ERIC KRAUSE

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BACKGROUND GENEALOGY

Germans in Halbstadt - 1918-1919

• On 3 March 1918 Trotskii and his fellow delegates at Brest Litovsk negotiated a treaty between the new Lenin government and the Central powers which would cede Ukraine to its nationalist claimants and their German-Austrian allies who controlled the key portions of the region by now. Viewed as hated foreign invaders by most Ukrainians, the Austro-German forces arrived in die south Ukrainian Mennonite colonies as liberators from their Bolshevik over-lords, and much needed force for order and stability¹. By 5 April Ekaterinoslav was in their hands, Alexandrovsk fell on die 15, and Melitopol two days later. On 19 April at 1:30 p.m. two officers, Lindemeier and Hoer, entered Halbstadt in the Molotschna colony to announce that a company of German soldiers would be arriving by train momentarily². Large crowds had gathered at the train station to greet the new arrivals, delayed for several hours, they learned, by a tumultuous welcome and a meal of abundance in the village of Lichtenau. When the train did arrive in Halbstadt at 5:30 p.m., cheering onlookers waved an overjoyed welcome. As one reporter put it, “The greeting at the arrival itself is hard to describe. One had to be present there”³. Several hundred soldiers and their officers remained to be lodged in Halbstadt, as well as Neuhalbstadt and Muntau. Two hundred horses were brought to Halbstadt, presumably for the use of the Germans during their stay in the colony⁴ ...

• A proposal by the German Captain Mueller found unanimous support ...

• By early summer regular defense units had been established in the Mennonite villages of Gnadenfeld, Tiegenhagen and others, as well as in the German Lutheran community of Prischib. Military exercises continued throughout July and August under the direction of Lieutenant Leroux of the 182nd Saxon Infantry Regiment [Sächsische Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 182] headquartered at Halbstadt. Some of the Mennonite units performed gymnastic feats at the soldiers’ celebrations known as Ludendorffeste held in Halbstadt and other centres during the time of the German presence.¹⁶

• Mennonite recruits saw little action while the Germans remained in the colonies during the summer and early fall of the year ...

• The departure of the German troops became reality in late November and early December after the signing of the WWI peace armistice on 11 November called for the withdrawal of German troops from all areas occupied in Eastern Europe ... Before either the Bolsheviks or the White Army could move into the vacated sections of Northern Tauride or Ekaterinoslav, they lay open to occupancy by the Ukrainian partisan forces of “Batjko” Nestor Makhno who had led a guerilla war against the Austro-Germans since his return to the region in early July, 1918 ...

• A 300-man cavalry force, divided into five sections, carefully deployed its strength to protect the northern and western borders of the Molotschna-Prischib region. They supported about 20 companies of infantry, possibly 2700 men in all. Thirteen of the companies came from the Halbstadt and Gnadenfeld volosts, and the rest from Prischib. Leading officers included personnel which had remained behind when the German army, persons life Sergeant Major Sonntag, Lieutenant Bischler, Goebbel, Mueller and others ⁴⁵ ...

• On 2 March 1919, further heavy fighting occurred at Gruenthal and the area of Andreasburg where about 100 of Makhno’s men lost their lives. Northern villages of the Molotschna colony, such as Ladekopp, had received fresh supplies of weapons and ammunition. Some hoped that the Germans might return from Nikolaev where the last remaining detachment was waiting to leave for home ....

• The German cavalry commanders, Heinrich von Homeyer and Sonntag, dissolved the front and urged all their [Mennonite] men to pull back in order to save themselves as best they could ...

• During these very days (c. October, 1919), not many miles away in the Molotschna colony, Blumenort and several nearby communities had to suffer a similar fate, their most violent experiences in the entire history of the settlement. A group of fleeing White soldiers, among them apparently several Mennonites and a German officer, Gloeckler, had taken shelter at Waldheim ...

• Notes

¹ On the German occupation of Ukraine, see Oleh S. Fedyshyn, Germany’s Drive to the East and the Ukrainian Revolution 1917-1918 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1971), 60 ff.; Xenia Joukoff Eudin, “The German Occupation of the Ukraine in 1918” Russian Review I (November 1941), 91 ff. The new Rada and its variant forms are discussed in the essays and literature cited in Taras Hunczak, ed., The Ukraine, 1917-1921. A Study in Revolution (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1977), 4-61.

² A first-hand account of the reception of the Germans among the Mennonites was given in “Erste Ankunft der deutschen Truppen in Halbstadt”, Volksfreund (Vfrd). 20. April 1918, 1. See also J.G.Dyck’s letter to B.B.Janz, dated 15 September 1956 in the B.B.Janz papers, Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies Archives (CMBSA) File l, d. See also Gerhard P.Schroeder, Miracles of Grace and Judgment: A Family Strives for Survival in the Russian Revolution (Lodi, CA: by the author, 1974), 28 ff. and the Peter Dyck diary entry for 19. April 1918 in John P.Dyck ed., Troubles and Triumphs 1914-1924: Excerpts from the Diary of Peter J Dyck, Ladekapp, Molotschna Colony, Ukraine (Springstein, MB: by the editor, 1981), 46. All entries in this diary are New Style dates.

³ Kroeker, “Erste Ankunft,“ 1.

⁴ B.H.Unruh, „Tatsachen,“ Der Bote (DB), 15. September 1937, 2. See also a letter from Neuhalbstadt dated 21. April 1918, printed in Mennonitische Rundschau (Menn Rund), 9.Oktober 1918, 11-12. It mentions a group of 700-800 German soldiers appearing in the first contingent at Halbstadt ...

¹⁰ .... Fast identified the military leaders of the self-defense program as “the German District Commander of Halbstadt Herr Freiherr von Staufenberg, and the directors of the self-defense forces, Lieutenant Leroux with his assistant, Sergeant Mueller, Training , district VIII, in “Erinnerungem,” 6. ...

¹⁶ See also H.H.Schroeder in „Unser Kampf gegen die Banden Makhnos 1918‐1919,“ Deutsche Post aus dem Osten (Maerz, 1938), 6, and Dyck‘s diary entries for 3 July and 8 August 1918. On one occasion a mock battle was fought between Mennonite contingents from Muntau and Tiegenhagen, and the Swabian units of Prischib‐Durlach. The Ludendorffeste seemed to draw the Mennonites to a stronger identification with their German cultural background, and also heightened enthusiasm for military drills. Dyck, with many other villages, viewed the total celebration as being mainly a drinking party which with the dancing involved, could only have a demoralizing effect on Mennonite youth. See his diary entry for 4 July 1918..

⁴⁵ Toews, Schoenfeld, 90-100. A photo, so far the only one known to have survived, of a Mennonite armed unit with its German officers was first published in Lawrence K lippenstein, “Remembering Alternative Service in Russia,” Mennonite Reporter, 16 February 1981, 6 ...

⁵⁶ Thiessen, We are Pilgrims, 51. The final days of the collapse of the Selbstschutz recounted by Thiessen in his memoirs, were also depicted in Walter Burow, “Der Selbstschutz,” an unpublished essay in the author’s files, and in a historical novel by H. von Homeyer, Die brennende Halbinsel. Ein Ringen um Heimal und Ehre (Berlin-Schoenberg: Landmann Verlag, 1938), in which the author depicts his role in the final phase of the self-defense activities in the colonies. According to the story, he was invited to Halbstadt to replace the White officers. Members of the Mennozentrum, including apparently, B.H.Unruh, were in charge of negotiations. Toews, “Origins and Activities,” 25-26 ...

[L.Klippenstein, THE SELBSTSCHUTZ: A MENNONITE ARMY IN UKRAINE 1918-1919 - http://www.nbuv.gov.ua/portal/Soc_Gum/Pni/2007/07lktvao.pdf ]

... March 8, 1919      Heinze von Homeyer, a German officer, appointed commander of the Selbstschutz two days before it collapsed ... [By Helmut T Huebert, Events and people: events in Russian Mennonite history and the people that Made Them Happen - http://books.google.com/books?id=BNEh8xwSOEkC&pg=PA153&dq=%22von+Homeyer%22+german+army+1918# ]