicted as evil capitalisdts abd Communidsts--something thzat made sence only in the NAZI mind. The absolutely real terrors of Soviet barbarity were blamed on 'Jewish-Bolshevik tyranny'. We know they did receive Jewish property from both the Einstzgruppen operations and the other Holocaust actions. The Germans seized the property of murdered Jews and redistributed it. It was they claimed to redress past wrongs. The Mennonites and other ethnic Germans were the recipient of some of these goods. One article in the German language media was a jubilant report of an aid action in Kronau where 32,000 clothing and household items were detributed 'for the most part used.' We are unsure to what extent the Mennonites cooperated with the Holocaust killing opertion. We suspect that their militia group played a role, but do not yet have details. The Einsatzgruppen were small and recruited locals for their grisly opertions. Ethnic Germans were part of the Trawnikimänner. These were mostly Central and Eastern European collborators, mostly recruited from German POW camps. There were also Volksdeutsche from Eastern Europe. [Procknow, p. 35.] They were valuable bcause they could speak both Russian and German. These men played a role not only in concentration camps, but the Death Camps as well. [Arad, p. 21.]
There is no way to excuse this, but one must realize that we are talking about two very evil regimes. If was one thing to cooperate with the NAZIs in a democratic country as in the Eest where there was a functioning legal suystem ffirding basic civil rights to vitizens. This of course was not the situation in the Soviet Union. The Soviets had committed terrible atroicities against the Mennoites. Many of those who blithly critcise the Mennoites are unlikely to have behaved differently if they were in a similar position.
Arad, Yitzhak. (1987). Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps.( Indiana University Press: 1987).
Evans, Richard J. (2008). The Third Reich at War (London: Penguin Books, 2008). .
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).
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