http://www.conflicts.rem33.com/images/Ukraine/UKR%201918.JPG

German Occupation: February, 1918 - November, 1918

http://www.conflicts.rem33.com/images/Ukraine/1918_ukr.jpg

http://www.acpasion.net/foro/showthread.php?t=26761&page=128

Ballantine's History of the First World War - http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=23191

In 1918, the 16. Royal Saxon Infantry Regiment 182 was now within the 212th Division (Saxon) ... [Independent Division]

INDEPENDENT DIVISION
212th DIVISION (SAXON) - (Field Post No. 757.)
(Maj.-Gen. Francke) [Command of the 212th]
408th (Saxon) Infantry Brigade.
(Maj.-Gen. De Vaux)
182nd (16th Saxon) Infantry Regt.
XII Corps District

[That is, the 16. Royal Saxon Infantry Regiment 182 had been incorporated into the 212th Division (Saxon)]

Great Britain. War Office. General Staff, The German forces in the field (1918), pp. 51-54, 151

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027944838

• 16. Royal Saxon Infantry Regiment 182 now within the 212th Division (Saxon). [Independent Division]

  Great Britain. War Office. General Staff, The German forces in the field (1918), p 151 - http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027944838 

• 123rd Infantry Division (German Empire): Late-war order of battle The division underwent relatively few organizational changes over the course of the war. The 182nd Infantry Regiment was sent to the newly-formed 212th Infantry Division [Independent Division - Note: the 182nd went to the 216th Division in 1916, then to the 212th in 1917] in 1916 ...

http://www.iqpedia.com/1918/battle/German/Infantry

• German Divisions in the East 1918 ...

212th Infantry Division-Ukraine, Kherson (May 1918). [Independent Division]

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=23191 - See also: Histories of Two Hundred and Fifty-One Divisions of the German Army which participated in the War (1914-1918) (Washington Government Printing Office, 1920)- http://www.archive.org/details/historiesoftwohu00unit]

[After February 18 and February 28, 1918] On the coasts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov and in Podolia, the Germans were already operating jointly with the Austrians: three Austrian corps - the XII, XVII, and XXV with a total number of 11 1/2 divisions (15th, 59th, 34th, 11th, 30th, 31st, 32rd, 54th, and 154th infantry divisions and the 2nd and 7th cavalry divisions and the 145th Infantry Brigade) were marching preparatory to the occupation of Podolia an the Odessa area (XXV Corps), the Kherson area (XII Corps), and Yekaterinoslav area (XIII Corps). The group of forces under General Koch [Gen. Robert von Kosch] was directed to occupy the Crimea (comprising the 212th, 217th infantry divisions and the Bavarian Cavalry Division) ...

[Note: Kosch arrived before Simferopol, Crimea, on c. April 24, 1918 (Official Bulletin - http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9507EEDB1031E03ABC4D51DFB2668383609EDE and on April 26, 1918, he was preparing to do battle at Simferopol ( http://www.uaweek.com/History/22688)]

NORTH OF KHERSON END OF MAY

Ballantine's History of the First World War - http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=23191

• March 3-May 1, 1918

  • German Ukrainian Offensive To clear the Bolsheviks out of the Ukraine, the Germans and Austrians dispatched an expeditionary force into the Ukraine. They seized Kiev on March 3rd, Odessa on March 13th, Nicolaiev on March 17th, Kharkov and Rostov on April 8th, and invaded the Crimea, capturing Sevastopol on May 1st. The Ukraine became a critical granary for the Central Powers, which faced severe food shortages due to the Allied blockade ...

    • http://www.indiana.edu/~league/1918.htm

• [Hierschau] ... April 19, 1918   German troops occupied the area ...

  The German Occupation

  On Friday, April 19, 1918 German troops arrived in the Molotschna ...

  Halbstadt, Gnadenfeld, Tiege and Tiegenhan. ³⁸ At the May 16 meeting of the Wolost, Halbstadt decided to have 32 additional members as a regional defence unit. Pay was to be seven rubles a day as well as expenses, German soldiers receiving five rubles per man. ³⁹ The 182nd Saxon Regiment, which was stationed in Halbstadt, helped direct the military drills.

  Reaction to the Mennonite constituency to the formation of the Selbstschutz units was by no means all favourable ...

  Eventually almost all of the villages in the Molotshna (with the exception of two) formed Selbstschutz units ...

  During the summer of 1918 the Hierschau Selbstschutz was trained by the German soldiers in the area, using the meadow north of the village on the Waldheim end of the street as a parade ground. As Autumn approached, the training was taken more seriously, since there appeared to be more activity of the Makhno anarchists in the area. To those who followed World news, it was also becoming increasingly apparent that the German occupation would not last much longer. Troops were being withdrawn because of the collapsing Western front ... On November 11, 1918, an armistance was signed at 11 A.M. ... The war to end all wars was over. The treaty of Brest Litovsk was annulled ...

   ...

• It was with relief that the Molotschna Mennonites greeted the German troops on April 19, 1918 ...

  • Molotschna Historical Atlas By Helmut Huebert, p. 138 - http://books.google.ca/books?id=OfyYXOGoMy8C&pg=
    PA138&lpg=PA138&dq=%22April+19,+1918%22+%22Ukraine%22&source=bl&ots=sAEm_3zukc&sig=zbhCE690pNdwmJcMNost3R4u-YY&hl=en&ei=Rj8sTqeEPIHYgQfvrqCOCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAg#v=
    onepage&q=%22April%2019%2C%201918%22%20%22Ukraine%22&f=false
     

• When the promised German troops actually came in mid April, 1918, they arrived at the Lichtenau railway station. They were treated as liberators, and were fed the traditional Zwieback and Schinkenfleisch. "Deutschland, Deutschland Ueber Alles" was sung ...

  • Molotschna Historical Atlas By Helmut Huebert, p. 149 - http://books.google.ca/books?id=l7ALpfZUYhkC&pg=PA149&lpg=PA149&dq=%22april,+1918%22+%22Molotschna%22&source=bl&ots=QQQhVHoHUX&sig=aWRk55WmaxHfIQBufOAvjGUdFo8&hl=en&ei=u0MsTqm7FJPUgQfBs6j7Cg&sa
    =X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22april%2C%201918%22%20%22Molotschna%22&f=false 
     

• The arrival of German troops caught the Mennonites by surprise. The Mennonite world had isolated itself from the mainstream of events and existed within a sort of vacuum, relying to a great extent on rumours for information. Feelings of disbelief and then of relief swept through the colonies:

  Then [with the German occupation] came a short respite, during which tears and repentance were turned into expressions of gratitude and joy ....This was a most welcome period of peace, a breathing space sent by God ...

  Never in the history of the colonies had there been such celebration and expression of joy as on the day of the coming of the German armies ...

  Hurrah! Our liberators have finally arrived not quite, actually, but Melitopol, the neighboring town, has been taken. This time it's the truth.,..But we want to thank God for our liberation ...

  About 5 o'clock a long train of Prussians arrived in Halbstadt. They were greeted joyfully by the populace. It was such an up-lifting sight that one's eyes filled with tears ...

  On April 19 the first trainload of German troops arrived at the Lichtenau Station in Molotschna ... One observer described the atmosphere of mystery and excitement that preceeded the arrival of the troop train ...."big things are happening. Our tormentors have suddenly disappeared .... People are rushing to the railway depot"... Apparently there were no Russians or Ukrainians among this group, only Mennonites and a few Germans from nearby Prishib. "Tables were brought and set up on the platform; and as if by magic coffee and cookies and other foods appeared. Mennonite girls stood behind the tables ready to serve ....A train slowly approached. Soldiers in German uniform stood on the locomotive."... Then an incident occurred which shocked many of those present. Three prisoners, well-known bandits and murderers, were brought forward from one of the coaches and shot by the Germans in sight of everybody. To be sure, they were murderers, but they were also Ukrainians and they were being shot by German invaders in a town populated by German-speaking people who were welcoming them with joy and celebration ... The Mennonites thus firmly identified themselves with their "liberators". Had the Mennonites known, or even suspected, that the Germans would be forced to evacuate the Ukraine within nine months, they might have behaved quite differently ...

  Non-Mennonites were aware of the fact that some students were involved with the Selbstschutz. A. Reinmaris, for example, writes that, "Already on the second day after the "liberation", armed students from the Halbstadt Kommerzschule [Commerce School] were standing at their posts at the railway station". He is scornful of these "mennonitischer Bourgeois-Soehnehen" (little sons of the Mennonite Bourgeoisis ...

  • Josephine Chipman, The Mennonite Selbstschutz  in the Ukraine: 1918-1919. MA Thesis (University of Manitoba, March, 1988), pp. 98-99, 127-128.

• In April of 1918, the German troops arrived in the Molotschna colony and with them they brought a semblance of peace and security to the Ukraine. The Mennonites were sympathetic to the German occupation, since it offered them relief from the brutality of the Bolsheviks and the anarchistic robber bands. Some of the Mennonites even loaned funds to the German occupation government ...

  • Ben Klassen, Against the Evil Tide, An Autobiography - http://www.resist.com/Against_The_Evil_Tide.pdf

• In late March and early April 1918, a few days after the advance guard of Germans routed Marusia Nikoforova's bandits, the main German occupation force, joined by a troop of Austo-Hungarians, seized Alexandrovsk [a Mennonite town in Ekaterinoslav gubernia]. The entire Old Colony settlement experienced immense relief, and we were eager to feed and house these troops ...

I first encountered the German troops in Khortitsa [Chortitza] on 2 or 3 April [1918]. A large contingent of wagons had been sent from [the village of[ Neider Khortitsa [Neider Chortitza] to transport troops and their equipment back to that village to rout the Nikiforovites and Red Army units that still controlled the Dnieper River boat crossing between the Neider Khortitsa [Neider Chortitza]  and Alexandrovsk ... I cut classes, hopped aboard his wagon ...

When we got to Nieder Khortitsa [Neider Chortitza], a German soldier signalled us into the yard of Peter Unger ...we noticed the German soldiers' fatigue. Mounted on an ancient Oldenburger horse an officer rode by while two disgruntled soldiers were unloading our wagon. With a nod to the officer, one soldier grumbled under his breath to the other, "Comes the day, then he is one of the first whom we beat to death' (Kommt der Tag, dann ist er einer der Ersten, den wir totschlagen). Clearly, revolutionary sentiment had infected the German troops, just as it had earlier swept through the Russian Imperial Army.

I recall a more pleasant experience some weeks later at the teachers. seminary. Many of the students and staff were out on the school's verandah, meeting with several German officers, most wearing uniforms, although one or two were in mufti [ordinary clothes]. Earlier, these Germans had visited Halbstadt and several other villages in the Molochna Settlement. The attractive, prosperous appearance impressed the soldiers tremendously, although the men indicated some dismay at the monotonous uniformity of the villages, with their broad main streets flanked by homes and farm buildings of nearly identical architecture and almost military placement. The Germans preferred Khortisa [Chortitza] and Rosental [a Mennonite village of the Chortitza settlement] with their irregular streets, and more diverse architecture of new brick facades, together with aged thatched structures  and the surrounding rolling, wooded countryside.

Our school's barren courtyard did not impress the Germans. The Russian government had requisitioned the buildings for a hospital when war broke out, just months after construction was complete, and in the intervening years the villages had had little money to landscape the grounds. Commenting on the bleakness, one German waxed ecstatically on what the same courtyard would look like at home, with every corner planted with salable flowers and vegetables ...

German authorities, however, did not favour our emigration [to Germany]. Nor did they want to grant us German citizenship. During the last week in April, the German consul, meeting with Mennonite representatives in Khortisa [Chortitza], recommended that we remain in Ukraine, retain its citizenship, and continue to grow grain ...Not content with this response, several private delegations of Mennonites went to Germany to explore other possibilities ...

Heinrich Epp of Khortitsa went to Berlin at least once ... Evidently, Epp received the same response - that we should remain where we were ...

The German soldiers were to organize these [Selbstschutz] and furnish both weapons and training ...

the self-defence movement never gained much strength in the Khortitsa Settlement [Chortitza Settlement],... In contrast, a strong self-defence movement arose in the more pro-German Molochna Settlement ...

As autumn approached, however, apprehensiveness about the future returned. The disciplined German troops, whom no one dared disobey, were replaced with squads of poorly disciplined Austro-Hungarians ...

A Mennonite family in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union, 1789-1923 By David G. Rempel, Cornelia Rempel Carlson. pp. 191-195, 199. http://books.google.ca/books?id=AYlBYi3Ndi8C&pg=PA193&lpg=PA193&dq=Tavrida+ukraine++1918+mennonites&source=bl&ots=fDIoiowNUi&sig=
Er3AkCLUuzGzcwTaT3o9T0uJyWk&hl=en&ei=7AQpTfy4H86s8AbL6ZC6AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAg#v
=onepage&q=Tavrida%20ukraine%20%201918%20mennonites&f=false

• 21 Apr 1918    Tavrida (Tauride) abolished by German forces.

  http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Ukraine.html

--------------

• 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 Klippenstein, “Remembering Alternative Service in Russia,” Mennonite Reporter, 16 February 1981, 6 ...

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

• Following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, March 3, 1918, signed by Germany and Soviet Russia, the German military occupied the Ukraine and remained there until October, [1918] ...

Because of the revolutionary unrest in Germany itself, the German military was recalled from Russia and we were now exposed to new terrors at the hands of the [Nestor] Makhno bandits. The time had come for the establishment and organization of the Selbstschutz ...

The German officers who had remained behind and a few Russian [officers] who had ample weapons (urged us to act) ...

Yet the officers [of the White Army] in Berdjansk, who were prepared to help us, waited anxiously for more definite answers from the conference and from the Mennonite community generally. The eight Lutheran villages (Prischieb) lying north of the Molochnaya, were wholly united and without any pangs of conscience were prepared to join our Selbstschutz, pressing and urging us to make up our minds ...

Then, at special meetings in the villages of Rueckenau, Gnadenfeld, Halbstadt, Alexanderthal and others, the Selbstschutz was organized, often with assistance from German officers ...

When I got home that day, I hitched two fresh horses to the wagon and drove to Gnadenfeld (about 18 versts away) to see [Sergeant] Sonntag, one of the men at the headquarters of the Selbstschutz, about the same matter. I told him also about my mental distress. But this German military man showed absolutely no understanding for my attitude toward nonresistance ...

Bernhard J. Dick, Something About the Selbstschutz of the Mennonites in South Russia (July, 1918-March, 1919), Written September, 1978  - http://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/viewFile/238/238

• 19. April [NS] 1918 - German troops enter Halbstadt and are welcomed as deliverers- thanks to God (!?) ...

  14. April [1918], Sunday - Soldiers and sailors requisitioned meat, bread, eggs, etc. at various places in Halbstadt and Muntau ...

  - Berdjansk - battles between Whites and Reds - end on 18. April [1918] with victory of Whites- Charkow - occupied by Ukrainians and Germans on 8. April
  - Alexandrowsk - fell to Whites on 15. Apirl [1918]
  - Melitopol - fell to Whites on 16. April [1918]
  - Ukraine, Kiev - 6.April: ]1918] negotiations between Germans and Ukrainians on export of food and grain products ...

  [June, 1918]

  - Travel within Ukraine - no passports necessary
  - travel to Crimea and Russia requires passport
  - travel to Europe requires written request to commanders ...

  [July, 1918]

  Hauptmann Bunde, ”An die Bewohner der mennonitischen und andern deutschen Dörfer” [Captain Bunde, "To the inhabitants of the Mennonite and other German towns"]

  • - under Bolshevik rule many of the poor villagers were forced (often at gunpoint) to gather “contributions” from the wealthier villagers; these goods were then distributed among the poor
    - now the former owners [most often wealthier individuals] are making demands for return of their property, often with angry threats
    - Hetman Skoropadskii issued decree on ownership, allowing people to reclaim their rightful possessions - but only if such possessions still exist, e.g. property, fields, forests, gardens, cattle, furniture, machines, etc. - it is not right to demand articles that were taken under “force” - such as butter, eggs, flour, chickens, etc.
    - it is everyone’s responsibility to be fair, sensible and maintain order - the actions of the “wealthy class” versus the “poorer class” are unacceptable, and contribute only to feelings of revenge on part of poor
    - it is a mistake for the wealthy to assume that German troops have come to protect and to reclaim their property ...

  - J. Fast, “Bericht von Sagradowka” - have formed a Selbstschutz for protection when German troops leave 60 men divided into companies of 10 - alternate in standing watch ...

  Hauptmann Bunde, “Bekanntmachung” [Notice]
  - regional command centres opened to handle questions and concerns
  - all judges and village officials in place before Bolsheviks are hereby restored to their official positions
  - all village leaders have responsibility to let all inhabitants know of these regulations ...

  [August, 1918]

  “Finderlohn.” - auction sale, with proceeds going to families of German soldiers killed in action in Einlage

- short summary of events of 12 April N.S. - German entry into Einlage [Chortitza] - Reds blew up Dnieper bridge
- bombardment of Einlage from opposite shore - 6 German soldiers killed during attack ...

[September 1918]

Mennozentrum: Mitteilung - Germany to provide travel support for young men wanting to study in German High Schools ...

Mitteilung: announcement that various German universities and high schools willing to accept German “Kolonisten” ...

[October 1918]

- J. Willms and Abr. Friesen sent as delegates to Berlin to inquire into possibility of Mennonite emigration to Reich
- no large land tracts available; no possibility of settling in German colonies in Africa
- other lands need to be explored ...

Gedicht: “Behüt Dich Gott!” - dedicated to German soldiers, who are now returning to Germany ...

- all rumours of troop withdrawal are groundless - enough troops will remain in Ukraine ...

- “Brief aus der Krim.” - reports on meeting of Germans regarding emigration ...

[November, 1918]

- 23 October - Interior Minister denies rumours that German troops are to be withdrawn and that chaos will ensue ...

- “Das Konzert in Ohrloff.” - Zentralschule, 9 Nov - classical music performed by quartet of German soldiers playing violin, cello, flute and piano; songs sung by Fr. A. Dück and by student choir; piano pices played by Frl. L. Friesen. . . value of music! ...

- David Matthies - workers also stood up for him, calling him the best employer ...

• http://www.mbconf.ca/images/File/Friedensstimme_et_al_index_by_Peter_Letkemann_1917-1920(1).pdf - Annotated index by Peter Letkemann, Winnipeg, Feb 27, 2011: Friedensstimme / Molotschnaer Flugblatt / Volksfreund / Nachrichten des “Volksfreund” [Note: Although the ‘Old Style’ ended on  14 Feb 1918, Ukraine did not adopt the Gregorian calendar]

• The jubilant welcome extended by the Mennonites to the occupying troops was, in retrospect, a mistake and was remembered by the local inhabitants when the power structure in the Ukraine changed. Another mistake made by some Mennonite individuals was also remembered and bitterly resented by their neighbours. During the German occupation, Hetman Skoropadsky ... launched a program of restoring confiscated property to its previous owners throughout the Ukraine. The German army was used as the instrument of this policy. There were instances where Mennonites accompanied German military units on house-to-house searches in order to identify culprits and retrieve the stolen goods. A Mennonite eyewitness gives his version of the attitude of the villagers regarding the return of their goods:

"Did you hear the cannons thunder this morning?" asked fine neighbor of another. "Yes, they say it is the German army which is coming closer to our vicinity. Our storekeeper came from the city last night, and he brought us the news that the Germans are only about twenty miles from here." "That is great. We will get all our property back from these thieves and let them feel how wrong it is to steal and plunder." "If only the German army would come a little bit faster," said the next neighbor. "Don't you think we should send a delegation secretly and tell them that we will help them if only they will help us to get back our property?" "I think it is very risky to do, since you cannot tell how things will. turn out. I prefer to wait." ...

But the attitude of the local peasants was quite different:

They wished they would have the chance to keep everything they had gotten from their wealthier neighbors. It was so nice to sleep on these cozy pillows, the like of which they had never had before. It was so bright by the light of these good kerosene lamps, the like of which they had never possessed previously. And these good horses ...It was such a pleasure to work the fields with them ....the most bitter anger he [the peasant] felt was when the former rich landowner came accompanied with foreign soldiers and demanded his property back ....Not only the livestock, but all other articles had to be returned. It seemed funny at times to see and hear how these rich women went to the houses of the poor and demanded back their pillows, lamps, chickens, pets and jars. Here is where the real hatred was engendered ....We, including myself, did not realize that by being tolerant and willing to part with some of our earthly possessions, would perhaps have saved many lives later on ...

Not all of the Mennonites pursued the return of their stolen property and for this reason, some sources argue, these people escaped the retribution which followed on the heels of the German withdrawal ... It is difficult to assess just how much collaboration there actually was between the Mennonites and the occupation armies, but it seems to have been considerable. There is even reference to Mennonites loaning funds to the German occupation government ... Certainly in the eyes of the Ukrainian peasant, Mennonite behavior during the German occupation proved that their loyalties lay with the Germans and that they were actually collaborating with them. It has been pointed out that for some time before the arrival of German troops, Mennonites had been organizing at the local level to deal with the pillaging and daylight robbery which had become so commonplace throughout the region. The German presence not only allowed the Mennonites to organize openly but encouraged them to do so by providing arms and leadership. According to one participant:

We had the attitude before, but then they [the Germans] trained us. We young boys had to go out to Halbstadt, which was about 6, 7 kilometers away. We had to get up at about 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning when it was dark yet in summer and were trained there three hours, come back and sleep in the afternoon and then take in for faspa [afternoon coffee], after lunchtime in the afternoon , after coffee, we had to go for another three hours. For six hours they would train us ...

Whether participation in the drilling exercises was voluntary is unclear. In the above quotation the phrase "we had to" is used repeatedly giving the impression that they had no choice. Other sources use similar expressions such as they were "required to" and they were "conscripted"... One historian, on the other hand, uses terms such as "urged to join" and "standard policy", implying that there was freedom of choice ... Two of the more objective primary sources suggest that, although the Mennonites were not conscripted, there was considerable pressure on them to organize. The Germans, for reasons of their own, encouraged them in every possible way, even resorting to threats. [...German officers, and to a lesser extent, Austrian officers, strongly encouraged the institution of such self-defense units in part because of the dangers of bandit attack on their own small garrisons and lines of communication ...]  Impetus seems also to have come from the Mennonites themselves:

The German occupation also gave a tremendous impetus to translate into reality plans which a number of young Mennonites, with the support from prosperous farmers, had recommended in various Mennonite colonies even prior to the arrival of foreign troops. Their contemplated plans, strongly resisted by the Mennonite clergy and many of the elder servicemen of World War I, urged the organization of a Selbstschutz ...

It would, of course, have been in their own best interests for the wealthier landowners to encourage formation of a self-defence organization. Schroeder expresses the view that the Mennonites had become far too materialistic and that protection of property was probably the chief motive behind the self-defence movement ... Dyck is of the same opinion and claims, moreover, that the participants in self-defence were paid:

As of today, the drill will take place in our meadow. A German lance-corporal has been assigned to them as drillmaster. In payment, the participants in the Selbstschutz have been promised Stiefelgeld  [boot or pocket money] ... by the village.

And in an entry eleven days later:

In the evening, there was a village meeting at our house, regarding the Stiefelgeld. Actually, the promise of 250 rubles Stiefelegeld was made too hastily. As a result, some of them joined the Selbstschutz merely For money. Such Stiefelgelden ..are unreliable and unwanted. It would have been best to draft men of a certain age for the guard. Then there would have been no accusations by the farmers and those that do not own land, and no Stiefelgeld would have been needed ...

And two months later:

At the village meeting today it was decided to cover the costs for the Stiefelgeld, as well as other costs, by collecting two-thirds as a property tax, and one-third as a head tax ...

It would seem then that-participation in the Selbstschutz was voluntary, but was encouraged by landowners who were willing to pay others (the less wealthy among them) for protection.

The idea of self-defence gained momentum and its proponents became increasingly bold. On April 23 at a district meeting at Halbstadt delegates agreed that a self-defense organization for the colony had become an absolute necessity. A proposal by the German Captain Mueller found unanimous support. The security force of the volost was set at 32 men and leadership of the unit was placed in the hands of J. F. Sudermann ... By May 18 Selbstschutz units had been formed in Halbstadt, Gnadenfeld, Tiege, and Tiegenhagen in the Molotschna Colony. Some Mennonite villages, however, decided against organizing. At Grigorievka [160 km. northeast of Chortitza] a majority of men, led by Jacob Krahn and the minister Jacob Berg, successfully withstood the efforts of the local German commander to create self-defense units ...

And so as the War neared its end in the autumn of 1918, the young Mennonites were happily participating in military "games", while their elders were meeting to organize self-defense units, all with the help and encouragement of the German officers. A question which comes to mind is, if the Selbstschutz was purely defensive in character, as many Mennonites claimed, why was it necessary to begin organizing and training it during the German Occupation? Given the welcome they extended to the Occupation troops, it would seem that many, if not most, of the Mennonites believed the Germans were in the Ukraine to stay. Why then the need for "self-defense"?

• Josephine Chipman, The Mennonite Selbstschutz  in the Ukraine: 1918-1919. MA Thesis (University of Manitoba, March, 1988), pp. 99-104, 106.

• Grandpa Dick [David Jakob Dick] .... described the events that preceded his departure for Canada in the April 15, 1977 edition of the MB Herald, the bi-monthly magazine of the Canadian Mennonite Brethren Church. He was quite at ease in English, and the words are wholly his own. One missing piece of context that you ought to have: from 1919 to 1923, Canada forbade all immigration of Doukhbours, Hutterites and Mennonites from Russia. The Canadian Mennonites lobbied Parliament - the first time they had ever been so deeply involved in politics anywhere - and eventually had the order overturned ...

... family lived on the beautiful plains of the Ukraine on an estate called Apanlee [Taurida Uezd, Berdyansk district - near the Molotschna Colony] ...

In the spring of 1918 the German army occupied the Ukraine and restored law and order. However small bands of terrorists frequently attacked isolated places and murdered whole families. A German officer, Lieutenant Reinhard, the commander of our district, visited  ...

That fall the Germans had to leave, and the civil war began with all its horror ...

[Source: http://fistfulofeuros.net/pedantry/archives/000190.html ]

• Jacob Hoemsen (1879-1969) was born in the village of Hierschau, Molotschna to Heinrich Hoemsen and Agatha Friesen ...

During WWI he served as a medic (Sanitaeter) on board a medical train as the Russians fought the Germans. In 1915 he volunteered for a post at the front to be known as the "Flying Column". Now he wore a uniform and was the only non-Russian in the whole command working with the wounded. One night in May 1915 the unit came under heavy fire but he continued to work at serving the wounded. For this he and his unit received the St. George's medal 4th grade for bravery. In 1916 he was appointed "Officer in Time of War" with the rank of Lieutenant. He was responsible for record keeping and had others under his command.

Hoemsen was wounded in 1918 and returned to Halbstadt where he became an interpreter for the German occupying forces. With the rise of anarchy in the area while living in Waldheim he joined the Gnadenfeld Selbstschutz or self defense unit under the command of German officers. The German forces left in the fall of 1918 and the Machno forces and other bandits took over the area ...

Hoemsen, Jacob, 1879-1969 - http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/programs/archives/holdings/papers/Hoemsen,%20Jacob%20fonds.htm

The Selbstchutz [Selbstschutz]

(1) The treaty of Brest-Litovsk in April 1918 led to the occupation of Southern Russia by German and Austrian troops ... Since the Russian revolution had already broken out in the previous year, anarchy and destruction by bandits and revolutionaries in South Russia was already in progress when the German troops arrived ... They [Mennonite estate owners] armed themselves under German army guidance and together with other estate owners organized posse-like groups, which attacked the estates seized by rebels and retook them. Interrogating those whom they captured, they searched out the rebel leaders, whom the occupation army then executed summarily ...

The presence of the Austro-German army, often quartered in Mennonite homes in the colonies ...some accounts speak of Mennonite youth voluntarily participating in German  army drilling ...

When the Austro-German army withdrew, the officers and  soldiers did not all leave. Some stayed behind, and with them remained vast quantities of arms and ammunition . These men were most eager to organize the settlers into a defense force and were able to provide both training and weapons ....

Thus, the Selbstchutz was organized ...

Anabaptist/Mennonite faith and economics By Calvin Wall Redekop, Victor A. Krahn, Samuel J. Steiner, Institute for Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies, pp. 61-63 - http://books.google.ca/books?id=-mArVVlO02MC&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62&dq=%22south+russia%22+%22Selbstschutz%22+1918&source=bl&ots=aRlcdK8wHg&sig=aLq_c1mKYqx7xsmJ9GzeUbvaA0I&hl=en&ei=SGknTeP4EYus8AbMq9WBAg&sa=X&oi=book_
result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22south%20russia%22%20%22Selbstschutz%22%201918&f=false

• A brief respite came in 1918 when the German army occupied the Ukraine and owners reclaimed estates that had been in many cases despoiled through theft and vandalism or converted into primitive collective farms ...  Posses made up of vengeful estate owners and their sons, especially in the Schonfeld-Brazol area, tried to get their possessions back from the peasants, in some cases themselves committing acts of brutal violence in the process. These estate hotheads also fraternized freely with German officers and were among the first to help organize the Selbstschutz later on. But with the withdrawal of the German forces in November, the merciless destruction of the Gutsbesitzertum as inevitable. Scores of estate owners were butchered during this terrible time, including all the Bergmanns except Henry, the youngest son, some of the Heinrichs men, three male generations of Peters at Petersdorf, and in the Molochnaya the estate philanthropists Jacob Sudermann, and David Dick and his wife of Apanlee, among many others ...  Many, of course, survived and were able to emigrate to Canada, as did most of the wives and children of the murdered estate owners. Here they were forced to make new lives for themselves on a much more modest scale than they had enjoyed in Russia ...

  • Al Reimer, "Peasant Aristocracy: The Mennonite Gutsbesitzertum in Russia" in Journal of Mennonite Studies, Vol. 8, 1990 - http://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/viewFile/659/659
     

• Pleas for moderation and repentance were heard from Mennonite pulpits, the press, and even courageous villagers who dared speak up against the formation of the Selbstschutz. The warning was disregarded, for public opinion was too strong. A deep-seated unrest assumed such proportions it threatened to divide the colonists. To avert such a catastrophe the constituency leaders convoked an All-Mennonite Conference in Lichtenau, Molotschna, between June 30 and July 2, 1918. Debate on the military question was initiated when the German regional commander in Berdyansk requested the Mennonite settlers to clarify their position toward the formation of an integrated selbstschutz to include all the German colonists in South Russia ... An atmosphere of urgency characterized the second day of deliberations when it was learned that the German regional commander in Berdyansk demanded a list of all refusing military service by July 4 ...

Lost Fatherland, the story of the Mennonite emigration from Soviet Russia, By John B. Toews, p. 28 - http://books.google.ca/books?id=tnJhx2cnT70C&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=Prischib+1918+Molotschna&source
=bl&ots=9TtKWnBp27&sig=erKwXqpBoELmlJ4zI_mWHlJMLD4&hl=en&ei=1OYpTe_hGMT48AbH6pCdAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct
=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=german&f=false

• He asked them to address themselves specifically to a directive from the German military commander at Berdiansk requesting that a self-defense militia be formally established in all the German colonies of the Ukraine. He awaited a reply by July 4 [1918] ...

  Representatives were elected to go to the German headquarters at Berdjansk [approximate center of Ukraine], Melitapol [southeastern Ukraine] and Tokmak [southern part of central Ukraine] to make the necessary clarifications in person ("muendlich die noetigen Erlaeuterungen machen") ...

  By early summer regular defense units had been established in several villages in the Molotschna (Halbstadt, Gnadenfeld, Tïege, Tiegenhagen, Ladekopp, Muntau). According to one source, all men between the ages of 19 and 25 "should" report for drilling exercises and in some areas most men up to 40 volunteered ... Another account states that the participants were those between 18 and 20 and several older individuals who were more or less motivated by the love of adventure. The writer goes on to describe the drilling:

On the village green there were drills in German fashion: the various weapons which could be found were shouldered. German officers, non-commissioned officers, sergeants and other adventurers drilled our lads to their heart's content whereby the German anthem was sung with great enthusiasm ...

And from P. J. Dyck's diary:

The Selbstschutz from Ladekopp, Halbstadt, Muntau and Tiegenhagen held war maneuvers [sic] in the meadows, roads and woods of Tiegenhagen. The Bayerische [Austrian] cavalry practiced on their big Oldenburgern [breed of horses] ...

In Zagradovka colony, in the village of Tiege:

In the month of May, on the village meadow, the first big target practice by Mennonite youth took place. But there was no work for this Selbstschutz. Why, the Germans were there. Over the summer it stayed peaceful ...

Leadership seems to have come from German Army officers but there is evidence of considerable Mennonite participation at subordinate levels ... A cavalry unit of 10-12 men and a machine gun unit stood on guard in every village with the Germans supplying the guns and ammunition ... Some of the Mennonite units performed gymnastic feats at the Ludendorffeste in Halbstadt and other centres. These festivals, named in honour of the German Field Marshal Eric van Ludendorff, were patriotic celebrations organized by the German Army in various places populated by German settlers. Festivities included patriotic speeches and dancing to a military band. The social implications of participation in these events disturbed many Mennonites. J.P. Epp cites the "tactless familiarity with the occupation army through the Ludendorffeste and the moral surrender of our youth to the military by our fathers" as contributing factors to the emergence of the Selbstschutz ... Excerpts from diaries tend to support this view:

The civilians [Mennonites] took part in these festivities enthusiastically ....l am not aware that any cultural activities took piece. The most important thing was to drink beer, which our youth were thoroughly introduced to ....The whole affair demoralized our society. It got in touch with the outside world and W of our isolation, much to cur detriment ...

What must the Germans think of us? A number of important people have already criticized the conduct of our girls with the German officers. The noble and true womanly pride seems to have been lost in this generation of women ....That has been proven by the latest "ludendorf" (sic) festival (At present there are a great many of these so-called Ludendorf festivals in Russia, given by the German soldiers in order to raise spirits. Their success has been enormous. The major ingredients of these festivals are marching music, soccer, and dancing.) There are probably a lot of Mennonite women who don't take part, and perhaps the above mentioned are only the sad exceptions. Nevertheless, the disgrace seems to fall on all ...

On Tuesday when the assembly convened, the members found that a German-speaking officer, a non-Mennonite, had been invited to the meeting and had been made chairman. The officer shouted:

You farmers destroy the weeds among your grain, without pangs of conscience. Who is Makhno? A weed that is wars: than weeds, and he must be destroyed. Furthermore if a rabbit destroys a young tree in your garden, you shoot without further consideration. Who is Makhno? An animal, worse than an animal who must be shot dawn. If there is someone here who for conscience' sake does not wish to take a gun and shoot Makhno, please identify yourself ...

Meanwhile individual churches in villages like Alexandertal, Halbstadt, Rueckenau, Tiegenhagen, Sparrau, and Waldheim held special meetings to clarify their position on the subject of organizing a Selbstschutz. Most of the 57 ... villages of the Molotschna pledged to support organized self-defense, but a few resisted the pressure to conform. Petershagen, although it lay directly along the northern front later established by the Selbstschutz, remained non-resistant as did Fischau, Rudnerweide and Pastwa ...

According to J. F. Epp, an active participant in the Molotschna Selbstschutz:

A Selbstschutz committee was elected to organize the villages; establish telephones and transport; build fortifications and trenches (at Hamberg and Kiippenfeld); organize infantry, cavalry, mounted infantry and unified service branches; set up machine guns and one light field battery; supply materials to care for the families of impoverished Selbstschutz participants; establish a medical corps and a staff far discipline and court-martial ...

The picture that emerges as we read Epp's account is this: There were twenty companies of infantry (of which seven came from the German Lutheran villages to the north of the Molotschna) numbering about 2700 men in all, and a cavalry of 300 divided into five detachments ...

The self-defense units had little, if any, difficulty obtaining weapons. During the spring and summer, guns had been made available to the Mennonites by the occupation forces from the German Command in Melitopol ... In the fall of 1918 as the German army withdrew it "left plenty of weapons in the hands of the the colonists, including many Mennonites. By some the weapons were intended to be used solely for the purposes of self-defense, while others possibly hoped to use them to avenge themselves for the sufferings"...

An eye-witness states that "most Mennonites in his village returned their arms to the Germans except for Fourteen who were "more sensible" and hid their weapons ... Another eyewitness who was in his teens at the time recalls:

And yet, we played soldiers all the time. Guns were to be had anywhere, as much as you like, as many as you like. All we needed to do, go to the riverside and pick them up. The river was in many instances, the front. And we didn't have to look very far before we could pick up a rifle or two, or a bayonet ...

There has been some debate about whether or not students from the Kommerzschule in Halbstadt participated in the Selbstschutz. George Thielman contends that they did not. His source is an unpublished manuscript written by Benjamin H. Unruh, a clergyman and former teacher at the Kommerzschule in Halbstadt. According to Unruh, the students of the secondary schools in Halbstadt and elsewhere were forbidden by the Administrative Council of the Faculty to take any leading part in the movement ... Perhaps the key word here is "leading", meaning positions of command. Otherwise this statement makes absolutely no sense because all other sources give a different view. Peter Fast, a student at the Halbstadt Kommerzschule at that time, describes his participation in the Selbstschutz in an unusually well-written account ... He writes that drilling began in July, 1918, when the Germans made available instructors, weapons and ammunition. To enable the boys to help with the harvest, exercises were held between 5 and 8 in the morning. Young men between the ages of 19 and 25 were required to take part. (Fast uses the German verb sollen here which translates as "to be obliged or bound to; to have to; must".)

The boys were drilled on foot and on horseback, but the highlight was target practice. Thanks to "true German thoroughness" they spent a great deal of time in perfecting their skills. "We wore our epaulettes, embroidered with a Roman VIII [District VIII?], with pride, The whole thing was a lot of fun and it would probably never come to serious fighting. The Bandits would never dare to attack organized and armed colonists"... The catch phrase seems to have been "If you want peace, then prepare yourself for war"...

• Josephine Chipman, The Mennonite Selbstschutz  in the Ukraine: 1918-1919. MA Thesis (University of Manitoba, March, 1988), pp. 107, 109-111, 118-119, 123-126.

-------------------------------------

(II) POST NOVEMBER 11, 1918 - DECEMBER 1918

[December, 1918]

A. Kroeker, “Die Deutschen gehen weg, die Verbündeten kommen!”

- confirmed that Germans are leaving, but allied troops are coming from Sewastopol
- what will happen to Germans in Russia?
- very few Mennonites adopted German citizenship [eingebürgert] during the occupation ...

- “Aus Sergejewka, Fürstenland,” Hermann Neufeld - family is moving to Germany ! ...

Radikale Uebel erfordern eben radikale Kuren. >Bei Diebereien - schießen! Ohne weiteres!’ sagte der Halbstädter Distriktskommandant, Hauptmann Bunde einmal, und ich stimme ihm voll und ganz bei.” ... [Radical evil just require radical treatment. > When thefts - shoot! Without further ado, "said the Halbstadt District Commander, Captain Bunde once, and I agree with him wholeheartedly." ...]

- Siberia has been rid of Bolsheviks - about 1 million German and Austrian POWs will remain in Siberia ...

-- note by Mennozentrum criticizing views expressed by A. Kroeker in Nr. 75 and 76 regarding German occupation forces and their departure - they were “personal” views and do not express views of the majority of Mennonites, who are thankful for all these troops have done for them. . . 7. - “Vom Kankriner Land” [originally publ. in Odessa Zeitung on 21 Nov] - describes

[September 1919]

10 December [1918]- German troops shoot their way out of Pawlograd and commandeer train to escape ...

• http://www.mbconf.ca/images/File/Friedensstimme_et_al_index_by_Peter_Letkemann_1917-1920(1).pdf - Annotated index by Peter Letkemann, Winnipeg, Feb 27, 2011: Friedensstimme / Molotschnaer Flugblatt / Volksfreund / Nachrichten des “Volksfreund” [Note: Although the ‘Old Style’ ended on  14 Feb 1918, Ukraine did not adopt the Gregorian calendar]

• White troops soon captured Melitopol. As the northward expansion continued White Officers took over the administration of the Halbstadt and Gnadenfeld volosts and made a determined effort to assimilate the Selbstschutz into the white army ...

  Several joint military exercises strengthened the bonds between the Selbstschutz and the White Army. Particularly significant was a direct encounter with the Makhno forces in the large Russian village of Tchernigovka to the east of the Moloschna settlement during October 1918 ... The Whites ordered the Gnadenfeld and Halbstadt Selbstschutz detachments to the scene. They were joined by the Waldheim unit ... Before long the White Officers exercised considerable influence upon the Selbstschutz executive committee. At least one unit allowed itself to become officially inducted into the White Army ...

  The regional White commander [was] Colonel Malakov ...
   

  • Lost Fatherland, the story of the Mennonite emigration from Soviet Russia, By John B. Toews, p. 32 - http://books.google.ca/books?id=tnJhx2cnT70C&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=%22white+officers%22+halbstadt&source=bl&ots=9UlHWiBj7f&sig=KaSfDlcIiMuNP8wMOPS4LeGFLHs&hl=en&ei=pocsTrsDzOeBB9n0kakL&sa=X&oi=book
    _result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22white%20officers%22%20halbstadt&f=false
     

• In accordance with the Armistice of November 11, 1918, the Central Powers began withdrawing their armies from the Ukraine ...

  After the occupation troops withdrew from the colonies sometime in November, there ensued a few weeks of calm during which the Mennonites, aware that the storm would break at any moment, made frantic preparations for defense. Hoping desperately for relief, not knowing which rumours to believe, they trained and waited and put on a show of strength:

However, it seems we will have no help in protecting ourselves against the looting, plundering bands of terrorists .... In the late afternoon thirty militiamen of our Selbstschutz unit rode to Tokmak [Zaporizhzhia Oblast]. It is wise to keep the Russian populace in the belief that we are all armed to the hilt, and a troop of well-armed men on horseback appearing on the streets of Tokmak is impressive.

At the Kommerzschule the students were being "well trained by our German officer in shooting, bayonetting, the throwing of hand grenades, the quick digging of trenches. All of this we were to make use of in no time at all." ...

J. P. Dyck wrote in his diary:

[October, 1918]

During the night the alarm was sounded in Halbstadt. Shots rang out, so that they could be heard quite clearly in our village. A group of our Selbstschuetlzer [sic] , most of them students at the Kommerzschule (School of Gommerce), took the train as far as Waldheim. Another group went on horseback. Near Tschernigowka [sic] they collided with the Machnovtze. A German officer and a man by the name of Martens were killed in action, and several others wounded ...

Peter Fast, a student at the Kommerzschule, had the watch at the railway station in Halbstadt on the night of December 5/6. The phone rang at midnight. It was a call for help from Waldheim. "The Machnovschina is planning to attack Sparrau and Hamberg in the morning. Alarm your men." Sergeant Major Sonntag ordered an extra train from the depot in Tokmak and within the hour they were ready. Fast and a comrade were not allowed to go because they had to keep watch at the depot. "Nothing doing", they said to each other, "We are going along". They quickly hid in one of the wagons, but Sonntag discovered them. "Donnerwetter, what are you doing here. Don't you know that you must stay at your post?". Then he reassured them. "You will soon be allowed to go too." The boys waited impatiently for news of the action. The evening train brought the men back with this story. They had spent the night at Waldheim railway station ... The Selbstschutz lost two men, Johann Martens and NCO Henshel [German sergeant Henschel], both of whom were buried in Nalbstadt with full military honours several days later ...

• Josephine Chipman, The Mennonite Selbstschutz  in the Ukraine: 1918-1919. MA Thesis (University of Manitoba, March, 1988), pp. 114, 133, 135-136.
   

• [October, 1918]

Einmal schon, im Oktober 1918, hatte der Selbstschutz zusammen mit den Weißen zugeschlagen, als bekannt wurde, dass Machno sich der Molotschnakolonie von Osten her näherte und im russischen Dorf Tschernigowka Stellung bezogen hatte. Einheiten des Selbstschutzes aus Gnadenfeld und Waldheim vereinigten sich zum Angriff. Es gab ein regelrechtes Gefecht, bei dem sich die Weißen allerdings in sicherer Entfernung zurückhielten. Es gelang dem Selbstschutz zwar nicht, Machno zu fangen, wie es ihre Absicht war, doch die ganze Bande flüchtete, und die Spannung hatte sich damit noch gesteigert. Johann Martens und der deutsche Unteroffizier Henschel fielen im Kampf, und einige Selbstschützler wurden verwundet. Martens und Henschel wurden in Halbstadt beigesetzt. Die Angreifer sahen ihr Vorgehen als Sieg an, und der Selbstschutz sah sich in seinem Vorhaben trotz der vielen Warnungen bestärkt. Diese Abwehr Machnos brachte dem Selbstschutz viel Zuspruch ein. Die Kolonie war vor dem Einfall der Banden geschützt worden, und viele dankten Gott für die Bewahrung ...

• Jahrbuch, für Geschichte und Kultur der Mennoniten in Paraguay, Herausgegeben vom, Verein für Geschichte und Kultur der Mennoniten in Paraguay, 10. Jahrgang 2009 - http://www.menonitica.org/2009/JB2009-web.pdf
   

• When it became necessary for the German troops to withdraw from the Molotschna, sometime in November, the Hierschau Selbstschutz members lined up on their parade ground. A German officer named Vogt addressed the group. "I have chosen the best one among you, Heinrich Braun." Then turning to Heinrich he continued, "If anyone can do it, you can." ...

• In September, I returned to school for my last year. On Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, news came that the Germans were pulling out ...

The Selbstschutz (Self-defence Group) consisted of ordinary young men, many still in school, and some older men. Most were single. In each village, two armed men kept guard for four hours during the night.

The Germans trained us after school ... The only rank among Mennonnites was leader in charge of a platoon; all officers were non-Mennonite. The Lutherans at Prischib were organized too. Most of them had served in the army, had their own officers and were more experienced than we.

We were all supposedly volunteers although great pressure was put on us to join the Selbstschutz.

"After all, bandits were terrorizing the north." We had heard the stories, many of them directly from friends and relatives, who had been forced to leave their homes in the north and flee to the villages in the Molotschna. Among these was Gerhard Toews from Schoenfeld, a graduate of the Commerce School [Kommerzschule ] of Halbstadt. He had been a lieutenant in the Tsarist army during the war. He later organized a German battalion and fought with the White Army. I did not meet him until after I had fled from Russia....

http://books.google.ca/books?id=WE58Gp-BJ1AC&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=%22German+Battalion%22+%22White+army%22&source=bl&ots=9W7HUWkgaC&sig=92MjsKp8OP0ivm_DnxzAiBicZps&hl=en&ei=K3gmTZiZJ8L-8AaNuNWFAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Molotschna&f=false - Constantinoplers: Escape from Bolshevism By Irmgard Epp. pp. 46-47.

• Leadership at the highest levels was in the hands of German Army officers. "These [post November 11, 1918?] had left the German army because they had found somewhere a sweetheart by some large-scale farmers or landowners or because they feared a court-martial upon their return to Germany."... Some sources add that leadership also came from White Army officers, this as early as November of 1918 before the White Army occupied the Ukraine ... One participant states that German soldiers who had trained the colonists during the summer were left behind to give leadership and training after the occupation forces withdrew [post November 11, 1918] ... Whether they were left behind for that purpose, or whether they deserted, it is clear that some German officers did remain in the colonies and that they played an important part in organizing and training the Selbstschutz ...  Later the White Army played an important role in the Selbstschutz organization and command ...

  • Josephine Chipman, The Mennonite Selbstschutz  in the Ukraine: 1918-1919. MA Thesis (University of Manitoba, March, 1988), p. 124.
     

• Long before February 1 [1919], when the last German units departed from the Ukraine, Makhno's bands had resumed their terrorist activities ... The Germans, in retaliation, executed individual bandits and occasionally levelled to the ground entire villages suspected of housing guerrillas  ... Lawlessness increased, especially on the outskirts of the Molotschna where the large Mennonite estates were located ....

On one occasion, when enroute home to Schoenfeld ... I stopped în Alexandrovsk [a town in Ekaterinoslav gubernia] to visit the headquarters of the German-Austrian command-to plead with one of the high-ranking officers to stop the reprisal tactics, pointing out to him that in the end this would only intensify the terrorist activities. I do not know how much good, if any, my counsel accomplished."...

"Without waiting for the outcome of the War, the Russian and Ukrainian peasants, in many cases, took possession of the land of the great Mennonite property owners. These fled to Halbstadt and other towns and developed there an active counterrevolutionary activity." ...

Walter Burow .... was an active participant in the Selbstschutz. Adolph Ehrt agrees that the Germans acted as instructors. He adds that, "Demobilized troops formed the core of the Selbstschutz organization. It originated with the withdrawal of the German occupation troops in November,1918." Ehrt estimates that the strength of the Selbstschutz would have been about 2,000 men ...

Although it is impossible to piece together the actual hierarchy of command in the Selbstschutz organization, it is clear that there was German leadership at the highest levels. Non-Mennonite German names appear frequently in first-person accounts, names such as Freiherr (baron) von Staufenberg (who is mentioned by a Kommerzschule student as the "overall leader" and the German District Commander for Halbstadt), Herr Leutnant Leroux, Herr Sergeant Mueller, Sergant Wagenknecht, and Sergeant Sonntag (sometimes referred to as Sergeant Major). Sonntag's name is mentioned frequently by students as their "leader". He was in the 182nd Saxon Infantry Regiment of the German Army and instrumental in training the Kommerzschule students. After the German retreat he remained behind, it appears, as the leader of the "Shock Troops" ...

• Josephine Chipman, The Mennonite Selbstschutz  in the Ukraine: 1918-1919. MA Thesis (University of Manitoba, March, 1988), pp. 115-116, 129-131.

• The last German troops left the area in November [1918], including Sergeant Mueller under whom they had trained. "A few officers remained, however, and most of these played a leadership role in the the ensuing war."... Jacob Thiessen who was also in the Kommerzschule detachment states in his memoirs:

One of the German officers, by the name of Sonntag had stayed behind, and he trained the students of our college in warfare, and made out of the two hundred students quite a formidable military force ....

Thiessen is speaking of the special Kommerzschule infantry unit, the "Shocktroops". About their activities more will be said later.

That the Kommerzschule students participated in the Selbstschutz is also confirmed by Mr. Julius Neustaedter, who attended the school as a youth and is presently living in Saskatoon. In an interview, he described his involvement with the Kommerzschule detachment:

It was exciting ....The school had the biggest unit ....We volunteered of our own free will ....Not all the students joined, probably less [in number] than [those who] didn't [join] ....The teachers had nothing to do with it ....No cane forced us ...

According to Mr. Neustaedter, the boys were aged from sixteen years and wore their school uniforms. The Germans organized and drilled the unit on the Muntaur Wiese [Muntaur meadow]. They used real guns with wooden bullets so as not to waste ammunition. Their "leader" was Sonntag, a German, and there were no Mennonites involved in the drilling. When asked why he participated, Mr. Neustaedter replied that he had no regrets. "At that time it was the thing to do. I would do it again." When asked what his parents thought about his actions he chuckled and replied, "

They didn't know. At least I didn't tell them."

"Why, didn't you tell them?"

"They would have said you should be studying."

"What did the ministers at school think about all this?"

"They didn't talk about it."

Peter Rempel, also confirms Kommerzschule participation in the Selbstschutz:

The major centre of support and activity of the Selbstschutz was Halbstadt. The elder of the church at Halbstadt, Abraham Klassen, had led the struggle at the Lichteriau Conference and the faculty and students of the presitiguous [sic] School of Commerce supported the Selbstschutz ...

• Josephine Chipman, The Mennonite Selbstschutz  in the Ukraine: 1918-1919. MA Thesis (University of Manitoba, March, 1988), pp. 126-127.

• The defeat of Germany had also opened the Black Sea to the Allies, and in mid-December 1918 some mixed forces under French command were landed at Odessa and Sevastopol, and in the next months at Kherson and Nikolayev ...

  • http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/romeo/russia1918.htm
     

• In 1918 after the retreat of the German troops, all government authority was gone. Police and communist military were not there. Gangs roved around killing and destroying at random. Frightful news came which created great fear and concern. In view of this terror, the young men of the Molotschna rose to the challenge and organized a strategy, including firearms, to protect their families and homes. In a short time the villages felt more at ease. The Mennonites joined the Lutherans and Catholics to protect themselves from the roving bandits. This joint endeavor was successful until March 10, 1919.

The arrival of the German troops in our village brought a great deal of relief from all our fears. The self-defense movement began during the occupation. Representatives of the various churches met at Rückenau church to discuss the matter of carrying arms. They saw no other alternative.

After the retreat of the German army in December 1918, the Molotschna villages were completely defenseless. However, there were many murderous bandits everywhere. The young men of our villages were united as one man to defend their loved ones. We thank the Lord that there were only a few casualties ...

http://pennermi.cmanitoba.com/AbramPBergmann_Bio.pdf - According to Abram Peter Bergmann (1884-1971) who was a participant in the Selbstschutz.

• When the German troops had to withdraw from the Molotschna after the armistice to end World War 1 was signed, the Hierschau Selbstschutz lined up on the parade ground. The German officer, named Vogt, who had been training them, addressed the group. He announced that he had chosen the best one of the group, Heinrich Braun, to replace him as commander, and advised the others to follow and obey him. Turning to Heinrich he continued, "If anyone can do it, you can!" A feature could have knocked Heinrich over, but since he doubted that anyone else would do it, he accepted the role as "Fuehrer." When the German troops left the area, he set about organizing the Hierschau force to make sure it would efficiently fulfill its mandate ...

• Hierschau: an example of Russian Mennonite life By Helmut Huebert, pp. xxi, 238, 240-241, 250, 261 - http://books.google.ca/books?id=vlCs3O2cTxkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Hierschau:+an+example+of+Russian+Mennonite+life+By+Helmut+Huebert&source=bl&ots
  =5xREDuIh3G&sig=UlCoutAhvd4jwShGrQXYuvUW6f4&hl=en&ei=CKdITYjcEcG78gbY-pjjBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

-------------------------------------

(III) 1919

Halbstadt, 20 Jun 1919 - praise and thanks to leadership of “Freiwilligen Armee [White Army] for rescuing them. . .

[September, 1919]

A. K[roeker]. “Erfahrungen aus der letzten Bolschewistenzeit.” - German Occupation of Halbstadt
- “Der nun angebrochene 26 (13.) Juni wird in der Geschichte unserer Kolonien und besonders Halbstadt’s immer als einen der hervorragendsten in geschichtlicher Erinnerung bleiben. . .
- “Wir stehen jetzt unter der Herrschaft der freiwilligen Armee. Es bleibt, was rechtliche geordnete Verhältnisse betriftt, noch viel zu wünschen übrig.” ...

[November 1919]

Flags: Russian white-blue-red
German: black-yellow-red
Ukrainian: blue-yellow
Kadets: white
Bolsheviks red
Anarchists: black ...

[December, 1919]

Germany opposes economic blockade [sanctions] against Russia, this will hurt only the people ...

Mennoniten in Deutschland: list of Mennonite who have fled to Germany ...

• http://www.mbconf.ca/images/File/Friedensstimme_et_al_index_by_Peter_Letkemann_1917-1920(1).pdf - Annotated index by Peter Letkemann, Winnipeg, Feb 27, 2011: Friedensstimme / Molotschnaer Flugblatt / Volksfreund / Nachrichten des “Volksfreund” [Note: Although the ‘Old Style’ ended on  14 Feb 1918, Ukraine did not adopt the Gregorian calendar]

- 

March 1919

• http://hubpages.com/hub/German-and-French-Military-Forces-in-the-Ukraine-1918# - German and French Military Forces in the Ukraine, 1918
   

• From late November, 1918, to the end of February of the following year [1919], the Selbstschutz managed to keep Makhno's forces at bay ... But in early February [1919] the situation changed dramatically. On January 26 [1919] Makhno agreed to unite forces with the Bolsheviks ... and a week later the Selbstschutz was defeated ...

  At the time of its collapse a large segment of the Halbstadt Selbstschutz, the cavalry and "mounted infantry" was in the vicinity of Blumental. Its commanders, Homeyer and Sonntag ... dissolved the front and granted the Selbstschutz participants their freedom, urging each man to save himself as best he could. Some sources claim that a large segment of this group which escaped into the Crimea organized there a fighting contingent known as the Jaegerbatallion ...Another segment of the Halbstadt Selbstschutz fled in the direction of Berdyansk, from where some fled into the Crimea while others returned home ...

  The Selbstschutz, in spite of its weaknesses, managed to prevent Makhno's bandits from gaining control of the colonies during the three months which followed the withdrawal of the German Occupation forces. That it was able to "prevent Makhno and his bandits from making the Molotschna their playground ... is surprising from a military point of view. Hans von Homeyer, an experienced White Army officer who was instrumental in helping the defeated Selbstschutz troops to escape, described the Mennonite soldiers as brave and courageous ...

  Although some Mennonites have taken offence at Homeyer's remarks ... claiming that he was criticizing the Selbstschutz, it would seem rather that he felt admiration for what they had been able to accomplish as nonprofessional soldiers ...

  It seems that a few days before the collapse of the Selbstschutz, the Mennonites invited Hans von Homeyer, a German officer, to Halbstadt to replace the White officers in command. Members of the Mennozentrum negotiated with White authorities in Halbstadt and Melitopol for the transfer of Selbstschutz leadership to Homeyer. A special delegation, including B. H. Unruh, was dispatched to the Crimea to inform him of his appointment as commander-in-chief.

  Homeyer's obituary, on file in the CMBC Archives, states that, "In February 1919 Homeyer returned from the Crimea [to the Ukraine] and took over the Mennonite Selbstschutz, out of which he [later] put together the 4,000-man Jaeqerbrigade. [My translation from the German] John Toews, however, states that the 4,000 German colonists in the Jaeqerbrigade (Sharpshooters' Brigade), "included" Mennonite Selbstschuetzler ...

  Lohrenz, in the above mentioned interview, states that Homeyer had criticized the Selbstschutz for poor organization ...

  • Josephine Chipman, The Mennonite Selbstschutz  in the Ukraine: 1918-1919. MA Thesis (University of Manitoba, March, 1988), pp. 143, 149-150, 152.

⁵⁶ Thiessen, We are Pilgrims, 51. The final days [1919] 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# ]

• [Post] March 1919 ... In Brazel [Brazol Colony, also known as Schoenfeld Colony, South Russia], I immediately reported to the Kommisar ...

Our area was now settled with some Austrians and Germans. Some German officers also came to Schöenbrunns wishing to bring some Russians to a hearing. The Russians had been mailed orders to report. In our neighbourhood,  I. Thiessen was the Kommisor and when he was in need, had to flee; came home and reported to the German officer in the school. One Philipp, because he had been on the run so much had taken what he needed as he went. So also by us; the horses and my fur. So  he came to me and begged me to say a good word for him. I felt sorry for him (and I hadn't told anybody yet) and promised to help. My father-in-law Koop, teacher at Schöenbrunn, was also very beloved by the Russians as was Korn. Enns who was involved in this case. I spoke for Philipp, asking they leave him alone, since he hadn't killed anybody. He had taken because he was in need. So they didn't do anything to him which resulted in my safety later on ...

In the autumn of 1919, after the harvest, most of the Schöenfelder fled, as did we, since Makhno's band were everywhere daily. We voted to go north d. h. Memrick. We drove on a heavy wagon with four horses. The driver, a German, was to return ...

• Rememberances Out of Russia, Johann J. Mathies, Vineland, Ontario, 1965 (Brother of A. J. Mathies) - Interviewed by Annie Krause - 1919
   

• The German villages along the Molotschna and its tributary were protected by the Selbstschutz  [Molotschna warriors] for a considerable length of time. It was organized in 1918 by Lieutenant Sonntag of the German army. By the fall of 1919 the Selbstschutz  had vanished ...

[ '"No Songs Were at the Gravesite": The Bltunenort (Russia) Massacre (November 80-12, 1919), Translated and Edited by John B. Toews, Regent College at  http://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/viewFile/443/443 ]

Cornelius Heinrich Epp

• In the Molotchna [Molotschna] colonies the Germans gave military training to these young men in the lazy summer days of 1918. When I came back to Halbstadt in September we in the upper classes were given military instruction by German officers in German and by a White Russian captain in Russian. This continued after the German Army left as quite a number of the German officers and solders remained in the colonies.

One of the officers, Lieutenant Hohmeyer [Homeyer], and his nephew stayed at my aunt Eva's, where I also boarded. More about this Hohmeyer later.

My last school year started September 1. Everything went as usual, except we had one hour of military training after school. With the German Army gone, the Ukraine became more unsettled politically. The Bolshevik Army slowly moved into the Ukraine; it wasn't until the end of March 1919 that it reached the Mennonite colonies in the Molotschna. Meanwhile the Selbstschutz  protected the colonies from attacks by terrorist bands. Nightly guard duty was required of us. Two men patrolled the village streets, so each man's turn did not come very often. Also the Selbstschutz  was responsible for other colonies, where an attack was expected. A wagon, with two horses, or even more when the roads were muddy, were ready to transport men when the alarm was sounded. I participated on two occasions. Once in Lindenau, a colony south of Halbstadt. A small group of armed men from a Russian village was threatening were threatening the colony. We were there for a day but nothing happened.

The second time we had to take the train to Waldheim and then another 15 miles by wagon to Konteniusfeld. This happened in February when the Red Army was getting closer and the various bandits who worked with them were getting bolder ....

When the Selbstschutz  was organized, it was always understood they would lay down their arms when the Red Army arrived. The Red Army was moving along the Southern Railway, which ran from Alexandrovsk to Melitopol and then into the Crimea. But before they arrived, the Selbstschutz  fought one battle with Makhno's band near Blumental, a Lutheran colony about 20 miles north of Halbstadt.

Makhno had about 10,000 men under him and he was going to show the Red Army what he could do before they arrived

Confronting him were 600 colonists who were well entrenched and led by experienced German officers from the Western front. The battle lasted three days and resulted in some 3000 casualties on the Makhno side and one man killed on our side ..

JU: This was March 1919. The numbers are inflated, but this is common ....

and in a few days the Red Army occupied Halbstadt ...

By the time we got back to Halbstadt, my aunt and cousin and family had left for Sevastopol [port city in Crimea, located on the Black Sea]. I gathered a few clothes and, on horseback, joined Hohmeyer and the other Germans in their flight to Crimea. We passed Melitopol by evening ...

The Makhnovitzi were right on our heels. We expected to make a stand in Crimea, which was easier to defend.

Our group got on a freight train moving to Sevastopol, Crimea. I didn't stay long and went to Simferopol. Lt. Hohmeyer  organized what he called the Jäger Brfigade (Rifle Brigade) embracing the men who had been in the Selbstschutz. Lutherans,   Catholic Germans as well as Mennonites and Crimean Germans joined this Brigade, about 3000 men. The White Army held the front against the Red Army.

Hohmeyer and an Austrian were in charge of the Brigade but the White Army helped organize it. I joined the Brigade ...

By the end of March the Red Army advanced to Simferopol after breaking through the front at Perekop.

The event convinced Hohmeyer that the White Army was about finished and he decided to go over to the Reds, which we did. What was left of the White Army retreated to Vladislavoroka, another narrow place in the Kerch Peninsula. The Red Army soon took Simferopol. The changeover was very orderly. There was no looting. Our Rifle Brigade occupied public buildings and patrolled the streets ...

Back to Simferopol. The Bolsheviks did not trust the Rifle Brigade and did not know what to do with it. They finally persuaded us to disband.

"Put your arms down and we will give you safe passage home." I should have gone, but because of the Cheka's terror in Melitopol, I feared going home. I stayed in Simferopol; it was relatively quiet: No executions ....

Not long after the Rifle Brigade disbanded Oberleutnant Hohmeyer, his nephew, four others and I were all arrested by the Cheka ...

http://books.google.ca/books?id=WE58Gp-BJ1AC&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=%22German+Battalion%22+%22White+army%22&source=bl&ots=9W7HUWkgaC&sig=92MjsKp8OP0ivm_DnxzAiBicZps&hl=en&ei=K3gmTZiZJ8L-8AaNuNWFAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Molotschna&f=false - Constantinoplers: Escape from Bolshevism By Irmgard Epp. pp. 40-44.

• B. B. Janz gives a different version of the reasons for the [Blumenort] massacre. He writes that the tragedy was the result of a Mennonite "conspiracy". He claims that the members of the (by then) disbanded Selbstschutz, led by a German officer by the name of Gloeckler, had been invited to Blumenort to make the raid by Jacob Epp and someone from Ohrloff ...

  • Josephine Chipman, The Mennonite Selbstschutz  in the Ukraine: 1918-1919. MA Thesis (University of Manitoba, March, 1988), p. 160.
     

• We must make a confession: we have sinned-and not only in this particular case. In this instance, however, all the murders of  those days, all the conflagrations, all the rapes resulted from Mennonite armed resistance. Former members of the Selbstschuz well as later members of the German battalion (21-22 persons?) were directly responsible. We've usually kept silent about this bitter fact ...

Some fleeing splinter groups from the White Army, including Molotschna warriors (Selbstsclzutz), had entered the village of Waldheim in the Gnadenfeld district. Here they formulated plans to attack the fiends in Ohrloff and destroy the robbers' den. ...

During the night a party of adventurers from the volunteer army  [White Army], including Molotschna warriors (Selbstsclzutz)] attacked the Red watch stationed in the village. Several were killed, possibly a Red commissar among others. The exact sequence of events associated with the raid cannot be ascertained since the participants withdrew the same night and left the innocent inhabitants of Blumenort to their terrible fate! ...

On Wednesday November 12, my wife and I and our parents drove to Tiegenhagen to bury father's brother-in-law, Jakob Welk, who was murdered in Tiegenhagen by this terror-inspiring band ...

"No Songs Were at the Gravesite" The Bltunenort (Russia) Massacre (November 80-12, 1919) Translated and Edited by John B. Toews, Regent College, pp. 62-63, 67 - jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/443/443

• Hohmeyer now abandoned hope that the White Army could save Russia and rather than retreat with them from Simferopol, he entered an agreement with the Reds that they take over his Rifle Brigade. By now this brigade contained Mennonites, Lutherans and Catholics from the Melitopol and Berdiansk areas ..

After we were freed from prison by the White Army .... He [Hohmeyer] never organized anything more after that but stayed in Simferopol ...

http://books.google.ca/books?id=WE58Gp-BJ1AC&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=%22German+Battalion%22+%22White+army%22&source=bl&ots=9W7HUWkgaC&sig=92MjsKp8OP0ivm_DnxzAiBicZps&hl=en&ei=K3gmTZiZJ8L-8AaNuNWFAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Molotschna&f=false - Constantinoplers: Escape from Bolshevism By Irmgard Epp. pp. 49-50.

• Some German officers remained in the Molotschna to lead the Selbstschutz which they had drilled and equipped. One of the significant battles between the Makhno group and the Selbstschutz took place twenty miles (35 km) north of Halbstadt near the Catholic village of Blumental early in March 1919 ...

The Selbstschutz (self-defense) began as a spontaneous movement by the Mennonites in the Ukraine to protect lives and property during the period of violent anarchy following the Russian Revolution. During the German occupation (April-November, 1918) hitherto secret Selbstschutz, units were trained openly under German supervision mainly in Molotschna, Chortitza, Nikolaipol, and Sagradovka. If and when the German troops withdrew, these militia units were to become operative ...

Aided and abetted by the White Army, the Molotschna Selbstschutz took the field with a successful attack against Makhnovite forces at Chernigovka (6 December 1918). During the winter of 1918-1919 the Selbstschutz, now an "army" of 2,700 infantry divided into 20 companies (of which 7 were non-Mennonite Germans from Prischib) and 300 cavalry, held a thinly-stretched "front" against Makhno's forces at Blumenthal, 20 mi. (33 Ion.) north of Molotschna. In early March 1919, Makhno combined with the advancing Red Army to force the Selbstschutz to retreat and disband in Halbstadt ...

http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/S444ME.html

• It is likely that the Molotschna Mennonites were the first to be attacked by the Makhno anarchist hordes. Some German officers remained in the Molotschna to lead the Selbstschutz which they had drilled and equipped. One of the significant battles between the Makhno group and the Selbstschutz took place twenty miles (35 km) north of Halbstadt near the Catholic village of Blumental early in March 1919. After a fierce five-day battle, the Selbstschutz unit was overwhelmed by the Makhno group which outnumbered them ten to one. Gradually they withdrew to Halbstadt. On March 9 and 10, hundreds of wagons of German refugees (Mennonite, Catholic, and Lutheran) moved toward the Crimea. The regular Red army regiments soon moved in and prevented the Makhno bandits from occupying the Mennonite villages, and the Makhno followers then subjected themselves to them from March to July 1919. During this time the Mennonites suffered very severely ...

http://forums.skadi.net/showthread.php?t=133205

• Mennonite units Russian

Mennonite young men in Ukraine from Molotschna and to a lesser extent Chortitza formed Selbstschutz units through influence of the German occupation forces at the end of World War I. Before the end of the occupation, German soldiers supervised the creation of several Selbstschutz units, leaving guns, ammunition, and a few officers to command the groups. Together with a neighboring Lutheran colony, the young men from Molotschna formed twenty companies totaling 2700 infantry and 300 cavalry, which, during the Russian Civil War, held back the forces of anarchist Nestor Makhno until March 1919. When the Red Army combined with Makhno, the self-defense group was forced to retreat and disband ...

http://www.reference.com/browse/Selbstschutz

• The last four years I boarded with Mother's sister, Eva Willms. She lived in Alt Halbstadt on the opposite end of the village from where I had been before... A day later I found out the Horse Clinic had left first. I again stayed with my aunt, Eva Willms; A Colonel of the Guard, Uhlans, and his adjutant also stayed with her. The Uhlans were the last Germans to leave Halbstadt. We watched them ride past the house two by two in a long line, a sad moment for us. We all realized we were facing a very dark future ..

Constantinoplers: Escape from Bolshevism By Irmgard Epp, pp. 36, 39, http://books.google.ca/books?id=WE58Gp-BJ1AC&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=%22the+uhlans%22+halbstadt&source=bl&ots=9W7HZVfe5I&sig=RftPBZDziwN_q-SH-efAQr-UvRU&hl=en&ei=v90tTdLdL8ys8Aa-87TxCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22the%20uhlans%22%20halbstadt&f=false

[NOTE: German Uhlans ... In 1914 the Imperial German Army included twenty-six Uhlan regiments, three of which were Guard regiments, twenty-one line (sixteen Prussian, two Württemberg and three Saxon) and two from the autonomous Royal Bavarian Army ... After seeing mounted action during the early weeks of World War I the Uhlan regiments were either dismounted to serve as "cavalry rifles" in the trenches of the Western Front, or transferred to the Eastern Front where more primitive conditions made it possible for horse cavalry to still play a useful role. All twenty-six German Uhlan regiments were disbanded in 1918 – 1919.  ...

Polish Uhlans: ... After Poland's independence in 1918, Uhlan formations were raised in all parts of the country [Poland}. They fought with distinction in the Greater Poland Uprising, the Polish-Ukrainian War and the Polish-Bolshevik War. Although equipped with modern horse-drawn artillery and trained in infantry tactics, the Uhlan formations kept their sabres, their lances and their ability to charge the enemy. Among other battles, the Uhlan units took part in the Battle of Komarów of 1920 against the invading Soviet Konarmia, the last pure cavalry battle in history - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uhlan ]

• The German minority in Ukraine remained mostly aloof from the various governments.  Many had already been deported to the far east during World War I,
  and under the Bolsheviks they were held under suspicion as potential sympathizers with the German enemy.  Many German villages, and especially prosperous Mennonite estates, were burned by the Makhnovists, and their occupants killed or fled.

  http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Ukraine_after_the_Russian_Revolution

• In July 1919 Janzen volunteered to serve as chaplain to the young Mennonite men who had been inducted into the so-called German Battalion of the White army [Note: A Selbstschutz unit had directly joined the White Army cause]. In the course of this service, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel and received an honourable discharge as such in July, 1920 ...

http://www.mhso.org/publications/Mennogesprach6-1.pdf - Jacob H. Janzen: "A Minister of Rare Magnitude" by Henrv Paetkau, March 1988

• General Denikin's Army was the best known and the largest of them [White Army]. I joined the Officers' Regiment out of Simferopol. Only officers were in it and the German "Battalion", which was made up of Selbstschützen (Self-defenders) and also German youths Mennonites ...

http://books.google.ca/books?id=WE58Gp-BJ1AC&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=%22German+Battalion%22+%22White+army%22&source=bl&ots=9W7HUWkgaC&sig=92MjsKp8OP0ivm_DnxzAiBicZps&hl=en&ei=K3gmTZiZJ8L-8AaNuNWFAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22German%20Battalion%22%20%22White%20army%22&f=false - Constantinoplers: Escape from Bolshevism By Irmgard Epp, p. 259.

• I learned that on 26 October 1919 Aunt Elisabeth died in a massacre as a volunteer with an evangelical tent mission. The event took place in the Mennonite village of Eichenfeld (Dubovka), located in thc Jasykovo Mennonite settlement, near Zaporozhye in the Ukraine ...

  Later that month [September 1918], Jakob Dick toured the Molotschna again, reporting on the activities of the mission. 'He was alarmed by the growing involvement of historically pacifist Mennonites in an armed self-defense force (Selbstschutz), which was being organized under the supervision of German officers in anticipation of their withdrawal from the settlements. His outspoken opposition created such a furore [sic] that a Mennonite official incarcerated him for a time in the firehouse of an unnamed village in the centre of the Molotschna settlement. He was released following the intervention of more level-headed individual ...

  Rumours of the deaths [October 26, 1919] of the Eichenfeld villagers and the loss of the tent missionaries soon reached the Molotschna. A full and comprehensive report was not possible until March, 1920, when Rev. Heinrich Braun gave the details to the Halbstadt congregation ...

  In the fall of 1920, the tent mission obtained permission for its activities from the Commissariat of the Interior for the Ukraine ...

  • Leona Gislason, Tent Mission in South Russia: 1918-1923 - http://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/viewFile/502/502
     

• In October 1919, when Machno's army headquarters was in the village of Orlovo, he almost invaded the Molochna settlement. Machno left these territories in March 1920 ...

  • Preservings, Issue No. 27, 2007 - http://www.plettfoundation.org/wp/wp-content/magazines/Preservings_27.pdf

-------------------------------------

(IV) 1920

TAURIDA - 1920

http://www.conflicts.rem33.com/images/Ukraine/UKR%201920.jpg

Hierschau: an example of Russian Mennonite life By Helmut Huebert, p. 251.

Hierschau: an example of Russian Mennonite life By Helmut Huebert, p. 253.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=vlCs3O2cTxkC&printsec=frontcover&dq
=Hierschau:+an+example+of+Russian+Mennonite+life+By+Helmut+Huebert&source
=bl&ots=5xREDuIh3G&sig=UlCoutAhvd4jwShGrQXYuvUW6f4&hl=en&ei=CKdITYjcEcG78gbY-pjjBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

·       pjjBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

• In the spring of 1920 the White Army, now under the command of General Wrangel, began a new offensive which began in the Crimea, and reached the Molotschna early in June. For weeks the battle lines seasawed back and forth in this area, villages repeatedly changing hands ...

• Hierschau: an example of Russian Mennonite life By Helmut Huebert, pp. xxi, 238, 240-241, 250, 261

• http://books.google.ca/books?id=vlCs3O2cTxkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Hierschau:+an+example+of+Russian+Mennonite+life+By+Helmut+Huebert&source=
  bl&ots=5xREDuIh3G&sig=UlCoutAhvd4jwShGrQXYuvUW6f4&hl=en&ei=CKdITYjcEcG78gbY-pjjBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

• In the spring of 1920 ... We went through Tsdchanigowka, Klippenfeld, and Hamburg to Henry Schroeders ...

  In Hamburg was the Red Front. In Waldein was the White Front ...

  We were then taken by a White guard, to the head of the Air Force, a German ...

  • Rememberances Out of Russia, Johann J. Mathies, Vineland, Ontario, 1965 (Brother of A. J. Mathies) - Interviewed by Annie Krause - 1920
     

• ...[After]  27 September 1920 [from Constantinople they]  ... pressed on to the Molotschna settlement in the Ukraine, which was at that time under General Wrangel and the White (anti-communist) Army. ... Before the relief program could get started the Red Army overran the Ukraine, forcing Wrangel into precipitous retreat into the Crimea ...

http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/contents/kratz_clayton_1896_1920

• November 1920 ... The Bolsheviks became the indisputable masters in the South Russia area ...

  In Ukraine the Bolshevik government was set up in November, 1920 ...

  • Preservings, Issue No. 27, 2007 - http://www.plettfoundation.org/wp/wp-content/magazines/Preservings_27.pdf

• [September, 1920]

  A. Kroker, “Wie steht es mit deinem Geben?”

Unsere Geschichte ist eine wirkliche Tragödie
Yet tragedy did not strike all equally

Terek and Schoenfeld completely wiped out
Villages and estates abandoned

Chortitza Region Kronsweide, Insel Chortitza

Eichenfeld, Reinfeld, etc.

Molotschna Blumenort hard hit

- some villages hardly touched

- some people not robbed as badly as others - Krim hardly touched ...

Aufruf an die deutschen jungen Männer Südrußlands. 29 August 1920

- formation of German regiment in White Army
- signed by various officers including Mennonites - G. Braun, A. Klassen, P. Dyck, J. Wiebe,
- regimental doctor = Dr. P. Sawatzky ...

“Ein Zeugnis für die Deutschen”

- report from russian military commander praising efforts of German battalion from Taurien [Halbstadt, Gnadenfeld and Prischib regions] ...

- Molochna overrun by “a dirty wave of bandits” the like we had not experienced before ...

[October, 1920]

4. “Eine Abteilung roter Soldaten” - a band of Red Kuban cossacks, separated from their units, went through several Molochna villages - Steinbach, Rueckenau, Tokmak - looting and stealing horses - they were follwed by “our forces” and annihilated (“fast ganz aufgerieben”) ...